Tonight the...
Tonight the hills are watching her as she runs towards the
sea.
Yeah, she runs so she'll be free.
And of all the friends and enemies she's made along the way,
They are nowhere in her thoughts as she dives beneath the
waves.
Well 6 1/2 months have come and gone since I stepped off the
plain in Quito, Ecuador a nervous, scared, excited, and totally unprepared
Ellie. But now I have developed a group of friends, a routine and an Ecuadorian
life. The feeling is amazing. There were days that I thought that this feeling,
of comfort, in my life would never come, but it has and I love it. AFS said
that you would feel at home after about 4 months then you would have a down period
as you realized that you really didn’t know the culture and the holidays rolled
by then you would really understand life and the culture around 6 months here.
As much as I don’t want to admit it, they were right. Home is finally a word I
can use to describe my life here.
Now, it has been a long time since I last updated. So I am
just going to give you an overview of the last bit of time here in the
wonderful country of Ecuador. A couple of weeks ago were an AFS event called
Intercambio Cuarto (short exchange). This is when all the AFSers change cities
for a week and live with a different family to get to know other places, meet
other families, and get a little bit of a wider view of Ecuadorian culture. We
all picked our cities out of a hat and I’m not going to lie I was a little
disappointed when I got Latacunga, a smallish city about 2 hours from Guaranda.
It wasn’t very different and not nearly as exciting as the beach or Quito, the
nations capital, but I knew I was going to have a good time. Little did I know
how much fun it was going to turn out to be. I arrived in my host family’s
house early afternoon on Sunday morning. We spent a little bit of time at their
home getting settled in, introduced to the family, and getting to know my host
siblings for that week. I was living with two kids, an 11-year-old girl and a 14-year-old
boy. They were very nice and awesome to have around, but I really did miss my
host family back in Guaranda, and my sisters and brothers here. The one problem
with these short exchanges is we don’t go to school but everybody else in our
house normally has to work and go to school. So we were left at home most
mornings just entertaining our selves. The AFS programs in the cities were supposed
to have stuff for us to do, but the AFS coordinator in Latacunaga was not quite
on the ball. But on Monday night I got a call from Alicia, a Belgium AFS
student who lives in Guaranda and who I spend a lot of time with. She was kind enough
to tell me that all the students from Salcedo, a very near by city were headed
to the beach for a couple of days and that I would be welcome to join. Well I
jumped on the offer, as I hadn’t had a chance to see the Ecuadorian beach yet.
And it was amazing. It started out with long night buss ride, where I was one
of the few who was able to sleep, even if I did end up sitting on the floor
(some of my fellow AFSers told me I looked drunk, but I stick to the fact that
it was worth it if I could sleep). Then we spend three days and two nights
enjoying the wonderful town of Atacamas. During the days we slept in, caught a
late breakfast/lunch, went swimming, wandered the shops, chilled on the beach,
read books, took naps, bought gifts for people at home, and finished out the
days going dancing at night. It was a wonderful and very relaxing vacation from
real life in Ecuador. I ate way more fruit than one person is supposed to and
only got sunburnt once, and it was not very bad. Over the entire trip was
fantastic and just what we needed. We were sad to see the beach go, but it was
time to head back to Latacunga and Salcedo. After another very long night bus
ride home that was made even longer because a road had collapsed so we had to
take a major detour we got back home at 5 in the morning. The next day (after a
little bit of sleep) we all rejoined our family for a little bit more of daily
life. I spent some time at my weeklong host family’s store, and watched a plethora
of movies with my 11-year-old host sister. As Sunday morning rolled around we
all piled all our stuff back in our suitcases and hit the bus terminal to head
back home. It was an awesome week, filled with adventure and fun but I was more
then happy to be home with my family and get back into normal routine.
Other than that beach journey life has been quite normal.
The days are filled with school, going to the market, helping in English classes,
doing homework, cooking, cleaning, skyping, and all the other normal things you
would expect in life. I find myself looking at things a whole new way and it
makes me laugh some times. I am starting to think like an Ecuadorian, for example
when I first got here and everybody was wearing aeropostale clothing I was like
“really? Wow, I would not be caught dead in an Aeropostale shirt!” but now the
thoughts have changed to “Is that one Aeropostale shirt I own clean, because we
don’t have to wear uniforms today and I would like to wear that”. I also now
eat meat like I was never a vegetarian, like at least 2 times day. Seeing a man walk down the street holding
live ducks for sale does not make me blink an eye and when my mom makes intestine
soup I eat it like a hungry teenager should. My sense of time has gone
Ecuadorian as well, ohh it starts at 5, I will get that at like 530ish. I guess
you can say perspectives change almost 7 months in a place. But it’s a nice
feeling, this trip has been and is amazing and I am so glad I took it on. It
was the best life choice I have ever done. I know there are and were some
people who thought I was crazy, or not ready, but I am truly proven them
wrong.
Well I need to go and get ready for the day. Today is a
special day, in 12 hours I will be waiting at the Quito airport and seeing my
dear sister come out of the mass of swarming Ecuadorians, then an hour or so
later my two wonderful parents will submerge. I am very excited to see and
travel with my family for the week and a halfish there are here. It will be
wonderful.
I think of many of you often and send my love your way.
Missing is not something that goes away just because you have a wonderful life
and family here. You are missed and I will be excited to reunite with you. Love
to all.
Livin’ life on the loose.
