Hi friends,
Once again, not a whole lot has happened in the last few days, but
I always manage to make a short story long. I have been neglecting my camera in
the past couple days, so there's only one picture—sorry about that!
On Sunday afternoon, a few of my friends from the program met up
at La Carolina Park and played soccer with a bunch of Ecuadorians. They were pretty entertained by us, I
think. They play on a cement slab and
call it indoor (pronounced “een-dohr”, like “indoor” soccer) for some reason,
probably because it’s not on a real field.
We then caught a cab downtown to “Gringolandia,” or La Mariscal district to catch
the Packers game. We found an
Irish-American pub that was going to be broadcasting the game, and ordered a
good ol’ fashioned burger and a beer. I
won’t go into details about that game—y’all know what happened. Aside from the
outcome, it was a good time. Hilary and
I caught a taxi home, and I went to bed shortly after.
On Monday, I woke up at 7:15, had breakfast, and went to
school. The day was pretty
uneventful. My snacks throughout the day
consisted of: a chocolate-chip cookie (warm and delicious) and mora juice
(blackberry juice), a nutella croissant, and a boring bagel with cream cheese.
Even the smallest things seem extra delicious here. There is a panadería (bread
shop) right around the corner from campus that sells lots of different kinds of
bread and chocolate sculptures for fantastic prices. During lunch, I finished
my Spanish composition (procrastination—some things never change), and walked
around campus a bit.
That night, I came home and we had broccoli/potato/cheese soup
with rice, fried pork, and ensalada (the stuff that’s a lot like pico de
gallo). The soup was a lot less creamy
(and probably a load more healthy) than the stuff you’re probably imagining,
but it was extra flavorful.
On Tuesday, I woke up at 7:15 and had a breakfast of papaya, bread
with marmalade, and coffee. I don’t know if I’ve ever had papaya before, but
it’s not bad! School was once again, moderately uneventful, save for the thunderstorm and downpour
mid-afternoon. For lunch, a few
classmates and I went again to the restaurant Del Horno. It has come to be
known as “the two-fifty place,” because you get an insane amount of food for
$2.50. We had lemonade, a bowl of legume
soup, a chicken wing, rice, ensalada, and passion fruit whipped dessert. While
it is just a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, it’s delicious. We played soccer with a bunch of other
students at the turf field on campus, and then went to Spanish class. I won’t
lie—learning verbs for the 5th time is insanely dull. Sorry teachers.
On the way home, I was stopped at a corner waiting for a light to
change when some random guy came up to me and started talking to me in Spanish.
He had a weird accent, and it sounded French, so on an impulsive whim I started
speaking to him in French. (The switch was weirdly difficult at first, but got
a lot easier after I switched mindsets.)
He was thrilled, and we walked a few blocks, talking small talk, and went
our separate ways. Another goal accomplished—speaking French in Ecuador!
Tuesday night, I got home and there was no one in the 2nd flat
where Cecilia, Rodrigo, and Cecilia’s mom live.
I was a little worried because my abuelita’s bed was empty, which only
happens when she’s in the kitchen eating.
I went upstairs to see what was up, and I found Salomé and Lourdes’
sister (still don’t know her name—sad, I know) hanging out. My abuelita was up
there. Thank goodness. I had some coffee and bread with them, and then helped
Salomé with her math homework. Honestly, this was probably one of the hardest
things I’ve done since I’ve been here. Don’t get me wrong, I love math. But,
teaching it to an 11-year-old in a way that she’ll understand, in a language
that she’ll understand, using the terminology that she’s used to, was
surprisingly challenging. It confirmed
my belief that I picked the right field of study—most words in the sciences are
nearly identical in Spanish and English.
Cecilia and Rodrigo got home around 8 p.m. or so. The reason they
were so late is an interesting one!
Around 1 p.m., they had gone to the place where Santiago’s wedding
reception is going to take place in June to do some measurements and do some
general planning. By the time they were
done, it was past 4:30 p.m. Now here’s the interesting part. In Quito, there is a very specific traffic
rule meant to reduce the number of people on the road at one time. The law is known as pliqui-placa ("plee-kee-plah-kah"), but I'm not sure what that means or if/how it translates. For every
vehicle, there is a day of the week and time of the day that that vehicle is
not allowed to be on the road. If they are caught driving during their
restricted time, the fine is tremendous.
So, for Cecilia and Rodrigo, they are not allowed to drive on Tuesdays
before 9 a.m. or between 4:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. (For other Quiteños, the day
varies). This was a recent attempt by the government to keep traffic levels
down, but in my opinion, traffic is (and always will be) insane. So, my host
parents didn’t get home until after they were allowed to drive.
This morning, Wednesday, I woke up and had breakfast. Today I had
papaya, crepes (weirdly thick—maybe a cross between a crepe and pancake) and
marmalade, and coffee. In my morning
ecology class, we did a bunch of math and talked about population sizes and
such. Interesting, like most biology, but still a little dry. Sorry Joe (one of
my professors; the other is Catherine).
We played soccer over lunch and I scraped a few layers of skin off of my
leg/foot on the turf. Not fun. I was hesitant to wash the scrape off because
all I could think about were the parasites and bacteria I was flooding my wound
with (water quality is not great in Ecuador). But Cecilia took care of me when I got home and put some weird white
penicillin cream on it. Too much info—sorry. After Spanish, I went home and had
dinner with my host family. We had la sopa de mellocos (pronounced “may-oh-kohss”;
a melloco is a small potato-looking tuber), with rice and carne con crema
(literally “meat with cream”, but it was pretty much beef stroganoff). We also
had rosquillas (pronounced "roh-skee-yah-ss"), or homemade donuts,
along with some coffee. ¡Qué rico!
 |
| Rosquillas--donuts |
I’ve saved my most excellent news for last! For the last month of
our semester, we’re required to do an internship applying lots of the things
we’ve learned over the course of the semester.
In the last day or so, I’ve been in contact with a woman who is a
professor at UW-Madison that works with afterschool science education programs
in Madison schools. She is coming to
Ecuador this summer to implement similar programs in the curriculum of a few
grade schools on the coast. So, it looks like I’m going to be her intern! Some
of the things I’ll likely be helping her with are: brainstorming, compiling,
and refining relevant hands-on, fun science activities for K-8 students (using
the template for the ones that already exist in Wisconsin), preparing materials
for the teacher training workshop that will take place this coming summer,
assessing current science teaching practices (by interviewing/observing), and
getting to know the teachers that the program is going to be working with. This
internship all but fell in my lap, and I couldn’t have invented one that is
better suited for me! Let’s keep our
fingers crossed that everything goes as planned. Two things are against me: 1)
I’m a Murphy, and therefore fall under Murphy’s Law, and 2) Things are pretty
wishy-washy here in Ecuador. But, if all goes well, I’ll be hanging out on the coast
for a month in late-April and early-May!
Anyway, that’s enough of that.
A shout-out to my Grammy today. She’s more than likely chillin’ in
heaven right now, but my abuelita here is a great substitute. Aside from the
fact that Grammy’s prettier and speaks English, they’re pretty much the same
beautiful, caring, sometimes-a-bit-forgetful people, and I love them both. :)
This weekend, my class is headed to El Pahuma, a cloud forest about
an hour and a half from Quito. Cheers to
learning about plants, birds, and animals in the real-life forest! We leave on
Friday morning, so I’ll see you on the flip side of that trip. ¡Hasta luego!
(-:
ReplyDelete