Ecuador-finito...

9:14 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

^That's not even Spanish. The point is, I feel I haven't entirely tied up ends about my Ecuador trip due to my recent problem of eternal bodily exhaustion. So naturally I'm going to list here a mixture of words I used frequently in that crazy foreign country and talk about how they relate to my trip.

Gringos: A white person from an English speaking country.
How to even sum this up into a nice bite sized paragraph? Our gringo house, the gringo circus, the gringo playpen, getting called gringos all the time by everyone else and getting whistled at every time we stepped outside...what a fully Ecuadorian country Ecuador was. I can understand that they just weren't used to seeing gringos, let alone a Chinita (little Chinese girl). But hey Ecuador, as much as I love you, I'm Korean.


Taxi/autobus/trole: Taxi/bus/trolley.
Public transportation being a common way to move from place to place, these words were used frequently in Ecuador. Unfortunately, they do not bring to mind a positive connotation. Speeding buses never stopped fully for passengers to get on or to exit. Some taxi drivers were not the friendliest. On trolleys it was imperative that we protect our belongings so that they did not get stolen. And as a general rule of thumb, no Ecuadorian vehicle ever followed the rules of traffic. Let's just say that by the end of my trip, I learned to shut my eyes, close my mouth, and infinitely trust that the driver was in fact competent.

Helado: Ice cream.
Being stressed out from the kids after school and craving a yummy frozen treat, the TQP bunch adopted a habit of seeking out the lovely corner store every 2 days [but really, who am I kidding..it was more like everyday]. Also, there was this mysterious and very shady looking store that stood very close to our house, with a questionable "helado" sign outside. Hannah and I decided that they sold helados....DEL SANGRE (which means ice cream... of blood, of course).

Marcar [?]: to pick up?
Still not quite sure where this particular phrase stems from. But everyday the kids would whine, "Amárcame, profe!" which means "Pick me up professor." Now this was not just a normal whine. We learned very quickly that the Ecuadorian kids could adopt some sort of superhuman whiny voice that was able to annoy us a ridiculous amount. And even though we made fun of it and got annoyed once in a while, the kids were just so wonderful that we did indeed pick them up, whiny voices and all.

This was just a quick wrap-up of some of the daily things from my trip that I will miss...with the exception of the public transportation. Although some of these things may sound negative from those simply reading, for all of us TQP'ers, they all created memories that we could truly treasure. Not because we were "living the life" in Northern Quito, not because we knew everything from the get-go, but because we figured everything out on the way, and learned to "rough it," together. Only this way did I come back to the U.S. being really grateful for every luxurious thing that I get to live with here.

Final day- hellish.

3:37 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

Friday was...extremely difficult and ridiculously uncomfortable. Not because the day was terrible, but because it was the last day and I couldn't stop crying. The actual day was pretty good, with the exception of Hannah and I being mysteriously ill. We had a students vs. teachers soccer game and we performed a dance that Annie choreographed the night before. We all had our own "stations" where we did different activities with the kids. Although most of the day was a little blurred by my sickliness, Henry and I had a whole lot of fun running our obstacle course station. The kids got really competitive and dizzy and clumsy.. all at once. Kevin and Milton did the whole obstacle course so fast, and screamed with their adorable voices something about no one being able to beat them. For some reason, the sadness didn't hit me until about 2 seconds before the kids left, at which point I asked Hannah if they were really leaving. I was beyond confused...how could people get so attached to one another, after only about 3 weeks? I told all the kids hopeful things about how I wished them well and how I wish I had helped them. Hugging each of them and sobbing, I didn't want to let them go. But alas, it was necessary. I just remember the saddest thing of all was the fact that I couldn't see them grow into wonderful people...I wouldn't get to see what improvements they would make at school. Even knowing that the kids probably didn't understand the concept of e-mail, I gave them each my e-mail address, hoping one day I would get a cheerful message about their exciting lives.
Saturday, my "last day" here was spent relaxing with Hannah and Annie. I went to MegaMaxi to buy last minute foods I wanted to bring home, and there happened to be a market right by our house, so I bought a couple things for friends there. After that, the rest of the day was spent relaxing with Annie and Hannah. We watched Along Came Polly, which was a lot grosser than I remembered, but we enjoyed watching a simple funny movie together. When it was time to leave, the sadness started to set in..as we exchanged hugs and the cab started driving, I felt as if I was leaving my own family. Was it because I was sad to leave Ecuador? Maybe because of this, my fate was to stay in this country for 3 more days. I was not allowed to leave because I didn't have my green card with me. And what's more, was I had to wait until Monday, when the U.S. embassy would be open again. So back I went, without a phone, without certainty that people were home, and in my frazzled state, I even forgot how to get to the entrance of our neighborhood. It was really horrific. But luckily, Bri had gotten to a computer at the airport and messaged people in the house. Luckily, I was able to get inside the house.
After waking up on Sunday morning, everything felt like a terrible nightmare. While I was beating myself up, everyone else decided to go to the virgin statue. Annie stayed back with me, however, and told me that she knew exactly how I felt. That she would be blowing the problem out of proportion in her head too, and that I shouldn't be alone in my thoughts. So, after taking a shower and clearing my head, we went downtown for a little bit of wandering. I ended up having a great day with Annie, first getting lost [both of us are directionally challenged, go figure] and then looking around the market. The day was so loosely planned and adventurous, and I had a blast. We ran into some of the others, who told us that Alex's family wanted to have dinner with us that night. We got back, relaxed, and got ready for dinner by the Santo Domingo trole station. The streets by the station were so cute and cozy, with lots of restaurants and tiny stores. Even though we were there during nighttime, I could visualize the camraderie that would take place during the day. We ate empanadas and talked about all the funny things that had happened during our time here, and got back home in Alex's cousin's car.
Monday, more people left and it was just down to Caitlin and I. Through my frantic energy, she stuck with me all day while I tried to get documents for my green card. It would have been impossible without Paulo, the super open minded and kind taxi driver. He not only took us to every place I needed to go, but he also talked to the police and migration and gave us a tour of parks and a museum. After Caitlin and I got back, we ate dinner and Caitlin got ready to leave. We watched Remember Me, which was super depressing, especially because I would be home alone for the night [I would have the first and second floors all to myself.] I was so incredibly grateful for Caitlin and Paulo and everyone who tried to help me through all of this.
Today I woke up thinking about my plane ride home later tonight. In a daze, I helped Keren and Casey clean up the house. Even through the nostalgia that was hitting me as I looked at the empty rooms, I could not imagine going through this nightmare of my green card situation any longer. As I went through my day only hoping for the night to come, I took in Ecuador, and wanted to remember enough of the adventures TQP had here to tell my family and friends.

Thirty-eighth day- emotional.

10:53 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

Today was an eventful day. Some things that happened while Hannah and I were not feeling too great:
-Eduardo, who had been absent from our class for about 2 weeks, came back to school today. It was definitely a high point of my day.
-Milton cried about getting on "the list," which led to me explaining to him that he was not a bad kid.
-Xavier hit the other kids at recess, resulting in me yelling at him.
-After recess, I came into a class full of kids with various wooden sticks, trying to hit each other.
But one of the biggest things today was that Jairo cried. He was misbehaving in class [which is a normal occurence], so I took him outside and gave him the "disappointed" speech. To this he only nodded in silence and agreed, until I gave him a hug. He broke into tears during our embrace, which not only reminded me that he is indeed a good kid, but also of the fact that I would miss him a ridiculous amount back in the states. It reminded me of why I loved Jairo so much...because even though he misbehaves, he can do well with the right kind of attention. With kids like him and Milton, I really couldn't imagine leaving. I couldn't imagine giving them the attention they needed and then leaving them to return to normal school.
After school, I got some laundry done and during the night we all played Oh Heck and Most Likely To. I can't remember the last time that I laughed so hard for such a long time. During Most Likely To, everyone clearly got the pieces of paper that matched their fake "stereotypes," which made the game extremely hilarious. Caitlin got the ones related to violence, Alaina and Courtney with being attractive young women, Annie with being strange, and so on. Four people from our ed group, who are heading to Peru, are leaving tomorrow which set a sad tone on this night. It hasn't quite hit me that we're leaving so soon...but laughing and enjoying every minute here has made me realize I love all these people so very much.

Thirty-seventh day- dramatic.

8:14 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

So Friday morning we woke up early, and got ready to take off to Mindo. After the hurried blur of the morning, we were finally on the bus to the northern side of Quito, and then on another bus to Mindo [most of which, for me, was spent sleeping]. When we finally got off at Mindo, the first of our many dramatic events of the weekend had occurred. Caitlin couldn't find her medicine or toiletries...or sweatshirt. After a while, the gang puzzled together that her stuff must have been stolen, because the stolen items were the ones that were placed towards the top of her backpack. Annoyance aside, we hopped on the back of a pickup truck [which by now had become too common a mode of transportation for us] and were on our way to find a hostal. We arrived at the main part of Mindo, a home-y rural town with lots of quaint restaurants and cottage-cozy hostals. After a long gander at the beautiful view at the Hostal Sanchez, we dropped our things off and set off to Pizza de Tere. Being as hungry as we were, the 7 of us ended up ordering 3 large pizzas. In the process of ordering and eating, we met the friendly owners, one of whom told us that "Todo es posible en Mindo." After making our stomachs happy with food, we went to find a place to zip line. Although I'm not normally a big fan of being high above the grounds in nothing but a harness around my legs, we all decided to venture into the forest for some adventure. After only a couple zip lines, my dear friends had established to our guides that my nickname was Chucky, which started a long session of nickname-making. Which also established a "casi novios" case between Henry and Bri, which Henry was not too happy about. But the 13-zip-line adventure overall was such a fun experience. We zipped through the forest in mariposa pose, superman pose, and bouncing up and down while the guides pulled the line up and down. We found a yummy chocolate/coffee place, and had humongous pieces of brownie. After that, we went to a bar outside with swings as chairs that we had spotted ahead of time. We all ate burgers and had a grand time and then went out to El Diablo after playing the "most likely to.." game in our room. Caitlin started getting sick and drama filled our night, but we had fun nonetheless.
The next morning, Hannah, Annie, Alex and I went to El Quetzal [the cute chocolate place we went to the night before] for breakfast. I had delicious coffee [the first cup of coffee I had in Ecuador that wasn't instant] and pancakes to prep me for a long day of hiking. We went back, Caitlin decided she would venture on despite her incessant vomiting, and were off to the waterfalls. We took a cable car from one side to the other in order to get to the waterfalls. We had a pleasant walk with singing, talking and taking pictures, and we got to see about 4 waterfalls. Annie, Alex, and Hannah paid a couple dollars to jump into a waterfall which was epic. After the waterfall hike which left us out of breath, we went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant. We were absolutely famished because it was around 4, and ended up devouring all our food in negative 5 seconds. After our very late lunch, Caitlin and Alex left, and the rest of us decided to stay in Mindo for another day. The 5 people left went to find a hostal. We walked into "Bird Planet," which looked very expensive but stupendous. It was expensive. While we were in the process of leaving to look for another hostal, however, the lady caught us and made a deal we could not refuse. She gave us a cabana for $7 per person, and we took it. The cabana was small and cute and a lot like a doll house. We loved it. After settling in and taking a shower, we decided to go out to El Quetzal [for the millionth time now] to get a brownie snack. At the cafe, we looked through a book of dogs and picked ones that matched our personalities/looks, which was followed by a thorough reading of the dogs. Laughing and talking, we returned to the hostal and played card games like Oh Heck, which we all learned to love. Annie decided to go to bed early since she didn't feel too great, and Hannah and I came upstairs to see her sleeping on the floor [there were only 2 beds]. She woke up, said she needed to go to the bathroom, talked to Henry and Bri downstairs, and came back upstairs. Hannah and I assumed that she was awake, but apparently she was sleepwalking because when we woke her up later to get her to sleep on the beds with us, she said that she had been sleeping the whole time. We all had a good laugh and talked about our fake ideals in men [aliens, hobos, etc] until Henry pretended to be our dad and told us to go to bed.
Sunday morning, we woke up and Hannah and I decided we would want to go to the butterfly house while the others relaxed. We ended up going to ChocolArte with Annie and Henry, getting delicious toast-and-omelette breakfasts. Bri woke up feeling sick so she ended up staying back in the cabana and Annie wanted to explore elsewhere. Henry, Hannah and I set off to the butterfly house, walking for about 30 minutes to get there. The butterflies were very unique and we got to hold them in our hands but the $5 we paid to get in was a little bit overpriced. After grabbing some last minute snacks and medicine [for Bri, poor thing], we were ready to leave, when we found out that the 2:00 bus was full. Because of this, we ended up cramming in the 2:00 bus without seats. Despite this, I had a pretty good bus ride back besides being very tired from the weekend trip. When we returned, the house was empty due to the other half of our group that was still in Montanita. I had a pretty relaxing Sunday after I got home, and got ready for school the next day.
Monday went pretty normally, with school in the morning and relaxed afternoon after school. I was extremely tired and cranky last night so I went to bed early.
Today I went to school and had a surprisingly great day. Everyday I've been with the kids, Jairo has been the troublemaker of the class, but one that will listen and come around if I cater to his needs. Today, my argument to him was that I would be leaving soon and that I didn't have time to fight with him. After that, he listened to me once again and told me he would come to the U.S. with me. It was a re-realization that kids like him are sweethearts, that their troubled minds just need someone to understand and to have the patience to wait for them. Xavier also surprised me today. I had a very soar throat in the afternoon, thus needing the kids to be quiet. Xavier continued to talk, but after I told him very firmly that I won't ask him to be quiet anymore, he stopped and listened. Again, kids coming around. Wonderful. I also had some sad realizations, like the fact that Jenyfer's dad hit her mom. She wrote about her in her diary entry about inspirational people, and although it warmed my heart, it made me sad that I couldn't help her home situation.
After school, Hannah and I went down to La Mariscal and explored, seeing La Basilica and 4 other churches. They were all beautiful in their own ways, and I loved having the freedom of exploring the city with my dear friend. We had dinner at "La Menestra del Negro," which besides being more than slightly racist was pretty decent food. Afterwards, we left and came back to the house, realizing that we had been out for about 5 hours! Tomorrow we are hopefully taking salsa lessons, under the assumption that my stiff bones will care to move a little.

Thirty-second day- bittersweet.

7:51 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

Last night after recovering from my mysterious illness, we decided to venture off to Bungalow 6 as a belated celebration of Lianna's birthday. Everyone had a great time, laughing and dancing...including the older lady who was extreme drunk dancing by the time we got to the club. When it was about midnight, Caitlin, Sam and I decided to leave, except Caitlin was detained by a creepy girl she had met earlier. She was holding onto Caitlin for dear life and Sam had to push her away. The adventures didn't end there, however. Alex found a mouse in the house, and decided that he would kill it if it was the last thing he did. He didn't end up succeeding at this task, but made lots of noise in the process. After a noisy night, we went to bed.
This morning, we all went to school as usual [after doing dream analyses like I've been doing every morning for the others in the house], except I was burdened by the knowledge that it would be Antony's last day with us. In the morning, we had lessons as usual and everyone was relatively good. In the afternoon, we watched the Lion King. After the day, it was time to say goodbye to Antony. He's always been the good kid in our class, the intelligent and affectionate one. It was really difficult to part ways and Alexa and I ended up shedding some tears. After all of that though, I was able to say that I hoped I had helped him at least a little bit in school. I was overwhelmed by a bittersweet feeling of not having had enough time to teach him more, but it did feel good to think that I had some part in this wonderful child's life. After school, I took a nap, having had only about 5 hours of sleep the night before. We had dinner and gathered in our room for some True Blood and talking after half of the ed component left for Montanita. We had hilarious conversation about people's sleeping habits and other things until we finally decided to get packing for Mindo tomorrow. It was bittersweet letting Antony go, and even harder thinking about the other kids in my class, but I am very excited to go to Mindo, the cloud forest tomorrow!

Thirty-first day- tired.

12:18 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

On Monday, after a delightful nap, I went on a run with Bri and Alex. Despite their normal speed demon pace, we were all able to go at a more relaxed pace together. After the run and yummy dinner, we had a bedroom party and jumped on top of mattresses together.
Tuesday was a rough day overall, with me feeling not so great and the kids bouncing off the walls. After school, some people decided to go to the museum in La Mariscal but I was tired and sickly so I decided to take a nap. I was glad that I decided to stay home because everyone else returned around 7 or 8 and I wouldn't have had enough energy to be out for that long. The 4 or 5 of us that were home around 6 had a nice cozy dinner together and then the rest of the night was spent hanging out together. While I was getting ready for classes for the next day, Sam and Caitlin came downstairs and had delicious spaghetti, the smell of which seduced me into a fourth meal. Little did I know this spaghetti would lead to nausea and vomiting the next morning.
Waking up this morning, I felt not great. Not great at all. I was very hesitant to stay home, but Hannah and Alexa thought it was all for the best. I was glad I stayed home, because I ended up throwing up and not feeling too great. I feel a lot better now which is great, but I still feel drained of energy. The rest of the day is up in the air.

Twenty-eighth day- fiction.

1:05 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

Thursday was a day of realization. It seems like this realization should have come to me a long time ago, and it did, partially. But everything hit me like a brick wall on Thursday. It was only a couple things. In the morning, I got to the school and the kids were eating cookies for breakfast. It bothered me, not because kids shouldn't eat cookies for breakfast, but more because I knew that a lot of these kids probably couldn't afford a healthy breakfast. Later that day, I was startled once more by the fact that the custodian, Jesus, was pestering kids in order to take their lunch. There are a few factors here: 1) a lot of the kids don't get other food in the day, and if they do, it's probably not nutritious. 2) We hired a cook for the summer so that the kids could get food. 3) Jesus had "borrowed" money from some of the tutors before. 4) Jesus gets paid by us. This really got under my skin. And then the other tutors were sharing stories of getting hit on by the director of the school. At this point I was just plain disappointed. I was here, to try and help the lives of these kids. But what will happen when we leave? It's not like they have great mentors to look up to. They have little money, parents who have worries other than school, and adults who could care less about education. All of this I had somewhat known. But the fact that it was happening, right before my very eyes, to the kids I cared so much about. That killed me. But it also made me want to work harder. I had 2 more weeks to try and make positive, lasting impressions on their lives.
Friday was a little more uplifting. We had class as usual, and then had a garbage clean up competition to show the kids the importance of cleaning. The kids climbed walls, fences, and jumped about in order to get the most amount of garbage. After the chaotic blur, we were dismissed from school early. When we left the school, 5 of us got ready to go on the bus for Quilotoa. The rest of our group decided to come in the morning. The bus ride was a fun talkative session until the last 30 minutes when I started to get carsick, but it wasn't too terrible. We got to the bus stop at Zumbahua, which is when our adventures really took off. A guy was waiting for us when we got out of the bus, and asked if we wanted to ride on the back of his pickup truck to get to a hostal in Quilotoa. With Bri feeling nauseous and the rest of us feeling cold and tired, we didn't have the energy to think about whether this decision was the best one. We got to the hostal, and after dropping our stuff off, went to dinner. The restaurant-esque place by the hostal was so quaint and lovely, and swarming with other gringos. This made us feel a little better about the way in which we got to the hostal. We ate, but couldn't muster up enough energy to be social with others except for Alex, who ended up sitting at a different table and making new friends. Not having enough energy to enjoy the live music playing in the restaurant, we walked back to our room, where we all came to the realization that we did not bring enough warm clothes. Everyone ended up making a fire and cuddling up in order to keep warm. It was so cold that we had to take blankets from the other beds, and cuddle up on 2 beds out of the 9 we had in our room. That night, our fire went out, our water went out, our light went out, and we were freezing. A lady came in and grabbed Alex, who had to climb a fence in order to turn on the electricity in our room. Even though none of us got comfortable sleep, it was a great adventure...one to remember and laugh about later.
The next morning, all of us awoke with a sore throat and little sleep. We woke up pretty much at the same time and decided to go to breakfast. All of us had trouble getting up, but we got out of bed, with the exception of Henry, who felt nauseous and sickly. We all ate a whole bunch, knowing we would have to hike for the rest of the day. After breakfast, Henry decided he was too sick to walk the loop, and decided to stay in. The 4 of us finally went to walk around the lake in the volcanic crater. The walk was windy and chilly, but totally worth it. The view was breathtaking. It is impossible to describe how fake everything looked around me. In the middle of cliffs and jagged edges sat this beautiful blue lake. We probably hiked about half of the loop and walked back. We went back to the hostal in order to get Henry. On the way we saw a mattress fall out of the back of a truck, which was pretty normal in comparison to everything that had happened in the last 24 hours. We got Henry, who was still feeling miserable, and went to lunch. We saw the rest of our TQP group there, but Caitlin was missing, due to the fact that she felt sick on the bus ride and had to stay at a hostal in Zumbahua. We ate our lunch, shared some stories, and then were on our way to Zumbahua. There, Henry decided to stay with Caitlin in the hostal because he felt sick. The 4 of us continued on our way to Latacunga, and then back to Quito. In a sleepy haze, we got back to our home, and had yummy leftover dinner.
This morning, I felt really energized due to the 11 hours of sleep I got. I relaxed and skyped with my mom and sister on the roof, showing off the beautiful weather and view here. I watched some True Blood with the others and relaxed some more. It is only 3 right now, but it looks like we will have a relaxing day at home today.

Twenty-fourth day- treasures.

6:21 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

Saturday was our trip to Otavalo. We got close to no sleep and got up at an ungodly hour to catch our bus. When we got to Quitumbe bus station, it turned out that our bus was delayed for about 2 hours...which meant lots of slap-happy Juhee-ness. We spent our time laughing and talking. This talk session also resulted in more nicknames for me, DJ Chuk and Chuk-a-licious being two of many. We waited and waited until our bus finally got to the station, and when we got into the lovely vehicle, nearly all of us fell into deep and undisturbed sleep right away. Our big group of gringos got off the bus and walked for a few blocks in order to get to the actual marketplace. Everything was so exciting. People in traditional Ecuadorian clothing and people from all different countries, meshing into one huge sensory overload. We haggled and shopped and found many treasures for ourselves and for our friends and family. At lunch, everyone was famished and gobbled down 4 large pizzas as a consolation prize for our hard work of walking and haggling in Spanish. After lunch, we went to get more things, splitting into our smaller groups as we had done before. I found a couple more things to buy, and then we lost Annie. Everyone ended up walking towards the bus stop to find her, and luckily we ran into her beautiful face there. After a hard day of shopping, almost everyone rode in sleepy silence and we got off the bus at our familiar place at Puente de Guajalo.
On Sunday, all I wanted to do was rest. Some wanted to climb the mountain Pichincha, but I was exhausted. Unfortunately for some, plans to go to Pichincha were foiled by noon, so Alexa, Conor, Alaina and I ended up going downtown. We were going to finally get our piercings that we had wanted for a while. I got my cartilege pierced in what seemed like 10 seconds, and Alaina got her nose pierced in an equally short amount of time. We both really loved our new piercings and in gratitude, the Sonia at the piercing parlor decided to give Conor a free earring. After that, we looked around the market nearby [where a random gringo said, "I think I just saw the girl I want to marry," to one of us, making us smile] and got tango McFlurries, sharing silly conversations about our lives.
Monday, everything was as usual, but after school we went to get our laundry done and went to mass. Mass was amazing, seeing as we were sitting in a beautiful gold-covered church in La Mariscal. I was a little unsure of myself, not being Catholic, but otherwise I was very glad I went. The rest of the day was a little shady... getting to our laundry place by way of an older lady who led us through a "shortcut," getting whistled at by random men, and being driven home by a taxi driver with a very long pinky nail who did not like to slow down.
Tuesday, we went to school as usual. I had a very productive day, going for a run [first one since I've been here...crazy!], picking up my laundry, and going to Mega Maxi to pick up things for our new student. The run was actually a great one, and surprisingly, I didn't pass out from the lack of air in our new high-altitude-home. Busy busy bee! After that, we had Lianna's birthday celebration, which was a lot of fun. Courtney made us cake and Caitlin made Lianna a birthday rap, which was beyond hilarious.
Today was a rough day. The kids were rowdy. They stole, hit, refused to listen, and jumped on me all day. Even so, I think I can relate to how parents feel. You have to love them, even if they are little troublemakers. After school, I went on a run, this time with a bigger group of TQP clan. I found out that after 6 years of searching for someone that runs exactly at my pace, dear Conor was here all along, running exactly at my pace. We ran together the whole time and had great conversation. When we returned to the house, we ate our delicious dinner and took showers. Three of us are sick at the moment though, so I hope that they get better and that no one else gets sick.

Ninteenth day- bonding.

8:26 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

This week was full of bonding with the kids. I can't believe how much bonding has happened in just a week of class. I couldn't believe how lucky we got with the kids in our class, because while the other classes had trouble with getting the kids to focus, we actually got to teach them as well. The kids were all so sweet, almost immediately trusting and leaning on us like they had known us all our lives. I could just see the excitement in the kids' eyes in their preparation to learn. Although it is not fair to have favorites, there were a couple of kids who just seemed to like me and cling on to me more than others. Antony and Jairo in particular loved to always hug me and include me in their games. Jairo drew this picture of us holding hands and I just found it adorable.
On Thursday I took the day off because I didn't feel too good, and the kids wrote me a bunch of letters saying how much they missed me and wanted me to be back. It was enough to make me smile and feel just a little bit better.
Today, we had school as normal. It amazed me, once again, how much the kids wanted to learn. The kids actually started understanding the idea of reducing fractions, and Kevin was hesitant to leave the classroom because he loved school so much. I could definitely see why people find teaching so rewarding. After school, we went to see Harry Potter. Which was...oh man. No words could sum up how I felt after watching the movie. I feel like I've just ended a huge part of my life. As if my childhood is now gone. I know that that's really irrational and not true at all, but I guess I've always looked forward to the books and movies all my life, and now that I've read everything and seen every movie, it just feels like that magical world that I could escape to is now gone. I know. It's not true at all. But the movie was incredible, and although I wish I had gotten to re-read the last book before seeing the movie, I can say that it seemed they tried really hard to incorporate everything into the movie. I cried during much of the movie, and the acting was phenomenal. I can't ask for any more to end the little Harry Potter era of my life [which won't really ever come to an end because I love HP to no end].
Tomorrow I will be visiting Otavalo, which is basically a market place. I will now proceed to cover up my post-Harry Potter depression with excitement about tomorrow.

Fifteenth day- incredible.

3:02 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

On Saturday, I got back from Tena, which was beyond incredible. The first day we had a meeting with the parents of the school to tell them a little bit about ourselves and what we would be teaching their kids during the summer. After the meeting, everyone came back to the house and started packing and getting ready for the jungle. Hannah and I needed a couple things for the 5th graders, so we went to the Mega Maxi with Conor and Keren. After that, it was jungletime! We got to the bus station and got on the bus, which would be our place of stay for the next 5 or so hours. Unknowingly, we had signed up for lots of baby chicken holding, babies peeing in a bag, death race 2 [with horrendous scenes of violence, action, and sex], and motion sickness. The motion sickness mainly only affected me, but as soon as I got off the bus, I felt a lot better.When we got to Tena, I was overwhelmed by the lack of car exhaust in the air and exotic leaves everywhere I turned. We started walking to try and find a hostel, and found we could do no better than a $10/night hotel. Although quite pricey, the rooms had air conditioning and a nice view, along with a dance floor that we had all to ourselves. After dinner at the Cositas Ricas restaurant, we went to Nice Cream, where we had delicious ice cream and a good once over by random passerbys. When we got back to the hotel, we had a bonding session, where Sam asked everyone a meaningful question. I realized once again how 3 dimensional people are. It was great.


The next morning, we got up and went to go get breakfast at a restaurant nearby, in which we were badly treated for not being native Spanish speakers. But we got the sustenance we needed and that was all that mattered. We then found our tour company and decided on the things we wanted to do in the jungle. We also met our frenchmen companion, Sakada, who turned out to be a little eclectic. We drove in a taxi and got to the jungle, where we continued by foot on a rickety looking bridge with our matching boots. Our guide, Fausto, showed us many different kinds of plants and got us to our cabanas, where we then proceeded to jump into the river [a tributary of the Amazon!], being drained of our energy by the sun. There, we met our dear friend Juan and he was just a lovely little boy who had the climbing abilities of a small monkey.
We hiked, we found out the medicinal uses of certain plants, made head accessories out of plants, and all was swell. That night, we had yummy dinner and hung out at Nixon/Monstro's sister's bar. Monstro, by the way, called me Chucky and it was awesome.
The next morning, we woke up to sounds of rain and forest. It was beautiful, but it also meant that our more intense hike had to wait until the afternoon. So in the morning, we made bracelets and necklaces out of all natural materials [like seeds from plants] and some of us got our names carved on coconut shell-type things. I truly felt the value of the old-fashioned way of the Quichoa people and felt a newfound respect for them. In supporting their way of life, I bought 2 bracelets from them and continued on with our day. After lunch and lots of games like contact, we went on our intense hike. We went against the current of the streams, and hiked in almost knee-deep mud. There were lemon-ants, plants that spiraled, puma tracks, and much more. We swam in the river, and shampooed with magic leaves that were really considered all-natural shampoo. That night, everyone had dinner excluding the 4 people that wanted to drink ayawasca during the shaman ritual. Sam and Courtney spotted a tarantula and freaked out, and some people got to touch it. It was chaos. After dinner, we had the shaman ritual, in which the four people had different reactions to the drink. There were hallucinations, nausea, storytelling, cleansing, and more. It was quite a night, especially for those that took the drink. The next morning came rafting. I was a bit sad to say goodbye to little Juan, who had grown to everyone's liking by the last day. It was another rainy cold day, but I was super excited to experience rafting. And it didn't disappoint. Everytime we went over a big wave, my stomach dropped, turning me into a fit of giggles. The man that was leading our boat was the more ridiculous one, meaning we were dropped out of the raft 3 or 4 times. The first time was an awesome experience, but after a while, I was just very cold and tired. We got to our destination, where we had tea and coffee, and where I fell down a ridiculously caved in staircase and got a gross looking bruise. Nixon told us he would visit Quito, with war paint on his face, no shoes, and just leaves around his waist. All was grand. We got back to the tour company and thanked everyone. Lisa, the delightful Irish woman with an interesting history, led us to a restaurant and helped us get bus tickets. After eating a whole lot of food, we got on the bus to Quito. I talked to Bri for a good two hours but started feeling motion sick again, which meant I tried to sleep for the rest of the ride.
Still in a daze from the incredible views of the jungle, we rested the next day and got our lessons put together for the first day of teaching.
Today was the first day of teaching, and it was plain amazing. I loved everyone in the class, and found that a lot of kids liked to follow and hug me. I was a bit worried that we had more boys in the class than girls, but all of them followed the tutors well, and I got to know a lot of kids from the other classes too. I'm just so excited for the thought of spending a whole month with them...laughing and playing and giving them what they need-- not only education, but love and friendship. That was corny, but kids are adorable.

Ninth day- blank.

8:13 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

Today was just the amount of relaxation I needed. We chilled in the house, then went to the store to shop for supplies for the kids. Me, Hannah, Alex, and Alexa were put in a group to teach 5th graders and we got really excited thinking of ideas for fun and colorful things to do with the kids. It was pretty difficult trying to stay within the $25 budget guideline, but we did alright in the end. The rest of the day was pure relaxation. We figured out information about the tour we are taking to Tena tomorrow [so excited!!], but other than that, I napped and ate dinner and made some posters for our classroom. So no picture today, but I will be back on Saturday with a ton of them to share!

Eighth day- irony.

9:19 AM flashesofgold 0 Comments

Yesterday was a day of extreme irony. Here are just some of the things I said yesterday morning:
"I'm so glad I've adjusted so well to Ecuador, I haven't really been sick or anything!"
"I'm starting to feel a lot better after drinking lots of water"
"I feel SO AWAKE!!!"
Even a book couldn't have exaggerated the irony in these statements as was blatantly obvious in reality yesterday. Yes, you've guessed it. I was very sick yesterday, feeling nauseous for most of day, and forcing my body to take on the challenge of a 3 hour bus ride to Plaza Grande and an hour and a half there. The scenery was great. And I, more than anyone love a good view. But yesterday was just horrendous. After taking some pictures at the presidential palace and looking around the Iglesias de la compania de Jesus [which were both very cool], I had my shoe stuck in the door of the trolley and took a bus ride on the steps of the bus on the way back. Needless to say, that didn't do good things for my nausea. When I got back, I listened to the sounds of people laughing and Mariachi band jamming as I lay in bed, unable to sleep or enjoy the fiesta of 4th of July downstairs. Bri, being the genius that she is, made me eat a few goldfish, which pretty much saved my life yesterday.
After finally getting out of bed, I ate some more crackers and joined the party as people danced and sang with the Mariachi band. All the tutors then went up on the roof and enjoyed the good view as we played ten fingers...again. Nonetheless, I was glad to join the rest of the party and enjoy the day with my lovelys.

Seventh day- exhausted.

7:20 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

Today was a day of transportation. I woke up to a morning of realization that I hadn't let my bank know about traveling so I had to skype and deal with that before walking over to an atm, only to find out they were out of service. Word of advice for traveling to Ecuador? Checking in with your bank and bringing lots of small bills. But after that whole fiasco, we started walking to get on the bus for Mitad del Mundo. What we thought would be an hour of traveling ended up becoming two hours, and most of the duration of the ride was spent being zombie-like forms standing wordlessly on the bus from complete exhaustion. When we finally arrived, we saw a menu to a restaurant that had a $2 meal of hamburger, fries, and coke, and to the starving souls that we were, it was sold! We then proceeded to look around at the shops, enjoy the view, stare forever at llamas, and stand with one leg in each hemisphere [but not really since the Mitad del Mundo is not the actual equator]. Even so, the idea that we were so close to the equator was enough to bring smiles to our faces and cause us to take some crazy pictures. Most of the bus ride back was spent on discussing our nicknames for the TQP jerseys we would soon be getting. And in this discussion, we became a crowd of slap-happy giggles in the exhaustion and lack of activities to keep us occupied. On the way back we stopped at El Recreo, finally giving me a chance to stop at an atm. Everything got crazy there because no one knew where anyone was and everyone was on edge. My suggestion to say something nice about everyone else was laughed off and in a blur of sleep-deprivation, we got back to our lovely home. Tomorrow should be an exciting celebration of 4th of July in Ecuador. Looking forward to it!

Sixth day- laughter.

5:51 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

So I realize I've skipped four days on blogging my adventures in Ecuador. I've been in Banos without my laptop for the last four days. Although it's a bit much to be blogging on four days worth of adventures in one post, I can say it's definitely been worth the procrastination.
The first day in Banos was a great long trip from Quito. Four hours of traveling via bus to be exact. It was pretty uneventful besides conversation...oh and Annie almost getting her camera stolen by two vendors who were sitting in front of us and were clearly looking at us through the corners of their eyes for a very long time. And...the craze did not end there. When we finally got to Banos, we had trouble deciding on a hostal to stay at, and ended up staying at this hostal, whose owners did not look very friendly or trustworthy. Sure enough, it turned out that they had lied about giving us a $5 deal on both staying the night and food. FOOD WAS NOT INCLUDED. Which of course was not mentioned, which then led to pissing Alexa off to no end and all of us getting wrapped up in the drama. It was a crazy time. After settling in for a bit, we went out to bars and it was a jolly good time. I believe this was the night that we met our dear friend Javier who I can only describe as a hilarious dancer with hips like Shakira. Oh and I met this kid who we ended up running into THREE times in the next four days resulting in people having to rescue me many a times from him [he just really wanted to dance!]. When we got back to the room, a couple of us gathered in our room and ended up playing 10 fingers, in which many inappropriate topics were brought up, including the comparison of the harriness of Henry and Sam's legs.
The next day we went on a tour to the waterfalls which was so much fun. Again, it was one of those moments where I couldn't decipher reality from fantasy. Some people went bungee jumping which got my blood rushing just watching them do it. At the last waterfall that we visited, we went down this beautiful path through what seemed to be a rain forest and we got to swim under a waterfall. I still can't believe it. It felt so much like I was so immersed in nature. It was pretty great. After that, I'm thinking we took a nap, and then went to go eat. Which really meant walking around for a bit trying to figure out where to eat. Until I spotted "Cafe Hood" [where the food is good]. The food was absolutely delicious and we all had a grand old time there. Then we went out again, and everyone was so silly that night, all together and dance-y and such. I ran into my creeper again and people had to save me but other than that, great times.
The next day was when all of us were supposed to go back, but we got news that we don't start tutoring til next Monday so 5 of us [Bri, Sam, Henry, Alaina and I] ended up staying an extra day in Banos. All of us went to the hot springs in the morning [where many people either pointed or called me Chinita and took a picture of us]. The rest of our group left after this at their scheduled time and all of us gringos made a scene in the bus terminal where we made a big deal in hugging each other and say our goodbyes. After that, the 5 of us decided that we didn't like our hostal [or really the people that own it] so we went to look for a new hostal to stay at. We found a good one with a nice owner and decided to spend an extra $1 to stay there for the last night. After that we ate at Cafe Ali Cumba where a cheerful Danish woman served us delicious sandwiches that we devoured in less than ten minutes. We then went horseback riding, where all of our horses had ridiculous personalities. Mine was an alpha male horse who was a little wild and of course named Jackie Chan. Jackie hated Mariachi, which was Bri's horse that I was guessing was Jackie's rival. Sam's horse Luchito was always in the back of the pack...and was facing the wall away from the other horses when we got there. Henry's horse Whiskey was super calm and Alaina's horse Michael Jackson really liked being really close to other horses' butts. It was pretty funny. Except for when Jackie almost made my heart stop by speeding up close to a ledge in the mountain. But we all got beautiful views and it was pretty great. After we got back, it was shower/nappy time and I woke from my nap to sounds of kids screaming. We went to this really delicious pizza place, which employed [who else?] my creeper. He was reading but really he was watching me from the corner of his eye so we all left soon after eating. We went back to our room before going to our volcano tour, where we didn't see much but fog. It was still a fun night and we were very confused by what our tour guide, Sergio, was telling us. In fact, at one point they offered us a mysterious drink and made a joke about gringos and falling into lakes.... we didn't really get it. At that point Sam said, "What are we drinking and why are we ending up in a lake tomorrow?!" It was pretty funny. We went out that night AGAIN, which was way too much for me, but was still fun. We ran into Javier [we didn't know his name until last night] and danced with him for a while. We got pretty tired though, so we ended up leaving after a little bit. When we came back, we didn't play 10 fingers, but rather passed out in a very short amount of time.
When we got back home to Quito, most of us were too tired to do anything so we stayed in while the others went downtown. Banos trip again? Mayhaps. Banos was awesome, we had bread everyday, we met awesome people, and we want badly to go back, to the land of loud and colorful chivas.

Second day- lost.

5:38 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

I woke up to sounds of construction. I was pleasantly surprised about the fact that I could even get up at 9 in the morning considering I went to bed so late last night. I went downstairs and talked with people for a while until Bri and I decided to go check out the roof. The view was fantasmic, breathtaking..I couldn't believe where I was.
As we ate food, played cards, and of course colored pages from my coloring book, I felt like a child in the midst of a crazy place. Another thing that made me feel like I was in a crazy place? The amount of attention that "gringos" get in this country! What a ridiciulous amount of staring, smirking, and of course, the voices of little kids screaming "gringos!"
Besides noticing the racial uniformity of Ecuador, I also had the pleasure of experiencing the hectic chaos of public transportation. Getting onto the trolleys/buses was just half the trouble [as people push and shove in order to make it in the vehicle before the drivers lose patience and close the doors]; the cramming of a billion human bodies into a small amount of space seemed quite an achievement. Holding onto handles and bars in a jerky bus as a small girl? Also proved to be a challenge. Even so, the trip to plaza de teatro proved to be an interesting one. Somehow, all 12 people in the group seemed directionally challenged and it took us quite a while to make it to our destination...where we witnessed a fist fight between two aggravated men, the fist of one of the men almost landing in my face. It was an experience.
Again at our destination we were granted beautiful views. The bright colored buildings on steep hills reminded me a lot of San Francisco. We walked around, looked around markets, ate ice cream, saw a cathedral, and all was swell. It's only about 7:30 here, so who knows what the rest of the day will bring?

First day- excitement.

8:42 AM flashesofgold 0 Comments

So here I am, in Ecuador. In the middle of this nature-city hybrid environment. And I've made a promise to myself, to try my bestest hardest to post a blog everyday and maybe even a picture to show some of the events of my day.Yesterday was, you know, airport day. I had a weird feeling in my stomach as I waited for Bri to pick me up from my house, a kind of mixture of excitement and nervousness. And I felt nauseous as well. Which did not do anything to help my nervousness. But after medication and some good healing words from my mother [or more like twenty calls to make sure I had everything I needed], I was all set to travel. And guess what? My suitcase? It was 49 pounds. Heart-stopping. But it was all good. The day was super long. It seemed like I had been up for days. We had to travel first to Atlanta then to Quito and we had two hours in between our flight.
Then it was the usual when we got there, me, excited, Bri calming me down. I just couldn't believe I was in a different country! Bri and I got the free room to stay in with Henry and decided we were going to decorate and have a tradition of saying our "roses and thorns" or "rosas y espinas" for the day. Excitement all over the place! So not the funnest most exciting blog post, but it will get better as more events come up! And here's a picture of us allll happy [or rather super tired] in the living room area.

Life.

6:40 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

Life. It's frustrating sometimes.

I'm done being a freshman..what?

5:54 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments

This whole school year. It feels like a blur.

I miss summer.

3:37 PM flashesofgold 0 Comments