I'm naming my kid "Landrover"

Monday after class I went to the cafeteria to eat lunch with Lauren, Chris and Emily who were watching Madeinusa. I didn’t want to watch that movie again but I didn’t want to eat alone. Chris and I shared a chicken empanada and a pizza panini. The empanada was good, the panini was kinda weird. Since I didn’t want to watch the movie I left after lunch to nap until I had to volunteer.

When I got to the class the prof didn’t show up by 3 so I started my lesson. I tried to work on pronunciation with them but it was hard since some of the girls are so shy. Also there are some sounds in English that don’t exist in Spanish so they’re hard to teach. I focused on those but it was hard. Especially the English ‘r,’ it’s really hard for them to say correctly. We’ll have to have another class on that. After my lesson they practiced cutting a couple new girls’ hair. Then they ended class about an hour early for a birthday party for three of the girls.

Everyone brought food so I felt bad eating but they made me- just like Guadalupe, haha. It was interesting to see what people brought for the party. There was of course cake but someone also brought sweet rolls. There was popcorn with plantain chips in it- very Ecuadorian- little cut up hotdogs, chips and candy. Since it was their birthdays we decided to have a toast with wine. Keep in mind that this class ranges in age from 15 to 50. There was a box of wine and a bottle. The one, 15 year old, girl tried to open the box but she didn’t have scissors to cut the bag inside so she just opened the bottle which was a twist off top and easier to open. She gave everyone a little bit and someone gave a toast. As we all started to drink we realized that it wasn’t wine we were drinking- it was agua ardiente! (Agua ardiente, if you don’t remember, was the really strong sugar cane liquor they were pouring in our mouths at the Lumbisi festival.) Everyone was like “ahh, it’s so strong!” but they drank it anyway! Even the 15 year olds! We were laughing about that the rest of the party. The professor even said that as she was drinking it she was thinking, ‘what kind of wine is this, it’s so strong!’

Near the end of the party a lady came up to the classroom to talk to me. We went downstairs and talked in the little store. She asked me if I could teach a real class, in addition to the half hour class I teach now, so other people could come and learn English. It would start at 5:30 and end at 6:30 ‘so I would have time to finish my homework.’ Then she asked me what I would have to be paid. I was taken aback and asked her to repeat herself. Of course I can’t take money since I can’t work here so I said I was a volunteer and work for free. She was so happy about that she gave me two hugs! It was cute. Unfortunately now I have to do what I was trying to avoid by working at this place! At least it will be older people and not kids- I think.

Tuesday morning I got up at 5am to finish my paper that I wasn’t able to write the night before because I was falling asleep. I just about finished it before I had to get ready and go to school. I called a taxi to take me to school because I had my computer with me- so I could finish at school- which is too heavy to carry up that mountain, and so I could have even more time to work on my paper.

I was the first one to get to my first class and I wasn’t even early. Apparently there was terrible traffic from Quito so just about everyone was late- including our substitute. The sub is a good teacher though all we did was go over that ridiculous movie we watched.  Part of our discussion was the main character’s name- Madeinusa- and how in this region of Ecuador called Manabí people have really weird names like “Alka-Seltzer”, “Land Rover”, “Refrescante Pílsener” and “Semen de los Dioses.” Emily told me that she knew someone who taught a La-a which is pronounced “La 'dash' a.”

After class I went to sit by the sushi restaurant because it has power outlets and I needed to finish my paper for Soc. I ate my ‘lonchera’ and wrote my paper until Kevin came by. We talked a little while he ate his lunch and, after he left for class, Emily T came by and talked with me for a while too.

Finally I finished my paper, printed it out, and then went to class. In Anthro we talked about a fairly interesting reading we had to do but somehow they got off on a tangent about seeds for about 20 minutes so I kinda stopped paying attention. When they finally got back on track so did I. When I wasn’t really paying attention I was thinking about my solo for dance class. I decided on sadness for my emotion but decided that you can’t start a ‘sad’ dance the way our combination starts so I did it backwards. I felt pretty clever about that one. People seemed t like it too so I was happy.

Soc was more of the same. We did a mind-map of “Education” and one kid, who isn’t great at Spanish, tried to explain to us that the student is the most important thing in the Education system. But he did this by telling us his life story. He went to high school in Pennsylvania and he said the ‘Jews’ and ‘Koreans’ had a strong learning culture whereas the ‘Black’ and ‘Irish’ kids became gangsters and “gangsters no estudia!” It was ridiculous. Also, though for no discernable reason, he kept saying “!es fundamental!” over and over again. Later when Chris wrote that in my notebook I almost started cracking up in class.

Then Danielle and I shared a taxi home since we both had our laptops with us. When I got home I searched the internet for the full episode of the season premiere of Dexter. Eventually I found it and I cried- because it was sad, not because I found it. For dinner I had that tasty fish pasta so I ate a ton!

After translation class on Wednesday I got lunch at the university’s Italian restaurant with Emily, Chris and Omar. I was kind of sad that they didn’t have that special I saw when Danielle and I came in one morning- mushroom and pancetta risotto sounds so good!- so I got penne pomodoro instead. It was pretty good but it could have used a little more seasoning. During lunch Omar told us that he likes needles! Just another facet of his weirdness…

After lunch we went to cinemax so Chris could buy her host siblings some movies for their birthday. They had the Smurfs on DVD but the cover was in Dutch, “De Smurfen.” Apparently in Spanish they are “Pitufos.” It is common, according to Omar so who knows really, to call a short person a pitufo.

When we got back to the university everyone went to the computer lab but me since I didn’t need to so I found Lauren on the couch in Einstein and chilled with her until I had to volunteer. Since I had to teach my first real class I was nervous and Lauren and I looked up some good ice breakers for English class.

In class I tried to wait a while before starting because one of the girls had asked me to because not everyone gets there on time and then they miss my lesson. I started around 3:30 (even though the girl that asked me still wasn’t there) and the lesson went a little long. It ended up being around an hour instead of half an hour so I kind of cut into the real class time. There’s one woman who knows some English already so she was asking lots of good questions- some unimportant ones too- so I tried to answer them all. I felt bad cutting into class but I think it was going pretty well because I was getting some of the shy girls to talk a little more. I think the prof was a little annoyed but she didn’t say anything.

For class they were doing nails and one of the younger girls did mine. She wasn’t great at it but she was trying. When she cut my cuticles it kind of hurt. I had to leave before she could paint my nails so I only had bottom coat- which is a frosty white, not clear.

I went downstairs and there was no one there except for some ladies knitting and a lady there for a computers class. Eventually the lady who was waiting told me that the director lady was in the kitchen so I asked her what was up. Apparently I misunderstood the other day. I won’t be teaching two different classes each day, I’ll be teaching the girls in the belleza class later in the day and if other women want to learn English they can come as well. So basically I’m just teaching a more formal class to these girls. Hopefully other people show up but if they don’t that’s ok too. Since I had already taught my lesson I just went home. I had a sandwich for dinner which of course I didn’t make because Guadalupe won’t let me and it had mayo and cheese on it. I ate it anyway because the mayo was really mild and so was the cheese. When I asked her what kind of cheese it was Guadalupe looked at me kind of funny and just said ‘sandwich.’ I think I must have looked confused then because she showed me the package and sure enough all it said was ‘sandwich cheese.’

Hasta luego,
Caitlin