Life in Ecuador

I have to begin this post being honest with you all ... I really don´t feel like writing right now. I just recieved several emails as well and as much as I want to respond for other peoples´ sake, I am just not in the writing mood. So while this post may not be the best, longest, most detailed one yet, I still wanted to let you guys know how I am doing.

Right now I am sitting in a place called "Coffeenet." When I saw this sign on the building I got SO excited that there is a place with coffee and internet because that is something I have been wanting so badly! So I come inside, look around, and there is definitely no coffee here. Just a bunch of computers with stickers on them that say "Coffeenet" ... what a let down! False advertising! I´m not really sure what made them decide to go with this name for the place but they should really change it so that people don´t get confused because this name could create much confusion. So for now I will sit in my coffee shop sans coffee and fill you in on my life!

I am really settling in here. Sometimes I completely forget that I am in a foreign country and that I am actually on my GLT. It is beginning to feel more and more like normal life now that I am more familiar with my surroundings and my daily routines. It is still challenging, lonely, and hard a lot of times, but believe me when I say it is SO much better. The Austrian volunteer who has been living with my family left yesterday and I think that this is going to be really good for me. It might be lonelier now that I don´t have someone to speak some English to or help translate for me, but it is so necessary. I don´t want to become friends with another foreigner, I want to become friends with my family. I don´t want to help someone else practice their English, I want to practice my Spanish. I am happy to finally just be with the family and only speak Spanish all day every day. Yesterday I spent the whole day with my host family (which I do most days) and it was just so good to be around them so much and be forced to speak Spanish as much as possible. Even though I can only say very basic statements, and I mess up a lot, I really am determined to improve. I have really only been speaking the language now for about four weeks, since my first two weeks in Ecuador I had a lot of English speakers around me. Sometimes I get so discouraged that I am not better at Spanish, but then I remember that it has only been a few weeks and that I can really only get better from here ... I hope! There have been times where I am holding back tears because of how awful my Spanish is. All I want to do is have conversations with my family, tell them about my life, tell them how much I love them and their culture, joke around with them, and ask them more about themselves ... but instead I have to just settle with surfacey conversations and a lot of silence on my part because of how limited I am in the language. It is such a struggle but it is all a part of the process.

I am getting a lot more used to peeling chicken feathers. I´m not going to even slightly pretend that I like it in anyway, and in fact there have been times where I want to cry because of how much I don´t want to touch another chicken. But ultimately I want to be fully immersed. I want to work alongside my family, do what they do, live how they live, and be as much a part of their family as I possibly can during this time. And if the family business is peeling feathers off of dead chickens and selling them around town then that´s what I´m going to do with them! The garden is almost ready to plant vegetables in, so hopefully we will get to do that in the next couple weeks so I can have a little break from the chickens.

I love my host family more and more every day. You guys, they are seriously so cool. Last week my host dad (who is the happiest, kindest, funniest person ever) gave me a few Spanish classes. On the last day of classes we walked down to the river behind their house and as we walked he told me about his life and then made me tell him about my life ... basically mini-autobiographies, to practice speaking a lot more. He told me about his indigenous heritage and about their different festivals and traditions. It was so fascinating, I absolutely love learning about the Quechuan history and culture. He told me about the different indigenous cultures throughout Ecuador and some differences between different people and places. He went on to tell me about how Mestizos (people of Spanish and native descent) often look down on the indigenous people. In the community that we live in everyone is indigenous except for three families, and he said that these three families often boast about being NOT indigenous, as if it is a bad thing. He said there is often a lack of respect and understanding between the mestizos and the indigenous people, but he just wishes everyone would realize they are all equal and can live among each other in harmony and with respect for one another. I don´t know why but I wanted to cry when he was talking to me about all of this. I think just because I have so much love and admiration for this family, and to hear him say that some people look down on indigenous people made me so sad. I was so thankful that he shared these things from his heart and I love how proud he is of his indigenous heritage regardless of what anybody else may think. The families in the community in which I live work so hard to preserve their indigenous traditions and culture, and I am so thankful that they do. They are the most beautiful people and I would never want their culture to be lost. I love my host family more and more every day and I just hope that I am able to express that to them by the end of this. I always just want to tell them, "You guys are so amazing!" ... but they would look at me like I´m crazy because they do not know what those words mean. Hopefully I can figure out how to say how I feel about them before I leave. Also, funny thing about my Spanish classes with my host dad ... He is a musician and writes and plays lots of music, so he teaches me songs in Spanish and then makes me sing them out loud by myself! As most of you know I am definitely NOT a singer (except for my perfect impressions of Cristina Aguilera) but I just have to embrace it and go for it! Ha, in any other situation this would be so embarassing but I just get over it and sing away.

I went to a wedding this past weekend and it was so much fun! I love seeing and experiencing more of Ecuadorian culture and going to a wedding was SUCH a good way to experience more of it! I don´t think I can really explain to you guys how much food you have to eat at any special occasion in Ecuador. Basically they bring you a meal, usually soup with a bunch of meat and potatoes and corn, and when you are finished with this you are satisfied. But then they bring you a second plate immediately after piled HIGH with chicken, ribs, guinea pig, pork, the biggest potatoes you´ve ever seen, mota (basically corn), and lettuce. And then you get cake, and candy, and a whooooole lotta "Chicha" (a traditional drink that you have to drink about five gallons of at each gathering because it is rude to not take it when it is offered to you 75 times).

Ok, I need to go now because I am trying to make today a homework day! I haven´t done homework in a few weeks and that is not good. I love you all! Pray that I don´t get bird flu from the chickens! :) And pray that I miraculously become fluent in Spanish in the next few weeks. Our God is a God of miracles, amen?!

So much for this not being a long post....? What the heck my little fingers just went crazy and I wrote so much!