El fin, por fin
So here we are, my friends. The end of what I think has been the greatest adventure of my life thus far, and as my friend Sally says, the last bite of a truly delicious slice of pizza (8 semesters of college = one slice of college pizza per semester). I swam with the sharks, zip-lined through the jungle, climbed a few volcanoes, floated down a river in the Amazon, aced and bombed some Ecua tests, exited about 600 buses while they were in motion, found a new language, a new city and a new home. I am overwhelmed, to say the least and not quite sure how to describe what I feel now that I am alive and well at the end of it all.
Okay, so it’s not really the end. I do have 10 more days in Peru starting on Friday, but in between a five day hike on the Inca Trail to Machu Pichu and site seeing in Cusco without a computer, I’m going to have to make this my last post until I’m back safe and sound on United States soil. Thanks to all the readers out there for coming along for the ride. I wrote this blog as a way to share my experiences with family, friends and strangers and I feel so grateful that I now have memories and anecdotes of my time here, perfectly preserved forever on the worldwide web. Gotta love technology.
To my family that came to visit me in my new Ecua home, thanks for trusting me to go so far away and always reminding me that wherever I may travel, home is where you all are. To my Cornellian friends that spent their spring break and only week off on an Ecua adventure, you said you would come see me and you did! Nothing was better than seeing your faces in the Quito airport and being able to be your guia in this city of mine. To fellow students who are considering studying abroad: GO! Explore and travel and be unbelievably excited and extremely terrified for the time that lies ahead of you. Think outside the box and the country and the continent to truly push your limits. Every single day here contained a healthy and jarring dose of adventure and I am forever changed for having spent nearly five months on my toes. ¿Estás listo? (Are you ready?)
I guess that’s all I have to say about that. I’ll be home on the 25th of May and many of you will be getting calls saying that I have touched down safely and that I am excited for an incredible summer and amazing final year at Cornell. Please excuse my Spanglish, my stinginess, my soon-to-be bagel addiction and try not to be too jealous of my tan. Come visit this incredible country if you ever get a chance. Just be wary of blackouts and bug bites, don’t trust anyone to give you directions, remember not to tip, and bring a lot of small change. Tranquila, all. Que te vayas bien (take care) and nos vemos (we’ll be seeing each other) very soon, just un poco más allá. Amor, besos y saludos as always.
Your Ecua hija,
Ariel
Su país (Your country)
I’m putting off finishing my final Ecuadorian paper, the only thing standing between me and reaching senior status. Writing twelve pages is a trying task in the silent libraries of Cornell, but when it’s assigned in Spanish, during your last days in a bustling capital city in the middle of the South American sunshine, it becomes nearly impossible.
Seeing as the paper was assigned about two months ago and this past weekend was the last free time I had to work on it, I took the responsible option and expanded my cultural horizons by heading out of town for one last weekend adventure here in Ecuador. Needless to say, I didn’t bring my books or computer. Ah, to be abroad and truly realize what is important.
A friend and I caught a bus late Thursday evening to a small town called Baños about 4 hours outside of Quito. Baños is the word for bathrooms in Spanish but literally translates to baths, which is the town’s main tourist attraction, the thermal hot springs. It’s set in a tiny valley surrounded by active volcanoes and although there have been eruptions in the recent past, things have been relatively quiet since I arrived in Ecuador in January. Besides, a little raining ash never hurt anyone.
The first morning we rented bikes for the day and rode to about a dozen waterfalls throughout the surrounding towns. We hired a guide and repelled down the falls and were thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day. While the beauty was stunning and the weather was perfect, it was one particular moment that hit me pretty hard and made the trip for me. We were hiking up one of the volcanoes to get a good view of the town below when an Ecuadorian woman came out of her house and called to us on the trail. “¿De dónde son ustedes? (Where are you from?)” she asked us. We stopped and replied that we were from the United States but that we had spent the semester living in Quito. “Por eso, ustedes son de Ecuador, ahora esto es su país, mis hijas. (Therefore, you’re from Ecuador. This is your country now, my daughters.)” Ecuador is a very hospitable country but this stranger’s welcome was the warmest I had received since I arrived in January. I was struck by her kindness and suddenly very aware of just how long I had been living away from home.
It will be 5 months away by the time I get back to New York at the end of May. Although I will always call the United States my home, I’ve decided that I’m willing to leave a little piece of myself here: the part of me that leaps from moving buses and smiles every time I successfully lower my cab fare 15 cents. It’s the person who tries cuy (guinea pig) and hitchhikes when stranded in the mountains. I’ve pledged to make it back in one piece, along with lots of stories and photos and souvenirs for everyone back home. However it seems as though some part of me will never really leave. I’m glad I can say I made a lasting connection to this new country and I’m thankful to say I’ve almost made it through. ¡Que rápido pasó el tiempo! (How quickly the time has passed!) See you all very soon.
Que te vayas bien,
Ariel
The Ecua Hour
I am approaching the end, my friends. In my final days and last few posts, I can’t help but keep sharing those little Ecua anomalies that make studying abroad a constant culture lesson.
When I first got to this country, I was warned about and prepped for something called “La hora ecuatoriana” or the “Ecuadorian Hour.” It doesn’t refer to the time difference (we’re only one hour behind right now) and half of the year there actually isn’t a difference between Eastern Standard Time and Quito because we’re directly under New York. The Ecua hour refers to the general rule of thumb that everything always starts 90 minutes to 2 hours after the assigned time. If someone says “Meet me at 3pm,” there’s absolutely no need to show up before four. If there’s a party or get together and the invitation says 9:30, arriving before 11 might be considered rude.
At the beginning of the semester I was invited to a host cousin’s house for a dinner at 7pm. I had spent the day traveling and told my host family I would meet them at their cousin’s place for the meal that evening. When my bus back to the city was delayed and I rang the bell at 7:45, I was embarrassed for my tardiness and nervous that I would interrupt the meal: the gringa house guest arriving on her own schedule. When my cousin answered the door, she gave me a strange look before asking, “What are you doing here, Ariel?” She had just started making the dinner and not one of my family members was there. Discúlpame (Pardon me), I thought to myself. How rude of me to arrive while she was still preparing. I should have considered that before I showed up 45 minutes late.
Even something as formal as college classes here adhere to the Ecua hour policy. There are technically no breaks between class periods like there are in the United States. If you have a class from 10 to 11:30, your next class will have an assigned start time of 11:30. It’s assumed that students will stroll in about 20 minutes late, followed by the professor who will usually arrive just shy of a half hour into the time slot.
I cannot complain that I’ve come to live in a culture that is so lax about lateness, but I’ve come to realize that living a dilatory lifestyle is frustrating and exhausting. Often I find myself killing time outside museums, at tables alone in restaurants or while clutching my bag to my chest waiting for friends in a crowded bus station. I just can’t seem to break my habits of being where I said I’ll be at the moment I said I’d be there. The rare occurrences where I myself have abided by the Ecua hour have been the few times when it wasn’t appropriate to show up late. For a meeting at my program director’s house, a date with a friend in the park, or an interview for a final project, I suddenly find myself at fault. “I told you to meet me at 6!” my friend barked at me one evening when I finally located her in a crowd outside our favorite bar. “It’s 6:09,” I replied. “And I thought we lived in Ecuador.”
I’m going to take my time packing up this week, maybe take a longer route to school or push my lunch breaks a little further into my afternoon classes. I’m sad to say my adventures are coming to an end, but beyond excited for my trip to Peru and my final journey home to the United States to see my family and friends. I’ve been pretty far away for quite a long while now and I know that when the time comes to head home, I’ll be the gringa at the airport early, hoping my flight leaves right on time.
Besos,
Ariel
El Apagón
As I approach the last several days of my adventures, I’ve decided that there’s no better time than now to reminisce and remind myself of some of the strangely wonderful moments I’ve experienced. I keep meaning to write a post about the blackout that occurred here about 10 days after I arrived. However, I didn’t get around to looking up the word for blackout in Spanish (apagón) until last night. Now that I’m equipped with the proper vocab and feeling nostalgic, I can tell you about the night that almost all of Ecuador shut down.
A lightning bolt hit a main power generator at an electrical plant outside of Quito at about 5:30pm one night. The entire country is only about the size of the state of Colorado and this particular plant happened to supply power to about 85% of the residences with electricity. When the power went out, except for several large office building and hotels, the entire city went dark. All of the traffic lights, stores, and street lamps were out just as the sun began to set on the city. I was waiting for a ride home from a bus station but with the combination of lack of lights and the already atrocious traffic situation in the city, all of the streets were gridlocked. I walked several blocks to find my host mom in her car and we waited along the same 5 yard stretch for about 2 hours. Drivers were abandoning their cars in the streets, shop owners were standing outside of their darkened tiendas and there was utter chaos as people waited for an explanation. It was as if the city had decided to go to sleep early, but all of the people were still wide awake.
I asked my host mom if this sort of thing happens regularly in Quito and she said that it had never happened before in the 50 years she has lived here. She said it was sort of like a welcome to Ecuador present for all of the foreign students who had arrived for the semester. I did my homework by candlelight that night at our dining room table in Quito. I remember feeling pretty freaked out by the whole thing and wondering how it was possible that a whole country could derive power from the same generator. It’s sort of like questioning how I could hitch a ride with an unknown family friend hundreds of miles from Quito, or how there could only be one road to each major city, or only six continents on the globe. I never truly received answers to any of these queries, but in retrospect, such things don’t seem so strange.
The power situation has been fine since that incident, although if possible, I think the traffic may have gotten worse since I’ve arrived. I am positive that anytime the power goes out in my home in New York or anywhere else I happen to be, for the rest of my life I will be propelled back to that one night, when I first moved to Ecuador for five months and complete darkness swept over my new home. Some things, like blackouts and mudslides are temporary, but if you’re lucky, some things stick with you forever.
Saludos todos,
Ariel
The Homestretch
As the days wind down here on the equator line, I’ve been spending most of my time compiling final projects, practicing for presentations, and studying for my final exams. As much as my patience is wearing thin and my mind and body are exhausted from these months so far from home, I am consciously soaking in what I know are some of my last days in the country. I won’t miss my crowded bus rides to school or the daring exits from moving vehicles, and I think I would be happy if I never had to eat rice or potatoes again. I am ready to say adios to Quito’s pollution and traffic, and some days I literally ache for a good bagel.
It’s a bittersweet feeling, however, because as much as I miss my house in the United States and the people who make it home, there are pieces of Ecua culture that I so badly want to take with me even though I know they could never translate to or survive at home. I think I will be doling out more kisses upon greeting people than I’ll receive and I apologize if I dismiss the concept of waiting in line and push straight to the front. I’ll be missing the backdrop of volcanoes on my walk to the bus stop and don’t even get me started on the price of a sandwich, haircut or taxi ride in New York.
One known distinction between Latin American culture and that of the United States is that children tend to live with their parents much longer here and families are likely to stay close together geographically. Our next door neighbors here in La Granja are my host mother’s son and grandchildren and every single Sunday without fail, all four of her children and their children are at our house at 2:15pm for a family almuerzo (lunch). It’s overwhelming for me and sometimes a little painful to be sitting at a table full of family to whom I am not truly related, sharing stories in a (somewhat) foreign language, and recalling memories of a past I do not share. When I told the table of 25 guests one Sunday that I wished I could share a meal with my extended family every week, they were shocked to learn that my cousins and even my sisters live more than walking distance from my house. “Well how far away do your aunts and uncles live?” my host sister asked me. When I replied that their homes in Connecticut and New Jersey were more than an hour away, everyone was silent. “¡Que pena! (How sad!),” they whispered as they ate their rice and potatoes. I decided not to mention my relatives in California and Tennessee or those in Germany or Israel I’ve only met once or twice.
I do wish I had the ability to walk next door to my grandma’s house or live with my sisters until we were well into our thirties. Here it wouldn’t be strange if a couple got married and never left their parent’s home, but in the US we seem to break free a little sooner, cut the cord, and try and make it on our own. I thrive off of the independence I’ve found in college but these days, as trite as it may sound, I feel like maybe I’m growing up a little too fast and that we could all take a couple pointers from these close-knit Ecuas. Everyone walks a little slower here and takes things as they come, one day at a time. I have never once heard an Ecuadorian tell me they were stressed or overwhelmed.
Maybe we need to slow down and smell the floras or spend the extra seconds to dar besos (give kisses) when we say hello. Taxi drivers, shop owners, even strangers at soccer games call me hija (daughter) or reina (queen) just as a courtesy or a manner of welcoming me into their lives. I certainly don’t live a lifestyle of royalty in Quito but for the most part, I do feel like this culture has embraced me and I will be sorry to go in two weeks. I am changed for having had these adventures, that I cannot deny. I can only wonder where I will find myself once I am back with my own familia, at my own dinner table, in my own country. Two things are certain for the near future: there will be things I will always miss from my Ecua adventures and Dios mio, there will be bagels.
Besos as always from the middle of the world,
Ariel
Iguanas and Penguins and Turtles…Oh My!
I’m back from my Semana Santa adventures and ready for the home stretch here in Ecuador. I have tons of papers, tests and final projects in the last couple weeks and I am looking forward to enjoying the rest of my time here. As many of you may have heard, I had an unfortunate experience in Guayaquil (the largest city in Ecuador) during my vacation but I want to let everyone know that I am doing extremely well, feeling safe and happy and ready to finish out my experience on a positive note. Sometimes we are in the wrong place at the wrong time and bad things happen. Crime and danger are a reality of studying abroad and traveling and I am just very thankful that I am healthy and safe. For now, I don’t feel quite ready to share the details of what occurred, but I do have lots to tell about my time in Darwin’s paradise.
My parents and sisters came to visit me in February and spent a couple of days in the Galapagos Islands before touring around Quito with their personal gringa guide, yours truly. I saw their pictures and videos and heard stories about the islands, but what stuck with me the most was what my Dad said: “It’s as if someone took all of these animals, placed them together on these islands, and trained them not only to get along with each other, but to get along with humans as well.” I know that’s not the way it occurred, but the biodiversity and beauty is startling and pretty difficult to describe. I am going to try and upload some pictures and hope that the internet treats me well so you can all get a glimpse of this dream world.
Our 4 day cruise was included in my program (sweet!) and twelve of us and our program director flew about two hours off the coast of Ecuador to Santa Cruz, one of the biggest islands of the Galapagos. After reaching our private cruise ship, we lifted the anchor and set off on a four day adventure. Our days consisted of early morning caminatas (hikes) to catch the sunrise, morning snorkeling sessions, midday treks and live zoology lessons, afternoon snorkeling sessions, and evening dolphin watches off the top deck of our boat. Each island that we went to (four in all) had a completely distinct feel with unique topography, flora and fauna. I was mesmerized by the cacti the size of oak trees and the iguanas the size of small dogs shading themselves underneath. We saw lobos del mar (sea lions), blue footed boobies, (yes that is the real name), penguins or pingüinos (on the equator!) and of course, gigantic tortugas or turtles. The turtles are actually called galapagos and that is where the famous islands get their names.
Not a lot of people know that more than 20,000 people are official citizens of the Galapagos, although only a few of the dozens of islands are populated. Our guide told us that there is an enormous cultural difference between the mainland Ecuador and the Islands. While recycling or compost efforts are nonexistent on the mainland, the citizens of the Galapagos work towards fully sustainable living. Sexual education is either completely absent or very limited in Ecuador society, but it is taught in every grade in Galapagos school systems for the purpose of population control on the islands. It is technically illegal to move to the Islands (although when you go its very tempting) and the Ecuadorian government is currently concerned about the growing population. As a result of limited opportunities, many Galapagos residents choose to move to the mainland and give up Galapagos citizenship.
My nights on the cruise were pretty sleepless due to the rocking of our small boat but I spent most of my time on the top deck star gazing and chatting with friends about how lucky we all were. I hadn’t had more than a couple of days off from school for 14 weeks and both my brain and body were exhausted from constant Spanish speaking and weekend traveling. Studying abroad has been incredible and I feel blessed to have experienced all that I have, but I must admit that it is no walk in the park. The past four months have been mentally and emotionally draining and I felt my Spring Break was a much needed breath of fresh ocean air.
It didn’t rain the entirety of our stay but it was pouring buckets when the plane touched down in Quito five days later. After a breathtaking four days in paradise and one terrifying night in Guayaquil, I was exhausted and ready to spend a couple of days at my home in Quito with my host family. I have less than three weeks left before my program ends and then I am off to Peru to see the Incan ruins at Machu Pichu in Cusco and the capital city, Lima. For now, I am in my beloved Quito, spending time in my favorite spots and soaking up the last ounces of Ecua culture before my time is done. I’m taking it one day at a time and my nights are filled with dreams of soft beaches, strange vegetation and friendly creatures. I’ll be home soon, all.
Saludos until then,
Ariel
Pass the Papas, Por Favor
The improvements I’ve made with my Spanish since I’ve been away are really remarkable. If you’re studying a language, I strongly encourage you to study abroad in a non-English speaking country, because as much as I learned at Cornell in a classroom, there’s nothing quite like complete language emersion to develop skills. I’ve switched my computer, my facebook, and finally my brain over to Spanish. Maybe I’ll switch it back when I return to the States, but lately I’ve been thinking that maybe I won’t.
Moving towards some level of fluency has been both a blessing and a curse. I’ve stopped internally translating everything before I speak and I participate in class without turning completely red every time I make a mistake. My ability to express myself and understand the dinner table conversations have improved tenfold, but my ability to spell and be eloquent in English seems to have gone down the tubes. In Spanish, you pronounce everything as you would read it; each letter has just one sound and there are no silent vowels or strange exceptions as there are in English. Yet despite my growing confidence, I have managed to make some of the most uncomfortable mistakes since I’ve been here.
The other day I gave a presentation in my Andean Anthropology class about the origins of fútbol (soccer) in Latin America. It was a thirty minute presentation and I was pretty nervous so I started off by telling the class that if they didn’t understand me, they should let me know and that I was embarrassed about my gringa accent. “Estoy embarazada,” I said smiling and then continued on with the presentation. I spoke slowly and took my time and at the end of the class, the professor approached me to give me some feedback. “You did wonderfully,” she told me. “Unfortunately, you began by telling the class that you were ‘embarazada’ which doesn’t mean embarrassed, but pregnant.” I was mortified and trying to remember if maybe I had put my hands on my stomach at all during the presentation.
I got home that night and sat down to a dinner of steak, potatoes, rice and bread (Latin Americans are pretty big on the carbohydrates). My host mother asked me what I would like and I told her, “Un poquito de carne y el papa, por favor. (A little bit of meat and the potatoes, please.)” She gave me a strange look and then filled my plate. I realized several minutes later the mistake that I had made. The word for potato in Spanish is la papa. However, I had asked my host mother for el papa, which translates to the Pope. So there I was, more than 3 months into my Spanish emersion, in the middle of Lent, asking my host family to kindly serve me the Pope as a side to my steak.
I didn’t sleep well that night because I was feeling kind of sick (maybe from my papas) and the following morning I passed on a giant breakfast of pancakes and eggs and opted for some fruit and bread instead. When my host sister, Carolina, asked how I had slept, I told the truth and said “No dormí bien porque me sentaba mal. (I didn’t sleep well because I was feeling sick).” Unfortunately, I mixed up the words sentir and sentar, the first of which means “to feel” and the other which means “to sit.” I had told Carolina that I had slept poorly because I wasn’t sitting well. She made an odd face and her reply to me was something along the lines of, “I’m not surprised, it’s really hard to sleep sitting up.”
At restaurants sometimes I’ll ask for el cuento (short story) rather than la cuenta (the check) and I once tried to describe the outcome of a soccer game as un ampute (an amputation) rather than un empate (a tie). At times I’ll accidentally declare that I am casada (married), when I really want to express that I am cansada (tired). Overall, I’m doing well and really proud of how far I’ve come. I’m grateful that my host family, friends, and professors have been so patient with me here and I’m hoping I can find a way to keep the Spanish in my life once I leave the country. Grammatical errors are just a part of the process, I suppose. Nobody is perfecto and everyone makes mistakes.
Que te vayas bien,
Ariel
Bumps and Bruises
I’m about to head out of the city on Thursday for Semana Santa. I’m off to the Galapagos, Guayaquil (the largest city in Ecuador), a small colonial city called Cuenca, and then several nights in a surfer town on the beach called Montanita. I am living the good life. I’ve had some extra time and better internet access lately so I’m going to try my best to keep posting frequently once I return. I won’t have internet access for about 12 days, so hang tight until I come back to share what I am sure will be some incredible stories and photos.
I take a pretty full course load here at USFQ (Universidad San Francisco de Quito), but despite the fact that I have 5 classes (each 90 minutes long twice a week) I managed to arrange my schedule so that I have Fridays off. I figure that my reward for making it through the week here is a three day weekend every weekend. Some Fridays I reserve for Quito exploration or lounging around my house in La Granja, but when the timing is right and the week has been grueling, often friends and I will hop a bus late Thursday night and escape the traffic and smog for several days.
This past weekend we decided to head to Tena, a small jungle town on the edge of the Amazon, famous for its beautiful winding rivers and white water rafting. We took a bus at about 8:30pm from the south of the capital and five hours later found ourselves soaking wet, ringing the bell outside of a hostel at nearly 2 in the morning. I was feeling a little sick to my stomach at the time and the bus ride had given me a pretty atrocious headache, so on top of the malaria pills and daily vitamins I was taking, I was jacked up on all sorts of medicine and prepared for a full day on a river. Malaria only exists in certain provinces of this country. I don’t have to take pills everyday when I am at home in Quito because mosquitoes (and pretty much all other bugs) cannot survive at such high altitudes (9300 ft). When I head down to La Costa or El Oriente (the coast or the Amazon), I take the pills as a precaution.
We got up early the next morning, paid our bill at the hostel ($5 for the night – private bathroom included) and hitched a ride in the back of a truck to get to the rafting company. We took a short hike through the mud, helmets and life vests on, paddles in hand and started out along the river. The day was absolutely beautiful, the rapids were intense, and after about 8 hours on the water with our guides, we reached the end where dry clothes and cold domestic beer (what else?) was waiting for us. I reapplied sunscreen six or seven times during the day and sprayed myself with nearly an entire bottle of bugspray. I felt pretty well prepared and other than the scrapes and bruises I got from falling out of the raft, I was sure I would return home in one piece.
That night we took the bus back to Quito and at about 1am pulled into the bus terminal in the city. After a very satisfying night sleep, I awoke on Sunday to sore arms from paddling, a sunburn on my legs that was radiating heat, and about 150 of the itchiest, most atrocious looking bug bites I have ever seen. I hadn’t felt anything bite me on the river and I was pretty much a fortress of deet the entire day. My friends had received a couple a bites but my legs were swollen and it was pretty clear that I had had a bad allergic reaction. I was so freaked out about the bites that I actually took off my pants to show my host mom. “¿Tengo que irme a un médico? (Do I have to go a doctor?)” I asked her nervously. She told me, “Tranquila.”
Here in Ecuador, as I have said before, nothing is ever as bad as it seems. Everything is tranquila and completely fixable, no matter the problem. All my host mom did was cut some Aloe Vera off a plant in her garden and instruct me to smear it all over the back of my legs. “Ellos les gusta tu sangre gringa. (The bugs like your gringa blood),” she said laughing.
A couple of weeks ago, while climbing a mountain to the south of the city, I took a pretty nasty spill into a ditch. I woke up the next morning with bad pains in my side and what I thought might be a bruised rib. I asked my host mom if I she could take me to the clinic near our house to get checked out. She told me, “Si no hay sangre en tu pipi, tu estás perfecta. (If there’s no blood in your pee, you’re completely fine.)” When our program took us to the Amazon for several days, some students were nervous because they hadn’t brought malaria medicine. Our Ecuadorian program director simply told us that there was no malaria in the jungle (false), but that if we did get it, we’d take care of it when we got back to Quito. “They’ll just give you some pills to get rid of it,” she told us calmly.
When a friend got a pretty serious case of conjunctivitis a few weeks ago and needed an antibiotic, her host mom told her to throw away the pills and just keep tea bags on her eyes for 48 hours. “I have to go to school tomorrow,” my friend told her host mom. “I’ll make you a mask and you can wear them in class!” she replied.
I’m sitting in my room right now as I write this, covered in strange goop from plants in our garden, sipping a tea made from some sort of root vegetable and I think maple syrup. I was wishing I had some Benadryl or Hydrocortisone cream, but the itching has actually subsided and the swelling has gone down. Maybe I’ve been too paranoid, too dependent on the small pharmacy worth of pills and products I brought with me from the US. Once again, everything turned out alright, just as everyone here assured me it would. It’s hard to believe I’ve got only 6 weeks left of this adventure at the middle of the world. On the bright side, I will have some good battle scars to show for my time away. Everyone, por favor, stay happy and healthy.
Off to see the finches,
Ariel
Keep the Change
Moving to a new country undoubtedly changes one’s perceptions about many things. I am slowly training myself to tolerate spicy foods, my music tastes are evolving and my concept of money has been completely altered by the months I’ve spent here in Ecuador. Being a student and a traveler, I try to live my life on a budget. It’s not particularly hard to do here in Quito; bus rides cost 25 cents, an enormous almuerzo (lunch) is $1.50, going to see a movie is $3.50 ($1.85 on a Tuesday), and you can buy three bottles of water for under a buck. I’m well fed, hydrated, highly entertained and moving all around this city for a pretty fair deal.
Public transit isn’t safe after dark (about 6:30pm) so I find myself taking lots of taxis on the weekends, when I have valuables on me or when I’m just too nauseas to get on another bus. The minimum cab fare is 35 cents and I can usually get anywhere I want to go in the city for under 2 dollars. At home in New York, several blocks in a taxi can cost ten bucks and taking the subway or bus is $2 a ride one-way. I leave my house in Quito each day with no more than $5 on me and although my life here seems monetarily blissful, I still refuse to pay even a nickel more than I know I should.
Part of embracing the Quiteño lifestyle and dropping the tourist mentality is learning how to bargain for anything from clothing on the street to a boat ride through the Amazon. Often I’ll find myself asking for my penny in change when something costs 99 cents or arguing over a quarter with a cab driver. When I finally win and hand over the reduced fair to the driver, I get strange flashbacks to sitting on my couch at school. There are probably quarters wedged between the cushions that I’ll never bother fishing out and change somewhere in my dresser that I’ve never considered throwing into my purse. I have a collection of about 500 pennies in a jar at home that I don’t want weighing down my wallet but now I know that’s the equivalent of about a week’s worth of bus rides.
People are often surprised to hear that Ecuador uses the US dollar. Until 2000, the sucre was the national currency, but now the only sucres that circulate are sueltos (coins) in the same denominations as our quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. While the only billetes (bills) accepted are US dollars, the entire country is experiencing a shortage of small bills. You won’t find change for anything larger than a twenty outside of a bank, using ten dollar bills are difficult, and often five dollars is simply demasiado dinero (too much money). I once took an 80 cent taxi ride and tried to pay with a $1 bill. The driver asked if I had anything smaller.
Here’s another thing that I have learned after being in Ecuador for three months: there’s no tipping in this country. If you eat a meal, get a ride, hire a guide for something, you pay the price and then go. There’s no need to do anything more than say a sincere gracias.
I know there’s going to be an adjustment period when I come back home to the States at the beginning of June, a reverse “culture shock” after having been away for so long. Living in New York City this summer, I feel like I’ll be doing a lot of walking and home cooking. I love this new country of mine, but I have to admit that I’m excited to get back to a routine in my home city and catch up with family and friends over lunch or a cup of coffee. Promise to bear with me if I seem a little stingy or get overly excited when someone has change.
Saludos,
Ariel
Sweet Dreams
Just several days and a couple more Ecua-tests to go before I’m off to the Galapagos Islands for a five day cruise with my program. I won’t have internet access for about 12 days, so hang tight until I come back to share what I am sure will be some incredible stories and photos. Until then, I’ve been entertaining myself at home in the capital. Exciting things happen all the time around here, and while most days are full of small adventures to write about, sometimes the most thrilling moments occur at home in my house in Quito.
Someone told me before I left for this semester in Ecuador that their favorite thing about being abroad was finally crossing the language barrier. This person traveled to Paris for five months, enrolled in French courses and lived with a Parisian family. She said she was frustrated at first and had a lot of trouble making herself understood. Daily tasks were challenging and exhausting and she struggled with her school work in a new language. But at one point, something just clicked for her and she stopped thinking so hard before speaking and started understanding, not just listening to everything around her. “You’ll have a moment,” she told me, “when you’ll realize how far you’ve come with the language.”
Last night I had it. I dreamt about a big presentation I have next week in school. I dreamt my computer didn’t work, that I forgot the handouts I’d made, and that my partner never showed up and I had to give the presentation alone to a class of 25 Ecuadorians. But I dreamt in Spanish. I freaked out in Spanish, apologized to the professor in Spanish and even complained and cursed in Spanish. It was the best nightmare I’ve ever had and I woke up energized and excited and then immediately called my friend.
Every now and then I’ll be speaking to someone and a word will slip out of my English vocabulary for a couple of seconds. The other day I was trying to tell my parents (in English) about a class trip I took last week and my mind hit a speed bump when I got to the word “fieldtrip.” I started the sentence over several times and kept stopping at the word. It was only coming to my mind in Spanish. “Salido de campo, we took a salido de campo,” I kept saying to them. “You know, the thing when you leave school and go somewhere and it’s related to a class and sometimes you need a permission slip?” “Oh my goodness,” my mom said as she laughed over the phone, “you’ve crossed over.”
I know I’m not fluent and I still speak slowly and make many mistakes. But each day I get several words closer, my accent gets a little bit better and I feel just a little more Ecua and a little less gringa in this new city of mine. Keep the comments and the emails coming, friends and family. I promise I will try my best to answer them in any language I can.
Can anyone believe it’s already April?
-Ariel
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