Que Chevere!

Hola todos!



Wow! It has been crazy the past few days! But let´s begin where I last left off. So on Valentine´s Day night, I ended up agreeing to go out for "just one drink" with a few friends at a bar in Quito, planning to return early to get a good night´s sleep before meeting my host family the following afternoon...that didn´t exactly happen. One drink and an early night turned into me staying out and dancing at my first discoteca until the wee hours! I had every intention of turning in early, but as my friends and I were leaving the bar (where I had my very first Irish coffee--that one´s for Poppop) we happened to run into some other girls from the program, who were out with two Ecuadorean guys that they had met at a Q&A panel of Ecuadorean students we had had earlier that day. So my original group split in half, with me and a couple other going with these girls and their Ecuadorean friends to dance.



The first dance club we went to was way out of our league to put it mindly--the couples on the dance floor were doing salsa like I had never seen before. It was incredible! So we just kind of stayed and stared for a while before our Ecuadorean friends showed us to another dance club, this one much more friendly to our gringita (translation: bad) dancing. We stayed there for a while, dancing and having a wonderful time. And it is at this point that I have to mention where the machista culture here does come in handy.



One of our academic directors, Lenore, had warned us that the widely held stereotype here is that gringas are easy and promiscuous. However, the stereotypical machista male, while they are often the ones who are giving us gringas the unwanted attention, can also turn around and be our greatest asset, because a good machista guy would never allow a woman in distress to be harrassed without coming to her rescue. Case in point: there were numerous times throughout the evening where guys might come up to try to dance with us, offer us a drink (which you will be happy to know, thanks to our orientation by our academic advisors and just good old common sense, we gave an emphatic, "Hell no and get away from me!" to! However, any time a guy seemed to get a bit too insistent or would not leave us alone, our two new Ecuadorean friends were quick to step up, get in the guy´s face, and tell him to back off. Lenore had told us we would never be safer than when we were with an Ecuadorean guy we could trust and she was definitely right.



ANYHOW, so at midnight, one of the girls with us pointed out that it was now officially my birthday. And to celebrate, our Ecuadorean friends insisted on buying me my very own $3.00 box of wine (insert whatever disgusted noise you wish here--"blah!" "gag," "ugh," etc.). But hey, I will NEVER in my life forget my 21rst birthday, being serendaded on the street in Quito by two drunk Ecuadoreans and a bunch of gringitas, all while holding my very own box of wine.



So, after a while, some of us had grown tired, while other girls in our group were, shall we say, living up to every negative stereotype of gringas here. So those of us with at least a moderate degree of intelligence decided to head back to the hotel, while the ones who were not so sure they wanted to spend the night back at the hotel but rather with our new Ecuadorean friends stayed out.



The next day, officially my birthday, was largely spent waiting around for the time for us to meet our host families. I dropped my an Internet cafe, had lunch with some girls at a cute (but very tourist-y) cafe, and bought a dozen roses for my host family for a $1.00 (!), as it is tradition to present your host family with flowers. At around 2:30, we gathered in the meeting room in our hotel where my academic directors presented me with a birthday cake and everyone sang happy birthday to me. It was chocolate-cherry, with chocolate candy hearts and rolls on top and a candle of the number 1 (for the first day of the rest of my life, as Lenore said). It was a really good cake, but unfortunately, I think I was so excited to meet my host family, I had sort of lost my appetite, but managed to eat at least a little so as not to offend Lenore and Faba.



FINALLY, we all loaded our things onto the bus and headed to the valley of Los Chillos to meet our families. The bus ride seemed to take forever, but finally we rounded and corner and saw a huge crowd of people standing in front of a church, all with balloons and posters and things. I was towards the back of the bus, so by the time I got out, people were hugging and kissing and chattering away in Spanish all around me with their newfound daughters and sons. Finally, somewhere in the crowd, I heard, "Feliz cumpleaños, Alejandra!" I turned around and a girl with short, dark hair, holding bunches of balloons in her hands, swept me up in a giant hug. She introduced herself as my host sister, Silvana, and handed me my balloons, on which they had drawn smiley faces and my name. Next I got a huge hug from my mom, Magdalena, and my other sister, Nathaly. I handed them the roses and they helped me shove all my things in the back of their car. And we were off!



Their house, as with most houses here, was surrounded on all sides by a huge, concrete wall. We pulled up and they pushed a button (like those to open your garage) to open the huge double doors as we came in. A yellow lab (la Bocha, as I found out she is called) greeted us, wagging her tail frantically. Their house is MUCH larger than I expected. They showed me inside and I was in awe of everything around me. Huge, high ceilings, dark brown tile floors, paintings all over the walls...very Spanish. They showed me through each room of the house, then led me around to the back of the house to the patio (which is by far my favorite part of the whole place). The patio has no real roof, except for the vines that grow up and over it to create a ceiling of leaves and intertwining plant limbs. There is swing and hammock and a place for barbecues, and there are plants and flowers EVERYWHERE (my host mother LOVES gardening and gets up at 6:00am every day to walk and tend her garden). The patio looks out over a HUGE yard with a soccer field and tons of trees, almost all with things you can eat growing on them--oranges, lemons, HUGE avocadoes, apples.



My room is back here, just off the patio. It is completely separated, more or less, from the rest of the house, as it is only accessible from the door off the patio. At one time, it may have been the servant´s quarters, but it is much larger and nicer than anything I was expecting! I even have my own bathroom, which is crazy! It is really strange, though, going back to my room at night to go to bed and being so alone--no cell phone, laptop, music, iPod, nothing. But I kind of like it. Just cause it feels strange does not make it bad, for sure.



That first night was all a blur--I met my host brother, Javier, just before we were all whisked off to the mall (and by mall, I mean this enormous, brand new mall that would rival a lot of malls back home, for sure) for icecream to celebrate my birthday. However, as soon as I got mine, I was suddenly not hungry and did not know why, but I think it was just all the excitement. But I still made myself eat a little for fear of offending them.



We went back home after that and I ran down into my room to change out of my skirt and into pants, as it had gotten cold. But when I returned up to the main part of the house, I was greeted by a ton of new faces and there was one of my classmates, Kari, sitting nervously on the couch. Apparently, her homestay family is related to mine so we are now cousins! That first night, we were interrogated in Spanish on EVERYTHING, from religion to politics to when we were going to get married and how many babies we wanted. And the whole thing ended with them insisting Kari and I get up and practice our salsa dancing.



Once everyone left, I was EXHAUSTED and went straight to bed. The next day was fairly laid back--I accompanied my mother and sister on an expedition to the market in the colonial part of Quito (GORGEOUS architecture!) to see if we could find a new refrigerator, since apparently ours was broken. On our way home, we stopped at the recreational club my family and Kari´s family belong to--the recreational and sports club for the lawyers in the province. It was nice and peaceful, with tennis, soccer, basketball, and volleyball courts and a pool. Kari´s host dad taught her and I how to play "volley" here--similar to the US, but the net is way higher and you can sort of catch the ball briefly before hitting it back.



After playing at the club for a while, we all piled into Kari´s host dad´s GIANT van and headed to Quito, where apparently their son is a cadet at the military academy and we were going to pick him up for the weekend. When we got there, Kari´s dad apparently knows "el Capitan" there, so the captain gave us a tour of the entire compound and let us take pictures (which I found out later, apparently, is NOT allowed under normal circumstances). The captain was really nice and had apparently spent some time at West Point to learn English, among other things, and he tried to practice it with us, mainly I think because he was not sure we could understand him in Spanish (which we could, more or less). He was VERY nice, though, and when we visited the stables and the horses, asked us seriously if we would like to ride the horses. Even though it was a very nice offer, we had to politely decline.



When we finally got home, I was exhausted and spent another night going to bed fairly early and sleeping like a rock. Sunday was fairly laidback--I went to my host brother´s futbol (aka. soccer) game and then spent the afternoon hanging out with my host brother at home and watching bootleg copies of the movies Chicago and Meet the Fockers (in English, with Spanish subtitles) with him. I insisted he pick his favorite for us to watch, so he picked out Charlie Chaplin´s "the Circus" ( it is both he and his mother´s favorite). I had never seen it before, but it was very fun to watch with them.



Yesterday was my first day of classes, which was fairly relaxed. Five hours of Spanish class each day will be tough, but my Spanish will improve in no time, for sure! The greatest excitement came when I took the bus home. I have to take two different buses to get to school and home and after the first bus on the way home, I got a little lost trying to find my other bus. I asked a lady for help and she was very nice and pointed out my bus for me. Once I got on (aka. ran and leapt on right as it was pulling away from the curb!), the bus was VERY crowded and it was tearing down the street, very quickly nearing my stop but I did not have my money out. So there I am, this gringa sliding all over the place and running into people, trying to get my money out and signal the driver that I need to get off. It was insane. And when I finally walked through the door to find my whole host family having lunch, all I could get out when they asked me how the day was, "El autobus...¡Que loco!" followed by me bursting into laughter at the thought of how I had probably looked to everyone on the bus.



After almuerzo and a little trip into Quito, my host brother and I played Clue with our mom, which was fun. I brought Mancala and am going to try to teach Javier how to play that, since he seems to like games and things.



On another note, the food here had been AWESOME. And not just the food, but the schedule, too. Every morning, Magdalena gives us fresh pan (bread), a hard-boiled egg or milk or fresh cheese, and tea. Lunch is the biggest meal and is usually soup, rice with chicken or beef or ensalada (we had a pickled beet and onion ensalada one day, which was awesome!), and fresh juice (pineapple, tree tomato, mora, orange, etc.). Dinner is very light, usually just some pan and tea.



And lastly, to explain the title of this post: I discovered within five minutes of being in the car with my host family on Friday that the equivalent of saying something is cool or awesome here in Ecuador is "Chevere!" or "Que chevere!" I have not had the courage to actually say it myself, just because it feels so weird to say it because I am so painfully aware of not being a native-speaker and just how strange it sounds coming out of a gringa´s mouth. But I will say it...eventually. :)



It occurred to me the other night, while I was reading in the quiet and solitude of my room, how truly exhausting, frustrating, irritating, and maddening trying to learn another language is. I have never been in this position before, being the foreigner, the person other people stare at and laugh at when you say something that totally does not make sense. And it is even more frustrating because, a lot of time, I KNOW it does not make sense and I know what I want to say and can´t. But it ALSO occurred to me, in the quiet of my room, that there is no doubt in my mind that this, while one of the hardest things I have ever done, is totally and unquestionably, worth it.

Ciao!

-Alex