9th day

This morning I had a gloriously warm shower. I kept telling myself to not get used to it, but somehow it was perfect. An omelet, freshly squeezed jugo (juice), and these wheat things that were kind of like homemade pretzels without the salt were waiting at the table after my shower. These tasted like they were healthy, which is a first here for bread, but it’s safe to say everything I eat at home is from scratch. Nothing is bought from supermarkets. I asked if there was pre-packaged food in Ecuador, and mi mamá said yes, but they’re only at the big supermarkets and it’s usually just the rich who buy them.

I went to school an hour early to go online. Not having internet access is a curse and a blessing. I hate not being able to look words up quickly, read the news from my computer at any time I like, email or chat with people. However, I don’t get distracted as easily and I can do things like write in word for my blog and study my vocab words without checking Facebook and Gmail every hour. I also look forward to going to school because I can talk to the northern hemisphere before class.

I set up my appointment to get my censo and apparently there was some confusion about visiting the clinic tomorrow. Hopefully everything goes smoothly. Today was the day I decided to drop my Temas de América Latina because I could not take notes or really understand anything. The class is a history-heavy class, and history is boring enough for me in English. I also switched my advanced grammar class to an intermediate one. My goal here is not really to challenge myself that much in class, but to just learn the language, volunteer, and explore the culture and geography. Studying abroad was only a means to those things for me. Before coming here, everyone told me that study abroad institutions are way easier than U of I, so I didn’t really care that my classes seemed difficult. However, USFQ is the exception. The classes are really tough for extranjeros who aren’t Spanish majors or haven’t lived in a Spanish-speaking country before. USFQ is the most expensive university in Ecuador, and rightly so. They can’t dumb-down their curriculum for study abroad students.

I already have a bit of homework. I have a presentation on any tema that I like, which will be on sex education in schools because I’ve written a paper in Spanish on it. Yet, I only have today and tomorrow to prepare to present a 20-minute talk on it, ask questions, and make a vocabulary list. I volunteered for it without realizing how much time that takes. Readings in my huge International Organizations Reader, which I accidentally stole from the bookstore, are due next week. The clerk looked as if he rang the book up, along with my art supplies, but when I went through the door to leave the bookstore, the alarm went off, and the guard grabbed my book and receipt. After consulting inside the store, he gave me back my book and receipt without a word. Later I checked, and the clerk never rang up my book. I’m not about to go back and try to explain this. I wouldn’t have minded paying for it because the books here are way cheaper than books in the states. Books cost about $200 a semester (if I don’t buy one or two, which usually happens) and here it’ll be maybe $40. Yet books here aren’t really books—they’re more like collections of photocopied chapters of books or essays. My Spanish book will be a real book, but they seem like they always are.

After my classes, I ate a wonderful almuerzo (lunch) with Samantha, another Illinois student, at El Pimentón, the first restaurant I ate at when I came to Ecuador. At practically any restaurant in Ecuador, if you ask for el almuerzo, you’ll get a lunch without being told what’s in it, but it usually includes jugo, sopa (soup), a main dish, and a pastel (dessert) all for $2.50. However, most everything has meat, but all I had to tell them was that I was a vegetarian, and everything was fine. Also the water on the tables wasn’t purified, which I didn’t understand. People here drink purified water, so I’m not sure why there was sickness-inducing water there, for decoration, maybe?

Tomorrow I’m getting all my stuff together. I’m going to figure out where I’m volunteering and get my official identification. I’m getting a cold, which my friend Samantha described the whole course of it because she has the same thing, so I’m not looking forward to the next few days. But after tomorrow, I won’t have too much to set up anymore!