last hour in ecuador

I'm in the airport in Guayaquil waiting for my flight to Miami to board so this is my last post from Ecuador. As silly as it sounds, I miss Loja already, but as always, I am really excited to be home tonight and to see my family and my cats and my friends. I've had  a great time here overall and I'm really going to miss the experience, but now it's on to bigger and hopefully better things.

I'm not excited in the least for the next 12 hours of air travel. Yesterday morning, my flight from Loja to Guayaquil was almost ridiculous. The plane was tiny, maximum capacity 30 people.... It had legit propellers and bounced all over the place in the air. Thank goodness it was only a 40 minute flight because I was dying of motion sickness. Bigger planes are less of a problem.

Yesterday after arriving in Guayaquil, I was greeted by a girl I used to work with at Canadian and her boyfriend. They went with my by taxi to my hostel and then we went out to breakfast and walked around the Malecon 2000 which is Guayaquil's boardwalk on the rio Guayas. The city of Guayaquil is gigantic and kind of dirty / intimidating, but the Malecon is beautiful and safe. There were armed guards all over it. My hostel was fine, lots of stairs, but thank goodness this is a patriarchal society and I didn't carry my luggage up or down them. After my former colleague and her boyfriend went home, I walked around the Malecon some more, went to the Iguana park and the Parque Cenentario and at some lunch. I was exhausted after sleeping only 3 hours the night before and walking around all morning and up and down 430 some stairs to get a good view of the city so I went back to my hostel around 5 and watched some tv and fell asleep. I woke up around 10, too late to go out because Guayaquil is dangerous after dark so I went back to sleep and slept on and off until 6 o'clock this morning. I definitely needed all that sleep and I feel perfectly fine now so I'm glad.

Well, just wanted to post one more time before my adventure is over. Life in general is an adventure, but Ecuador has been my greatest journey so far. :)

leaving loja in less than 2 days

Packing to go home is much easier than packing to leave home. Mainly because I had to decide what I wanted to bring with me when I left home 5 months ago and now that I'm packing again, I just have to put all of my stuff back into my suitcases and leave behind whatever I don't want, mainly a lot of my clothes.

It's hard to believe that I'm starting my journey home on Tuesday. I am still slightly nervous about being in Guayaquil all day on Tuesday because it is a huge city and supposedly pretty dangerous, though most sources say it's really only dangerous at night. I am sure I can manage to do a bunch of touristy stuff during the day. Apparently there is a park in Guayaquil where the trees and the park itself really is filled with wild iguanas. Now I know iguanas are herbivores, but I am not sure if I'll be able to force myself to see the park. Surely it would be interesting, but considering I have a severe phobia of frogs, iguanas really aren't that appealing to me. ew. But there is also a boardwalk named Malecon 2000 downtown on the River Guayas and an artsy neighborhood with tons of colorful houses called Cerro Santa Ana that I'd like to see. So there are ways to pass the time.

I am not sure why, but I am nervous about actually getting out of Ecuador and to Milwaukee just in terms of getting through customs (in a timely fashion) because I've never had to do anything like that before and I read that in Miami, where I'll be entering the country, everyone's bags get opened and searched and  then you have to recheck your luggage.

All in all, I'm ready to go home. I will miss Loja beause it is a beautiful place, but home is where your heart is.

I'll also miss this little guy. He's been a great surrogate cat.

10, almost 9

I'm going home so soon. Just today I started to get a little sad about leaving here, like so sad that I was thinking maybe I should stay, but then I think about it a little more and then I'm ready to go home again.

Things have been going well lately. My birthday was fine, definitely relaxing. I got a tattoo that I'm not in love with yet which is a total bummer.  But I am planning to get it fixed / more added to it when I go home. It'll be a good souvenir regardless.

I've been looking online for recipes for ecuadorian food I can make when I get home so I'm pretty excited to be able to prepare some ecuadorian food for my family.

Tomorrow starts the last week of classes for me. It's the last weeks of the cycle and I think it'll be the most stressful week of the whole course because of final exams, presentations, etc etc. Hopefully it isn't too awful. I would like my last week here to be enjoyable.

I'm leaving Loja on the 29th and then if my flight out of here isn't cancelled, I will be staying in Guayaquil for a day/night and flying out of Guayaquil, through Miami, Chicago, and land in Milwaukee late on the 30th. Flights to Guayaquil from Loja lately have been cancelled for some reason so I need to go to the travel agency that I purchased the ticket from tomorrow to see if they can find out why the flights are cancelled and what the likelihood of mine being cancelled is because there is only one flight to guayaquil a day and if my flight is cancelled, i'll have to take the 45 min trip back to Loja and then get on a bus ASAP to Guayaquil to make the 10 hour ride there rather than the 45 minute flight...... ugh. I hope it doesn't come to that. One way or another, I am getting home on June 30th!

:)

almost 24

Since I´ve been patiently counting down to June 29/30, time has been flying by. My countdown calander has almost two weeks crossed off on it. The other night I was unable to fall asleep worrying about whether I will make it home or not. I know everything will be fine, but I´m worried.

Tomorrow is my birthday and I have an appointment at 11AM to get a tattoo. Hopefully the artist shows up. He missed an appointment that one of my roommates had with him a few Sundays ago because of a family emergency so hopefully he doesn´t have to leave the country again this weekend. In recent years, I have never really thought much about my birthday until the actual day. I don´t love being the center of attention so I am pretty lax in planning anything. Last year I had a party, which was nice, but this year I´m in Ecuador and I´ll be going out to dinner tonight and then to a bar to see a Queen tribute band perform. I´m sure it´ll be fun, but I don´t even love Queen so we´ll see how it turns out. Surely it´ll be entertaining at least. Tomorrow I plan to get my tattoo and then probably sit around the rest of the day. As I have probably mentioned, Sundays in Loja are incredibly boring and not many businesses are open so almost every Sunday is a lazy Sunday.

I just ate the best chicken empanada ever at Tamal Lojano. Just writing that so that when I look back on this, I don´t forget.

Til next time.

faltan tres semanas

Oy vey, it´s been a while. We haven´t had an internet connection in our apartment for a few days so that is why I haven´t posted. Things are going well. I have three (THREE!) weeks left here and I´m getting pretty excited about going home. The more I think about it though, I might miss Ecuador. Not so much my apartment, the rain, or weirdly cut pieces of chicken, but the mountains, my students, and speaking in Spanish all the time.

It´s been pretty chilly here lately and I find it kind of funny when my students come to class and complain about how they are freezing and then rub their hands together for heat. I tell them frankly to put on a sweater and quit complaining because they don´t understand what being so cold that you could be freezing means. 68 degrees is definitely not freezing. It´s lovely.

School is starting to wind down, but not in the sense of winding down. My two older classes have one test next week for two days, then three days of review, and then a cummulative final. My other two classes aren´t so bad, but my junior tweens have really been getting on my nerves lately. Kids who used to be so well-behaved are turning into little demons constantly begging me to go outside to play soccer. Seriously, what´s the deal? We have class for 50 minutes a day and they can´t handle not being able to play soccer in that time. It´s pretty annoying. They also steal my water bottle and demand that I let them drink from it, steal my teacher´s book to see the answer to the work book exercises and throw paper at me occassionally. After calling someone in to discipline the class several times, I have opted to leave the door open during our lesson because my room is across from the secretary´s desk where the school inspector is usually working. Thankfully, these kids fear the inspector or I would have run out of ideas long ago. I break up at least one fight a day in that class. Ugh. My kids class is still driving me crazy on a daily basis. They are super cute, but don´t let that fool you. They eat candy before class. They are constantly in competition with each other in terms of finishing activities, they scream, run at me and erase anything I write on the whiteboard, and ask if it´s time for class to end 35 minutes before class ends.

I do really enjoy teaching English, but it´ll be nice to have a break from it and decide if it´s really what I want to do or if I do actually want to go to culinary school and open up a bakery/cafe. Great idea, no? I think so.

Well I am starving so it´s time to go home and make some pasta bolognese. Yum.... it´s a staple here (for me and Annabel)

si ves

Loja is boring. Usually anyway. But occasionally, we find something to do. This past weekend, I went to the botanical gardens on the very south side of the city, which was interesting. There were some cool plants there, but mostly it was just something to do on an otherwise boring day. Life is so boring without TV. I realize that's completely ridiculous to say, but it's true. Try to go 5 months without watching TV and tell me what you think. I suppose it depends where you live though definitely because if you lived in a booming metropolis, there would be tons of stuff to do on weekends. On the other hand, if you live in Loja, you'd feel differently.

I'm coming home in 30 days. I am really happy about that because I have had it up to *here* with the bed in my bedroom. It's probably the most uncomfortable bed ever.... It seems that most beds here, unless you're richy rich, have a frame, and boards that fit on the frame, and a foam mattress that's about three inches thick. Because the mattress is foam, it gets flat and stays that way, so honestly, the part of the mattress that I sleep on it maybe a half inch thick...so I wake up with a sore back and if I sleep on my side if feels like I have bruises in the morning. Awesome, I know. So I can't wait to get home for that reason, among others, but I'm pretty glad about leaving this horrible bed behind.

I would have liked to travel more while in Ecuador. I may still go to Quito before I leave, but I guess it would have been nice to see more of Ecuador and even other countries. However, traveling on a 4 dollar an hour salary is pretty much out of the question and the school I work at requires that if you want to take a vacation, you have to get someone to cover all your classes. Soooooo.... yeah. Some day I will come back to South America so I can see Macchu Pichu, Iguazu Falls, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Patagonia, and the Galapagos Islands (when I'm super rich. ha!) Plus, traveling in Ecuador requires that you sit on a bus for long periods of time and I've always hated buses so I just don't want to travel to avoid a several hour bus ride. The ride to Quito is 14 hours, and I think I might do it just because I want to see Quito for sure and stand on the equator. Plus, I've heard that if you take a night bus, it's not so bad. We'll see about that.

I have four weeks left of classes. I think I'm really going to miss some of my students. Of course, they are not even close to me age-wise, but I've become attached to some of my junior tweens, tweens, and teens. They're pretty awesome people and I wish I could stay here to see how much they change and how much more English they learn as they grow older, but alas, I won't be doing that so I'll just enjoy the last weeks classes I have with all of them.

Hope everyone reading this is well! See you in a month, USA.


PS. here are couple pictures from at the botanical gardens. gigantic leaves, fake swinging and real swinging from vines, and a bonsai garden. Click on them to enlarge.

fireworks are cool. anywhere.

Tonight after class, Annabel and I went out to dinner at El Sendero, which we go to abouuuut once a week. As in, the people who voluntarily work there recognize us when we come in and we often see people we recognize when we go. It's a restaurant owned by American missionaries so the food is pretty good, pretty home-y, and it's very well....American. They have hamburgers, tacos, burritos, quesadillas, chicken wraps, cappucinos, mochas, sandwiches etc etc. Yes, several Mexican menu items, but the food is hardly Mexican and is very delicious. And their limonada so good. Anyway, usually when we go, I get papas y carne which consists of what the restaurant call "rustic potatoes", which are little cubes of roasted potatoes, a hamburger patty, a small salad of lettuce, tomato, and vinegarette, and a sunny side up fried egg. 1) before coming here, I hated fried eggs. Now, I eat them about 4 to 5 times a week for breakfast. 2) Papas y carne, in every other restaurant is called papi carne, and in every other restaurant I've tried it, is not as good. 3) I will be making papas y carne when I get home because it, along with hamburgers (moreso burgers), as bad as that is, has become kind of a staple for us foreigners here.

After dinner, we went across the street to the plaza of San Sebastian because as we were eating I noticed people were walking past carrying cellos in cases so I was curious. There was a concert set up outside in the square. I think it was the Loja Symphony Orchestra. Pretty cool. We didn't stay for the whole concert because after a couple pieces, there were people singing with the orchestra, which I don't love sooooo we left. But the music was cool, very Latin American, which was weird for me to hear especially because I grew up playing the cello and playing and hearing primarily classical pieces...never once something you could salsa to. Regardless, it was cool.

Then after we stopped at a pharmacy and I picked up some ivy extract syrup to suppress my what seems to be neverending cough slash sickness in general, we went home. And let me tell you, it is convenient to have a 5th floor bedroom with a wall of windows because I just watched a 15 minute fireworks display while sitting on my bed. I'm assuming the fireworks started after the concert ended. It was pretty cool. I kind of felt like it was the 4th of July and then I got excited that I will be home by the 4th of July this year. Fireworks are pretty spectacular wherever you see them, don't you think? I'd post some pictures that I took, but I think we all pretty much understand what a fireworks display looks like.

By the way, thanks to the people who have either commented here or mentioned that they read my blog. I appreciate it.

Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday AND we don't have class on Monday because it 's the 24th of May which is a national holiday celebrating the Battle of Pinchincha. Our favorite pizza place is on the street called 24 (veinticuartro) de Mayo. I'll look up some information on the Batalla de Pinchincha on Monday when I'm bored to learn more about the holiday. I'm realizing that even though I majored in Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies, I know next to nothing about Ecuadorian history. Speaking of that, two days ago my teen students asked what I studied in college and I explained that I double majored in Spanish and the aforementioned six-word major and their prompt response was, of course in Spanish, "So.... what can you do with that major?" Typical. My response was "Anything I want to do." ....I should have listened to my sister when she told me to pick a more practical major. If only we could all go back and change our lives. Oh well, I'm here now. Living in the moment and trying to enjoy it as much as I can. I'm glad to be able to speak and understand Spanish so well. I hardly remember anything now about the culture, history, or politics of hispanic countries, but whatever man. Enough with the stream-of-consciousness writing.

It'll be a slightly boring weekend surely because I am sick so I don't want to travel and now Annabel is sick too, same cold surely. eeeeeeeeeyuck!

dead or dying

Wow, it's been a while since I've written anything in here. Mainly because I'm convinced that barely anyone reads it and partly because there's never really much to write except silly stories about my various students or trips to local stores or restaurants. Speaking of restaurants... Annabel, Lainey, and I stumbled upon this AMAZING restaurat yesterday called Mar Roja. They have mostly seafood and also some chicken and steak dishes. I had breaded corvina and it was seriously one of the top three fish dishes I've ever had in my life. SO GOOD! Lainey had a kind of soup/stew with shrimp in it. I tasted a bit of it and the shrimp seemed so fresh I felt like I was eating straight out of whatever body of water it came from. Anyway, yes, it was fantastic. We always complain about how Loja really lacks in terms of dining options. We always go to the same maybe 4 or 5 places so it is always a treat to find a new place.

The weather is so unpredictable here, which I may have said already. For a couple weeks it will rain every day, then be sunny a couple days, then rainy again. It's been sunny here since Wednesday and even though winter was supposed to have started at the beginning of may, it is HOT here when it's sunny. I guess I'm not complaining because I hate rain, but because I'm from Wisconsin, I always wish it was a little bit cooler here during the day.

Teaching is still going fine, though I'm pretty sure that if I ever have children, I will be paying someone to take them off my hands from the age of 6 through 8. Nine years old or more, fine, but earlier, I can't take it. Is taking care of small children as hard as being their English teacher? It's like I have an hour a day of sheer torture. Those little brats are malicious. Some of them, of course, aren't bad. And they are all cute when they're sitting still and listening to you teach the differences between prepositions of place such as next to, between, and in front of. But the second you turn your back, forget it. Oh well, I think I can handle six more weeks of those little buggers. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE my teen class. My students are AWESOME. They are hilarious, they respect me, and just in general have really fantastic personalities. They asked me the other day how to say "I will miss you" and "I miss you" in terms of me leaving at the end of June. I will really miss those kids. I am still angry that I'm five and a half years older than the oldest student in that class because I wish that either I was younger or they were older so we could hang out outside of class. Oh wellllllllllllll.

I'll be home in 44 days. June 30th. I like Ecuador, but every day I feel a little more ready to go home. Most of that excitement has to do with the apartment I live in. The place is a pig sty, made exponentially worse by the fact that the men working in other parts of the building sawing tiles and wall apart send their dust into our apartment. There is literally a layer of dust on everything in the living room, kitchen, and guest bathroom. When I open my bedroom door in the morning to go make breakfast, the whole apartment is cloudy with dust. It's the dust, and the fact that my roommate's cat has (well, had) fleas. Thankfully, after she had him neutered, she got him so flea medication so the fleas are no longer on him, but they are all around our apartment. There were seemingly hundreds in my room. They are tiny, but you can feel when they are on you because their bite stings. And they are hard to kill by just squeezing them between your fingers. I bought some flea killing RAID insecticide spray today and since I sprayed every square inch of my bedroom, bedding, and bathroom earlier this afternoon, the only fleas I've seen are the ones that are dead or dying on my bathroom floor. None whatsoever on my bed, thank goodness! Fleas are gross and because I knew they were crawling around my room, I constantly felt itchy when I was in here.

I am grateful for lazy Sundays.

Hope you are all doing well!

Vilcabamba

This weekend, I went to Vilcabamba with some fellow teachers. Vilcabamba is a hazardus 45 minute drive through the mountains from Loja. It's a tiny town of only 4,000 people and only one main square, but the hostel we stayed at, Hosteria Izcayluma is outside the city and is pretty much a jungle sanctuary. It was such a beautiful place. There was tons of flora and awesome views since the hostel is on a mountain outside of the valley. So beautiful. Hammocks all over, a lagoon style pool, a covered outdoor restaurant where I ate stroganoff with chicken and homemade pasta. The hostel is owned by two german brothers I guess. They have their own bar and pool and ping pong and a giant chess set. It was pretty cool. I would have liked to stay longer, but we only went from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon since we all have to work today. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Vilcabamba on Sunday. Even though it was Sunday, most places in town were open and people were walking around everywhere. Vilcabamba is pretty famous because it is known as the valley of longevity because people supposedly live to be 140 years old there. Of course, it's not true, but the bottled water there advertises longevity as do some of the businesses, like the ice cream shop across the street from the restaurant we ate at. Ice cream of longevity. If only... haha.

Anyway, it was a great trip. I have some bug bites that itch like crazy, but it could certainly be worse.

Here is a link to my pictures on google in case you don't have facebook. Vilcabamba All the flower pictures are mostly for my mom and grandpa to see because I'm sure they will love them. The flowers are all from the grounds of the hotel.

a week later

This post is dedicated to my grandpa who as I was told, checks my blog every night. Sorry I never post anything, Grampy!

I'm sick again. I have a cold. Nothing extreme, but I guess working in a school in a foreign country is slowly killing me.... At least during this illness, I can stand up and am able to walk so it could be worse.

We still don't have consistent running water. Let me tell you right now, people, like you, I previously took my seemingly neverending supply of running water for granted. When the water comes on now, I was my hands, brush my teeth, etc as quickly as possibly because in a matter of seconds it could be gone. Thankfully, I was able to shower today. Pouring cold bottles of water over each others' heads to wash our hair leaves something to be desired, and by that I mean, a hot shower.

Apparently May is the beginning of winter in Loja. I have noticed that it is getting a little cooler lately and raining a lot more than normal so that must be winter.... slightly cooler, not so sunny, and quite a bit more rainy than normal. Weirdly, I do miss cold weather, but even more weird is that at night when it's below 70 degrees, I shiver and have to put on a sweatshirt. Ay!

Things are okay here. I'm accustomed to being ill most of the time. However, I am pretty excited about going home in two months where I won't be sick all the time *knock on wood*.

Sorry I don't have anything exciting or super happy to report on, but working is the same as it always is.

oy vey.

Let me tell you, being without running water, even for only 3 hours every night SUCKS. but at always, it could be worse.

I will probably be home before July 4th.

If you don´t have pictures and want to see pictures from my mini-vacation to Cuenca a couple weeks ago, click here.

Happy EARTH DAY!

joint pain, no sleep, hospitals, oh my.

The university hospital in Loja is pretty nice. I know that from my visit with an internal medicine doctor last friday. I was sore on Thursday, couldn´t fall asleep on Thursday night because my joints hurt, cried a lot, eventually woke up on Friday and from all of the pain I was practically unable to move at all. I got out of bed successfully on the fifth try, walked like a zombie to my bedroom door, yelled for my roommates help, went to the hospital, saw a doctor, had an xray of my hands done and blood drawn, was diagnosed with unspecified rheumatoid arthritis, received a prescription for non-FDA approved arthritis medicine, got home, and stayed in bed for a day and a half. I started feeling better on Saturday afternoon. I was able to put pressure on my wrists a little, could move enough to take a shower, and walk down the stairs without crying. Thankfully it´s only been getting better since then. Today, I feel almost back to normal. I still have pain in my ankles, wrists, elbows, knees, and fingers, but nothing like I have experienced in the past few days. I still have to go to the hospital and find out the results of the tests that were done, which I am nervous about. Even though I speak Spanish well, I am not fluent. Even when I was at the hospital on Friday I had a bit of trouble with all the directions I was given, probably because I was focused mostly on how much pain I was in, but still. Blood test results in Spanish? I probably wouldn´t understand them in English anyway. Really, I just want to hear that everything is fine and that maybe I was just really exhausted or something. We will see.

Seriously though, it is really frustrating how often I am ill here. It makes me want to just jump on a plane and fly home. I am grateful though that seeing a doctor, getting a prescription, an xray, and blood tests only cost me $70. At home without insurance, that would have been 8 times more surely.


Happy Monday!

a work day in the life of

Beware: this is long.

How´s the job going you ask? Well, have a seat. I´ll tell you. Teaching is fun, up to a certain point. I think that point was today. Here´s what went down. I am still subbing at the local rich private school. The kids there, though horribly behaved, tried to bribe me today to stay and be their teacher. I told them they already have a teacher and one of them pulled $10 out of his pocket and begged me not to leave after this week. I told them frankly, they are too badly-behaved, would rather through halves of limes at each other or sleep than listen to me so I certainly don´t want to stay. Though seriously, I think I could handle it. The kids there all seem to like me even though they are terrible. It sounds like the are poorly behaved in every class regardless of the subject, where the teacher is from, or how long the teacher is going to be around. After 4 hours of obscenity and utter malarkey at Iberoamericano, I had a two hour break before I had to teach at my normal school. That´s when things really got out of hand. A 6 year old in my kids class asked me to go to the bathroom today and like any other time any small child asks to go to the bathroom, I told her she could. Besides, she is normally a good student, more advanced than all of the older kids in her class, and clings to me like I´m a direct relative. Well, 5 minutes later she arrive back to the class arm firmly held by the school inspector who proceeded to tell me that she saw this little girl running back to the school from a small market two blocks away. After that, she yelled at me and told me that no one is allowed to leave my classroom and that it would be my fault if something happened to one of them while crossing the street. First of all, how was I supposed to know this little girl was going to run down the stairs, out the building, down the street to the store and run back. You´d think that with 6 year olds running around, the outside of the school would be guarded at all times. There is no possible way I could have foreshadowed that this girl was lying to me. The age of reason is 8. How did she come up with this idea to lie to the teacher and run to the store. And no one leave the room during class for any reason? You, dear reader,  try to sit with 15 six to eight year olds and see their reaction when you tell them they can´t go to the bathrom. Believe me, it´s not easy.This little pirates mutiny on a regular occassion by whispering to each other, picking up their backpacks, running as a herd out the swinging classroom door a half hour before class ends, eventually come back and do it again 15 minutes later. What part of class is over when the teacher says so and you have to obey her don´t they understand? Sounds like all of it.

 Anyway, in my next class... same old same old. I have 25 nine to eleven year olds. They´re at the age where boys still won´t do partner activities with girls and most boys won´t do partner activities with the other boys. They´d rather fight. While helping a couple students, one left the room. I didn´t know. Again, the inspector brought him back. Apparently he left because he had a headache and it was loud in the room. No one can leave this class anymore either. Hearing 10 year olds complain about how they need water or have to go the bathroom is worse than little kids because they are more persistent i.e. have less respect. I love some of the kids in that class. They are smart, super sweet, and so interested in asking me questions about myself, the USA, when I´m going home, if I like Ecuador etc etc. Though it could be a deceptive time-wasting ploy to avoid learning anything. At least they hug me goodbye every day so who can be sure?

 We´re watching a movie currently in my tween and also my teens class. The tweens class was interupted today because the inspector had to find out why a few of the 10 students in the class keep regularly skipping class. They came back from her with the attendance sheet, begged me to change their attendance record. I wouldn´t do it because if someone doesn´t come to class, I most certainly am not changing it so they don´t get in trouble. So the girls ran back to the inspector, talked to her for a bit, came back, handed me the attendance sheet and I noticed that magically, they hadn´t missed so many days.

 My teens class, well I love them. They are a breath of fresh air to my otherwise suffocatingly long day (long only because I have been working twice as many hours this past week.) I can tell them they are my favorite, they tell me I´m great, and it´s all in all a great atmosphere. Sure a few of them are super chatty, but that´s to be expected. Of course they mock me because I can´t make a rolling r sound and I´m supposed to be able to speak fairly fluent spanish. I´d mock me too. They get quiet and work when I tell them too. It´s fantastic. I´d teach all teen classes if I could, but surely not all teens are as fantastic as the ones in my class.

 In all serious though, I do really like teaching English. It´s definitely the best job I´ve ever had even though it is horrifically frustrating at times. I realize too that school children are the same everywhere and when I was younger, the kids in my class were the same. I, if you weren´t aware, was truely an ideal student. Even ask my parents ;) No, I´m not even kidding. After second grade, I was angelic.

Some days I miss home so badly I could cry. Some days I love that the sun shines so hot here, that I can see mountains in all directions, and that I am helping kids learn a possibly life changing skill. Things could definitely be tons worse. I could be working in some call center somewhere. ...ha.

hello again

Hello again. It´s been a while. I apologize for my lack of updating but after vacation last week I have been super busy this week teaching twice as much as normal. Whew! At least it´s Saturday and after working this morning, I have at least tomorrow off.

Anyway, vacation in Cuenca was pretty nice. The city itself it totally beautiful. Unfortunately though because we were there during holy week, a lot of things were closed so we weren´t able to see any museums or anything like that. After 4 days, I was ready to get back to Loja just because we had nothing left to see. Thankfully though Cuenca has a plethora of international resturants that aren´t available in Loja. We had sushi one night, I had an awesome salmon dish another night and so on and so forth. Delicious! I uploaded a bunch of pictures to Facebook from vacation and will put some on here or on google photos when I get another chance.

This past week was for the most part... exhausting. Teaching at Colegio Iberoamericano is tough because the students first of all, don´t pay attention in general and secondly, because I´m a substitute teacher, there are even worse. The kids themselves are pretty cool as far as I can tell, but they just aren´t so good at being diligent students. A couple people in the classes told me they wish I could stay and be there teacher after I finish this next week and explained that I really don´t want to stay just because no one behaves. The school campus is really cool though so it´s nice to be able to bring the classes outside and just hang out for a bit and get to know some of them. The teen boys are pretty much just inappropriate in their comments and whatnot, but it´s all in fun.

The weather is beautiful today. I washed my clothes on the roof earlier this afternoon and surely it´ll all pretty much dry by now because the sun is so hot. Lovely. I will say though that I´ll be glad to get back home where I can enjoy the luxury of washing my clothes and drying them whenever I want. I have brought my clothes to a luandromat here where it gets washed, dried, and folded for me which is nice but too costly to do regularly.

Happy Saturday!

8 weeks since i left home

I can´t believe it´s only been 8 weeks since I left home to come here. Oy vey.

In the mean time, here are a couple unclear pictures of the full moon from two nights ago. I just took them to show how the moon colored the clouds around it. Pretty bizarre, no?

I promise to post some more exciting things after the end of this weekend. Although next week I will be working my normal hours plus more again at Colegio Iberoamericano to cover someone who is going on vacation. ...hooray.

ramen noodles

In case you hadn´t heard, I found Ramen noodles in Loja. Things are much better now that I have Ramen noodles and I am not ill (for now, at least). I do apologize for not updating my blog very often, but it´s really due to the fact that I now just had a scheduled routine every day so I feel like there really isn´t much worth writing about.

This week, however, I am not only teaching my normal hours, but also at another school because one of the teachers is in Peru with her sister on vacation. The school I am teaching at this week is the most expensive private school in the city. It´s on the north side of Loja and on top of a pretty steep hill that I am glad I haven´t had to walk up. But anyway, the views of the mountains surround the valley from the school are a-ma-zing. Seriously beautiful. I am grateful though that this week is the exam week for the school so besides reviewing and giving test, I don´t have to teach at all, just babysit. There is a class of tween kids there (ranging from 10 to 16) and they are SO NAUGHTY. unbelievably so. I don´t remember any of my classmates being so bad when I was in middle school. I realize though I am just a substitute teacher, but they are awful and thankfully my last class with them was today. It´s a class of about 18 students, 15 boys and only 3 girls. The girls, of course, are well-behaved. One of the boys uses a mirror to try to look up their uniform skirts, which is totally inapprop. I yelled at him of course and I guess for some other reason, he almost got expelled from the school today. One of the girls brought her pet mouse to school and hid it in her sleeve all day except during English class. She asked me the other day if I liked mice and I said I do so I think that´s why she brought it. Another girl in the class said she wanted me to stay and didn´t want their regular teacher to come back, which I took as a very nice compliment. The other classes I´m subbing are fine. Little kids are super kid, 16 year old are cool and the 18 year olds who are just about to graduate seem to know more about English grammar terminology than I do. I can explain any part of English grammar in English or Spanish, but when it comes to knowing immediately what a grammar term is.... I have to think for a second. I took a grammar class so I know what all the terms are, but I haven´t been asked about any since I started teaching until this week... probably because I teach mostly level 1 classes and my level 4 class at Canadian House Center is filled with 10 delinquents who obviously should but unfortunately don´t know the difference between "is" and "are", that is, when to use either. Their lack of English ability more sad than it is annoying. "Be" is the first verb an English student is taught how to conjugate. You´d think that they´d know that by now.

Anyways, hope you are all doing well. I am planning on traveling with a couple of my roommates next Thursday because we don´t have class Thursday or Friday due to Holy Week. That should definitely give me something good to write about and nice pictures to post! Can´t wait.... I sure do hope I don´t get sick before we´re supposed ot go.

Peace-

hi

In case there is anything worrying about me, I am feeling A LOT better today.


Also, Happy St. Patrick´s Day!


That is all.

sheesh

Forget anything I wrote about going to Vilcabamba or Bob Marley tributes this past weekend. I spent Thursday night through this morning in bed (apart from teaching Friday), sick as a dog! I won´t go into specifics of symptoms because surely you don´t want to hear the gross details, but at the least, from what my mom says I had a strong case of gastroenteritis aka food poisoning. Waking up sore on Thursday morning was only the beginning. Thankfully, I´m feeling quite better today. I´m glad my mom is a nurse. She called me every day to check up on me and gave me advice, told me to eat only bread and other bland foods, which I have been doing.... I´m going to try to work so hopefully I can make it through without keeling over and eh hem, running out of the classroom to the bathroom. You get the picture. Anywho.... I missed out on going out for Charles´ birthday Thursday night, the Bob Marley tribute at Casa Tinku on Friday, work on Saturday morning, and the party that we hosted in our apartment on Saturday night. What a lousy weekend... I decided that if  I don´t get 100% better or something goes wrong in the next few days, I´m just going to go home. It´s not worth it being here and getting sick all the time. Understandably most of it is food related, which is unavoidable and can happen at home, but definitely not to the scale and frequency that I´ve dealt with it here.

Hope you all had a good weekend.... and here´s to hoping I fully recuperate and don´t have to fly back home anytime too soon.

ugh

I think that I am cursed. I get sick, feel better, something else happens, I get better, then I wake up with a sore throat and an aching body this morning. Has Ecuador cursed me? I am never constantly plagued with some sort of illness or symptoms while I´m at home. Maybe my immune system is really weak? Who knows...

I´m glad it´s Thursday already. This week is going kind of quickly, but the month of March on a whole seems to be crawling by at a snail´s pace. Hopefully this weekend is good. Today is my roommate Charles´s birthday so I think we´re throwing some kind of party on Saturday, but I don´t know the details and actually tomorrow night, there´s a Bob Marley tribute band playing at Casa Tinku (where I saw the Beatles tribute band) so that should be at least amusing. On Saturday, Annabel and I might to go Vilcabamba, but I am not positive about that.

Two new teachers arrived yesterday. Both from the US, Seattle and somewhere in Calfornia. The girl from Seattle is living in our apartment.

Anyway, things are well. I am ready though to get out of this city and see more of what Ecuador has to offer... 5 weeks in the same city is a long time.

Have a great day to whoever reads this.

march 8

Happy Monday! ...really, are mondays ever happy? Who gets excited about the start of their work week?... yuck! Anyways, I had a good weekend, stayed in on Friday and watched a movie. There are tons of DVD stores here that sell downloaded copies of DVDs for around $1.50, which is awesome because that´s cheaper than it costs to rent a DVD. Granted, they are burned copies, but they work just as well. It´s convenient.
 We went out on Saturday for Cassie´s birthday, had a good time, and then I lounged around most of yesterday and watched another DVD.

Two of my classes have exams this week. I have done as much as I could to help prepare them so hopefully they all do okay...

Here are some more pictures. Click on them to make them larger.

monthaversary

Happy Loja One Monthaversary to myself (and also Annabel since we arrive here on the same day).
Annabel and I both agree that it´s hard to tell if the first month here has gone quickly or slowly since we both feel like we´ve been here for such a short amount of time, but that we´ve been away from our respective homes forever.

And PS, I am definitely coming home this July rather than staying here for a whole year. I won´t go into details about it here. :)

In case you were wondering what my roommates look like. Annabel, Cassie, and Charles.

let it be

Pardon me for not updating in a while. It´s just that during school week, nothing fantastically exciting ever happens. I wake up in the morning, make breakfast, plan lessons, get lunch, and teach from 3 to 7PM. Then I come home, exhausted, read or watch a movie, make dinner, and go to sleep. At least I have a routine now. That´s comforting.

Last night we had a party. It was supposed to only be a get together of a few people before going out to Casa Tinku, which most of us did, but Charles stayed behind with another teacher who doesn´t live at our apartment to keep an eye on the place and the random Ecuadorians in it. We went to Casa Tinku because there was a Beatles tribute band playing and they were super good. The singer of the band was English so that was helpful to hear an English-speaking person singing. The rest of the band was seemingly Ecuadorian. It was good too because every time we go out and see live music I have no idea what the songs are and can´t sing along. It seemed that all the teachers that went to the bar to see the tribute band really enjoyed being able to sing the songs with the band. And it was really funny watching the locals sing the words they knew of the songs too. We stayed at Tinku until about 1:45 and then Annabel and I went home to find about 10 random guys sitting in our living room, all of our alcohol gone, and Charles passed out in his bed. We proceeded to kick everyone out with no problem whatsoever since they were all pretty nice guys and we just sitting around listening to music. However, after they left, we noticed that not only was all the alcohol we bought completely gone, but they had also eaten a bunch of our food while we were away including the jar of Nutella I bought. The nerve! And someone had eaten Charles´s hotdogs, which we realized after seeing of hot dog puke all over one of our bathrooms. What a situation.... it was pretty weird, but oh well, it could have been a lot worse for sure.

The weekend goes by way too quickly. Hope you all had a good one :)

some pictures of my apartment and view from the roof

49 stairs

Well, moved into the new apartment last night. No one was expecting that we would actually move this weekend because on Saturday, we phoned Michelle and she said it was unlikely that we were moving. Then Sunday, Cassie, my Canadian roommate called Michelle´s husband Diego and he said "Why can´t you move today? I´ll be over to get you guys and your things in a half hour." A half hour to pack up our whole house? Talk about  a whirlwind. Thankfully it was more like an hour. Then we drove one load of stuff to the new place. Annabel and I were dropped off with those things to start hauling them up 49 stairs to our apartment (yes, we counted the stairs). Once all the stuff was there, Annabel and I had taken about eight trips up the apartment I´d say. Walking up to the apartment is definitely good exercise. I haven´t really unpacked anything yet because my wardrobe and drawers are pretty dusty and I don´t have any hangers.... and no time to go out and buy stuff today so it´ll have to wait until tomorrow. The apartment, as a whole, it probably not as spectacular as I made it sound, but for Ecuadorian standards in terms of what I´ve seen here, it´s really nice. I will post some pictures as soon as I get a chance. The best part about the place is definitely the view from the roof. You can see all the mountains surrounding the valley and all the monuments in the city. It´s pretty beautiful. And even though I did kind of miss sleeping on the floor of Annabel´s room last night, haha, it was really great to wake up in a bed in my own room. A maintance man who works for Diego fixed my bathroom plumbing this morning too which is great because last night when I turned the faucet on to test it, the water went straight to the floor rather than through pipes because the pipe was literally severed in half. All is good now.

Anyway, here´s to another week of teaching. I am glad because two of my classes are being divided in half today (hopefully) which means it will be a lot easier on me. My kids class has a test tomorrow in which they have to fill in missing letters of the alphabet, unscramble sentences like "look at the board" and "sit down" and figure out what to fill in in the question How do __ spell ____ name?". I hope they all pass.... yikes. I know that some of them haven´t been very focused on English during class, rather walking around getting different colored pencils from other students and coloring in their book.

I saw five of my students around town yesterday while Annabel and I were walking to and from the Central Market that closed literally 5 minutes before we arrived (ugh...) and they were all ready excited to see me...hanging out of cars yelling ¨hi teacher!¨and whatnot. it was pretty cute.

Have a great day!

movin´ on up. literally.

BIG NEWS: We (my roommates and me) found out yesterday that instead of just staying in the apartment we live in right now and me moving into a different bedroom, my roommates and I are moving somewhere else, probably tomorrow or Sunday. And that somewhere else is a beautiful top two floors and roof apartment in downtown Loja in a building that the owners of our school bought last week. Literally, they bought the entire building last week. We just saw the place last night and I´m not sure exactly what floors its on, just that we have to walk up a lot of stairs to get to the apartment, but I would say that our apartment is floors 4 and 5 and also the rooftop terrace. It´s smack dab in the middle of downtown Loja and the views from the roof are INCREDIBLE. We have an actual living room furnished with a coffee table, two chairs, and an IKEA futon (brought here from Canada I guess). We got into the apartment and immediately sat on the futon. I haven´t sat on a sofa since I got here, just mattresses and plastic or metal chairs. The dining room area has a table that isn´t an outside plastic picnic type table. Real wood with a lot of chairs around it. It has a pretty legit kitchen. No oven, but who would expect that, but a lot of stoage space and real counters. In the living room there is a bar area which is super nice. There are 6 bedrooms total ranging from tiny to gigantic. Mine is gigantic, about twice as big as my bedroom at home, and has a private bathroom and get this!, costs only $85 per month, which makes me bitter that once I paid $420 per month for a room half the size and no private bathroom. Cost of living is definitely relative to income wherever you live. Granted, I am making only $320 per month here, but I can certainly afford $85 with what I saved up before coming.

Anyways, Charles (my Nigerian housemate) has the other big bedroom and Annabel has the one next to mine. How convenient. Not sure what room my Canadian roommate and her boyfriend are going to live in, but time will tell. Charles made sure to write our names on the bedroom doors last night with a whiteboard marker to claim them. 

The school owners, Michelle and Diego, who are married, told us that we should be moving in this weekend so hopefully that happens. I really feel like this apartment would be used if Loja were to host a season of MTV´s Real World. It´s too nice. After we move in, I will take pictures and definitely get them uploaded here or somewhere else. Stay tuned.

The best part, in my opinion, about the apartment is that the walls facing the street are all glass. So that includes my bedroom. You stand next the wall, look down, get kind of frightened, and then appreciate the view. The two floors of the apartment kind of overhang over the rest of the building a bit which is freaky, but it´s also pretty sweet. Another good thing is that the rest of the building is going to be offices and no apartments so we will be the only ones living in there.

Sounds nice though, eh? I can´t wait. The new apartment is close to any store or resturant we would possibly need to go to except SuperMaxi (the most American style supermarket) and TropiBurger. bummerrrrr, haha. 

Too much excitement about moving. 

In other news, I´m still sick. Today, my nose is running like a faucet. Yum.

Have a great weekend!

pardon me while i whine

I have a cold. The whole shebang. Sore throat, coughing, runny nose, sneezing, body aches. It´s tough to teach 4 hours in a row with a sore throat. YUCK!

Thank goodness it´s Thursday already.
That is all.

two weeks since home.

Finally, now that Carnaval is done, businesses are open again and I can get on the internet….

So I’ve been in Loja for two weeks as of today (Wednesday, February 17). It’s hard to decide whether the time has passed quickly or slowly. The days I have to work go by quickly, but when we don’t have to work, the days pass pretty slowly. Because of Carnaval, the school was closed Monday and Tuesday. On Sunday, Annbel, newest teacher Kit from Boston, and I went to Parque Jipiro, which is in on the north side of the city. When we got to the park and I stepped out of the taxi, a truck passed us and someone poured a bucket of water over my head. Literally, the second I slammed the taxi door. Before going to the park on Sunday, Annabel and I walked around downtown Loja looking for an open internet café, which was quite a task as pretty much every business was closed because it was Sunday. Anyway, as we were walking, two kids on a balcony threw water on us and a guy that passed us poured a bottle of water on Annabel. When waiting for a taxi to get to Parque Jipiro, a city bus passed us and a kid standing on it sprayed us with foam. Unfortunate for sure. Getting soaked by strangers is not really fun and at the time, you get kind of pissed, but then just laugh it off. Thank goodness Carnaval is over. Okay, back to Parque Jipiro. It is this huge recreational park with a swimming pool, skate park, basketball courts, soccer fields, paddleboat pond, pony and horse rides, volleyball courts, and loads of playground equipment. There were also enclosures of ostriches, flamingoes, some llamas, and a goat. We walked around the park, the whole time nervous about potentially getting sprayed with foam. Rather, a couple guys soaked us with water bottles… three times. When they came after us a second time, I was yelling at them not to do it again and one of the guys said to me in Spanish “In our country, it is Carneval!” and I replied that I knew that and that I’m not a tourist, I live in Loja and didn’t want to be wet anymore …but to no avail, soaked again (see photo above). Oh well, at least it was warm and sunny on Sunday. Last week in one of my classes, I told them that in the US there is nothing quite like Carnaval except maybe Mardi Gras in New Orleans, which takes place at the same time and they were shocked.

One of my housemates is leaving to go back to Switzerland tomorrow and another one of my housemates is moving into his room, which means I get to move my things into the available room so I don’t have to sleep on my mattress on Annabel’s floor anymore and have all my stuff upstairs. Hooray! As a bonus, the room I am moving into has an in suite bathroom. How convenient!

On Monday night, my Canadian housemate’s Ecuadorian boyfriend cooked dinner for everyone. He made minestra (different beans and peppers in a sauce that consisted of peanut butter and various spices), chicken, rice, fried plantains, French fries, and a salad of avocado and tomato. O M G, it was so delicious! Definitely the best meal I’ve eaten here yet. TropiBurger (think Ecuadorian McDonald’s) is still in second place. Haha. Their clasica con queso combo is on par with McDonald’s for sure.

I’m still trying to determine if I want to stay here for 6 months or a year.  I am kind of grateful that we only have to teach three days this week. It will go by quickly.

Hope you are all doing well!

 ps Heres a picture of me in front of a Simon Bolivar mural across from la Puerta de la Ciudad, which I would also post pictures of, but waiting 5 minutes for one photo to upload is outrageous. I miss the speed of the internet at home.

poker face

Happy 10th birthday to my cousin, Dylan! I miss you and I hope you have a great day!

The school was chaos yesterday. No teacher planned a lesson because the owner of the school came into all of our classes on Thursday and told the students they could bring water balloons, foam spray cans, and water guns to celebrate carneval. I had some students who didn´t want to parktake in the fun outside the school in my first two classes so I taught them some Valentine´s Day phrases and we made Valentines cards. Those kids are so cute. I bought candy for all my classes as well, but in my 3rd class only 5 out of 27 students showed up and they all just threw buckets of water at other people and only came upstairs when they saw me through a window holding up candy I promised on Thursday to bring them. Not a single person showed up for my last class so that was convenient. I guess it makes sense because on Thursday I told them we weren´t going to learn anything new on Friday, just make Valentine´s Day cards (and what teenager wants to do that?) or they could celebrate carneval outside the school. A lot of students didn´t pay attention to the whole "only celebrate outside the school" bit because the school cleaning lady was sweeping tons of water out of the hallways of the school. I got sprayed by foam only once and otherwise just stayed in the school as much as possible to avoid getting soaked, but when I was leaving for the night a student who I don´t know poured a bottle of water on me... Oh well, it´s all in good fun.

Last night I went out to a bar called Casa Tinku with a bunch of other teachers and it was tons of fun. We had some drinks beforehand at someone´s house and took taxis to the bar. There was a band playing for a while and they were pretty good, then they just turned on a playlist of music. Lady Gaga´s song "Pokerface" and The Black Eyed Peas song "Ive Got A Feeling" are huge here right now. It was comforting to hear those and some other songs I know and after a few more drinks, we were all dancing like idiots. Good times.

Anyway, off to the Saturday open air market to stock up on fruits, vegetables, eggs, etc.

Hope everyone´s doing well!

a few pictures

 

Here are six pictures because I found an internet connection that is allowing me to upload them. I am sure they will not post in any particular order, but I´m sure you can figure out which picture is which: view of a street with colorful buildings, but not sure which street it is; the shower that electrocuted me and is almost lukewarm every day; a view from my bedroom window of the clouds covering the mountains before it started downpouring for the rest of the day; our kitchen sink and food storage area, modest no?; this river may look beautiful, but it´s main purpose is apparently to flow sewage through Loja. Whil standing on this bridge, I saw a little girl (see bottom right of pic) get pushed in the river in her school uniform; Annabel and I saw these cows a day before in a small lot between two houses on the same hill, but when we had our cameras the next day to take a picture of them, they had been moved to a more open space.

gettin into the swing of things

I hope this post finds you all well.

After three days of teaching, I am incredibly exhausted and at the same time relieved that so far, I really like my job. I am teaching four classes a day right now. The first is a beginners six to nine year old class, then beginners seven to nine years old, a level four (out of eight levels) 12-14 years old class, and lastly a beginners teen class (15-17 years old). There is definitely a benefit in teaching four different classes in a row in that time flies by, but by the end of the four hours I am exhausted mentally from having to teach in two languages. Planning for the lessons is going to be time consuming as well and the downside is that we don’t get paid for lesson planning. It seems like most teachers at the school rely on the books we’re teaching from for each class mostly and don’t do much more supplemental planning or out of the book activities. I can imagine that this is because they don’t get paid for lesson planning. It’s hard to want to spend a lot of time planning if you know that that’s more time you work without getting paid. I am trying to limit myself to no more than one hour per day of lesson planning. That way I am only missing out on getting paid four more dollars a day. Yes, the teachers at the school get paid $4.00 an hour. Ridiculous, I know, but I guess that’s just the way it works. Apparently it’s enough to make it here. But really, you can’t beat getting hugs from 30 young children every days. In Ecuador, it’s customary I guess for young students to hug their teachers. That certainly isn’t the case at home, but we were warned before starting to teach that a lot of the students are going to want to hug us every day. Adorable.

An update on Carneval, yesterday Annabel and I were walking to school to meet with the owner about signing a contract and a little boy hiding around a corner sprayed us with his water gun. Nothing serious, but a bit annoying nevertheless. In front of our school after classes, kids fill up water balloon from the faucet on the side of the building, throw them at each other, spray each other with cans filled with foam, but don’t do anything to the teachers (so far anyway). While just walking to the school right now, we saw a little girl get a bucket of water poured on her from a building above and a girl get an egg thrown at her (she was already soaked with water and foam)

In Ecuador, lunch is the biggest meal of the day. Most businesses, including our school, close from around noon to two in the afternoon every day for siesta. “Almuerzo”, or lunch, is served in most resturants as a soup, main dish with a meat and rice, and a drink. Sometimes even dessert. Almuerzo is always between $1.50 and about $2.50 depending where you go. Yesterday, Annabel and I wanted to try our first almuerzo so we walked around downtown Loja, went to two restaurants that are recommended in my Lonely Planet tour book. The first was a Mexican restaurant that was totally packed, no open tables, so we figured that they must have really great food, but didn’t stick around to wait for a table. We walked to another restaurant recommended by the book that was 2 blocks away and there wasn’t a single person in it. We walked in, waited for someone to approach us to get a table, but what we thought was the hostess desk was surrounded by woman talking and the only other person in there was a worker sweeping the floor. We waited a couple minutes, not knowing what to do, but then just left because no one took notice of us at all. Then we backtracked and went to a different restaurant we passed on the way and ate almuerzo there. The soup we had was pretty sketch. It was like a beef broth with plaintains, potatoes, and the most fatty, weird meat I’ve ever seen. Needless to say, I couldn’t eat the meat in the soup. After having been a vegetarian for over 10 years, there is still meat I can’t even bring myself to try. The main course was chicken with rice, which was fine. But the drink that we were served was like an horchata, chai tea drink that just tasted like what I think Christmas in a class tastes like. It was incredibly sweet, not awful, but certainly not a good match with chicken and rice. All ends well though because it only cost $1.75. I didn’t feel well last night or this morning though. My stomach is definitely not used to Ecuadorian food yet….

Well, that’s all for now. Just wanted to note that it’s warm and sunny here today. I am contemplating only staying for 6 months because the contact we’re signing is for 6 months, but we’ll see how much I love it here and if I want to stay longer as more time passes.

getting used to it

Firstly, happy birthday to my sister Elizabeth!

Seconly, sorry for the delay in updates. I haven't been able to use my own computer since I got to Loja. I've been paying to use the internet at various internet cafes. I'm on day six here and today is my first day of teaching. I start in less than one hour and as of right now, I have no idea what classes exactly I will be teaching today. It's the first day of the new terms for kids at the school so it's really chaotic, I guess. I will be teaching Monday through Fridays from 3PM to 7PM, which isn't a terrible schedule. That will give me time to do stuff during the day and not have to get home too late at night.

I am getting used to the house I am living in. I've figured out how to make the shower slightly warm, certainly not hot, but warm enough where taking a shower isn't torture. It only took a couple days and being electrocuted while showering to figure it out. Yikes.  I bought a new frying pan and pot to cook with and that has made things much easier. I am still sleeping on my mattress on Annabel's floor, which is fine. Because of the leaks in the roof in my actual room when it's raining and how cold it is up there at night, I don't forsee myself sleeping in there anytime soon. I am also getting used to not flushing toilet paper. Really, its not a bad as you might think. This morning, Annabel and I even flagged down the water and gas truck to buy a 50 pound jug of water since we were out and I got a bit sick after drinking the tap water last night.

It's great to have met Annabel on my way here and now have someone going through the exact same thing as me. We pretty much do everything together and we have the same work schedule so it's really convenient. We walked around downtown Loja a couple of times. There are shops everywhere. A lot of them sell just random stuff, anything from spoons to mirrors to sheets of paper, food, whole chickens, pretty much whatever they feel like selling I guess. We went in a few clothing stores as well, many of them sell American clothes like Abercrombie, American Eagle, and Hollister stuff. Bizarre. We went to one store called American Clothing that had a sign on the front with a picture of Melissa Joan Hart on it (think Sabrina the Teenage Witch). The store itself was just a thrift store and it was really weird.

We were walking around downtown today when all the young kids got out of school and were walking home wearing their uniforms. Carnaval is this coming weekend and it's customary here for kids to throw water balloons and eggs at people in celebration. We saw someone through an egg at a little girl and another kid with a squirt gun and quickly dodged in the other direction. I think it's even worse for "gringos" here because we stick out so hopefully I dont get any eggs or balloons thrown at me, but I've heard that it's very likely to happen.

I am definitely still going through culture shock, but it's getting better here every day. I got a cell phone yesterday and that was quite the ordeal. Thank goodness I speak Spanish. I got it mostly to use locally, but can make and receive calls from the US. It's pretty expensive to call here from the US I believe, but when I can figure out for sure how to call here, I'd be happy to give anyone my cell phone number.

I will try to get some more pictures posted as soon as I can find some place with a fast enough internet connection to make that possible.

at least i´m alive.

Well, I made it to Loja yesterday morning and it has been raining on and off since then. It has been quite a whirlwind since I arrived. Thankfully though I met a girl teaching here rnadomly at the airport in Quito before flying into Loja. It was totally bizarre. She approached me, asked me if I was from England. I said no, but quickly realized that she is. We then found out we were both flying into Loja to teach at the same school and now we´re housemates. Annabel is gracious enough to let me put my mattress on the floor of her bedroom in our house. Our house is totally modest by American standards. We have running water (I have yet to figure out how to make the shower warm), a refrigerator, and a 4 burner stovetop. That´s about it for luxuries.  I know it´s wrong to complain because that is how the majority of people live happily here. I will get used to it soon I´m sure, but culture shock set in for me as soon as Annabel and I walked into our house and right now it´s only one day later.

My bedroom the top floor of the house, kind of like a loft, but the roof is just laying on top of the walls. It´s very breezy, which you think would be nice, but I´m not shielded from the outside world in the sense that there are gaping holes between the roof and walls of the room and it´s actually quite chilly here at night. There were only two rooms available in our house when Annabel and I arrived yesterday so I took the loft one because it´s not that big of a deal, but when we returned home last night from observing night classes I realized that it is way too cold up there to sleep right now and that I didn´t want to because I found a slug on the floor of my room near under the sink that´s in there (the room used to be the kitchen in the house) and picked it up with a clothespin and threw it out a window. I wonder how much longer it would have taken me to notice the slug had I not stepped on it first. One of my housemates is moving out in a couple weeks I guess so I will be able to move my things into his room, which is below our house in what´s referred to as an in-laws suite. Also, the owner of the school told us yesterday that they are waiting for someone to get evicted from an apartment closer to the school so we can move in there.

There is so much that I will have to get used to here. The biggest thing for me so far is not being able to flush toilet paper down the toilet anywhere. Eeek. But I did buy 4 avocados for a dollar this afternoon so life isn´t all bad. I am just trying to take it one day at a time and try not to dwell on how different everything is here, but how interesting it is to experience living in a different country. Yesterday after arriving, I ate lunch with my housemate Annabel at KFC, which is a 10 minute walk from our house. We ate at a Middle Eastern restaurant for dinner and I had falafel and then this morning after going to a military acadamy to hand out pamphlets and introduce ourselves as a form of advertisement for the school, the school owner bought us breakfast. We at a ¨restaurant¨ in the courtyard of an old house turned businesses downtown and I had a tamale with chicken. The coffee, oh the coffee, it was delicious. We don´t really live near to downtown or anything like that right now so I am hoping we´ll be able to move closer.

Right now, I am only observing English classes for a couple hours a day at the school where I will be teaching, which is called Canadian House Center. I think that Annabel, the other new person who is arriving on Saturday, and I will start teaching on Monday when the new ´semester´ starts. We were told that we´ll be teaching kids so hopefully that isn´t too hard for me since I´ve only taught adults in the past.

Here´s a picture of the first meal that Annabel and I actually cooked. We bought 2 pounds of potatoes, 2 huge carrots, the biggest head of broccoli I have ever seen, and an onion all for just $1.75.

I know this post is super long and I could write tons more.... I miss my family and friends terribly, but will make the best of this situation because I know that teaching here for a year will be a great experience.

I hope to get around to taking more pictures soon so share with my friends and family, but it has been overcast since we arrived so I haven´t wanted to take my camera out in the rain.

hi from Quito

Well, I made it to Quito, which if you didn't know is the second highest capital city in the world at 9,186 feet above sea level. I was pretty nervous during the whole trip here, but I made it safely with all of my luggage and was happy to be greeted by the owners of the hostel I am staying in tonight as soon as I made it through customs. They are shockingly kind and are bringing me back to the airport in the morning so that I can catch my flight to Loja.

On the flight from Milwaukee to Atlanta, I sat next to a 67 year old man on his way to Belize. He was telling me really interesting stories about his mother who was a travel agent until she retired at the age of 88 and about all the places she had been. He was very nice and when we departed the flight all he said was "Just remember to be happy." So fitting.

My flight to Miami was short and I was glad that the plane was way underbooked. There was no one in the aisle next to me, in front of me, or behind me. Let me just say also that the Atlanta and Miami airports are so huge that I was intimidated walking through them.

From Miami to Quito, I sat next to a man and woman from Guatemala who were on there way here (to Quito) from Miami for a conference for some company they work for that sells nutritional supplements. I spoke with them in Spanish, which was good and it seemed like the company they work for is a gigantic pyramid scheme, but I didn't say anything about that so as not to offend them. Their two sons were on the plane and about halfway through the flight the wife switched places with one of her sons who talked to me in English and asked me tons of questions about what I'm going to be doing here and also showed me pictures of his family and friends on his camera. It was kind of bizarre and they all wanted my email address to keep in touch and then gave me their business cards. I just hope I don't get junk emails from them because they want me to use and sell the products they vend... But whatever, they were all very friendly and told me not to be nervous and to just have faith because everything will work out.

I breathed a large sigh of relief when waiting to get off the plane in Quito because I saw my suitcases being pulled off the conveyor belt from the plane

It's hard to believe still that I am so far away from my friends and family. I cried a lot today thinking about how I won't see my family for a year. 

Well, I am physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted so I need to sleep. Those two hours I got last night and the maybe 2 I had intermittently on the planes today just weren't sufficient.

Think good thoughts to get me through my last flight tomorrow. I hope everything works out well.

It's 11PM. My first flight is scheduled to take off at 7AM.... 8 hours from now. I am leaving from home for the airport in 5 hours and probably should be sleeping, but just finished repacking and weighing all my luggage. I know I overpacked, but it's hard to say no to bringing clothes and shoes that I'll need for a year especially because I am not moving to a booming metropolis so who knows for sure what will be available.

This is really happening.

Thanks to everyone, friends and family included, who have been really supportive of my trip and who have given me words of wisdom and encouragement. I really appreciate your support because as much as I am freaking out right now, I am still excited about what's ahead.

<3

"goodbye naughty no no"

I used to bite my nails all the time, but these days I only bite them when I'm nervous. Needless to say, I'm nervous and after today, my fingernails are pretty short. I think it's mostly fear of the unknown. I'm trying not to be really emotional about the whole thing. Every so often though I am overcome by a heavy feeling that is coupled with a thought like "I can't believe I'm moving to Ecuador for a year". My sister said she understood the feeling, that its like a small black hole in me that I need to fill with positive thought, sparkling light as she said, so as not to get overburdened by nerves or fear. That's a pretty accurate explanation as to how I feel when I have those thoughts so I always follow her advice just try to think of something positive instead. "I've wanted to do this for a long time." "This is really going to help me get into a great grad school so that I can teach people how to teach English some day" (unless I decide to go to culinary school instead, which is a very viable option in my mind). "I finally get to speak Spanish on a regular basis." "I know people that are currently teaching in other countries and loving it." "It's only a year and I'm sure it will go by quickly." etc etc. 

It is weird though to think that when I get back home, my young cousins will be a whole year older. I had a really nice dinner with my extended family on my mom's side tonight. Alex, my youngest cousin, doesn't quite understand yet what exactly a "year" means or where a place is if it is outside of the United States. Our conversation went something like this:

"Alex, don't you know that after tonight, you won't see me for a whole year?" 

"What's a year?" 

"It's 365 days. When I get back, you will be 7 years old. I won't be home until after the next Christmas or after your birthday next January." 

"Where are you going?" 

"To Ecuador. Do you know where South America is? It's really far away." 

"No. Is is in the United States?" 

"Nope, a whole different country... even further than Mexico." 

"Oh cry-yiy." 

Then I pretty much forced him to give me a hug and said goodbye and then he said, "Goodbye naughty no no."

Don't get me wrong, I am really excited about going to Ecuador. I can't help but be scared though. As much as I've missed living in Madison since I moved back home last August, I've enjoyed being able to spend so much time with my family.

My sister and I went shopping in Milwaukee today. I bought some clothes and a couple books to take with me. I have some more miscellaneous stuff to buy too. I also bought another suitcase the other day because I'm not sure I can pack my whole life into one and what's another $50 or whatever of baggage fees in the while scheme of things?

I will start packing tomorrow... that leaves me two days to get that all done.

Still can't believe I'm leaving on Tuesday.