Author Archives: tim

camila pre-haircut

The landlords kept one of Bella’s pups and named her Camila. She was the only tan one of the bunch, and she kinda looks like a teddy bear. She was a furry little thing.

Most of the day, the two of them are up on the roof. Camila is very playful and Bella humors her. From the kitchen and our bedroom, you can sometimes hear the skittering of animals. It always gets me. My first thought is that there are squirrels or mice in our house, but then I remember where I am and realize it’s just the dogs on the roof.

Last Sunday, just as I was about to go to bed, I heard the two of them up there making a lot of noise, whining and prying at the gate that leads to staircase to our apartment. I went up to see what was wrong, and I discovered the following horrible transformation (see picture below). The two of them were at the gate, shaking at the sight of me, hoping I’d maybe let them out, or restore their dignity. Poor dogs.

can you believe what they did to me?

camila pre-haircut
Originally uploaded by wiscostorm.

pie and flowers

Me and Gladys

Gladys was another student that originally came to me during the Preeti Wedding Migration from Preeti’s class. She’s another one who petitioned against this Ligia woman, who I now have in class. She’s not that bad yet. This morning, I had all my students sign up for their 10 minute presentation and my most recent group of Preeti imports (about 8 of them) were tight-lipped. They wouldn’t volunteer for a time slot. It was ridiculous. One of them finally spoke up and said, “in Preeti’s class, we gave a presentation during one hour,” which means “we gave an hour-long presentation.”

“Oh,” I replied, “then this will be easy.”

Back to Gladys: she joined us during the Preeti Wedding Migration and then went back to Preeti’s class, which was led by Ligia and Jhoana, two students I currently have in class. I remember back in February how Ligia and Jhoana interrupted my class to try to get more signatures for their selfish, shifty little petition. I don’t like them.

Anyhow, Gladys. She returned to Preeti’s class as a result of the Ligia/Jhoana-induced Great Shift but them came back to my class after one or two months with Preeti, claiming recently that it was because of Ligia. Who knows?

I can’t decide if the above description sounds more like a soap opera script or a piece of evolutionary history.

Gladys is very nice. She’s 19. She hangs out with Silvia and MariaSol, both of whom are over 30, I think. She’s currently a university student as well. Despite her old-woman’s name, she’s very enthusiastic and playful, and English comes pretty easy for her.

Last Friday, about 40% of the class took me out for breakfast at this place on Colon which I’ve walked by a countless number of times. The bread might have been the best I’ve had in Quito.

So this past weekend, we went to Mindo, a small town in the middle of a “cloud forest.” It was only two hours from Quito. We went to celebrate our anniversary; it was also pretty much our last chance to travel, though we may have been convinced to do the very touristy “flying dutchman” bike ride down Cotopaxi next weekend. We ran into some other WorldTeach vols from Ambato, Erica and Liz. They came with a friend of theirs, Jackie, who also teaches English in Ambato. So on Saturday, we spent most of the day with them. We walked out of town to the butterfly museum and then we took a little hike through the forest.

It was very nice. The weather is a little warmer than Quito and it’s more humid. It made us aware of the fact that we kinda miss humidity. Not 80 and humid. More like 70 and kind of humid. I don’t know. It’s a fine line.

Anyway. We were originally thinking we’d get up early on Sunday and take a long guided hike through the forest to see a whole bunch of different birds, including parrots and toucans. But Eileen’s knees were shot after Saturday’s quantity of walking, so instead, we slept in and took a nice, leisurely bike ride on a rustic dirt road. It was more enjoyable than we anticipated. We really miss biking.

At one point on the ride, Eileen, enchanted by the perfect weather, the rolling hills, the green countryside, and the fresh air, looked up and said, whimsically, “a moo-cow.” There indeed was a holstein up ahead in the road. I said, “so what do you do if it starts charging at you?” Eileen said, “cows don’t charge, do they?” But as we approached, we realized it was a bull.

It had horns.

And testicles.

We rolled by slowly and cautiously. The bull stared us down, but didn’t move. Phew!

After the ride, we went to the orchid farm and we spent a lot of time hanging out on the back deck of El Descanso, a really cool hostal run by a really nice guy named Rodney, where we didn’t stay. We wanted to stay there — it came highly recommended by several friends — but there were no rooms. They went out of their way, however, to find us a room at a hostal down the street and then proceeded to tell us we could come hang out there anytime. You seldom find service like that in Ecuador.

The back deck of El Descanso looks out over a beautiful garden built to attract birds. There are tons of hummingbirds. I talked with Rodney for a while on Sunday, as we were killing time before our bus ride home, and he said he was looking for an English teacher to spend 4-6 months in Mindo and teach him, and about 4 others. He’d provide accomodations and food in his beautiful hostal. If I wasn’t married. . .

Anyhow, it would be a pretty cool experience. You could join a local soccer team, pick up bird-watching, go mountain biking, and just generally enjoy paradise.

Pictures in coppermine.