Hospital De Niños: Baca Ortiz

This week I began my immersion program at Yanapuma. I volunteer three mornings a week at a nearby children´s hospital and attend spanish classes in the afternoon. This has been tiring but rewarding. The hospital mainly serves poorer families, who sometimes travel from all over Ecuador to receive care. A family member usually accompanies the child and I have heard mothers sometimes sleep on the floor in or outside the hospital. Most of the children I see seem to be recovering from accidents, broken bones, etc. In Ecuador it is much more common to spend a prolonged time in hospital to recover, for example a month for a broken arm. When I go I am able to check out toys, usually a few puzzles, legos, coloring sheets and crayons or markers, from a play area they have. Then I visit various rooms to play and talk my best spanish. I have spent the majority of my time in one room and have become attached to these four children, plus the 18 year old aunt of the boy on the left. Here we laugh, play games, and I have even brought my Ipod with speakers and we sing and dance. Some of the other rooms are slightly more depressing and some children are in quite a bit of pain and unable to easily move.

Yikes Yellow

I dream of last week´s sun cause this week has been rain, rain, rain.
My host mother washed my clothes but they´re still not dry after 3 days of hanging.

Quito Cityscapes

Old Town

New Town

Otavalo

Friday afternoon, we rushed to leave after an exhausting but fun two days of classes, dancing, and going out. Thursday night I did my best salsa dancing, after taking one class earlier that day, to some live music at a small Cuban restaurant.

The bus to cost two dollars and took about 2.5 hours to get to Otavolo, a smaller town north of the city that is best known for its large Saturday morning market. Lilly had arranged a hotel. The service was friendly but our room smelled like car exhaust and shit. We should have asked to change rooms from the get go but live and learn. The highlight was the hot strong shower, which I managed to take two of in the time we were there. My shower in Quito leaves a bit to be desired.

We went out to a somewhat high class dinner, $15 compared to the normal $2-7, at a hotel on the outskirts of town. Wine, chips and guacamole, fress homemade bread, and an enchilada cassarole. Saturday we woke up early to go to the market and spent the whole morning looking, shopping and bargaining. It was fun to interact with the vendors and I was happy with my purchases. A light multi-colored woven scarf, a traditional wool wall hanging with an animal design, a little music maker, a matching pair of earings and necklace made of some sort of seeds from the orient, and a few gifts for my family which I guess I will leave as a surprise. I think this will be my biggest shopping event of the trip because I can´t carry much while traveling and I hear is it expensive to mail things from here.

Guayasamin

On Tuesday I went with Tessa, a girl from my school and a fellow artist, to see the Guayasamin Museum. We basically had to climb a mountain to get there but it was a good work out and well worth it. There was a beautiful garden and views over the city as well as a nice show of his work. We had a ¨rock star¨ tour guide who wore a smart suit and sunglasses indoors. Guayasamin came from a poor family, mixing natural materials and breast milk to make paint when he was younger. He was influenced by Picasso, Goya, and Mexican muralists.

La Mitad del Mundo

Yesterday morning Lily and I went on an excursion to La Mitad del Mundo, the equator. Thats right folks, I was in the middle of the world. It was all a little silly, we went to a museum where they did strange equator tricks like balancing and egg on the head of nail, but it was all in good fun. The bus ride there and back, about an hour and a half each way, was also amusing because we were able to see the outskirts of the city.

Homestay

Here you see one view from my casa en Quito. The apartment is a third floor walk up with great views in many directions around the Old town. We spend the most time sitting around at the table in the dining/ tv room. My only complaint is the dim lighting throughout the house. I´m picky about my lighting but other than that its homey. My room is small but comfortable.

The food has been pretty good. I prefer the breakfasts, bread (some type of roll or croissant) with butter and jelly, fruit (mango, banana, or pinapple) and coffee. The dinners are somewhat unpredicatable. The portions are a good size for me, not too large, and we always have a dessert. I am somewhat nervous to tell you all that I have decided not to be picky while on my trip and have been eating a little meat. I don´t really enjoy it but I feel it will make my travels smoother, and I feel better eating what the rest of my family is eating while at the home stay. So meals have ranged from beans, potatoes, and muffins last night to chicken and rice. We almost always also have a salad with cucumbers and tomatoes.

I love that its only women in the house. It really nice sitting around together and talking, laughing, watching tv, or playing cards. I can´t really say much yet cause my spanish is limited but I do a good job listening and I am usually able to follow the conversation more or less.

Weekday Schedule and TeleferiQo

After two full weekdays in Quito I have established somewhat of a schedule.

7am - wake up
8am - eat breakfast
take ecovia bus to Mariscal (10 - 15 min ride)
9 - 1pm - spanish class
lunch, walk and explore, internet
6pm - return home
7 - 9pm - dinner and chat con mi familia
9 - 10pm - telenovela (spanish soap) and homework
bedtime

I spent today with my roommate, Lily. It was very sunny and warm! We took a taxi to the TeleferiQo, a lift that takes you way up into the mountains surrounding the city. You can look down on the whole city. We both felt a little light headed and strange from the altitute, twice that of Quito, but it was still very nice breathing the fresh air and taking in the view. In the afternoon she helped me buy a cheap local phone plan, she speaks fluent spanish. Then I found a good pizza restaurant (with the help of the guide book) for lunch.

Bienvenido Quito

I am happy to report that my travel day went very smoothly. Straight from Miami to Quito with no problemas. When I arrived in the small Quito airport at around 7:45 pm there was a man holding a sign with my name. There is actually no time change between Quito and Baltimore so the journey was much easier than flying to Europe.

The airport is in the far north of Quito, so we drove south through New Town and into Old Town, the city center, where my home stay is located. The streets were bustling with locals and mountains rose up on all sides of us.
I was pleasantly surprised by my home stay after coming with the least amount of expectations possible. It is an apartment on the third floor of a large historic building. There is a wonderful view across the city. One other American is also staying with the family, a kind woman and her 20 something daughter. She is somewhat fluent in spanish so they spent the evening sitting around watching a spanish soap opera. There is so much more to share but it is starting to get dark so I should head home. More tomorrow and I have a good connection and a nice mac computer here at my spanish school, so photos will come!

Get Set

Welcome to my South American blog. I will hopefully be posting updates here throughout my travels over the next 4 months. Here is my rough schedule:

Jan 16 Fly from DC to Quito, Ecuador
Jan 16 - Feb 14 Studying in Quito at Yanapuma Spanish School
Feb 15 - Mar 14 Traveling through Ecuador and Peru
Mar 14 - Apr 18 Volunteering in Cuzco at Aldea Yapay
Apr 18 - May 16 Traveling in Peru
May 16 Fly from Lima, Peru to DC