First Week in Ecuador

So I´ve been here in Ecuador for almost a week and it´s been great!

I first flew from New York to Bogota, Colombia and waited there for a few hours and then continued to Quito. I met so many interesting people along the way. Even on the bus from the luxurious Comfort Inn JFK Airport shuttle to the Airport at 6am on Sunday I met a 23 year old girl who had been voluntering in the Phillipines for a year, a large Southern woman who was working in Scotland for work and returning to the US for a quick visit, and a married couple who were professors at a medical school in the Cayman Islands which I knew little of. Apparently they speak english there. Upon arriving at the Avianca airlines terminal I felt I was already in South America everyone spoke spanish! Anyhow, my flight was great I watched a Spanish movie (with english subtitles of course) called Sin Nombre, which I highly recommend. I especially think Little Shiners would like it, it´s about a Mexican gang and a girl and her dad tring to sneak into America via the Texas border. Very good! I also was fortunate to have flown Colombian Avianca Airlines during a tribute to Michael Jackson so I watched some classic music videos. They fed us a delicious breakfast and lunch.

After arriving in Colombia a girl came up to me who was participating the the Ecology and Conservation program through SIT. I am on SIT´s Culture and Development program. Anyhow she was great and we hung out whilst waiting in the crazy Colombian airport.

Upon arriving in Quito I was greeted by the program directors Lenore and Fabian and a few others from the prgram had arrived. We waited a few hours there for the rest of the students to arrive. It was a tiny airport but sitting and watching was really fun! There are tons of kids in Ecuador and the airport was overflwoing with them. Running around like crazy, playing on the elevator nonstop. There were also many selling gum and candy. It´s very common here for little kids to walk around alone selling things. Just now in this internet cafe a girl, about 5 years old walked up to me and I bought some candy from her.

From there we went to a hotel in Quito (the capital city of Ecuador) for the night and met each other. There are 23 students on my prgram, from all over the U.S. The next morning we got on a bus to San Antonio, a small town about 40 minutes from Quito. We stayed for the next four days at a villa called Rancho Alegre (Happy Ranch). It was unbelieveable, we were served three large meals a day and two snacks. More food than I could handle. It was delicious and it´s great because I don´t consider myself a very adventurous eater. But I loved it all! From about 9am until 2pm we had orientation sessions with the teachers and then had the afternoons free. The owner and his two nephews served us every meal and they hung out with us at night. In the evenings we played soccer. ONe night in town against a gang of young boys on concrete in front of the church and then on a field at the Rancho. It was really fun. Then a few girls and I would play with the little girls in the town´s plaza in the afternoon. One girl Jenny, 8 years old was our favorite and her sister, 5 years old. We sang songs and played hand games that they taught us. They were pretty dirty but very friendly and affectionate. They were really cute and helped us with our spanish. There is absolutly zero parental supervision, kids by themselves all over. It´s interesting. At night we had a folk band come and play for us one night. Really awesome, we danced! Then another night we had salsa lessons, it was great! Another night we watched a movie in Spanish which I didn´t understand at all.

I have come to find that my spanish is far inferior to most everyone here. We took a placement test on Friday. One part was written and then we had to talk to one of the professors who would ask us questions that got more and more complex until you cracked and could no longer explain in spanish. I ended up talking about how parenting has changed and in the States parents have become increasingly over protective and paranoid. Anyhow we ended up talking about my Mom and Dad´s families that were much larger and I don´t know what else because I couldn´t quite understand.

Yesterday we had out first ¨drop off.¨ After breakfast around 9am we had to find out way to a random town in Ecuador. My group, myself and two other girls had to find Pifo. We ended up taking a bus to Quito, getting off on the side of a highway, having a really nice guy guide us to a bus then a trolley and then take another series of buses. During the hour long bus ride at each stop people get on selling all kinds of crazy things, ornages, nuts, candy, health supplements. Once we arrived it was really nice. I had talked to a lady on the bus for awhile who told me about all the festivals in the town. Then we ended up running into her looking for a bathrrom, she walked us there. People are very open and helpful. It´s really nice. We got lunch, a huge ¨set lunch¨ consisting of soup, a plate of rice, meat and beets, and papaya ( a fruit) for dessert. It cost $1.50. Everything is very cheap here. Then we had to find something interesting in the town and return to Quito by 3pm. We bought a cookie and found a nun convent and then returned.

Now we are back in Quito for the day relaxing before meeting our homestay families this afternoon. I recieved a picture and letter from mine. There is a 50 year old Mom named Magdalena who is a doctor and a 23 year old daughter who is a student. Im excited, it´ll hopefully be nice and tranquil!! I´ll live with them for the next month. Last night we went out to some bars to dance it was really fun.

The best part so far is our group of students! Everyone is amazing and so nice and interesting. The director has talked about groups in the past who have been cliquey and catty toward eachother. Thankfully we have none of that. All of us get along and at meals I seem to always sit with different people. I feel fortunate for that!! Today I had an individual interview with the one of the director to check on how we were doing and see if we were having concerns or problems. It´s really a well run program. Leonore has been doing this for 20 years every semester, so I feel there is very little crazy things I could go through that would surprise them. My main concern is that this first week is my honeymoon period and after this I will have a crash due to culture shock or homesickness. Speaking Spanish almost all the time is exhausting and I feel it will only become more difficult with my homestay away from the other english speaking students. But that is the only way to improve I suppose.

That´s pretty much it. We have the entire weekend to spend with our homestays and the directors have said it usually feels like a LONG weekend. There´s a soccer game Ecuador v. Colombia so maybe we´ll watch that. They have told us to expect the whole family to watch telenovelas (soap operas) in the afternoon on the mother´s bed!! The directors said one of our biggest challenge will be to learn how to just BE instead of always DOING. They said it will be different if we´re used to being busy all the time. I´ll embrace it though. I´ve enjoyed reading the Quito newspaper and I love to relax. Contrary to my normal personality, I have had almost no alone time. Usually I like to be alone pretty regualarly. But, anyhow it´s been great.

Thanks so much for writing me!! I hope the Pope comes to Mark Pasquale´s aid sooner rather than later!

My address is the following:

Experimento de Convivencia Internacional
Hernando de la Cruz N31-37
Quito, Ecuador

They discourage the sending of packages and instead recommend padded envelopes or just plain letters. You need to write NO VALUE on the outside.