Back in Quito...

Hola todos!

I just got back to Quito after an incredibly exciting day exploring around the Ecuadorean countryside. Today was sort of the culmination of our orientation this week, kind of a final test of everything we had gone over: the Drop-Off. For this activity, we were divided into groups of three or four and each group was assigned a different village. We had to leave early this morning and find out how to get to our village and, once there, find out about the village and its inhabitants, have lunch, and then find out way back to Quito. It was enlightening, to say the least.

My group was assigned the village of Nanegalito. We left the Hotel Alegre early this morning and hiked up to the main road to wait for a bus to take us to the Midal del Mundo. From there, we had to catch another bus to Nanegalito. However, as we soon discovered, the buses in Ecuador are a tricky thing. There are signs for the bus stops here, but that does not necessarily mean that it is where the bus stops. People sort of line up all over the block near the curb and when the bus comes, it does not exactly stop. It kind of slows down and you have to run, as we discovered, to catch it. And getting off is even more harrowing, since the bus does not stop then either and if you want to get off, you have to go up to the front of the bus and sort of hang out the door and throw yourself out.

So, when our bus came roaring down the street, we started running and waving to catch it and they slowed down. But then Alec, one of the people in my group, sort of stopped half in and half out while he tried to ask the guy that takes your money at the front of the bus if this was indeed the right bus. The guy and the driver, being rather annoyed at us stupid gringos for slowing down the whole operation, nodded emphatically and yanked Alec aboard, followed by the rest of us.

Once at the Midal del Mundo, we leapt off and waited on a corner where other people seemed to be waiting. Finally, not a bus but rather a little van pulled up and the driver yelled that he was going to Nanegalito. There were already a lot of people in there and we were skeptical that we would all fit, but the driver insisted that yes, we could all fit, and proceeded to help all four of us to cram into the seat in the very back of the van. Once in, we took off down the winding road toward Nanegalito.

The ride took a little more than an hour, but it was never boring and I actually was not even very aware of being crammed up against the window with a metal pole sticking in my back. The view was, in a word, spectacular. San Antonio, while beautiful, was more desert-like and not especially green. But as we drove through the mountains, everything outside quickly appeared brilliantly green. I cannot do justice to the sight of those mountains, covered in thick, twisting, intertwining vegetation. EVERYTHING was green, every space, except the clouds spreading their fingers over the mountaintops here and there.

When we finally reached Nanegalito and emerged from our cramped quarters, the air was obviously different--warm and thick and humid whereas in San Antonio it was dry. It was very cloudy and overcast, but the brightly colored buildings and the brilliant green countryside kept it from being at all gloomy. As soon as the van pulled away and we had a moment to look around, it was obvious that this little town did not get too many gringos. It is so funny here--people stare at you obviously, not trying to hide their obvious curiosity whatsoever. I have never felt so out of place in my life, but, as one of the girls in my group pointed out, "I would look like an outsider and I would look out of place no matter what I tried to do or what I tried to wear, so why worry about it...it is what it is." Nevertheless, I feel furthest from home when I am walking around and people are staring at me because I so obviously do not fit in. And I do not necessarily mean that in a bad way or that it upsets me (it actually does not)--it just leaves me with no doubt that I am definitely in a foreign country and that here, for the first time in my life, I am the foreigner.

We walked around Nanegalito for a while and discovered through talking with a very nice lady that Nanegalito is famous for its orchids. And as further proof of that fact, when we walked up this huge hill we came upon this compound where a school was being constructed and, according to the sign, was a gift from Japan of all places. But when we thought about it, it seemed to make sense that Japan would invest in the "orchid capital of the world." In fact, we were looking at the gardens in the main square and at the roads and I think that the only reason the roads in town were paved and the only reason they had such beautiful gardens in their main city square was because of past "gifts from Japan."

Part of our assignment was also to buy an object that we had not seen before or that seemed interesting, so we ended up buying this giant seed pod from a lady that was selling them by the road, as well as some other really funky looking yellow fruits. After we had finished our observations and other assignments, we went to find a restaurant for lunch. This was truly our first real experience (and gamble, really) with Ecuadorean food in a restaurant. Until then, all our food was prepared at the Hotel Alegre and we were assured of its safety so there was no doubt or fear in eating it. Here, we were faced with the challenge of picking a restaurant that hopefully would not make us sick. We ended up picking what was probably the closest to being a tourist-y restaurant, but we did not care so long as it was safe.

As we discovered, in a lot of restaurants here, there is no menu really. There is a set breakfast, lunch, and dinner that they serve everyone. So all we did was go in, sit down, and before we knew it, giant bowls of steaming soup were in front of us with glasses of fresh juice. The soup would have normally been enough for me for lunch, but here, lunch is the main meal of the day, which I am still adjusting to. So we had this soup, with tons of cilantro, yuca, corn, and meat and once we were finished with that, we were each given a heaping plate of rice, radish, lettuce, beef with onions, cucumbers, and fried banana. I was still a little hesitant about the vegetables, which were not cooked, but I think it was probably fine, since it was a more tourist-friendly restaurant and when we asked the waitress if the juice was made with "agua purificada," she nodded as though she got this question all the time from the gringos eating there. I could not even coming close to eating everything, but it was delicious. And, get this: it cost all of $1.50! It is definitely going to be a rude awakening coming back to the US where you can´t get a two course meal in a nice restaurant for so cheap...or get most things for under a dollar. I will tell you, though, I really wish I had brought way less large bills and a hell of a lot more ones. Even fives here are sometimes hard to break because people do not have enough change. I do not know what I am going to do with all of my larger bills! But I will figure something out.

After lunch, we caught the bus back to Quito and I am now waiting for our next class session--a Q and A panel with Ecuadorean students--to begin. And tomorrow, I go with my host family to the Los Chillos valley. I found out about my host family yesterday--the mother wrote me a letter on Strawberry Shortcake paper. She is a single mother (divorced, though her husband apparently visits occasionally). She has three kids, though only two live with her. The two that live with her are a son who is 19 and into dancing and sports and a girl who is 20 and into spending time with her friends. I am very excited and curious to meet them, and also kind of excited to just to be in one place, more or less, for a few weeks and not be living out of a bag. :)

I will mention one last thing that I kept thinking about this past week, especially in San Antonio: the number of stray dogs here is incredible. Everywhere we went in San Antonio and in Nanegalito, there were stray dogs lying on the sidewalk dozing or running out in between cars in the road or begging for food from street vendors. It does not bother me too much to walk by them--I just have to remind myself that it is an entirely different culture and view of the way animals are treated (as in, they are treated like animals and not like people the way they are in the US). But it was really hard yesterday because we were all out walking around in the afternoon and, while most street dogs just ignore you, this one followed us all the way from the Midal del Mundo to our hotel and was far more personable and friendly than any other one I had encountered. And it was not like he was begging for food--he just sort of adopted us as we were walking along and followed us all the way home. And when we slipped through the gate into the compound at the hotel, it broke my heart to close the gate in his face after he tried to follow us in. And for a while after we had gone inside, he just sat there, peering at us through the gate. Thank goodness he was gone this morning. Like I said, I know there is nothing I can do about it, but it still breaks my heart to think about that poor dog.

I hope to upload pictures sometime this weekend (MAYBE) if I can find a good Internet cafe in Los Chillos with a fast connection to do it. I will email the site for the pictures to you all. Until then, ciao!

-Alex