Quito Week Something

Ok, it’s been a month since I updated. August was a strangely hectic month with a lot going on, but because I have the memory of a goldfish I want to go ahead and write a little bit about what I’ve been up to.

First of all, Neil came. He was here for over a week, and we had a great time. In Quito, we ate out most of the time, and I got to try lots of new restaurants. We went to the historic center, saw a great exhibit on photos from around the world, went to the Ambassador’s house for dinner (there kids were in Neil’s school before coming to Quito), went to museums, played a lot of cards and generally hung out. One day, Neil was waiting for me in the café and randomly a girl that we both noticed from his flight (he noticed her while she was on the flight, I noticed her when she was leaving the airport) came to eat. General chit-chat lead to a few nights of going out and going to dinner together, and through her – her name is Aysha – I met some other cool people. She was traveling through Ecuador for a few weeks, but now she’s back where she was before. Living in D.C. not ten minutes from Neil’s new apartment. Small world, people. One of the last things we did before leaving was to go to the mall here for the release of Harry Potter. Neil was here for his birthday, and I wanted to get him a copy as his gift. We thought it would be at midnight, but it ended up being at 6 p.m., and we got there about an hour early. The woman at the counter assured us that there wouldn’t be a problem and we would for sure be able to get a copy, but when it came to crunch time, I was super nervous. Typical Quito style, there wasn’t really any sort of line or order, and people were just crowding. I don’t like it when people just crowd. My throat closed up and I kept wining and asking questions. Neil swore he would never wait in line with me again because I was a little out of control. But… we got the book, and Neil had entertainment for the many buses we would take in the coming week. He ended up reading it twice before getting back to the states.

After Quito, we took a trip down south. Went to a very small town called Baños that has a least as many tourists as it does locals… it’s definitely smaller than Manteo. It’s a town set in the mountains, right on the cusp of the sierra and the oriente. We rented four wheelers and went to see a lot of small waterfalls and beautiful scenery. At night we went to one of two streets that had restaurants open, and we joined the throngs of people milling about watching the eternally present kids on four wheelers making far too much noise for the town.

After Baños we went to Riobamba. We went with the intention to take a train down a very windy, steep part of the Sierra. It’s called the Devil’s Nose train, and before lots of tourists would ride on top to see the scenery. Then people fell off and died, and now it’s not allowed. We got to this semi-city in the afternoon, and it immediately rubbed me the wrong way. Then we found out that the trains were in strike. We found a dingy hotel that reeked of cigarette smoke covered with a far-too-strong citrus, went to an okay dinner and played cards to round out the night. We left early in the morning.

Next stop, Cuenca. Cuenca is the third-largest city in Ecuador, but it feels much smaller than Quito. Cuenca is known for its old town, and that’s where we stayed. I had to go down there to meet with another school that the Quito school I’m studying with wants to work with. So we stayed in there hostel, which was a great old Colonial house with a kitchen, beautiful courtyard, and hammock. We met some really nice people there. A 5-year-old named Evan who, with his parents, was studying Spanish for a month or so. He would come and watch us play backgammon or Spit and Malice, and he was always on my side. I liked Evan. The staff was super helpful, and we liked Cuenca much more than Riobamba. The city is beautiful. We went on a tour to the old city to see the city’s churches and plazas, and met up with some funny Irish girls and a lady for Italy (I got to attempt to speak Italian again!). We ate at some great places – some fabulous Colombian food, a great café with spicy kebabs and good music and a place that had delicious corn dishes. We also ate a lot of yucca bread. I think if I lived in Cuenca I would be bored, but it was great to visit for a few days.

Neil left, and I was scrambling to get back to reality. I had a month of classes, half discussion and half current events. The students were definitely worn out, so there was a lot more griping and complaining. But I liked the classes because there was a lot of debate. In the current events class, we took some field trips. We went to talk to a social worker who made us draw pictures and then told us how we would be in old age. Apparently no one in our group is going to be happy in old age because no one has a clear plan for what they’re going to do with their life. Oops. Then we were to a public hospital for older people, and a woman told us about how here, because people don’t have the economic resources to support big families, many times families will bring sick older relatives to the hospital to get better, and while the person is healing, the family moves houses, changes numbers and abandons the person so they don’t have to pay to support another person in the family. Yikes.

A few days later, as the last field trip, we went to a retirement home. This class was a group of five people and the teacher. And Alexandra, the teacher, wanted us to do something as a presentation – sing, dance, a play, something. Mind you, this is a group of students that doesn’t really know how to speak Spanish. At all. There is a girl in the class who speaks in infinitives and always ignores prepositions. So no one wanted to go. The two days before we went, the griping level was ridiculously high. But we went. And I think we had someone looking out for us. We were on the bus, and about ten minutes into the ride, three young people got on the bus… two guys with guitars, and one girl with pink hair. They explained they were going to play some music, and gave us a small concert on the bus. We all looked at each other with the same idea, and within two minutes Alexandra was asking them if, by chance, they wanted to accompany us to the retirement home. And for whatever reason, they said yes. They were all young, my age more or less, and they came to Quito from Bogotá to play in bars here and try to make money with the stronger dollar. We went to the retirement home, played some songs that we all sort of knew – Hotel California, La Bamba and others. We were all laughing at ourselves, trying to dance, trying to make everyone laugh and having a good time. We ended the visit by helping serve lunch, and we left them with a serenade. Everybody had a really good time, and I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if our band friends hadn’t been there.

What else happened that was fun? My friend Arvin was in town, and we went to a dance class. Neither one of us knew anything about Salsa, so I was comfortable making a fool out of myself. And that is exactly what I did. Then we went out with a big group of people and ended up staying out until sunrise because Arvin had a really early flight in the morning. It is probably the only time I will do that while I’m here.

Since then, I’ve had a stroke or two of bad luck. Two friends were going to come but ended up not being able to, one because of a hurricane in Mexico and the other because of classes. Then, unfortunately, I got robbed one night leaving work. I was waiting for less than five minutes for a cab, and some came behind me, grabbed my purse, pulled me to the ground and went off on a motorcycle. I didn’t get hurt, and I didn’t loose my passport or anything – just a lot of cash, ipod shuffle, sunglasses and debit card. But it could have been much worse, and I’m trying to get back to not feeling terrified about being out at night. Then I realized that I totally messed up my visa, and I have to pay a lot of money… but again, it’s better than it could be, and I’ll get it taken care of. I’m going to start teaching English classes to make some extra cash.

So for now, I’m just working and hanging out. Work has kept me pretty busy, and I think the next two months are going to go by quickly. I’m planning a trip to the beach soon, and we’re getting another trip together for Colombia. So we will see how it all works out…