Detained

If you haven't seen the movie The Terminal, I'm sorry, because I'm going to give away the plot now.

In this movie, Tom Hanks' character is flying into the United States when an uprising happens in his country. He basically becomes a man without a country, and is not allowed to either return to his country or to leave the airport and enter the U.S. He ends up living in the airport for weeks, detained and completely helpless.

             (This is pretty much exactly what I looked like in Migration on Friday. Except maybe add in a lot more tears and some shrieking.)

While my situation is certainly much less dire, Tom Hanks' characters and I have a few things in common:
1. Neither of us may leave the place where we currently are.

2. Both of us are in the country illegally.

3. Both of us are really freaking confused.

This is pretty much where the similarities end, because unlike Tom Hanks, I have food, a place to stay, and money. I also have freedom to move about the country I'm in, just not the freedom to leave it.

So, this is where I'm at. I'm trying to enjoy my last few unexpected days in Ecuador, though I'm disappointed that I missed my own college graduation and I'm anxious to see my friends and family outside of a computer screen. The worst part of this situation is that it was preventable and is a result of my total and complete ignorance. I don't really like when that happens.

A Whole Bunch of Bull-****

Quito is currently in the midst of a ten-day celebration marking the foundation of the city. Part of this celebration is a series of nine corridas, or bull fights. I’ve been conflicted about my feelings toward bull fighting since I arrived and was first introduced to this tradition, but as it is a huge deal here, I figured it was something that I shouldn’t miss. 

So, last night I went to the Plaza de Toros, the bull fighting ring, with a group of people. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but what I definitely did not expect was to have tear-filled eyes within the first thirty seconds. I felt AWFUL. I can’t stand seeing animals in pain, and as much as I try to avoid judgement whenever I travel, this is one tradition that I just don’t understand.  For this reason, I will be posting only photos of bulls triumphing over matadors in this post. 

                                                 (Fun fact: the average bullfighter is gored at least once every season.)

As painful as it was for me to sit there, I didn’t want to offend or upset any of the people around me. So, every time I was asked “Te gustan los toros?”. I just smiled and nodded my head in a completely incomprehensible way. I’m not sure that my companions were convinced. 

To cope with the emotional hurricane raging inside of me, I came up with a genius plan that consisted of drinking the better part of a bottle of wine and looking absolutely anywhere but at the spectacle going on inside the ring. I also chanted “Libertad” pretty steadily with the crowd at one point, but I’m pretty confident that they were protesting the President’s new rule for bullfighting, and not for the freedom of the bulls as I was. 

                                                          (Who's in charge now, you pink-sock-wearing torturer?)

So, the President’s new rule: this year he decreed that no bull can be killed in the ring. This doesn’t mean that the bulls are spared, simply that they cannot be killed in front of the public. Instead, they are merely stabbed several dozen times in the ring before they are made to chase a cape through a corridor that leads to the place where their throats can be cut under the ring, without any glory or audience applause. Yes, because this seems much more humane. 

Maybe the worst part was the other animals that become involved besides the bull. In one of the first fights, the horse that the carries the picador, a man who stabs the bull from above, was badly attacked by the bull and ended up flipping completely upside down onto its back.  First of all, I had no idea you could even do that to a horse. Secondly, because the armor that the horses wear for “protection” is so heavy, it took six men to lift the horse back onto its feet so it could take some more abuse. 

Here's a picture so you can imagine what the armor on the horses looks like: 

                                   (So now, we have people attacking animals, and animals attacking other animals. Fun for all.)

I do plan to do some further research on the history of bullfighting in an attempt to find a valid reason for the love and respect that so many people have for this tradition. If you're interested, I highly recommend you read a little about the history of bullfighting. It's a really complicated tradition that I can't even begin to explain because I don't even understand all of the parts of it. 

There were probably one hundred other things that offended or shocked me in some way last night, but I’m trying very hard to practice cultural acceptance or at the very least, lack of extreme hatred and judgement, so I’ll just leave you with a small anecdote that shows the absolute lack of belonging that I exhibited last night. 

After the slaughter, I mean bullfights, we went to McDonalds, the home of all that is cruel and disgusting. While the rest of our group enjoyed cheeseburgers, I delighted in a bun with a slice of cheese and pickles. Nope, I didn’t stick out at all. 

                                                                        (Face down in all that blood. Delicious.)

The Anti-Thanksgiving

Having had to deal with crappy cooperating teachers, a ridiculous amount of errands, and the return of my not-so-favorite friend the parasite, I have been feeling less-than-festive lately. I am really in no mood for a holiday, unless that holiday involves laying in my bed and groaning for two to three days. The fact that I'm in a country that does not celebrate Thanksgiving further adds to my feelings of holiday non-cheer.

While my friends and family in the States finish up their workweek today and head home for some family time, I am planning stupid Holiday "learning activities" for my classes and the classes of every other teacher I have contact with. Cheers to being the only gringa and therefore the resident Thanksgiving expert.

Tomorrow, my family and countless other families across the nation will stuff themselves with pounds and pounds of potatoes, cranberries, and pie; I, on the other hand, plan to enjoy a delicious meal of antibiotics and crackers. Yum!

Despite my Scrooge-like approach to Thanksgiving this year, I genuinely hope that everyone out there enjoys a delicious meal with friends and family and that everyone takes the time to be grateful for their loved ones and the abundance that they have been blessed with.

Now, to lift your spirits and detract from the stress of cooking, traveling, and having to have countless conversations with your crazy uncle, please enjoy this photo I found of the first animal Thanksgiving:

Happy Pumpkin Pie Day!

Hallo-what?

I have always had mixed feelings about Halloween. On the one hand, I genuinely enjoy dressing up like my favorite alter egos/heros/stupid puns. On the other hand, nearly every other female seems to enjoy dressing up like a ten-dollar-hooker. I'm not sure of the exact history of Halloween, but I'm pretty positive that it did not involve skanks at the beginning of the tradition.

Luckily, this year I was able to escape my Halloween hesitation and ignore the holiday completely (besides all those Facebook pictures of people's hoochy costumes). Why is this? Well, Ecuador does not celebrate Halloween. Not only do they not celebrate, the holiday is actually banned in schools. It is illegal to celebrate Halloween with a party or costumes.

Instead, Ecuadorians celebrate the day of the shield. The shield is the symbol that's in the middle of their flag. "Celebrate" might be too strong of a word however. At school, the teachers still did small Halloween themed activities and the students said "Happy Halloween" to me before sarcastically saying "and Happy Shield Day".

A few days after Halloween is another Ecuadorian holiday that they actually do celebrate. Throughout Latin America, people celebrate "Día de los Difuntos", or the Day of the Dead, though every country celebrates slightly differently. In Ecuador, people make guaguas de pan, which translates to "bread babies". These are children-shaped breads that are painted with bright colored icings and eaten in remembrance of the dead. This custom doesn't make a ton of sense to me, but when in Ecuador...

They also have a traditional drink for the Day of the Dead, Colada Morada. This is a super purple thickish drink filled with fruit that takes nearly a full day to make. I got the chance to make it a few weeks back at the house of my friend Priscilla. It takes so long to make that we didn't finish while I was there, but here are some pictures of the process.

Here's Priscilla with the many different herbs that are used in the Colada. It can only be made around this time because these herbs are seasonal. I don't remember what they all are, but they smell delicious while cooking!

Here I am chopping up some pineapple. Pineapple is only one of the fruits used in Colada Morada. There's also naranjilla, babaco, blackberries, and blueberries which give the Colada its purple color. They are all cooked together until only small bits of fruit remain in the beverage. Yummy!

Here are the herbs cooking down in some water. I'm pretty sure this takes hours, and so I have no idea what it looks like after it cooks for a while.

Here is the pineapple, blackberries, and blueberries all ready to cook. Again, I'm not exactly sure how they get from fruit form to delicious purple beverage, but I do appreciate the taste!

Let's go take a Baños!

Since I haven't had much time to dedicate to blogging lately, I'm going to go back in time a few weekends and cover some past events.  (Not physically back in time, but hopefully that was obvious.)

The weekend of Halloween, I went with several of the younger members of my family to Baños. Baños is about three hours south of Quito and is right at the mouth of the Amazon rainforest. It's a huge tourist destination and everyone I met had been telling me that I had to go.

We left late-ish Friday night on a bus that can only be described as 70's disco era. It had blue and orange circle lights all over the ceiling and played several different Chuck Norris movies. Apparently people here really love Chuck Norris.

Anyway, Baños is spectacular. It's a smallish town full of tourists on the weekends and hippies during the week. We stayed at a gorgeous art hotel called La Casa del Abuelo that is run by the friend of one of my host brothers. Besides being a gorgeous place with individually painted murals in every room, the owner is wonderfully nice and serves fantastic healthy breakfast and seriously kick-ass fancy chef-prepared meals every night that are included in the cost of your stay. If you are ever in Baños, stay here!

I also made a pretty sweet friend while I was staying in the hotel. I opened my window one afternoon to find this staring back at me:

In related notes, Peacock mating calls are extremely LOUD when you are trying to sleep at 4:00 in the morning. 

We did a ton of different things in Baños (eating, walking, swimming, drinking, etc.), but one of my favorite things was visiting waterfalls. The first fall we visited was located at the end of a 30-minute walk through the rainforest.  The path was gorgeous and looked like this:

We were the only ones at the waterfall at the time, so we spent some time swimming and enjoying the views. The water was icy! but it was still really cool to swim in a waterfall. 

The other large waterfall we visited is called the Pailón del Diablo, or the Devil's Cauldron. It is so named for the combination of the extreme force the waterfall comes down and the circle shaped rock formation at the base of the waterfall that create the appearance of a steaming cauldron. Here's a shot of the volcano falling. 

Besides visiting waterfalls, the people I was traveling with were playing a show at La Casa del Abuelo on Saturday night. They play mostly Celtic music and have a mix of tons of different cool instruments. Their show was fantastic, and afterwards we went out to have a few drinks, and then ended up at a volcano weather station. It was super dark, really high, quite cold, and extremely fun. Here's a shot of the tree house at the weather station. Look at that crazy cool sky view!

We also visited the baths that give Baños its name. We went for the popular Baños de Cajon treatment, which involves: walking barefoot outside on a path of sharp rocks, screaming at a mountain, sitting in an extremely hot personal sauna/wooden steam box, having ice water poured over you while you are in the box, being hosed down with ice water, and then eating some delicious fresh fruit while wearing a mud mask.

If this sounds crazy, it's because it completely is. It's so ridiculous that it's amazingly fun. I felt great after sweating, screaming, and freezing out all my negative energy. This was one of the best weekends that I've spent in Ecuador so far, and if it's at all possible I will be returning here before I leave!

So, I Rode a Horse Up the Side of a Volcano

So, not my catchiest blog post title, but I think that sentence is hilarious, so I keep taking the opportunity to say/write it.

Last weekend it was finally a slightly less cloudy day here in Quito, so I took advantage of this and went to the Teleferiqo. Teleferiqo is basically a cable car that takes you thousands of feet into the air and leaves you near the top of the Pichincha volcano. It looks like this:

Once you reach the top of the mountain/volcano/clouds, it is recommended that you drink tea and eat chocolate. Of course I did this. Recommended to eat chocolate? Thank you, ideal prescription!

After you have been sufficiently sugared up, you can either hike the rest of the way to the summit, or you can ride a horse. Chocolate and sitting down? I'll take the horse!

Look! It's me on a white horse! Almost like a knight in shining armor, right?

Since it was my second time on a horse, I was clearly a pro. Never mind that horses apparently use different commands when they live in Spanish-speaking countries, I was squealing, grunting, and yelping like a champion jockey.  I even survived long enough to take this classy photo with my friend Priscilla. You can see that we appear to be prize-winning, horseback-riding, fabulous young ladies.

After conquering the mountain on our valiant steeds, we descended the volcano in the cable car once again. Although it was a clearer day than most, it was still really cloudy way up in the mountains, so this is the best picture I was able to take from inside the car. Although foggy, the view is still pretty breathtaking and you can see how high up we were!

Yay mountains!

Little Goodbyes

Today was my last day teaching in seventh grade. Although the girls were talkative, obnoxious at times, and generally a little crazy, I'm really going to miss them. I had a great time teaching seventh grade and I definitely appreciate this age.

To say thank you to my girls, I spent about four hours baking cookies last night. It was a little difficult to find the ingredients I needed, so I ended up making a lot of substitutions and deletions. Here I am completely struggling to mix two ingredients together. I may or may not have broken the whisk.

Despite many difficulties, the cookies turned out quite delicious and looked pretty, even if they weren't exactly what I had initially planned. Look how yummy! Peanut butter blossoms and oatmeal raisin cookies.

When I got to my last classes, I was surprised with two different parties. In both classes, my girls decorated the room, bought or made me gifts, and brought in food. It was so sweet of them and I was really surprised. Because I can't post pictures of students, here are pictures of the rooms decorated and some of the food they brought in.

In 7th B, the girls decorated the whiteboard with messages for me.

So cute! They also all chipped in to buy me this stuffed dog, which they named Septimo B. Here's Gaby and I posing with him.

In 7th A, the girls also decorated, brought in a ton of food, and all made me cards. Each girl wrote her own message and designed an individual card. Incredibly sweet. Here's the delicious food they brought in.

As you can see, typically healthy 7th grade fare: cheese balls, chips, candy, soda, and cake. P.S. Did you notice that the cake has my name on it?  One of my favorite students baked that and brought it in. It was delicious!

Here's a sign that one of the girls made for me to decorate the classroom. She's another one of my favorites (even though I know teachers aren't supposed to have those) and she's really great at drawing.

While it was hard to say goodbye to the girls, I had a really fun last day with them. I got a ton of hugs, ate way too many sweets, and even participated in a Justin Bieber dance party. (I know, I know, but it was my last day. Oh well.)

I start teaching 8th and 9th grade on Monday, which is high school here. I hope the girls are as sweet as these girls are!

A Short Series of Previous Events

So in between teaching everyday, lesson planning nonstop, and being violently sick with a horrible virus, I haven't had much spare time for posting lately. In spite of being so busy, I have managed to fit in several really fun things that I wanted to share with all of you. Therefore, I present to you a brief pictorial of the things that have occupied my time as of late.

1. Cooking and Baking Ecuadorian-style.

Here I am using my mad-kitchen skills to make lemonade....out of limes. I also chopped a boatload of fruit and mixed cookie dough by hand this day. Seriously, mad skills.

2. Seeing the Spanish version of Justin Guarini in concert.

Okay, so really his name is David Bisbal and his concert was amazing, but the resemblance to Justin Guarini is a little ridiculous. They have the same face, hair, basic history....weird. If you want to look up some of his music, I highly recommend "Ave Maria" or "Wavin' Flag". The latter was the 2010 World Cup theme song and is extremely catchy.

3. Visiting the Middle of the World...again.

So when the scientists measured the Equator, they measured incorrectly the first time. So when I visited the Equator before, it wasn't the true Equator. I visited the actual military-calculated line this weekend with some friends. The new site is also an interactive museum that has several science experiments. It was super fun and definitely worth going to the "true" site.

4. Sitting in Hot Springs

Last weekend my family woke me up at 5:30 in the morning for a "field trip". I was super groggy but it was worth it when we arrived in Papallacta to enjoy the hot springs. The water temperature here was something like 140 degrees. People say that sitting in the hot water can cure illness, fix joints, and make you super healthy. I just felt hot.

5. Pretending I'm a Spider Monkey

Yes, that's me ziplining upside down through the mountains. Here they call it "canopying". We went to Mindo yesterday with a big group and had a blast. There were ten different lines that we did and in between we had to climb parts of the mountain to get to the higher elevation and the next zipline. It might look scary, but it's actually super relaxing. The views were gorgeous and you really don't go very fast. I loved it.


6. Teaching

Besides my fun adventures, I spend all my time teaching, planning what to teach, or assessing what I just taught. I'm having a great time but it is a lot of work. I'm lucky that I have such a great school, great students, and great teachers to work with. This is my cooperating teacher and me before my big observation last week. Can you tell that I have a 102 degree fever in this picture? Teaching while super sick is possibly my least favorite experience thus far.

Chao!

PayMore Shoesource

Last night I forayed for the very first time into shopping in Ecuador. Sadly, my favorite (albeit, extremely well-worn and slightly disgusting) pair of dress shoes had broken in half the day before and I was in desperate need of school-appropriate cute flat shoes.

Quito has like seven or so shopping malls, so I figured that shoe shopping would be a relatively easy and enjoyable experience. What I forgot to factor in was how darn expensive clothing is here. After looking into several stores and finding nothing to strike either my fancy or my budget, I headed in the direction of Payless Shoesource. One of my personal goals while in Ecuador is to go out of my way to avoid things that are overly American (such as Payless), but I was struggling to find shoes and I figured it was starting to tick my host sister off the way I was waffling back and forth.

Payless is a moniker that seems relatively straightforward in the States. You go in, buy some not-great quality shoes, and leave having not spent large quantities of money. This is not quite the case in Quito. Here, you go into the store, find a pair of plain though suitable flats that would cost less than twenty dollars in the States, and realize the price tag says $59.99. After you recover from the sticker shock, you realize that you really have no other options and buy the damn shoes. If you are truly lucky, when you arrive at the register, the shoes are magically on sale and you don't end up spending quite as much.

I also bought a backpack to carry my weekend stuff in, but that experience was slightly less traumatizing as I had already been in the mall for awhile.

I never thought I would say this, but I look forward to shopping as little as possible in the next three months. Yay, frugality!

Holy Churches!

Okay, I have now been to three different masses at three different churches on three different Sundays and I see no end in sight to the diversity. I had read before that Quito had a lot of churches, but I'm still shocked at the sheer quantity of them.

Churches are to Quito as Starbucks are to New York. This is not an exaggeration. 

However shocking, I have to take a second to admire each of the churches I have been in so far. Whether they are small, enormous, traditional, understated, gothic or lavish, each of them has been beautiful. While I have never understood the necessity of extravagance in places of worship, I have to admit that I appreciate having something pretty to look at while the rest of the congregation mutters prayers in Spanish and I mumble "watermelon" over and over to look as if I belong. 

On Saturday I visited one of the most famous churches in Quito, the church of La Compania. Both fortunately and unfortunately, this church has been designated as one of seven historical landmarks in Quito, and photos are not allowed within. I can hardly attempt to describe the appearance of this gorgeous building, but close your eyes and picture an interior entirely of gold, with every surface covered in gorgeous Baroque details, and you might get a slight inkling of what I saw. It was amazing. Literally every surface is covered in gold. It's like Midas went inside and rubbed himself on every wall, arch, pillar, and stone. Lavish and beautiful. 

If you google the church you can see a few photos of the altar, but they don't even begin to do the church justice. Here's a picture I took of the outside, which is less brightly hued but no less intricate.

I also had to include this photo to prove that the skies in Quito really are as hypnotizing-ly blue as everyone says they are. I can't remember exactly which church this is, but it really makes for a beautiful picture. 

Que Rico!

I don't know how Ecuadorians stay so thin. I just can't comprehend it. I've been here less than two weeks and I can already see my stomach expanding. Everything I've eaten so far has been delicious! Not just good, or okay, or edible, but delicious!

Today was the best food I've had so far. For lunch I had a traditional Ecuadorian soup called "locro". It's basically a mix of cheese, potato, avocado, and love. I'm sure there are subtle herbs and mysterious spices as well, but I tasted love. To go with my love soup, I had empanadas de verde, fried banana "dough" stuffed with cheese. There are no words to describe these except for yum.

As if these things weren't rich enough, I had a quimbolito for dessert. A quimbolito is a type of dessert, sort of like a sweet pound cake containing raisins and wrapped up and cooked in huge leaves of some unknown plant. Amazing.

After digesting and driving around the downtown a little (it was hailing today and way too cold to walk!), we stopped to warm up with hot chocolate at a cute rooftop cafe with amazing views. Even hot chocolate is better here. Instead of powder, it is made by melting chocolate bars. Then, once it is liquid-y and sweet and amazing, they add chunks of fresh mozzarella straight into the cup. Sounds crazy, no? But the combination of the sweet and the creamy cheese is swoon-worthy. I like the way these people think.

 (View from the cafe. This is the historic older part of the city.)

I really should start exercising.

Primero, Segundo, Tercero

Today I got to see the school where I will be spending most of my time for the next few months. I met with my coordinator to work out a schedule of which classes I will be observing and teaching in and when, and the first thing I learned is that the grades are numbered differently than in the United States.

Ecuador has "Basic" which is grades 2-10. This is like 1st through 9th grade in the United States. Grades 2-7 (US 1-6) are Elementary, and 8-10 (US 7-9) are Secondary, or similar to Middle School. Finally, Diversificado 1, 2, and 3 are High School (like grades 10, 11, and 12).  If this seems confusing, my schedule for the next few weeks is infinitely more so. 

Today I observed grades 2 and 3 (US 1st and 2nd grade). Tomorrow I will observe grades 4 and 5 (US 3rd and 4th grades). On Monday, grades 6 and 7. On Tuesday, grades 8, 9, and 10. And on Wednesday, all three grades of Diversificado. 

Not only is this a little hard to keep straight, it is super overwhelming to meet ten different teachers and over a hundred students everyday. Whoa. 

The time I spent in grades 2 and 3 today was interesting. I can tell that my biggest struggle here will be when to use each language. The teachers speak mainly in Spanish when in conversation with each other, but they speak in English to their students. I kept getting confused and answering students in Spanish today, which is the opposite of what I am supposed to do. Oops. 

Also, if you thought you could escape Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers by leaving the continent on which they became famous, you are sadly wrong. They are all I heard in classrooms today, on the radio, and in between classes. They are also slathered all over backpacks, lunchboxes, folders, and pencil cases. Fantastic.

Dear Consulate General, Part II

Well, it didn't work. I even asked nicely but to no avail. Yes, I'm still in the States.  Whether you believe in luck, fate, or karma, clearly none of it is on my side. After days of waiting for my visa to arrive, I finally gave up all hope and called the consulate, my voice dripping with despair. Seriously.


They informed me, via form letter/email, that because I had not included a prepaid addressed envelope with my paperwork that they were not able to send it back, and that they had been holding onto it for 10 DAYS. Naturally, I was not pleased. Yes, I probably should have contacted them before the day before I was supposed to depart the country, but also, they probably should have contacted me on one of the 10 DAYS that they had my passport and did nothing. 


So, I canceled my flights, notified everyone I needed to, and settled in to wait. And by wait, I mean feel like I was on house arrest and check the mailbox six times an hour. Very exciting. 


On the bright side, after moping around for two weeks and watching an obscene amount of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, I am finally getting out! I have new flights booked for tomorrow that I am determined will get me safely and speedily out of this country and into Ecuador. 


I did end up missing the first three days of school, which I am slightly depressed about, but I am so excited to finally get there and meet the staff/students at my school. What I need now is some extra travel luck, fate, and/or karma. So please, send me some happy thoughts. I'd prefer not to crash, lose my luggage, or get kidnapped tomorrow. Thanks!

Dear Consulate General...

I really need your assistance. Remember how I booked those pretty pricey flights a few months back? Well, I would very much like to be on them on Tuesday. 

I know, I know, I'm mostly to blame. Attribute it to 60% procrastination, 25% laziness, and 15% nerves. I should have sent my visa paperwork in WEEKS ago. But I didn't. And now I really need your assistance. So please, just speed up the paperwork, roll up the red tape, and hurry up the postal service. I promise to behave myself in your country! (Mostly.)

Thanks and please hurry,

Erika

Hello first-time readers! It's nice to meet you! (Of course by "meet", I mean imagine what you might be like. Are you tall? Short? Wearing pants? I hope for the sake of your neighbors that you are.)

Anyway, if you couldn't tell from the above letter, I am currently not-so-patiently awaiting the arrival of my visa. I am supposed to leave for Ecuador, where I will be living for the next four months, in three days and cannot leave unless it arrives. Please keep your fingers crossed for me!