Pictures!

A Protest down one of the main streets of Ecuador

My Room

Our Volunteer Group

Overlooking the North End of Quito

Robert, my crazy fellow Ambato volunteer

You know you are in Ecuador when…

 Both your breakfast and dinner consist solely of coffee and bread. 

It is socially acceptable for anyone and everyone with headphones on to sing along to songs at the top of their lungs, regardless of vocal training or lack thereof.

Back seat belts do not exist.

There is no such thing as silence, especially when the clock-challenged rooster decides to start the alarm at 3am.

You are really thankful for your Spanish teachers because your accent is good enough to convince a shady cab driver that you’ve been living in Quito for five years when you’ve really only been there five days.

You insist on carrying on a thirty-minute text conversation with somebody on your cell phone instead of opting for a one-minute phone conversation because texting is that much cheaper.

Personal space does not exist.

When you understand that the C on the shower does not stand for Caliente (hot) and the F does not stand for Frio (cold) but that the C stands for Cold and the F stands for Freezing.

When volleyball is played with a soccer ball.

When you can add no mas (no more) on to the end of any sentence, but it really means that you should keep doing whatever your doing more.

You are insulted if no one cat calls you as you walk down the street.

While riding on a bus you can buy everything from snacks to herbal medicine to a live chicken.

Trip to Ambato

This weekend I finally got out of Quito and traveled to the city where I will be teaching for the rest of the year, Ambato.  Before going I was excited about my placement, and now after visiting, I’m even more pumped about the city.  It’s a quiet town where most people know each other, but at the same time it has the amenities of a much larger town, like a nice mall, a Cinemark theater, and a gym two minutes walk from my house. 

First, I’ll start with my impressions of University Technica Ambato where I’m teaching.  Robert, who is also teaching in Ambato, and I had a meeting with the director to find out our teaching schedules.  When we walked into his office we were welcomed with a cake that said, “Welcome to you my friends.”  It was a sweet gesture, one that put both my mind and stomach at ease.  Ambato is known throughout Ecuador for having the most delicious bread, and the chocolate cake was a definite testament to Ambato’s baking reputation.  After the whole staff sat down with the cake, the director disappeared.  An hour later, we finally managed to chase him down long enough to find out our schedules.  For this coming semester, I will be teaching two, level 5 English classes each afternoon.  This pretty much means I’ll be teaching a class similar to an intermediate II Spanish class in the states. I’m pretty lucky, not only because working in the afternoons is nice, but because I’m teaching two classes at the same level.  This should significantly speed up lesson planning.  Furthermore, because I’m teaching level 5, the university actually gave me a book to follow.  Although none of my students will own the textbooks, I will have a curriculum to follow.  Most volunteers at other sites have to come up with all of their own material.

Moving on, let me fill you in on my host family in Ambato.  I’m really pumped about living with this family!  As soon as I spent five minutes of laughter with my host mother, I knew that I was going to get along with the family just fine.  My host mom stays at home and runs a store that is attached to the house, so I’ll be frequently interacting with her.  She’s a spry little lady of 52, and although she has not traveled much, she seems to have that universal openness that travel so frequently brings.  I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that my host dad has traveled around the world on business or that two of her sons have spent time in the US and England.  Because of the family’s own history of travel and because the family has hosted three other volunteers in the past, bridging the gap between my expectations and their expectations should not be a huge hurdle.  For example, in my Ambato house, my room is my room.  Members of the family only enter when my door is open, and I am in the room.  As a contrast, my room in Quito is everyone’s room.  People come and go as they please, even when the door is shut.  When I’m not there, my host mom comes into my room and restacks all my books, remakes my bed, and makes sure every thread on the rug is perfectly straight.  While I appreciate the cultural lesson in Quito, I prefer the hands-off approach in Ambato.

The other members of my family besides my mom are swell.  I’m lucky that I have a brother around my age.  This means there is an instant set of friends.  Furthermore, guess what he’s studying at a university in Quito?  Dance.  Salsa here we come!  My older sister works in the mall, and the family frequently takes a trip up there to see her.  She has a daughter who is eight and hangs around the house after school.  One of my older brothers is in England.  The other lives in our house waiting for a work visa, so he can join his wife in Spain.

All in all, I´m super excited to get to Ambato!

My experience in Quito

After two days of being cooped up in a hotel, our WorldTeach group finally got the chance to explore a bit of the city.  Although I’m not overly impressed with Quito as far as cleanliness and general tourist attractions go, it definitely is not a bad stop on anyone’s tour of Latin America.  The city’s history is rich, and it’s a great jumping off point for other Ecuadorian adventures, including the Galapagos.

Thus far, I have been greatly impressed by the people here in the Sierra region of Ecuador.  In general, they are very warm-hearted and hospitable.  With the exception of begging street kids, no one in our group has been hassled at all.  For you women out there, Ecuador’s streets are not as bad as say, Guatemala.  The majority of cat calls are passing cars horns and the occasional, “Hello, baby.”  In Guatemala almost every man I passed in the street made a hissing noise like the sound of a coughing snake.  I’ll definitely choose the Ecuadorian cat calls over Guatemala’s.  Plus, simply ignoring the calls makes them go away.

I actually think that this is one of the hardest things for me to get used to, ignoring people.  I’m so used to passing people on the street and saying hello or just smiling.  That’s not even close to the case here, especially with guys.  If I pass some guy on the street and look him in the eyes, it’s an invitation for him to talk to me.  If I acknowledge the street kids begging to shine my tennis shoes, they stick around for ages longer than if I simply look away.  Being cold and unresponsive to everyone on the street makes me feel rude, but at the same time, I have to make these adaptations if I want to fit into this culture.

Every day since I’ve arrived has been filled with orientation meetings from 7am to 7pm.  Needless to say, when I get home from orientation, I’m exhausted.  However, getting the skills I need to teach and brushing up on my Spanish are well worth the long hours.  Plus, we have a really fun group of volunteers, so the long days have a way of feeling shorter than they really are.  It’s been great meeting people from all over the country who share a similar passion for bettering the world, if even in an unobvious way.  It’s also interesting to me that most of the volunteers, with the exception of myself and one other May graduate have been out in the work force for a few years before deciding to come down to Ecuador.  Seventy-something year-old Robert, one of the most interesting characters in our group, finished up his career before coming down here.

My host family in Quito is pretty sweet.  If anyone saw pictures of my time spent in Guatemala, I’m living pretty well compared to that.  My family is definitely in the upper middle class.  My Quito host papa is an accountant and professor at one of the universities in Quito.  My host mom is also an accountant, but she no longer works outside the home.  Instead, when my host dad goes away on a business trip, she substitutes as an accounting professor.  I also have a younger brother, 15, and sister, 19.  Within five minutes of meeting my younger brother he had my contact information entered into his iPhone.  Altogether, they are a super nice family, and they feed me really, really well.  I usually have fruit, homejuice, an egg, and coffee for breakfast.  For dinner, I usually have a soup with veggies or meat in it.  Sometimes, I also get a plate of rice and a delicious chicken leg.

Ecua-Colombian-Venezuela Conflict

As most of you have heard, Colombia entered 10 km into Ecuadorian territory this weekend and killed members of FARC while they were sleeping.  I was still unpacking my bags in my host family’s home when I heard the news.  My host family had turned on the TV in my room to help me unpack (Ecuadorians are addicted to TV, even at the dinner table). Suddenly a commercial was interrupted with a waving Ecuadorian flag. President Correa appeared on screen and began talking about the Colombian border incident.  He kept emphasizing the unacceptability of Colombia’s disrespect of the Ecuadorian border (this isn’t the first time this has happened).  The speech reverberated throughout the house (intensified even more by the fact that there was a TV on in every room).  The speech finished, and I turned off the TV not thinking the incident would amount to much.

            Today, the conflict was addressed to our group by the U.S. Director of Search and Rescue for Ecuador.  According to him, there is absolutely no cause for alarm.  First of all, one must realize that Hugo Chavez really wants to go to war with Colombia.  He’s looking for any little excuse to start a conflict, and the recent disrespect of the Ecuador border is a perfect excuse to stir up trouble.  However, Chavez will not start a war over this incident because he knows that a Venezuelan and Ecuadorian army could never sustain an offensive attack against a much stronger Colombian army.  Furthermore, a few years ago FARC entered into Ecuadorian territory and killed some 30-odd Ecuadorian soldiers.  Since this incident, Ecuadorians, particularly the army, have not been fond of FARC.  Because of this, the Ecuadorian army will most likely not fight against someone who is not their enemy, Colombia.  Instead, the Ecuadorian army would much rather be fighting against FARC, their enemy.  Chavez, however, may still try a counter maneuver and run some military activity in Colombian territory.   This would only be for show, like a little kid sticking his toe across an invisible line and quickly drawing it back out again.  NOTE: Since writing this post Ecuador has excepted Colombia’s apology over the incident.