Cuenca- The beginning

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So, it was our last night in Quito. Our 11 hour bus journey leaves at 5am, but it is our last night, so we (me, Sophie, Kat, and the woman we all love, Lorena) decide to go out, just for a few hours, and catch danee salsa man playing his gig, and fit in some last minute Quito salsaring. Except of course this was soooo much fun, we decided it would actually be easier to make an all nighter out of it, you know, not have the pain of having to get up at a stupid hour in the morning. So at about 330, after long painful goodbyes to danee and his fantastic salsa friends (hahaha) we trudged back to the house to pack. Needless to say SOME people left stuff behind in the rush, but I didnt heheh, how good am I?! But also, of course, we did all fall to sleep, oops, and so ended up racing for the bus, caught it just before it was gonna go. But we made it, and our fun all nighter made it much easier to sleep on the bus...a very good thing on such a long journey.
About 5 hours later, I woke up with a start, to discover the bus was climbing a very dodgy mountain with a very dodgy cliff edge right next to us, which I hate! I thought we were going to die..! Also the conditions were so bad, that you could just see fog out of the window at points, no road, anything, god knows how the driver could drive arrg!
Anyway, eventually we arrive. Now let me describe Cuenca. It is sooo much calmer than Quito, much safer, nicer, richer it seems. However, the part where Im living does have the negative attriubte that it appears to have been scooped up from a suburb in america and dumped here. Tree lined roads, every house has electric gates, flowers, front gardens, maids, you get the picture. In fact, when I got lost on my way home from my first day teaching at this school, because all the houses and streets look the same, I found a man in a guard box, which are dotted around, who knew every family in the neighbourhood, and tok me to my house. Not what I would expect from ecuador!
So my house and the family. Again, could just be described by the word 'American'. Huge massive Sky tv, never seen anything like it, which is continually on american idol arrgg! I have been given a bathroom to use for myself, big room , double bed. I actually have the room of their son who is in england...dover actually...and he was definately a sports fan, as he has hundreds of medals and trophies..for guess what...ICE HOCKEY! how american can you get??!! definately a big fat jock. But they seem nice enough, and I can do pretty much whatever I like so....
Oh yes, I forgot, at night, all the rebel rich kids with too much time on their hands congregate on the streets in the 4x4's and race each other on quadbikes and motorbikes, pumping out the music ooh yeah.
My school. NOw I specificaly said when I applied...I DO NOT WANT TO BE A TEACHER. Especuially to teenagers...no highschools please. So can you imagine my distress, when I arrived, at 650 am (Yus thats right 650) and saw a highschool, an all girls high school, swarming with 15year olds in ankle length pleated green skirts errrg!
Now bearing in mind this is a girls school, I am working there with Jack. Apparently, the girls there have never seen a guy before, Ive never seen so much giggling and pointing and squealing. Of course he pretends to think its ridiculous, but we all know he loves it really. Anyway, so no one seems to know what we are doing here, apart from causing mayhem, until this one english teacher arribes saying "oh i invited them here" So we are introduced to the 'principal' who cant look us in the eye and seems to have a great problem with our presence, i think he thought he was gonna have to pay us or something. meh. Anyway, this teacher seems to think we areusing this experience to help us become tecahers....i now know to teach would be my nightmare job! lol, its not that bad really, but why people do it i will never understand. We get taken into this class of girls (more oooo-ing and squealing, yup, jack) who spend everyday learning how to become bilingual secretaries...now they are only 15, seems a bit restrictive to me....so we are meant helpwith their english. And they definately need help, seen as their teacher (I am just going to have to call her teacher, I just cant rmemeber her name..) has the most awful, grating american squeaky accent I have ever heard. Very loud and high pitched. Lovely at 7 o clock in the morning. In fact , this morning, after struggling to persuade someone to let me in the school, she 'lets' me and jack do the first '15' minutes of her lesson, while she stands in the playground gossiping with other techaers that seem to have nothing to do. So, me and jack walk, groaning, into the class of 30 odd 15 year olds. So we end up playing hangman, pictionary and the guess what famous person I am game. Luckilly, they have no qualms with doing what jack says. He puts me to shame! ( he says..everybody stand on your chair...now! Bang, off they go! Not just for the sake of it, the last one HAD to come and be on, you know the one that draws the picture...) Surprisingly, I quite enjoyed playing these games. Teacher strolls in 45 minutes later. grr. and says...."well you have exams on friday so lets work hard!" ahh dear. I hope pictionary helped them prepare...
We are meant to finish school at 1230.Unfortunately, our teacher leaves school at 930...why I will never know. So as she is the only person who seems to want us to be there she so far has ended up sending us home at 10. Im not gonna argue, these 650am starts are killing me!
At 3pm, its orphanage time, but that is a story for another day. Because its now lunchtime for me! Hmmm, what could it be? Again, give me luck!!
XXX

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