Last weekend I hung out with mi familia, and I went to an Ecuadorian concert with mis padres. It was near the teleférico in this large building, with thousands of middle-aged Ecuadorians. It was a promotional concert run by the company that gave my host dad a loan. It was free, but it was so obviously promotional, it was annoying. We clapped for the businessmen of the company and listened for our numbers to be called to win a toaster or insurance. The concert included an Elvis Presley impersonator, a popular Ecuadorian singer, and an Ecuadorian band, but the other stuff in between was a bummer. We stayed until 1 am, and I was almost falling asleep on the shoulder de mi mamá. We danced a little and drank some free rum, but I kept laughing to myself that I was sitting between my host parents amongst a thousand forty year old Ecuadorians at some concert put on by an insurance/ loan company.
Mi mamá, mi hermana y yo en el estadio
I Innovative
I played a little basketball and soccer with my family Saturday, and stayed in the rest of the weekend due to stomach problems. For about a month now, my stomach has not been quite right. The annoying part is I don’t know the cause. I have never had stomachaches unless I had the flu back in the U.S., and here it’s every other day. It’s not bad enough to see a doctor, but it’s uncomfortable. It seems my stomach does not like Ecuadorian food or the bacteria on it. What I’m looking forward to most when I get back to the U.S. is a healthy stomach. Hopefully before then my stomach will adjust.
My friends and I finally got our Peru plans straightened out, and we are all flying instead of taking a 24-hour bus (thank goodness). We’ll fly from Quito into Lima on Wed the 31st, then Cusco, back to Lima, to Guayaquil, and a $6 bus from Guayaquil to Quito before classes start on the 12th of April. I’m excited to see another Latin American country and of course, Machu Pichhu. Guayaquil should be interesting too, because then I will have stayed in the three largest cities in Ecuador. (Haven’t done that in the U.S. yet).
Jeremy and I are also arranging our plans as well. He will arrive the last day of final exams week, May 14th. We booked a cruise on a small motor-sailor yacht in the Galapagos. We’ll be in Quito for two days, go on our cruise for five, fly to Guayaquil, take a bus to the beach (probably Montañita, which is known for its young crowd and excellent surf), and bus to a touristy town called Baños, with outdoor adventures (horsebackriding, rafting, canyoning, biking) and hot springs. Then we’ll stay with mi familia for a couple days, and then fly back to the states. I almost feel guilty at how amazing this sounds.
Mi familia y los vecinos (the neighbors) have started a new exercise routine. Three times a week we go jogging at the stadium, run up the steps, do jumping jacks, and crunches. We hopped the fence the first time to the nice soccer field, with the best césped (grass) in Lumbisí. The weather is perfect for exercising at night. Lying on the crisp grass gazing at the stars as I do crunches while laughing with mi familia is wonderful. Two dogs, little kids, and four women (one of them blonde) running around must have been quite a sight. La hermana de mi papá is on a soccer team and is the one leading our “exercise group.” She’s so unlike most twenty somethings in Lumbisí because she isn’t married with two kids. She likes to go salsa dancing, play basketball and soccer. She laughs easily and has a mind of her own. She didn’t go to college, and she works at a company in Quito.
Mi mamá told me how she and mi papá met. Mi mamá lived in Ibarra, where mi papá sold miscellaneous household items. She was only 18 and he was 26 (if I remember correctly) when they married. She moved in with him and his grandparents in Lumbisí while they built their house (a process of 5 years because they had little money). After a year of marriage they had their first child. She told me how lonely she felt without her mom and her brothers and sisters, especially after she had her first baby. I cannot imagine that instead of going to college at 18, getting married and having a baby. However, 18 isn’t all that young to get married in Ecuador, especially for people of low SES. Mi mamá told me she knows a lot of teenagers with babies, probably because Ecuador has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Latin America.
I’ve been thinking how much I am going to miss my host family after I leave. I’ve heard international students talk about how they feel like they’re just renting a room with their host family. I describe my experience with a sense of pride: “Oh, you know, yesterday I helped my host mom feed the chanchos, the week before we picked beans from their farm and then ate them for dinner, I played basketball and soccer at the public courts with my family and the people of Lumbisí, I made ice cream and baked a cake with my host mom, we have a little cute kitten, I went exercising last night with my family and the neighbors, I walk to the next house over to buy candy at my grandma’s store, I have a host mom who makes sure I never go hungry for a second, I went to a concert with my host parents…”
All students I’ve met except for the students in my program live in Quito, which is a slightly homogenous experience, so whenever I tell students where I live they’re either surprised or jealous. Most families with host students are upper class in Quito and many families have maids that cook and clean, while my family owns pigs. I’m not overly fond of the traffic, noise, and pollution of Quito either, and a gated neighborhood in Cumbayá sounds like a bore, so I’ll happily take the stray dogs and cornfields.
