El Midal del Mundo

Hola chicos!

I have to make this one short, but even though I have only been here since Sunday, all of us on the program agree it has felt like a week or longer! Early Monday morning, we woke up and took a bus to the little town of San Antonio near Quito, where we are spending all of this week at the beautiful Hotel Alegre doing orientation. In between orientation sessions, though, we have been enjoying incredibly gorgeous weather, especially considering this is supposed to be rainy season. Monday we had sun all day, but, despite being on the Equator, it was wonderful--no humidity, a gentle breeze. Even though it is warm, you can somehow be just as comfortable in long pants as your are in shorts.

After our orientation in the morning and an awesome lunch at the hotel, we were all divided into groups of three or four and assigned a location somewhere in San Antonio. We then had to go out, ask random people how to find our location, and once there, ask someone who worked there about the shop, what they sell, who their customers are, etc. My group was assigned the Asilo de Ancianos. Translation: old folks´home. We were all super nervous when we first stepped foot out on the street and wandered in the direction of the main part of town. The first people we saw were two ladies walking along the sidewalk, so, somewhat hesitantly, we went up and asked them, in our probably somewhat hard to understand Spanish, where the Asilo was. Immediately, they nodded--"Ah, si, si!"--and proceeded to lead us up the street. Along the way, they asked us about where we were staying, what we were doing, etc., which we tried to answer as best we could. Finally, we came upon a cast iron fence with a big sign that said "Hogar de Ancianos." We thanked the women profusely and proceeded to ring the doorbell. A little woman came out of the door of the house, walked through the courtyard, and peered at us curiously through the iron bars of the gate.

We tried to explain why we were there and asked if we could ask her a few questions. I do not think we were very clear or understandable, but after a few awkward minutes, she shrugged and let us in. She led us inside and into the sitting room, where a very elderly man with a teethless smile sat, looking at us curiously, and a young man and a boy were watching TV. We sat on the couch and asked the woman our questions--how long she had worked there (25 years), how many people lived there (16), etc. It only took us five minutes to run out of questions so, after thanking her, we were escorted back out on the street.

Looking back on it, it is obvious just from those brief interactions that, generally, what people say about Ecuadoreans is true--that they are truly friendly, nice people. I cannot help but think that, had the roles been reversed and four strange Hispanic people had appeared at someone´s door in the US and had not spoken very good English, I am skeptical that the door would not have been slammed in their faces.

After everyone had returned, we all talked about where we had been and what we had seen and then we had the pleasure of a salsa lesson. An incredibly vivacious, friendly, funny woman named Orianna and a very nice, funny man named Diego were our teachers and taught us the basic steps to salsa. While I cannot claim to be an expert, I think that now I could at least get by in a salsa club if necessary.

After dinner, I was absolutely EXHAUSTED and fell asleep within five seconds of hitting the pillow.

Today was another gorgeous, sunny day with a gentle breeze. We spent most of it, unfortunately, doing orientation indoors, but it was informative and interesting nonetheless--the different gender roles here, the role of machismo (which is obvious anytime any of us gringas walks down the street, we´ve discovered), cons and ways people will try to steal your stuff. Once our orientation was over, however, we all walked through town and up this huge hill to the Midal del Mundo at its peak. It was gorgeous--a huge stone monument with 0 degrees latitude and longitude carved in it and all around, the mountains rose up through thick, white clouds that cascaded over them.

The rest of the week promises to be very busy and I am looking forward to meeting my homestay family on Friday. Until then, orientation continues.

On a side note, though we have been in a bubble somewhat in terms of cuisine since all our food has been through the Hotel Alegre thus far, Ecuadorean food has proven to be INCREDIBLE. Lots of fish, chicken, rice, salsa, flan, icecream (but the best icecream I have ever tasted!), vegetables...my favorite so far has to have been the tomatoes stuffed with tuna and veggies that we had at lunch today. :)

Everyone take care and I love you all.

-Alex