Category Archives: Ecuador

Let me preface this by saying that I considered whether or not to post this entry. But I figured that I’d just go ahead and do it, image-control be damned. If I were reading a journal of a friend in a foreign country, I’d want a pretty raw version of that person’s varying states of mind. So there’s my disclaimer.

Eileen and I are in this place called the Plaza de las Americas; we’re on our computer and we have a free internet connection. Here we are, in shiny, silver chairs; within view is a Cinnabon, a Baskin Robbins, and a McDonald’s. There’s a fancy-ass deli, an expensive shoe store, a schwank little book store (which even has a trendy, powerful-sounding, American name: Link), a very nice movie theater, and about five or six over-priced restaurants. Jazz music is playing on the speaker system. There’s lots of glass and polished metal; and there’s even this place called “Evolution” where you can play internet video games.

We feel somewhat drawn to this higher-class Quito. I still don’t eat at McDonald’s, but its presence is, regrettably, comforting. We frequent the Swiss Hotel, with its delicious chocolate croissants, excellent sushi, and schwankier-than-schwank ambience. We’re here now at the Plaza de las Americas, seriously considering joining a gym called Physique, which calls itself a “wellness center”; we definitely prefer the fancier establishments’ workout facilities. The Swiss Hotel wins. Physique takes second place. And Hotel Quito is probably third. These are all very gringo-influenced and gringo-frequented spots. We pretty much spend half our time in the barrio known as La Mariscal, nicknamed “GringoLandia.” And of course, we dream of American food, American grocery shopping, even the comfortable anonymity of walking into a Radio Shack or a Panera or a Target and not being seen as someone who is foreign, white, and probably rich.

Back home, I’m not so quick to crave a visit to Panera and Radio Shack. The endless strip malls, which sap local character and identity, repel me; I tend to seek out multicultural and independent pockets: Lao Lan-Xaing, La Brioche, the Regent Street Coop, that Russian dumpling placed on State Street, the Farmer’s market, etc. We shop at Whole Foods, but we do so knowing that despite their being a nationwide chain, 1) they do sell some local products (Bagels Forever, Madison Sourdough, lots of locally produced meats and produce); 2) the products they sell tend to come from more conscientious, environmentally responsible sources; and 3) their advertising and the advertising of most of the products they sell is not as invasive and obnoxious and dangerous. I feel less guilty about buying a Switch soda from Whole Foods than I do buying a Pepsi from Regent Street Coop. But I don’t mean to be writing an essay berating the shortcomings of capitalist society. The point is not that you should also shop at Whole Foods; the point is that, however erred our thinking may be, in the USA, we try to avoid establishments that have bad track records when it comes to human rights, animal rights, environmental sustainability, or mental pollution. We think about who we are supporting with our consumerism. We can afford to. Here, if we support the local tienda, we either get poor quality (there’s some really bad bread on LaGasca), or we get sick. I’d love to buy my lunch on the street and thus help support local, poor merchants, but I’m almost guaranteed to get parasites. So we go to the Americanized Swiss Hotel, or other Americanized restaurants in the most Americanized barrios – a practice which furthers our image as the cultural imperialist.

The longer we live here, the better it gets. We have started eating at cheaper, less gringo places; we found a killer cinnamon bun at a small place on 12 de Octubre – which means we’ll never have to spend two whopping bucks at Cinnabon again. But the fact remains that I miss home. I would kill just to sit at an Au Bon Pain or a Borders or a Panera on a cool fall day, sipping hot apple cider and watching the leaves blow.

I feel like a sellout. But it’s not that I now agree with McDonalds’ food production practices or Ford’s implicit earth-killing messages in their ads. It’s just that commercialism, chain stores, and consumerism are American – they are part of America’s identity. And thus they are part of mine.

I am a patriot. Though I can talk with Ecuadorians easily and with surprising fluency about how the presidents of both of our countries are bastards; though I can launch into a polemic about how truly damaging American consumerism is; though I fear the idiocy we’ve displayed in Iraq and in our countless other less publicized, money-driven military involvements; though I lament the complacency and ignorance of my countrymen; and though the current Republican administration has attempted to co-opt the flag and the word “patriotism,” and even God as their own. I am American. I claim it. Proudly and shamefully.

Poop

I have two classes at the CEC. My first class is in the morning from 7-9am. So everyday the alarm clock goes off at about 5:20 (just like my crew days). Except instead of working up a sweat, I feel my way up the stairs to our stinky bathroom. Our bathroom ALWAYS smells. At first we thought it was just our butts. But then Bill, another WorldTeach volunteer, told us that when he was in Costa Rica they had the same problem with bathrooms. He said that because the houses only have one drainage system for everything, the smell of the stinky stuff wafts up through any open drain. We put a sponge over the shower drain and the smell situation has drastically improved. Anyhow, I take a shower, eat a croissant or a bowl of cereal, and head to the bus stop.
The last three days I’ve seen the same dog on La Gasca while I’m waiting for my bus. He apparently is on a schedule. At exactly 6:05 I think to myself “Hey Mr. grey dog. Heading toward the median for your morning poop, aren’t ya. Yep, there you go. Well, here’s my bus. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

School
I get to school right as they are unlocking the gate to the building (6:30). Often the woman who opens the door still has a stray hair curler or two in her hair. I head up to the teachers’ lounge to fill up my water bottle and grab a grabadora (tape/cd player). The 7-9 schedule is very busy so you have to get there early if you want a player.
My classroom is on the 8th floor, so I usually take the elevator up to my classroom. The classrooms were created from an empty floor with temporary, cubicle-like walls. The walls go all the way to the ceiling, but you can still hear a lot of what the adjoining classroom is doing. It usually isn’t a problem though: there is just as much noise from the traffic outside. The classrooms aren’t huge, but they’re clean and there is a nice big whiteboard to use at the front of the room. When I finish teaching my morning class I have a few hours before Spanish so I either plan or go chat in the teacher’s lounge. My coworkers are all very friendly and there is a computer with internet access in the lounge so it’s a nice place to kill some time. After Spanish class Tim and I get some lunch and then I teach my second class. After this first week, I’m partial to my morning class, but we’ll see. I have younger students in the afternoon and I think they may just need more time to settle in to the class. I have some very sweet students in both classes. Speaking of sweet, I’ve instituted a chocolate rule in my class. (One of the better teaching decisions I’ve made so far). The rule is if I catch them speaking in Spanish, then the next day they have to either bring me a chocolate or 25 cents. On Thursday I caught three students in my afternoon class and so Friday my students presented me with two chocolates and a quarter. It made Friday even sweeter.

Now that we’re both working, we’re trying to establish some routines. I teach from 7:30 to 9:30 and then I have a little over an hour to kill before I go to my terrible Spanish class at the CEC (Eileen’s school) at 11:00. I think I’ll usually lesson plan a little at SECAP before heading over to partake in one of the most impressive models of pedagogical inefficacy I’ve ever seen. My teacher’s pretty nice, but a) no two classes have had the same students yet; b) yesterday, we conjugated verbs for the entire hour (actually no: we started class at 11:10 and we ended at 11:50, so not quite an hour); and c) the two times I asked her to give me an example of how a particular verb form is used, she couldn’t. I’m bored out of my mind, and I’m not getting any real Spanish practice.

So then at 12:00, I meet up with Eileen, who has a wonderful Spanish teacher, and we go to lunch. We’re learning where to go. Today and yesterday, we paid $1.50 for a pretty good lunch (though not really enough food). We’ve figured out we can stay under $3.00 each, but we still need to up our restaurant vocabulary. We don’t go far from the CEC cuz Eileen has to teach again at 2:00, at which point, I haven’t really figured out what to do with myself. I’ve been meeting Eileen at 4:00 after she’s done; I spend the interim (is that the word I’m looking for here?) two hours either on the internet or making copies or eating pastries. We’ve now found about three places that have some pretty phenomenal baked goods. After I gather Eileen from the CEC, we usually either go get pastries or check the internet.

Or make copies.

Then I teach from six to eight and Eileen goes home and gets good and stressed for tomorrow’s classes.

We’re finding we need to rearrange our eating schedule a bit. Lunch is at noon. But then dinner is at about 8:30. Various pastries are consumed throughout the day (you know the guy on TV commercials who quietly and quickly reads the fineprint, such as “Offer only good while supplies last”? You should read “various pastries are consumed throughout the day” imitating that guy.). Anyhow, dinner hasn’t really been happening. It’s usually another breakfast. Last night we mustered the energy to make pancakes; the previous couple of nights we ate cereal. Only one night did we really eat dinner food, namely potatoes.

I’ve been starting to write a little bit more in my free time, but our odd split schedule doesn’t leave us feeling like we have a lot of down time. Though in comparison to working full time, of course, we do have a lot of down time. Nonetheless, I should warn all y’all that I’ll probably go through a stage soon where my writing is more esoteric and pretentious. Your seeing hints of it here already with my use of such words as pedagogical and inefficacy and esoteric and pretentious. Bear with me.

Eileen’s started her teaching, so things are a little tense. She’s actually not having the quasi-nervous breakdowns she was having during the practice teaching, but it also doesn’t sound like she’s been as happy with her classes. Her morning one (7-9) is looking good, and it’s my prediction that she’ll be pretty happy with that one. The afternoon one (2-4) is a little smaller (six students, maybe) and the students are younger and a little more apathetic. I’ll let her tell the stories to come, but there’s an update.

As for my classes, all’s going well. My night class is turning out to be a lot of fun. There’s one woman who is clearly bored because she’s so far ahead of everyone, but she’s really the only one. Everyone else is pretty enthusiastic, and a really good class dynamic is developing.

My morning class, which is made up of 15 policemen and five “civilians,” as I’ve taken to calling them, hit a rough spot yesterday. I passed back tests and made a show of reiterating the no cheating policy. I caught five of them doing some minor cheating. Two of them in particular were pretty upset with me. And so the whole class yesterday was a little tense. They kept saying “no quality,” which I took to mean, “how can you say we cheated; our tests aren’t even the same?” But no matter how many times I said, “I caught you talking during the test when you thought my back was turned,” they maintained their innocence. It was an odd situation: the occasional smart-assed “no copie” would erupt from one of their mouths as I was copying questions to the white board or some such thing, but they didn’t tune out entirely. They pretty much kept actively participating during the class. I didn’t know what to make of it; I felt like some of my power was sapped because I couldn’t ream them out in English or Spanish like I can do with smart-assed Madison teenagers who justly deserve my wrath.

Anyhow, one of them actually came up after class, shook my hand and said “I’m sorry.” But then this morning, at the 7:30 start time, the two complaining cheaters weren’t there. The nice one showed up at 8:00, out of breath and clearly running late. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

In the meantime, I looked at two new gyms yesterday and today. Both of them were closed for good.

We gringos simply don’t know some things about the busses here in Quito – things that every native Quiteno seems to know. There is a bus sense that we lack.

In the beginning, I got around by looking at the plackards displayed in the lower portion of the busses’ windshields. They would list the more prominent places along their routes: Colon, Plaza Artigas, 12 de Octubre, Catolica, Trebol, Marin, and so on. If you know the city, you can kinda then visualize the route. You know that this bus going to Colon, Plaza Artigas, 12 de Octubre, and so on is going to take you to La Mariscal also. But the problem is, no bus says “La Mariscal,” so you can spend a lot of time looking for a sign that doesn’t exist. The other problem is that sometimes, the plackards vary, or they forget to turn them around to display the places they are going to rather than the places they are coming from. And another major problem is that many of the plackards are too small to read from half a block away, so you don’t see “Colon” until the bus passes you.

Just this past week, though, I was waiting for a bus after class, and one of my students was at the same “bus stop.” Once we discovered we were going to the same neighborhood, she said, “Entonces, coges el 15 de Agosto?” (so, you want to catch the 15 de Agosto bus?). I looked at her dumbly and nodded, which is what you do when you don’t understand. Eventually, she pointed to a bus that was a block away and said, “aqui esta.” When it was stopping in front of us, I noticed that indeed, it was the one I wanted. I also noticed that there was a huge sign at the top of the windshield that read “Bus Tipo 15 de Agosto.” The sign was so big, in fact, that you could read it from a block away.

Thus armed with my new knowledge, I informed Eileen about this little trick. So then a few days ago, she was at a bus stop where people were mysteriously lined up (such order is rare in Quito). She spotted her 15 de Agosto bus and tried to flag it down. She even began running after it and caught up, but the money collector guy shook his hand at her and said, “no.” She screamed “por que?” to which he responded with something like, “estoyhablandoelcastellanodemasiadorapidoparati.” So she walked back to whence she came and received an explanation from a kind woman: “Don’t worry, sweetie, it’s turning around. It’s at the end of its route. There will be another one coming soon.” And sure enough, another one came soon; everyone boarded it in a very civilized manner, rare for a place where you have to literally run and jump on to and off of the busses half the time.

Speaking of which, yesterday, I was attempting to catch the famous 15 de Agosto. I was crossing the street just as it rounded the corner and I put out my arm and whistled (an imitation of native Quitenos which has actually worked for me a few times). He didn’t stop. I finished crossing the road, ran, and jumped on to the still moving bus, which then came to a stop. The driver got out and did some miscellaneous maintainence work on the bus, which I couldn’t really see. We sat there for ten minutes, and then started creeping along at 10 miles per hour.

By friend Bill, who has been equally delighted by his occasional athletic bus mounts, ran and jumped onto a moving bus the other day. The driver looked at him and said (in Spanish), “this isn’t the one you want.” And upon looking back, Bill noticed the passengers were all children in their school uniforms. He had jumped on to a school bus.

My bus sense is getting better, but there is so much we don’t know. I have repeatedly jumped off of moving busses only to then have my momentum bring me face to face with passengers calmly exiting the very bus I leapt from.

Hopefully, it will get better.