Wednesday, January 27, 2010
the jungle
I'm headed there in about 30 mintues. We just (about three mintues ago) finished our last final, so I am offially done with Spanish 203 (again...). We´re catching a bus to Puyo and then 5ish hours later we'll be in the amazon! Then from tomorrow to Sunday we have a guided tour which we believe has all manner of adventures such as canoing, monkey-visiting, rafting, and general forest exploration :)
Thursday, January 21, 2010
service learning
(i'm sure there are lots of typos in this post but firefox has decided to not spell check for me and I'm too tired, so bear with me!)
A part of this study abroad trip is a 2-credit service learning/volunteering experience. I'm volunteering at a Kindergarten school (here they call them Jardins de Ninos!). I go for 4 hours twice a week; from 8-12 (which is the school day) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The school has a fence/wall around it (like every building here...) so to get in at times other than these is dificult because you have to have a key to enter or exit. Even parents can't always come it; sometimes they just drop stuff off throuh the gate, and when they pick up kids they wait outside.
The school itself consists of 3 buildings: the office/teachers' lunch room, the large meeting room for parents' night and other similar events, and the classrooms. These surround a large concrete patio, and there's also a big grass hill and at the bottom (abajo!) there are swings, a slide, monkey bars, a merry go round and a large netting thing to climb. I haven't taken any photos yet because I'm sure that will be very distracting for the kids, but I will before I leave.
There are seven classes, and I volunteer in classroom A. There is one teacher (the kids call here senorita, professora, or profi for the most part, and that's what they call me too sometimes if they forget my name) and 27 kids. The teacher is very competent and I feel like normally I don't have that much to do. My technial volunteer position is to teach English, but they can't learn that many words every day. So far we've done red, blue, yellow, "I am a girl" and "I am a boy". Girl was a very dificult word for everyone, including the teacher, to say because they don't have that sound in Spanish. I also feel particularly helpful when they're doing a writing activity because they need lots of hints and reminders to pay attention. There are two kids that seem to be a lots slower at learning than the others and I feel like a lot of time they just get overlooked because the teacher can't help them (which takes a long time) and help everyone else. They're all pretty demanding; they want to here "Muy bien!" or "Perfecto!" even if it really is already perfect.
They also really like my attention; the first few days I was partically novel to them, although they've gotten more used to me now, I think.
Short cultural aside: Ecuadorians in general are much more touchy than Americans are. Americans really have a "bubble" around them that Ecuadorians don't have or understand (which I think is a good thing, for the most part!) In a classroom at home, the first person might sit in the front-right ish, and the second person would therefore sit in the back-left ish. Here, the second person would sit right next to the first one. You also always give sort of an air-kiss on the right cheek when you say hello or goodbye to someone you know, or if you're being introduced to someone new.
In the classroom, the kids and teachers (women, at least) always exchange hugs, kisses, hold hands etc. Teachers and older folks also use terms like "mi amor" (my love) liberally when talking to others/kids.
SO, I'm not exempt from this since I'm American; quite the opposite. The kids love to hold my hands and hug me and get my attention. During recess I can pretty much just stand there and have a small crowd around me or pretty content kids. They do love it when I push the merry go round though, and it's a good workout for me because if they had their way, I'd do only that for the half-hour-long recess. That or monitor the swings. There are technically three but one is broken and for 200 kids, two swings really aren't enought so my kids frequently come and tell me that "They aren't sharing and I want to use the swings!". I spent one recess sort of monitoring the sharing of the swings which was incredibly boring so now I just tell them to share and that pretty much works.
Now that should give you a general idea of what I do on a normal day. Today, however, was not normal. First, there was a new boy, so the teacher was talking to the parents and I was just standing outside the kids because they were about to do their little morning outside drill but that was interupted. I've only seen that once so I had no idea what to do. Then, they had music (one of the dads brings his accordion and teaches songs) while the teacher was in a meeting, but then he left, and as he did so he said the meeting was going to be long so I was just supposed to stay with the kids. That's it, no instructions from anybody on what we were supposed to do, or anything. I tried to teach them Heads up Seven Up but it was much harder that I was expecting to explain in Spanish (to kids who aren't very inclined to listen) so I gave up on that and we did lots and lots of puzzles. It was slightly stressful for me because they kept finishing them and trading/asking for new ones so there were always at least 15 unfinished puzzles (which looks like a huge mess, fyi) but it was fine. Then it was lunch time (still no teacher!) which fortunatley is very easy to supervise. Then they went to recess and I cleaned up the rest of the puzzles, thereby avoiding half of my "push the merry go round time"! I went down to the playground and after about 5 minutes, Amy came up to me and said something about throwning a rock and pulled me towards a congregation of kids in the corner.
Another aside: the kids are exteremly difficut to understand. They don't enunciate at all or speak slowly, and at recess it's noisy and half the time they're tattling so their voice can furture disguise what they're saying haha.
So, I followed Amy over to the corner, and there was Jessy sobbing with blood all over her neck. I yelled at one of the other volunteers (there are 7 of us) to get the teachers, and they fortunately took care of Jessy, who was with them for an hour but she was fine. It was scary, though, I wasn't expecting to have any bloody accidents and comforting someone and/or adminnistering first aid is much more challenging in Spanish. Recess ended right here, but all the kids were crowded around the sinks (which are outside) since the teachers were attempting to stop the blood flow/calm down Jessy. Now of course Jessy is also in my class, so my teacher was therefore occupied for the rest of the day as well. Yay for Alex the teacher. We colored the page in their workbooks with blue/azul, red/rojo and yellow/amarillo and then played with clay. They had to make a circle, square, rectangle, and triangle (fortunatly another teacher had poked her head in and recommended this). Then my teacher came back about 10 mintues before the day ended, so I cleaned up the room and we all went home.
Not my typical volunteer experience, thank goodnesss.
We're going to Otavalo tomorrow; it's major claim to fame is the huge indigenous market there, so here come the souveniers!
love alex
A part of this study abroad trip is a 2-credit service learning/volunteering experience. I'm volunteering at a Kindergarten school (here they call them Jardins de Ninos!). I go for 4 hours twice a week; from 8-12 (which is the school day) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The school has a fence/wall around it (like every building here...) so to get in at times other than these is dificult because you have to have a key to enter or exit. Even parents can't always come it; sometimes they just drop stuff off throuh the gate, and when they pick up kids they wait outside.
The school itself consists of 3 buildings: the office/teachers' lunch room, the large meeting room for parents' night and other similar events, and the classrooms. These surround a large concrete patio, and there's also a big grass hill and at the bottom (abajo!) there are swings, a slide, monkey bars, a merry go round and a large netting thing to climb. I haven't taken any photos yet because I'm sure that will be very distracting for the kids, but I will before I leave.
There are seven classes, and I volunteer in classroom A. There is one teacher (the kids call here senorita, professora, or profi for the most part, and that's what they call me too sometimes if they forget my name) and 27 kids. The teacher is very competent and I feel like normally I don't have that much to do. My technial volunteer position is to teach English, but they can't learn that many words every day. So far we've done red, blue, yellow, "I am a girl" and "I am a boy". Girl was a very dificult word for everyone, including the teacher, to say because they don't have that sound in Spanish. I also feel particularly helpful when they're doing a writing activity because they need lots of hints and reminders to pay attention. There are two kids that seem to be a lots slower at learning than the others and I feel like a lot of time they just get overlooked because the teacher can't help them (which takes a long time) and help everyone else. They're all pretty demanding; they want to here "Muy bien!" or "Perfecto!" even if it really is already perfect.
They also really like my attention; the first few days I was partically novel to them, although they've gotten more used to me now, I think.
Short cultural aside: Ecuadorians in general are much more touchy than Americans are. Americans really have a "bubble" around them that Ecuadorians don't have or understand (which I think is a good thing, for the most part!) In a classroom at home, the first person might sit in the front-right ish, and the second person would therefore sit in the back-left ish. Here, the second person would sit right next to the first one. You also always give sort of an air-kiss on the right cheek when you say hello or goodbye to someone you know, or if you're being introduced to someone new.
In the classroom, the kids and teachers (women, at least) always exchange hugs, kisses, hold hands etc. Teachers and older folks also use terms like "mi amor" (my love) liberally when talking to others/kids.
SO, I'm not exempt from this since I'm American; quite the opposite. The kids love to hold my hands and hug me and get my attention. During recess I can pretty much just stand there and have a small crowd around me or pretty content kids. They do love it when I push the merry go round though, and it's a good workout for me because if they had their way, I'd do only that for the half-hour-long recess. That or monitor the swings. There are technically three but one is broken and for 200 kids, two swings really aren't enought so my kids frequently come and tell me that "They aren't sharing and I want to use the swings!". I spent one recess sort of monitoring the sharing of the swings which was incredibly boring so now I just tell them to share and that pretty much works.
Now that should give you a general idea of what I do on a normal day. Today, however, was not normal. First, there was a new boy, so the teacher was talking to the parents and I was just standing outside the kids because they were about to do their little morning outside drill but that was interupted. I've only seen that once so I had no idea what to do. Then, they had music (one of the dads brings his accordion and teaches songs) while the teacher was in a meeting, but then he left, and as he did so he said the meeting was going to be long so I was just supposed to stay with the kids. That's it, no instructions from anybody on what we were supposed to do, or anything. I tried to teach them Heads up Seven Up but it was much harder that I was expecting to explain in Spanish (to kids who aren't very inclined to listen) so I gave up on that and we did lots and lots of puzzles. It was slightly stressful for me because they kept finishing them and trading/asking for new ones so there were always at least 15 unfinished puzzles (which looks like a huge mess, fyi) but it was fine. Then it was lunch time (still no teacher!) which fortunatley is very easy to supervise. Then they went to recess and I cleaned up the rest of the puzzles, thereby avoiding half of my "push the merry go round time"! I went down to the playground and after about 5 minutes, Amy came up to me and said something about throwning a rock and pulled me towards a congregation of kids in the corner.
Another aside: the kids are exteremly difficut to understand. They don't enunciate at all or speak slowly, and at recess it's noisy and half the time they're tattling so their voice can furture disguise what they're saying haha.
So, I followed Amy over to the corner, and there was Jessy sobbing with blood all over her neck. I yelled at one of the other volunteers (there are 7 of us) to get the teachers, and they fortunately took care of Jessy, who was with them for an hour but she was fine. It was scary, though, I wasn't expecting to have any bloody accidents and comforting someone and/or adminnistering first aid is much more challenging in Spanish. Recess ended right here, but all the kids were crowded around the sinks (which are outside) since the teachers were attempting to stop the blood flow/calm down Jessy. Now of course Jessy is also in my class, so my teacher was therefore occupied for the rest of the day as well. Yay for Alex the teacher. We colored the page in their workbooks with blue/azul, red/rojo and yellow/amarillo and then played with clay. They had to make a circle, square, rectangle, and triangle (fortunatly another teacher had poked her head in and recommended this). Then my teacher came back about 10 mintues before the day ended, so I cleaned up the room and we all went home.
Not my typical volunteer experience, thank goodnesss.
We're going to Otavalo tomorrow; it's major claim to fame is the huge indigenous market there, so here come the souveniers!
love alex
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
food is yummy and cheap
The Blackburn/Dillons said food was boring in Ecuador, but I'm loving it :)
A typical breakfast for me is papaya and banana with granola and yogurt. The fruit here is just wonderful: there's a lot of it and it's really cheap. I've tried many fruits that I've never seen of heard of in the US(uvillas and guanabana, to name some), which is neat. They also eat green bananas (it's a different, larger kind of banana) allll the time. I've had little banana ball/pancake things that are cooked with egg and onions, I've had banana chips (which are salty, not sweet), today I had banana/potato soup, I've had sort of squished banana circles as a side instead of potatoes, I've had fried bananas a desert, and I'm sure there have been more that I've forgotten. Green bananas don't have a lot of taste but they are very versatile and good.
My favorite food here so far has been humitas; they're corn-based tamales, more of less; they also don't have a lot of flavor but they're vaugley sweet and SO good.
A typical lunch consists of a soup (frequently potato-based, and frequently with lots of cilantro :)), and then an entree, which is a meat, rice, and some veggies or beans or some other side, and juice also. Sometimes there's a desert (cake, fruit, etc). That's the big meal; dinners are smaller and have similar food (or bananas!) but there's a lot less of it.
Oh, if you want to eat that lunch I just described and you go to any little family-owned restaurant, it's going to cost $2.50 max.
Bread is also really delicious here, and cheap! You can get a good-sized roll or croissant for 10 or 20 cents easily from a panaderia (bread store: they're everywhere!). I unfortunately have yet to see any whole wheat, whole grain, rye etc type bread but I've heard that the grocery store has some so I'm planning on getting some
There are also American restaurants like Pizza Hut, Burger King and McDonalds of course, but it's easy to avoid them.
A typical breakfast for me is papaya and banana with granola and yogurt. The fruit here is just wonderful: there's a lot of it and it's really cheap. I've tried many fruits that I've never seen of heard of in the US(uvillas and guanabana, to name some), which is neat. They also eat green bananas (it's a different, larger kind of banana) allll the time. I've had little banana ball/pancake things that are cooked with egg and onions, I've had banana chips (which are salty, not sweet), today I had banana/potato soup, I've had sort of squished banana circles as a side instead of potatoes, I've had fried bananas a desert, and I'm sure there have been more that I've forgotten. Green bananas don't have a lot of taste but they are very versatile and good.
My favorite food here so far has been humitas; they're corn-based tamales, more of less; they also don't have a lot of flavor but they're vaugley sweet and SO good.
A typical lunch consists of a soup (frequently potato-based, and frequently with lots of cilantro :)), and then an entree, which is a meat, rice, and some veggies or beans or some other side, and juice also. Sometimes there's a desert (cake, fruit, etc). That's the big meal; dinners are smaller and have similar food (or bananas!) but there's a lot less of it.
Oh, if you want to eat that lunch I just described and you go to any little family-owned restaurant, it's going to cost $2.50 max.
Bread is also really delicious here, and cheap! You can get a good-sized roll or croissant for 10 or 20 cents easily from a panaderia (bread store: they're everywhere!). I unfortunately have yet to see any whole wheat, whole grain, rye etc type bread but I've heard that the grocery store has some so I'm planning on getting some
There are also American restaurants like Pizza Hut, Burger King and McDonalds of course, but it's easy to avoid them.
Monday, January 18, 2010
photos.
and lots of them.
I uploaded every photo I've taken here onto Picassa, and I'm slowly going through and deleting duplicates, blurred photo, etc., so I apologize for the not-very-sreamlined photo-viewing experience. You should look at them anyways: http://picasaweb.google.com/alex.fussell should get you there, I believe.
I uploaded every photo I've taken here onto Picassa, and I'm slowly going through and deleting duplicates, blurred photo, etc., so I apologize for the not-very-sreamlined photo-viewing experience. You should look at them anyways: http://picasaweb.google.com/alex.fussell should get you there, I believe.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
the huge contrast between economic levels
james asked me about this so here goes...
my house is super nice. i'm obviously staying with a pretty wealthy family. my host parents also have four grown/married kids with even nicer condos/flats/houses. i was actually shocked at how fancy they were; they looked just like an expensive home in the US. My family has also has two cars, and a maid who does most of the cooking, cleaning and laundry, as do many Ecuadorian families (30% i believe). This being said, the divide between the rich and poor is HUGE. here i am, having this very comfortable experience in a house where my living accomodations aren't that different from the US (you can only take a shower if no one else is or if no one is doing laundry or washing dishes, but that's no big deal) and at the same time, i walk past these kids who are probably 11 who have water bottles and car windshield-wiper things like they have a gas stations. they walk around next to stoplights, asking if people want to have their windshield washed. there are also lots of people who sell things in this manner: cds, food, random cell phone cases, and all sorts of stuff that i feel like no one would buy, and even if they did, there's no way you can make a profit substantial enough to live on because the stuff is so cheap anyway. I believe the government has technically outlawed this type of sale, but that doesn't stop anyone from doing it. I've even seen people buy fruit/veggies a couple times, but normally people just say no. The salespeople are used to this, though; they aren't pushy.
There are also many many little booths, for lack of a better word, which sell similar food items on the side of the street. a lot of these seem to be run by indiginous people, but not all. they have the exact same products and i can't imagine how any of them make a significant profit either. i haven't photographed any of these yet because it's extremely awkward for me to take pictures around the citiy; i'm already a tall, clearly white girl and i don't enjoy making my self look more like a tourist. not that there's much i can do to look like i fit in anyway haha
my house is super nice. i'm obviously staying with a pretty wealthy family. my host parents also have four grown/married kids with even nicer condos/flats/houses. i was actually shocked at how fancy they were; they looked just like an expensive home in the US. My family has also has two cars, and a maid who does most of the cooking, cleaning and laundry, as do many Ecuadorian families (30% i believe). This being said, the divide between the rich and poor is HUGE. here i am, having this very comfortable experience in a house where my living accomodations aren't that different from the US (you can only take a shower if no one else is or if no one is doing laundry or washing dishes, but that's no big deal) and at the same time, i walk past these kids who are probably 11 who have water bottles and car windshield-wiper things like they have a gas stations. they walk around next to stoplights, asking if people want to have their windshield washed. there are also lots of people who sell things in this manner: cds, food, random cell phone cases, and all sorts of stuff that i feel like no one would buy, and even if they did, there's no way you can make a profit substantial enough to live on because the stuff is so cheap anyway. I believe the government has technically outlawed this type of sale, but that doesn't stop anyone from doing it. I've even seen people buy fruit/veggies a couple times, but normally people just say no. The salespeople are used to this, though; they aren't pushy.
There are also many many little booths, for lack of a better word, which sell similar food items on the side of the street. a lot of these seem to be run by indiginous people, but not all. they have the exact same products and i can't imagine how any of them make a significant profit either. i haven't photographed any of these yet because it's extremely awkward for me to take pictures around the citiy; i'm already a tall, clearly white girl and i don't enjoy making my self look more like a tourist. not that there's much i can do to look like i fit in anyway haha
Monday, January 11, 2010
mostly transportation...
My house has sort of alternating layers, so there are technically 5 floors, but it's really more like 3 stories. I live on the top floor, where I have a nice view of the street and a car repair place in the front and buildings and houses in the back. As far as I can tell, Quito doesn't have any "neighborhoods" where there are just houses like American cities do. Houses and buisinesses and restaurants are all intermixed, and they are all behind walls and fences. Every business I've seen at least has a sort of garage door a/o bars that can cover the windows and doors, and all houses have walls and gates. I have it pretty easy; I can open my gate without a key, my first metal decorative door without a key, and then the main front door with only one key. Some of my friends here have 4 keys to get into their houses (apartment complex gate, building door, two deadbolts, etc...) We do have an alarm system which I haven't quite gotten the hang of yet; I can set it during the day if I'm the only person coming or going, but the night setting is much more complicated, and often includes a phone call. I have no idea why; I didn't understand that part of Laly's explaination haha. The house alarms here all make this really loud noise when you turn them on or off so that (I'm assuming) potential theifs know there is an alarm and the shouldn't try to break in. Of course, when you turn on/off the night alarm this wakes everyone up if they're already sleeping (I've been guilty of this) but there's no other option.
Quito is a really noisy city in general; I wake up multiple times every morning because there are cars honking, people shouting, dogs barking and more throughout the entire day. The cars honking reminds me to mention the style of driving here... it is certainly one of the most terrifying things I've ever experiences. Lanes in the road seem to be more of a suggestion than anything else, so drivers constantly jump around, nosing their way into a different lane, and if they're in the wrong lane to turn, they turn anyway. Seatbelts are a rare luxury; my family has two cars with seatbelts, but buses and taxis don't have them. Crosswalks are a joke; Quitenos (people who live in Quito) are pro j-walkers. They'll time their crossing to be literally a foot behind a moving vehicle, and if traffic is stopped at a light people walk through the cars as though there were no cars at all. (I tend to take the "look-both-ways,-it's moderately-clear,-SPRINT" apprach). It is also highly recommended that you look both ways on one-way streets because there is no garuntee that the cars will only go one way.
This all being said, I have extreme cofindence in the taxi drivers' or my parents' ability to get to where they need to go; drivers are pushy but effective. And, everyone knows that this is how driving works here, so it's scary, but it works.
There are also lots of buses, which cost a wonderful 25 cents per ride, and trolleys, which are buses with their own lane, which also cost 25 cents. The buses are hard to use because instead of having one route with a number like we do, they have 4 or 5 signs in the window with 15 names of some of the major streets that they go on. Trolleys are easier; they only have one pathway.
Commercial buses are super cheap too; for me to ride the greyhound from seattle to bellingham, it cost about $30 or 35, and last weekend, for me to go to Mindo, I paid $5 (both are two hours one way).
Lunch time, more later...
Quito is a really noisy city in general; I wake up multiple times every morning because there are cars honking, people shouting, dogs barking and more throughout the entire day. The cars honking reminds me to mention the style of driving here... it is certainly one of the most terrifying things I've ever experiences. Lanes in the road seem to be more of a suggestion than anything else, so drivers constantly jump around, nosing their way into a different lane, and if they're in the wrong lane to turn, they turn anyway. Seatbelts are a rare luxury; my family has two cars with seatbelts, but buses and taxis don't have them. Crosswalks are a joke; Quitenos (people who live in Quito) are pro j-walkers. They'll time their crossing to be literally a foot behind a moving vehicle, and if traffic is stopped at a light people walk through the cars as though there were no cars at all. (I tend to take the "look-both-ways,-it's moderately-clear,-SPRINT" apprach). It is also highly recommended that you look both ways on one-way streets because there is no garuntee that the cars will only go one way.
This all being said, I have extreme cofindence in the taxi drivers' or my parents' ability to get to where they need to go; drivers are pushy but effective. And, everyone knows that this is how driving works here, so it's scary, but it works.
There are also lots of buses, which cost a wonderful 25 cents per ride, and trolleys, which are buses with their own lane, which also cost 25 cents. The buses are hard to use because instead of having one route with a number like we do, they have 4 or 5 signs in the window with 15 names of some of the major streets that they go on. Trolleys are easier; they only have one pathway.
Commercial buses are super cheap too; for me to ride the greyhound from seattle to bellingham, it cost about $30 or 35, and last weekend, for me to go to Mindo, I paid $5 (both are two hours one way).
Lunch time, more later...
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Ecuador Thus Far
I apologize for the tardiness in starting this blog; after long busy days, short Facebook comments and statuses are much easier than typing out essays on my tiny (but wonderful) netbook keyboard. But, I will try to be more diligent in updating; I want to let you all know what I've been up to!
First, an introduction. I'm planning on majoring in Civil/Environmental engineering but the program is pretty rigid and fitting in study abroad once you're in the department is rather challenging. So, I decided to spend winter and spring quarters of this year studying abroad in Quito, Ecuador and spring in Ioannina, Greece. The Quito trip is through the Spanish department, so I'm taking Spanish 203, 301, and 322 (language, language and culture, respectively), as well as a 2 credit service learning component. Right now we're only taking 203, which means we're compressing a 10 week class into 4 weeks, and I have a midterm this Friday, after essentially 6 days of class. Service learning also starts this week; I'll be volunteering at a children's school for 3-5 year olds. Here they don't have pre-school, per se; instead they have jardins (gardens, in English) for all kids this age. I'll just be with the class, playing with the kids, and teaching them some simple English, like colors and songs such as Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.
Now, as to my actual experience thus far :)
I arrived here on the night Jan 2 at about 10:15 pm. Autumn was fortunately on my flight, so we were able to be really scared about getting off the plane and being in a place where we knew no one together. I hadn't really appreciate the magnitude of the decision to go live in another country with people I've never met before I got here. It turns out that for the first few days, that's actually rather significant, but I adjusted quickely and I really do love it here :)
Past customs and baggage claim was a huge crowd of people holding signs with names of people. The largest sign by far was welcoming the ACLAS students (that was us). I was introduced to my host mom Laly (LAA-lee) who immediately made me feel like I was welcome and part of the family. She's so friendly, as are all the people here. She always calls me "mi hija", which means "my daughter". She uses this for all of her actual kids as well, and also plenty of family friends. My host dad, Gonzalo, is much less talkative but he's wonderful also. They have four grown, married kids who all live in Quito as well and all have kids of their own. There are 8 grandkids, ranging in ages from 1-17, I think. I've met them all, in addition to several of the extremely-extended family members (such as their son-in-law's mom and sister). Families here are much closer; Laly probably makes/recieves 20 phone calls a day, most of which are with family members. Gonzalo and I laugh every time she gets a phone call. Frequently she'll be on the home phone and then get a cell phone call and have to choose. We find this entertaining also. Using cell phones all the time here seem to be considered much less rude; people don't use the vibrate mode as often and people answer calls all the time, even if they're in the middle of a meal or a conversation. (Disclaimer: almost all of my observations on Ecuadorian culture, home life and family are based on my family alone, and I don't know how typical they are, but they'll give you an idea of what I'm experiencing).
I'm absolutely exhausted; I went to Mindo this weekend, which is an adorable little town with incredibly lush vegetation and lots of entertaining tourist things to do, so I'm off to bed but I'll write more tomorrow. I'll also work on uploading pictures; either the internet or my laptop or both are rather successfully fighting against my picture-uploading efforts, but I have some up on Facebook and I think I'll try the computers at school and see if they are any faster.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=10734840&ref=ts#/photo.php?pid=4943487&id=594976487
should get to the first picture in the album with about half of the photos I took of my house. (Again, thank you disfunctional uploading capabilities...)
love alex
First, an introduction. I'm planning on majoring in Civil/Environmental engineering but the program is pretty rigid and fitting in study abroad once you're in the department is rather challenging. So, I decided to spend winter and spring quarters of this year studying abroad in Quito, Ecuador and spring in Ioannina, Greece. The Quito trip is through the Spanish department, so I'm taking Spanish 203, 301, and 322 (language, language and culture, respectively), as well as a 2 credit service learning component. Right now we're only taking 203, which means we're compressing a 10 week class into 4 weeks, and I have a midterm this Friday, after essentially 6 days of class. Service learning also starts this week; I'll be volunteering at a children's school for 3-5 year olds. Here they don't have pre-school, per se; instead they have jardins (gardens, in English) for all kids this age. I'll just be with the class, playing with the kids, and teaching them some simple English, like colors and songs such as Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.
Now, as to my actual experience thus far :)
I arrived here on the night Jan 2 at about 10:15 pm. Autumn was fortunately on my flight, so we were able to be really scared about getting off the plane and being in a place where we knew no one together. I hadn't really appreciate the magnitude of the decision to go live in another country with people I've never met before I got here. It turns out that for the first few days, that's actually rather significant, but I adjusted quickely and I really do love it here :)
Past customs and baggage claim was a huge crowd of people holding signs with names of people. The largest sign by far was welcoming the ACLAS students (that was us). I was introduced to my host mom Laly (LAA-lee) who immediately made me feel like I was welcome and part of the family. She's so friendly, as are all the people here. She always calls me "mi hija", which means "my daughter". She uses this for all of her actual kids as well, and also plenty of family friends. My host dad, Gonzalo, is much less talkative but he's wonderful also. They have four grown, married kids who all live in Quito as well and all have kids of their own. There are 8 grandkids, ranging in ages from 1-17, I think. I've met them all, in addition to several of the extremely-extended family members (such as their son-in-law's mom and sister). Families here are much closer; Laly probably makes/recieves 20 phone calls a day, most of which are with family members. Gonzalo and I laugh every time she gets a phone call. Frequently she'll be on the home phone and then get a cell phone call and have to choose. We find this entertaining also. Using cell phones all the time here seem to be considered much less rude; people don't use the vibrate mode as often and people answer calls all the time, even if they're in the middle of a meal or a conversation. (Disclaimer: almost all of my observations on Ecuadorian culture, home life and family are based on my family alone, and I don't know how typical they are, but they'll give you an idea of what I'm experiencing).
I'm absolutely exhausted; I went to Mindo this weekend, which is an adorable little town with incredibly lush vegetation and lots of entertaining tourist things to do, so I'm off to bed but I'll write more tomorrow. I'll also work on uploading pictures; either the internet or my laptop or both are rather successfully fighting against my picture-uploading efforts, but I have some up on Facebook and I think I'll try the computers at school and see if they are any faster.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=10734840&ref=ts#/photo.php?pid=4943487&id=594976487
should get to the first picture in the album with about half of the photos I took of my house. (Again, thank you disfunctional uploading capabilities...)
love alex
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