Author Archives: eileen

Since we had a few days free and we were both healthy, we decided to get out of the city for a bit. So Tuesday morning we got up early, stopped at a restaurant in La Mariscal for pancakes and hopped on a bus to the Trebo. The Trebo is basically a big traffic loop, but it is also the last pick-up for buses leaving Quito. After a two-minute wait a bus passed which was headed towards Baños (our final destination) we boarded and about 4 hours later we arrived. Baños is a tourist town, but is by no means garish. It is nestled in a valley between volcanoes and on one end of town there is a waterfall and hot-spring baths. Tuesday we walked around the town, ate lunch and checked out the possible activities for Wednesday (we decided on a biking/rafting tour). That night we headed to the pools and soaked for awhile, enjoying the view and hot water. The next morning we got up early and ate breakfast in the gorgeous terrace at our hostel (eggs, fresh rolls with pineapple jam, tea, and fresh passion fruit juice). We met a nice Swiss guy at breakfast and discovered that he and a friend were signed up for the same tour as us. So we walked down the street to a “Rainforest Tours” where our guide, Enrique, handed over our bikes. Enrique is an Ecuadorian with the look of a Californian. He did an excellent job yucking it up with the clients. The bike-ride was almost completely down-hill and he liked to take both hands off the handlebars and sing “Vamos a la playa, la, la, la” which translates to “We’re going to the beach, la, la, la.” We stopped a few times on the bike ride to learn the names of waterfalls or national parks we passed (we were assured there would be a test later). At one waterfall you could pay a buck to ride on the longest and highest cable-car ride in Ecuador which passed directly over the cascade. It was flippin awesome. At the end of the bike ride we hiked in the forest a bit, saw another spectacular waterfall, a suspension bridge, and some rainforest foliage. Then we rode in a van to the launching place for the rafting. Enrique passed out wetsuits, lifejackets, paddles, and helmets and took us through a saftey demonstration where we also learned the commands he used (forward, backpaddle, get in there´s a big rock, and gimme five). He was an excellent coxswain “faster, faster, paddle faster!” He also liked to pull on the back of our lifejackets and dunk us in the river during the slow parts. We throughly enjoyed ourselves. The only problem was that Tim´s sunscreen washed off with all the splashing and his shoulders got fried. Hopefully we´ll get a chance to post some pics of the trip soon.

Sadly, we´re back in the city now and we both start work on Monday. But we´re excited to be moving this weekend – the cleaner air and proximity to work will be great! Plus our host family has been harder to convince that tim really can´t ever eat anything with milk in it (even if it has just a little) and that I not only don´t eat meat, but I also don´t eat chicken. So we´re looking forward to having a little more space and being able to control what we eat.

Hey everyone. This is the first chance we’ve had in the last few days to get to a computer/internet. We have Spanish classes in the morning from 7 to 8:30 then seminars on culture, teaching, health, etc. during the day and from there we go to teach English classes from 5 to 7:30 pm. Generally we get home around 8 or 8:30 and eat, lesson plan/complete spanish homework and finally get to bed. It takes us about 30 to 40 minutes to commute, so sometimes we can get some work done on the bus, but we’re looking forward to being closer to our work when we move. Yes, we have rented the apartment we looked at last weekend. They are going to furnish it completely – we made a list of everything we would need down to pots pans silverware, bathroom rug and they will provide these for us. We are sad to leave our host family… but it will be nice to get out of some of the pollution and be in a nicer neighborhood.

Teaching: I taught my first class yesterday. We are practice teaching in groups of three, rotating what days we teach. I was a little freaked out before my class because the first day didn´t go that well and I REALLY didn´t want to fall flat on my face. So I planned the heck out of the lesson, spent 3-4 hours working out a lesson for a 90 minute class and it went well! There were maybe one or two rough spots, but the class really seemed to like the lesson and there were no classroom management problems,so I felt pretty good about it.

We´re starting to get to know the volunteers here pretty well, it is nice to be around some intelligent funny people.

We´ve been apartment searching today, looking at different neighborhoods closer to where we’ll be working. I think we´ve found a good deal (it would be cheaper than where we are now) we are going to call them tomorrow and let them know if we want it. It is an apartment attached to a home, but we´d have a separate entrance. The neighborhood is up on a hill close to lots of bus lines and it is a nice, safe place with a smaller-community feel than the place we are staying now. There is a floreria where you can buy a dozen spectacular roses for a couple bucks. I guess Ecuador is one of the biggest exporters of roses in the world — yea for cheap flowers! The family that is renting the apartment pretty much found us: we were sitting in front of a small store looking at the classifieds and a nice car stopped, a women asked us if we were looking for an apartment and said she was renting. So we went to their house, saw the apartment and they pretty much said “what can we do to the place so you would want it?” They said if we want they can set up a meal plan, internet plan, they can funish it, whatever we want. AND it´s recently painted, and the bathroom and kitchen are in the process of being tiled this week. We also would have a patio where we can dry clothes or just enjoy the view (which is beautiful since it´s on a hill). So, yeah, we like it. But we´d be sad to leave our host family, our host mom is an AMAZING cook. Each meal is better than the next. Tim and I have already asked her for cooking lessons. People warned us the Ecua food is bland, but whatever she does, it´s great and everything is so fresh that the flavors don´t need a lot of seasoning. I´ll have to write another post sometime just on the food. The juices here are unbelievable.

We also purchased a cell phone yesterday. Our director pretty much told us it would make life here a lot easier if we had one. We can text message other volunteers for just a few cents and this way we can receive calls from the US at no charge (to us– wink). She said there are international calling cards you guys in the states can use that are about 16 or 17 cents a minute, but we´ll try and look into it. Anyway, if you need or want to call us our number is 011-09-980-7971 We´ll probably get another one in a few weeks so both Tim and I will have one, but I think this number will be mine. Anyway, we miss you all, it´s been so nice to read the comments, keep em coming! Abrasos (hugs) Eileen

We are still without power and today is a little on the chilly side, so I think I’m going to need to forego a shower. Besides the shower though, we hardly notice the lack of electricity. Our third-floor suite gets LOTS of wonderful sunlight, even on a cloudy day like today. There are two big windows in the bedroom, a long window in the “kitchen” and a window in the bathroom. AND there are skylights in both the kitchen and bathroom.
PS: We posted some pictures in the “Coppermine” on the photos page. Check them out.

Hello all! We´ll post more info tomorrow, but we just wanted to let you know that we´re safe and sound in Quito. We finally got some free time to get to an internet cafe and look at recent comments. It´s nice to hear from people. It´s 6:12 right now and the sun´s starting to set so we want to catch the bus before dark. The weather has apparently been pretty bad for Quito — cold (50-60 degrees) and a little cloudy. But of course, we like this stuff.