quick tidbits about my ecua life so far:
- flying into ecuador was great. almost half of the people on the plane were international students so it was super fun. i met a girl who was estadounidense (a person from the united states, as ecuador is in south america so they are americans too) but she spoke fluent spanish so she helped me out a bit at the airport when we thought our luggage was lost (it wasnt. it was just all over the place. oh ecuador)
- my host family is great! my siblings are super cute and i love watching cartoons with them (especially bob esponga, or spongebob in english lol)
- living in lumbisí is also awesome. everyone in the community is super friendly and i live down the street from the bus stop
- my spanish sucks right now and im getting confused with things that i definitely know, but i think its just nerves, because when i talk with ppl my age or younger im usually fine. yet when i talk to my host mom, i cant ever find the words to say.
- taking classes in spanish is nuts but i love it (so far). unlike other spanish incidences when people just tend to switch to english because im estadounidense, my professors just speak spanish so im really forced to get better.
- its alot of fun being an international student. the ppl on my trip are pretty cool. i haven got to know them very well but ive gotten to know alot of other international students so im pretty geeked. i finally know how the koreans at u of i feel. theyre always speaking korean with each other and low key it was kinda annoying to me because they seemed unapproachable but i find myself speaking mostly english with the other international students here out of ease. im trying to break this habit but sometimes it just feels good to speak whats familiar.
- there are more black ppl in ecuador then i thought! i stopped counting after i saw 10 the first day lol. being black in ecuador is interesting because i thought id stand out alot but honestly, i dont think people realize that im estadounidense until i open my mouth and attempt to speak spanish, then they stare. for the most part if im walking around lumbisí i think they just assume im a black ecuadorian, because they look at me and greet me like they do everyone else.
- the altitude here is...interesting. its not as bad as i imagined but i definitely dropped my capoeira class because i get tired from walking, let alone doing martial arts! oh well. at least my days end early on monday and wednesday. i plan on using this new time for volunteering in the community!!!
- this campus is wild!!! since its only 20 years old its sooooo pretty. its significantly smaller than u of i but its more confusing because all of the buildings are kinda connected. i had a class in one building that you could only access through another building; it didnt have its own entrance.
- ive taken zero pictures so far. sorry guys. ill try to get on it.
goals for the next two weeks:
- learn my way around lumbisí and be able to go shopping there.
- feel comfortable on the bus
- learn my way around this crazy universidad
- keep God at the center of this trip!
Just wait until you go to the coast! Everyone there is black, there's a lot of Caribbean sort of influence... everyone probably thinks you're from Esmeraldas.
ReplyDeleteNooooo Capoeiraaaa!!! You'll get used to the altitude really fast I swear, it only takes about a week until you can actually keep up with the Ecuadorians. My first Aerobics class was hell, but it helped that my other friend from Chicago was with me, and then we had fun and got used to it together. Volunteering is the best though :) You might get a little workout there chasing children around! Keep me updated on where you end up working! (That's what I get geeked about, haha)
Don't worry about the bus too much! You'll get it, and then later in the semester you'll look back and be like, bus? difficult? what? I do that every day!