First real Friday in Ecuador

A lot happened today. I woke up early to go to my first Andinismo class (mountain climbing) at 7 am. I was a little short on time, so I took the bus up the hill. Unfortunately, I forgot how short the ride was, so I wasn't standing when we got to the stop for the university. I had to get off probably 100 yards later and walk back. It was all good though, we learned how to tie half a dozen different knots. There will be an optional expedition every weekend, so I'll never be stuck with nothing to do. I'm not great at knots, but Jake knows them well from his Boy Scouting days. After class we walked to the nearby strip mall to buy 2 meters of practice knot-tying rope from an outdoorsy store. Then we practiced a bunch and I actually feel rather comfortable with it now. I also bought a cheap soccer ball yesterday for 7 bucks, and we kicked it around at one of the little fields at the university.

After getting out of class at noon, we ate at Hogwarts (the inexplicably-named on-campus Italian restaurant) and then hung out for a while. Unfortunately, our Ecuadorian escorts (young friends of Jake's family) to the Mariscal club/bar scene had to cancel, but Jake, Chris and I went on our own anyway, hopping a bus for Quito at around 6:30. We realized after getting in the cab from the bus hub Rio Coca that the cab was only 80% legit. Then the cabbie started talking to someone on his radio. We had heard stories during orientation of shady cabs that brought Gringos to street corners where thugs would jump in and mug you. Our cabbie mentioned "tres amigos," "estados unidos," and "6 de diciembre," a street we didn't think we were going on. He also had this low, sort of disconcerting laugh. Jake said we should maybe have him stop, and we both agreed. I was sitting in the front seat, and told him in Spanish, "Sir, our plans have changed. More or less here is good." He let us out and we tried to hail another cab. Fifteen minutes later, we had still not succeeded. Instead, we decided to try the shawarma place right where we had gotten out of the cab. When we got in, we saw that no one had food, people were only drinking. A similar thing happened to us at a tiny restaurant in Cumbaya last week, so we figured that they might be past eating hours. We went to a Chinese place next door instead. I had Pollo con piña (chicken with pineapple), and Jake and Chris both got Lengua de vaca (cow tongue). It was all tasty and cheap, so Jake and I thought we'd get some noodles too. We noticed on the menu that one option was noodles with tripe (basically innards, guts), and we figured we'd try it. It was a first for me, and as I had a little piece of something on my fork, Jake said, "Now, you've gotta be ready for this. It's gonna feel a little different, it's gonna taste a little different, but you gotta roll with it." I asked, "So what is this?" "I don't know," he asserted, without so much as taking another breath. Maybe you had to be there. At any rate, it wasn't bad. After eating, we went next door, back to the shawarma place. Turns out they were doing food, and Chris got shawarma. Jake and Chris shared a $3 hookah pipe (mango flavor), and I got a $3 cuba libre.

We had been dropped off right by a bus station, so when we finished at the shawarma place, we took a bus to Rio Coca, and another back to Cumbaya. We never did make it to the Mariscal (Jake and I still have yet to go), but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, taxi adventure notwithstanding. Looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow; we plan on seeing the historical district in Quito (during daytime hours).

Two weeks in, still having an awesome time :)

Hello again!

     Busy week. Week 1 in Ecuador has been filled with new things wondrous, frightening, comforting, and strange. We K kids spent our first week taking a crash course in Spanish, refamiliarizing ourselves both with our new language and with each other. In the evenings, a small group of those of us living in Cumbayá (the small Quito suburb which hosts the university) have ventured out to find dinner, ice cream, a beer, or simply to see what there is to see. Cumbayá is by a good margin safer than Quito, but by no means safe enough to let one's guard down.
     Fortunately, my host family (and I, by extension) lives in a gated (and guarded and 20-foot-walled) community a couple blocks from the main road. Though the fit is good and we are generally problem-free, I have found that the language barrier is not necessary for problems to arise. A few days ago, Jake and I were returning to my house from a nearby restaurant, thinking we'd hang out for a time. I had completely forgotten about the trick my host-mom mentioned the first night re: unlocking the door. Long story short, I couldn't do it. We walked the seven or so minutes to Jake's house, and I left my host-mom a message, advising her of the situation and that if she called upon arriving home, I wouldn't be far behind. Upon my arrival, she said (in clear English), "I need to teach you this." I laughed in self-deprecation and agreed. Since then, my success rate at domestic re-entry has been 100%.
     My first urban adventure beyond my own doorstep occurred on Friday, our fifth full day in-country. At 9 a.m., we Cumbayá folk left as a group by bus for Rio Coca, Quito's bus hub. We met up there with our Quiteño detachment and packed ourselves into taxis procured by our program directors, Tania and Natalie. We were bound for Ecuador's "Dirección General de Extranjería" ("Department of Foreignership," more or less) to finalize our visas and to apply for "empadronamientos" (national ID cards), which, among other things, will later get us to the Galápagos Islands without a $100 fee. To get an idea of la Dirección General de Extranjería, think of the DMV, except everyone speaks Spanish. I had to ask for more repeats than I'd care to remember, but eventually we all got through it. After eating a $2 lunch at a tiny restaurant next to the Dirección (which, incidentally, may have given me the runs), five of us tried to hail a legitimate-looking cab to return to Rio Coca. After a cabbie frostily informed us that we were on the wrong side of the street to go to Rio Coca, a bald and jovial fair-skinned Ecuadorian in a red sweater told us that we could also walk up the hill a block to the bus station, where we'd only pay a quarter each. We looked at each other; why not?
     The bus station was a raised platform in between the two directions of traffic, and because of this, boarding and deboarding more closely resembled a subway than a bus. This didn't help us board the first bus, however, as it was as packed as packed could be, and a couple locals in line ahead of us made it even more so. Noticing that the 1 p.m. start time of our Spanish class was starting to draw near, we agreed that we needed to get on the next bus. If some couldn't fit, then some couldn't fit, but so long as no one was left alone, we'd be fine.
     The next bus arrived. Darrin, Katie, and Jake were barely able to squeeze themselves in, as Spencer and I dashed for a different door. Too late; the doors closed, and the bus se fue. We had nothing to do but wait for the next one. It came a few minutes later and we were able to board without too much difficulty. Carrying our backpacks under our arms with one strap over the shoulder (purportedly the most thief-resistant way, which I call the "tactical carry"), we scanned the people around us. In all honesty, in my case at least, "scanned" is too generous. A sailor scans a horizon; a hunter scans the bush. I was nervously swiveling my neck this way and that, trying not to look like a gringo nervously swiveling his neck this way and that. I don't recall if we were told that there ARE two would-be thieves on every bus, or if we should just ACT as though there are, but it was our first time on a Quito bus, so act that way we certainly did.
     After what felt like an eternity, the bus stopped at Rio Coca (which I suppose translates to "Cocaine River"). We had to ask a transit worker ("¿Perdóname, peru sabe usted cómo ir a Cumbayá?"), but we found our bus. After another eternity, we arrived at the USFQ bus stop. By the time we got to class, we were an hour late. Fortunately, the Ecuadorian concept of time makes this much less of a sin. Esto es Ecuador, ¿Qué puedes hacer? 

2: Book-ending the previous post

            A relatively tranquil Day One is winding down in Cumbayá, having followed a long and at-times harrowing Day Zero.

            As we came in to land around 10 p.m. last night, I looked out from my window seat at the sea of metropolitan lights. The daunting thought that came to mind was, “Look at all of those people out there…they all speak Spanish.” And so they did. Our (or at least my) introduction to this came in the form of an advertising poster on the side of the jetway. Don’t know what it says? Gotta figure it out, gringo, bienvenidos.

            And because Ecuador wanted to test me early, I (along with compadres Jacob and Chris) fell behind the rest of the group (22 strong, in total) as we got in the line for customs. Upon finally reaching the paperwork checkpoint (and responding to the official’s “Bienvenidos a Ecuador” with a deer-in-the-headlights “Sí”), I joined Jake and Chris as we began to search for our checked bags.  The screen describing what was on each carousel was unhelpful, as neither “Delta” nor “Atlanta” could be found. We bounced from an airport worker to a counter to another counter (Jake doing the majority of the talking) before we finally found our bags. Standing in line for the bag scan checkpoint, we could see through the automatic doors an absolute throng of Ecuadorians. As the last one through, having been separated from the others by an airport worker with a dozen bags that needed scanning, I crossed the automatic threshold alone. A narrow open path lay between two massive mobs of sign-wielding humanity. My 80-plus pounds of stuff and I trundled down the path before I spied my name. I handed my passport to our program director, met my host-mom (though it feels odd to call her that, given that she’s in her early/mid 30s), got in the car, and went home. 

1: Pre-Ecuador thoughts, Aug. 11

            I sit at Gate 14 in Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. It’s 6:30 in the morning. By the end of the day, I’ll be in Ecuador, beginning the greatest adventure of my life to date. Hour by hour, I’m hurtling headlong toward culture shock, altitude sickness, and a sensation of loss of control due to only understanding 60 percent of what any given person says. Yet…I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ridiculously excited to get there.

            I’ve heard so so so much about study abroad, and the ways in which it can fundamentally change a person (for the better, generally). It’s not hard to believe. In six short months, I will have an unfathomable wealth of experiences and knowledge. What would six-months-from-now-Grant have to say to me? ‘Don’t go down that alley on October 16^th?’ ‘Probably shouldn’t buy that funny-looking pink fruit at the market?’ Regardless, all I can do now is try to figure out what I’d like to accomplish and how I’d like to grow in Ecuador.

            High on the list of priorities is Spanish fluency, but I’m not too worried about that. That’ll come; it’ll have to.

            Also high on the list is being comfortable with advocating for myself, especially in uncomfortable situations. In the past, I think I’ve blurred the line between being laid back about things and being too timid to go get what I deserve. I anticipate that Ecuador with force this from me, and that’s something I welcome.

            I’ve decided to try to take any problem or failure (barring serious illness or injury) as not a crisis but a challenge. If I take the wrong bus and find myself in a strange neighborhood, I hope to have the level-headedness to see it as a challenge. I’ll ask some questions and figure it out.

            I’d like to come home with a more internalized understanding of the metric system. I feel like one cannot fully integrate with the global community until one speaks the global language of the metric system. Seriously, it’s so goddamn easy; I’ve just got to figure out how much a kilogram is.

            At any rate, adventures and surprises await!