I just got beat up by the air...FOR REAL.

Some of you may remember my last entry in which I stated that I was having trouble breathing. Apparently, this is a big deal in Ecuador...BREATHING. So, I went to the doctor and they said I had bronchitis, so cool whatever I just layed low for awhile. That was Monday, well on Wednsday I came to class and was scrugglin to make it through the morning in one piece. Long story short, I got a first-hand tour of a third-world hospital. Not bad, I say. Also I cant say I can complain about the guapo intern Dr. Garcia or the nebsies (I will post a picture of this soon...). But seriously, there was someone hanging out with me 24-7 and some of my gringas even came to see me which was awesome! I even got complimented on my Spanish skillzzzz by one of the nurses, which was a welcome change to the usual YOU SUCK AT SPANISH or something to that effect. (I pretty much had a 3 day long asthma attack, is that possible?? I guess anything can happen in Ecuador, what what!!) Well... 2 nights, 2 books and a lot of tv later, I was able to hang out at my house and re-coup. Last night my cousin (Emily) and her host mom (my aunt) came over and we ate dinner with my whole family (mom, dad, young and old brother, and old brothers family...older brother is hilarious, he IS jerry sienfield ecuadorian-style). I am glad that emily came over too because we had a quiz in Spanish class today (and you would think that after being HOSPITALIZED for two days that I maybe I dunno, wouldnt have to take it...ohhhh no.) and I couldnt find my book. Gracias a dios, she had two books one of which was mine. So you can see how much studying got accomplished earlier in the week...

On another note: I am pretty excited for teaching tomorrow at the orphanage. I am assigned to teach english at an orphanage to 3 classes 8 hours a week; hardcore volunteering. So I finally got my lessons planned for the week and they consist of the ABCs and Numbers 1-10, some coloring sheets, rock paper scissors and obviously some candy.

I hope everyone is having a good week and feel free to tell me about your lives as well.

loug0015@hotmail.com

Caio!

Ingapirca Incan Ruins...you know, the usual.

Hola Todos,

Havin a hard time breathin today, yesterday was craaazuh. Well, crazuh AWESOME! So my peeps and I took an hour and a half bus ride up the mountain to an Incan ruin. (Two temples, really.) I cant even begin to describe how cool it was, I took a ton of pictures when we first got there because I couldnt believe how cool it was. The only problem (if you could consider this a problem...) was as we hiked, the view got more and more spectacular. We did the hardest hiking so far which wasnt really hard but we were 13000 meters above sea level so kinda, but it was worth it!

I think the pictures will tell more than I can, so enjoy!!!

Descripts of the Pics:

temples, sweet stones (the really smooth ones are originals, the not smooth ones are new, people cant figure out how to make replicas because they are flawless, also notice that theres nothing holding the stones together, yah incans didnt use anything they were that precise...the replicas have putty between them though), awsome views, my group.

Pictures/Story of my VIDA

Hola Todos!

I figured Id upload some pics of my time so far...and let you know a little about my host family and my scruggles in daily life :) yay!

Where to start? I guess where I left off is a good place. So I get home to my house on Sunday night, and realize that I live with a pretty well off family. Its a nice house, with no yard but a house with a yard is pretty rare to come by here. All of the rooms are on the second floor and the floor is all hardwood or tile, pretty sweet right? Well since all my shoes have rubber soles, they squeak like mofos and my mom calls them zapatos musicales, musical shoes, even though she is prolly annoyed with it! Anyway, my dad is cool, he maintains machienery for a flower farm (exported to the us!) and has a hacienda (cabin kinda) where he farms cattle and has like 20 horses. Needless to say this fact is necessary to describe my host brother. Now most of the guys in Cuenca are rico-suave types, not this dude. Hes like a 4-H kid with beard and mustache. He is nice, I just dont see him a whole lot. He sells cowboy boots and loves Billy Ray Cirus.

So I got a ride on my first day of school. It took about 10 minutes in a car, and 40-45 minutes to walk. I decided then that I had better learn the bus routes because I have class at 8 am, come back for lunch, and go back for our afternoon lectures. I could probably write an entire entry about the buses here but I will keep it brief. So to get a bus (there are like 5 buses per line) you have to flag them down, a skill to which I am still perfecting, apparently. On wednsday morning I flagged like 3 busses down, none of which stopped for me, not to mention everyone who saw this scene chuckled to themselves because obviously it was HILARIOUS. Anyway, I did a good job at flagging down a taxi, which was sweet, especially when the driver tried to charge me 2 bucks when its 1.25; dont worry folks, I just relied on my expertly honed Spanish skills...??? But seriously I was like no dont charge me that dude and gave him 1.50 and left.

Speaking of Spanish skills...so I had a little problem adjusting to the freshness of the food here the last few days. My mom decided it would be a good idea to have me solo bebes te y galletes. Ok cool drink tea and something else I dont understand, awesome. So I sit down to dinner and she asks me if I like galletes, Im like no but I like their eggs. She was pretty confused then so I got pretty confused. I was like galletes, la mama de los juevos? (mom of eggs or chickens) and she started bursting out laughing, she was like those are GALLENAS not GALLETES. Yah, I was supposed to comment on the crackers (galletes) that I was eating. The sad thing is there are too many instances of that stuff, its too hard to recount. A funny/creepy story though: my friend Nubia in my program and a few other friends and I were going to take taxis from our houses to this Bar called Callyptus. I got there late and Nubia seemed pretty flustered and I asked if she was ok. You dont even want to know what just happened to me, well yah of course I did! She said she told the driver Callyptus, and he proceeded to drive her to the TOWN of Callyptus. Thank goodness she is a native speaker but even though her Spanish was awesome, the driver was pissed when she told him that she wanted to go to the bar.

What else? oh, im teaching english at an orphanage 8 hours a week, which is cool only I have no idea how to 1) teach english and 2) yell at kids in Spanish. So the girls, by the time I get there at 2 have already had a full day of school and the last thing they want to do is pay attention to some gringa whose only method of teaching includes bribary with candy. Anyway, Im working on it. When its all said and done, it will be integral for me to decide where I want to take this whole teaching for a carreer business.

I think thats all for now, I am going out for lunch today with my friend Claire. I have dance class later this afternoon and am going to a soccer game and then out to bars!! WOOP!


Pictures: guy in hammock=our bus driver for our first week of travel
me and my friends overlooking quito
CEDEI computer lab
me and claire scared of the ecuadorian guard

Hasta Luego!!

_ERIN_

My life in the EC

Hola Todos!

So today is my second day of classes, and let me just say that life is just a little rougher after traveling for a week straight.

The first night I flew in to Quito (the capital city) around midnight. Everything went fine until the guy who drove me to the hotel kept pointing out things around the city and telling me stuff. Don´t get me wrong, he was a really nice guy, I just had no clue what he was saying!! I asked him if it was rare to see gringos around, he was like no, why? Well, when the people on our flight (mostly gringos) went down the escalators, everyone turned around and was blatently staring! OHHH, he said, Jefferson Perez was on your flight. (Apparently he has won the olympic speed walking championship for the third time and is ecuadorian. All I could think about was the Malcom in the Middle episode where the dad gets into speed walking and wears a spandex jumpsuit and an aerodynamic helmet.) Anyway...so my group (all 8 of us) dinked around Quito on tues, and spent the night. On wed, we drove to Mitad Del Mundo (equator) and then to Otavalo which boasts the most famous market in Latin America. If you are nice to me, I might let you have some of the stuff I bought there; I am pro at barganing, I bought a bum load. The next morning we went to a weaving and music demonstration in an indigenous village. The thing about the indigenous people here is they are all over the place, which is sweet!! Before I came, I figured they would be living on reservations like native americans or something, nope they are all over and make sweet stuff!!! The next day we went back to Quito and on the way stopped at a sweet lake in the mountains. It was weird to see because the water looked so blue I thought it was food coloring, and God knows i´ve worked with enough of that with the first graders this summer...So I found out later that it was because of sulfer deposits from a nearby volcano; it´s ok to swim in but there´s no fish.

Alas, we got back to Quito and bummed around the casino in the hotel. I kept going to the change guy to get change for my 20´s, because change for 10´s or even 5´s doesn´t exist in Ecuador, and paying with a 20 is like paying with a 50 in the states. ANYHOO AGAIN, the next day we went on a teleferico which was SWEET and I felt HIGH, hahaha because I was, get it?? At the top it was 14000 feet, roughly. Then we went to old town Quito, and our guide got us into the Ecuadorian ¨whitehouse¨in front of a line of 50 ecuadorians, needless to say, I felt like a butthole gringa. Our last stop that day was at a museum dedicated to Guayasamin, who was a paintor/poet/sculptor and a human rights activist. I am in love with his dead self, not literally but his obras are jawsome.

After that crazy day, a few beers (1.50 for a beer and a half maybe a little more) and some bonding with my peeps, I slept for the last time in Quito. The next day we headed off towards Cuenca (the city I´m in now). It takes 11 hours (even though the country is about the size of Nevada) but its through the mountains. Now for all of my family in Park City, you may have a small idea of what I´m talking about but it was OFF ROAD in a tour bus, jello jiggler style. Awesome views though, no not awesome, if there is a word cooler than awesome that´s what it would be. We stayed in Patate that night, at a hotel overlooking an active volcano. After dinner, we were all invited to a birthday party that was going on in one of the halls there. It was hilarious. People were taking pictures of us, not with us, but of us and people would go up to us and say HAPPY BIRTHDAY in english, sooo funny.

The last day, sunday, of our ¨cultural tour¨of ecuador ended with an 9 hour bus ride and finally in Cuenca at CEDEI (my school). They proceeded to, as our director put it, auction us off like cattle. I met my host family, mom dad and brother, and thats when my new adventure started.

Sorry to cut this off but I need to get home for lunch and siesta. I will have access to a computer every day now so feel free to email me or what not.

Adios Amigos.

-ERIN-

Going to Ecuador Tomorrow!

So this is my first official entry. I just want to let you all know that I will try my best to update this site as often as possible so that you can keep track of my every move, because after all folks, isn't that why we have the Internet?

Thanks for reading, and if you feel compelled--leave a comment!

~ADIOS AMIGOS~