Exploring the City

up until last night i hadn´t seen much of the city except for my neighborhood, the bus ride between my house and CIMAS, plaza de las americas (near CIMAS) and a supermercado. yesterday my host dad showed up and surprised the family because he hadn´t been able to come home last weekend. he is really nice but talks really low and fast so i had a lot of trouble understanding him. my mom doesn´t drive even though they have a car bc the streets here are very narrow and the drivers and buses are crazy. but after dinner my dad offered to take the family for a drive to show me around the city. we drove through the centro historico where there are tons of old churches that are amazing, passed many parks, drove through mariscal aka. gringolandia where all the nightlife is...it feels good to have more of an idea of where things are.

today my spanish group didnt have class bc our teacher works at another school and had conferences so we decided to all explore mariscal together this afternoon. we walked through the touristy art market and i saw more tourists than i have my whole time here. now i am in an internet cafe waiting for some friends that had class this afternoon to meet me in mariscal to explore a little more. im feeling more independent and confident in my ability to get around on buses. the first week my mom went with me to school and picked me up every afternoon but this week i have been going on my own on the buses. sometimes they get super crowded and are a little intimidating but so far so good.

hasta luego!
:) ami

Phones and Salvation

I don’t get on the internet very often and when I do it is only for a few minutes during break at school. We don’t have internet in my house so I have been leaving my computer at school to use during breaks because it is easier than using the very slow computers in CIMAS (the place where we go to classes) but today I brought my computer home to type a longer post that I can post when I get on the internet.

A lot has happened in the past several days. I will try to keep it kind of short but it is hard when everything feels an adventure because there are always challenges and new experiences.

Most entertaining moment: On Thursday a bunch of students who take the same bus were leaving CIMAS with our host moms. Some of my friends had been talking about going to by cell phones but didn’t know exactly where to go or how to meet up. Suddenly all the moms started making plans loudly and rapidly shouting across the bus, figuring out who lived where, who would meet who, where we would go, meanwhile all of us students had no idea what they were talking about or what the plan was. We were all just looking at each other with confused faces saying “No Se?!” “Que paso?” and laughing a lot. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time and soon the whole bus was laughing at us (or with us?). The areas we are in are not at all touristy and I have probably only seen 5 gringos (outside of people on our program) since I’ve been here, the sight of 7 gringo students with Ecuadorian mothers was very bizarre. My mom thinks all of the other moms are crazy and she just sat and listened and made confused and funny faces at me while they all yelled rapidly about our plans. We ended up somehow figuring out how to all 7 of us meet up but ended up failing miserably in our excursion to buy phones. Finally this afternoon my mom went with my friend, Ashley, and me to buy phones at a sketchy but much cheaper place near our house. We were very proud of ourselves for finding a cheaper place and getting better phones than a lot of our friends!

Most uncomfortable moment: My family is very religious and even though my mom is very open and doesn’t care that I don’t have a religion, her friends that come to study the bible every Saturday night do care. I had just returned from our bonding trip to San Miguel de los Bancos and was tired and just finishing eating when she told me that her friends were coming. She invited me to join and I politely declined but they arrived before we finished eating and it would have been awkward for me to leave. So I joined the family bible study. The man, Adolfo that was leading the study started talking to me and before I knew what was going on he made me repeat after him something along the lines of “I believe in the power of Jesus Christ and have accepted him into my life as my Savior…” I don’t know exactly what I said but I couldn’t refuse to repeat what he told me in front of the whole family. Then on Sunday I went to Church with my family which was another experience. They are Protestant and go to a smallish church that is very modern with a full band, backup singers, dancers wearing aqua colored sequined dresses with various flags and pompoms. The first half hour was just music, followed by 10 minutes of hugging all the people around you. Then the service lasted another hour and a half. I think it meant a lot to my family that I went and I am glad I did but I hope I can avoid it some weekends.

The trip to San Miguel was beautiful and fun. We stayed in a gorgeous resort, ate delicious food, hiked in the rainforest, swam under a waterfall, heard a few talks about the energy on the equator (we were on it!), and played games to bond with the people on our program. I got a bit sick from adjusting to the water and food here but it wasn’t that bad. I will post pictures at some point. I took a lot of pictures on this excursion but Quito is somewhat dangerous and carrying anything of value makes you a target, so I probably will not have many pictures from life in Quito.

So far I am safe, happy and treating every little thing here as an adventure! Much love to all J

Family! School!

I am living with a very sweet family. My mom, Mercedes, is young, 32, so is as much like a friend as a mom. Her husband works outside the city and only comes home on the weekends so I haven't met him yet. I have three little siblings--Jesus (11), Fernanda (10) and Andres (8). They like to hug me a lot but I feel kind of awkward with them because they speak really quickly and its hard to understand them sometimes. Mercedes likes to talk to me a lot because she doesn't have many people around to talk to other than the little kids. The kids like to play Nintendo Wii and they do a lot of homework. Yesterday I went running with my mom in a park and did pushups and situps with Ferni, my little sister. Nobody speaks any English in the house so I am speaking a lot of spanish all the time.

The students on the program are all really nice and excited to be here. The directors and support people in Cimas, the school where we have classes, are all super friendly. We have class from 9 to 4 with a break for lunch and a few breaks during the morning.

I ride the bus to school which is crazy. This morning I got a seat which was fantastic. There were 3 other students from Cimas on the bus too so we will find ways to ride together for safety and comfort.

Gotta run back to class, but life is good! We go on a trip outside of the city tomorrow to bond and explore a little more of Ecuador!

I made it! Life is good! More later...

Departure!

So today I finally get to leave for Ecuador. But the last 48 hours have thrown me some curveballs...

I lost my wallet while staying with friends in Chicago. I do not have the faintest idea how this happened, what happened and much less, why this happened. After exhausting every possible option of searching for it and making all the calls to cancel cards and such, I have finally just let it go. Everything happens for a reason, right? It doesn't help that today is Martin Luther King Day so all the banks and AAA are closed so plans A and B are out. As soon as it is a normal hour (not 6:30 in the morning because I can't sleep) I will call my program to figure out which of plans C, D or E is the best option. Everything will work out, it always does...

At least I have my passport and will get on the plane at 12:55pm today! Super excited!