Author Archives: tim

Selling the phone, toaster, books, blender.

10 students came to class today. 8 were absent.

It�s so easy to not say goodbye.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday kicked off a series of “lasts,” the first of which was the fact that those days were my last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, respectively. On Friday, my morning class had a despedida for me at the “circulo militar,” which is a sporting club for members of the military. One of my students, Hector, was a naval officer, so he could get us all in. We got there at about 9, after an hour’s worth of conversation with the few students who showed up to class that day. I figured we�d be there til 11:30 or so. We played soccer, then Ecua-volley, then basketball. It was 1:30 when we headed in for lunch. Needless to say, I got the worst sunburn of the year. It hurts a little.

On Friday afternoon, I picked up my SECAP check! Just about 30 minutes ago, as we were walking down the street near El Ejido Park, a car honked at me. It was Maritza Sin Cabezas, telling me that my check was ready. I told her I picked it up on Friday, and, ironically, the last word I ever said to her was “gracias.” See ya, Maritza.

On Saturday, Eileen and I cleaned a little, then ran some errands, then picked Will up from the airport, then had some friends over for a cookout. Half the people were my students; the other half were WorldTeachers.

Today, we went gift shopping. And we packed. We packed everything, so that Eileen will know exactly how to pack it 12 days from now.

I’m in Madison on Thursday or Friday, depending on what happens with the roofing thing. There’s still a possibility that we�ll do it next weekend, in which case, I�ll be in Madison all day Friday, unless I�m out buying parasite-free food, the thought of which is getting me so excited, I might start making a grocery list now.

So just recently, we learned that our cats are no longer getting along. Apparently, Pablo accidentally got out of the house and wandered in the backyard a little. He was chicken; he didn’t go anywhere else, and he was waiting by the back door when it was discovered he was missing, but when he got back in, Winnie hissed at him, and has been hissing at him ever since. Apparently he smells bad.

We looked the problem up on the “internet” and found that it’s probably a case of “redirected aggression.” Typically, “redirected aggression” happens when one cat is, say, lying by the window and sees a stranger cat outside. The window-reclining cat gets up and goes and attacks his sleeping housemate, who is very surprised by an attack by a practical family member. I find this example, which was actually written on one of the sites we found, highly amusing.

In Pablo’s case, he most likely smelled a little different, which made Winnie doubt whether or not she knew him. As my mom’s dogs say, “Cats is stupid.”

So now the cats’ gaurdian for the year is busy trying to make peace between the two. We feel horrible that she has to deal with this.

In other news, I just got an email stating that the two guys who were going to re-roof the house next week are working at ItalianFest and so they can’t make it. This is a real kick in the ass. I’m coming home 10 days before Eileen to 1) move into the house, and 2) re-roof it. Since booking a roofer in July on a week’s notice will be nearly impossible, we’re pretty much gauranteed that the re-roofing will not happen before Eileen gets home. So much for planning.

Speaking of planning, my students this morning were attempting once again to plan what we will be doing tomorrow for the “despedida.” After 20 minutes of discussion, we left the class with the whole thing resolved: we would go to the chair lift (teleferico) and then have a cookout at my apartment. As we were walking out the door, someone said they thought we should maybe do something else. I heard one girl respond, “no. If we don’t go to the teleferico, I’ll die.”

So. Settled.

Not quite. When I got down the stairs, the students were all huddled in a circle discussing other options. The men said that women can’t decide. The women responded with a defensive, “como!” claiming that the men were the ones who didn’t want to do the teleferico. I said, “the problem isn’t men or women. It’s ECUADORIANS. You people can’t make a decision in a group.”

Yesterday, I went to SECAP to pick up my checks. Plural. We’ve been telling them repeatedly that they need to turn in the forms for June AND July at the beginning of July because many volunteers would be leaving before August 1st, when the checks for July are supposedly issued. Make sense so far? It’s really not that complicated. Did they have both checks ready? Of course not. Are they COMPLETE AND TOTAL IDIOTS? Yep.

No July check. Now what? The woman sho hands out the checks is super nice. She gave me my check after explaining that she had just gone to Canada to visit her children and Canadians are so nice. After the one check problem, she told me to go see Maritza Cabezas, who’s the woman in charge of screwing things up. I mean turning in the forms that get the long process of printing checks rolling.

Maritza claimed she had already turned in the form. Her secretary shuffled through two drawers full of unorganized stacks of paper placed on top of an array of pens, pencils, liquid paper, rolls of tape, and some staples. She finally found it and Maritza proudly showed me the official, stamped form. Take this to Mabel Ortega on the 8th floor and ask her where we stand, she said.

Ok. Mabel: “Well, this was turned in yesterday at 4:00. Look at the stamp. This won’t go through for a while.”

Anger rises; text messages are sent; I return to the mother of the Canadians. She sends a guy up to talk to one of the many Fernandos — supposedly an important one. When he returns, the guy nods and says, “ya,” which in Ecuadorian, means any number of things. Possible meanings:

Mom of Canadians tells me not to worry. So I go down to Maritza Sin Cabezas to put on some added pressure. “You turned it in yesterday at 4:00. How am I going to get paid?” Some guy named Fernando is standing next to her, occasionally nodding to assure me I’ll get paid. Maritza explains that everything worked out fine with Preeti. “You know,” I say, “this is the sort of thing that will jeopardize the agreement with WorldTeach.” They nodded (especially Fernando). And then I got the guts to say to Maritza, “I don’t understand why you turned in the form yesterday at 4:00, nine days before I’m leaving. You know how long these things take. We told you six weeks ago that I was leaving on the 20th. For God’s sake, can’t you do anything right, you incompetent puta?” Ok, I didn’t actually say that last part, but I said everything else.

Maritza defended herself by explaining that they make an exception for us, that they have to wait until the course is well underway (apparently meaning halfway finished) to make sure there are no problems, that they don’t ever do this with any other teacher, that this is a special case.

Fernando nodded. “When will the checks be ready?” I asked. “This week?” He stopped nodding and said, “no, probably Monday.”

Later, as I was leaving, I thought up some should-have-saids for Maritza: “I’m sorry biznitch, but we ARE a special case. We provide you with competent instruction by native speakers. And when have we ever had problems with the course? When you idiots were on strike, we had classes in students’ houses! I’m leaving in a week. And you turned in a form that normally takes 2 weeks to process a week before I’m leaving? The third week of a four-week class? Is “incompetente” a word in Spanish?”

Natalia, one of my morning students, told about how one morning she was at home, in her bedroom putting on her socks when she heard the door open behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a young woman wearing a beige skirt and a white sweater. It looked like a school uniform. Natalia assumed it was her niece and said, �entra, no mas� (come on in), but the girl simply left the room. Natalia looked up finally and called after her niece. There was no answer. She had thought it a little odd, because her niece doesn�t like to wear skirts; when she followed after her opening the door the girl had just gone through, she couldn�t find her anywhere. She finally went downstairs and asked about her niece and they told her she had left an hour ago. They say that when a person dies, they wander around lost for a while until they realize what has happened.

Juan Carlos tells great stories. It is truly our biggest regret of the year that we didn�t spend more time with the Ordo�ez family because they are really a lot of fun to be around. Anyhow, one night not too long ago, when Juan Carlos and Francia (his wife and the Ordo�ez�s youngest daughter) were in bed, he looked out the window and thought he saw a pair of legs. He woke up Francia and told her someone was outside climbing onto the roof. They whispered and crawled over to the phone. They looked again. Sure enough, there were a pair of legs still silhouetted against the curtains. They whispered some more and decided to turn on the light and then call the police. They flipped the switch, opened up the curtains and discovered a pair of pants hanging on the clothesline on the roof of their neighbor.

A few years back, Juan Carlos was on the trole when he ran into an old friend/acquaintance. They talked for a while about what they were doing now, and then they somehow got around to asking each other how they know one another. �Wait, wait, I know, the other guy would say, you studied at Central University.� �No,� Juan Carlos would answer. �Oh, I know, you took a design graphics class at EDG.� �No.� They went back and forth like this five times, completely unable to recall how they knew each other and then finally said to one another, �Well, it was nice to meet you again. Hope things go well for you.� And they said their goodbyes.

And one more from Ana. Years ago, she used to work in a bank. Several of her colleagues were going to take a trip to the beach and invited her, but she declined because she didn�t have enough money. The day they left, she came back to her house and discovered that in her bedroom, her nightstand had been knocked over. She had a little model car on the nightstand and it too had been overturned and was lying on the floor. The next morning, she learned that her friends from the bank had gotten in a car accident and all five or six of them were killed.