Advertisement
Published: November 12th 2006
Maylas Lake
all ours for a day, out in the mountainsHey all, it's Carly checkin' in. It has been a while since my last blog, and although sometimes it feels like I have nothing to do here, I really have been up to a lot. Still in Gualaceo, and in the middle of a 10 week term, in which I have 3 classes, some of which drive me crazy and others that I love. Also have been teaching twice a week at a local preschool, and the kids are gorgeous, if a little terrifying sometimes. Then on the weekends we have been living it up in the wonderful (and free) natural wonders of Ecuador, some of which are right at our doorstep. If anyone is travelling to South America and wants to see nature in all forms, Ecuador has it - rich green mountains, jungle, beach, islands, and every kind of ecosystem you could think of, with some eucalyptus thrown in for a taste of home (it’s everywhere)! Really not much to complain about!
Let me start with my classes. I start teaching at 4.30pm (nice sleep in) and finish my 3rd class at 8.45. Skip this part if you don’t want to hear me whine! my first two classes
My 101 class
working away hard as usual
are 103 level, which is upper beginner, although some of my students should be back in 101 it seems….sometimes you get these people who come to class but don’t really know why they are there. No motivation, no inclination to speak the language they signed up to learn, or just plain shy. It’s difficult to teach English to someone who doesn’t want to use the language or take risks. Then there are the restless teenagers who get bored easily, don’t listen and continue to ask me simple questions in Spanish when I know they can do it in English. arrrgghh!
Then at 7.30 I come to my 101 class, and I’m so glad, because they are fantastic. This is a 15-strong (they barely fit in my classroom) bunch of motivated and fun adults, who all get along really well and love to learn. They also get really competitive in games, it’s funny to watch 15 adults miming “pilot” frantically in a game of occupation charades!
And the best part, they organised “un paseo”, a picnic for the class, which we went to today and had a great time. It was at the ‘weekend house’(some of them are quite
Mis amigos 1
Edwin, Marcelo, Mariuxi and Javier cooking up a fine lunch well off for Gualaceans) of Rosario and her daughters Paulina and Karina, a beautiful wooden house right next to the river, complete with volleyball court and hammocks to relax in. they said to bring food, so I made guacamole and a special Ecuadorian avena drink, but that was dwarfed by the ton of meat and carton of beer that also appeared. The custom for a Gualacean picnic, and it seems any affair in Ecuador, is to bring a huge set of speakers and pump out reggaeton or salsa into the quiet country air. Not my kind of relaxation, but it provided a festive atmosphere, while we played cards (learnt a new game ‘el burro’) or soccer. Greg and I even tried to teach everyone some Aussie touch football, but they kept cheating by throwing the ball forwards! It was a great day, and now I have some new friends!
The kids at Nene’s preschool are gorgeous, and even though I sometimes dread going there at 9am on a Tuesday, I always walk away smiling with the whole lot of them sceaming “bye bye tia carly!” after me. I teach about 20 mins to each group of niños, the first
lil critter
this one is actually a terror, she gets that little evil glint when she's about to cause havoc are toddlers who barely speak a word and often start tearing at each other half way through, but they watch with a vague wonder my attempts at getting them to say “fish” or “cat”, and laugh with delight when I bring out my colourful Inca parachute flag to play with. The second group are 3-4 year olds and still prone to a little tantrum or two, but they usually remember the colour yellow at least, and even say “good morning!” when I come in. I have favourites of course, and they are all in this class, like little Samantha who repeats nearly everything I say with the cheekiest smile and cherub curly hair. Oh no, it’s my maternal instinct coming out….the last group are the oldest but still under 5 yrs, and can be damn sneaky little buggers, distracting me and mucking about with my tape player while I’m not looking. They argue with me about names, saying “vaca” when I’m saying, “yes, but in english, cow!” it’s testing and tiring, but so much fun, and I like being creative with the kids. Fernanda, the manager of the school, has commended me on my creativeness, drawing farms and making little
bees on sticks and fish on fishing rods! Yay!
A couple of weekends ago, Greg and I, bored with this nothing-to-do-town, caught a bus to the middle of nowhere to find a mysterious lake that we had no directions for and had no idea how long it would take! The bus wound along perilous cliffside roads for 40 minutes, then dropped us on the side of the road with not a sign in sight. A shy family that happened to be picnicking nearby (this was seriously in the middle of nowhere in the mountains) told us to walk half an hour up the hill, so we followed a scrubby path and eventually found a pristine lake surrounded by prestigious mountains, Maylas. Greg tried to fish with his homemade line, but it kept getting stuck in the reeds, and he was sunk knee deep in black mud! The air was crisp and it threatened to rain, but we had a refreshing mountain lunch (no fish tho). We were told later that the region has a few osos, bears, but they don’t eat extranjeros (foreigners) so we were fine. We are going to take a bunch of our friends from Cuenca
La Hacienda
brilliant orange pottery punctuates the green and grey valley there next weekend, for a nice little paseo in the mountains.
Another adventure in the beautiful Ecuadorian countryside involved a trip to a private hacienda with a special little tour organised by our friend Kendra, a teacher in Cuenca. In usual form, we rode in the back of a pickup half an hour, (well, me in the front talking Spanish with the owner of the hacienda) and arrived in the fresh air at the trout farm/cuy(guinea pig) farm/fledgling tourist ranch. We climbed through a dark Lord of the Rings-like forest until we reached a little river, which we then slipped and slided up for about half an hour, obtaining a few nice bruises on the way. The water was so cold and pure that Greg couldn’t help hanging over a waterfall to take a sip. We bashed through shoulder-high grass until I was sneezing from allergies I didn’t even know I had, and I had to take an anti-hystamine which left me dopy and dozing for the rest of the day! We checked out the cuy (pronounced coo-ee) pens where about 500 of the little critters resided, waiting to be paraded in prize shows when they grew to 8
Cascada Fresca
too good to resist pounds, or roasted on a stick if not so lucky. Our lunch was a full battered trout, salad and these addictive little yellow potatoes, mmmm buen provecho! The only problem arose when it started to pour and then hail, making a trip in the back of the truck a bit uncomfortable. But we made it back to Cuenca, and said goodbye to our Aussie friends Wendy and Elise, who are off on their travels now. Bien viaje!
Last week it was Kyle’s birthday, and the only thing he wanted was to get drunk, in our newly appointed “Zhumir Club” (the local licor, made from sugar cane, nasty and cheap). So we all went into Cuenca to stay at Berenice’s house, our very knowledgeable and sociable Cuencano friend. Unfortunately I happened to contract sinusitus or something equally icky that kept me on drugs all weekend, so no drinking (well, a tiny bit). Mostly I stayed inside and watched movies, a welcome change! We got Kyle a snazzy hat for his cumpleaños, but it didn’t fit so we made a little trip back to the old hat shop, where the hat maker man has been working all his 85-or-so years. He
Hat shop, Cuenca
the famous Panama hat actually comes from Cuenca...I didn't believe it either till I saw this shuffles around helping you find just the right one from all the hats on the wall, making wheezing sounds because he has lost his voice, and you can see pictures of him on the wall from the newspaper and with famous people over the years. He’s a real personality, and his joyful wrinkled smile just warms you to the core.
The rest of the weekend we spent sitting in the park watching hippies juggling and performing acrobatic stunts, because it was a big weekend for Cuenca’s independence and everyone had come to town. As I sat drinking in the sun by myself, a bunch of raggedy kids stumble over and the first thing they say is “¿Esta rica?” (are you rich?). I say no, and they hang around curiously and tell me they are from all over the place, Brazil and Chile and Peru and Switzerland (I think I heard Suiza), and about their hippie parents and what they do for a living. I told them about kangaroos and Australian football. They wandered on, and I just thought, what curious and wonderful moment will the day bring me next?
So life here is ambling along, as we rapidly
Little ole' hat man
Greg and Kyle get into the Cuencano style approach our departure date of just before Christmas. Then off on the backpacking life yet again, leaving this little slice of a life behind. So many things to remember! I hope I have not bored you all, I do tend to ramble a bit. Email me and tell me to shut up! Or just say hi…chao, muchas besitas a todos
-carly
p.s. these are the lyrics of a pop song by Paulina Rubio that I constantly hear on MTV when I'm here in the internet café. It's not bad, and you should check out the video, she's one hot chick wearing a gold lycra superwoman suit! have fun
Ni una sola palabra
ni gestos ni miradas apasionadas
ni rastro de los besos que antes me dabas
hasta el amanecer.
Ni una de las sonrisas
por las que cada noche y todos los días
sollozan estos ojos
en lo que ahora, te ves.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.067s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 54; dbt: 0.0302s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
