just some random details concerning my life in ecuador.

it seems like my blog posts are getting fewer and far between, and i apologize. it is not for lack of happenings. life has picked up a bit lately. i finally have an actual routine, complete with three hours of spanish class a day. and while nothing super significant has happened, some little funny things have happened. after all, life is in the details...





that makes me uncomfortable.

i´m not that easily embarassed, but a few things have made me really uncomfortable in the past few weeks.


first, we don´t have a washer/dryer in our apartment. this is normal. it is also completely normal for one to take their clothes to a lavanderia - a laundromat, of sorts, where they do the laundry for you. well last week was the first time i had to take my laundry... literally all of it. i was confident in my choice of lavanderia because i had gotten a recommendation from a friend - near the apartment and has the low price of 35 cents per pound. not bad. i hauled, i think, 15 pounds of laundry there, almost all of my clothing, and definitely all of the *neccessities. i handed my massive laundry bag to the hombre and, to my detriment, he proceeded to count out every single peice of clothing before placing it in the scale... every shirt, every sock, and every pair of underwear. just a little uncomfortable, but i´m getting used to it.

also, it´s pretty obvious that one of my students has a crush on me. he likes to make little comments about it in class. i´m not saying this out of conceit. believe me, you do not want an ecuadorian 19-year-old to have a crush on you.



bus stories.
we take a lot of bus trips in ecuador. they realy aren´t too bad. usually pretty ghetto-fabulous with fringe hanging from the windows and orange carpet on the ceiling. if you´re lucky, sequins and at least one virgin mary figurine.



on many of these bus trips, however, there were three of us (leah, dani, me), forcing one of us to sit alone. naturally, i found myself sitting by ecuadorian strangers more than once. this is where you have to try to play your cards right and not end up beside someone who doesn´t value personal hygiene or drools and/or snores while sleeping.



my favorite stranger to share a seat with so far was santos. santos is a preshy little indigenous man who wasn´t afraid to strike up a conversation with a gringa. he was the first indigenous person i had a real conversation with, maybe because most of them speak only quichua, but also because i had always been afraid to talk to them.



in our short time beside each other, i learned that he had eight kids, five girls and three boys, he lived a little ways outside of quito, and that he taught quichua, among other things. he also looked out for my belongings when i dozed off. it was just a neat experience to talk to someone who clearly came from quite a different world.




and another neat thing happened.



on these buses, it seems at every stop, at least a few people get on to sell their good of choice. usually food of some sort. they walk around and offer samples, and make another round for people to purchase.



so on one of these particular bus rides, we were famished. like, probably about to just waste away. finally, a man gets one selling some type of nut, or chip, or little fried thing. i don´t know. as he walked around offering samples, dani waves him over, ¨she wants one!¨she says, pointing to leah. so naturally starving leah takes the sample. i tasted it too.



tasted like a mixture of burnt peanuts, lard, and... hmmm... dirty gym sock juice.



he comes back around and when leah politely declined to purchase, he was not happy. he gave her a good, long glare, and under his breath uttered a certain spanish superlative, ¨puta.¨



that´s spanish for bitch.





home.

i finally have a home! we moved in two weeks ago, and wasted no time getting settled in. after nearly two months of living out of a suitcase and hopping from host family, to hotel, to hostel, having a place to nest could not come soon enough.

and now that i´m here, in my nest, reality is setting in. my life here is real, and semi-permanent. i´ll admit that the first month or two felt somewhat like a vacation, or at least like an extended study abroad program. but for three weeks now, i have gone to a real job, bought things like sheets and towels, and got my own set of keys to my apartment. i really live here. it's still a little unbelievable, but i like it. i like it a lot.