Ecuador!

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Hey everyone! Estoy in Otavalo en Ecuador! And it's weird to type in English! And just weird to type in general because the keyboard is different here. Took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to type the @ symbol to get onto my email. But now I'm pro so don't even worry about it... Let's see... Saturday night I arrived in Quito, 2900 meters, whatever that is in feet, I think about 8500 but don't quote me on that... There was one other volunteer on my flight and then 4 others had arrived the day before. We met our coordinator at the hostel, Villa Nancy, and then went out to a cafe for some coffee/hot chocolate and to talk some about what was going to happen. Then Sunday we had a rules briefing before jumping in our van to go to Otavalo! On the way we stopped at La Mitad del Mundo aka the Equator. We took the stereotypical pictures of us standing one foot on each side and did some special equator activities. The coolest one was the water. It spins clockwise down a sink or toilet in the southern hemisphere, counter-clockwise in the north and straight down on the equator.We experimented doing all 3 of these. It was crazy how only a couple feet from the equator the water formed such a strong whirlpool! We went to the actual equator. There's a monument a little ways away as well but Westerners who put it there were wrong and it got moved about 15 years ago when it was measured with a GPS. And just for the record, the indiginous people were right all along...

Then we had lunch, the traditional potato soup with cheese and avocado. Delicious! Then to Otavalo where we met our families and settled in. I met my mom, grandma, great-grandma (99 years old!), and cousin who lives with the family (she's 8 and in 4th grade). I also have a father and 2 older brothers (Alex, 19 and Andres 21/22, I'm still not exactly sure...). Andres and Juan Carlos, mi papa, are in Quito during the week for college and work and home on weekends. Andres just started his vacation so he has 2 weeks off. Those 2 are the most talkative of the bunch. I've already started speaking spanish (obviously, I guess) and it's of course easier to understand than speak!

Yesterday afternoon we had a tour of Otavalo and Imbaya (the suburb where we live). It takes about 15 minutes to walk into the main part of Otavalo from our houses which are all pretty close together. In the evening we met the 3 volunteers who are already here and talked some more about what's going to happen. We're split evenly between Americans and British. It's weird to have so many Americans in my group after having practically none in the fall!

Today I started Spanish school. For 6 hours. We basically just reviewed the whole time. Some of it was good, other parts were boring. It should be a good help though! And now home for dinner! More later...

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Comments

[anonymous]

I remember having a really hard time finding the @ symbol when I was in Peru