My last week in Quito....and heading up to San Clemente!

Talk about a week to end on! Saturday I got back to the apartment late at night from my jungle/cave trip to Tena. The weekend, however, was far from over. Sunday we headed to the house of one of my little sister’s classmates from colegio (basically high school) to have some big party and to look at pictures from graduation.

It certainly was a different experience. It was at a hacienda with its own bullring! It was really crazy to see what a hacienda actually looks like, since most of them have been basically taken apart since when they were the form of land ownership. Definitely beautiful, but definitely says something in a country with such a large breach between its rich and poor.

Of course to wrap up the program we naturally had papers to write this week. My class and I decided to do ours individually instead of in groups, which, while it was more work, was for the best. Mine ended up being about the philosophy of liberalism, Ecuador’s history with liberalism/economic neoliberalism, a “philosophy of change” and what we see changing here and in the world and how that’s relevant to education here. I was pretty satisfied with the

 finished product…and I was thinking about how crazy it is that it’s pretty easy to write 7-pg paper in Spanish now…it’s pretty cool when I think about it.

Tuesday afternoon I headed with my education classmates to the Ministry of Education to take a class on how to teach English. It was an interesting experience, but it reminded me of how nervous I am for my internship! I didn’t come to Ecuador to teach English but what am I about to do for five weeks? Teach English. We’ll see how it goes. I’m willing to help where I can and I obviously can’t pretend I’m not fluent in my mother language you know? All I know is that I’m not going to have textbooks to work with and I’m working with small kids…so vocabulary it is! Ah I’m nervous…

Wednesday night my host dad had a concert! He’s in a band with four other guitarists and they play typical national music. They were playing in Teatro Sucre, a historic theatre downtown, which made it doubly cool. The rest of the concert was bands that either played traditional music or a mix of traditional and new age music (who knew electric guitars and Andean flutes could actually go together in the same song?). It was pretty cool, but way exhausting (we left the apartment at 4:30 to get back at 11:30!). I did meet a host uncle and aunt of mine though…yay for host family!

Friday was presentation day…and they were all interesting as usual. Some microfinance people included funny videos in their powerpoint, too…You gotta do what you can I guess! I wrapped up the education segment of the day because my paper was a sort of synthesis of a lot of stuff that the other ladies had touched on and because mine had hope at the end after talking about how awful the Ecuadorian educational system is right now. I probably talked way too fast, but according to my friends Kristi and Jamie, “We know you love little kids, but at some point in your life you need to be a college professor.” I’m glad someone’s thinking ahead for me (joking, I think about it, too).

Friday night I had a great time hanging out in grindolandia with two of my best friends here, Jamie and Jessica, where we had a very mellow evening of tapas and wine. I was not up for dancing Friday…I was so tired from the long week and not sleeping well for three nights before! Ay I felt like a bum for not being up for hanging out very late, but I needed the sleep.
Saturday was just a great day: I started it by heading to the artesenal market with Jamie (we are both going to freeze in our internships so we needed warm things made of alpaca fur). It was pretty cool and was definitely a success—I now have an alpaca sweater (which doesn’t itch! Thank goodness for alpacas) and some other warm things. It was a nice leisurely morning/early afternoon checking out the stuff there, which in many cases is the same as in Otavalo but there was some unique stuff too). Oh, and I got my hair cut by a nice Colombian lady—$5! You have to love cheap (and good) haircuts.

Saturday evening my host mom and I made quimbolitos (basically little cakes you steam in leaves like you would tamales), which were very much delicious. After enjoying them with my host family I got ready to head out with my classmates. We danced the night away in a discoteca, something I had yet to do. We had a ton of fun dancing and singing along when they inevitably played gringo music. We were the coolest gringos there for sure…I mean, that’s just how we are.

Sunday was a pretty all right day…very mellow and a bit sad because it was my last day to hang out with my host family really before I leave them for five weeks. I started packing, which made me sad and then my host mom came into my room and said, “It’s sad you already have to pack. We’ve really come to love you a lot.” And I’ve really come to love them a lot and so I definitely cried because goodness knows any daughter of Tom & Carmen Rusca is going to wear her heart on her sleeve. I’m sad to leave these people but they’re super supportive which is fantastic.
Today we’re having a fiesta at school to celebrate the end of our class phase. It’s my friend Jessica’s birthday November 1 so her host mom is having some of us over for tea after school. Tuesday morning we’ve got to be at Cimas early to load up into shuttles and head out to our respective internships. There are a lot of us heading north, so we’re going to head up together with some Cimas staff, dropping us off one by one.

And from that point I have a very uncertain vision of what life is going to be like until December 5. I’m going to be living with an indigenous family that seemed very nice when I met them in a small house with a view of Ibarra and the rest of Volcán Imbabura. I’ll work 3-4 days a week in a nearby community with my new host dad, where I think I’ll be developing an English program (ayyyy). Every Thursday I’ll work in the little school in San Clemente with Carmen the English teacher and playing with the kids. It might sound like I have a good idea of what I’m doing, but I really don’t. I have no clue what it’s going to be like living in a small indigenous community. I have no clue what teaching English is going to be like for me. Culture shock? That’s just something you can’t anticipate. I’m very much excited for the change of pace (as if life down here isn’t a change already) and to get to know this community—it’s an incredible opportunity! And really, it’s going to be fantastic I’m sure.

Oh and I’ll be back in Quito for Thanksgiving weekend because they understand how important it is to us—how sweet! Plus I’ll get to see my Quiteña family.

These next five weeks I don’t plan on taking too many trips. I’ll probably head to the coast with my friends who are going to be near me so we can visit our classmates working there. I might go to Riobamba down south to visit some other classmates, but those plans are less final. And the Thanksgiving trip to Quito of course. I’ll be back before I know it though, and that blows me away.

So I’m going to fall off the face of the earth for a bit, but I’ll post/email when I can! Thanks again for all the love and support—it means the world to me. ¡Qué les vaya bien!