Ecuador Arrival

Where to even begin… Well, ECUADOR IS AWESOME! Kelsey and I left Portland early at 8:45am on Tuesday, September 18^th, flew into Houston, and then onto Quito. We were exhausted of course, but our Quito flight was incredible. The plane was mostly empty so we had three seats to ourselves, and even got a full meal! Once in Quito we passed through customs, got our bags (both had arrived!), and got in a taxi to head over to our hostel. The nice hostel attendant helped us drag our heavy bags to our back room (the elevation was killing us already), and we brushed our teeth and got in bed, knowing the alarm would be going off at 4:30am the next morning. We had scheduled our flight to Cuenca for 7am the next morning, which, at the time, seemed like a good idea… In retrospect, maybe it wasn’t the best plan. At 5am we met the hostel attendant in the lobby, got into our taxi, and were shuttled right back to the airport. Our flight to Cuenca went off without a hitch (except for having to pay $10 extra to check my backpack because it was too heavy… Oh well), and we arrived in Cuenca around 8am to find all of our bags had arrived there too. Though exhausted, we had planned to meet with other teachers at 10am at CEDEI (where we will be teaching English) to look for housing. So, faithfully, Kels and I showered and headed out at 9:30am. At CEDEI we met Emily, who ended up having appointments to look at two apartments that day. We went with Emily on her visits (only one landlord showed up though), and looked at a third place as well. After that it was lunch, nap, and then meeting up with other teachers that night for a beer and get-to-know-you. The next morning we met up with Emily again to check out the second place from the day before, and then saw an eight-bedroom house. After seeing the eight-bedroom house twice (we had visit the day before too), we decided it was what we wanted. So Emily, Kels, Mark (a friend from Ireland and the only boy in the house), and I said, “yes we’ll take it” without any formal documentation or deposits paid. We went out for a beer to celebrate, and went back to our hostel to collect our stuff and move in that day. Kels and I decided to share a room to save rent (okay, $80/month versus $110/month… Every penny counts here I guess!), with Emily and Mark on our floor, and three other girls on the upstairs floor. By 4pm we were all moving in, and went out to dinner that night to celebrate again. The next morning we had our first CEDEI orientation at 9am, where we met ALL the new teachers (there’s about 30 new teachers, 50 English teachers total at CEDEI) and got our first English teaching run-down and building tour. OVERWHELMED is pretty much all we were feeling, but little by little I think we will understand what we’re supposed to be doing here. After our long meeting, it was more beers, naptime, and then grocery shopping. We went to the mercado for the first time, a large covered building with stacks and stacks of fresh fruit and veggies, potatoes, and a really smelly meat section. We bought some veggies, some potatoes, got overwhelmed again but left satisfied after spending less than $5 on a whole bunch of good stuff. From there it was… Friday night! We ended up going out with our roommate Kat’s boyfriend and his friends, all locals and all Spanish-speaking. The next morning, Saturday, we made an adventure to the “real grocery store”, Supermaxi, where we could find packaged goods and more American-style products. Again, kind of overwhelming (and a half hour walk away), but once we were done and paid only $30 for a bunch of stuff, we were glad we had gone. The rest of Saturday was spent relaxing, shopping for random necessities, and then finished with a movie night interrupted several times by car alarms going off outside. Sunday we had another meeting for CEDEI, where we actually received our class assignments. It all became real, and at that point, OVERWHELMING again. I know teaching will make more sense once I’ve done it for a bit, but at this point I’m a little terrified. Plus I have all 101 classes except one long 301 class, so figuring out how to do ice breakers in English for people that have no previous English knowledge… Kind of difficult. Kels and I began lesson planning Sunday afternoon, and while it felt construed and time consuming, I know with more practice it will become easier and easier. After lesson planning and some dinner, I joined Isabela and Hannah, two other English teachers, at an evening church service. It was great to be in church in Spanish again, and was a very well planned and delivered sermon.

         On Monday, CLASSES STARTED! So I live in a house with five other new teachers, and Sunday evening we were all FREAKING OUT, and Monday evening we were all FREAKING OUT. Because most of us have never taught before, and because we were given little time to plan and little structure, this will definitely be a very foreign and stretching experience.