Saturday-today

Saturday

We had an IES Abroad (my program) orientation in the morning. We got all sorts of lectures. A security talk from a police man, talks about important documents and how register your VISA, Culture and Diversity, and a 2 hour spanish class that went over the whole spanish language.
All the lectures were entirely in Spanish. They werent hard to understand...if you could pay attention for that long. They were long.

Saturday night I got right down to business achieving my goals. My sister, Alejandra, 18years old, and her friend and I went to La Mariscal to a discoteca! We got there at 20 30 so we could park, walked around and went to a cafe to kill time until people started dancing in the discotecas. We went to two bars/discotecas and danced until 2 in the morning.
They played a mix of Reggaton,Salsa, Merengue, American, and other music. My sister really likes salsa and merengue. It was really fun to dance to all the latin beats. There are really good dancers here. They dont seem as self conscious about dancing as a lot of people in the US are. The guys (and the girls) are not afriad to move their hips.

Sunday

The whole day was spent at a family party on par with the Dunlea and/or Pozderac family reunions...except it was entirely in Spanish.

The Spanish Quito, or the Sierra region, is very pure. They pronouce everything theyre supposed to and dont blend their words together. Ive been able to understand almost eveything people say when they are talking to me. (sweet!)
However, at family reunions...everyone seems to talk at the same time. I was fairly clueless as to what was going on in conversation there. Car rides are even worse for comprehension cuz you cant see anyones face.

Anyway, they played futbol there. (Volleyball is the second most popular sport in Ecuador. Apparantly they have their own version called Ecuivolley, but i have yet to know what the differnce is.)

We also heard the mayor, or a candidate for the mayor of Quito give a small speech to the family. (Whether he was the mayor or the candidate was lost in translation) My older sister, Tamara, works with him, so she invited him to the family gathering to campaign to like 40 people.

So, that was at the aunts house. We also went to my grandmas house. I ate a lot of food at both places. Ill describe´the food later...maybe...

Ecuatorians are very proud of their corn on the cob (choclo). One aunt was saying its the best corn in the world, not even Peru has corn as good as theirs. It definitely was different, I dont know if id give it best in the world status yet.

They are also pround of the flowers. An uncle was saying that their exported flowers are of the best quality and most durable in the world. (I later learned you can buy 25 roses for 2 dollars (i cant find the dollar sign on this keyboard))

I also talked with an uncle about environmental issues. On the topic of the Galapagos, he said that all the mainland native Ecuadorians moving to the Galapagos was a problem becuase most of the people that moved there were of middle lower class and didnt know how to keep their areas or environment clean. This, to him, was the main reason for the pollution/environmental problems of the Galapagos. I thought this was very interesting, as I had never heard this perspective before.

There is a very distinct caste system left over from the Spanish Colonial times. My family is clearly upper class. Americans are well loved. Lighter skins generally indicate a highr class. Indigenous people are clearly at the bottom. The only indigenous people ive interacted with so far are our empleada (maid) (who cooks, cleans, and does laundry), the indigenous people selling gum and cigarettes on the street, and this other young lady who was the permenant baby sitter of the son of one of my cousins (the cousin is currently off in America working). The young indigenous lady was at our family party and remained almost completely silent. No one really talked to her or hardly acknowledged her. My family is also very used to having the empleada serve them three meals a day. To Americans, who value equality and are anti-racist and promote equal opportunities, this feels soo wrong. But my Ecuador Culture Shock book said that they just dont value these things as much: They accept things the way they are and focus on surviving/making the best with where they are at. Asi es la vida. There dont really feel the need to change it.

I was just talking with our empleada, and telling her how i do my own laudry while im at school. She was like, "noooo not here, i do it here". My mom also was like "well, some people never went to school, dont know how to read and write, and can only get a job cleaning and cooking in a house" With this perspective, I guess its good that they are being employed. Its just weird to see such obvious segregation and nobody caring or complaining or making efforts to integrate.

AHhhhh...Im writing too much...ill never make it through at this rate


Monday

More orientation, health, academics, spanish practive test (i got a 4 out of 5 which was sufficent to take classes at the Quitorian University), more cultural stuff. In the afternoon we went on a tour of the Old Town. We went many historical places, which Ill name later. Prob the coolest part was when we got to go to the roof of this church even though they are doing restorations on it. It was highly unsafe, prob would not be allowed in the US, but it had an amazing view of the city.
Then we went out to eat got back to our house at like 930pm and went straight to sleep.


Out of the 24 students in my program there is an Ann, Anne, Antia, Anna, and a Hannah. Considering that Ann in spanish is Ana...and the nickname is Anita ...there is much confusion. I decided Im going to go by AnnD or in spanish Andi.

Tuesday
I am really tired of typing.

We got a tour and orientation of PUCE, the Quitorian University. Met some other exchange student not with IES. More security lectures from the American Embassy (the first lecture ive heard in english). i took an oral spanish exam to improve my 4 to a 5...even though that wasnt really necessary.

some people had to retake the written exam, but some of us didnt so we walked around the city for 3 hours for our lunch break.

We were at this restuarant and one of the other exchange students almost got her bag stolen. It was a three person operation where one took her bag, while another tried to distract her by asking for change. When she looked down to her bag for change, it was gone, she got up and saw the guy with her bag and was like, THATS MINE, and grabbed the bag. Not sure exactly what happened after that but the manager like beat up the theif and kicked him out. It was intense with like fruit flying all over the place and people yelling. She got her bag back. Then everything went back to normal and everyone kept eating. It was an excellent demonstation/wake up call to everything they had been lecturing us about in our security orientations.

Today was the first day it didnt rain. For the last couple days i was thinking that quito during the rainy seasons has as many clouds as rochester. There were clouds very similar, but the temperature is more agreeable. its really funny to see the people mentinon how its really cold (i.e. theres a breeze, or its raining, or the sun is behind a cloud) or how hot it is (the sun came out) it gets pretty chilly at night. but nobody ever needs heat or airconditioning.
today was a lovely 73 degrees F and i didnt see any exchange students that werent red from the sun by the end of the day. (yes mom, im using my spf 45)
Even though íts practically on the equator, Quito is at such high altitude that it really does get kinda brisk at night.

uhhh....if anyone reading that would prefer to here about one thing over another, please let me know

First Few Days

As some of you may know, my laptop betrayed me and died the day before I left for Ecuador. This slightly limits my access to computers, but might force me to get out of my room more. This way it also is less likely to be stolen.

Currently I´m on the computer in my house. I´ve been so busy though, this is the first time i´ve been on a computer for more than 5 minutes since i got here.

(btw this computer doesn´t have English spell check, so now everyone gets to see how bad my spelling is...although i could blame it on this weird keyboard.)

Friday

The flight to Ecuador went smoothly. I met about 8 other girls from my program in Houston on the same flight as me. (There is a 22 to 2 girl to guy ratio in my program.)
I made some goals on the airplane:
1. Practice Spanish
2. Make Native Friends
3. Understand the culture here
4. Learn about the environment here
5. Learn latino dances
6. Learn a bit about indigenious cultures
7. Be sure to exercise

When I got to the airport my familywisked me away. In the airport parking lot another car back into us (turns out it was the family of another exhçchange student). Then there was a lot of traffic in this area called ¨La Mariscal¨where there are a lot of Bars, Discotecas, Restaurantes, etc. It´s also known as Gringolandìa because there are many gringos (Americans) that go to the bars there. Other then that, the trip was kinda awkwardly quiet.

Their house is amazing. I¨m staying on like a lower level and have my own sitting room, bathroom, bedroom, and open space room. The view out the window overlooks >The Old Town of Quito and has the grand Andes mountains past that. Its incredible, I´ll try and post a picture when i figure out how.

"When the sun hits that ridge just right, these hills sing"

(I will buy a llama shirt for the first person to identify that quote)

This is more or less the view from my house. I dont understand how to photoshop on PCs so I cant make them fit together nicely. Anyone who wants to photoshop them for me...feel free.

The rest of the house is above me. Their living room has a whole side made out of glass to exhibit the amazing view of Quito´s historical, colonial part of the city (The Old Town). The bedrooms are above this floor.
The house is also right next to a park that overlooks the entire city of Quito. The park has a completely glass Cultural Center that was designed by the same guy that designed the Eiffel Tower. There are flowers inside the glass building and all over the park. My (host) mom said she would take me running there.

La Casa Cultural


An Orchid Show with prize winning orchids from around the world.

(Of course almost all the ones that won were from Ecuador, Costa Rica, or Brazil)

Hey,

This is a test post for my new blog.

Yay!

If I write in this blog a lot, I am certain I will not be able to keep it entirely in English. Therefore, for your convenience, I have added a handy dandy translation gadget to this very page! Enjoy!

<3 Ann