Category Archives: Ecuador

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.

So we’re finally in Quito, finally with our host family, and I’ll tell you, I’ve heard so many volunteers say their host family was “so cool” or “awesome,” that I’ve come to doubt whether they were telling the truth or just blowing the story out of proportion like young, overly-excited world travelers are wont to do. But it turns out our host family actually is pretty cool. We haven’t yet talked about our host mother’s soap opera career, but we’ve discussed the US presidential election, world peaced, Chechen terrorists, the Colombian government, and the Ecuadorian president. The house looks like a Catholic, Latin-American grandmother’s — full of breakable ceramic figurines of flamenco dancers, saints, and cute animals. The bed is a foot too small for me, as is the shower, most of the lighting fixtures, the doorways, and the ceiling of the bathroom. Our room is on the third floor of a house. We’re pretty much on our own up there. Within our “suite,” there’s a bedroom, a bathroom, and a small kitchen with a sink and a stove that doesn’t work. Outside the door to our suite is a small hallway which leads to a washing machine, a rock, and a door to the roof. The view is a mix of beautiful and ugly.
No sickness yet, but I’m writing this during our informational seminar on “staying healthy in Ecuador,” in which diarrhea is pretty much the main topic. Just talking about it gets my stomach rumbling. Eileen had an adventure this morning in the shower. (ooh, bad transition) Here’s how the hot water works: turn on the water, then flip the switch of the precariously wired electrical shower head. If the water’s still cold, lower the pressure. We got it working for Eileen, but then I heard her exhaling loudly and shivering two minutes later. We figured the thing could only heat two minutes worth of hot water; we even started figuring out how we might have to alternate showering morning and night. But when we got downstairs, we fouind Victor lighting a candle at the breakfast table because the electricity had gone out.
Victor rode with is on the bus to show us how to get to our classes. This week, we’re learning about Ecuadorian culture, safety, lesson planning, etc. Tomorrow, we all will go to our sites to learn about the schools where we’ll be teaching. Eileen and I will probably start looking for an apartment. We hear we can get a pretty nice place for $100-200/ month. We’ll see.

Wednesday: Day 2 in Quito

So we’re finally in Quito, finally with our host family, and I’ll tell you, I’ve heard so many volunteers say their host family was “so cool” or “awesome,” that I’ve come to doubt whether they were telling the truth or just blowing the story out of proportion like young, overly-excited world travelers are wont to do. But it turns out our host family actually is pretty cool. We haven’t yet talked about our host mother’s soap opera career, but we’ve discussed the US presidential election, world peaced, Chechen terrorists, the Colombian government, and the Ecuadorian president. The house looks like a Catholic, Latin-American grandmother’s — full of breakable ceramic figurines of flamenco dancers, saints, and cute animals. The bed is a foot too small for me, as is the shower, most of the lighting fixtures, the doorways, and the ceiling of the bathroom. Our room is on the third floor of a house. We’re pretty much on our own up there. Within our “suite,” there’s a bedroom, a bathroom, and a small kitchen with a sink and a stove that doesn’t work. Outside the door to our suite is a small hallway which leads to a washing machine, a rock, and a door to the roof. The view is a mix of beautiful and ugly.
No sickness yet, but I’m writing this during our informational seminar on “staying healthy in Ecuador,” in which diarrhea is pretty much the main topic. Just talking about it gets my stomach rumbling. Eileen had an adventure this morning in the shower. (ooh, bad transition) Here’s how the hot water works: turn on the water, then flip the switch of the precariously wired electrical shower head. If the water’s still cold, lower the pressure. We got it working for Eileen, but then I heard her exhaling loudly and shivering two minutes later. We figured the thing could only heat two minutes worth of hot water; we even started figuring out how we might have to alternate showering morning and night. But when we got downstairs, we fouind Victor lighting a candle at the breakfast table because the electricity had gone out.
Victor rode with is on the bus to show us how to get to our classes. This week, we’re learning about Ecuadorian culture, safety, lesson planning, etc. Tomorrow, we all will go to our sites to learn about the schools where we’ll be teaching. Eileen and I will probably start looking for an apartment. We hear we can get a pretty nice place for $100-200/ month. We’ll see.