March 2

Last week, I showed up at a Campus Life event at my school.  The purpose of the events is to integrate Ecuadorian students and extranjeros.  I showed up for the last five minutes of some band playing and I was invited to go drinking afterwards.  I happened to be the only foreign student there, and I was elated at how easy it was to hang out with some Ecuadorians without extranjeros.  At the first bar, a drunk guy I never saw before kept telling me how he loved me, how beautiful my eyes were, etc.  He kept asking, “Do you trust me?” over and over.  It was uncomfortable, but soon my gang said we all had to leave.  They left because they saw how uncomfortable I was, for which I was grateful.  One of the guys said he kept leaning forward towards me as I was leaning back away from him.  He said he was worried I’d lean back too far and finally hit the wall. 

The group of eight or so people I was with all spoke nearly fluent or fluent English, but they spoke Spanish together.  It was difficult to understand the jokes and the topics they were talking about, but it felt good to finally be the only gringa.  If I’m with Ecuadorians from school, it’s usually with my U.S. friends too, so we usually speak in English.  However, I still ended up talking a lot with a guy in English, who said it was actually easier for him to talk in English because he had gone to U.S. schools all his life, although his parents are Ecuadorian.  He’s gay and it was interesting to hear his perspective of what it’s like in Ecuador (not good).  He also lived in different parts of Europe and he could compare his experiences.  Later a girl drove me home, which was nice of her.  Everyone was so welcoming that I was sad that I’d have to wait two weeks to hang out with them again because the Campus Life events are every other week. 

The next night I went out to La Mariscal with mi tía (aunt), primo, y otro chico.  We went to this discoteca, but I’ve been having stomach problems so drinking and dancing wasn’t too fun.  Eventually we left around 2 am and el celular de mi tía was robbed.  Some "negros" (black people, or Afroecuadorians as they were described) just pulled the cell phone out from my friend’s pocket.  He was carrying it for mi tía, and it was his third time being robbed of a cell phone.  He had a bunch of cash in his pocket that fortunately wasn’t robbed though. 

This past weekend I climbed la montaña Rumiñaui con mi clase de Andinismo.  It was grueling, but mesmerizing.  Sleeping did not go well because I couldn’t get my feet warm no matter how many layers I put on at various intervals during the night.  Our real climb was the second day, and I was the only one not to finish the climb.  We had just made it up the black sandy mountain and then we needed to climb up the vertical rocky part with our harnesses and ropes, which did not sound appealing as I was trying to catch my breath and sweating even though it was forty degrees.  I would have loved to do it another time, but I didn’t want to be the one who slowed everyone down.  Disappointed, but thankful for the respite, I napped and took photos while everyone climbed for an hour.

The climb down was exhilarating.  Since the mountain was sandy, I hopped and ran down the entire mountain.  Our hike was accompanied by the aroma of mint, due to the wild mint plants growing in the mountains.  The trip was wonderful.  I just wish I were more in shape.  My host dad says he’s going to run twice a week at 5:30 am and he wants me to accompany him.  I told him “voy a ver” (I’m going to see)…maybe if he decides on a later time. 

Tonight I hung out a bit with Kaye and Hannah and heard about the new gossip about people in our program.  Later mi papá told me that although I’m pretty, I’m not photogenic.  He asked me why that is as he tried to take pictures of me.  This is on top of a few days ago when he asked, “What’s that?” while laughing and pointing to a pimple on my forehead.  Mi papá doesn’t help my confidence much.  However, he helped me on my ensayo (essay) de la película, Maria Llena Eres de Gracia, so he’s not all bad.  The movie is about a pregnant girl from Columbia who becomes a drug mule and smuggles drugs into the U.S.  Mis padres tonight were telling me how much my Spanish has improved, which made me feel good.  I’m so used to getting a grade or some kind of tangible way of telling how good I am at something.  In Spanish class, I got all A’s, but there’s no grade after dinner table conversation.  I wish I could have taken a test on day one and one now so I can see my improvement.  Sometimes I feel great about my Spanish, and other times I feel that it is painfully inadequate.  It all depends on the situation, noise level, and patience the speaker has.  It’s much easier if the speaker is talking to me because he or she usually slows down and gets clues from my face if I don’t understand something. 

Language learning is not easy.  I’m afraid that at the end of five months I’m still going to be in limbo—not a beginner but not fluent.  I figured that five months would be enough for fluency, being able to talk with anyone about anything in any situation.  I’m definitely not close yet.  I can usually express anything I want, albeit in a grammatically incorrect or convoluted way, and when it’s noisy I can’t understand much.  I don’t know how much time it will take until I can call myself fluent.  I don’t want to leave Ecuador at an intermediate level…I want to be able to read Spanish language books at the same level as English language books I read and enjoy Spanish language movies like I enjoy English language ones.  I want to be confident speaking about anything in Spanish, which may take more time than I thought. 

Note: Comments are appreciated!