I'm trying to be more diligent about updating this blog, even on relatively boring days. Feel free to not read if my non-weekend-adventures are less than exciting.
Today I woke up early after having a weird dream that a Professor Snape-like character had trapped me and some of my travel companions on the top story and roof of our house. Ecuador has had a bizarre effect on my dreams. It has also had a relatively positive effect on my sleep schedule; I got to bed at 9:30 normally, 10 at the latest, unless something strange happens (or a weekend happens). I'm then able to get at least 8 hours of sleep, which I love.
I spent all morning working on my Hugo Chavez paper. I'm now almost an expert on every Wikipedia article pertaining to the current Venezuelan government. Despite this, it took me about 4 hours to read and write 2.5 pages in Spanish and I still have half a page to go. On the plus side, my paper didn't have very many errors... plurality and gender concordance, I will win!
For lunch I actually had something with spices in it. Not that I'm complaining, I don't have a problem with the relative blandness of the food here, but still it was nice to walk into the kitchen and smell something strong and yummy. Our empleada (maid) comes Monday-Saturday and cleans, washes dishes, does laundry and cooks lunch. She's a good cook and I spend all morning looking forward to lunch, partially because it tastes really good and partially because something has happened to me lately and I always want to eat. Food is just so delicious. Hence I also try to go running in the park every day that I don't have service learning...
In school today we talked more about indicator phrases for the subjunctive and then we discussed a movie we watched last week, called Ratas, Ratones y Rateros. I hated it and would have walked out if I hadn't had to watch it for my grade. Apparently, it turns out that most Latin American movies are like this (no happy ending, bad guy doesn't get punished, everyone has lots of problems). On the plus side movies here cost between $3 and $6 in theatres, depending on the day and time, and you can buy good quality pirated movies (real movies almost don't exist here) for $1 to $3, so I'll probably stick with American movies dubbed in Spanish.
Im my other class we spent the full hour and a half talking about Latin American drug trade. Yesterday we talked about the Incan society and the arrival of the Spanish. I'm fairly sure we changed topics because someone asked a short question about cocaine in Latin America and my teacher decided we should discuss that instead of Indigenous cultures.
After school I went to Dan's host brother's school (his name is Beto) to talk about Ecuadorian schools. The most interesting thing I learned is that the person who gets the best grades from 8th to 11th grade gets to raise the flag every week their senior year of high school, and they might get a 50% discount for their university tuition, depending on where they enroll. Unfortunately that's the most I've written so far about the education here, so it's essay time!
Love Alex
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