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Published: January 16th 2010
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Mitad Del Mundo
middle of the world “Un Servicio de Despertarse” (“A Wakeup Call”)
Hoy es Sabado, el 15 de Enero (Today is Saturday, the 15th of January). It is hard to believe that we have been in Ecuador for just about 1-week. One week ago today, we were on the airplane, headed for our new adventure.
And, what an adventure it has been so far. Everyday we have classes, generally in the morning. Classes start after breakfast and go for about 4-hours, with a break for tea. Some days we play games (en Espanol por supuesto!). I made up a deck of cars in Espanol for the “Apples to Apples” game (Manzanas contra Manzanas).
Originally, Andy and I were together with Mariana, and las chicas were with Rosario, but after two days, we decided that it was a better fit to have Ansley in the grupo adulto, and Marleigh has una maestra privada. We are all learning (and I am relearning). Mariana is a superb teacher and we highly recommend her…for anyone thinking about language school in Quito. She also offers lessons via Skype. We are already plotting our future, taking lessons with Mariane, via Skype, when we return.
Living in the
Mitad del Mundo
Marleigh laying both in the north, south and middle hemispheres household with Mariana, her esposo, Fran, and her children, Maria Jose and Jean Pierre, is absolutely wonderful. But, what we have come to realize is that what we take for granted, the basic comforts and expections of our lives - are not so here. I mentioned the papel higienico not going into the toilet and that they have to boil their tap water daily for consumption. Having a car (let alone two!!) is a huge luxury and I think we have counted about four or five personal vehicles. In comparison, on one of our outings, Marleigh counted over 900 taxis. Buses are everywhere; travel is cheap, but very, very, very crowded. Other than travel by bus and some local comida, everything else here costs at least as much as we pay in the United States, if not more. But salaries here are considerably less, and so indeed, this is “una vida muy dura”.
We have taken a couple of excursions into downtown Quito, which is huge. It spans about 22 miles in length and about 2-3 miles wide (as it is in a valley, nestled between the mountains). Excursions in and of themselves are an adventure, and not always a
Mitad del Mundo
The equatorial line dividing the north and south pleasant one…more on that soon. La temperatura aqui varies each day. As the altitude is so high (9,500’), it doesn’t get much hotter than about 70F during the day. At night the temperature is around 40F. But the clouds come and go quickly and it can (and does) rain at any moment’s notice. But the sun here is ‘muy fuerte’ as we are so close to the equator.
Two days ago (Thursday), we had a very interesting adventure. We went to ‘La Mitad del Mundo’ (the middle of the world). It took 3 buses and over 2 hours to get there. Once there, we noticed that the sun was incredibly intense, even though it was not that hot. We visit the monument and took lots of touristy photographs of the equatorial line. There were a number of interesting museums and shops there. Afterwards, we went to this other museum, ‘Intinal’, which supposedly is the ‘real Mitad del Mundo’. I guess through the age of discovery, there were several people who claimed to have first identified the true 0 degree 0 minutes 0 seconds. This place claims to have verified by GPS. More interesting than that is the living history
Mitad del Mundo
Ansley at the Mitad del Mundo of the indigenous people of the area. Before we left, we had a guide show us a few interesting science experiments. One was how the coreolis affect does not exist at the equator (water goes down the drain straight), then the guide went to the south and the water drained in a clockwise fashion and the to the north (10 feet over the line), the water goes down the drain in the other direction. Pretty cool! Supposedly, at the equator, one can balance an egg on a nail, but we were not able to make that happen.
We left the museum at about 1:30, out of water, very hot and tired…and still had to take three buses back. Well, as we got off the second bus, at the Estacion Marin, I felt a bump, we observed a diversion of a boy with a bat attacking a man and then about 2 seconds later, I noticed that my camera bag (Andy’s) had been unzipped and his precious LUMIX camera was GONE!!!
SH*T….I saw nothing and of course I knew better than to have anything around my shoulder, but had a few moments of complacency and in that instant, a $350
Una puente de pie
A foot bridge very close to the house we are living in, Quito, Ecuador camera, a birthday present for Andy, lots of pictures and videos - Gone. I was so mad and upset and Marleigh was crying: “We have to tell the police, mommy”. The other teacher, Rosario, went to find a police, but as we did not see the man who took the camera, there was nothing we could do.
We returned to the house, weary and extremely upset. Mariana tried to console us by telling us numerous stories of thieves attacking people with knives and guns and drugging people…and then also proceeding to tell us personal accounts of being robbed, her husband being robbed and beaten and her daughter being approached. She was trying to show us the distinction between the value of things and people and while I totally concur, it did little to make me feel better…in fact it made me feel even more vulnerable.
So, during our last week here, we will be ever more vigilant about what we carry in our wallet (only 20-30 dollars), no credit cards, a little extra money hidden in our shoe, and I will need to use one of the cameras we had planned to donate to the Fundacion del Arte
Neighbors
Campesinos that live in the house next to where we are staying Mundo. If we can find another cheap camera to buy, before leaving Quito, we will do that. Fortunately Ansley has her own camera to use and did take a lot of pictures of the excursion.
While the people overall are very friendly, due to their economic situation and what they see on a day-to-day basis with ‘extranjeros’, petty crime is very prevalent. We get charged more for goods we buy. On the one hand, I don’t mind paying an extra 20 cents, but it feels very strange and uncomfortable to be targeted.
This afternoon, Ansley will be going to two Quinceneras. She is borrowing a very elegant dress and will be going with Marie Jose and her amigas. It will be a very interesting experience and I hope that she enjoys herself and makes some amigos nuevos. I also hope she can take some pictures and videos for the respective families.
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Marc Blank
non-member comment
Taken again!
Sorry about the camera; let us know if we can help. BTW, you were also taken by the museum guide re: Coriolis effect... There are numerous links about this urban legend/scam (this comment box doesn't allow links or I'd send one of many); it's simply not true (though hucksters in equatorial countries try to make money demonstrating the "effect").