Settling In

Hello friends!

We’re starting to get into the swing of things here. We’ve started our classes and gotten to know campus a bit! Here are a few pictures of our beautiful campus:

The lagoon at the center of campus

The waterfall at the end of the lagoon

Sweet tree

On Monday night when I got back from orientation, I hung out with my host family a bit. It was, again, “cold” and rainy, so Cecilia, my host mom, made us a warm drink called canela (pronounced “kahn-eh-lah”). Canela means “cinnamon” in Spanish, so—you guessed it—it was a cinnamon drink. It really was just boiled water with cinnamon mixed in, with added liquor to taste. Not as good as the caneloza that I wrote about before, but still very good. I went downstairs to rest a bit, watched the movie “Horrible Bosses” (hilarious, in my opinion), did some Skyping, and went to bed.

On Tuesday morning, the first day of my biology class(es), I woke up around 6:45 (I know, right?!), ate breakfast, walked to the bus stop, and rode the bus to school. Here, I’ll give you an American’s perspective of the bus system in Quito. “Unbelievable” pretty much sums it up.  I walk 15 minutes to the bus stop. I could catch a bus closer to my house, but I prefer to walk—I’m getting to know the faces of people in the streets around the time I leave. I only have to take one bus from my bus stop to the university.  At the “bus stop”, called La estación Río Coca (“Río Coca Station”—a transfer point on Río Coca St.), there are always at least a half dozen buses, all going to the same place, to choose from.  There isn’t a schedule at all. Also, fun fact, the buses have names instead of numbers (for example, El Quinche or Tumbaco). When one of our orientation directors was telling us about the first time he used the bus system in Europe, he was shocked to discover that not only does the time “5:23” exist, but the bus comes at exactly that time. In Ecuador, it’s completely different.  The buses come and go whenever they get there, and there is never a wait for a bus at the station.  You just get to the station, and get on a bus. The trip from this station to Cumbayá (the valley where University of San Francisco de Quito is) is approximately 30 minutes.  There is a change of elevation of 2,000 feet from the top of the “hill” to the bottom. So, as you might imagine, the long winding hill is quite steep. The bus drivers don’t hesitate taking every turn at 50 miles an hour, and (because my eyes have recently been awakened to the world of physics), I often fear for my life. But that’s the fun of it right?

One of my many choices of green buses

Anyway, Tuesday morning, my classmates and I collected our copies of things to complete the visa registration process. Good thing I knew how to say “holes” (huecos [way-kohs], for those of you who are interested) in Spanish—it’s a very strange thing trying to act out a hole-punch. Again, gracias a Señor Henderson for that one. Starting at 9 a.m., we had biology class. The class is three hours long, from 9:00 a.m. to noon.  It is really two classes in one: Terrestrial Ecology (for the first half of the semester) and Conservation Biology (which overlies the entire semester).  The class is in English, taught by professors from UW-Madison. We learned about climate in the tropics, circulation of the atmosphere and oceans, and all that good stuff. After getting out at noon, we went to look around for a place to eat. A couple of my classmates and I settle on paninis from the school’s cafeteria. Obviously not Ecuadorian food, but great none the less. In the meantime, a few of my classmates went to check out the zip-line. One of them (ahhhemmmm, Laura) tried to ride the zip-line stomach down. Needless to say, this didn’t give her a lot of room between her and the water. Unfortunately, the video didn't load.

Aviv on the zip-line

The end of Laura's zip-lining experience

In the afternoon, we went to register our visas, but we were misinformed about the process and ended up leaving empty-handed. Alas, Ecuadorian bureaucracy. Hilary and I ended up walking back toward our houses together. I put on a few miles on my shoes after that trip.  When I got home, I had some soup called Quinoa, a vegetable-based broth with Quinoa grain (a grain that grows only at high altitudes, characterized by its squiggly appearance) and cooked potatoes, and “spaghetti” noodles (elbow macaroni), with cheese and ham. I have to admit--after taking Parasitology, those Quinoa grains looked a little too much like worms to completely enjoy the soup.  

My entire host family, with the exception of Lourdes and her sister (the two chicas indígenas that live with us), was on their way out the door for a very special event. Santiago, my host brother, was going to his girlfriend Adriana’s house to pedir la mano a sus padres (ask her parents for her hand in marriage).  In Ecuador, it is custom that the man asks the female first if she wants to marry him, and then he asks her parents for their blessing.  When I told them it was usually the other way around in the States, they said, “Well, what happens if the parents say yes, and the girl says no? How embarrassing.”  This event is super important for the entire family. Everyone, (parents, sister, niece, whoever in the family might be in town) dresses up (I’m talking suits and dresses) to go to the woman’s house.  They bring flowers, and both families formally dine together. Santiago was a bit nervous, of course, but everything went well. A great big Felicitaciones to Santiago and Adriana. While all this was going on, Lourdes and I had a cup of coffee and talked about soccer. She is a fan of “La Liga,” a professional soccer team from Quito. Apparently the games get pretty intense—can’t wait for one of those!

Yesterday, we had Biology in the morning and the first day of Spanish in the afternoon (2-5 p.m.).  I’m in a Spanish class with 5 other students from my program called “Conversación avanzada,” or Advanced Conversation. Since there are only 6 of us, it’s really fun! My professor, Tomás (who has one blue eye and one brown) probably gets a good laugh (or two or three) out of all of our Spanish errors.  For lunch, I went to another cafeteria on campus and had a crèpe. It was called un crèpe para morirse (literally, "a crèpe to die for").  I know it sounds boring, but this crèpe was a masterpiece. It had caramel on the bottom (it was supposed to be Nutella, but they were fresh out), strawberries, bananas, and cheesecake in the middle, folded up with chocolate syrup and chocolate flakes on top. I told the chef that he was an artist.  

When I got home, I ate some dinner. It was an egg-based soup, with a chicken flavored broth and the white of a hardboiled egg scattered throughout, with the hardboiled yolk plopped in the middle, whole. This soup (its name escapes me) was described as my host mom as a soup that even a guy who doesn’t know how to cook could make for his wife. It was tasty, although not my favorite. It was served with fried pork, rice, and roasted carrots and potatoes. As always, completely flavorful and delicious. I went to bed really early because I was exhausted.

This morning, I woke up, ate, and went to school. I went to biology, where we learned about some of the origins of flora (plants) and fauna (animals) in South America. If not for the break in between the 3 hours, I would have had even more daydreams than I did. I love biology a lot, but I can’t wait to get into the field and learn about this stuff. For lunch, a few of my classmates and I went to a restaurant down the street called “Del Horno” (literally, “from the oven”).  We had traditional Ecuadorian food—a pear-like thick juice, cauliflower cream soup (I loved it, but I don’t like cauliflower) with cilantro and tortilla strips, rice, pico de gallo, breaded fish, lime, and fried plantains. For desert, we had an incredibly sweet date with queso fresco (literally “fresh cheese”, a really simple white cheese served with a lot of things). This delicious meal was all for…wait for it…$2.50.  Delicious, cheap, ethnic food—can’t get much better than that.  It is, however, an interesting topic talking about money--I always feel a bit guilty commenting on the low price of something, because for many Ecuadorians, $2.50 is a fair amount of money. 

Juice and the main dish 

Date and queso fresco

For the whole 3 hours of Spanish we just talked in Spanish. This is, apparently, how it’s going to be every day. It’s amazing to have that much practice speaking Spanish, and we learn a lot too. For example, today we talked about many of the indigenous regions of Ecuador, some frutas (fruits), and many of the little obscurities of Ecuadorian Spanish. For example, in Ecuador, Spanish is much easier to understand than in Mexico, Spain, or much of Central America, because they speak so articulately. Gracias a Dios.

After Spanish we went to a little restaurant just off campus to have a drink. It was 2-for-1 happy hour, so we tried the famous Ecuadorian Pilsener that we’d been hearing so much about. It was well worth the dollar! It was so much fun hanging out with all of the people in my program. We definitely had a few laughs, most of which come from our Spanish skills (or lack thereof).  I got home around 7 and had dinner and coffee with Rodrigo, Cecilia, Lourdes, Santiago, Adriana, and Salomé.  Dinner tonight was a green Spinach soup (plain, but delicious) and lasagna. It was a white sauce-based lasagna with ground meat and vegetables. So tasty, and even delicious re-heated! I helped Salomé with her English homework (this has become a nightly tradition), and bode goodnight to everyone.

Hillary and Lizzie with a margarita

The famous Ecuadorian  Pilsener

Classmates on my program: Tyler, Will, Jake, Aviv, Hilary, and  Paul

White sauce lasagna

Spinach soup (looks gross, but isn't)

Here are a few things I’ve learned in the past couple days:

-A “camelid” is the scientific name for the taxonomic family of camels, llamas, alpacas and such. They originated in North America, and migrated to South America where they eventually survived and became extinct in North America.

-The Amazon river used to flow from east to west, even after the breakup of Pangea (a cool, well-respected scientific theory that all of the continents were at one point all one continent) when South America split from Africa. Then, 5 million years ago (very recent, geologically speaking), the Andes mountains began to rise due to the shifting of tectonic plates, and the Amazon pooled into a huge dammed up lake in the west of South America, and eventually switched directions and now flows from west to east. It is the longest river in the world. The slope of the river, from the west of South America to where it exits into the Atlantic Ocean in the east is incredibly small—the equivalent of the slope created from putting one end of a ruler on a single sheet of paper. You can imagine how slowly the water flows.

-There is an indigenous group of people in the Amazonian region of Ecuador called the Huao-rani. They are one of the last groups of people (~2,000 or so) that wants no contact with “civilized” South America.  They rarely send people out of the community, and are still trying to maintain existence in the Ecuador. They were formally a nomadic, hunter-gatherer society, but have now taken up permanent residence in the east and north of Ecuador.

It’s been really fun getting to know the university so far. Everyone is so friendly, and much more tolerant than we would be in the U.S. with non-English speakers.  So far, I’ve learned a lot about the culture, customs, and language of Ecuador, and of course biology. A shoutout to my Ma today. My host mom is a lot like you in many aspects. She’s the one who does it all—she’s got the family’s back, and she’d give you a run for your money in the cooking arena. Everyone calls her Mamá, so it’s a good thing you’re just Ma so we can tell you apart. 

¡Hasta pronto!