Gooooooaaaaalllll!!!!!

Today I went to a soccer game. The stadium is way up in the north of Quito. We got there over an hour early but the seats were great - very close behind the goal. Soccer fans are pretty nuts. From what I understand this wasn´t even really a big game, but the people in our section did not sit down for the entire game. They were on their feet cheering and singing the entire time. A couple guys had giant drums and they played constantly and led the fans in a series of cheers that I didn´t understand. The only one I did understand was when the ref made a bad call. I´m not gonna repeat what they were saying, but needless to say, it wasn´t very nice.

The game was between La Liga, which is one of the best teams. They wore white. The visitors were La Nacional and they wore red. Both teams were from Quito, but we rooted for La Liga. I had just recently watched a documentary about one of their players, Augustin Delgado. It was about racism in soccer (he is Afro-Ecuadorian.) The game ended in a tie, 2-2. The fans are dismissed seperately afterwards to avoid a fight. During the game 5 playeres had to be carted off on the little medical truck. There was also a fight during which about 50 policemen who were standing at the ready, stormed the field. The ref also issued a red card and about 4 or 5 yellow cards during the game. So yeah, playing dirty is pretty standard. The one thing I couldnt´stand was how everyone faked injuries to try to get the call. Sometimes they were really hurt but I quickly become desensitized and unsympathetic because more often they were just being super dramatic.

Everything was going great till I noticed after the game that my bad had been slashed open. Luckily I had nothing of value with me - only my cheap sunglasses were stolen along with the makeshift case my mom had given me (it was really just an old makeup bag.) Luckily they didn´t get my phone or money which I had in a seperate pouch. They could have made off with my lunch, daytimer, or umbrella, but I think all those things were pretty unappealing. It gives me some small pleasure to think that the bastard didn´t get much out of it. But seriously, I was pretty upset. The loss of my bag is actually the worst blow. I have no way to carry my lunch and books for school. I´m always so careful! I can´t think when it could have happened! Anyway, it makes you feel pretty stupid and also kind of violated.

Sandra says she may take my bag in to get fixed! Can you imagine? In the US we would just buy a new one cause that would be cheaper than trying to fix the old one. The Ecuadorians have got it right on that count. Aren´t you proud Uncle Carl?

Other highlights of this weekend: a visit to the Panecillo and some barhopping on Friday night. Also, this morning my grandma invited me for breakfast and made this amazing thing! It was a glass about a quarter filled with the best fresh squeezed orange juice. The other three quarters was all this creamy merengue stuff. The combo of bitter and sweet was DELICIOUS! We also ate some of the cream on a flaky little cracker/cookie thing. It seemed more like desert than breakfast, but I´m not complaining!

Anne and Ranjit and Julia: Thanks so much for the comments! I really appreciate it! Also, shout out to Dave for his emails! I´d love to hear from more of you and see how you´re all doing!

Addy

Today was my second day of my internship. I really like the lady I work with, Elba. Everyone seems nice (except this one guy named Nixon is a little grumpy, lol, go figure!) HOWEVER, today was kind of annoying cause I was told to show up at 8:20, came at 8:15 and waited till 8:40 for Elba, alone outside a locked building on a sketchy street. Joy. I love Ecuadorian time. After not eating for 5 hours we returned to the office where I ate the snack I brought. Then Elba asked me to stay for longer but I hadn´t brought a real lunch. Then she left me with a project to do, not realizing that the person I needed to help me was out to lunch. So I just called her and told her I was coming back tomorrow to do it (lol, the new assertive Addy!)

Anyway, I´m sure it will be fine. The org seems cool and the people seem cool so I´m sure it will fall into place. At this point I just kind of feel like an appendage along for the ride. Elba lets me come with her to all her meetings and stuff but I just sit and don´t talk. Maybe if I had time to prepare I could actually TALK during one of our presentations to school kids.

Speaking of which, the three schools I visited so far with Elba were in the South which is really poor. All of them are open air and you have to go outside to enter each classroom. The classrooms I saw had nothing but some desks and a chalkboard and one had a TV (which I think is why we got to use it.) The kids were doing marching (as in parade marching) and aerobic type excercises in the cement courtyard while we were there. I think it was gym class. Also, there are stray dogs IN the school, just wandering around. Yikes. In any case, it made me feel incredibly lucky for the schools we have in the U.S. There may be room for improvement but our educational system has got it right in that at least it is free for everyone. Here you have to pay for uniforms and supplies for school which is cost prohibitive for many families.

On that note, Ciao!

More Rain

It won´t stop raining! We have no dryer! I need to dry my clothes or soon I will be going naked! Also, I lost my umbrella! This is soooo not okay. I miss sunshine. I miss being dry. I miss my hair not being messed up. Stupid rainy Ecuador!

The end.

Rainy Weekend

It has been a little while since I have written and a lot has happened. First let me say that I really appreciate the comments! It´s so good to hear from people while I´m here because sometimes I feel really lonely or cut off.

This weekend has been cold (by Ecuadorian standards - probably 50 degrees) and rainy. We were supposed to have a big picnic yesterday in the Parque Metropolitano but it was moved indoors which was too bad. On Friday the mothers of two other students came to my house to prepare food to bring to the picnic. It was a mini-fiesta! I helped them cook and we also danced salsa, drank cachaza which is a Brazilian drink, and chatted over tea. I really enjoyed listening to all the Spanish and understanding most of it. I also made my mom´s cauliflower dish all by myself which was a big hit.

I ate a ton at the picnic the next day and it was all really good. I also got to see and meet a lot of family members of the other students. My family came with me but my two brothers were very shy and anti-social. I don´t think they had a lot of fun! Oh well! We left pretty early and apparently I missed some good dancing and guitar playing. Back at home I took a siesta and then had a movie night with Sandra and Ian. They rented two movies, I am Legend and Fracture, both of which we watched in English! I am such a cheater! We also ordered pizza which has never tasted so good...I´ll admit to missing American food.

I didn´t end my Saturday night with movies. At 9:30 Emily and her host siblings, Jorge and Renata came to pick me up and go to a party at Laura´s house. It was SOOO fun! Her host brother Daniel is like 25 but he is totally nuts. First he made everyone "vino hervida" which is boiled wine with orange juice. It´s served hot and it´s nice and sweet. We drank that and chatted. After that he put the music on and we danced for hours (and some people may have taken tequila shots at Daniel´s urging...) It was such a fun party! A lot of kids from the program were there but there were also a lot of Ecuadorian guys. A totally great atmosphere! Also, Laura´s drunk host uncle danced the night away with us which was hilarious!

Today I went to the Centro with Sandra and Hardeep. We shopped in a giant market and had a coffee together before returning home for a giant family luncheon at my grandma´s. It was delicious but I think it made me sick with my first episode "you know what." She served a very traditional soup called Fonesca that is always made during la Semana Santa. We also had a traditional desert of figs and cheese. The soup has a story behind it. Apparently when the Virgin Mary was pregnant she went around asking everyone for a little food. She got a little bit of 12 different kinds of grains from the local poor people and she used them to make Fonesca. It has tons of grains and beans and legumes in it and is served with fish and fried plantaines and nuts on top.

The rain is a little depressing, I´ll admit. I´m a little bored and feeling a little neglected by Sandra today for the first time since I got here. She´s really bad about introducing me and making me feel included at family gatherings. I think she doesn´t really like the whole big, extended family get-togethers but it means that I end up feeling really awkward. Then again, if I had a foreigner living in my house I´d probably get really sick of them really quickly. All things considered I am SOOO lucky to have a great host mom like Sandra. We are going to go running in the park tomorrow. Then I may go by myself to check out a church in the Old City, buy some fruit at the market, and print some stuff at an internet cafe before afternoon class. Tuesday my work finally officially begins with my internship interview! YAY!

In other news I also took a cable car up to the top of Pinchincha which was amazing! But I´ll have to leave that story for another day.

First Rain of my Trip!

Today I finally got to experience some of that famous rain they always talk about. It was a little cooler today and it poured for about 15 minutes at midday and sprinkled several other times throughout the day. The clouds are really dark and impressive, rolling in from Pinchincha to the west. Speaking of Pinchincha - tomorrow I get to take the cable car all the way to the top of the mountain/volcano. Talk about altitude!

Today I met up with Molly Adix who is here on another program. She´s a girl on my cross-country team, for those of you who don´t know. I really like her friends! Her school is also super close to myhouse so hopefully she can come have lunch some day. We ran 19 minutes today in Parque Carolina (so it was flat! yay!) and then we did abs. The run was SOOO hard. As soon as I stopped my head was pounding with a headache and my stomach cramped up like I was gonna be sick. Gotta love that altitude. I am gonna keep working on it.

Also, today I easily walked 90 min or maybe two hours, much of it up hill, just getting from point A to point B. I actually feel like I might never be able to use my legs again! I´m soooo tired. And I hope the stomach pains are just from my run and not cause I have my first bug!

Other notes of interest: I got miserably lost on the bus at night in a sketchy neighborhood and my phone wouldn´t work. The good news is I had a friend with me and she was calm so I didn´t cry. Also we made it back fine. It was character building, but no bus after dark for me anymore. Taxis only!

My First Weekend in Ecuador

I think I´ve changed my mind about living abroad. It hasn´t been a whole week I realize, but it´s great to get to know a city as someone who lives there and not just as a visitor or tourist. It´s so big though, I feel like I could live here a lifetime and still not know it. I´m making progress though! Yesterday I walked to El Parque Carolina by myself. It´s a huge park with a little mini lake and botanical gardens and fields, jungle gyms, public aerobic classes, pony ride - everything you could imagine. I want to go back when I have more time to go to the botanical gardens.

I also went to a park near my house for the second time, this time with my mom. Sandra and I walked and did arm excercises (Uncle Carl you would be proud!) Sandra says she´s in bad shape but it doesn´t seem that way to me! I tried running and between the very steep grade of the park (it´s bascially on the side of a mountain) and the altitude I only lasted 10 minutes. I´m gonna have to add on little by little.

Today we did a bike tour of the city because they close off a lot of roads on Sundays. It was AMAZING! It was also really hard cause of the altitude and the hills. First we went to the Basilica which was my favorite. We climbed all the way to the top of the tallest towers! Safety regulations really don´t exist here: we´re talking rickety ladders, no guard rails, hundreds of feet in the air! If it wasn´t so amazingly cool I would have been scared shitless. After the Basilica we went to the Old City where I had been with Sandra. My favorite thing was seeing the Church of la compania de Jesus. It´s super ornate - all carved stone outside and gold leaf inside. It was the first time the Spanish conquest really got driven home - "Let´s just destroy their religion, steal their resources and then enslave them and make them build this disgustingly fancy, ornate church." The interior is literally covered in gold.

Another thing I experienced today was the vendors that come up to you and try to get you to buy their candy. They are all poor little kids or old people and they are SUPER persistent. I´m torn between being annoyed at them and feeling really bad. As a group of 15 white people we were a huge target and a couple times the little kids just swarmed us.

That´s all for now, even though I have a lot more I could say about this weekend.... Addios!

Being a Pedestrian in Quito

First of all, let me just say that the keyboards are different here so forgive my spelling and typos. Other culture shocks so far: pedestrians have literally no rights here and traffic lights are optional so that is a little scary. Also people don´t believe in leashes for their dogs and there are a ton of strays. I am rethinking not getting that rabies shot...

So yesterday I had my first class. We really just talked about rules and safety and the documents we need for our censo and visa registration. It was really fun to meet everyone though. There are 15 of us: 11 girls and 3 boys besides me. Three girls, Caroline, Brittany, and Emily, live in my barrio which is called "Las Casas." Last night almost everyone on the program met up in the Mariscal (also known as Gringoland) to hang out. We went to a cafe where most people got beers but I hadn´t eaten and because of the altitude I stuck with hot chocolate. It was so good! It had whole almonds mixed in and thick whipped cream and it was very thick and rich. That is probably the only really good food I´ve had so far besides the fruit.

I took a cab back home with two girls from my barrio. So now I feel like a big kid. Today we went to El Capillo del Hombre which is a mueseum of art by the famous Ecuadoian artist Guayasamin. He is indigienous and his paintings depict the suffering of Latin America. The museum was on the opposite side of the city way up on a hillside and it had AMAZING views. Of course I didn´t bring my camera (!!!!) So now I know to bring it everywhere even if it ends up getting stolen because it sucks to be without it. It´s super sunny today and I think that I got burned really bad today. Ooops.

Me and six other girls from the program ate lunch together and bought cellphones. This afternoon I have more class and then a dinner with the program. My host mom wants to teach me to dance this evening (and maybe a friend or two as well.) We are going out to a salsa club tomorrow at 10:00 so I need to brush up. I like everyone on the program but I can definitely tell that we have some SERIOUS partyers on the trip. Maybe it will be good for me to get out and be a little crazy! I just want to be safe.

Unfortunately people on the program with the exception of one or two are really bad about speaking in Spanish which is kind of annoying. I don´t want to be the Hermione Granger of my trip but I also don´t want to talk in English all the time! Oh well, hopefully that will work itself out. After the first two weeks I´ll be spending most of my time with my family and my internship anyway.

Last but not least, this Saturday my host grandma´s exchange student is going to cook us a special Indian meal. I´m really excited! His name is Hardeep and he´s from Massachusetts. He´s here learning how to teach English as a second language. My host grandma lives in another seperate part of the same house so he basically lives with us and comes over a lot but he is moving to an apartment very soon. Hopefully he will still come around because I like him.

The First 24 Hours in Quito

Well, I got in safe and on time yesterday afternoon. My host mother, Sandra, and my littlest brother Mikael, picked me up from the airport in their SUPER retro car. I´m going to have to photograph it because it´s too hard to describe. My house is part way up a long, steep hill. The city is really hilly - it reminds me of San Francicsco, even though I´ve never been there. All the houses have high walls and gates and ther is this guy named Angel who is like a paid Neighborhood Watch guard who looks after the street and helps carry your groceries and stuff. We are right in the shadow of the big volcanic mountain, Pinchincha. My room is very tiny but it has everything I need. It is right in the front of the house and two of the walls are frosted glass so it is kind of hard to sleep when other people are watching TV or something since it is noisy and bright.

The climate here is beautiful so far, although I think I already got a sunburn because of the high altitude, haha. Sandra is REALLY nice. She took me to the grocery store yesterday and bought lots of exotic fruit for me to try. We made juice out of naranjillas last night which are these little tangy things that look like yellow tomatoes. She also took me to the Old City last night and it was SOOO beautiful! I can´t wait to go back! It´s full of old churches and mueseums - Dad you would have a blast here. You must come visit.

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I was gonna puke so today I am trying to eat really lightly in case it was the altitude adjustment messing with my stomach. That was not pleasant. But so far everything else has been great. My mom had to work today -she gives tours. This morning it was just me and Mikael who is really sweet. We went to the park together and played a little basketball.

There is also an internet cafe like two blocks from my house (where I am right now) so that is pretty awesome. I haven´t met anyone else from my trip yet but I am going to orientation this afternoon. Apparently some of my fellow Americans live in the same neighborhood so one of them and their host mother are picking me up at 2:00. I guess that is all for now. I will try to write again soon. I see Obama did well last night. That makes me VERY happy.

Also, Mumtaz and Papyrus: I miss you guys soooo much! But I´ll just keep taking it one day at a time :) I hope everyone is well.

Still in Niskayuna...

Well, I'm still in Niskayuna for the next three days and I thought I'd try this blog thing...I guess we'll see how it works.