I´m here to study, so we´ll start there. This is my room at the hostel. Very serviceable and nice. The family is wonderfully sweet. I get breakfast every day, which could be continental (juice, tea/coffee, bread, butter and jam) or American (juice, tea/coffee, bread, eggs) so I haven´t had that, or of the house (juice, tea/coffee, granola, yogurt and fruit), which is my favorite! Usually the fruit is papaya, strawberry, pineapple, banana, melon, etc. And they also now just give me green tea, which is so nice. While I will travel a bit, I will keep the room. And I will probably have to have them to do laundry for me, since the sink really won´t work, I spilled wine all over my jeans last night, and laundry is really cheap.
This is my classroom! My instructor, Vinicio, has the patio, which is just lovely! So for last week and next week while I study wtih him, I get fresh air and birds. And, we saw the beginnings of the protests on Thursday from here too.
My first weekend here, I had meetings on Saturday. (Yes, always a bit of a busman´s holiday.) But on Sunday, my friend Juan Carlos took me to Mitad del Mundo, the equator. Here´s the marker for the line. How cool is that!
So of course I have to do the tourist thing and get my photo taken by the monument, with one foot on either side of the equator line, holding up the world. Ha ha!
Clearly I haven´t done self-portraits in a long time, but this worked pretty well. I do like this photo!
My cultural program trip on Tuesday was back to the same site -- which I must say is a very adventurous trip by bus and I was glad to be with natives when negotiating it -- but to the museum on site, the Museo Inti-ñan. This museum helps tell the indigenous story of Ecuador. We´d been the day before to the Museo Mindalae, which is a ethnohistoric presentation of the same material. This is much more living culture and historic. This photo shows a traditional statue with one of the houses in the background, the Waorani (of the Amazon), I believe.
And surprise, there is controversy about where the equator line really lies! So maybe this is it here. Figured I´d take a photo here too, to be safe. We then ran back to catch a bus and miss the storms, and for our good luck, I was only ten minutes late to salsa class!
Wednesday night we went to the performance by Jacchingua, the National Folklore Ballet, and it was superb! The music was absolutely fabulous, the dances and traditional clothing spectacular. And it was a small theater, so really intimate. I just loved it.
As you know, my program Thursday was to the city center, and it was disrupted by the protests. Thursday was a rather odd day, but really, all is well. At least my teacher was good about keeping me informed, and we actually talked most of the morning about Ecuadorian politics and government, so I had a pretty good understanding of the issues and history. We saw the protest start, with a small parade of police. It got weird after that, apparently, and by the time classes ended, Vinicio told all of us to stay in the tourist area for lunch, and go home early. The next day he said he was wondering what I´d done and how I was because it did get rather difficult in the historic center area. But I was ¨home¨ by 4. Several of my classmates went back to their place a little after 6 and their host family was a bit concerned.... But overnight was the worst, when the military went to rescue President Correa from the hospital. As I saw on the news the next morning there was a bit of a battle. As I heard at school that morning, the military was trying to keep it calm and used rubber bullets, but the police used actual bullets. Either way, not pretty. But Friday really was back to normal. When I could hear the airplanes as I woke up, I figured that things were returning to calm. It was definitely worse in Guayaquil. As my host family says, there is a lot of adrenaline in Guayaquil. Now, there are police/military (I honestly have a hard time telling them all apart given that they both seem to wear fatigues) back near the banks and at restaurants and many street corners. Whether that makes it safer or not is a tough call, but it´s certainly usual. I think it does, because their presence, if nothing else, deters robbers, who had a bit of a field day on Friday. And it was definitely something directed at the government, which of course has a different spin to it. Well, enough of that. Marialisa and I took off Friday for our city center program.
The Basilica has beautiful stained glass windows and two towers that you can climb. We did one and most of the second before construction got in our way. But the big rose window was full of images of Ecuadorian flowers, including orchids!!
We then headed into the center proper, to see some of the other churches. We knew we would not see the Presidential Palace, since it was still blocked off. However, as you can see, the entire center zone was still blocked off. But I thought you´d all enjoy it if I took a photo. Since I´m clearly a foreigner, then didn´t bother me about it. Actually, the fact that I stick out so might work to my advantage in all of this....
So yesterday morning I did a little shopping and walking, then helped my friend buy some things for his new apartment. I´m having a quiet morning today, getting caught up on photos/posts, doing some studying and housekeeping, and then we´ll meet up for lunch and a trip to the Itchimbia Park and Cultural Center. This afternoon we´ll also talk about the options for my travel program - and Vinicio is going to help me with that next week too - and figure out if we can make a trip next weekend too. And I´m some point this week - maybe Friday - I´ll see about getting back to the COICA offices to give them a hand with some English materials.
So for this week, I have the cultural program again. I don´t know what 3 of the 4 places are - I can´t find them in my guidebook - but one is to the botanic gardens, so I´m super excited about that and seeing all the orchids. I also will have another salsa class, Juan Carlos wants to go out salsa dancing, there´s a cooking class, a night tour of Quito, and a visit to a typical Ecuadorian restaurant. Surprise! A full schedule.
But I´m having a really good time. (And how´s this? No Advil in more than a week!!!) I think my Spanish is improving. At least, I hear more of my own mistakes and correct them, I´m working hard on my verb tenses, and I can generally manage pretty well. Some people are easier to understand than others, of course, and both Vinicio and Juan Carlos are incredibly patient and encouraging. They both think I´ve made a lot of progress in a week and that with three more weeks, I´ll be happy. I hope so. I definitely need more confidence in my own ability!
OK, off to verb-land.
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