(usually) Lost in Ecuador

WELL GUYS

It is 8 o´clock Ecuador time, I am chilling out on the normal computer because, well, mine is being stupid. More on that later. It is only Thursday right now, and I am going to explain why I am posting.

I AM GOING TO GALAPAGOS AT THREE FREAKING THIRTY IN THE MORNING!!!11!1!!111!!!!1one!

Yeah so long story short. You are going to have the. most. massive. post ever next… Um… Tuesday Wednesday ish. I love you guys to bits and pieces and I will take one million photos.

I love you Mom and I am still praying for you <3 Happy Birthday to Kori! She´s the big 1-7 now, the oldie, and Diana I love you, but my internet died earlier I am sorry. So I guess it is off to watch El Hombre Lobo (Wolfman) at nine forty and then I wait until three thirty with my copy of Season Eight CSI and Shutter Island. I am set!

Again. Love to Dad, Judy, Mom, Brent, Lindsay, yáll!

CIAOOOO HASTA MARTES-ish!

Afternoon world! It is currently roughly 10 o’ clock Ecuador time, and I just got home from the mall – Surprisingly, NOT with other exchange students, I know! We dropped off Karen and the two girls who live-ish or something (I haven’t the faintest if they’re related or just help out my grandma) with my grandma at Shopping for the movie ‘Alicia en el Pais de las Maravillas’ and then we walked around for a bit before coming back home. Anyways.

Last Sunday was ‘exciting’, you could say. At five thirty in the morning I awoke and realized that there was a curious shaking sensation occurring and the room seemed to be jiggling. I was wide awake for all of it, but I wasn’t scared, despite the fact my water glass fell off my nightstand and shattered, so I had to get up and clean it so I wouldn’t get up and accidentally step on the glass later.  Turns out we’d had a 5.3 earthquake that had been roughly 10 miles away from Portoviejo, and Karen (host sister) just went nuts. I could hear Jose Andres, now one year three months old, making strange little screaming noises in the next room over, and when I got up later that day, Karen told me we had a tsunami warning and that I should call my parents. Relax, guys, we didn’t have a tsunami, and the earthquake did no damage. It just shook things up a bit. It was weird crawling back into bed, though – I kept thinking the room was still shuddering even though it wasn’t. One of my friends texted me right after it, with a slightly comical tone since he hadn’t felt the earthquake: “Did you feel something? My host mom started screaming and made me go outside. What happened?” See? Earthquake wasn’t that bad.

Eh. Monday. I slept a lot.

Tuesday I had another day of orchestra from 9 until 12:30. I’ve had practices like that all week now. They re-recruited me for a concert that’s this next Thursday, since Andrea (other viola) struggles a little with the content and feels better when I’m there. The conservatory has moved from its old building near my old house to the top floor of the newly completed building in the San Gregorio University, which is conveniently in front of my house and about a five minute walk. Man, these guys love me! They even followed me to my new house!  Unfortunately, the top floor gets ridiculously hot, and there is no air conditioning (gosh darn Ecuadorian universities) and we can’t use a fan or open the window, because the music papers will blow over, so it’s suffering for three hours in stifling heat.

Wednesday, again orchestra, and I went to Shopping with Monika, since she is going to Ibarra (which is up in the Sierra/Highlands area) for three weeks and she wanted to see me before she left. We then walked to my house, chilled out for awhile, but then I had to go to my Rotary meeting so she left around seven. I was excited for Rotary, oh so excited, because, well, I was looking forward to getting my allowance for this month. Yup. However, my high hopes were cruelly dashed to the floor when it was revealed that… Pepe had forgotten to go to the bank and get our money… I had a plan to buy a couple of things that I have been wanting, and also, there’s this sort of thing called I need the money to go to the post office to pay for my stuff to get any packages/credit cards that may be there, although I am hoping I won’t have to pay this time. Childerico, my councilor, went to the USA for some time so he hasn’t picked up my package from my Dad and Judy, so I’m waiting until this Wednesday again. Luckily, Fernando finally got himself in gear and started setting up my permission asking from Quito to go back to the USA. Pretty much all we need to do is fax a signed letter from my Mom/Dad to Quito and Fernando takes care of the rest of it. That’s one worry gone. We also got the potential dates for the Galapagos trip, and we’re waiting for the dates for the District Tour that should be around the end of May. OH YEAH Luke and Leslie made their ‘presentations’ for their family/state, and surprise surprise I’m this next Wednesday… I should, y’know, get on top of that… I was kind of worried about it before, but I saw how Leslie did it, took notes, and I should be alright. After all, these things don’t have to be too long. I’m just not looking forward to speaking in Spanish in a microphone, even though I know I can do it. I’m hoping they don’t ask me questions, either… I just want to get it over with, now, I suppose. (Side note – Josh lent me the book ‘Flowers For Algernon’. I love it.)

Thursday. Orchestra. Had a friend over to the house… I’m getting better at just talking to my family about anything in particular. It’s great; even when I’m being quiet they keep up a steady stream of talk that I can listen to, and when they’re not talking to me, they include me in the conversation after a couple minutes, something my last family never did. It gets better every day.

Friday, again orchestra – I’ve got all the songs down, it didn’t take me long. It’s not like we’re doing anything terribly hard. I went to go eat with my host dad, since Karen had conveniently disappeared for lunch. I’m afraid I haven’t been able to eat much of anything lately, and combined with that, I’m ridiculously tired, and thirsty all the time. It’s beginning to worry me slightly, considering it’s lasted for so long. I’m going to bed directly after I finish this post, if nothing else, but my host parents have begun to notice it. I hope it’s nothing… In the afternoon, I had been planning to go make cookies with Jan, but he called to cancel on me since he was going to a movie with a friend of his. THEN she cancelled on him, so he called me again to see if I wanted to go to the movie, and since it was ALICE IN FREAKIN’ WONDERLAND (Alicia en el Pais de las Maravillas) of course I said yes! It was as good as I wanted it to be, and in Spanish, which didn’t bother me as much as it usually does, since I understood just about everything! Good times, good times. I got home, and then we went out to eat again for dinner at a place I know rather well called ‘El Gato’ (The Cat). We always used to pick up a rice/meat mix for the dogs there, and I also have the uncomfortable ‘ubre’ memory from there. I declined to order said ubre… Told them it was a texture thing. For those of you who don’t remember, ubre is cow udder. EW.

Saturday was a hot day. I woke up at nine, locked the door behind my host parents, had some bread, and then crawled back into bed I was so tired. I woke up again, ate a little bit, then vacuumed the furniture (FIRST FAMILY I’VE SEEN/HEARD OF WITH A VACUUM CLEANER MY GOD) while being impeded by a curious and bored Jose Andres, who was fascinated by the vacuum. Then they told me that we were going to go eat lunch again, and they were right. It was the party of my 80 year old… I think great-uncle… and his 40^th wedding anniversary. In any case, I wasn’t hungry for more food, but they had me eat anyways – Didn’t want to be rude. My host dad wanted to get out of there as soon as we were done (and so did I, since I told Jan I would make cookies with him at two and it was three) but of course, they had to dance first. Now, I’ve figured this out, and it’s a must at every party… Old guys want to dance with me. Do I want to dance with them? Not particularly. But again, I couldn’t get out of it, so I suffered through for awhile. My host dad also asked me, “Allison, you know some stuff about computers, right?” I said yes, and he asked me if I could teach the eighty-year old uncle how to use a computer, and I agreed. Mostly because they told me that Luke (other exchange kiddo) had always said he’d do it but then decided not to at the last minute. So I was kind of guilt tripped into it. We finally got back home around 3:30, and I scurried off to Jan’s house, where the cookies were already done. Gosh darn. They were more muffin-y than cookie-y, which was fine. We just wanted to test them out for his birthday. I was there for about an hour, and I talked to his aunt, who is just the NICEST lady. She asked me if I’d-

(OH MY GOD HOST DAD GAVE ME CHOCOLATE CAKE okay sorry back to the story)

-traveled around Ecuador and if I wanted to travel more, which was kind of a loaded question. I knew from past conversations with Jan that he’d already talked with his aunt about all the exchange students, me in particular since we’re always doing stuff together, and she knew I haven’t seen much of Ecuador. So I said yes, I’d like to travel more, and I only know a couple of beaches. She gave me the biggest smile and goes, “Well, if you’d like, you can come to Quito with us for a week and a half?” I probably just had this blank look for a second and then I said, “YES OF COURSE!” and practically had to hold myself down to keep from jumping up and hugging her. She told me that I need permission from my host people and Rotary, but HM and HD already said it’s cool and I know Rotary will as well, SO WHEE I AM SO EXCITED! A WEEK AND A HALF IN THE LAND OF ICE AND SNOW! Well, I wouldn’t call it ice and snow, but it’s disgustingly cold as compared to Portoviejo, like 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit (which is disgustingly cold obviously). I’m so excited! I feel so lucky and blessed! I also love his aunt because she told me that I seem to be the nicest of the exchange students (aside from Jan, of course) and that I’ve lost a lot of weight and am now skinny. New favorite place to be, no?

Went back home after that in the rain, and got pretty muddy, but then I went with my host mom to get her hair/nails done in a little house with a nice haircut lady. There was a small girl who got her hair cut before my host mom, with the most beautiful thick hair, and she said, “I want it cut here and I want bangs like this!” All the while complaining about how she didn’t want her hair cut. Afterwards, she moaned and groaned about how short it was, but all of us told her she looked beautiful and she seemed appeased, although we could hear her mother consoling her all the way out to the car. I should probably get my hair cut shorter soon, although I think I’ll do it in the U.S. and have it when I come back to Ecuador – Nice touch, right?

Internet’s dead tonight, so I’ll post up tomorrow.

Ciao!

(Update for Sunday. Been busy running around all day. We went to church, and then drove around a bit dropping people/things off before heading to lunch, and then to the store. The day feels like it’s been busy, but I guess it’s just all the time spent in the car. I suppose I’ll make my presentation for Wednesday right now instead of waiting until Wednesday night… Probably best!)

(For my address, see bottom of last week’s post. Thanks!)

For once, it seems, I am actually bothering to write my blog online. Good for me, right? First things first: Karen keeps telling me that TODAY (a.k.a. yesterday, day before yesterday, two days before yesterday) will be the day that I help with cleaning the house. Right. That’s cool, I don’t mind. BUT WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? Every Saturday, a nice woman and a girl who I think is her daughter come to the house, make us lunch, clean the bathrooms/rooms (it’s nice when the girl comes into my room, looks around and goes, ‘What am I supposed to clean…?’ I told her it was alright, I’d taken care of it, and she finally smiled at me. Mission accomplished!), do the laundry and ironing… And generally leave the house spotless. And after saying that TODAY I help clean the house, Karen doesn’t mention it again… Eh…

I do believe we left off at last Monday. The week’s gone by rather fast… And it doesn’t help that I was a scatterbrain about my journal again. I don’t know. When I was in the other house, I NEVER forgot to write in my journal. It was like, deathly important that I continued the daily countdown to moving to the next house, this house, to be exact. Deathly important that I write ‘nothing happened today but this is what I feel like’. I guess the point is, when I’m content, I tend to be forgetful about my journal. So I use it either when I’m scary happy or when I’m scary… not-happy. Make sense? Anyways, I don’t remember Tuesday at all. I think nothing happened, except I was sleeping all day due to having the plague.

Wednesday we did have our Rotary meeting, and surprise surprise – I had a great time! It was our ‘Hey, look, Rotary was founded a long time ago so we’re gonna have a party’ meeting, a.k.a. Rotary Foundation Party. This also means they talked. More than usual. When I do get my credit card, I have to buy myself a new dress, since I finally used my trump card and wore the dress I don’t like so much but is okay for formal occasions. I guess I’m the only one who doesn’t actually like it. The parents and sister of Lukas from Austria were present, and they were great people – He has the cutest little sister (she’s twelve), who not only speaks passable English, but is ADORABLE. Wait, I already said she was cute. She didn’t look much like Lukas; her facial features are more delicate and she has higher cheekbones, and her hair color is more of a light sandy brown than his hair. In any case. Both of his parents could speak Spanish, although his mother was considerably more outspoken than her quiet husband. I think she knows more English/Spanish than he does, so that might explain it, but he seemed like one of those ‘rock’ people. You know, the ones that are pretty much indestructible.

Thursday, Thursday, um… Karen jacked my pen to use for her classes. I want it back. Oh! Monika surprise-called me to see if she and Josh could come over to my house and watch Titanic, since they were at the mall and were out of things to do. Of COURSE I agreed. 1. I love Titanic. 2. I love Monika. 3. Josh promised to bring a bribe with him, and he followed through. Yay! They showed up at my house around four, and Monika used my internet for awhile, since she switched houses (thank the good Lord) and has no internet in her new house. I don’t mind at all, really, since I remember only too well what it’s like to be without internet. Her family in Austria hadn’t even known she’d switched…. Oops. Anyways, we started the movie around 5:00, and we didn’t skip any of it, so we ended right around 8:00-ish, I’m not sure exactly. I might have cried. Oops again. That movie is amazing. Josh also wore my high heels (!) since turns out he also wears the same size of shoe as me. We showed my host mom and my grandma, who just laughed for a good fifteen minutes as Josh did his little unsteady catwalk. Don’t worry, we’ll get a photo of him in full drag one of these days, guys!

Friday… Cleaned my room again… I could’ve gone to the pool, but I didn’t? I went to bed at nine at night, which is why none of you witnessed me at my normal night-owl hours. It’s nice to go to bed on time for once. I slept until around 8:50 today after some weird dreams, and then it was off to the Parque Forestal. “Wait,” you say, “That name sounds familiar!” Well, you would be right. Think back roughly a month – This was the same park in which we ate the pig right before we switched families. Some brave soul had gone around and mowed down the worst parts of the grass, since they must’ve wanted the park to look presentable for all the Rotarians. What did we do?

We planted trees!

Someone realized that instead of being a nice place to chill out and do park stuff, the park looked roughly the equivalent of the jungle in Jurassic Park, and they got it in their heads that hey, we should probably clean that up. The small playground area is still destroyed, and the murky green pond is better left undescribed, but it looked much more presentable than last time. There were almost exactly three hundred men, women, children, old people, and exchange students at this park to plant three hundred trees, although we didn’t have to work too hard. All three hundred of the holes were already dug, each with a tree in a small bag beside it, so all we had to do was remove the tree and stick it in the pre-dug hole. Job done. The group I was in was planting trees by a dirty wall, so we inscribed our names over the trees on the wall to show where we’d planted our trees. What did we use to do this? The keys to my house. Don’t worry, they still work. Then, us exchange students looked at each other. We looked at the crowd of people still milling pointlessly about, many of them leaving due to the extreme heat. Then we looked back at each other. And we asked the great, unanswered question: What are we supposed to be doing now? We never did find out. Instead, we became part of the great milling mass that milled around the park and talked about stuff before deciding that our presence was no longer required and it was time to go. They didn’t even take photos of the exchange students doing good Rotarian deeds like they usually bother to do. So why did we go? To put mark our territories in the Forestal park like jealous dogs, of course.

Got back home today. Ate lunch. Karen told me I should clean the house. I looked at her. I said, “Okay. What should I do?” (This is, of course, translated from Spanish for your reading pleasure – the real conversation was longer.) She looked at me. She said, “I don’t know.” Problem solved. Later, I ran out of my room to the sound of pained shrieking, and Karen in wild tears along with Jose Andres, her one year three month year old son. A little set up information. All of the bathrooms have metal doors, with sharp edges. Karen went to use the bathroom. Jose Andres tried to follow her, slipped, and hit his head on the edge of the bathroom door. There’s now a line from the middle of his forehead to just above his mouth, but after a long and loud screaming session he seems to be alright. There was also some tension between the host parents and Karen, but I stayed out of it due to not wanting to become a casualty of war. So, a little later, Jan came over, we did nothing together (after discussing it on the phone, we decided doing nothing together was better than doing nothing alone – After all, I’m the one with the internet usage). Which was alright. The power was out for about half an hour, which was when I wrote this jewel of a blog…. That was supposed to be a joke, but it sounds kind of flat when I say it aloud. Man, I need to practice more.

Expect another blog, at roughly the same time next week. Hopefully I’ll be paid my allowance this week! I CAN’T WAIT!

Ciao!

(One of my friends recently addressed the question that I seem to do little or nothing with Ecuadorians. 1. I do little or nothing with anyone since I lost my wallet. 2. I usually talk to aforementioned Ecuadorians when I’m online – Same time as when I talk to you guys. Thanks!)

WELL it’s about that time again! Or I could say, I am significantly behind schedule, considering it’s, well, Monday the 22^nd.  I really should’ve posted on Saturday. Why didn’t I post on Saturday? Good question. Why didn’t I post on Sunday? Got sick. Why is it 7 o’ clock (at night) when I’m posting on Monday when I’ve been home all day? Better question. AND THEN THE POWER JUST WENT OUT GOSH DARN IT! However, may I take this moment to make a public service announcement? My family’s got a generator! It’s freakishly loud, and it smells terrible (and is unfortunately right outside my window), but I can have power and my fan when the rest of Portoviejo huddles around a single candle and plays cards in the dark! Of course, the reason for the generator to be so loud is so that the neighbors can hear it and curse us. The reason I’m so gloating about this is that at my Dad’s house in Washington, the power often goes out during the winter and we practically freeze to death out at the lake, but our neighbor Kurt has a generator and we can hear the reassuring purr even inside our house, which seems sick and cruel to us. BUT NOW I CAN ENJOY ALL THE BENEFITS OF A GENERATOR, including mocking my neighbor!

…May I note it’s Lent and I will be doing an extra ‘Hail Mary’ tonight?

Sooo… Let’s see what I can remember from this past week. I didn’t write much in my journal, for some inexplicable reason, despite the fact that a good deal occurred. First things first. On Monday, I went to the beach with Karen, my host sister, and a bunch of other family people. WE WENT TO SAN CLEMENTE. I like San Clemente. I didn’t realize that I had been there before with my ex host family – I’d believed that it was Manta, due to some faulty information by someone or another, but I remembered that I liked San Clemente (which I thought was Manta). It was completely NUTS in San Clemente – It took us four hours to just get there, due to intense traffic! We spent a little time eating, and then Karen and I attacked the central part of San Clemente, which was crowded with people. Carnival seems to include epic amounts of beer being imbibed, people spraying spray foamy stuff at everyone in sight, and then tossing water/beer on passerby. Nobody escaped unscathed, especially yours truly, because, gentle reader, I am rather tall and I stand out. This is true. Therefore, I got BOMBED as the only tall white girl in the crowd. It was alright, since I don’t mind being wet, but I wish I could’ve avoided the beer splashes. Those smelt bad. In any case, after wandering around Centro for awhile (and seeing many exchange students, including Florian with his girlfriend, Josh, Kirsty, Leslie, Laura, Luke, Critter, and a couple others), it was beginning to get dark. And my host sister wanted to stay the night in San Clemente.

This began the phone calling of epic proportions. May I note, that Karen had no saldo for her cell phone, and therefore used ALL THE SALDO ON MY CELL PHONE, much to my displeasure. I had three dollars on there, which was supposed to last me for another two-some weeks, and she used it all. Gahhh. I kept my frustration to myself, and Karen managed to wrangle permission to stay the night, with a couple of restrictions, such as that we be out of San Clemente by seven in the morning, that we don’t drink/smoke, that Andres (Baby Daddy) wasn’t in San Clemente, and that we stay with our cousin. Welp. Let’s just say all rules were heartily broken. Before leaving, my host uncle came up to me, patted my shoulder and said, “Allison, now, you have to watch over your cousin and sister, and make sure nothing happens to them, right? I trust you!” I wryly told him that I was only sixteen and the both of them were older than me, to which he just repeated the above sentence, more or less. Turns out he was happily drunk, but he’s a funny guy, so it’s all cool.

Thus begun our epic Carnival journey. Karen used my pockets as hers were dysfunctional for some reason, and we began the night with fifteen dollars. Most of that money? It went to alcohol and cigarettes (rule number two). I assure you, I was not the one doing the drinking/smoking, since I’ve found that even small amounts of alcohol make my stomach upset. We went back to the house of Baby Daddy’s mom and family, where we were going to be staying the night (breaking rule number 4). We both took showers, and I got dressed quickly while Karen chilled out in a towel and did her makeup. Then, much to my dismay, Andres showed up, having driven over from Crucita. GAHHH. There went rule number three. My host parents really dislike Andres, and it seems like Karen does most of the time as well – They sat on the big bed and bad talked each other for quite some time to Andres’ aunt, who just had to nod sympathetically and gasp in the right places as your heroine tried valiantly not to fall asleep. Finally, Karen seemed ready to go at 11:30, but she then spent another half an hour trying to convince Andres to come out with us, which proved my doubts. I didn’t feel so hot, as I hadn’t eaten in a looong time and I was tired, but I was ready to go and Andres was STALLING!

Finally he got his lazy bum in motion and we began sorting our way through the streets, until finally we all sat down in front of a beer stall. This is both an advantageous and dangerous place; you risk being drenched in beer but at the same time you can get lots of beer! Well, for me it was just dangerous, considering I wasn’t drinking, but Andres’ mom was really drunk and having fun making some dirty jokes at my expense. Bleh. I’d eaten a little by then, but I was just feeling worse, and then for no reason at all, Karen disappeared. I’d finally convinced myself that despite having done nothing, it was time for me to get some sleep and stop feeling so horrid. However, this was the rap: I had Karen’s movistar chip in my cell phone, and I was carrying the cell phone. This meant if anyone called, like host mom or host dad, I would answer the call. If I was asleep, I couldn’t do that. Point of the story: I needed to give Karen my cell phone. But she wasn’t to be found! Turns out she’d gone to ‘change her clothes’ back at the house with Andres, which immediately raised my suspicions even more. I didn’t go back to the house to sleep right then, like I wanted to, because the LAST THING I wanted to do was… well… ‘Walk in’… If you know what I mean, and I think you do. So I decided to wait, despite how miserable I was feeling. After about an hour, I got sick and tired of waiting, and I just tromped back to the house to find the two of them just chillin’ out with each other, both fully clothed thank God. Tired and annoyed, I tossed the cell in her lap, and went to the bedroom and collapsed on the very edge of one of the beds, faintly remembering to hope that Karen would set a cell phone alarm…

…Which she didn’t.

I woke up the next day at eight, very tired, but I’d forced myself awake after hearing voices talking and suddenly worrying about what time it was. I freaked when I realized we were an hour behind (breaking another rule, whee!) and worried about host mom freaking at Karen, so I got her out of bed where she’d been peacefully cuddling with Andres. That girl is impossible to get up. But somehow, I managed to get her out of bed and on a bus with me and my cousin, who had to lend us a dollar, since the bus ride was a dollar a pop and we only had one dollar. Told you the money was gone. Somehow, we made it back home in one piece… But Karen gave me a quick overbriefing of what had ‘really’ happened the night before. She told me she’d gone to bed at the same time as me, although I barely remember waking up when they came in and it was certainly long after I’d gone to bed. Luckily, host mom didn’t interrogate me, so I had no need to lie to her, which would’ve made me uncomfortable.

On Thursday, I was interrogated at dinner time by Baby Daddy when I noted the apples in the fridge were from Washington. “Washington C.D.?” He asks me, and I furiously shook my head. “Washington the state! And it’s D.C., not C.D.!” He then asked me if Washington C.D. was in my state, and I said no. He then asked me if it was in Transylvania (mixing up with Pennsylvania), to which I just stared at him, considering this was all a unserious line of discussion. He then asked me how many states were in the U.S., and I said fifty, and Karen goes, “Fifty-two!” I looked at Karen, and smiled disbelievingly, since she was an ex-U.S. exchange student, and we proceeded to have a ten minute argument about how many states there were in the U.S. with an occasional comment thrown in by Andres, who still believes there is 48 states in the United States. I finally ended said argument with, “I’m from the U.S. I know this stuff.” Karen then challenged me to name all fifty capitals, which I admitted I couldn’t do (I’m not big on geography), and then I challenged her to name all the capitals of the 27 provinces in Ecuador, which she couldn’t do – Since she couldn’t name all the provinces. I rest my case.

Wednesday we had our Rotary meeting. Turns out I WILL have to make a presentation about Washington… I’m not looking forward to it. My Spanish doesn’t work well with microphones. Can my family be good and send me lots of photos? I need to make more slides and I don’t have many photos…

Thursday also passed without incident.

Friday, at night, Karen and I somehow ended up going to Bono’s, a bar of popularity with the exchange students, since Lizzie and a TON of exchange students were there. Considering that I don’t drink, bars probably aren’t the best place for me to be chillin’ out, but hey. It was cool. I got to meet Florian’s older brother from Holland as well, before he was drawn into conversation by another exchange kiddy. Most of my friends departed by one in the morning, by which time I was MORE than ready to leave, since host mom had told us to be home by 12:45 and I was getting real antsy.

NO.

SUCH.

LUCK.

I don’t wanna go out with Karen again. Karen’s nice. I like Karen. But when it comes down to it, she’s unreliable, and to have fun, she doesn’t mind lying. She told host mom that we were with my host brother at a party, and we stayed there until the police showed up at the bar to close it (!). I was a little nervous then, since there was a group of ten police people, and they all watched me with what seemed to my exhausted mind suspicion. I didn’t like it, and I was more than happy to get home. We were there until freakin’ 3:30 in the morning! GAHH. So frustrating! Even Karen’s friend who she’d brought with her wanted to leave when I did, but they just had to leave me to my own devices. I don’t expect Karen to hold my hand or anything, but… She’s a party girl, which I’m not. Someone asked me later why I didn’t just take a taxi home without Karen. Answer? I didn’t have a dollar. I couldn’t leave without her. Frustration. But it all worked out, I suppose.

The next day, it was off to Manta at 8:30 in the morning with all the exchange kiddies to go look at a port that is still in construction in Manta that will supposedly give the Manabi province of Ecuador world domina- I mean, world access to everything’s that’s happening out on the wide blue sea. Cool stuff, huh? The only part us exhangies actually liked was when we went on the big boat (ship) thing. It was a car transport and according to Luke, shouldn’t have been floating considering how BIG the thing was. A guy from Bulgaria took us up to the top deck and talked with us in flawed but good English; he told us that normally there were four month contracts but his contract was messed up and he’d been on the ship for five months without shore leave. Ouch. We also saw people from China, Russia, and one man from Canada, interestingly enough.

SUNDAY? I got sick. You don’t want to hear the dirty details, do you?

MONDAY? I’m still sick, been in bed all day. Whenever I stand up my head twirls more than a ballerina. Can’t keep a thing down, and it’s pretty miserable, although I told him he couldn’t, Jan came over and used my internet anyways. I’m afraid I wasn’t good company – I just kind of collapsed on the couch while he talked in rapid German to his mom. Baw. Hopefully it gets better…

Apologies on lack of detail in this particular post. I’m a bad person, I know. Hopefully you’ll forgive me, gentle reader.

Thanks to all who keep reading! Les amo!

Ciao!

(Allison Momb
Ciudad de California, Calle Chone y Junin
Portoviejo, Manabi
Ecuador
numero de cel. 083028937)

(That’s my address! If you include my cell number, THEY SEND ME A TEXT whenever something gets sent to me ;D now everyone, STOP ASKING FOR MY ADDRESS!)

It sure has been awhile, hasn’t it, guys? Well, it feels like that to me. I know it’s pretty much been the general week and a day, but my week’s been jam packed with activities and the such, not to mention traveling. Oh my God, traveling.

On Monday I did indeed go to Manta to get my Ecuador ID. It takes about an hour to drive there, and then it took perhaps fifteen minutes to print out a new ID and laminate it, in which time Karen talked with the officer guy about Portoviejo being the center of commercial activity and all that jazz and I just hung out in a chair. He barely glanced at the documents I was lugging around with me, just asked for four dollars and we were out of there and back on the road to Portoviejo.

Now, let me tell you about how long it took to get the documents I needed/we thought I might need in Portoviejo.

I got up at six thirty, and we were out of the house by seven. We first went to Radio Sucre to see if anyone had picked up the wallet (I wasn’t expecting anything) and then to a government building to see about renouncing my ID, which you have to do to get a new one. The lady there said we had to go to a lawyer and then come back with the document he made to get it signed, so we went to the courthouse where my host mom works (this is INCREDIBLY lucky since she knows a bunch of people as the secretary of a judge). We typed up a letter that said I was under the responsibility of my new host family, freaked when we realized there was no plain paper in the office, found some, went all the way down to the street and printed copies of my host mom and host dad’s licenses, went back upstairs, went to the public defense attorney’s office, typed up another document, went to my host mom, had her sign three times, went back to the DA’s office, had him sign three times and stamp, went back down to the street and took a couple of pictures that I could’ve needed for the license, went back upstairs and gave my host mom her ID, went back downstairs and back to the government building and had some random guy sign and stamp the renouncing paper. This was all done with a good deal of arguing and intense discussion, and Karen, who did all of it with me, was cheerfully threatening to kill me by the time we left for Manta at 1:30 after a very, very long morning. But somehow it all worked out and I got my ID, and then I went with Karen to pick up her little kid from the baby daddy, Andres.

Turns out he didn’t have water, so he came back to the house with us to use the shower. I’d started out with an alright impression of the guy, since he’s so good with Jose Andres despite what Karen and host mom said, but it kind of twirled down the toilet when he began to discuss the inherent evil of females according to the Bible, which seemed not only very out of place, but also rather rude.  However, my ‘stay out of it’ senses were tingling and I did not offer my opinion on the matter. Good for me. After he ranted for a bit, Karen made a smart comment back about how the tempter (the serpent a.k.a. the devil) had been a male, and Andres shut up and didn’t say anymore. GO KAREN!

My friend Jan came over to the house for a bit to jack my internet, and it gave me a good idea of just how much freedom I do have here. I didn’t ask my host parents if he could come over. I didn’t ask if I could go to a movie with him afterwards. We simply walked in, walked out, said hi, and walked down to the mall. (If you’re wondering how I paid for my movie ticket, I cite the ‘two for one’ coupon that I got the other night. Hahahaha.) Then I came back, and did a MAD pack job of my suitcase for the Amazon while Skyping (which is now a verb), and somehow didn’t forget anything. Oh yeah, Mom, I found my retainer. I’d put it in the weirdest spot, but I’ll tell you about it later. At 9:45, I went to my host parent’s bedroom and we had a conversation like this with my host dad. “We should get going. I have to be there at ten.” “Alright.” “….Do you know WHERE we’re going?” “No.” Sigh. Host dad is cool. He’s spacey sometimes, but cool. He likes to tell me bad things have happened, like I’m eating cat or the bus left without me, but I can tell when he’s joking.

The bus ride to Quito? It was long.

I got squished in the front with my viola, since I didn’t trust shoving it on top of the super van that seats twelve, with the driver, and Mariela, one of the chaperones, sitting in the middle front seat with me since she told me she had short legs. I didn’t sleep the entire time, despite the fact that it was an eight hour trip. They were talking about some weeeeeird stuff in the back seat, but I mostly just kept to myself and looked out the window or talked to Mariela. Around four in the morning we were winding along the mountains on the way to Quito, and the van man opened the window and I looked outside and the stars were just absolutely breathtaking. I have never seen such a clear sky in Ecuador, with so many stars. If I didn’t believe in God, I would now, but since I do, I was just in awe. The cool air whipping along my face (it’s lovely cold in the highlands!) and the view managed to keep me awake for the next two hours, and we arrived in Quito around 6:30, which was when we all piled off the vans and into the small airport. My bus had generally conked out, but the other bus had stayed up all night just like me and were running on the same form of exhausted adrenaline, and rejoicing in the beauty of cold air and wearing sweatshirts. We met up with Lukas from Austria in the airport, since he’d already been in Quito with his parents, and he was busy being violently sick in the bathroom from some flu he’d contracted. We also had a new joinee by the name of Emily from Australia, who had just got to Ecuador two weeks ago. MAN is her accent cool! Therefore, the entire trip I amused myself and annoyed her by repeating what she said and mimicking her accent. Poor girl. She probably wanted to kill me, but she took it all in good spirit.

The flight to the airport in Coca was one of those little up-down affairs that takes roughly thirty minutes. The only reason to remember it is that as we came into Coca, the other group of exchange kiddies who had just finished their Amazon trip was in the airport, and we got to talk to them through the metal detector, which was amazing, but it was much too short, considering we won’t see them again until May. We were all raring to go by the time they piled us, with our luggage, onto an electric canoe on the river that Coca lies against. Now, they say the rainforest is hot and humid all the time. I quickly realized that this was a lie. The part of the rainforest we were at was on higher ground, so it was cooler, and there were fewer mosquitoes, although there was one day that the sand flies absolutely consumed our legs. What can I say? Foreigners are a great buffet. The first thing you notice about the Amazon is how green it is, and how lush. The green never stops, from vine covered trees to thick leaves and palms overshadowing the wide river that we traveled on for three and a half hours. Most of us fell asleep. I still had my adrenaline. I think I counted up my hours at one point in time sometime on that day (the ninth of February) and discovered I’d been awake for close to forty hours and that it was time for me to go to bed. Yachana, the name of the place where we stayed, is a singularly lovely place. The pillows were AMAZING, and we had solar electricity implemented by a generator from the hours of six to ten. There was also wireless internet, which one student energetically took advantage of, but I hadn’t seen the need to expose my beloved laptop to the humidity. It was definitely humid. We were greeted with hot towels, and the attentions of Yolanda, the resident parrot, who took quite the liking to me and my hair. However, she was often quite moody due to being hungry, so she would bite the boys and they would call her names. Poor girl. I just never let her go on my left arm, which has my bracelets and then my piercing in my upper ear. THAT would hurt. They explained the ground rules, and then shooed us off to our rooms. I stayed with Kiraya, the Canadian exchange student from my district, and Min Chia from Taiwan. Turns out Yachana is not just a hotel, it’s also a community and the name of a high school nearby. Everything is organic and they demonstrated this to us several times. That day, we had a quick hike in the afternoon up to a mountain view, then a butterfly house, and then it was dinner. My God, the food was delicious! Organic never tasted so good! They also told us we would be doing a Valentine’s Day Secret Friend, so every night you gave a present to your amigo secreto. Flowers. Lots of flowers. What else were we supposed to give, rocks? Well, I did give a rock one night. It was kind of funny since I got Min Chia, and Min Chia got Kiraya, so it was hard to go about gift giving.

It all seems kind of blurry now…  Mostly because the heat wave hit the next day. We were all sweating like crazy. The next day, Wednesday, we were split up into the groups in the morning and we walked to the colegio, High School Yachana. My group was again singularly lucky, since we had the craft group the first day, which means that we DIDN’T have to clean out the nasty chicken pen. We did miss out on the machete hacking, but the point is, they put us to work! This was no vacation! For that first day, my group made bracelets and t-shirts, which turned out pretty awesome. I was sitting with Min Chia and one of the eighteen year old boys from the Colegio. They all speak Quichua, the indigenous language, Spanish, and then interesting English, and man this boy wanted to talk to Min Chia! Afterwards, he gave her his email address, and she was so embarrassed about the whole thing. Later, Min Chia and I were sitting with Jan at the t-shirt table, and he was cutting out his name to screen print it on his shirt, and for some reason, we were saying eachother’s names aloud. Now, Min Chia’s been learning bits of German from Jan, so she tried to say his name – Jan Schulze – But it came out a little different. Try the ‘s-word’, as we used to refer to it when we were little, in German. THAT was a laugh.

We went swimming in the river in the afternoon. There was a rope swing hanging from one of the trees, and it was especially amusing to watch the boys trying to use it, although it took them a couple of tries and a bit of pain to figure out how to use it before one of the native boys told them they should hook their toe on the last knot on the swing. Then they had a jolly good time with all of it. The river has a wicked current, and like I said, it’s rather wide, so therefore, Nils from Germany now has my greatest respect as he swam to the other shore of the river and back with little or no problem. WOW. We all got a little afraid for him when we saw how bad the current was, but he just kept trooping! That night we had a night hike, and we were looking for animals, but there were none to be found…. Generally, the jungle was rather quiet for us, although the other group said they saw TONS of animals. Maybe we were just too loud. That was the night the stars were bright again, and Lizzie pointed out Jupiter for us in the night sky. Later that night, after our hike, a few of us went out to the porch and laid on it and looked up at the stars while talking to each other. At first it was Amina, Jan, Min Chia, Lukas, Emily, Marvin, and I, but soon it was only Jan, Emily, and I. I admit. I talked a lot. I was pretty tired, but in a ridiculously good mood, so we all laid on top of each other and talked about pools in the mind (long story), languages, whatever came to mind. It was a lot of fun, but our little party got crashed around midnight by the ‘party’ group of about eight who had been hanging out in another place. They were soon talking about if they slept with clothes on or not and tattoos, so I ditched that convo pretty quick and headed to bed around 1:30 after talking with Kiraya for a bit about life, the universe, and everything.

That next morning we again headed to the Colegio, and this time, we were one of the work groups, so we headed down the hell stairs (I’m asthmatic, and stairs kill me, so that was the only damper for my trip, since my inhaler ran out of puff medicine and I’d only brought one of my inhalers with me) to the agricultural section that was below the school. The plantation is separated into three parts – Ponds for fishing, the fields, and then the places further out into the jungle where food is processed in rural machines. We had a short tramp through the jungle, where we saw what coffee beans look like BEFORE you take the fruit off of them, and then we took the waste material from the coffee beans, put it in big bags, and hauled it back to the main plantation in the scalding humidity and bright sunshine. IT WAS HEAVY! I told you they put us to work! Poor Min Chia couldn’t carry her bag, they put so much in it, so two of the boys were siphoning off hers into their bags. At one point, of them put her bag on his back, but she just goes, “No, no no no, I can do it, I can do it!” So he gave it back to her with a laugh. They joked with me a bit, saying, “You’re tired, aren’t you?” And I just told them that I could do this for a long time, reminiscing back to my times at CIC basketball camp and playing basketball at one in the morning with a bloody nose. But I can’t say I wasn’t glad to be done. We had our cooking lesson that day, and man was the food delicious! They put fish in leaves and cooked it over a large fire, and also gave us the veggie called ‘Heart of Palm’, and a plant that is normally poisonous but is delicious when cooked. There’s, um, one other thing. We ate grubs. WAIT, before you freak out, they were cooked! Although Nils and Critter (we call him that, his name is Christopher) ate theirs raw, and we could hear the crunch of the heads. Ew ew ew. Best thing to do is just not think about what you’re putting in your mouth. But they tasted a little like bacon. Mmm, bacon.

After lunch we had ULTIMATE jungle trip from hell. I mean, it was awesome. But hellish. Again, my inhaler had kicked out by then, so a two and a half jungle trip with intense climbing perhaps wasn’t the best idea for me, but I did it anyways, and I managed to only have a small attack at the end of the trip. This asthma stuff really, really frustrates me, and I will never be able to tell you how much it frustrates me, but it couldn’t sour my slight sense of pride that I hadn’t fallen behind once, despite the overwhelming urge to sit down and catch my breath (which Mariela wanted me to do as well). We watched Mauricio, our tour guide, make a basket out of a branch with many long palms of leaves, and I took pictures of people in the river. The trip was definitely worth it. That night at dinner, Critter got a pretty awesome secret friend gift – His secret friend had taken his cell phone, wrapped it up in a leaf, and then given it back to him. I’m sure we did something that night… But my memory fails me. I told you. We just packed events in one after another. It’s difficult to remember everything. But I should mention one thing: THE BOOTS. We were all issued boots at the beginning of the trip and we had to wear them everywhere. I now have throbbing blisters on the back of my ankles, but they were fun when you got water inside of them ,since they would then proceed to squelch.

I REMEMBER! That night was our little talent contest, which of course, all Rotary events must have. I don’t know why. But we went out to a little island, and sang a song about sandwiches in German, did the chicken dance (that was my group), the YMCA, and generally had a good time sitting around the fire and laughing at people’s attempts to be funny.

I remember the last full day of the trip quite clearly. I was up early, because they had a well stocked library of books there and I’d jacked a Stephen King book that I hadn’t read, and Critter had bet me a dollar that I couldn’t finish it before the trip was over, and everyone thought I couldn’t read a seven hundred page book. I showed him. But the bet was important to me since I was kind of, well, broke. Being wallet-less is HARD. Again we headed to the colegio in the morning, but that was the most fun I’d had while we were in the high school. They split our group into more mini groups, putting three of us in a pond (including me) to go fishing, three of us to go work on digging one of the ponds, and two of the boys to work in the garden. We found out later that the boys with us had to dig the pond because they’d drank a bottle of Manabita Cana (alcohol) in their room and been caught, but at the time it was just work. Fish catching was FUN. We got into the cold water that went almost but not quite waist deep, and then pushed a net back and forth to herd the fish into a corner, where a smaller swirly net was then used to catch the fish. We would remove the fish from the net, and then it was back to net pushing. After a couple hours, Jan and Josh rejoined us from the garden, and we saw Amina chasing one of the Yachana boys around the pool, and she was COVERED in mud.

Well, I bet you know how this story ends.

We ALL ended up in the unfinished pool, and we were all extremely muddy. I do believe I have never, ever been that dirty in my entire life. I swear to God. But it was so much fun! We just rolled around in the mud and grabbed people and rubbed mud in their hair. I had these giant clumps of mud in my pony tail, and it was hard to find some piece of skin that was not brown with mud. Believe me, clean up process wasn’t too much fun, but it was completely worth it. Wait until we get some pictures on Facebook. I’ll make it my status photo, believe me. That afternoon we went ‘tubing’, but it wasn’t what we expected. They shoved us into life jackets, took us up the river, and then we floated down the river in our lifejackets back to Yachana. I managed to avoid getting dunked under water by Marvin, although I think I was the only one. He got almost everybody, but me~ Then we all changed, piled on the canoe again, and we were going to go on a little walk, but it was raining hard and they wanted to play soccer in the rain, so we instead went back. I fell behind a bit with Jan on the way to the field, and we decided that the walk really wasn’t worth it about halfway there, so we went back to the lodge and talked for awhile before reading in hammocks. Better than soccer! Woo!

After dinner that night, we had a little break, and I packed my clothes while talking to Jan before we went up into the Yachana community for a little dance party with everyone. We only stayed for an hour since the electricity cut out on us, but it was fun. They could’ve had a little more variety with the songs (they only played two songs over and over again, even though we begged them to change it) but I never object to dancing. Perhaps at the beginning of my exchange I would’ve been one of the people sitting on the bench. Now I’m one of the people doing whatever she feels like. It’s a nice change, one I appreciate. We headed back to our rooms in the dark, and a couple girls and Marvin gathered in my room to discuss boys. Marvin didn’t seem to mind too much. After awhile, Kiraya disappeared to go talk to the others, and Min Chia went to bed, so I started to finish my book. The two Rotarians accompanying us were walking around, checking rooms, looking for someone, but I didn’t know who and they didn’t ask me. My eye had been bothering me all night and was red and irritated since something  had gotten in it (I’m still wearing my glasses because of it), so I went to bed after awhile and didn’t hear about what happened.

It was early up the morning to go pick flowers for the Rotary ladies, and we bought post cards from Yachana to sign for them. After breakfast, they had us all congregate in a circle to give the final words that you hear at each trip. They said we’d been great, the Yachana head guy gave us each a little statue from Yachana, and then suddenly the mood turned serious. They began to talk about how Rotary has rules, and how the rules are there to protect us, and how if a rule is broken, it is their duty to report it, no matter how much it hurts them to do it. The point is, Lizzie, from Pennsylvania, United States, is going home in three days. No ifs or buts about it. That’s the simple truth. It hung like a cloud over us as she screamed and cried for close to an hour, and then seemed to quiet down. I won’t mention what happened here for Lizzie’s privacy, but she knew the rules… And it is sobering for the rest of us. The trip on the canoe back was very quiet, although we all lightened up a bit by the end. A couple of kids were taking alternate routes back, so we didn’t take two vans – Just one van and a taxi. Lizzie, Leslie, and Kirsty, along with the Rotarian Mariela went in the taxi, and the rest of us piled into a van, this time with my viola shoved into the small space behind the seats. We made a couple stops for lunch, dinner, and the bathroom, and I remember Luke was learning German from Nils in the seat behind me. It was better than the first trip, since this time, I had Jan in the front with me so I could actually keep myself amused by talking. After dinner we both fell asleep, but my ex-host sister MiNi called me TWICE, which means she woke me up twice, because they were confused. I’m not sure why she didn’t call Fernando, but my sleepy mind resented having to speak Spanish and not sleep. I got home at approximately midnight after a thirteen hour trip back, and I talked online a bit (I was hoping my parentals would be online, no such luck) before collapsing into bed.

Today has been uneventful. I skipped going to church with the excuse that I was tired and wanted to do laundry, but I couldn’t even do that, since we don’t have water in the house right now. Goodness gracious. It’s annoying having to do the round about way of showering, and all I wanted after the trip was a nice shower. (Fun fact: Yachana lodge has hot water. WHAT? They have hot water out in the middle of the rain forest but not in the capital of the Manabi region? WHAT IS THIS?) Disappointment. But the priest came to me, nice enough, since my host parents have actually completed all the work required to start the new water stand business, and the priest came to put a benediction on the business. It was also my host mom’s birthday today, so we ate some cake for her too before I disappeared to try to get a very annoying virus off my laptop. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. I got the SVCHOST.EXE virus on my laptop, and it happened sometime while I was away… It’s screwed up my internet, so I’m going to try restarting my computer, since I think that perhaps it just needs a little TLC. I’ve spent ages on working with my laptop with my beautiful friend Diana who is the best tech support I could ask for without going to a professional, and I’ll post this up as soon as I can.

They say a picture tells a thousand words. I can’t describe everything that happened on this trip. But perhaps Facebook will do the job for me.

Also, Carnaval started yesterday, but it seems as though we will not go to the beach since host mom doesn’t want to and again today is her birthday. Chill with me. I’m tired. And I want to wash my clothes.

Love you all! And happy birthday, Judy!

C(M)i(e)a(o)o(w).

It’s been a lively week here in Allison-land, which is currently located in Portoviejo, Ecuador (just tellin’ y’all so you don’t forget where I’m at). I might as well start right in. We didn’t head to the beach last Saturday, to my happiness. We instead went over to my aunt’s house where everyone played Bingo for hours. Now, you must realize: BINGO IS A FORM OF GAMBALING AND THEREFORE THE DEVIL! I cut my losses after a couple hours, since not hearing the jingle of coins in your wallet is slightly depressing and a morbid thought when you consider how long it is until you get your next Rotary cash day. I am smart enough to realize that I just don’t win at Bingo. Perhaps I will have better luck with slot machines. My cousins tried to sell jewelry to me; I politely bought little things and spent a dollar in total on them. When they asked me if I had bought stuff from Evelyn, I said, “Of course I did, she’s my little sister”. That just cracked up my grandmother, who was practically crying so hard. I’m not saying Evelyn’s got BAD quality goods. But y’know I’m kind of honor bound to buy stuff from her if she sells it or I look like a cheapskate. I spent a couple hours talking to one of my distant cousins, also twelve, mostly about school, yadada. We stayed there until midnight and then it was off to the house for the big day on Sunday!

On Sunday I got up at 7:30 (‘round normal time for me) and got ready awful quick and shoved little things into my suitcases. Moral of the story: I was ready to go around 8:30. I ate breakfast with my host parents, and then mysteriously, they disappeared off to some random place. I thought to myself, “Ah, they just went to pick up milk or something. They’ll be back in time for the 10:00 barbecue!” However, as the hour stretched on and they got back at 10:30, I began to wonder if they had indeed forgotten about the barbecue. I was too chicken to ask so I went and hid out in my room, like I do when I don’t feel like awkwardly sitting at the table with a book or whatever. Fun fact: I heard Simon and Garfunkel on the radio. ‘The Sound of Silence’. A song I like. IN SPANISH. Almost no one knows the song! Irony! In any case, my host sisters ate breakfast and then finally we left. Turns out, I needn’t have worried – Min Chia was the only one there, and the barbecue was a long one. It was at a large, green, Rotary funded park called Forestal, which had unfortunately fallen into disrepair, although it was probably quite lovely at its peak. Fernando told me it was because the club didn’t have enough money to keep up on the park. They roasted a giant pig for us exchange students, despite the fact that there was only three of us there – Min Chia, Lukas from Austria, and myself. Juliette and her visiting sister from Belgium came for a bit in the morning, but it was Juliette’s host mother’s birthday, so they made a run for it after awhile. At one point, we walked around the park, and there was a sort of large play area for small children, and there was two hanging handles that you’re supposed to lift yourself up on. Like those Olympic people. In any case, it’s hard to do. We told Lukas he couldn’t do it, and so he goes, grabs them, and lifts up. Now, these were metal. When your arms pull you up, they automatically pull your elbows out and your hands in. So he knocked these rusty handles on either side of his head and one of his eyebrows swelled up horribly. We told him he couldn’t. I was slightly nervous the entire day (we ate at four) since Luke hadn’t showed with his parents…. And how was I going to get to Luke’s house if his parents weren’t there? My fears were confirmed when I went back to the same house that night. MANNNNN

Monday was a pret-ty long day. I was antsy, and ready to go, and I can barely describe how I was feeling when Fernando and Childerico (my councilor) showed up at the house at 8:00. I didn’t say anything, relax, and I didn’t do anything suspicious. I told my host parents thank you, asked Evelyn for my nail polish (she jacked it. Oh well. To add insult to injury, she then painted Cynthia’s nails with it. Cynthia’s in their house right now.), she told me she’d given it away to my host cousins, and then I WAS OUT OF THERE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. I swear I had the hugest smile on my face the whole way to the next house. I was anxious and excited and jumpy all at once. And believe me, I have not been let down!

This house is beautiful. My host mother, Charlotte, told me that the family is solid lower middle class and I shouldn’t expect much, but compared to the last house, this is great! They have screens on the windows, so I don’t get munched on at night, and a very nice kitchen that they encourage me to make use of. My room is great, and I have my own bathroom, and overall I love my living accommodations. Unfortunately, the AC is broke in my room, but I have a fan and it doesn’t get TOO hot in my room. But better than the house is my family. I LOVE THEM. From the beginning, both of my host parents have stressed the fact that I am their daughter, although I am much taller than them (a little joke) and that this is my house as well as there. My host mom is 49, my host dad, Alberto, is 46, and we have my host sister, Karen, who lives in the house and goes to university. She has a little boy named Jose Andres who is one year and five months old and is a little chubby (30 pounds) but absolutely adorable! He likes to get into trouble and is always pulling things and climbing things. He does tend to hit a little bit, but hey. I can deal with it. The father of Karen’s child, Andres, is currently separated from Karen and from what I hear not exactly the dependable type. They don’t trust the kid with Andres, and he’s only been in the house once and I didn’t actually meet him. I also have a sister in Michigan, Ketita, and a brother who is grown up and has a wife and kids of his own. They’ve always made me feel welcome here – The first night my host mom and Karen sat down to talk with me, and it was so easy! I don’t think I said that many words to my entire last host family ever, and that was just one night! They seemed a little confused as to why I’ve been so cheerful/happy – They asked if I didn’t miss my other family, and I told them no, definitely not. I don’t talk bad about people, so when they asked why, I said it was because I couldn’t talk with them and because I was often alone in the house. They nodded wisely and told me I could ALWAYS talk with them and I never had to feel alone before regaling me with tales of Luke, which I shall not mention here.

Bed took a little getting used to. It’s one of those orthopedic bits, so when you lay down on it the first time, you think to yourself, “WHAT IS THIS? A TABLE?” But after you sink in it’s quite nice. The next day, Tuesday, it was up at six to go to aerobics at the gym! Next great thing: I can go to the gym here! Wheeee! Aerobics are fun, and the guy that does all of it is FUNNY. It’s this giant buff guy in spandex singing along to the classic techno remixes of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ and ‘I’ve Had the Time of My Life’, along with other hits. It’s FUN. But my arms were super sore and are only alright today because I did a pretty intense lifting session. Next time, I take it a little slower. That day, I discovered that my room is faintly reminiscent of a cave – It’s overshadowed by a wall and the roof on the outside, and with the curtains drawn, IT’S ALWAYS NIGHT TIME IN ALLIE’S ROOM! This means I can sleep whenever I want! There goes my sleeping schedule! I have already taken gratuitous naps. That night, we also went to Shopping to go food shopping. They said, “What do you want?” I said, “Yogurt.” And so we bought yogurt! And lots of fruit. Host mum says that we often lack food, but we ALWAYS have some kind of fruit in the house. I am changing this, since I ate four apples in one day. Oops. Host mum seemed delighted, though. They think I don’t eat enough, and say, “Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?” when really I’m just overjoyed not to have disgustingly huge portions of rice shoved down my throat on a regular basis. We eat the only actual meal at lunch; I’m on my own for breakfast since host mom is the secretary to a lawyer and works intensive hours at her job, and dinner everyone just has a sandwich or whatever they want. This is the perfect eating schedule! I can eat when I’m hungry, and pick what I want to eat. Lucky Jan didn’t get switched into this house – He’d always be hungry.

(Jan, if you ever read this, I’m sorry. It’s obligatory.)

Had my Rotary meeting on Wednesday after we went and bought bread. IT WAS PAY NIGHT so I happily received my forty dollars and chilled out with the other exchange students. That was the first night I actually ate dinner at the Rotary meeting, since I chose not to eat beforehand. And it was good! We also received the information, along with the bummer that we have to pay an extra 25 dollars for the Amazon trip to Quito. We also had a slight schedule change – The trip now starts at 10:00 at night on Monday, rather than in the morning on Tuesday. Fine with me. I wouldn’t sleep in the car either way. I love road trips.

Let’s skip to Friday since I just chilled on Thursday. We did grab hot dogs on Thursday night, however, at the hot dog place owned by my aunt, and she said, “Oh, is that the new exchange student?” My host mom proceeded to gush happily about me for a couple minutes, which made me blush. I’m happy they like me as much as I like them. I think that’s what made me so unhappy in the other house. I was missing the affection factor. It’s just simple things, like them calling me by a nickname (which they do) or ‘mi hija’ (my daughter). It all makes me feel better. On Friday, I had Lizzie’s birthday party to get to, and it was a great party! We all had fun dancing together and just generally being idiots. It started raining, so we took off our shoes, went outside and danced in the rain together. Not all of us, just the more… Well, nuts ones. And you all know that includes me!

Unfortunately, my night was overshadowed by an event that has had me rather upset. I LEFT MY WALLET IN THE TAXI. I didn’t realize for a good half an hour; and it’s usually because I do a thorough pocket/purse check before leaving the taxi for all my valuables. It’s because someone called me right as I was getting out, I think, but that’s no excuse. I was completely inconsolable for awhile, but I felt better after talking to my dad and then taking a ‘it happened’ attitude about it after the party. Still, after the party mode ran out, I was full on depression. It kind of felt like, “Everything is going right for me, SOMETHING had to happen.” I think this is known as irony in the English language? I lost a great deal of items including but not limited to my debit card, my insurance for Ecuador and the U.S., my school ID card, my Ecuador ID card, and about 25 dollars. My dad managed to convince me that it was all alright and nothing had happened that couldn’t be fixed. Lizzie’s parents sent out an ad on Radio Sucre, just in case someone picked it up, but I’ve had to accept that it’s gone. My host parents took it remarkably well. I know what my old host parents would have done, and it would’ve led to me being even MORE upset. My host parents now were very understanding, and I talked with Karen until 2 in the morning and felt a lot better.

Today, I’ve been kind of just hanging out. I’d thought I’d gotten over the whole wallet business, and I managed to call my councilor and be very good about it, but turns out that’s not the least of it. To go on the Amazon trip I need to have my Ecuador ID. This got me going again. Karen told me not to cry because we can go to Manta on Monday and get me a new ID and it was all going to be alright, but I was pretty upset about it, although I knew that they wouldn’t let me get left behind. That’d be just cruel. I can’t imagine being stuck in Portoviejo ALONE for an entire week while knowing everyone went to the Amazon. Still, I took it hard, and all through lunch I was choked up. But I’m feeling a lot better now. Sometimes you just need to get emotion out, I think. My seventh grade teacher, Mr. Gannon, put it pretty well: ‘If you ever feel bad, just cry really hard or throw up. You always feel better after doing those.’ Then again, maybe Mr. Gannon isn’t the best guy to be taking life advice from (East Valley Middle School graduates, need I say more?).

Anyways, everyone has been extremely supportive of me, even though I felt like a complete idiot and kind of wanted to beat my head against a wall, and I REALLY appreciate everything that everyone has done for me. It’s all gonna turn out alright… After all, I’m going to go eat hamburgers with Karen at ten at night, which means that I’m in a much better mood. I’ll hopefully talk to you all later!

Good night, and good luck. (Buenas noches y bueno suerte)

Ciao!

(I had Waterboy flashbacks while writing the title for this blog…)

(By the way. If you’re wondering why I haven’t used the terms ‘HM’ or ‘HD’, it’s because I feel like there is now a negative connotation associated with those terms. Therefore, I leave it up to my questionable imagination to come up with something shorter than ‘host mom’ that won’t leave confusion. Hm. Maybe I could name them after Sesame Street charac-)