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!