I don't have a whole lot of new and interesting things to expound upon, so I thought I'd write a little about what a typical day is like here.
My alarm goes off at 6 AM, and I usually get out of bed around 6:10...or 6:20...or 6:30....I eat breakfast, which usually consists of fruit, some type of bread, and milk that I think my host mother sets out the night before. (The milk here is different...it comes in bags, and though it usually resides in the fridge, it seems to be fine sitting out for hours at a time.) With the help of the microwave and a cute little tin of cocoa powder and the sugar bowl, I turn the milk into hot chocolate. The cocoa that my family buys is not really sweet at all, hence the added sugar.
I'm out the door by 7:20, and I meet my friends Kyle and Lauren on the corner and we walk to school together. It's about a mile, mostly uphill, with my laptop on my back, and Kyle and Lauren are both taller and walk even faster than me. I will never complain about the hills at Montreat again. (Okay, that's a lie, I'm sure I'll complain about those hills every year of my life. But I'll always remember that it was worse here. At least the drivers at Montreat make a point of not running over pedestrians.) By the time we get to Amauta, our school, I'm out of breath, the backs of my knees are quite unhappy, and I'm pretty sweaty. We go upstairs and immediately take out our computers to do Internet-y things.
Class starts somewhere between 8:00 and 8:20. When we have history with Narcisa, we usually start pretty promptly. For grammar with Julia, though, we get there when we get there. There's this concept of “Ecuadorian time,” and a lot of people aren't very concerned with punctuality. Class goes till 10:00, and then we have a thirty minute break for tea, coffee, and whatever bread or crackers are downstairs. Most people spend a large chunk of break on the computer too. In order to check my B-W email, I often have to start loading the page when I get to school, let my computer run all through class, and then I might actually have my inbox available to me during break. Squirrel Mail sucked, it's true, but did anyone really expect a Microsoft-powered system to be any better?
We have class again from 10:30 to noon, and then Lauren and I usually walk home for lunch. A lot of people go out to local restaurants, though, and I think we're going to go out with a group tomorrow. You can usually buy a two- or three-course meal for $1.50 or $2.00. (Yes, Ecuador uses American currency. I think they switched over in 2000. They used to use the sucre, but it became devalued to the point that it took tens of thousands of sucres to equal one dollar. Ecuador makes its own coins, but they accept American ones too, and they buy the bills directly from the U.S. mint, so they all have George Washington and Abe Lincoln on them. I find it kind of hilarious. And you know how you never see gold Sacajawea dollars in the States? It's because they're all down here.)
We usually go back to the school in the afternoon for salsa class, ecology discussions with Dr. Melampy, to meet about our group projects, or once again, to use the Internet. Today we have salsa, but I also need to do some research since I have to write 1,000 words about the government of Bolivia for Friday. Joy.
Sometimes small groups of people do something together in the late afternoon, like get ice cream or run some errands. Then we walk home. I get home somewhere between 6:00 and 7:30, and then I do homework. We have a small dinner, often leftovers from lunch, between 7:30 and 8:30, and then I take a shower, finish my homework or do some journaling, and go to bed because I'm exhausted.
I feel like I'm constantly busy here. I really relish the three or four hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings when I can just sit on my bed and do nothing...if I don't have too much homework, that is. It's frustrating, because everyone is always saying, “Go out and enjoy yourselves! Have an adventure! Get to know Cuenca! Be involved with your host families! And now do this mountain of homework, yay!” On top of that, we walk almost everywhere, and it takes an hour on average to get there and back. I walk at least four miles a day. The one benefit is I've already lost some weight. And I'm sure it's character building. My dad says that about anything that's unpleasant. I can think of a few people, though, who would argue that I'm enough of a character already.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Is it Christmas yet?
I hope you all had a good weekend. I did. Weekends here, when there are no group activities planned, tend to be really long, a lot like weekends on campus at the beginning of college. But this was a good one.
On Saturday I went to Milenium Plaza (actually, where I am at this very moment), which is one of about three malls in Cuenca. It has really fast, free wireless, and those two things are almost mutually exclusive here. Lauren and I just missed drowning in a horrendous rainstorm (a real "frog-strangler," if you were lucky enough to know my grammy), so most of the power was out when we got here, but it, along with the Internet, came back on long enough for me to Skype my wonderful roommate, Jamie, since it was her 21st birthday. The Internet came back in full force a few hours later, and I was able to get some pictures uploaded to Facebook.
My host parents were gone all weekend and actually weren't back when I left the house this afternoon. They went to Salinas, several hours away by bus, to visit Rita's grandmother, who apparently isn't doing very well. (After all, she is 104.) As a result, I spent the majority of Sunday with my host sister, María Fernanda, her husband, José (whom everyone calls "Pichi"), and their daughter, Antonela. We went to Pichi's parents' house for lunch. One of his brothers and his sister or sister-in-law were there with their kids, and they also had two friends visiting from Spain. The lady from Spain, who was actually Cuencan by birth, spoke really good English, which was nice. I still spoke mostly in Spanish, of course, but we made a few comments to each other.
After lunch, Antonela wanted to go to the toy store, rather than ride rides with her cousins at the random mini fair that suddenly appeared down the street, so I went with her and her parents to another local mall, Miraflores. The toy store there is apparently the largest in Cuenca, and it was maybe 1/3 the size of the Toys-R-Us with which I grew up. It was full of Barbies, GI Joes, bikes, baby dolls, dinosaurs, kiddy cars, and playhouses, and also full of parents and screaming children. Anto decided she's going to ask Papá Noel for a bike, a baby doll, and a Three Musketeers Barbie this year. (Three Musketeers is the latest in the line of Barbie movies, in case you're not up on that sort of thing.) We also went into a Christmas store, because María Fernanda wanted to get some ribbon for their Christmas tree, which they already have up. There were tons of bright, shiny, themed Chrsitmas trees, stockings, collectible villages, reindeer, and snowmen. There were a few normal penguins too, but María Fernanda and Anto kept referring to the snowmen as pingünos as well, and I didn't bother to correct them. I frankly think it's hilarious that snowmen are so popular here, since it never snows in Ecuador except much, much higher up in the mountains.
Now, after hearing Bing Crosby's immortal version of "White Christmas," I'm definitely wanting to break out the Christmas music. I've told myself I'm not allowed until the second week in November, though. I do this every year...last year I refused to let myself listen to Christmas music till after Election Day. We'll be in the Amazon during the second week of November, and it will probably be ever weirder than hearing Christmas carols during Thanksgiving in Pensacola, Florida, but I don't think I'll mind. Christmas is only two months from yesterday, you know...not that I would ever start a countdown to anything...yeah, never.
On Saturday I went to Milenium Plaza (actually, where I am at this very moment), which is one of about three malls in Cuenca. It has really fast, free wireless, and those two things are almost mutually exclusive here. Lauren and I just missed drowning in a horrendous rainstorm (a real "frog-strangler," if you were lucky enough to know my grammy), so most of the power was out when we got here, but it, along with the Internet, came back on long enough for me to Skype my wonderful roommate, Jamie, since it was her 21st birthday. The Internet came back in full force a few hours later, and I was able to get some pictures uploaded to Facebook.
My host parents were gone all weekend and actually weren't back when I left the house this afternoon. They went to Salinas, several hours away by bus, to visit Rita's grandmother, who apparently isn't doing very well. (After all, she is 104.) As a result, I spent the majority of Sunday with my host sister, María Fernanda, her husband, José (whom everyone calls "Pichi"), and their daughter, Antonela. We went to Pichi's parents' house for lunch. One of his brothers and his sister or sister-in-law were there with their kids, and they also had two friends visiting from Spain. The lady from Spain, who was actually Cuencan by birth, spoke really good English, which was nice. I still spoke mostly in Spanish, of course, but we made a few comments to each other.
After lunch, Antonela wanted to go to the toy store, rather than ride rides with her cousins at the random mini fair that suddenly appeared down the street, so I went with her and her parents to another local mall, Miraflores. The toy store there is apparently the largest in Cuenca, and it was maybe 1/3 the size of the Toys-R-Us with which I grew up. It was full of Barbies, GI Joes, bikes, baby dolls, dinosaurs, kiddy cars, and playhouses, and also full of parents and screaming children. Anto decided she's going to ask Papá Noel for a bike, a baby doll, and a Three Musketeers Barbie this year. (Three Musketeers is the latest in the line of Barbie movies, in case you're not up on that sort of thing.) We also went into a Christmas store, because María Fernanda wanted to get some ribbon for their Christmas tree, which they already have up. There were tons of bright, shiny, themed Chrsitmas trees, stockings, collectible villages, reindeer, and snowmen. There were a few normal penguins too, but María Fernanda and Anto kept referring to the snowmen as pingünos as well, and I didn't bother to correct them. I frankly think it's hilarious that snowmen are so popular here, since it never snows in Ecuador except much, much higher up in the mountains.
Now, after hearing Bing Crosby's immortal version of "White Christmas," I'm definitely wanting to break out the Christmas music. I've told myself I'm not allowed until the second week in November, though. I do this every year...last year I refused to let myself listen to Christmas music till after Election Day. We'll be in the Amazon during the second week of November, and it will probably be ever weirder than hearing Christmas carols during Thanksgiving in Pensacola, Florida, but I don't think I'll mind. Christmas is only two months from yesterday, you know...not that I would ever start a countdown to anything...yeah, never.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Bananas don't grow on trees, you know...
They really don't. But I'll get to that in a bit.
It occurs to me that my last four or so blog titles have ended in ellipses. I swear I'm not turning into the Rev. Dr. Jack B. Winget, Esq. (I know the Esq. isn't real and I know I'm missing some other title, but I don't remember.)
Despite having my typical really, really awful mid-October cold, the trip to Guayaquil and Machala went pretty well. I spent most of the drive to Guayaquil talking to another student from our school, a British guy named Rob. For all you LOST fans, he was pretty much Charlie's twin except with a London accent. He needed a ride to Guayaquil to catch a plane to Colombia, and the teachers just told him to come on our bus. We talked about travel, music, baseball vs. cricket...all kinds of things. We wound up kind of adopting him for the day, actually. He spent the night at the hotel with us, and we taught him how to play Egyptian Rat Screw. The best thing about traveling is the interesting people you meet.
Monday night we walked along the Malecón, which is a big, beautiful walking area along the river, part park, part monument, and part shopping mall. It's kind of the pride and joy of the city, and at the end of it you can climb 444 steps to the top of a tower from which you can see all of Guayaquil. The next morning we had a tour of the city, with a guide who spoke really excellent English, which was a nice respite for my brain. Guayaquil is the most populous city in Ecuador, and it's the only city in the country where you can find the extravagantly rich living around the corner from absolutely destitute. Poor people tend to just take over huge areas of land, live quietly for a few years, and then demand that the government provide them electricity and water, which then comes out of the pockets of the upper and middle class. It's been undergoing some extensive beautification and reorganization programs for the past few years. We toured the cathedral, which is beautiful but simple as Catholic churches go, and we walked around the main park, which is literally crawling with iguanas.
Tuesday afternoon we drove to Machala, which is about four hours away. We had lunch at the hotel, which was something of an ordeal, because we have about five vegetarians in the group and nobody in Ecuador really seems to understand or care about what that entails. After that we had several hours to walk around the city, which is loud and colorful and crowded and dirty. The streets are way more chaotic than Cuenca. Lauren, Sara, and I wound up getting tremendously lost, and we asked for directions three times, but everybody told us something different and wrong. We wound up taking a cab back to the hotel, and even that was difficult. Our hotel was called the Hotel Royal, which we pronounced like it would be in Spanish: "Roy-AHL". It turns out it's just pronounced like we would say it in English normally, so nobody could figure out what we meant.
Wednesday morning we went to a banana plantation. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was surprised to learn that the big, tall, leafy, green things that produce bananas are not trees. They're herbs. No joke. Each stem can only ever produce one bunch of bananas, and it takes nine months to reach maturity, so there are always different generations at different stages of growth sprouting from the same plant. We didn't see anything being harvested, but we did see large bunches of bananas being separated, cleaned, sorted, plastered with stickers, boxed up, and loaded onto a truck. For the amount of space they take up, banana plantations aren't a huge source of employment. Each one only has about fifty workers, and while the plantation we visited pays $18 a day (a pretty good wage for that kind of job in Ecuador), the employees only work about three days a week.
We then went to a shrimp farm, owned by the same people, which was much less interesting. It basically consists of a bunch of large, murky ponds full of shrimp, which are harvested at night after a certain amount of time. One of the workers threw a net into a pond, collected about fifty shrimp, and dumped them in a bucket for us to see. We were allowed to pick them up, which some people did, and some people kissed them as well. I am still not sure I like to even eat them, so I just watched.
After the shrimp farm, we went to a port where they ship all kinds of things out of Machala. We got to wear hard hats...and that was pretty much the highlight of that. Then we drove back to Cuenca.
All in all, it was a good trip. This post has gotten sufficiently long, so I'll sign off for now.
It occurs to me that my last four or so blog titles have ended in ellipses. I swear I'm not turning into the Rev. Dr. Jack B. Winget, Esq. (I know the Esq. isn't real and I know I'm missing some other title, but I don't remember.)
Despite having my typical really, really awful mid-October cold, the trip to Guayaquil and Machala went pretty well. I spent most of the drive to Guayaquil talking to another student from our school, a British guy named Rob. For all you LOST fans, he was pretty much Charlie's twin except with a London accent. He needed a ride to Guayaquil to catch a plane to Colombia, and the teachers just told him to come on our bus. We talked about travel, music, baseball vs. cricket...all kinds of things. We wound up kind of adopting him for the day, actually. He spent the night at the hotel with us, and we taught him how to play Egyptian Rat Screw. The best thing about traveling is the interesting people you meet.
Monday night we walked along the Malecón, which is a big, beautiful walking area along the river, part park, part monument, and part shopping mall. It's kind of the pride and joy of the city, and at the end of it you can climb 444 steps to the top of a tower from which you can see all of Guayaquil. The next morning we had a tour of the city, with a guide who spoke really excellent English, which was a nice respite for my brain. Guayaquil is the most populous city in Ecuador, and it's the only city in the country where you can find the extravagantly rich living around the corner from absolutely destitute. Poor people tend to just take over huge areas of land, live quietly for a few years, and then demand that the government provide them electricity and water, which then comes out of the pockets of the upper and middle class. It's been undergoing some extensive beautification and reorganization programs for the past few years. We toured the cathedral, which is beautiful but simple as Catholic churches go, and we walked around the main park, which is literally crawling with iguanas.
Tuesday afternoon we drove to Machala, which is about four hours away. We had lunch at the hotel, which was something of an ordeal, because we have about five vegetarians in the group and nobody in Ecuador really seems to understand or care about what that entails. After that we had several hours to walk around the city, which is loud and colorful and crowded and dirty. The streets are way more chaotic than Cuenca. Lauren, Sara, and I wound up getting tremendously lost, and we asked for directions three times, but everybody told us something different and wrong. We wound up taking a cab back to the hotel, and even that was difficult. Our hotel was called the Hotel Royal, which we pronounced like it would be in Spanish: "Roy-AHL". It turns out it's just pronounced like we would say it in English normally, so nobody could figure out what we meant.
Wednesday morning we went to a banana plantation. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was surprised to learn that the big, tall, leafy, green things that produce bananas are not trees. They're herbs. No joke. Each stem can only ever produce one bunch of bananas, and it takes nine months to reach maturity, so there are always different generations at different stages of growth sprouting from the same plant. We didn't see anything being harvested, but we did see large bunches of bananas being separated, cleaned, sorted, plastered with stickers, boxed up, and loaded onto a truck. For the amount of space they take up, banana plantations aren't a huge source of employment. Each one only has about fifty workers, and while the plantation we visited pays $18 a day (a pretty good wage for that kind of job in Ecuador), the employees only work about three days a week.
We then went to a shrimp farm, owned by the same people, which was much less interesting. It basically consists of a bunch of large, murky ponds full of shrimp, which are harvested at night after a certain amount of time. One of the workers threw a net into a pond, collected about fifty shrimp, and dumped them in a bucket for us to see. We were allowed to pick them up, which some people did, and some people kissed them as well. I am still not sure I like to even eat them, so I just watched.
After the shrimp farm, we went to a port where they ship all kinds of things out of Machala. We got to wear hard hats...and that was pretty much the highlight of that. Then we drove back to Cuenca.
All in all, it was a good trip. This post has gotten sufficiently long, so I'll sign off for now.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Welcome to the world...
Name: Caleb Russell Merchant
Date: October 19, 2009
Time: 9:30 PM
Weight: 9.5 pounds (!!)
Length: 20 inches
Mommy: My Mego :)
Proud aunts and uncles: "The Family"
He is beautiful!! Megan is the first of my friends to have a baby, and I am so excited for her!! I can't wait to get home and meet him. Congratulations, Megan, and good luck.
Date: October 19, 2009
Time: 9:30 PM
Weight: 9.5 pounds (!!)
Length: 20 inches
Mommy: My Mego :)
Proud aunts and uncles: "The Family"
He is beautiful!! Megan is the first of my friends to have a baby, and I am so excited for her!! I can't wait to get home and meet him. Congratulations, Megan, and good luck.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Guess who gets to take another 4-hour bus ride through the mountains...
Yay. I'm thrilled. I woke up with an icky cold and this afternoon my group gets to drive through the mountains again to go to Guayaquil to meet the other group that's getting back from the Galapagos today. It's break time at the school right now, and we're halfway through a crazy, insane class with Narcisa, one of the school heads, about history. I'm just letting it wash over me. I don't have the energy.
I got to watch two hours of American TV yesterday, which was really exciting. I watched Criminal Minds and CSI:.
Well, I was intending to write more but I have to go, sorry. I'll be back Thursday.
I got to watch two hours of American TV yesterday, which was really exciting. I watched Criminal Minds and CSI:.
Well, I was intending to write more but I have to go, sorry. I'll be back Thursday.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
"And tonight's gonna be a good, good night..."
It's a sunny Saturday afternoon here in Cuenca, and Lauren and I are at an Internet cafe near our houses. It's probably in the low 60s (Fahrenheit) outside...be jealous, Ohioans!!
Before I forget, I'd like to invite you all to check out the collective blog for everyone on our trip. Some of my posts here may wind up over there too, and you can read about what everyone else has been up to. Also, check out the Photobucket page that Paul was kind enough to set up for all of us. My photos aren't up yet, but hopefully they will be soon.
As always, the last few days have been interesting, which is mostly a good thing. Emotions are still a bit rough for some of us. Yesterday was the first day we didn't have to take a few minutes' break for a group hug during class, because one of us would start crying for one reason or another, and then the rest of us would start in as well. Fortunately, our teacher is really understanding of our situation and she gives great hugs. :)
Yesterday we took a field trip to one of the small markets in town to witness a traditional cultural practice. Many women take their babies to the market to be "cleaned" and cured of common childhood afflictions that are the result of bad energies. Katy was a good sport and volunteered to be cleaned. A tiny old woman took a large bundle of flowers and plants (which I think included some marijuana) and whacked her all over her arms, legs, torso, and head while saying "Kisha, kisha!" which is a Quechuan word to drive away the evil spirits. Then she took an egg and rolled it all over Katy, and then she cracked it open in a plastic bag, examined it, and declared Katy was suffering from espanto, or fright. In order to be totally cured, Katy should come back next Tuesday and next Friday and do it all over again, because Tuesday and Friday are the Virgin's days, or something like that. Katy said that it actually kind of hurt and she had a bunch of leaves stuck in her hair, but she might go back and finish out the process.
Yesterday afternoon several of us B-W students and our new friend, Emma, met at the school and went to the "zoo." The Cuenca zoo is nothing like an American zoo. Instead, it's a small, dark building full of fish, snakes, turtles, frogs, and tarantulas. It was interesting to see pirahnas and tilapias, but we weren't exactly enthused at the way some of the snake cages were constructed. They looked more than a little iffy. Also, there was a humongous alligator just chillin' on the floor, penned in by some tanks and the rickety wooden bridge we walked across. I'm not a huge fan of snakes, but I was rather disappointed that the boa constrictor was all curled up and asleep. I was sincerely hoping it would look me in the eye and tell me it had never seen Brazil. (25 Awesome Points to the first person to comment on that reference!!)
When we came out of the "zoo," it was pouring, like it does most afternoons here. We waited out the worst of it in the convenience store next door and then we went with Emma to the hostel where she's staying. It was really nice, as hostels go, and she said it was $8 a night including breakfast. We all just hung out in the lobby and talked for a while and got to know her better. She's from Manchester, so she has a really awesome accent. She's been traveling all over South America for a few months, from Brazil to Argentina to Chile to Bolivia to Ecuador, and she's intending to be home in time for Christmas. That's the sort of trip I sometimes dream about taking, but there's no way I would go by myself.
Last night we went dancing. We were planning to all go as a group, but everyone on the other side of town got invited to a party that they didn't feel they could refuse, so it wound up being Lauren, Emma, our other friend Sierra, who's rooming with Emma at the hostel, and me. Emma kind of started a dance party on the steps down to the river, where a band was playing, and insisted that we all join. We wound up getting about forty people to get up and dance with us, and it was really fun. Then the band just kind of abruptly quit playing and started packing up, so we went with a group of four or five American girls we'd met to a club called Zo. It was super crowded, but after we had been there for a little bit, we ran into the rest of the B-W group!! All in all it was a very fun night.
Before I forget, I'd like to invite you all to check out the collective blog for everyone on our trip. Some of my posts here may wind up over there too, and you can read about what everyone else has been up to. Also, check out the Photobucket page that Paul was kind enough to set up for all of us. My photos aren't up yet, but hopefully they will be soon.
As always, the last few days have been interesting, which is mostly a good thing. Emotions are still a bit rough for some of us. Yesterday was the first day we didn't have to take a few minutes' break for a group hug during class, because one of us would start crying for one reason or another, and then the rest of us would start in as well. Fortunately, our teacher is really understanding of our situation and she gives great hugs. :)
Yesterday we took a field trip to one of the small markets in town to witness a traditional cultural practice. Many women take their babies to the market to be "cleaned" and cured of common childhood afflictions that are the result of bad energies. Katy was a good sport and volunteered to be cleaned. A tiny old woman took a large bundle of flowers and plants (which I think included some marijuana) and whacked her all over her arms, legs, torso, and head while saying "Kisha, kisha!" which is a Quechuan word to drive away the evil spirits. Then she took an egg and rolled it all over Katy, and then she cracked it open in a plastic bag, examined it, and declared Katy was suffering from espanto, or fright. In order to be totally cured, Katy should come back next Tuesday and next Friday and do it all over again, because Tuesday and Friday are the Virgin's days, or something like that. Katy said that it actually kind of hurt and she had a bunch of leaves stuck in her hair, but she might go back and finish out the process.
Yesterday afternoon several of us B-W students and our new friend, Emma, met at the school and went to the "zoo." The Cuenca zoo is nothing like an American zoo. Instead, it's a small, dark building full of fish, snakes, turtles, frogs, and tarantulas. It was interesting to see pirahnas and tilapias, but we weren't exactly enthused at the way some of the snake cages were constructed. They looked more than a little iffy. Also, there was a humongous alligator just chillin' on the floor, penned in by some tanks and the rickety wooden bridge we walked across. I'm not a huge fan of snakes, but I was rather disappointed that the boa constrictor was all curled up and asleep. I was sincerely hoping it would look me in the eye and tell me it had never seen Brazil. (25 Awesome Points to the first person to comment on that reference!!)
When we came out of the "zoo," it was pouring, like it does most afternoons here. We waited out the worst of it in the convenience store next door and then we went with Emma to the hostel where she's staying. It was really nice, as hostels go, and she said it was $8 a night including breakfast. We all just hung out in the lobby and talked for a while and got to know her better. She's from Manchester, so she has a really awesome accent. She's been traveling all over South America for a few months, from Brazil to Argentina to Chile to Bolivia to Ecuador, and she's intending to be home in time for Christmas. That's the sort of trip I sometimes dream about taking, but there's no way I would go by myself.
Last night we went dancing. We were planning to all go as a group, but everyone on the other side of town got invited to a party that they didn't feel they could refuse, so it wound up being Lauren, Emma, our other friend Sierra, who's rooming with Emma at the hostel, and me. Emma kind of started a dance party on the steps down to the river, where a band was playing, and insisted that we all join. We wound up getting about forty people to get up and dance with us, and it was really fun. Then the band just kind of abruptly quit playing and started packing up, so we went with a group of four or five American girls we'd met to a club called Zo. It was super crowded, but after we had been there for a little bit, we ran into the rest of the B-W group!! All in all it was a very fun night.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Las clases y los Galapagos
It's break time here at Fundación Amauta, which means everyone ran downstairs to grab some free food and then immediately got on their computers. We're kind of addicted to the Internet. The school has wireless, and it's fairly slow (I couldn't open the B-W course catalog, a PDF file, or download the newest PotterCast), but we're managing. It´s really kind of sad how addicted we all are.
This is day two of Spanish classes, and so far everything has been great. I'm in a class with four of my friends, Sara, Lauren, Katy, and Natalie, and our teacher is wonderful. We learned a ton of new verbs yesterday and we've been reinforcing them by drawing pictures, fingerpainting, and reciting them while jumping, shouting, or tying each other to chairs. It's a bit more interactive than any Spanish class I've ever had. We're doing a quick review of the basic indicative tenses, and this morning we spent about twenty minutes telling a story around the table about an evil maple tree, a good apple tree, a wise owl, a magical book, and shape-shifting wolves and sea lions to practice the preterite and imperfect tenses.
We had salsa class yesterday afternoon. It was a lot of fun. We had to take turns being guys and girls because poor Mark is the only guy here in Cuenca at the moment. The other four are all in the Galapagos this week. Everyone picked up the steps and the rhythm pretty quickly. The teacher is pretty funny, and I found out he's my host sister's brother-in-law.
So, all about the Galapagos:
We went to a total of nine islands: Santa Cruz, Santa Fe, Española, Floreana, North Seymour, Baltra, Genovesa, Bartolome, and Plazas. Each island is so totally unique from all the others – that's what's so amazing about the Galapagos. Santa Cruz has the largest human population, around 17,000, but much of it is still undeveloped. It has beautiful beaches, but it also has a highland area where it's very wet all the time and there are so many different trees and shrubs and ferns. There are two huge craters in the highlands, los Gemelos (the Twins), which were formed by some sort of volcanic activity, but scientists haven't settled on the exact cause.
Most of the rest of the islands don't have a lot of green vegetation on them other than cacti and various little shrubby things that are good at surviving drought. Santa Fe, Española, North Seymour, and Plazas are very rocky and dusty, but Santa Fe and Española also have very nice beaches. Floreana and Genovesa are mostly huge lava fields, but both have pretty interior lagoons that are good places to see flamingos. Bartolome is very young, as islands go, and it's pretty much all tall mountains of volcanic ash. It made me feel like I was on Mars.
We saw so many animals...penguins, sea lions, fur seals, land and marine iguanas, lava lizards, flamingos, blue- and red-footed boobies, nazca boobies, swallow tailed gulls, Galapagos hawks, Galapagos mockingbirds, several types of finches, and more...and that was just on land. We went snorkeling every day, sometimes twice, and we saw sea turtles, starfish, sea urchins, manta rays, spotted eagle rays, moray eels, a few kinds of sharks, and so many fish!!
Our group had so much fun together, and we also had a blast with the crew on the boat. Our guide, Fazi, knew so much about the animals and the islands themselves, and he spoke really good English. The rest of the crew barely spoke any English, but they were really patient and encouraging with our Spanish. Everyone's favorite was definitely Raul, the waiter, who was so sweet and shy. He found out my friend Lauren is lactose intolerant, and he made a point of getting her food without milk, and he also taught us all how to fold napkins creatively. Jorge, the first mate, really tried to learn everyone´s names, and Alberto let a lot of us steer the dinghies. Alberto and Jofre, the captain, explained all of the navigation stuff up in the bridge to Lauren and me. Juan, the chef, made incredible food for every meal. Randy was hilarious, even though he was hard to understand because he´s from Guyaquil, and he hung out with all of us when we were seasick.
That´s right, there was one really bad night when we started sailing right after dinner, and we were sailing against the waves, so it was pretty much a constant roller coaster. Add in a big dinner, a bit of dehydration, and lots of sunburn, and none of us felt very good. I was one of four people who "fed the fishes" over the side of the boat. I guess you´re not a sailor till you´ve gotten seasick.
I´ve already taken over 1000 photos here, most of them in the Galapagos, and I´ll have them up on Facebook as soon as I can. Uploading pictures takes forever. We also have a Photo Bucket account for everyone on the trip, so I´ll put up that link ASAP. Class is starting now, so I´ve gotta go!!
This is day two of Spanish classes, and so far everything has been great. I'm in a class with four of my friends, Sara, Lauren, Katy, and Natalie, and our teacher is wonderful. We learned a ton of new verbs yesterday and we've been reinforcing them by drawing pictures, fingerpainting, and reciting them while jumping, shouting, or tying each other to chairs. It's a bit more interactive than any Spanish class I've ever had. We're doing a quick review of the basic indicative tenses, and this morning we spent about twenty minutes telling a story around the table about an evil maple tree, a good apple tree, a wise owl, a magical book, and shape-shifting wolves and sea lions to practice the preterite and imperfect tenses.
We had salsa class yesterday afternoon. It was a lot of fun. We had to take turns being guys and girls because poor Mark is the only guy here in Cuenca at the moment. The other four are all in the Galapagos this week. Everyone picked up the steps and the rhythm pretty quickly. The teacher is pretty funny, and I found out he's my host sister's brother-in-law.
So, all about the Galapagos:
We went to a total of nine islands: Santa Cruz, Santa Fe, Española, Floreana, North Seymour, Baltra, Genovesa, Bartolome, and Plazas. Each island is so totally unique from all the others – that's what's so amazing about the Galapagos. Santa Cruz has the largest human population, around 17,000, but much of it is still undeveloped. It has beautiful beaches, but it also has a highland area where it's very wet all the time and there are so many different trees and shrubs and ferns. There are two huge craters in the highlands, los Gemelos (the Twins), which were formed by some sort of volcanic activity, but scientists haven't settled on the exact cause.
Most of the rest of the islands don't have a lot of green vegetation on them other than cacti and various little shrubby things that are good at surviving drought. Santa Fe, Española, North Seymour, and Plazas are very rocky and dusty, but Santa Fe and Española also have very nice beaches. Floreana and Genovesa are mostly huge lava fields, but both have pretty interior lagoons that are good places to see flamingos. Bartolome is very young, as islands go, and it's pretty much all tall mountains of volcanic ash. It made me feel like I was on Mars.
We saw so many animals...penguins, sea lions, fur seals, land and marine iguanas, lava lizards, flamingos, blue- and red-footed boobies, nazca boobies, swallow tailed gulls, Galapagos hawks, Galapagos mockingbirds, several types of finches, and more...and that was just on land. We went snorkeling every day, sometimes twice, and we saw sea turtles, starfish, sea urchins, manta rays, spotted eagle rays, moray eels, a few kinds of sharks, and so many fish!!
Our group had so much fun together, and we also had a blast with the crew on the boat. Our guide, Fazi, knew so much about the animals and the islands themselves, and he spoke really good English. The rest of the crew barely spoke any English, but they were really patient and encouraging with our Spanish. Everyone's favorite was definitely Raul, the waiter, who was so sweet and shy. He found out my friend Lauren is lactose intolerant, and he made a point of getting her food without milk, and he also taught us all how to fold napkins creatively. Jorge, the first mate, really tried to learn everyone´s names, and Alberto let a lot of us steer the dinghies. Alberto and Jofre, the captain, explained all of the navigation stuff up in the bridge to Lauren and me. Juan, the chef, made incredible food for every meal. Randy was hilarious, even though he was hard to understand because he´s from Guyaquil, and he hung out with all of us when we were seasick.
That´s right, there was one really bad night when we started sailing right after dinner, and we were sailing against the waves, so it was pretty much a constant roller coaster. Add in a big dinner, a bit of dehydration, and lots of sunburn, and none of us felt very good. I was one of four people who "fed the fishes" over the side of the boat. I guess you´re not a sailor till you´ve gotten seasick.
I´ve already taken over 1000 photos here, most of them in the Galapagos, and I´ll have them up on Facebook as soon as I can. Uploading pictures takes forever. We also have a Photo Bucket account for everyone on the trip, so I´ll put up that link ASAP. Class is starting now, so I´ve gotta go!!
Monday, October 5, 2009
I'm here!! In the Galapagos!!
Hola a todos, estoy en los Galapagos!
Hi everybody, I'm here in the Galapagos! A brief overview of what's happened so far:
We flew out on Friday, Cleveland to Chicago to Miami to Guyaquil. We spent the night in a beautiful little hotel and then drove about four hours to Cuenca. The mountains are so beautiful. It was so awesome to be on solid ground, looking down on a blanket of clouds.
We got to the school and met our families. I'm living with a very nice couple, Jaime and Rita, who are probably in their 60s. They have three children who are all married and there are four grandchildren. I have yet to meet Rita's 104-year-old grandmother. Everyone is really friendly and they try to help me, but it's still pretty stressful. I felt pretty lonely on Saturday, even though I was surrounded by family. Yesterday was definitely easier. They speak so fast, and my head just spins when there are more than two people in the room. I think I understand about 65% of what's being said. I'll be glad to get into the Spanish classes so I at least feel like I'm making progress.
Right now nine of our twenty-four group members are on Santa Cruz, one of the Galapagos Islands. Dr. Melampy is here too. We had to be at the school at 3 AM, then we drove back to Guyaquil. That was a very unpleasant ride...it's incredibly twisty and bumpy and at that time of day and in the dark and all...only two of us threw up. I never get carsick, and I still felt really awful. From there, we flew to the island of Baltra, then had to stand up in a very full bus (it was like a roller coaster but we had to handle all the physics!) to get on a small boat that took us to Santa Cruz, then we had another very long, sitting down bus ride to the harbor. Then we took a dinghy out to our boat, the Golondrina, where we'll be living for the next week. Then we came back to the island. I felt like I'd never stay still again.
We had lunch, which was pretty good. I haven't encountered any really scary food yet, although I did see cuy (guinea pig) roasting yesterday. My family will appreciate this: I actually ate two pieces of shrimp today. I figured I'll never get it fresher than it is here. It didn't taste too bad, but I'm still not a fan of the texture.
After lunch we walked through the Galapagos National Park, which included a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station and a chance to see lots of giant tortoises, including Lonesome George. I'll tell his story when I have more time.
I'm really looking forward to the next several days. I'll get to another Internet cafe as soon as I can. For now, saludos!!
Hi everybody, I'm here in the Galapagos! A brief overview of what's happened so far:
We flew out on Friday, Cleveland to Chicago to Miami to Guyaquil. We spent the night in a beautiful little hotel and then drove about four hours to Cuenca. The mountains are so beautiful. It was so awesome to be on solid ground, looking down on a blanket of clouds.
We got to the school and met our families. I'm living with a very nice couple, Jaime and Rita, who are probably in their 60s. They have three children who are all married and there are four grandchildren. I have yet to meet Rita's 104-year-old grandmother. Everyone is really friendly and they try to help me, but it's still pretty stressful. I felt pretty lonely on Saturday, even though I was surrounded by family. Yesterday was definitely easier. They speak so fast, and my head just spins when there are more than two people in the room. I think I understand about 65% of what's being said. I'll be glad to get into the Spanish classes so I at least feel like I'm making progress.
Right now nine of our twenty-four group members are on Santa Cruz, one of the Galapagos Islands. Dr. Melampy is here too. We had to be at the school at 3 AM, then we drove back to Guyaquil. That was a very unpleasant ride...it's incredibly twisty and bumpy and at that time of day and in the dark and all...only two of us threw up. I never get carsick, and I still felt really awful. From there, we flew to the island of Baltra, then had to stand up in a very full bus (it was like a roller coaster but we had to handle all the physics!) to get on a small boat that took us to Santa Cruz, then we had another very long, sitting down bus ride to the harbor. Then we took a dinghy out to our boat, the Golondrina, where we'll be living for the next week. Then we came back to the island. I felt like I'd never stay still again.
We had lunch, which was pretty good. I haven't encountered any really scary food yet, although I did see cuy (guinea pig) roasting yesterday. My family will appreciate this: I actually ate two pieces of shrimp today. I figured I'll never get it fresher than it is here. It didn't taste too bad, but I'm still not a fan of the texture.
After lunch we walked through the Galapagos National Park, which included a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station and a chance to see lots of giant tortoises, including Lonesome George. I'll tell his story when I have more time.
I'm really looking forward to the next several days. I'll get to another Internet cafe as soon as I can. For now, saludos!!
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