On the Loose

On the loose to climb a mountain

On the loose where I am free

On the loose to live my life

The way I think my life should be

For I only have a moment and the whole world left to see

I’ll be looking for tomorrow on the loose

(This is my song for Ecuador, keeps me going. Gotta love camp songs.)

As I sit here, next to my sister, sipping passion fruit juice that we just made from fresh passion fruit down, I realize that I am living the life of the rich people.

As I grew up whenever my family has having a particularly good connection or just a really good time one of my parents would always quote one of the families favorite childhood books and say, “This is the table where the rich people eat.” Not meaning literately rich, but life is rich, full of excitement, love, and happiness. It soon evolved into “this is the mountain where the rich people climb” or “this is the lake that the rich people paddle.” I now see it as a family saying that we have the fortune of being able to use quite often. And right now I realize that I am walking a path where the rich people walk. Now this doesn’t mean that every minuet here is easy. In fact I have quite a few minuets that are super hard. For example, this thanksgiving will officially be the longest time that I have not seen my sister. That is a daunting and hard thought, but I know it will be ok. I have a very supportive and caring family here that is doing everything possible to make this year amazing. And they are. The roller coaster ride will continue and I will love and take in every minuet of it. 

So everyday little life events.

Last Thursday was a huge celebration at my school for the incoming kids to the college (high school). It was very elaborate and exciting. It started with a marching of all the little kids into the middle of the basketball courts by all the 6 years, equivalent of high schools seniors. All of the 6^th years (including me and the other exchange students, Alicia and Giulia) we dressed up as characters. I got the pleasure of being a witch while Alicia was the queen of hearts from Alice in Wonderland and Giuila was an angel. We marched them around for a little bit. Then another large group of 6^th years came on carrying a person dressed up as a corpse. They did this long elaborate ceremony and brought the corpse back to life. Then the corpse proceeded to run around yelling and scaring all the little new comers. After this there we are variety of other aspects to the play-like-thing, like a church service for the corpse and lots of random dancing when the DJ felt it was right. Proceeding this 45-minute corpse show there were many groups of people who put on little skits or danced. They would get all dressed up, give the DJ there music and there was their little moment of fame to perform in front of 1000+ people. Well of course you couldn’t have a show with out embarrassing the gringas (white girls) at least once. So we were informed that we were going to sing a song in English. We spend the 2-day we had been given attempting to make three peoples, who don’t sing in front of people or really very much at all, mesh together. This turned out to be more of a challenge than expected. But we did it. We entered the stage, as the closing act, and sang Katy Perry’s song Hot N Cold for the whole school and many people from our town. It was an experience that is for sure. And if you ask me, we did a pretty good job at it. J

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I needed to start running again. I had stopped running because it is such a different sport here. Nobody runs here, and of the few nobodies that do run, they are all middle-aged Ecuadorian males. A tall, white, female runner… funny joke. So it wasn’t ending up being the same experience running as in the USA. I will get cat called at and honked at and just generally stared at. Its not the mental break that I am used to. But it needed to happen. When was now the question, in the afternoons I often have other stuff and am just generally lazy. Nights, well that is when I sleep. So it was looking like the morning was my best option. I have been getting up 2 hours before school starts to run. That puts my typical run at about 5am. It’s brutal but so worth I for my mental and physical health. This week I get to run at 6am because we have finals and school starts later then normal. I really like this because I get to see the city wake up. I often do this 15-minuet loop about 3 times. This really is an awesome way to watch the day starting. This morning on my first loop I watch a woman walking pushing her packed up vender stand with her school aged child. The second loop they were setting up the candy stand out side of a local school and by the third loop they were selling to the younger children who started school earlier because they didn’t have finals. It was very cool to watch the city come to life and get my exercise at the same time. J

Life is going. Life is good

Livin’ life on the loose.

It’s all a cross-country race

Those pre-race jitters are the worst you have ever had. You worry. Did I train correctly? Am I hydrated? Was my preparation good? Why am I doing this? But yet, you are more excited than you have ever been. Then that gun goes off and with roar your engines kick in. No more time to prepare… you are thrown head first into a mud, hill, and victory filled adventure. You are off and flying. That first stretch to that first red flag is exciting, exhilarating, and filled with excitement. Then you turn left… after that it’s a mystery, you are running in to a world unknown. There will surely be roots to trip you up; will it be in just a stumble or a full-face plant? You are going strong. Everything is new. The feeling that you are running and will never stop pulses through your body. You see things from a new perspective; everything in beautiful, but then it sneaks up from out of nowhere… a wall. You hit it, hard. Now you wonder if you will ever be able to break threw it, to finish the race strong. But you run on, you have no other choice, quitting is not an option. Run through injury and pain and they don’t make you drop out but more determined to make this the best race ever. You round the corner and the sight of those girls streaming in front of you and the sound of spikes behind you urge you on. You are again off and running. Feeling wonderful, the thought flits across your mind, “how does it go from wonderful to bad to wonderful in such a short amount of time?!?” Then you remind your self that it has ups and downs, but the ups so out weigh the downs that it is ALWAYS worth it. You pass a sign a road marker… mile one, it reads. The middle of the race, you settle in for the long haul. Content and happy but with a flitting feeling of worry and exhaustion, what will come next… a root, a hill, a surge of energy or just flat coasting. Into to he darkness you charge… ready for next adventure.   

Livin' life on the loose. 

Wondrous stories

Hearing hearing your wonderous stories

Hearing your wonderous stories

It is no lie I see deeply into the future

Imagine everything

You're close

And were you there

To stand so cautiously at first

And then so high

As he spoke my spirit climbed into the sky

I bid it to return

To hear your wonderous stories

It has been a while since I have updated you. So this blog post is going to be about a lot of little stories from my life in the past week.

Lets start out with now, as some of you may know I am helping this really cool American in Guaranda help teach English some afternoons. I am really enjoying it and end up doing it most days that there is class. Hannah (the other American) is headed back to the states for a few weeks so there will not be class, but she needed to give one last test. So I am covering for her and am the teacher in charge today. I am currently writing this while the 3 kids that showed up for advanced class today take the test. Its pretty fun if you ask me, I mean today is not the most climatic day because I am just chilling while they take there test, but that’s ok. Ecuadorians have a special skill… cheating… you can put them in different rooms and they can still get answers off each other (ok maybe not quite, but it seems like that). This blog post might be a tad choppy because I have to interrupt it with glanced up and possible warnings. Anyway… being a teacher has been something that I have wanted to do since about 4^th grade, and this is just solidifying my desire. Who knows where life will take me, but it would not be a surprise if it took me, as least for a while, to do ESL (English as a second language).

Last week was Ferrio, basically just holiday. The main event in Guaranda was Day of the Dead, but Cuenca (a huge near by city) had its large yearly festival and Latacunga (another city) did as well. It was a 5 day, much appreciated weekend. My family seemed to do a different thing every day. On Wednesday we headed out to a near by town and ate Cuy. Cuy is a traditional dish of Ecuador that is, to put it bluntly, skewered roasted guinea pig. It was ok, but as I am not a huge fan of meat and I thought that Cuy had a sort of fishy taste it wasn’t my favorite part. But it was a must have Ecuadorian experience. After that we headed out to a near by church that is located on top of a mountain. It was amazingly beautiful and a great walk. The day was very relaxed and wonderful. The next day we got up at 5:30 to head to a town about an hour and a half away and we went to a local water park. Although it wasn’t large compared to the dells it was a fun morning with the family bobbing up and down in a wave pool and making chains going down the waterslides. I was a little (ok a lot) terrified the whole time that I was going to have to pull out my life guarding skills and save somebody. Most Ecuadorians have very poor swimming ability and the lifeguards supplied by the water park all were wearing life vests, not a boost to my confidence. But we made it through the day with only sunburn. Whew. The rest of the weekend was spent doing different activities closer to home in Guaranda. The most memorable would be what I would call, the Jamaican go cart races in cool running equivalent of boat races. People showed up with boats in various states of disrepair and revved their engines around a small lake for about 3 hours. Then there was a race, but I didn’t know when the race started so it was very anticlimactic. I only figured out that it started when it was over… and everybody started clapping as one boat took a victory lap. Jaja.

The last Ecuadorian adventure that I have time to tell you about today is my next medical saga. As many of you know, I got bit by a dog, while running, on Sunday. I was just jogging along and bam… it was attached to my rear end. What is up with that? It took enough motivation to get my self out anyway that getting bit by a dog on top of that… lets just say I wasn’t happy. I am now 4/7 done with my shot series for rabies. Yep… they are in my stomach. Not fun, but better than rabies… and a good story later. J

Livin’ on the loose. 

Everything’s Just Wonderful

Everything's just wonderful,

I'm having the time of my life.

10 Things I have learned in Ecuador:

1) How to be flexible. This is truly one of the most important things for Americans to learn and realize when they step into the world of Ecuas. We are used to always moving always doing stuff and never having time to just drop life and do what needs to be done. Here… you run into your grandma in the street, well that meeting can wait. It’s times to talk, catch up, and share a moment together.  It was hard at first, but I find that I really enjoy the fact that people and connections often come above all other.

2) How to eat rice like its nobodies business. My US family knows that the meals with a base of rice aren’t my favorite. Well here that is not an option. If I didn’t eat rice I would literately not be eating anything. Rice is the starch of choice for lunch, dinner, snacks, sometimes breakfast, and any time you’re hungry. Just put that spoon in the rice pot and you have a snack. I now love rice and know how to cook it so its fully and yummy. New diet staple for me.

3) How to daydream. Ok I don’t know if this is good or bad, but it’s something I have become an expert at. Because of the mentioned above #1 you often finding your self waiting… what better way to pass the time than daydreaming?!? Popular topics include: camp, FGC Gathering, food, the next day, my family… pretty much anything works.

4) How to eat meat. Ok so maybe I knew how to do it, but I have never eaten meat like this before. Two times a day… at least. Changing from a vegetarian to this… quite the new thing for this girl. True life.

5) How to take a bucket bath. I guess I am relearning this on because it was a specialty of mine when we lived in Tanzania, but it takes some talent and planning (not using all the hot water) to get all the conditioner out of you hair… and believe me… you regret it if you don’t.

6) I am now a master at Skype. As it is my only means of verbal communication with the States it has become a good friend of mine. I can fix most problems (not all) and went from having now idea how to navigate it to being a beast at it.

7) Sleeping through anything… dogs barking, music playing, drunk people yelling, your sisters boyfriend spreading “te amo” in wood chips out side of your window and lighting them on fire (I didn’t sleep through Vicky barging into my room telling me too look out the window though. J), just about anything… if you want sleep here this is a much needed skill.

8) I have gotten some pretty crazy clauses from writing everything in school. While we have books these are not used very much at all and everything has to be written down. When you have homework you must write the question (in red) and the answer (in blue). We take a ton and a half of notes and short cuts are just not appreciated here.

9) Make empanadas. That’s right… I can now make the amazing little fried pockets of queso. And dang are they good. I may be a little slower at making them than the average Ecuadorian, but I am getting there. J

10) Spanish… sorta. Ok so much Spanish is so much better than it was when I came here. I can have conversations and get understand most of what people say. I am still learning and it’s hard to incorporate all the different tenses, but if I think about it I can do it. Its’ coming along. 

Dancing Through Life

Dancing through life

Swaying and sweeping

And always keeping cool

Life is fraughtless

When you're thoughtless

Those who don't try

Never look foolish

Dancing through life

Mindless and careless

Make sure your where less

Trouble is rife

Woes are fleeting

Blows are glancing

When you're dancing

Through life...

Well its time for a blog post and I decided that it was time to do the classic blog post: un dia en mi vida (a day in my life). For reasons mostly revolving around the fact that I don’t have a typical weekend day (or at least haven’t yet) I am going to do the best to summarize a typical weekday.

5:40- If I have to take a “shower” this morning I roll my butt out of bed and head down stairs to put a hug pot of water on the stove.

5:41-5:59 Chill… sleep, watch TV, or go on face book till the pot of water is nice and hot for my “shower”.

6:00- One of two things are happening.

1)    I am carrying my huge pot of water up stairs and poring it into a tub of cold water that it will mix with to make a semi warm bucket bath

2)    My alarm goes off and I scramble to find it while my host sister (who often sleeps next to me because my beds bigger, and really I don’t enjoy sleeping in a twin bed alone, to much empty space, and we chat (to the best of our ability) till we go to bed. Its quite nice actually) wakes up and we both decided its to early.

6:08ish- I am either

1)    Getting out of the shower and heading back into my room to get Vicky (my host sister) out of bed.

2)    Dragging my butt out of bed and getting moving.

6:08-6:40- I get dressed in my uniform, straighten my bangs if I took a shower that morning (if not a pony tail is always in order), and all that good stuff. I also do 5 minuets of core every morning… exercise is so not prevalent here so this is my way of doing something small to say semi a little bit in shape.

6:40- Run downsairs with my backpack because I am always late.

6:40-6:47- Eat a piece of bread and drink a cup of “aguawita” or instant coffee, what ever is given to me that morning. 

6:47-get a call from Giulia my cousin who walks to school with us (Vicky and me) and we head down the two flights of stairs to street level where we meet up with her and do “hola’s” and “que tals” and of course the typical kiss on the cheek.

6:47-7:00- Walk to school and chat about how our last night was and how much we are not looking forward to whatever double periods we happen to have that day.

7:00-7:40- First class. (This changes by the day but for sake of you and I not going crazy with my full schedule we are going to use a Tuesday.) English… this is one of three things for me; a letter writing class, a class that I get to practice my reading aloud, very slowly, skills as I end up reading most of the text book, or a class that I get to practice my (possibly) future profession as a teacher because I end up teaching most of the material and translating a heck of a lot.

7:40-8:20- Second class. Physical Education. Tuesdays are good days for me because I have P.E. Now I am not saying that I enjoy endless basketball drills and marching. But I do get to wear my P.E. uniform all day, and for those of you who know me… pants are 100 times better then a skirt. So it’s a good day.

8:20-9:00- Third class. Computers. Now when I first heard this I thought I was going to be simple. Given that most people here don’t have access to computers a lot I thought I was going to be typing and such. But no, when they say computers they mean programming, and I don’t know computer talk in English… in Spanish… fun. But at least we get to have partners because there aren’t enough computers for us all, so that helps a ton and a half.

9:00-9:20- First Break. This means a snack of some sort; typically kids in my class are selling food that the money is going towards our end of the year graduation trip.

9:20-10:00-Physics… not too much to say about this. Its physics…

10:00-11:20- Double investigation. This is a class where we talk about different things everyday. I don’t know the main theme of the class… I haven’t been able to figure that out yet. Hah.

11:20-11:40- Second break. More food, chatting, last minuet homework.

11:40-12:20- Vocational orientation. This is a class meant to prepare the oldest grade for leaving school and heading out into the real world. We talk about different types of people and different jobs.

12:20-1:00- Drawing, this is not a normal art class. This is a class devoted to drawing buildings and their interiors. Its hard, but a good change of pace.

1:00-School is over… or it was over way before this, because we get out early probably about half the days for some reason or another. School assemblies, thunder, no water… anything.

1:00-2:00- Lunch of soup, rice, some sort of meat and a small savory salad with the family.

2:00-3:00- I normally just end up chilling in my room. Skype, facebook, journal, blog, whatever needs doing.

3:00-6:30- I head out with friends, go visit family, or do homework. I try to get out and do stuff because it’s a lot more fun then just chilling at home, but some times that opportunity doesn’t present its self.

7:00-8:00- Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays… I head out to the equivalent of Ecuadorian Zumba. An Ecuadorian dance workout class. It’s a fun time and it exercise that I can do with others and feel good about.

8:00- Dinner- almost always leftovers from lunch.

8:30-9:30- Watch movies or chill with the family. They also really like to take car rides around the city. My brother drives and much engine gunning and smelly car go on. Haha.

9:30- Bed, I get Vicky and we head off to bed. An early morning is coming.

That is a summery of my day… as average as they get. It never actually goes like this, but for sake of this blog post this is a good summery. Love and miss you all.

Livin’ Life on the Loose.

Circle Of Life

It's the Circle of Life

And it moves us all

Through despair and hope

Through faith and love

Till we find our place

On the path unwinding

In the Circle

The Circle of Life

Not going to lie… I am quite tired so this one is going to be short. But it has been well over my week goal so I am gong to squeak one in.

Last Thursday I arrived at school like any other normal day. Apart from the guys selling encyclopedias to the excited student crowd I didn’t see anything strange as I entered the school. But slowly as I walked to my classroom I noticed groups of the older students huddled together talking in low, quite, almost sad tones. I didn’t think much of it; often this just meant they had a test they had forgotten about or something of that sort. But when I entered my normally crazy, loud, and loca classroom full of girls they were all huddled I groups crying and hugging each other I knew something was wrong. I walked up to one of my better friends in the class and trying to sound sad (even though I had no idea what was going on) asked what had happened. Turned out that one of the English teachers had died the night before in a mix up with here pregnancy at age 54. I gave all my friends huge hugs and tried to help where I could.

We then just sat in our room like it was a normal day; nobody came or left, except for the inspector to have the usual yell at us for our skirts being above the knee. Then somebody came in and told us all to go home and change into our nicer uniforms. I didn’t understand why (nor did I have the nicer uniform tailored yet), but it didn’t seem to be a big deal because nobody moved. But half an hour later a woman came in and told us all to take our stuff and leave, she then proceeded to lock the classroom behind us. At this point all the class presidents (and when I say class I mean from each class room, not the whole grade) left to get flowers and one by one everybody else left to change their uniforms. Eventually I left with my host sister and went home where she changed into her nicer uniform and I changed out of my gym uniform into my skirt and sweater. When then headed back to the school where the whole school had lined the main street of Guraranda for the funeral procession to come threw. The family and car with the casket walked down the street and into an area with a stage behind the school that I didn’t know existed. Slowly the whole school filed in after the family and faced a stage with over 60, what I would call, arranged flower centerpieces and the casket on it.

The priest entered and proceeded to get dressed on stage in front of the whole school and then gave about an hour and a half sermon. The service was ended by handshakes then everybody sat back down and friends and family went up and gave speeches about her and her life. This was all concluded at about 11 when everybody left to go home for the day, because clearly no more schoolwork was going to get done.

Later that afternoon there was a church service at the local church for her as well, much of the school attended this service, but I opted to hang out with some other AFS friends, I had had quite enough Spanish speeches and crying for one day. But it was an experience that is for sure.

Livin’ life on the loose. 

Take a run on the Wild Side

A Hustle Here And A Hustle There

New York City Is No Place Where They Said:

Hey Babe, Take A Walk On The Wild Side,

Said Hey Honey, Take A Walk On The Wild Side.

It’s been more then a week since I have last written, life has been crazy. But here is an update. 

I was having some problems with my host mom and wasn’t very happy. I am not quite sure what was going on, but it was clear that I needed to change families. But I really didn’t want to go to a whole different family because that was going to be a huge change that I was not ready to take, but I was able to move in with my host uncles family. They were super nice and are very welcoming. The transition has been quite smooth and I am grateful for that. My family now has a dad, Hilbert, a mom, Fernanda, and a host sister, Vicky. They are all so nice. Vicky is my age and goes to my school. She is in my grade, but in a different class. She has been the best in-terms of welcoming me and making me feel at home. I am so excited to be here and look forward to having many adventures with this family. They are awesome. I, of course, have to deal with the whole “being a guess in the house”, but I am sure that will change soon. Tomorrow school starts so a routine will be established and I think that will help. But life is good and I am happy. My new room is now decorated with all the cards that I have been getting. A new address will be coming soon, but for now the old one is fine, the letters will get to me. 

The day that I got to my new families home my host uncle asked me if I had interest in going down to Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador, to run a 10k. Now, me being the crazy enthusiast that I am immediately accepted. (My host dad is a crazy Ecuadorian runner and our whole living room is filled with trophies and metals. Hundreds of them.) Now I am not saying that I am regretting the choice to go. It was an awesome weekend and so worth it, but the fact that I had hip surgery 4 months ago and have only run about 5 times since then… sorta caught up to me. I was dieing, but I did for fill my goals and finish under an hour and not last. So life is good.

Things that you must to do be an Ecuadorian racer:

1)    Go out to cheep Chinese food the night before. We went to this little shop that my dad clearly knew that sold “ethnic food”. The place was packed with what looked like beastly Ecuadorian runners. It was quite strange, and I got introduced to about 10000 people because I think my dad knows everybody who runs in this whole country.

2)    Wake up at 3:45 a.m., because you have to leave at 4 to get a cab and the race starts at 5. This is the beat the Ecuador heat as the race was on the coast… but it wasn’t my favorite part.

3)    As walking in the pitch black into the stadium where the start is, you have to pass two different types of creatures: people who look like they could qualify for the Olympics their leg muscles are so large and llamas.

4)    Drink a lot of Gatorade… in the states we have beans, gu's, gels, blocks, jells, powders, and who the hell knows what else to help us get our proper energy for the race. All you need it turns out is good ol' Gatorade.

5)    Start the race to a whistle. Who needs guns anyways?

6)    Run like a crazy crazy crazy fast person. Very few of the joy runners here, all fully trained ready to run Ecuadorians.

Livin’ life on the loose.