i am still alive

I am proud to say that it is FINALLY December 27 and I have officially survived Christmas. 

I spent the better (or worse?) part of Christmas eve crying. At 10 we went to Mass, and then afterwards, we came back to the house with my host dad’s parents. While we were gone, Santa paid us a visit. Ricardo was quite excited to inspect all of the wrapped gifts and make a mountain-sized pile of the ones that had his name on them.  I helped him read the names on the packages and pass them all out. Santa brought me some pajamas, my host parents gave me a pair of flip flops that I picked out last weekend, and my host grandparents gave me a bag to take to the beach. All of the gifts were super sweet- I didn’t expect anything (except for the flip flops, since I already knew about them), and it was really thoughtful of them. I also gave my family their gifts, and they all seemed to really like them, which made me feel really good. After opening gifts, we all went and ate dinner. At almost 1 o’clock in the morning. Dinner was veeeeeery tasty. After dinner we all sat outside on the porch and talked, while Ricardo played with his new toys.

The next morning, everyone slept late. Later, we went to visit my host mom’s parents at their house in the center of the city, and, to my surprise, lots of the shops and stands downtown were open. on Christmas! After visiting with them for a while we went to my host dad’s parent’s house to eat ceviche. When we got home again everyone took a nap. Later that night we went out with my host dad’s whole family to a fancy restaurant/hotel downtown to eat dinner. It was very good. Ricardo cried because my host aunt told him that she left his present at her house in Guayaquil. She was lying (thank goodness, because he would not stop crying), and we went to her house after dinner so that he could open his gift (a car track thingy with two little remote control cars) and then set it up on the floor. My host aunt’s a dermatologist, and she gave me a bottle of sunscreen. :) Which will definitely be used. It is definitely summer here now- it is so hot. ALL of the time. I pretty much spend the whole day sweating. Also, the mosquitoes have multiplied. Now my room permanently smells like bug spray. Which is a wonderful smell.

Last night we had the very last large family dinner (thank goodness, because I am getting fat). We went to my host mom’s brother’s house with ALL of her family- I think there are like 8 brothers and sisters. Not all of them were there, but there were still quite a few people there.

Highlight of my week- when Ricardo called me his sister and gave me a hug. :)

Today we will do what we do every Sunday- eat ceviche!

Here are some pictures:

Ricardo checking out his gifts:

Claudia, Noralma, Ricardo, and I at the restaurant

Ricardo and Noralma at the restaurant:

Merry Christmas Eve!

The Ecuadorian Government has given us the gift of light this holiday season- they have decided that there will be NO power rationing from the 24^th to the 27^th of December. How generous.

The president has also tried out a more communist-style take on things as well- he recently took a TV station based in Quito off of the air. I guess we'll see what happens with that…

My Rotary Club had their ‘Christmas meeting’ this Monday night, which was kind of cool. We were supposed to be there at 8:15. My host parents were running late so I got there at 8:30 and there were only 6 other people there. Typical Ecuador! :) The dinner was nice though. The club gave the other exchange students and I gifts- I got a scarf sort of thing, which is really nice. Then, they decided that we needed to do a nativity scene. So we go to this other little room and put on costumes and then stand there and take pictures. It was interesting, to say the least. I got to be a shepherd. Here's a picture!

Christmas here starts tonight- I think the plan is to go to church tonight at 10 and then begin Christmas things after that. I'll write again soon, letting you know what happens!

Love you all, and Merry Christmas!

what's goin on

As of today, I have been in Ecuador for exactly 4 months! It seems like almost every post has some sort of anniversary that goes along with it. Does it seem like I’m counting? I am. 

Haven’t written in a while- last weekend I took Ricardo to the Botanical Gardens. We got lost in the maze a couple of times, and got to see all of the animals. It was his first time to go, and he’s still talking about it, so I think he enjoyed it.

I went to school a grand total of three days last week. I woke up on Monday at 7 (when school starts) really confused, because I didn’t remember waking up and turning off my alarm (which I apparently did). I went to school and learned lots on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Friday I went with all of the English teachers (host mom included) and a friend to the Oro Verde hotel in Manta. This hotel is one of the nicest in all of Ecuador- we ate lunch there and then hung out/napped by the pool there. It was niiiiiice. Inside the hotel, it didn’t feel like I was in Ecuador anymore.

Saturday I went with the Rotaract Club in my area to a community about 20 minutes away from Portoviejo to give out Christmas gifts to the kids there. We went to a school there that this Rotaract Club has been ‘taking care of’ for 5 or 6 years now. They provided school supplies for all of the students there, donated learning materials, and painted the school room. We played some games with the kids, and then gave out gifts to everyone who came. Then, some kids from the school did a little presentation for us- a dance thing and two skits. The skits were kind of difficult to understand, but I got parts of them and they were apparently pretty funny.

Saturday night I went to a friend’s house, where we cooked the INSTANT MASHED POTATOES that my parents sent me. They were heavenly. :D

Sunday I went to the beach with my family. The ocean has been really ‘angry’ recently- there’s a rip tide and a couple of people have drowned, so there were not a whole lot of people in the water. It was kind of creepy actually. Ricardo and I went walking along the beach, and then he decided that we needed to run back, so I got a little exercise in.

Then we got home, and the power went out for two and a half hours, because that’s what the power in Ecuador does.

learn english with Alvin the Chipmunk!

Today marks my 16th week of being here. Hip Hip Hooray.
I went to the hamburger stand around the corner earlier this week with two friends. We bought 5 hamburgers and three drinks. Want to guess how much we paid? $3.80. Yes. $3.80. AMAZING. They’re good hamburgers too.
I go to a public school, but since Ecuador is SO CATHOLIC, they have religion classes. Which is kind of weird for me. I’ve gotten used to the whole separation between church and state thing. Yesterday I was in the library at school reading a book about Ecuador, when the two librarians asked me if I wanted to come and do their advent reading with them. So I did, and it was cool. Something that TOTALLY surprises me is the number of people who have asked me if I celebrate Christmas. Apparently other Christian religions are not very popular and most people know nothing about them. It is strange how many times I have been asked if Christians celebrate Christmas.
In my English class last week, we were listening to a tape that goes along with their textbook, and I SWEAR one of the voices sounded exactly like Alvin the Chipmunk. We listened to this conversation at least 5 times and by the end of it, I wanted to pull out all of my hair.
Other than the annoying chipmunk voices, school has been going well.
Last night I went with my host mom to a Christmas carol competition between high schools. It was quite fun.
Here’s a picture of the Christmas tree and manger-scene at my house! You probably can’t see, but on the manger scene, all of the animals have gathered, along with some of Ricardo’s dinosaurs and shells, to wait for baby Jesus to arrive. :)

green grass for the first time in 3 months!

I complain about school a lot. I’ve started keeping track of how many days I go to school, and I realized that I should NOT be complaining. In October, I went to school 5 days. November- 9 days. December- 2 so far (but I’m going tomorrow too, so almost 3). So I think I should stop complaining. 

Usually in the mornings, it is cloudy, and the clouds stay until at least 9 or 10, which keeps it a bit cooler. Today, it was sunny from 6 a.m. on. Which made for a VERY hot day at school. I almost melted.

Today I went to the Botanical Gardens in Portoviejo with a couple of friends! Which was refreshing. Portoviejo is hot, dusty, and super dry right now. There’s pretty much nothing alive in the city. And you can feel your lungs slowly dying as they inhale more and more dust and car fumes. Quite nice. Anyway, the Botanical Gardens are niiiiiiiiiice. They have green grass, which was a lot more exciting than it should have been. And lots of plants and trees and flowers and animals too! And about a million and a half iguanas, which I think are hilarious. I find it SO FUNNY to walk up to a bush or something where an iguana is hiding, and see it run out, lifting it’s legs as high as it can, and run up a tree, or into the pond. There were also other strange rainforest animals living there. Here are some pictures. Enjoy!

i spyyyyyyy.... an iguana!:

a strange monkey/bear thing that has a nose like an anteater:

an animal kind of like a pig, but furry, and angry: 

como te llamas, llama?

So, this weekend I went to Riobamba, a city in the highlands of Ecuador! We left Friday morning at 9, and I almost thought that I wasn’t going to make it because my host dad had disappeared and he was supposed to take me to the bus terminal. But all was well and I made it in time. We took the bus to Guayaquil- about 4 hours- and then ate lunch (at McDonalds!) and took another bus to Riobamba- about 5 hours. We FINALLY got to Riobamba at around 9 at night- 12 hours of traveling! It’s interesting, because we didn’t travel that far, it just took us forever because the roads are quite terrible in some places. The buses are strange- they stop every once in a while to let people on the bus who sell drinks, snacks, and candy. They just walk the aisles and try to sell you things and then get off a few minutes later. I also learned that whoever chooses the movies to watch on buses has terrible taste. 

Once we got to the hotel in Riobamba, everyone decided to go to the discoteca! Which was fun, except we stayed up really late and I like sleeping.

The conference didn’t actually start until Saturday morning. And, the conference part was boring. BUT, after we ate lunch, all of the foreigners took off and went to a market. Since I knew we were going to Chimborazo the next day, and since I didn’t bring anything for the cold weather (I am in ECUADOR, after all), I bought gloves, a scarf, a hat, and a sweater thing for the next day. It was a good thing that I did. Later that day, we went on a tour of Riobamba in an open air bus, which is always fun. That night we went to the discoteca AGAIN.  

The next morning, we were supposed to leave by 8 a.m. to go to Chimborazo (a volcano that is about an hour away from Riobamba). Since everyone had gone to the discoteca the night before, and it’s Ecuador so nothing is ever on time, we didn’t end up leaving until at least 9:30. We ended up hiking up past 5000 meters, which was quite cool. Except for when we went back down I was cold and had a headache. It was definitely a good thing that I had bought some things for the cold though- without those I would have frozen solid.

We also saw wild llamas! Which is not something I had ever seen before.

We ended up not heading home until 6 yesterday evening, which means that we didn’t get to Portoviejo until 3:30 this morning!

LOVE, Kirsty

more pictures are posted here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/estoyenecuador

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today, my American friend Leslie, my Swiss friend Amina, and I cooked thanksgiving dinner for our families. I skipped school in the morning (because really, it’s quite appalling to be required to go to school on Thanskgiving), and then they came over to my house and we cooked ALL AFTERNOON. Marybel, the woman who cooks lunch for my family every day, also stayed and helped us, which was WONDERFUL- we definitely needed the help. 
We cooked a chicken casserole, a fruit salad, the asian coleslaw that my mom always makes, potato salad, and apple and mango crisp. Leslie’s family, my family, Claudia’s boyfriend Emilio, and our next door neighbors came over to eat. And we still have SO MUCH FOOD leftover. But that’s okay - it’s not thanksgiving if you don’t have ridiculous amounts of leftovers.
I leave tomorrow for Riobamba. Hopefully I don’t freeze.
LOVE, Kirsty

merry christmas?

Today my family and I put up the Christmas tree and all of the decorations. A bit early, I know, but apparently my 5-year-old host brother had been driving my host mom crazy about it. It’s a bit weird. There’s nothing like sweating (while wearing a tank top and shorts) while putting up a Christmas tree. Today Ricardo asked me what I was going to ask for for Christmas. I told him that I didn’t know, and he replied that I should ask for a playstation (what HE is asking for), and that I shouldn’t tell anyone that he told me to. Pretty clever, if you ask me.

I have now officially been in Ecuador for three months, about a third of my total time here.

Last week was nice- only one day of school a week is definitely something I can live with.

On Saturday, I went to a Rotaract meeting. Rotaract is like Rotary, except for younger people. It was really nice, all of the people there are older than me, but they were really great! They invited me to come with them to a conference this weekend in Riobamba (a city about 8 hours away in bus), and I am going to go! This will be my first trip to the highlands of Ecuador, where I am told that it can be quite cold. I guess I will have to take the one sweater that I brought here to Ecuador with me. I was also told that I should bring a scarf, earmuffs, gloves, and warm socks and shoes, none of which I have here with me. I expect to freeze.

As I am sure you can imagine, I am really looking forward to going to school again tomorrow.

what happens with those glasses you donated back in the 70s

One of the things that I definitely should not have forgotten to bring here to Ecuador is anti-itch cream. 

Yesterday I went with my Rotary Club to a town about an hour outside of Portoviejo to help give out glasses to people who needed them. We spent the morning sifting through 6 huge boxes of glasses looking for pairs of glasses that matched the prescriptions that the doctors had assigned. Looking for the correct prescription was only half of the task though- we also tried to find the least-offensive pairs. Most of the glasses that were there were quite ancient- picture huge glasses from the 70s- there were even a couple of cat-eye style glasses! We also had to try to find man-glasses for men, and women-glasses for women.

It was kind of cool to see the end-result of what was at one point a glasses-drive. It was definitely a different point of view.

We ate lunch in the house of someone who lived nearby- we all went upstairs and crowded into the ‘living room’ and ‘kitchen’, while a couple of women cooked over a ‘stove’. The stove was actually a big rectangular shaped thing that had a fire inside of it, and a place where they could place the huge pots that they were using to cook. As usual, we ate soup, along with a plate of rice and meat (chicken this time). I opted out of the meat part- after seeing a whole chicken foot in the pot, I (surprisingly enough), didn’t feel very hungry for meat.

After lunch, we walked down the road to see the river. On the way there, we walked by mango, papaya, plantain, cacao, starfruit, and avocado plants, which was really neat. When we got to the river, there were several families sitting in the water, cooling off. We took off our shoes and waded a bit while eating fresh mangoes and star-fruit.

We walked back to the house we had been at in the morning, just in time for the bingo game at 3 pm. Apparently bingo is a pretty popular thing here. It seemed like the whole town piled into this place to play bingo. While they were playing bingo, we (the exchange students plus some rotaract members) talked and ate starfruit off of the tree.

All day long, the bugs were feasting on my legs, and now I am quite itchy.

The lights went off this morning right on schedule- at 9. Since Ecuador made an agreement with Peru to buy some energy, the power-outages should go down to 2 hours every day this week, but today we had no power for 3 hours again, so who knows!

This week I only have school on Friday, which is quite nice. However, I found out this weekend that at the school where a lot of my exchange-student friends are, classes end in either mid or early December, and at my school, classes continue into FEBRUARY. Which I am not excited about.

LOVE, Kirsty

there is no such thing as a stupid question?

I just completed my second full five day week of school since I arrived here, almost 3 months ago. I am definitely liking the total lack of classes- it is quite a difference from last year, and I’m sure next year will be quite different as well! I am going to take advantage of sleeping in as much as I can. Next week I only have classes on Friday. :)

This week was my THIRD first day with a new class, so I’ve gotten pretty good at the 10 or so questions that EVERY SINGLE PERSON ASKS. There are the basics: How old are you? Where are you from? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you like the food here? What other places in Ecuador have you visited? What are you first names and last names? (Here, everyone has two names, like our first and middle names, and two last names too- one from your mother, and one from your father)

And others too… Does everyone in the United States have blue eyes? Do you have a brother? (something every girl wants to know) What are common first-names in the US?

And then the really strange ones: Are you scared to live in Texas, since that’s where the Texas chainsaw massacre took place? Isn’t the squirrel on Spongebob from Texas? How come you don’t have a Texas accent?  What kind of animals are there in Texas? Do you have cows there? How about chickens? How long does it take to get from your house to New York, if you go in a taxi? :)

The class that I am in is really sweet- they talk to me but also leave me alone sometimes, which is really nice. They also all invited me to go see a movie with them this Wednesday, and each person reminded me about a million times today. I think they really thought I was going to forget. What they don’t know is that I never have plans, so when I do, it’s such a rare occurrence that I DON’T forget. :)

On Tuesday, I was talking to a group of girls, and mentioned that I really liked mangoes. Yesterday when I got to school, one of those girls came up to me and gave me a HUGE mango! And then when I got to school today she gave me another one! So I ate mango for lunch today. And I plan on eating more for breakfast tomorrow. :)

LOVE, Kirsty

in the dark

Buenas tardes!

Yesterday was an eventful day. I had been planning on cooking lunch for my family (with the help of Marybel of course) , but when I woke up, we didn’t have power (more on that later). First we decided not to cook, and then we decided to cook by candlelight! We made chicken tomato pasta, asian coleslaw that my mom at home always makes, and apple crisp. It was a lot of fun, and everything turned out well too! Which I was kind of surprised about- I expected at least one thing to taste absolutely terrible. :) I’m not the best cook in the world.

My friend Leslie came over to enjoy a meal without rice (these don’t happen often), and after lunch we took a taxi to the post office, where we spent the rest of our afternoon. We waited for SO LONG, but we also managed to figure out the postal system in Ecuador, or at least the part that concerns us. Previous to yesterday, we had been able to pick up packages at the front desk of the post office, but yesterday, we had to go into a back room and send faxes, sign papers, make copies, pay at the bank, make more copies, pay at the post office, and then FINALLY we could get our packages. I waited in line at the bank for more than an hour to pay a total of 16 cents. It was ridiculous. We figured out that if the package is less than 2 kilograms, it is available to be picked up at the front desk of the post office. If it’s more than 2 kilograms, you must go to the post office in the morning on Monday or Tuesday to get a ‘number’, and then come back in the afternoon. AND, if it’s more than 4 kilograms, you have to pay a lot more.

Moral of the story: send me something, and I will love you, as long as it’s less than 2 kilograms. And if it’s more than 2 kg, at least send it at a convenient time, so I can skip a day of school. :) But PLEASE don’t send anything that’s more than 4 kilograms. It’s not worth it. :)

The past couple of days, the power has been going out all over Portoviejo. Apparently, the government is trying to ration power, because there is a shortage of water. So, from now until whenever it starts raining, we will not have power for at least 3 hours every day. Which is interesting. The past two days, my family had no power in the morning, from 9 to 12, which wasn’t bad because it was light out and not too hot yet. Today we did have power then, so it could go out any minute now. :) I have a couple of friends who haven't had power from 6 to 9 at night, which is significantly worse, since it's dark outside then and there's not a whole lot to do. We are hoping that the government will make a schedule so that we can know when we will be without power and plan around it. Also, tomorrow we will have neither power NOR running water! I think my family and I will be going to the beach, where neither running water nor power are very necessary. 

This Monday I return to school, after almost 4 weeks of vacations. I’ll write again then!

LOVE, Kirsty

welcome to November

I CANNOT believe it is November already. I have been here for almost 11 weeks- about a fourth of my total exchange here! 

Sunday, I went with my host sister (Claudia) and her boyfriend (Emilio) to Emilio’s family’s beach house at a beach called San Clemente. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and windy and quite cold (which to me seemed really weird, since we were at a beach, practically on the equator), so we didn’t spend much time on the beach. It was alright though. On Monday we rode a banana- basically tubing, except the tube is shaped like a banana and it’s in the ocean. Initially we couldn’t stay upright- we got on and immediately flipped over twice in a row. But then two people got off and stayed in the boat and we were fine. We spent the rest of the day hanging out and playing cards, which was fun except when I got stuck playing ‘war’ with the two five year olds.

In the evenings, we played card games and listened to people play the guitar and sing. I stayed up way too late and got quite sunburnt, but I had a blast.

Halloween wasn’t very exciting here. Unlike the US, there isn’t really anything for kids to do- their Halloween is mostly focused on a party at their school or something. At night, a lot of people go out to parties, but that’s really it. I think it’s only a holiday here because it’s a holiday in the US, and it looks like fun. :)

I’ve spent the rest of the week so far just hanging out with exchange students. I finally feel a lot more comfortable here- I’m okay with taking a taxi, so I can get around a lot easier, and I’ve figured out where most things are. It’s nice to finally be able to go out with just friends now!

Tomorrow I am planning on cooking lunch for my family, so hopefully that goes well. I am not very confident though- I’m a pretty terrible cook. Hopefully it will be edible!

mariachis around the corner...

Hello all!
First, sorry it's been so long since my last post! I actually just added the one from October 21- my internet has been really slow recently and I haven't been able to upload it until now. So here it is!
I am currently in the process of uploading pictures to my flickr account, so by the time you read this, chances are they will be there! I am taking advantage of the mariachi music keeping me awake and the relatively fast internet in the middle of the night.
Last week, I found out that I do not have to go to class this week, since my class will be taking exams. Also, the week after this is a week of vacations for the whole school, so I won't be going then either! I counted, and in a 4 week period, I will have gone to school two days. :)
Nothing too exciting going on here, I just wanted to let everyone know that I am doing fine!
Make sure you check out my pictures- they're a lot more interesting than reading blog postings anyway. Here's the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/estoyenecuador/sets/72157622121121932/
LOVE, Kirsty

tons of exchange students, and tons of fish

I have returned from the Rotary trip, sunburnt and REALLY tired.
Saturday afternoon I drove with my friend’s host parents to a beach that is about 30 minutes from Portoviejo. It is not very far for us, but for the people who live in the highlands of Ecuador, the trip was quite a bit longer (8+ hours). The next day, we all got on three huge buses and drove BACK to Portoviejo to be in a parade for the festivals of Portoviejo. It was kind of weird- we were all just carrying our flags and walking through the streets. It was fun though. Right as we were getting back on the busses, a girl who was standing two or three people behind me in line was holding her camera, when some random guy ran by, and tried to grab it! She had the wrist strap on, so he didn’t end up getting her camera, but when he grabbed it, he pulled her really hard and she fell, and she was REALLY scared. I was too- I didn’t know what was happening at first but as soon as I figured it out, I jumped on the bus. SO, that was my first time seeing an attempted-robbery. Hip hip hooray!
After the parade, and after that, we all got back on the bus and drove to another cute little town named Montecristi that has a craft market. Montecristi is actually where Panama Hats are made, which is pretty cool. Apparently when the hats were exported to sell in other places, they were taken to Panama first, and then to Asia and Europe and the rest of the Americas. And for some reason ‘Panama’ stuck better than ‘Ecuador’. The hats are woven out of some sort of plant called paja toquilla, and they’re pretty cool. After wandering around the market for a while, we got back on the buses and went to yet another city- Manta. Manta is about 30 minutes away from Portoviejo as well, and there are 4 exchange students who live there. We went to the Manta Yacht Club for lunch, which was really good. After, we went back to Crucita for the night. Monday, some of us woke up early (5:30 a.m.) and walked down the beach to where all of the fishing boats unload the fish, and where they are cleaned and then taken off in trucks. It was really interesting. There were TONS of people there, and even more dogs and pelicans trying to get the fish and even MORE fish. Lots and lots of fish. We had the rest of the day at the beach, which was fun, except there were tons of jellyfish so a lot of people got stung. Tuesday we hung out at the beach in the morning and then drove BACK to Portoviejo in the afternoon. When we were dropped off at the hotel, they told us that we needed to be ready to leave again at 7 o’clock sharp, which in Ecuador means maybe 7:45, or 8:00, or maybe even 8:30. Anyway, we waited for a while for our bus, which we thought was going to take us to a place to have dinner. Instead, a different bus came, one that had bench seats inside. There are a WHOLE LOT of exchange students- about 120, so naturally, the buses filled up pretty quickly. Once all of the seats were filled, we started getting ON TOP of the bus, where there is a little railing that keeps you from falling off. THEN, a mariachi band climbed on top of one of the buses, and started playing. So we drove around Portoviejo for about half an hour, listening to the mariachi band, and wondering what on earth we were actually doing. It was so weird, but a lot of fun as well. After that, the bus things took us to a banquet-hall sort of thing (which TOTALLY did not look like it belonged in Portoviejo), where we thought we were going to be fed dinner, since it was like 9:30. INSTEAD, we spent an hour and a half electing a ‘King and Queen of the Trip’, because apparently that’s what you do in Ecuador. It was weird as well, and slightly less appreciated than the bus-trip thing because we didn’t eat dinner until after 11! After dinner, there was a dance sort of thing until 2:30, and we ended up arriving back at the hotel at about 3-ish. And then had to get up at 8 this morning, which was not fun.
So now I am sunburnt and really tired, and plan on spending the rest of the day relaxing.
Love you all!
Kirsty

what language is THAT?

Yesterday a very strange thing took place. I went out, with only two other exchange students (and ZERO Ecuadorians) and went walking in downtown Portoviejo! And it wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be. Leslie from Washington state, Amina from Switzerland and I went exploring. Leslie and I went to the post office first to pick up a package, and then we met Amina at her house. She lives pretty much in the middle of downtown, above a computer store that her parents own and work in. We walked through the streets close to where she lives, and ended up buying a TON of pirated DVDs. Hip Hip Hooray for $1 movies! Oh, and Hip Hip Hooray for terrible quality pirated DVDs too! At least two of the ones that I bought are not in English OR Spanish, and they actually have some really strange language (like, Arabic or something) subtitles and then Spanish subtitles on top of those. I just can’t wait to watch those. It will be hilarious. We’ll see if I actually understand or not. :) We also bought some real high quality ‘ray ban’ sunglasses that are actually ‘reg bay’s. Oh, and we have discovered something about the clothes here. There is a (pretty much) foolproof way to figure out the general price of anything- if it is cute enough to buy, it is expensive. And if it is something that you wouldn’t ever really want to wear, it is cheap.
We then walked back to Amina’s house, and then to the gym that we’ve been doing our dance-class things in. Afterwards, we all went back to my host family’s house, and met my host mom’s friends from Minnesota who visit Portoviejo ever year to do medical work here. It was really strange to meet Americans. It was also really strange to imagine them only being here for a week- I guess it just never occurred to me that you can actually book flights within less than 10 months of each other. After talking to them for a while, and eating barbeque that my host father made, we took a taxi to the mall to meet up with two other exchange students and see a movie. Amina and Leslie ended up staying the night at my house, and then we spent almost all day today at my house playing card games and talking!
I am leaving town tomorrow afternoon to go on a Rotary trip with ALL of the Rotary Exchange Students here in Ecuador- there are about 120 of us! This trip, we are staying quite close to where I live- actually, within 45 minutes of where I live, which kind of sucks because it’s so close by, but it will be fun anyway. I have only met about half of the exchange students so far, and it will be good to get to meet the others. I will post another update on Wednesday or Thursday after I get home!
Have a good weekend and I’ll post again this week!
LOVE, Kirsty

how to: raise shrimp and de-shell rice

Today I skipped school to go to the beach! And it was definitely worth it. I went with my friend Leslie and her host father to a beach called Bahia, which is about an hour and a half from Portoviejo. If I had gone to school, I would have spent about 75% of the time spacing out, about 15% talking with people, and about 10% being confused. Instead, I spent all day having fun AND I learned how rice is taken out of it’s shells, how shrimp are farmed, and I explored a new city. DEFINITELY worth it.
On the way to Bahia, we stopped at a stand on the side of the road and drank coconut milk and ate some coconut! It was the first time I had done that, so that was cool. We apparently took a really old road to get there so that Leslie’s host father could show us some more of the country, which was really nice. The road was really old, and was REALLY torn up, because in the wintertime (American winter-time/Ecuadorian rainy-season) it often floods there, and a river ends up flowing over the road, which pretty much destroys it. And apparently the government doesn’t want to fix it. It was very cool though- we drove by a lot of places where fruit is grown- we saw HUGE fields of rice, onions, and papaya, and tons of lime and coconut trees. It was cool. The region of Ecuador that I live in is pretty hilly, and in most of the valleys, there are green, well watered sections that are used for growing crops. It is weird because there is such a difference between the valleys, where everything is green, and the rest of the land, where everything is brown and super dry.
We stopped twice more on the way to Bahia- once to learn how rice is de-shelled, and once to see where shrimp are raised. There’s not really a whole lot to say about either of those. Rice goes in the machine in a little yellow shell thingy, and comes out warm and shell-less. And baby shrimp have to be kept in 33 degree Celcius water when they are being raised. And they are tiny- you can only see them with a microscope! Here are some pictures:
this is the machine that de-shells the rice:what goes in, and what comes out!me, leslie's host dad, and leslie, playing with the warm rice :)where the baby shrimp live before they move to the big pond
When we finally got to Bahia, we went to a restaurant to get something to eat. Ceviche is really popular here- I have had it a couple of times, since my host family eats it every Sunday. It’s definitely not my favorite- I usually plan on eating a big breakfast so that I’m not very hungry for lunch. Anyway, I ordered ceviche for lunch, since the only kind I had had until today was the type that my family makes. And I discovered that ceviche actually can be really good.
After eating, Leslie’s dad dropped us off at the beach, which was completely empty (as most beaches probably are on random Wednesday afternoons), and we called another exchange student that we know who is living in Bahia. He ended up coming to the beach and we hung out with him there and walked around the city for a while. It was a lot of fun- Bahia is small, but it is pretty. In 1982, there was a really big earthquake, and a lot of the buildings fell down, so most things are relatively new. And, it also claims to be an eco-friendly city (which I kind of doubt), but still, it’s a whole lot cleaner than all of the other places I’ve been to in Ecuador. It was actually kind of shocking when the streets weren’t filled with trash. And it’s kind of sad that that is shocking to me now…
And so now I am exhausted, as I always am after going to the beach. Buenas noches!
LOVE, Kirsty

school holidays! and going to the beach.

Before this weekend, I had not worn my swimsuit at all. This weekend, I wore it three times. :)
We didn’t have school on Friday, because it was Guayaquil’s independence day. Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador- it’s about 3 hours away from Portoviejo. Anyway, it was quite nice to have the day off. I feel like we don’t go to school a whole lot, which I definitely appreciate. Thursday afternoon I met up with some exchange students at a friend’s house, who lives in a neighborhood-sort of place where there is a pool, and we went swimming! It was nice to see the sun again- I have gotten so much whiter than I was when I arrived! Which is kind of ridiculous considering the fact that I’m in South America, quite close to the equator. I think there were about 10 of us, and it was great to talk to everyone (in english of course) and relax in the sun. Friday night Leslie and I hung out with some of Emilio’s friends who play the guitar, and they played songs in English for us, which was a lot of fun! She ended up staying the night that night, and the next morning, her host mom called us and asked if we wanted to go to the beach with her host cousins! So of course we went. We went to Crucita, which is the closest beach to Portoviejo- it’s about 30 minutes away. The road, though, is TERRIBLE. It is scary. Anyway, we went to her cousin’s cousin’s house next to the beach. Here, ‘beach houses’ are quite different. They are basically just the necessities. The whole house is made out of cement, and there’s only the bare minimum inside- a mattress placed on a cement slab, a very basic kitchen, and a plastic table and chairs for eating. Definitely not very luxurious. But really, it’s quite nice to go to the beach, so I’m not going to complain. We went swimming with her cousins for a while, and it was nice. There was a HUGE current, so we drifted quite a ways and walking back was kind of difficult. It was fun, nonetheless. We went back to the house around 5ish, because Ecuador was playing Uruguay in a qualifier game for the world cup. Ecuador lost. We ended up eating there and then going home afterwards, which was scary because the road is terrible in the daytime, and it is even worse at night. There are huge potholes that you can’t see until the last second, and cars going the opposite direction that are swerving all over the road.
Sunday, I went with my family in the afternoon to Crucita again! It was good, I built a sandcastle-city with Ricardo, and (unsuccessfully) tried to get slightly more tan. We ate dinner at a place on the beach, and it was very good. I have decided that I really like shrimp. That night, I was SO TIRED- the sun completely wore me out, so I went to bed super early.
Today I went to school again. It was good, but boring. After school, Leslie and Amina came to my house to hang out, and then we went with Leslie’s grandmother, who dropped us off at a gymnasium for ‘dance lessons’. We basically had no idea what we were doing, and that was quite obvious. It turns out that they only do dance lessons on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but on the other days they do exercise/step classes. So we did that, and it was actually a lot of fun! I am going to be sore tomorrow. We are planning on going every day starting today, so we’ll see how that goes. Hopefully it will work out because I am eating SO MUCH here! :)
LOVE, Kirsty

they won me over with cake

Being sick sucks, especially when you are not at home. I was sick for SIX days, which I spend almost entirely either asleep or on the computer. I am finally feeling better though- I have SO MUCH more energy and I can swallow without wanting to die. I started feeling better on Monday, and then on Monday night, my host mom and host brother both got sick, but with something else! So I stayed far away from them because I DO NOT want to be sick any more.
Yesterday was my first day at my new school, and it went wonderfully. The class that I am in is super nice- they even baked me a cake and made me a sign that said ‘bienvenida Kyrstin’. I am still not sure who Kyrstin is, but eventually the letters on the poster changed to Kirsty, so it’s alright. :) It’s okay though, I’m used to having my name massacred in a new way every time I meet someone.
I went to school again today, and it went well! I feel a lot more comfortable at this school- the people seem a lot more welcoming, and there are also a lot more who are closer in age to me. I think it is going to work out alright. The classes are still boring, but at least I have fun people to talk with in between classes, or when we don’t have class because the teachers don’t show up to class or something else is happening, which actually seems to happen quite a bit. I have been to school two days so far, and we are supposed to have eight classes each day. I think that yesterday we had 3, and today, only 2. I don’t really know if this is normal or not yet, but it’s really weird. I am not used to being at school when I don’t have classes! Today there was an Italian song festival at my school, which was SO BORING. Not only do I not understand Italian, but I also don’t understand the Spanish being spoken all around me. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t a whole lot of fun.
Today during the break at school, I was with a couple of girls who asked me if I liked ice cream. I do, so I said yes, and they decided that we should go buy some. During the breaks, there are a couple of vendors who come into the school and sell things like ice cream, and there is also a snack-bar sort of thing where you can buy things like empanadas and chips and cookies. Anyway, we went up to one of the vendors, and got six ice creams. FIRST weird thing- the total cost for six ice creams? $1.50.It is phenomenal. SECOND weird thing- you have two choices- an ice cream cone, or ice cream in a piece of bread. Literally, an ice-cream sandwich. I will take a picture next time, because it really is that weird.
LOVE, Kirsty

i'm melting!

Hello all! I have not written in a couple of days. And it has been a weird couple of days. Exciting, but in a boring kind of way.
I didn’t have school last Thursday, and then I didn’t go on Friday because I never bought the right kind of shoes, and all that was really happening was this presentation thing for the flag of Ecuador. Friday night I went out for pizza with two other girls to celebrate my friend’s 16th birthday! It was fun, but BY FAR the weirdest part was that we were allowed to walk BY OURSELVES AT NIGHT. I hadn’t walked anywhere before that, let alone by myself when it was dark. It was really weird, and I learned that living here has made me paranoid. Wahoo.
Yesterday afternoon, I went running with three other exchange students, and then afterwards, two of us went to my host aunt’s house for dinner. And it was a strange dinner. It was almost entirely made out of plantains and bananas. There were fried green plantains, baked green plantains, these round things made out of ripe plantains and cheese, and bananas cooked in this sweet orangey sauce. The only thing that we ate that didn’t have a plantain or a banana in it was the hard boiled eggs. Everything was really good, it was just kind of weird.
On Monday and Tuesday, I went to school again. I’ve been feeling really discouraged at school. The oldest kids there are only 16- the other exchange student and I were by far the two oldest students- and it was really hard for me to make friends that I actually wanted to spend time with outside of school. Anyway, on Tuesday, about 20 minutes into my first class, I started BAWLING. I threw all of my stuff into my backpack and just got up and left. I feel kind of bad about that now, because we were in English class, and the teacher there is really nice, but I couldn’t have stayed. Anyway, I went and sat in a corner and cried for a while, and then I called my host mom. There has been a pretty intense strike at the university that the high school is inside of, so she told me that when I called her crying, she was really scared that I was crying because the protesters were attacking the high school- making fires and throwing rocks there too! Eventually, one of the secretaries who works in the school and who is a former student of my host mom came and found me and brought me to the office. I sat down and she gave me some water and waited with me until my host dad came to pick me up. When he came, he took me to the school that my host mom works at. It is quite different from the other school I was going to- it is a lot bigger, and it is also a public girls school, whereas the other one was a private, coed one. She knew that I hadn’t been enjoying school at all, so she asked me if I would like to go to her school for a couple of weeks. So that’s what I will be doing next week! Overall, my morning was terrible, but at least something good came out of it. I am excited to start at the new school- I am hopeful that it will be better. After we left school, we went with one of my host mom’s friends to the grocery store. I think my host mom was feeling sorry for me- we ended up buying a ton of weird fruits and some peanut butter too. :) So far I’ve tried one of the fruits- it’s yellow and kind of spiky and it’s sort of like a kiwi inside. It’s kind of weird- I’ll take a picture next time I eat one. It was quite tasty though!
Yesterday I started feeling a bit sick- my throat was bothering me and my ears felt stuffed up. When I woke up this morning, I felt TERRIBLE. I ended up not going to school again today! I slept late, ate oranges and peanut butter and crackers for breakfast, and then went to the school that my host mom works at, because there is a doctor there! I don’t really know what she decided is wrong with me, but she gave me a whole bunch of medicines to take. I started taking them today at lunch, so hopefully I will start to feel better soon.
This afternoon, I decided to take a nap, since that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re sick, and I was tired. Which would have been great, except it was SO HOT. And naps are not enjoyable when you are sweating. I finally fell asleep, and then woke up when the sun went down. It has been SO HOT here for the past couple of days. And it’s not even the hot season yet! I do not know what I am going to do when it gets hotter and more humid here. Possibly melt.
LOVE, Kirsty

WHAT did i eat?

Okay so this has nothing to do with anything, but I just realized that I never wrote about it, and it’s kind of funny. And I have nothing better to do now, so I will write it to all of you!
The other day, I went out to lunch with some of Noralma’s brothers and sisters, and a whole bunch of people. (I wrote about that part already). Anyway, we all ordered food, and the VERY LAST two dishes to come out were mine and Ricardo’s. They seriously took like an hour and a half. I had ordered breaded fish and he had ordered breaded shrimp. Someone that I think is my host uncle or someone made a joke- had I ordered ‘pescado apAnado’ (breaded fish), or ‘pescado apEnado’ (sad fish, because it had taken so long to cook)?
Okay yeah, so this probably wasn’t worthy of a real post. But I remembered it and it made me laugh. :)
Love you all! Kirsty

partyin' in ecuador (well sort of)

Hola!
So last night, after I wrote the last post, I went to my friend Amina’s house, because her host mom had planned a little get-together since her birthday is Friday. There were six of us total- Amina, Leslie, and I, who are all exchange students, and three of Amina’s friends from school. It was a lot of fun! Since Amina’s friends from school don’t speak English, we all spoke in Spanish the whole time, which was good for us, since we’re learning, and it was also really impressive! I didn’t really know that I could do that until last night! :) Anyway, it was a lot of fun.
Today was the holiday for the patron saint of Portoviejo, so there were no classes, and I think that there was a parade and a fair as well. I didn’t go to the fair OR the parade, but I definitely enjoyed the no-school part. Today was also Ricardo’s birthday- he turned 5, and we had a party here at our house for him. I’ve been to four birthday parties in the month that I’ve been here (three out of four of them have been for kids under the age of 10), and I think I’ve learned quite a bit about birthday parties. First of all, if you don’t have a piñata, it doesn’t count as a birthday party. Second, you MUST have ridiculous amounts of food, and everyone MUST eat. I am about to pop.
If I survive, I will post again soon!
LOVE, Kirsty

what's a cheetah?

Hello everyone! I just realized that I haven’t updated in a couple of days. Life has been good here. This Sunday I went with my host mom, Noralma, and a whole bunch of her sisters and brothers (because she has a lot) to some restaurant in the countryside to eat lunch. Afterwards, we went to someone else’s house to spend the afternoon there. The house was GORGEOUS. It has a huge courtyard and two little houses, so people can throw big parties there- there is a stage thing for live music and a large dance-floor thing, and also have a place to spend the night. It was cool. The family that lived there also owns a four-wheeler, so all of the kids (all of my host-cousins and I) spent the afternoon riding around on that. By the end of the day, I was COVERED in dust. It was gross, but definitely worth it.
School so far this week has been okay. Today I was at school all day (7 am to 1:30 pm), and we only had one 40 minute class. The class was math, too, which is undoubtedly the easiest class in the world. Saturday is ‘Flag Day’ in Ecuador, so the whole school was practicing for some presentation that we will do on Friday. As far as I know, all I have to do is walk behind someone and do whatever they do. Tomorrow I don’t have classes because it is the Patron Saint of Portoviejo’s special day. And then I only have to go to school on Friday from 7 to 10:30 for the presentation thingy, so that will be good.
Today during school the class I am in and one other class randomly got on a bus and went to another high school to watch plays in English. It was weird- I had no idea that we were going anywhere until the other exchange student in my school, Lizzie, told me what we were doing. It was fun though! It was really hard to hear anything, so Lizzie and I mostly just sat there and talked, but we could understand the play from our school since we saw it the day before as well. I ALSO wore the wrong thing to school today- apparently we were allowed to wear our pants, and I wore the ugly skirt. :(

Yesterday at school, someone came up to me and asked me what a 'cheetah' was. I wasn't exactly thinking straight, and I absolutely COULD NOT remember what it was. So I told her that that wasn't a word in English. As soon as I got into the car, my neighbors (who speak little English) reminded me that a cheetah is a big cat that is really fast. I felt a bit dumb. :)
I have good news! I have found a place where I can run! There is another exchange student who lives VERY close to a sport-complex thing, so I take a taxi to his house every day at 5:15, and then my taxi picks me up from his house again at 6:45. It has been working out really well so far- there have been other exchange students coming with us, and it’s been a lot of fun! It has also been great to be able to run again. The place we go running is HUGE. There is a pool, a gymnastics center, a baseball field, a weight-lifting center, a rock-climbing center that is being built, and probably a whole lot more too that I just haven’t seen yet. There are also kids that live there who are from other countries who come here to train! So I guess they have good trainers or something. I thought that was kind of neat. We see them running every day, and there are also some who high jump. There’s a cat there too who is really cute.
Tomorrow is Ricardo’s birthday, and we are having a birthday party for him at our house sometime in the afternoon. I will let you all know how that goes tomorrow!
LOVE, Kirsty
I just uploaded more pictures to my Flickr page, so you are welcome to check those out!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/estoyenecuador/sets/72157622121121932/

please don't hurt yourself laughing

I have survived my first week of Ecuadorian high school. Hip hip hooray!
So far I’m not too impressed with school. The people are nice, but there are some days when it is absolutely for them to let me forget that they’re all the same age as my younger brother, and a WHOLE LOT more immature. Like today.
I hope that when my Spanish is better and I can understand everything, school will be more interesting. I’m not sure though- then the teachers might expect me to do homework and such, and I don’t really know how I feel about that… :)
I also managed to survive my first week of wearing a uniform to school. That part was terrible. We have three different uniforms: one for Mondays, one for Fridays, and one for the rest of the days of the week. The Friday one is the best, because it’s just sweatpants and a t-shirt, but the other two are pretty terrible. Here’s a picture of the Monday one. I am not EVER going to take a picture of the one I have to wear on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays because it is that bad. Go ahead and picture it for yourself: long ugly denim skirt, tall ugly white socks, ugly black shoes, and an ugly polo shirt. It is horrid. Here is a picture of the one i have to wear every Monday. Hopefully you are all in good health- I would feel kind of bad if you hurt yourself while laughing at this photo... :) Also, keep in mind that this picture was taken at like 6:30 AM, before my host mom left for work. Maybe that's why I look so tired... :)
That’s all for now. I hope that everyone enjoys their weekend! Love you!

school school school

Hello there! Today was my third official day of school and I have decided that I don’t like it. It would be alright if it weren’t so boring and if I was actually learning something. Unfortunately, everything (except chemistry) is REALLY EASY. Today in my math class, we were doing something with number patterns. I actually had to explain the pattern for: 2,4,6 and 5,7,9. Yes. It was ridiculous.
The school that I go to is actually inside of a pretty big university, which is nice, because it definitely feels like a school and is very safe. It is quite small- there are about 40 students in my ‘grade’- about 25 are in ‘sciencias’ (where I am), and the rest are in ‘technica’. The other exchange student is in ‘technica’, which is good because I am forced to speak Spanish almost all day long. The building we are in is also new, which is good because it has air conditioning, which is apparently pretty rare here. I am lucky. Monday I had the same classes as last week- homeroom, physics, a computer class, ‘development of thinking’, English, and chemistry, BUT we had a presentation about HIV, so we didn’t go to English, our computer class, or ‘development of thinking’, which is just fine with me. We have two breaks everyday, which most people spend eating and talking with friends. Most schools here don’t have cafeterias, and since we don’t finish classes until 1:35, there is a snack bar that everyone gets something to eat from. I have mostly avoided it so far, since I’m kind of scared of buying something for myself- Ecuadorians don’t believe in lines, so you sort of just have to push yourself to the front of the crowd and shove your money towards an employee and hope that they get you what you want.
Today I had English, math, investigation, literature, physics, and ‘administration’. English was boring- everything moves SO SLOW. I don’t really know what we did in ‘investigation’, but I copied something down and sat there while the people around me talked about something. I think that my class was performing little skit things in our literature class, but no one was paying attention and it mostly just seemed like everyone was fooling around all class long, so I’m not really sure. Physics was okay because I know what to do as long as I copy the problem down right, but it’s hard because the teacher reads out the problem and actually knowing all of the words is sometimes a challenge. I don’t understand ‘administration’ at all. There was a teacher there who is also our homeroom teacher, and she was talking about a lot of things, but I don’t know if they are related or not. There was definitely something about a trip next year, a party (maybe this weekend?), lots of food, and money, but I don’t know if that all ties together or not. I also think we are going to a church tomorrow sometime during school. I don’t know when or why or how, but I think we’re going. I guess I will find out tomorrow! The great thing about being an exchange student is learning to do whatever, whenever. I NEVER know what is going on, or where I am going, or what I need to bring or why. I just get in the car. I am getting quite good at it.
School today was terribly boring, but this afternoon was a lot of fun! When I got home from school, my exchange student friend Leslie was at my house. We had made plans earlier to go to the mall today, and apparently her host dad was leaving to go somewhere so he dropped her off before I got home. Anyway, I changed out of my beautiful uniform and ate lunch and then we went and picked up Amina (another exchange student, from Switzerland), and went to the mall! When we were at the camp last week, food came up quite often in the conversations, so we were basically talking about all of the food that we miss all week long. SO, we went grocery shopping. :) And now I have a pretty large stockpile of junk food. Which is good. We wandered around the grocery store for at least an hour- we had nothing better to do than buy ridiculous amounts of junk food and look at all of the weird stuff. OH and then we were just walking around when some random employee came up to us and invited us to some party somewhere tomorrow afternoon. And he didn’t seem to think that it was weird either. Whatever. The three of us thought it was pretty hilarious. After spending more money than we should have on sweets, we decided to go get some ice cream to eat and then watch a movie! When we were eating ice cream, we also met up with two other exchange students that go to the same school as Leslie. It was nice to meet more exchange students. There are TONS here in Portoviejo. Then Leslie, Amina, and I went to see ‘The Ugly Truth’, which was good. Movies here come out a LOT later than they do in the US. They also leave a lot of them in English and just put Spanish subtitles in, which is nice for us English-speakers. Now I am just rambling.
I hope everything in the States is going well, and I love and miss you all!
LOVE, Kirsty

a little excitement!

Hello! Sorry about not posting for a while! I have actually been out of town since Tuesday at a language camp with a whole bunch of other exchange students. The whole idea of ‘language camp’ is to learn more Spanish, but I don’t think many people did. The best part about the week was just getting to meet the other exchange students. We stayed at this resort/farm sort of thing, which was weird, but kind of cool. The worst part about it was that the running water was TOTALLY unpredictable, which is really bad when the water just happens to stop when you have shampoo in your hair and really need to rinse it out. But anyway, it was fun, and I actually have some friends now, which is a change for the better. :)
Spanish camp was great and all, but the most exciting part was definitely the ride home. The trip was about 3 hours total. In the first two and a half hours, we were pulled over TWICE for some unknown reason. THEN, when we were about 5 minutes from home, a van cut off the bus and our bus driver slammed on the brakes and we skidded off of the road! Roads here aren’t exactly in great shape, so we skidded off of the raised part that is the road and into the dirt and piles of bricks that was next to the road. When it was happening, I didn’t even comprehend what was actually happening- I was just sort of watching everything happen around me. The scariest part was the split second after we fell off the side of the road when I wasn’t sure if we were going to keep on moving towards the ground or not. Anyway, everyone on the bus was safe- the van that actually caused the accident just kept on driving. We all got off of the bus and freaked out a bit, and then were rushed back on the bus because someone told us that we had to go before the police arrived, and apparently that’s what you do in Ecuador. :) They ended up finding us anyway, but after we had arrived anyway, so we were able to leave with our host parents.
Tomorrow I will begin my first full week of school, so we’ll see how that goes…
I love you all!
Love, Kirsty

everybody loves ceviche

There is a high school two doors down from our house (which seems like it would be weird, but it’s really not here), and every weekday morning all of the cars driving by and kids talking loudly wake me up. Oh, and classes start at 7, so it starts getting loud at like 6:45. :/ Weekends are nice because I can actually sleep a little later. This morning Mika the dog woke me up. At least she waited until 8:30. :)
Apparently everyone here in Portoviejo eats ceviche at least once every weekend- my family always eats it on Sunday afternoons for lunch. Ceviche is not one of my favorite Ecuadorian foods so far, so I’m not too thrilled about it, but oh well. I actually feel kind of bad about not liking it because everyone here gets SO EXCITED when we have it. :/ Oh well. My host mom is WONDERFUL and she knows that ceviche’s not my favorite, so she gave me some ‘arroz con polllo’, which is totally the same thing as fried rice, except it’s Ecuadorian and not Chinese.
After lunch, my host parents told me that we were going to Manta, which is like 30 minutes away from our house. Manta is COOL. It’s a port town, so there are tons of boats, and there’s a really nice beach too. They also build boats there! Which is really cool because there’s a whole bunch of partly-built boats sitting on the sand and they just look really neat. After Manta, my host dad decided to keep on driving for a while. We ended up going to another beach, called Santa Marianita. It was really cool- it’s not very big, and there’s no town next to it, so it’s a lot more peaceful than the other beaches we’ve been to. There is also a kiteboarding school there! They had a whole bunch of kites laying on the beach and a couple of people went out kiteboarding. The first time I saw kiteboarders, I was with my family in the Dominican Republic, and I don’t know why, but this time, it seemed a lot less dangerous than it did then. Maybe it’s because I’m older, or maybe it’s because it actually IS less dangerous. It looks fun though. :D
Anyway, we stayed at the beach for a while, and I ate the best coconut-flavored ice cream I have ever had. I also managed to get coconut-flavored ice cream all over myself. Way to go Kirsty for being messier than the 4 year old! :)
I start school tomorrow. :( I actually have to wear a TIE with my ridiculous uniform, and since I don’t know how to tie a tie, and neither does anyone in my family, we went to our next door neighbors and asked them to tie it for me! :) It is now tied, but I do not know HOW to tie it, so I am just going to try really hard not to undo it. :) We’ll see how that goes…

happy birthday to you!

Hola! Not too much has been happening around here.
Yesterday I went with Marybel to the fruit market, where we bought a whole bunch of fruits and vegetables. Now there is a huge branch of plantains sitting in our kitchen. Like, there are at least 40. :) The market was really cool though. There are tons of fruits and vegetables, lots of which I’ve never even seen before. There were also a lot of chickens that were going to be someone’s lunch. I didn’t like that part so much.
Today I went to a birthday party for a 7 year old! It’s the second party for someone under the age of 10 I’ve been to in like a week. At least I’m moving up though- the last party was for a 2 year old. Maybe eventually I will get to hang out with kids my age... it might be a while at the rate I’m going right now, though. :) Birthday parties here are ridiculous. Today, there was a mariachi band and like 6 clowns. And they served dinner to everyone there- at least 50 people. OH! And when they sing the birthday song, they sing part of it in English! Except it is not actually English, it is just something that at one point in time sounded like 'happy birthday', and eventually morphed into something a lot closer to 'abby burtay'.
There was an Ecuador soccer game today, against Colombia, so throughout all of Portoviejo, EVERYONE was wearing either soccer jerseys or yellow t-shirts. Also, on all of the busy roads in town, there were millions of people asking if you want to buy a little flag with a suction cup on the end so you can stick it to the inside of your windshield. We said no. Anyway, my host parents took me into town to get a soccer jersey, and I wore it this afternoon. :) It didn’t seem to help the team though- Ecuador lost.
This Monday is my first day of school, and I’m scared. :/

There’s nothing grosser than eating lunch and finding out later that it was a cow foot

I ate cow-foot soup today. Of course, I didn’t know it was cow foot soup until AFTERWARDS, but still. I even liked it, except for the large slimy thing sitting in the middle of the bowl that turned out to be the actual foot. So far, that’s the only really disgusting thing that I’ve eaten so far, but I don’t usually know what I’m eating, so I could be mistaken. :)
Before lunch, I took another trip to my high school to officially sign up, and when we were there, I asked what classes I would be taking. High school here is a lot different from high school in the US. Here, I will stay in one classroom all day long, with all of the same students, and the teachers will change classrooms. So anyway, one of the secretaries gave me a list of subjects I’ll be studying. Some of them will only be once a week, some of them will be more often, and some of them will be less often. Here it is: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Literature, Foreign languages, Computers, Dance and Theatre Workshops (!!!), technical drawing?, Scientific Investigation?, something about thinking, Administration, Homeroom, and Anatomy. I am kind of excited for those dance and theatre workshops- I expect they will be quite hilarious.
Since I don’t have any friends, I have been hanging out with Claudia and Emilio pretty often. We went out with some of Emilio’s friends tonight to eat. My new favorite food: empestada. It’s a frozen banana coated in chocolate, and it is good. :)

there's nothing cooler than a dead puffer fish

Hello! Sooo, I haven’t written in a few days! Saturday morning I was homesick. :( A lot. I think it was because I hadn’t been doing much since everyone in my family is so busy. But I know that that will change once I start school and (hopefully) make some friends. I talked to my host mom for a while, and that made me feel a bit better. We went to the mall to get a t-shirt for Ricardo and food for Mika (the dog), and after that I just hung around the house. What an exciting day. Saturday was better though. That night I went out with Claudia and Emilio and some of Emilio’s friends to listen to some band. I got to listen to LOTS of Ecuadorian music and I like it! After every song, either Claudia or Emilio would ask me if I liked that one, and I almost always said yes. :) Before we went out, Emilio asked me what the word ‘though’ in English means, and I found out that that is REALLY hard to explain. Now he uses ‘though’ in almost every sentence, and Claudia and I just laugh. :) Sunday morning, I went to San Clemente (a beach that is about 40 minutes away) with Claudia and Emilio and Emilio’s family. It was really fun! I got to see a Blue-Footed Booby and a dead puffer fish and these things called agua malas (literally ‘bad water’) that are like jellyfish but different. We also walked down to the point of San Clemente where we could see Bahia, another beach that is further north. To the south you can also see Crucita (a beach as well), so it’s really cool! When we got home after the beach, I was SO TIRED! I put my stuff in my room, took off my shoes, and fell asleep in the hammock. :)
After dinner I talked with my host parents for a while, which was really fun! I have decided that my host dad is quite possibly one of the funniest (and sweetest) people in the world. Both of my host parents were teasing each other because apparently both of them snore, so my host dad was acting out what happens every night, and it was quite hilarious. :) Also, when I was sad on Saturday morning, he came over to me and said (in REALLY slow Spanish) ‘If you are sad, then I am sad’. It was really sweet. My host parents were also telling me about summertime and carnaval here. Needless to say, I am quite excited. :) I’ll write more about that when it gets closer.

a salty ocean

This morning, when I was at school, I was telling Noralma’s students about the beach that is closest to Houston (Galveston). I couldn’t think of the word for ‘dirty’, so I tried the French one. They looked really confused. Then I remembered the Spanish one, so I said that one instead, and they understood.
I just realized that (when I used the French word), I told them that the ocean near my house was very salty. :) That’s probably why they were so confused.

hace viento!

Today I went to the school that my host mom teaches at. School starts at 7 (I think), so we left at about 6:50. I am NOT excited about having to do that every morning when my school starts. :/ Anyway, the school she teaches at is an all-girls school, which makes it crazy. I went with her to her first class, and since she hadn’t prepared any sort of lesson for the day, she just had them ask me questions. At first, they didn’t want to say anything (probably because she told them to ask me in English), so she told me to just sit down somewhere, and then they SWARMED! It was a bit scary. :) This week is cultural week (or something of the sort) at her school, so about an hour later, they all had to go listen to some speech. Then Noralma and I went to a classroom upstairs, and I remembered that she told me that Friday was the day that her school was having an English-music festival. Which was more of a contest than a festival, but whatever. It basically consisted of 9 different groups singing songs in English. But the song choices were a bit questionable. The first place group sang some song by Hilary Duff, there were two by Miley Cyrus, one by Avril Lavigne, one by Michael Jackson, one by Paris Hilton (really), and one by the Jonas Brothers. I helped each group with some pronunciation, and after I went walking around the school with two girls. They both took me to their classes, so I got to meet a lot of people. Every time I met another group, they would say, ‘oooh you have pretty eyes. Do you have a brother?’ :) After that, the contest began. One of the judges was late (no surprise here in Ecuador), so Noralma asked me to be the fourth judge (!!). So I did. I’m not going to lie- it was hilarious. I only had to judge the first two songs though because the fourth judge showed up and took my place.
I got to meet my cousins today too! They were at the school because (I think) their mother is someone in charge there. Anyway, I forgot their names but there is a girl who is 21 or 22, and a boy who is 19. I’m pretty sure they thought my Spanish was pitiful. It is, so I can’t blame them. :) I am also pretty sure that they said that they lived close to me! But who knows… :)
I can definitely get used to taking at least one nap every day. It is wonderful. I can also get used to freshly squeezed fruit juice several times every day. :D
Today it is pretty warm, and SUPER windy, so I am sitting outside, since it’s a lot cooler than it is in the house. The only problem is that all of the little baby mangoes are falling off of the mango tree (which means there will be less for me to eat), AND it is SO DUSTY, so I have a thin layer of dust on me and all of my stuff. Oh well. I can get used to this if it means I can have fruit juice every day. :)
LOVE, Kirsty

GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAL

So, today hasn’t been real exciting. Noralma leaves for work before seven, Claudia and Leonardo leave a little after 8, and Ricardo leaves around 8ish, so I am home with just Fatima and Marybel/vel until about 1 o’clock, when everyone comes home for lunch. It’s okay though, because I know that they are all busy. I study Spanish and read the newspaper, and just keep myself busy. Today I went with Fatima to pick up Ricardo from his kindergarten. It is a 5 minute walk from our house. And that was the most exciting thing that I did today! Wahoo! At about 2, a lady came to our house to do Claudia and Noralma’s nails! Apparently here they will come to your house, and a manicure is only 4 or 5 dollars. I didn’t want one today because I don’t like talking to people in ENGLISH when I get my nails done, and I didn’t really think that it would be much better in Spanish. Maybe next week.
Today after lunch I had a REAL CONVERSATION (well, kind of) with Lenny, the guy who works in the butcher shop and has lunch with us every day. I was quite proud of myself. :)
AAH I FORGOT- last night I went with Claudia and Emilio to the hospital (which is like a 3 minute walk from the house) because they had a friend who was there. I asked why he was there, and we had to look it up- I guess something was wrong with his gall bladder. Anyway, they asked me how to pronounce ‘gall’, and so I did. And they were like, ‘Ah, okay- like GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAL!’. I think that was the best part of my day. :) It was definitely better than the part where a pigeon fell off the hospital onto the ground next to us and died. :/
Right now I am watching a Bourne movie in English with Spanish subtitles. Every time I see a word that I don’t know, I look it up and write it down. I have like 9 pages of random words that I have written down over the past 5 days. :) Hasta Luego!
LOVE, Kirsty

whaaaat?

Hola! I am so confused about what language I am speaking. Every time I can’t think of a word in Spanish it comes to me in French and then I get stuck thinking French and say everything wrong. :)
I visited my school today! It is called Universitario, and it is a high school inside of a university. In Ecuador in La Costa (the coast), the school year does not take place during the same part of the year as the US or other parts of Ecuador! The year begins sometime around April and ends in January. Since I am here in August, I will start halfway through this year and I’ll end halfway through next school year. It’s kind of cool because I get a summer vacation while I am here and then I will return home to the US and ill get ANOTHER summer vacation. :) This year, I will be in ‘Quinto’, which is like Junior year. Since Universitario is new, there is not a ‘Sexto’ this year, but since the school year is halfway done this year (and it will end in January), I will begin ‘Sexto’ next spring. Anyway, I went there with Noralma this morning and we talked to all of the people in the office. It is a small school, but everyone seems nice, and I was told that the students are welcoming and will talk to me. So that is good. I also met the English teacher there, and he joked that now I would have to teach his class while he relaxed. :D after we left the school, we went to get my school uniform (read: terrible outfit that I will have to wear as a form of vicious torture used by most Ecuadorian schools). I had to buy THREE DIFFERENT OUTFITS. One is for ‘special occasions’ and I think Mondays. But I’m not sure about that. Anyway, it is a button down shirt with the school emblem thingy on it, and a skirt that I have to have made for me. Oh, and I have to wear a tie with it. Haha so I am going to have to learn how to tie a tie! Noralma told me I will have to ask the kids next door (who go to the same school that I will go to) to teach me because she doesn’t know how and neither does Leonardo. Wahoo. I also have a polo shirt (with the school logo) and a long denim skirt (read: UGLY) that I will have to wear on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to wear on Fridays. I guess I’ll figure that out later. I also have a GYM UNIFORM! Haha it is interesting. There is a school shirt that is not that bad, with a pair of shorts and a pair of pants that I’m supposed to wear over the shorts. When we went to the shop today, the only shorts they had were one pair that were WAY too big and one pair that’s a little bit tight. So I chose the ones that didn’t make me look like a cartoon character (the kind of tight ones). So hopefully I don’t gain weight or else they won’t fit. :) That would be embarrassing. Speaking of gaining weight, I’m pretty sure I am going to. I was talking with my host mom the other night and I told her that I like to go running and I asked if there was anywhere here where I could go, and she told me that she doesn’t know of anywhere that would be safe enough. Which really sucks. I’m going to have to find something to do to burn extra energy. And so that I don’t get TOO fat. :/
This week at my school there are only classes for kids who aren’t doing well in school, so I don’t have to go (:)), and next week is a week of vacation for everyone, so I don’t start school until SEPTEMBER 7! So I have exactly two weeks to learn enough Spanish to survive in high school. :/ We’ll see how that goes.
Today for dinner we ate Ecuadorian Pizza! Which is basically the same as regular pizza. Just different cheese and I think there was less sauce. It was good.
OOH I don’t think I mentioned this: my family has TWO maids/cooks/I don’t know? One is named Fatima and she actually lives with us. Apparently she has worked for my family for 18 years! She seems really nice, but she is SUPER DIFFICULT to understand. Like, I’m not sure I have understood ONE SINGLE THING that she has said. Noralma told me she had some sort of illness when she was a child, and I guess it kept her from doing normal kid stuff, because she walks kind of funny and she never learned to read or write. The other one is named Maryvel or Marybel. B’s and V’s are the same here. :) She is only here in the mornings, but she is the one who usually makes lunch. She seems really nice too, but she’s hard to understand too because she talks so fast. :/

bananas or potatoes?

Here are some pictures! The first is la playa Crucita!
The second is of people cleaning fish at Crucita. See the little girl? Yeah, she's cleaning fish! :)
The third is of Claudia (my host sister) and her boyfriend Emilio at Crucita.
And the fourth is of me at Crucita.
There are more pictures posted at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/estoyenecuador

Today was good. I LOVE my family. My host mom’s name is Noralma, and she is SO SWEET. I feel totally comfortable around her. My host dad’s name is Leonardo. He doesn’t speak English, so it is more difficult to communicate with him, but he is funny. Today he wanted to know how the lemonade at a restaurant that we went to was made so he told the waiter that I was American and I wanted to know. :) The waiter told us! Oh and he calls me Kris because Kirsty is too hard. My host sister’s name is Claudia. She did an exchange to California two years ago, so she knows English very well and knows what it’s like too. She is 19, so we are very close in age as well. She goes to the university here in Portoviejo, but she is on vacation for the next 3 weeks I think. She speaks Spanish around me almost all the time, which is good because that will make it easier (??) for me to learn. My host brother’s name is Ricardo, or Ricardito. He is 4, and he is SO CUTE! It’s hard to communicate with him because he doesn’t speak English, and his voice is harder to understand because he’s a little kid. But he’s still really funny.
Today I woke up and ate cereal, which is different. The cereal is the same, but the milk isn’t. I’m not quite sure what it is, but I think it’s milk with no lactose. So like a milk-imposter. Haha but it’s not bad- just different. I don’t think I mentioned this, but my family owns a small butcher shop that is like 1 block away. Noralma works there every afternoon, and the boy who works there for them comes and has lunch at our house every day. Ooh I got the internet on my laptop set up today too. I tried to figure out how to do it myself, but that didn’t work, so I asked Leonardo (my host brother who is in Clear Lake- I guess he’s actually Leonardo Jr, since my host dad is named Leonardo too). He helped me for a while but we still couldn’t figure it out, so he asked his cousin to come over to the house to figure it out. So he came over and it took him about 30 minutes to figure it out but it works now! I skype-d my mom and dad for the first time (not counting the times we ‘practiced’ talking from upstairs to downstairs). For lunch, we ate ceviche, which is alright.
This afternoon/evening we went to see a beach called Crucita. It was high tide, so there wasn’t much of the beach to see, but there were tons of people! My family also showed me the place where the fishermen bring all of the fish that they catch to be cleaned and then taken to the tuna or sardine factories. It was very smelly but the birds really liked it. We drove up to a little place on top of a hill that looks out over Crucita and it was so pretty! We couldn’t see very far because it was cloudy there. BUT that is a place where you can go hang gliding! Like, you just run off the edge of a cliff. I’m not so sure about that. We went out for dinner a bit later. It was REALLY GOOD- I had some sort of breaded fish and I really liked it.
I don’t understand plantains. Sometimes they taste like potatoes and sometimes they taste like bananas. I think it has something to do with how ripe they are, but still, that’s weird. I like them best when they taste like bananas. The restaurant that we went to had really good limonada too, which is TOTALLY not lemonade. It’s made of limes and it’s better. This was when Leonardo used me to ask the waiter how they made the limonada- apparently they cut it into slices and then put it in a blender and used the juice.
Right now we are watching the Miss Universe pageant because Miss Ecuador is from Portoviejo (she was one of Noralma’s students at some point in time), and she was supposed to be a favorite. But she didn’t make it into the top 15. :/ oh well.

mi familia

So, I have arrived in Portoviejo. But let me start from where I left off yesterday. We landed in Quito just fine. I got my bags and made it through customs quite easily- I think it was because I told the customs officer that I didn’t speak Spanish and he didn’t really want to deal with that. Anyway, I walk out of the customs section and see everyone waiting to pick up people. BUT I don’t see anything else. So I end up walking around for a while and asking people where the domestic departures are, and I eventually find it. I guess I was confused because I had to walk outside to a different building and I was kind of nervous that I was leaving the airport. But it was okay. My flight to Guayaquil was fine, and when I got off the plane and got my luggage, Noralma (my host mom), Leonardo (my host dad), and Ricardo (my 4 year old host brother) were waiting for me! We ended up staying at Leonardo’s sister’s house in Guayaquil that night because it is a 2.5 hour drive to Portoviejo and that wouldn’t be very much fun in the nighttime. So we stayed there and then this morning we left around 9 ish. It ended up taking about 3 hours to get to Portoviejo. OH but it is so funny how everyone drives here. All of the buses drive in the middle of two lanes. I don’t know why, but they do. And everyone honks at everyone and that is my favorite part. The road to Portoviejo was good for about half of the trip, and it was pretty bad for the rest. There are a lot of potholes and lots of construction that is not marked so you just all of a sudden realize that there is now one lane for both directions of traffic and it is VERY SCARY when there is a huge truck coming towards you. But anyway, when we got to the house, I was shown my room, which is small but VERY cute. I like it. I have my own VERY little bathroom and my own VERY little closet too, which is perfect. I will try to post some pictures. OH and my family got me some flowers, which was really nice. We just had lunch- some sort of chicken soup that had yucca in it, and some rice and meat and fried egg that had a name that I have already forgotten! MY SPANISH IS TERRIBLE! I don’t know any vocab at all. Boo.

I will post pictures as soon as i can. I am using my host family´s computer right now, but as soon as i figure out how to connect to the internet on my laptop, I will upload some!

LOVE, Kirsty