Stories in the rain

Well, its been a bit since I blogged last, and since I have some time on my hands, kind of (WEIRD FEELING) I'll share some stories of Ecuador...

First, the atmosphere: I am wrapped up in an undershirt, shirt, sweater, coat, other coat, and scarf. And I'm inside. The buildings here aren't heated, which makes it very hard to get up on mornings like these, where the rain is constantly pattering on the metal roofs and you walk 15 minutes to the bus stop in this rain (thank goodness for my danskos, which are waterproof and raise my pants out of the puddles). The bell just rang for recreo (lunch/recess time) and now everyone, with assorted sweatshirts and coats diversifying the usual gray sweater uniform, is huddling under the eaves of the classrooms. The most common word I've heard today was "Ay chai chai" which is Quechua for "¡que frio!, this coming from every single student de jardín that rode the bus with me this morning. I plan on typing until I can't feel my fingers.

I have to say, though, I really like the weather here. Its really weird because it doesn't change seasonally...I keep expecting the leaves to turn or the rain to turn to snow, as I hear it is in Alaska. I like waking up in the morning and snuggling under a warm blanket with the air outside chilly. I like how it (usually) warms up during the day enough to be in a tshirt when I'm eating lunch with prebasica. I like how it gets dark at night, and the lights in downtown Otavalo come on. I even like the rain, because unlike Alaska, it only rains a day, or part of a day, and then stops.

Look! Mira! My prebasica kids are learning to color in the lines! They're also learning to count to ten in English. Today, we're writing our names and then learning to order numbers.


Other stuff: I am in love with where I live. There's this whole communal thing: Rosita, Maryam, and I share a room (Just washed the sheets today, YAY) and Mauro is next door (today we spent half an hour knocking back and forth on the wall to the delight of Kendy, the 3-almost-4 year old son of the family next door.) There are other people that share our same courtyard, including a 7 or 8 ish boy who talks to plants and encourages them to grow (only when people aren't watching. I was maybe spying out the window.) and Lovebird 1, who spends long long periods of time giggling and staring at Lovebird 2 on the stairs in front of our apartment (in perfect view from our bedroom. Spying is just so easy)

Its so wonderful to get home from a hard day at school to a huge lunch which has been prepared by Rosita, with Mauro, Belen, Wladimir, and Maryam all happy and relaxed. Its rejuvenating. Then, when in the afternoon, we walk to the Institute to do children's classes or to a community to talk with junior youth or whatever, I have energy. Its not as draining as school is for me.

Another mini-story: Yesterday was CRAZY. It was a Friday, so the kids were crazy. It was a full moon, so the kids were CRAZY. I had a class every single hour, so I was going CRAZY. And Maryam had a flu bug, so she wasn't there for me to rant at, which added to the CRAZY. (Maryam, I'm so glad you're here with me. So glad.) Anyways, the prebasica students started calling me Sophie. "Sophie! Sophie!"  they'd yell. And I'd stand there, hands on my hips, and say sternly "Mi nombre es VALERIE. Que es mi nombre?" and they'd say "Baleri" sheepishly, only to yell "Sophie! Sophie!" once again. I was really confused at first, thinking, how the heck to you get Sophie from Valerie? and then I realized Sophie was their teacher last year. So Sophie, wherever you are, those kids remember you!

I love the family that lives next door. José Luís and Jaconda live there with their two kids Doghma and Kendy. They are such a good example for a loving, functional family. From the joint meals (which they invite us to every once and a while) to the family jump rope sessions to making meals while listening to music and dancing in the kitchen, its just amazing to see the nurturing environment. And the results are so apparant: Kendy is definitely the most advanced English speaker in my prebasica class, and I can tell that he has creativity, social skills, and all around intelligence that's higher than his peers'. Doghma, too is the highest in her class (says Maryam) and has more patience than me, at 3rd grade level!

I love cooking. Our tiny kitchen somehow accommodates cooking for 5 or even 7...a feat I'm surprised at. Our oven is a storage area for flour, leftovers, and bananas (because we don't want the flies to get at them.) We have no measuring cups, so everything is kind of made up as mystery foods. I made pancakes, but didn't know how to describe baking powder (or baking soda) so they were very flat pancakes. I've learned to make some new foods, for instance mystery foods with Mauro:

Me: "¿Que haces? "
Mauro: "No sé"
Me: "¿Como haces?"
Mauro: "No sé"
Me: "Okay. Yum!"

Some days, we go out to eat at the Plaza de Ponchos. In the daytime, its a market: tons of brightly colored fabrics, llama fur stuff, hats, etc. In the evening, everything gets packed away and about 7 yellow tents spring up on one side of the square. In these tents, a family will cook meals, which are ridiculously cheap and ridiculously delicious. There is also a pie shop nearby, which is AMAZING. On most evenings that we eat at the Plaza de los Ponchos, we end the day walking around downtown at night. Its really fun...like mobile people-watching. At first I was surprised, I was like "Adonde vamos?" and Mauro replied "caminamos para caminar" along with a sound effect thats not really possible to put into words...its like psh, but different.

Jeez, I love walking, and having conversations that I only partly understand with Mauro, and talking about everything and anything (literally, from dog breeds to tv shows) with Wladimir. I love hanging out in the room with Rosita and Maryam. I love cooking and washing dishes, albeit with cold water. I love showing Kendy how to water Maryam's cactus, and having conversations through my open bedroom window about The Lion King with him. I love seeing Miguel, a difficult student in 2o de basica, respond to our "secret sign" (I pull my ear when he's doing something good, like sitting in his seat or engaged in class. recently, he's started pulling his ear at me too, like "hey, you're doing good as a teacher too!"). I really love it here. Really.

So thats some of my life. Super long post, but the nice thing about anecdotes? You don't even have to read them all.

The whole deal with toilet paper.

I just went to the bathroom.

Sorry if this grosses you out, but I thought I'd write about the experience, because the whole process is a bit different here.


First difference: here, you have to plan when you go to the bathroom. This is because every Starbucks, Walmart, and Sears (or the smaller, less commercialized equivalents here) don't have bathrooms. So if you're going on a walk, or shopping, there is a very good chance that you're just going to have to hold it for awhile.


Second difference: Toilet paper is not included. In some restaurants, where there is a bathroom, they provide you with "papel higiénico" in the form of a small dispensor in the hallway leading to the bathroom. At school, the office lady controls the "papel": you have to go and ask her to use some before heading off to the office bathroom (See: Awkward). In the classes, each teacher has a roll and when someone needs to go to the bathroom, they ask her/him for some papel. (my high school kids don't ask me for papel though, which kind of freaks me out...)


Third difference: Toilet seats, as it seems, are optional. For instance, for the first 3 weeks, my house didn't have a toilet seat. We solved that (see my other blog for photos) but a lot of public restrooms are without a toilet seat. Which is really really weird. Because I have become accustomed to bringing toilet paper around with me, but its very unrealistic to bring a toilet seat around with you (I tried fitting it in my backpack. No funciona.) So you just have to hover sometimes.


Fourth difference: The toilet paper cannot go down the toilet. So it goes into a little garbage can (hopefully with a lid) next to you. And smells after a few days. But the city picks up the trash every day except Sunday, so if you stay on top of it it doesn't smell too bad...


Fifth difference: The water pressure here is less...strong then in the states. So sometimes, you flush and nothing happens. I will never take a clean flush for granted again. However, there is some excitement with the whole flushing business because if you go to the southern hemisphere (for instance Quito, an hour and a half bus ride away) the water spins the other way. No joke. Here's proof:




So that's toilets. Something I would really love to change, but its all part of the experience, right?

Life in a 26 minute post:

So, I have to be on the bus in 26 minutes (25 now that the page loaded...slow internet) and so I thought I'd speed type (excuse any typos) and talk about my life.

I just came from prekinder. Today we finished making paper bag puppets that look like each student. these puppets are "their english friends". Mine "English friend" is named Elika, and she DOESN'T UNDERSTAND SPANISH. So all the kids need to speak to her in english, or else she ignores them. But they really like their friends. Here's a photo with two of my favorite (except not because I don't have favorites) students:

The one on your right is named Kendy. He's also my neighbor. Sweetest kid alive. And cutest hair. I'll take real-life photos soon, and you'll see. His parents have been very active in the intensive, and every night during our consultation on how the day went, he falls asleep in his dad's arms, which just makes me want to sigh like a great grandmother at a wedding.

The one on the left is Andre. He has eyebrows because in real life, he has very expressive eyebrows. He enjoys speaking in a Batman voice, which really makes it difficult to understand what he's saying. In the mornings, though, when the bus picks him up, he says "Hola chimilinga/o" to every single person on the bus, including me! (I learned yesterday that chimilinga means like, tiny child. But whatever.)

I had colegio yesterday. I had to "be mean"...Like I gave them a seating chart and everything. I felt a little bad but I feel like they learned a lot more than the other time. And, I still let them pick their own groups. Oh! The best news? The textbooks are due to come tomorrow. So cross your fingers...

My colegio has 15 kids. Taking Maryam's advice, I created a participation points system, so they lose points when they're being rude or talking or not following directions. And the improvement was great. I am getting a lot more observation into the whole disciplinary process...I mean, I hated step, and time out, and all that, but I think its worse not having it. Maybe its just that I'm not aware of it, but there's not a real set system of what to do if a kid is acting up in class. You can learn more about this on Maryam's blog, and her experiences.

After school, and on weekends, I've been intensiving. I love intensives. I love Ruhi books. I was in a group that worked on part of book 7, and even in Spanish, the format, font and discussion was so familiar! Its so cool to think about study circles that are going on all over the world, and how similar they all are!

The people are amazing too. Too amazing to describe in the 8 minutes I have remaining. But some anecdotes:
--Yesterday we watched Flight of the Conchords and laughed and laughed. Even Belen, who doesn't speak a ton of English, laughed and laughed. I thought of how a lot of times our intensives with Jamie and Elika and Carol Shoe ended up with us watching FoTC. Parallel! haha.
--We play frisbee! And its amazingly fun, although I didn't describe the rules super well with my limited spanish. But we have a blast anyways.
--We play ukulele! Maryam and I wrote a song, which will be posted as soon as can be. And Marlon plays the guitar! And everyone sings! Its just so musical :)
--Mauro eats powdered milk. I was strongly reminded of my dear sister Cori (WHO WON STATE LAST WEEKEND!!!! SHOUT OUT!!!!) and her affinity to half and half.

Which brings me to: I think I may be subconciously homesick. Because I'm never depressed or sad during the day or at night before going to bed or even in the morning when I wake up at 5:45 (although even if I was homesick I wouldn't be at that time, I'm too tired then to feel anything) but I had some dreams which included my family/Alaska. But really, I'm enjoying it here. Loving it. The independence, the friends, even the teaching. And today is a FREE DAY at the intensive (although I had school...sigh) so we're going to go chill and possibly bake cookies and definitely buy a warm sweater! And play frisbee and eat lunch and--
gotta go!

Some cool things (and some random things*)

So, an update:

I am intensiving! (Except not today, because I was sick today...and then I went to a pharmacy and got a week's worth of cold medicine: 45 cents) But anyway. The intensive is PRO. I am learning so much, not only language wise (try reading the Ridvan 2010 letter and consulting on the main themes, in Spanish!) and just the material. The first day we had this crash course in the administrative order from Baha'u'llah to the regional councilors and LSAs. And its so wonderful, I love working with the other youth from Ecuador, the United States, and Guatemala! My Spanish has definitely grown grown grown in this past week, more than the weeks at school which I spend instructing English! A funny effect of this is that I know lots and lots of words that have to do with the institute process: programas intensivas de crecemiento (intensive programmes of growth), desintegracion del mundo viejo (disintegration of the old world), el desarollo de comunidad (the building-up of the community) but still have problems with some simple words!

I get my share of slang terms during lunch and breaks. And we have some really fun loves, such as:



Which we are all learning to sing (although the only words Maryam and I know are "cuando me enamoro!!" so we sound like "cuando me enamoro doo doo doo doo doo doo do doodo")

Also:



This cracks me up so so so much (and if you speak, have ever taken, or live within 500 miles of a Spanish Speaking country, you will crack up too).

IN OTHER NEWS: Today the police attacked the Ecuadorian President. Because I was sick today, I didn't find out until this evening when Maryam came home and broke the news to me. How weird, huh? The president's okay, apparently the police were annoyed with their pay and promotions or something, so they attacked him for the third time. As a result, we don't have school for the next week (which works out pretty good from a selfish point of view, as I can now spend all my time at the intensive!) and yeah...definitely shows the desintegration of the world, huh?

Oh, and one more thing: check out Maryam's latest blog: she has some really cool quotes by 'Abdul-Baha about cows and birds that are inspiring!

*I'm referring to the fact that the POLICE JUST ATTACKED THE PRESIDENT. That just made me think of the West Wing episode where the President asks his docter "how do I know you're not poisoning me as part of a military coup? Get the Secret Service in here!" to which the doctor replies "in the case of a coup, how do you know the secret service would be on your side?"

Life, or some of it.

So, I had promised my readers (all 22 of you!) that I would post photos and describe my life, now that I've moved into my VERY OWN APARTMENT (uh-huh. I pay rent and everything) and am into the swing of things at school. I've been super busy, and I'm not going to apologize for slacking in the blogging department because its my blog, and if I choose to sleep instead of describe my thoughts, so be it! (I am having this little independence epiphany right now...have you noticed?) Truly, though, one of the things I am learning to do (and reveling in) is making sure I'm able to relax. Its so easy to overextend--so much to see and do--that if I don't take a nap or spend a Saturday doing nothing except sitting at home reading, praying, cooking...I just would crash. So I'm pressing my limits while also making sure I don't crash. Because crashing sounds bad to me right now.

So: life. I am at home! It is a small (3 rooms: kitchen, bathroom, bedroom) apartment that shares a wall with a Baha'i family who also teach at the school. They've been very good neighbors so far, helping us light our stove and hot water heater (with a match!) and dropping off mail and just being friendly in general. Their names are Jose Luis, Jaconda, and they have two children, Kendy and Dogma. Also, some relatives live there too...I'm not exactly sure who...but they're all very nice! Behind our kitchen, we have a little backyard which is full of chickens and children, who belong to the 3 or so houses which share our backyard.

The house has a few quirks, but we live with them. Some of the quirks we couldn't live with, so we fixed them:

Some unfixed quirks include slugs in the bathroom (we've only found a few, but we have no idea where they're coming from), a door without a unlockable latch (we have a padlock but can't actually latch the door without having to break in...don't worry, we're in a very safe neighborhood), and the interesting dilemma of having one working electrical outlet in the kitchen, and no internet in the kitchen, and only semi reliable in the bedroom (better near the ceiling, so we spend an absurd amount of time standing on top of the beds waving our computers around like we're looking for cell reception...yeah, we're cool). We also have no refrigerator (or cabinets, for that matter...but no problems with pests yet...) and so we've been very good about eating leftovers. The weather here is fairly chilly in the mornings and evenings (especially when your shower is randomly semi-lukewarm, another quirk) and because its shady inside, nothing gets warm and spoiled from sitting in the house. And because the weather here is pretty much the same, all year, we probably won't have to get a fridge. The odd food we throw out will be much cheaper than the 300$ expense of a mini fridge here. And we haven't bought meat yet (it looks decidedly unappealing to buy a chicken with feet and neck and head still attached) but we'll get protein from veggies and the once a week eating out (tonight is Chinese! They have a surprising number of Chinese restaurants here...its odd to hear someone speaking Spanish with a Chinese accent!).

So that's our apartment. My favorite thing about it is the bold colors: our bedroom is bright blue, our bathroom this skype-blue, porta-potty color, our kitchen three shades of yellow. We have a miniature kitchen table, bright red, and primary-yellow chairs. My second favorite thing is the thick blankets that keep me warm at night!

Now, school life:


I have a lot lot lot of classes. I am teaching English to las clases de prebasica, segundo de basica, tercero de basica, sexto de basica, octavo de basica, y colegio (preschool, 1st, 2nd, 5th, 7th, and high school) I also teach the preschoolers computers, and I learned today that instead of co-teaching the most advanced english high school class with Maryam, I'm teaching a beginning class (that means giving 50% instruction in Spanish!) of 15, by myself. And I write lesson plans for preschool and high school. So yeah, they keep me busy here.

I think that I am the most surprised of anyone at this, but I am starting to like kids. Yes, it is disgusting when after teaching preschool I discover a booger on my jeans (actually happened. Grossssss!) and yes, it is frustrating when the 6o de basica won't focus on writing and whine whenever we make them write out the date but on the other hand, its so so rewarding when the little 1st graders finally finally stay in their seat and complete the assignment! And its so touching when I miss two days because I went to Quito (ehgf. That's a story in itself. but one for a later day, we video diaried that one) and I come back and three come up and ask where I was, and if I'll still come to class. And for those amigas of mine that love looking at cute children: we have a ton. Here's a few photos:

Danae, a 2o de basica student

Mattias and Charis, two of my prebasica students at lunch

Cute, huh?

So there's what I have for school...when I'm in more of a writing mood, I'll add some more description...but now its time for me to get some dinner!

The Pink Cacti!

THE MYSTERY FRUITS, PART 2:

We weren't even sure if this WAS a fruit. But apparently my dad knew that it was a fruit (thanks, dad, even 5000+ miles away you can help me!) and today, we learned from Paolo that the fruit is called a Tuna (not to be confused with the fish) and it is the fruit of a (get this) cactus!

Laundry Day

Today I was able to finally clean my clothes.


I have not done laundry since I arrived. And before you get all grossed out, I'll have you know that its been 19 days, although it seems like way longer than that to me. So I was definitely in need of some clean socks.

Luckily, José Luis, our somewhat-landlord and friend who lives next door, was very welcoming. He let us use his washing machine. This was a relief to me, because I had seen the other people who live in this same area washing clothes in large tanks outside, by hand. This seemed like a lot a lot of work, especially because the water did not look completely clean. I was so happy to see the little Whirlpool sitting in their kitchen (the house has only a few rooms, and the kitchen apparently doubles as a laundry room). After we finished a load of whites, we hung up our socks in our room (conveniently there is a clothesline hanging diagonally so its always in your way!) and shirts along with the multitude of other clothes in the courtyard. Weekends are laundry days here, and everyone was hanging clothes, taking dry clothes down, washing, etc:

The courtyard behind our apartment

Our room with clean laundry

And so I just thought I'd tell the world: I have clean clothes! (although most are still wet, and its night, so hope it doesn't rain tonight.) I have cold hands! I have to read directions on dissolving laundry detergent better! I have school tomorrow!

Thats it for tonight!