School!

Somehow, another month has slipped by without a blog post. So, I've decided to talk about something I really haven't talked about so far: school. That's probably because up until now, I'd been going kind of sporadically, missing days here and there and then a couple weeks of travel. But now I'm on my 11th consecutive day of school after getting back from vacation which is, if you can believe it, the most consecutive days I've been to school so far. So, school goes from 7-1ish, which usually ends up being more like 12:45, for some reason. We're supposed to have ten classes a day, but between teachers not showing up and numerous free hours, which the students convince the teachers to have, we only end up having six or seven. My school is called Vicente Hurtado. Its a k-12 school, but there's only one class of each grade, so it's still pretty small. It's a private school, so we wear uniforms! But they're actually not that bad. We wear jeans and off-white polos that have the school logo (the thing on the right) on them. On Wednesdays and Fridays, when we have gym class, we get to wear our super fly green sweatpants with the polos. If you've never rocked green sweatpants and a polo, try it out sometime. It's loads of fun. As for the physical school itself, it's basically a walled-in block: 

The school from the outside

There are two strips of buildings on either side of a soccer/basketball court, and then a barren wasteland (which I think in theory is like a field for the children to frolic in) at the end of that. Other than that there are a few little shelter things where we sometimes have English class (because we split into two groups, and half the time we stay in the classroom, half the time we leave), a playground, a snack bar, and the bathrooms. 

The soccer/basketball court, and one strip of classrooms

A bit of the barren wasteland (with a child frolicking in it) the playground, and one of the shelter things. You can also see some of the lovely paintings on the inside of the wall

Outside of the walled-in area, across the street, is the office. One thing about school that confused me for a while was the way the grades were named. The first confusing thing is that kindergarten is called primero (which means first), first grade is segundo (second), and so on.That goes all the way up to ninth grade (or decimo). Then, the second confusing thing happens. Suddenly tenth grade is called cuarto (fourth), eleventh is quinto (fifth), and twelfth is sexto (sixth). I have no idea why. The third confusing thing that happens is that occasionally cuarto is called primero de bachillerato (which I think is kind of like high school, even though it's not separated), quinto is called segundo de bachillerato and sexto is called trecera de bachillerato, which honestly makes more sense, but it's also a lot less common. So, while it can still be kind of confusing, I just remember that whenever someone says cuarto or primero de bachillerato, that's me. Speaking of my class, here's a picture of my classroom:

And here is a picture of the lovely gentlemen of my class: 

Unfortunately I do not have a picture of the rest of us, but I think you can probably survive without it. All in all, there are, I think, 25 of us. We have almost every class together, other than the ones we split into groups for. For example, on Tuesdays half of us have chem lab and half of us have technical drawing, and then on Friday it's in reverse. That last example was also a really great example of how we have kind of obscure classes (such as chem lab, technical drawing, programming, etc...) but don't have other normal classes (like history).  One semi-notable thing about classes is that in math or physics or something where the teacher or a student is doing a problem on the board, nobody really pays attention. Then, when they're done, there's a little break so everyone can copy it down. I seem to forget that on a daily basis, because I'll be taking notes as the teacher is going along, like I'm used to doing in the States, and then class will stop for 10+ minutes and too late I'll remember how it's done here and have nothing to do. Also, I can't imagine that the other students can learn so well that way. Another interesting thing about school is that we have recess! This is the time when students roam freely, soccer games are played, and the snack bar is open. About the snack bar. It's actually kind of terrifying, becasue when recess starts, a mob forms around the snack bar. Everyone is shouting what they want, shoving handfuls of money through the barred windows. I always tell myself that I will get the courage up to shout what I want, but before I do, either one of my friends asks what I want and shouts it for me, or the people working at the snack bar ask me directly what I want. However! The most exciting thing about school is that it ends in the beginning of January for break, and doesn't start again until April! Also in the beginning of January, I'll switch host families, though I don't know where to. Anyway, that's all for now. Chao!

English in Spanish

One of the craziest things that I'm learning how to do here is to speak English in Spanish.
Ecuadorians use some English words, but they pronounce them way differently. For example, when they say "cornflakes" it's sounds like "coneflay" and when they say "facebook", it becomes "fayboo," or just "face" (which is always fun because then they say things like "I'll put this picture on your face").  This actually leads to a bit of a dilemma for me. Since I speak English, I know how to pronounce the English words correctly. However, I worry that if I say "facebook" or something the way we say it in the States, they won't understand me since it's so different. But seriously, I just feel so ridiculous saying "fayboo."
Another exciting use of English here is on clothing. I have yet to see a t-shirt that has Spanish writing on it. Everything is in English. But the thing is, a lot of the people here don't know what their t-shirts are saying. For example, I once saw a little girl with a t-shirt that said "make love, not war" on it. I assume that she, and her parents who bought it for her, didn't understand why an 8-year-old should not be spreading that message to her other 8-year-old friends. In addition to slogans like that, another big thing is the fake university/sports team stuff. We have things like that in the States, but at least they make up names and make it seem a little legit. I saw a shirt here that just said "sports team" on it.
That's all for now, but I'd just like to leave you with the knowledge that I have not been to school for over three weeks, thanks to travel, school vacation, and exams I don't have to take. I love being an exchange student.

Odds and Ends

I really like reading all the other exchange students' blogs and seeing how consistently everyone has been slacking off on their blogging.  It's really fun because I know that, just like me, they're busy with exchange student life. And by exchange student life, I'm pleased to say that means making friends, trying crazy new foods, and lots of travel. So, in the last two and a half weeks I went on two big trips. The first trip was with all the exchange students in my Rotary district, which also happens to be all the exchange students in Ecuador. The trip was a tour of Manabi, which is this province: 

If you're observant, you'll notice that it's on the coast. Which means lots of beaching. And if you're really observant, you'll notice that it's also the province that I live in. Which means I'd already been to some of the places we went. However, since this is Ecuador, it was certainly no less exciting or fun. Since I have a lot to cover in this post, I'll refrain from explaining the entire trip in great detail, and hope these photos will suffice:

One of the loverly beaches we visited

We could go on a boat ride down this river with bazillions of pelicans

Another one of the beaches, this time with sports! On the right there's a volley ball tourney and the left a soccer tourney  that we could make teams for and join. At this beach they also had banana boat rides!

All the exchange students atop a hill in Crucita

A Chiva ride through Portoviejo. If you can't tell, there's a band on top. 

We visited a market thing in Montecristi, which is where Panama hats come from. Hence the lady making one. 

We also visited this museum/morgue of some really important person. I don't really speak Spanish, so I don't know what it was about, but at least it looked cool.

This is the hotel we ate lunch at one day in Manta. It was pretty. But there was sand in all the food, because the floor of the restaurant was sand.

The second big trip I went on was a spur-of-the-moment decision two days after I got back from the Manabi tour. My host brother and his wife and daughter were in the process of moving from Quito (the capital) to Bahia (where I live) and were going back for a week to say their final goodbyes, bring the last of their stuff to Bahia, etc... Anyway, the point is that they invited me to come! So we made some calls to Rotary (travel without host parents is not usually allowed), calls to my school, and then we were on our way. We took a bus overnight to Quito, which was nothing short of terrifying. Bus drivers in Ecuador drive just as fast and furiously as car drivers, but buses are a lot bigger and, as it seemed to me, tippier. If you don't know, Quito is in the mountains, so the bus ride involved lots of whipping around corners on curvey mountain roads in the pitch black. Luckily we completed the six and a half hour bus ride unscathed and I was able to see the lovely city that is Quito. Again, I'll just show you some pictures with brief blurbs about them, though I have to warn you: my sister-in-law decided to be in charge of the camera so I could be in the photos, and she didn't exactly take pictures with a blog in mind. So I have few pictures of my two favorite parts of Quito: the mountains and the graffiti art, and just lots of pictures of me. So, if you want to see the Quito in all of it splendor, you can go here or here to the ever helpful Google Images. Anyway, here are some shots of what I did in Quito:

This is me and the view of Quito from the statue of Mary in the middle of the city

Me and the statue itself

One of the churches in the old district of Quito

In Imbabura, a province just North of Quito

On the equator! Sort of. This is the monument, but the actual equator is a bit further North, as they discovered later with some exciting GPS jazz.

Another exciting thing that happened while I was in Quito is that I experienced my first earthquake! After a quick Google search I discovered that the epicenter was 17km North East of Quito and that it was a magnitude 4.0. I mostly have no idea what I just said, but basically I just woke up in bed feeling like I was on a bumpy bus ride, so it wasn't that big of a deal. 

So, as of October 21st I'd been here two months, and now I've been here a bit over ten weeks. So, a few notes about the grand scheme of things. 

In the first couple months, exchange students normally go through the "honeymoon phase," where they're super excited about everything and everyone's excited about them, and then afterwards, once everything settles down and such, start to feel more homesick and culture shock. That's not really what happened to me. I didn't really have a honeymoon phase, and after like the first whirlwind of a week, started to be homesick. After a couple weeks of that, around my one month mark, I started to feel at home here, and be less homesick. That has carried on swimmingly, and, though I always watch for the signs of culture shock and homesickness (it sounds weird that I have to watch for it, but sometimes it really is hard to tell when it's happening to you) in case I have another bout coming, I think my contentedness is here to stay. 

Another thing that has been happening in these months is SPANISH. Lots of Spanish has been happening. Being spoken to me, being spoken by me, and just in general bumping around my head. A few people have asked me if I've had dreams in Spanish, and my answer is that I unfortunately have not had any true Spanish dreams. BUT. I did have this really exciting dream that took place in my city. I was basically just riding the bus around (a skill I've obtained here. more on that in a second) and talking with people. However, since I don't really know enough Spanish to fabricate entire conversations in my sleep, everyone had some excuse about why they were speaking English. Some people were learning it in school, some people had moved from Canada, and there were some eccentric British people there for some reason. Anyway, the good news is that even though they all spoke English, my dream self kept wanting them to speak Spanish to me, and I was about to delve into a Spanish conversation with the Canadian kid when I woke up. It would seem to me that Spanish dreams are just around the corner. An additional anecdote that's kind of related to me and my Spanish speaking is that while I was in Quito I was watching a movie with some family friends of my brother's and they put English subtitles on for me. Upon seeing this, a kid turned to me and was like "sabes ingles?" which means, "you know English?" Granted, I hadn't really spoken any Spanish to him, so it's not like I have a flawless accent or anything, but at least he didn't immediately peg me as a foreigner, as most people do. I like to think I've lost a little of that confused, wandering around look.  

Buses! Yes. I have grown to know that it costs 18 cents to go anywhere in the city, but everyone just gives them twenty cents and they don't give change back. I've learned that if you're on the bus and some kid puts a piece of candy on the seat next to you, you give it back to him immediately or you'll have to pay for it. I've learned that if you're sitting on a bus waiting for it to leave and a guy holding a half empty bottle of vodka gets on, you get off. And then you get a taxi. Which is also a very new thing for me. I think I could count the number of times I'd been in a taxi on one hand before coming to Ecuador.  However, it's enough for me to know that taxiing here is a whole different thing from other places. Bahia is a city of about 30,000 people, so most people know the cabbies. They'll chat with the them and even sit in the passenger seat even if there's room in the back seat. Again, I'm no expert on taxis in the States, but I'm pretty sure that would never happen there.

Another very important aspect of an exchange year is FOOD. I know earlier I was kind of complaining about it, but since then I've discovered that there is more to life than eggs for breakfast, chicken and rice for lunch, and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. It turns out that something people really, really like to do here is parrilla, which means grill. And they don't do no mamby-pamby hamburger grill-out. They go all out. For example, here is the inventory of what I was given during one parrilla: a cob of corn, four hot dogs, a grilled chicken breast, a steak, a pork chop, two baked potatoes and a salad. I managed to eat about half of that, and afterwards I thought I was going to throw up or pass out or something negative like that. Luckily, though, nothing negative happened, and the food didn't even go to waste. Some of the other people were able finish my food after they ate all of theirs. Honestly. Another new and different food that exists here is the hamburger. At first glance, not so new and different. But honestly, they're pretty crazy here. In addition to the typical cheese, lettuce, tomato, and onions on the burger, they add cucumbers (not pickles - cucumbers) and fried eggs. Like, seriously, if you just go to one of those stands on the street and order a hamburger, it comes with a fried egg on it. And before I move on from the topic of food, I have to mention the rice. So much rice. They serve spaghetti and lasagna with rice. They serve soup with rice. They serve french fries with rice. And they're all really convinced that rice here is way better than rice in the States, though to tell the truth, it really just tastes the same to me. 

SO. I think that's about enough to make up for a month of not posting, though before we part, I want to leave you with some more photos. I've posted lots of pictures from trips and such, but not very many that I've just taken around town. Bahia is a beautiful enough city that I owe it to it to share some of the snapshots. So, here you go:

Oh my.

I've adopted a sort of Jim-Carrey-in-Yes-Man type attitude towards life here, especially since I never have anything to do after school. I told myself I would accept any opportunity that came my way, be it joining a soccer team, giving English lessons... whatever came my way. It never occurred to me, however, that the first opportunity to present itself would be joining the baton twirling troupe. So, folks, I am now a baton twirler. We'll see how this goes.

Language (Graph ahead-proceed with caution)

I got back from language camp on Thursday and it was, to say the least, amazing. In between meeting some really, really amazing people, going to the six pools, three jacuzzies, three beaches, movie theater, discoteca, and five restaurants at the resort we were staying at, we managed to take about a total of 20 hours of Spanish classes. They were pretty rough, and we would go through concepts that took months to learn in my French class at home in just a few hours.
Taking the Spanish classes, and being around so many people who speak all different languages got me thinking. Most of all, I realized that the concept of having different languages is so weird. To think that there are billions of people around the world who all speak and think and live their lives and do many of the same things I do... but in a different language just blows my mind. And what's more, they don't think anything of it. They're not thinking, "wow, it's so cool that I speak Greek" or anything. They just do. I have a friend here who asked me, "do you get hungry (angry) when you can't say something in Spanish?" and the truth is - I do, but I'm more amazed than anything. I think it's crazy that I can talk to someone and they can talk to me and neither of us has any idea of what the other is saying, but we know what we're saying. I don't know if any of this is making any sense, but that's all the ways I can think to explain it. Oh, by the way, I met a girl this week who speaks a language I didn't even know existed. Faroese. She spoke some for us and it seriously just sounded like she was making sounds, not saying words.
Another thing related to languages is that Ecuadorian Spanish is crazy because, to my American English ears, it doesn't really seem to have an accent. It just sounds like they're speaking English, but using words I don't know. Hopefully that means that when I speak Spanish I don't have that much of an accent, but I'm a bit worried that it actually means the Ecuadorian accent is really subtle and will be hard to master. Hm...
Now, about learning Spanish. This is, obviously, the main languagey thing I have to deal with. From what I've experienced, from what I've heard from other people learning languages, and from what I saw on a similar graph online, the process is a bit like this:

I made this on paint just for you dear readers. Also, I got really stressed when I realized I didn't have a title for it. School has made me crazy.

So, to explain: Section 1 is where you're learning basic words and phrases in present tense. Section 2 is where you're stuck there for a little bit, maybe learning a few new words, but for the most part, not being able to put coherent sentences together. Section 3 is the main language learning bit, where you learn more words, tenses, a few idiomatic expressions and such, and you're able to make sentences. Section 4 is where you speak the language nearly perfectly, and you're just separated from full fluency by the little nuances of the language and really mastering what you know. I've spoken to many a frustrated person stuck in section 4. Then, section 5 is where you finally get the last few bits of the language down and really reach full fluency.  For me, I'm in two different sections for listening and speaking. I think I'm in section 3 when I listen to people - I understand what someone is saying about 80% of the time, and I can usually figure out what a word I don't know means from context. However, when I talk, I don't know a lot of the finer grammar points like linking words, direct and indirect object pronouns, and some vocab words I want to use. It would seem I'm stuck in section 2 for talking, which yes, is very frustrating. I think Spanish camp, where I took my first actual Spanish classes that taught grammar like one would in school, has taught me some of the things that will help me get out of that rut, and if I review what I learned, I should be able to do so soon. Hopefully.
So, that's about all I have to say, except that on Thursday I'll have been here for a month. It feels like a really long time, but it also seems way to short to be a whole tenth of the time I'll be here. Wow.

Positivity!

This post is for my mother. She's pointed out that my last post only listed things that, without much interpretation from me, made it seem like I was a little down in the dumps with culture shock and such.  While I can see where she's coming from, I was just trying to share interesting things that I've noticed or have happened to me. I'd just like to make an official statement that I am not hating it here.  In fact, it's quite the opposite. So, in the face of the danger of you readers dying from list overload, here is a list of some of the fabulous things I've had the chance to experience in lovely Ecuador.

1. ORANGE JUICE. If I could choose my favorite thing about Ecuador, it would have to be the orange juice. It might be a little sad, but seriously, juice here is fresh squeezed from fresh fruit. And it's so. crazy. good.

2. Manicures! Instead of giving our nails the occasional trim and such, this lady comes to our house and gives us legit mani/pedis every Thursday. (As a side note, I would just like to let the world know that spell-check accepts "legit" as a word)

3. The ocean! It's just a five minute bike ride to the beach from my house. And the beach is beaUTIFUL. I don't have pictures of the beach itself, but here are some exciting pictures of what happens sometimes when the tide comes in:

First this (if you're wondering, yes. It is exactly like standing on the bridge after the wave ride at valley fair.)

Which results in this (those are roads, fyi)

4. Watching soccer with my host parents. We'll just sit on their bed in the evening and watch soccer.  It's hilarious for two reasons (gahh! List within a list!): there's a GIANT rivalry here about Emelec or Barcelona that my host dad gets really into, and the commentators do the great GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL thing for like two minutes whenever someone scores, which is entertaining. Also, watching soccer with your parents is just such a normal thing to do; I love it.

5. Having all my toes intact. This one is a recent development.  I've finally stopped stubbing my toes on this ledge thing whenever I go into the kitchen:

As far as I can tell, my host parents had it installed so they could learn how to swear in English, because I can't see it serving any other purpose. HOWEVER. I have defeated it, and almost never stub my toes on it anymore. 

6. Helping out at a kindergarten. I only did this a couple times before school started, but it was really really fun to play tag with all the kids or help them color in big number 4s.  Also, I had the chance to help out with their English lesson one day, which mostly consisted of me singing "Mary had a Little Lamb" to them like four times and trying to get them to repeat it, which they didn't. But it's the most rewarding thing in the world to be watching a little girl search for the number 5 to cut out of magazines and hear her humming "Mary had a Little Lamb."

7. Going to the ZOO! Though it was mostly birds, fish, bunnies and dogs, there was some pretty exciting stuff, I must say. Observe: 

I have no clue how I accidentally turned that into a collage type thing, but it's kind of cool, right? Anyway, the zoo was definitely awesome, but that's like 95% because of the baby bunnies.

8. Hammocks. Most people have one, either in their room, on the patio, on the balcony... where ever there's even a smidgeon of room. The best part is that whenever I have any down time at anyone's house they offer up their hammock to me. And really, how can I refuse soaking up the sun on a hammock that's swinging in the breeze? The ocean breeze. In Ecuador. It's times like that that I realize how very, very lucky I am to be having such an amazing experience here.

Though there are gazillions (also a spell-check accepted word) of other things I could add to this list, I need to go to bed because tomorrow I'm going to Spanish Camp on the beach for five days! Woo hoo! Anyway, I promise promise promise that next post won't be a list. I guess that's just how I think, because I'm up to 3/5 of my posts being lists. Oh my. (I was considering doing a "lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" type thing, but then I realized that I'd just end up filling in lions and tigers and bears in with the word "lists." Which you probably didn't need to know.)
Well, folks, until next time. Actually, as a parting gift, I will tell you the most exciting coincidence (for you Minnesotans to understand) that I've discovered here: the radio station that only plays American pop songs is 101.3. My mind was so blown, and I hope yours is too. And I mean that in a nice way.

Two Weeks: Sickness, Mood Swings, Food, Cell Phones, and School

As of Sunday night at about 10 o'clock, I'd been in Ecuador for two weeks. This is kind of significant, because  before this, that's the longest I'd ever been away from home. So, as of yesterday, I've set a new record.

Several things have happened within those two weeks, and I've made plenty of observations about lots of things. So here you have it. Irene Duba on sickness, mood swings, food, cell phones, and school.

First: I was sick Wednesday-Friday last week.  Apparently it happens to a lot of people who come to Ecuador for the first time, since the food and water is so different.  Still, needless to say, it wasn't fun.  All Thursday and Friday I was stuck in bed, and if you are/have been an exchange student, you know that being alone with your thoughts isn't always very uplifting.  Being alone certainly brings out the homesickness, which is not helped by feeling crappy. Also, there's a whole different attitude about being sick here. It's treated as both a bigger and smaller deal. If I were at home, I'd just sit in my pjs either lying in bed or watching tv until it passed. However, after just a day and a half of being sick here I was taken to the doctor to get blood drawn for tests, and I was given pills to take every day.  At the same time, though, my parents were setting up outings to the beach and to get ice cream for me.  In the midst of my illness. Very different. That's all I really have to say about being sick, except that it sucks (which I kind of already covered).

Second, mood swings. Another exciting thing about being an exchange student. I think having crazy mood swings is part of the culture shock. One bit of culture shock is the irritability stage, which is one of the moods that I swing to, if I may extend the metaphor. I can be hanging out on cloud 9, then at the drop of a hat I'll be down in the dumps, feeling homesick and pissy. It's definitely weird. And the strangest things get to me and bring me down. We can be just riding along in the car, perfectly content, and my friends will sing along to and English song on the radio or Hector will honk at a bicyclist.  I normally don't care about these things (since they don't matter), but sometimes I'll just feel like yelling "you don't know English! Stop pretending you do! These are MY songs." or "is it really that hard to slow down for them?! At least we Americans have a little respect!" or something. And it's not that big of a deal. Again, weird.

Third, food. It would really, really, suck to be a vegetarian here. When I was sick, I told my parents that I didn't want to eat chicken or meat (which are mutually exclusive here, for some reason) and we went to three different restaurants and I finally had to settle on chicken soup (which, by the way, I later realized had noodles in it, so I felt okay with eating it while I was sick).  You might be asking, "why didn't you just eat at home?" Because we never, ever do. Thursday and Friday I wouldn't have eaten anything, much less gotten out of bed, other than going out for lunch. About the food itself, it's all kind of the same... meat or seafood with rice and sometimes beans. This is kind of random, but still on the subject of food: one thing that kind of bothers me about food culture around the world is that it's kind of widely accepted that American food is worse than every other food ever. When exchange students come to the United States it's totally okay for them to say that they miss their food. However, if I said that, it would seem kind of rude and xenophobic.  By the way, I'm not necessarily saying that I do miss my food, though I wouldn't mind a little variety here and there.

Fourth: cell phones. As I think I mentioned earlier, everyone has blackberries. Or, at the very least, everyone has a cell phone. My English teacher (from New Jersey) put it best. He said "I've taught kids who can't afford some necessities, but they still somehow manage to have a cellphone." By the way, I hope you were reading that in your head with an accent. And I hope when you got to the word "taught" you imagined it being said hilariously, because it was. Oh, New Joisey... Anyway, cell phones. In addition to everyone having one, everyone is always using them. I guess it's not rude here, but I'll be sitting at lunch with my parents or in the living room with my friends and everyone but me will have their phones out. It makes for a lot of awkward situations. Sometimes, when it goes on a really long time I take out my phone, even though I don't have anything to do on it and just kind of stare at and press a few buttons in order to fit in. That's not even a joke, by the way.

Fifth: School. Yesterday was my first day of school.  This week is just kind of a test week for me, and then I have Spanish camp four out the five five days of next week, so I think the hope is that I'll learn Spanish enough to actually understand class in the next two weeks, and I'll start actually participating in class the Monday after next.  This week, though I'm kind of testing out different grades, so yesterday I hung out with a bunch of 9th graders, and today some 10th graders. I believe tomorrow I'll go see what 11th grade is like, but I'm not sure. What I've discovered about school so far is that there are only four or five classes a day, and lots of breaks in between.  It's kind of like, and hour on, hour off, hour on, lunch and recess, hour on... and so on. The only classes I understand so far are math and English.  Since math is the only class I actually participate in, everyone thinks I'm a some math superstar now. Like, I'm so good at it that I choose to join in with that class and ignore the others. One thing I have learned in school, though, is that teenagers are very, very hard to understand. They talk really fast, and then after I inevitably ask them so go slower, they still slur their words and use slang. So basically they all think I suck at Spanish. A teacher came into the class and asked someone if I spoke Spanish, and someone was like "un poco" and this kid gave her a look and was like "nada."  I have sort of made some friends though. Also, most of the guys introduced themselves to me or wave when they see me, since I have blue eyes and "blonde" hair (anyone who doesn't have black hair here is blonde). So, although I'm guessing it's at least partly just skin deep, that's kind of nice. I pretend they're my friends too.

Bonus sixth! Even though this post is already crazy crazy long: Scary stuff.  After our Rotary meeting on Monday night, all the exchange students and I went for a walk through town.  Marcus, from Alaska, was telling us about how one night he was walking home from something with his brothers, and they came upon a street cop.  As they approached, he blew his whistle really softly twice.  Marcus didn't think anything of it, but his brothers told him, "okay, now we have to be really careful, because that was a corrupt street cop and he just alerted the muggers that there are people coming." So, naturally, we were all like, whoa. But we kept walking and talking and eventually stopped thinking about it. BUT. Then, we saw a street cop (I'm not even kidding). And Marcus was like, "guys, I think that's him," so we turned the corner before we got too close. However, when we came to the next corner, he was there again! We decided to just walk past, since there were five of us, and there was no whistling or mugging. So that's good.

WELL! That might be the longest blog post in the history of the world, but I hope you enjoyed it! I'll be back later with more about my actual life and less about general stuff.

Irene

Deportes

Until my host family recently mentioned reading my letter I wrote to them back in October (before I actually thought I'd be accepted into the program, much less living in Ecuador less than a year later), I'd forgotten that I wrote it. I imagine that if I went back now and read it, I'd be embarrassed and regret at least some of what I wrote. However, there's one thing I don't regret writing in the letter. In the letter, I wrote that I like sports.  Because I did, my host parents put me in touch with a guy who I'm now renting a bike from, a bike that I'll be able to ride to and from school on.  More importantly, though, my parents have been setting up outings for me with different friends of my host sister's and people from the church. I've gone on a 30 mile bike ride to the nearishby town of Canoa (which you should all google, because the beaches are lovely but I forgot to bring my camera) and back, kayaking in the river Chone/Pacific Ocean:

I mostly had my kayaking buddy take this picture so I could stop paddling. My shoulders hurt so much. (Of course that "hurt" is past tense. Of course I'm not still sore from two days ago. Don't be ridiculous.)

and hiking in the nature reserve Cerro Seco, where there were some really, really spectacular views:

(I live there. Just saying.)

The stitching on that probably could have gone better, but it's still pretty, right?

These pictures don't really do the color of the water justice. It was extremely turquoise and shiny and great.

In addition to all this, I've been promised surf lessons, scuba lessons, mountain biking, and visiting la Isla de los Pajaros. So, I don't think there's any need to reiterate this, but I will. I am so very glad I wrote in my letter to my host family that I enjoy sports. It has done me worlds of good. 

Soup on Plates

It's my fifth day here in Ecuador, where I arrived after an exciting few days of travelling that you can read about here. Basically, it involved a thunderstorm, free sandwiches, sleeping here:

(I didn't know it existed either)

and a total of about 8 hours spent here:

Anyway, now that I am here, I have some tidbits to share that, individually, are trivial, but as a whole, I think summarize my first impression of Ecuador.  I'm pretty sure I have way too many commas in that sentence.

• My host mom always matches the color of her watch, hair clip, shoes, and phone cover. 
• We have soup on plates.
• I got my uniform for school the other day and I am definitely looking forward to rocking the polo with green sweatpants all year long.
• The power goes out at least once daily (as far as I can tell, whenever I want to shower or watch TV)
• The record number of people I've seen riding a motorcycle is 4.
• I saw a herd of goats galloping alongside the road like a herd of wild stallions in movies like "Black Beauty" or "Flicka" except they're goats.
• Peach juice is the orange juice of Ecuador. Everyone has it and we drink it all the time.
• Nobody wears seatbelts or helmets.
• Often when I meet someone new they tell me they're Christian. 
• There's a Galapagos tortoise just chillin' in a schoolyard in my city. We went and fed him bananas.

Sorry the picture is blurry. He was moving to fast to get a clear picture. (that was a joke)

• They refrigerate cereal but not milk.
• Everyone wants me to teach them English but they are all so bad at pronouncing things. For example, I tried to teach my mom the word "gift" and she pronounced it "gorppppf." After lots of repeating back and forth we refined it down to "giffff." Also, she continues to insist it's my "happy birthday" tomorrow.
• Everyone has Blackberries.
• I've seen a person with a machine gun twice in my life. First, when leaving the Guayaquil airport. Second, today in a shopping mall (it was a security guard, though. Not someone shooting up the mall).
• The nicest house I've seen so far belongs to a shrimp farmer. 
• As far as vegetables go, I've eaten one salad while I've been here, and that's all.
• If you actually followed and read the link above, you'd know that there are 10-foot high walls or fences around everyone's house.  What you don't know, though, is that many of the walls have barbed wire or electric fences on top. In one case I even saw a wall that had broken glass bottles cemented into the top.

So, that's a broad description through specifics. I will return sometime in the future with a more straightforward approach to describing my time here. 

Until then, ciao!

Two Weeks!

Yesterday was the two week marker until the day I leave for Ecuador, and it's finally hitting me what I'm about to do. It seems so unreal that, starting in just two short weeks, I won't see my friends and family for a year.  I probably should have come to terms with this a while ago, but I still find myself repeating in my head: "I'm going to live in Ecuador. For a year."  There are other exchange students I know that are already abroad, and I worry that I'm somehow illigitimizing (is that a word?) the amazing journey they've already had by making a big deal out of a two week countdown, and I apologize if it seems like I am.  It just seems like everything up until recently has been theoretical, but when I started getting gifts for my host families and packing, the whole imminence of it became so much more tangible.
Along with the disbelief, though, comes what I hope is a normal amount of nervousness and just so. much. excitement.  Ecuador seems like a beautiful country and, judging by google images, so does my city.  Additionally, my family seems lovely and I'm psyched to finally be able to meet them.  About my family, by the way.  My host father's name is Hector, and he's a doctor.  My host mother is Eva, and she's a dentist.  I have two brothers and a sister, but both brothers are all grown and moved away.  My host sister, who I've spoken to the most, Anita, will be leaving on exchange to Texas two days before I arrive.  So, if you've been keeping track, you'll realize that that means I'll be the only child.  I'm a little nervous that I won't have any predetermined friends, but I think it means, as selfish as this is, that my host parents with have more time and attention to spend with me.
So there you have it. I'll try to post some (but, of course, not enough to distract me from my adventures) once I get to Ecuador, and hopefully pretty regularly from then on. Oh, and another thing to be excited about: photos!