Specifically

It's the first night I've felt like writing in a while, the first time I'm not up late watching TV or trying to sleep but actually just reading chapters over and over from childhood books or my old planners, months by month. I'm very tired, physically, from running a lot and stretching and doing rediculous! looking ab exercises with Emily and Abby. We all just lied on the living room floor on our backs on dirty bath towles and did thrusting motions to the beat of Ka'nan's Waving Flag. Occasionally Emily's mom or her wife (of the mom, not Emily's) would come in from the garden, laugh at us, and pick thier way to the bathroom or to get water.

After we got our exercise in, we looked at lists and things we'd made in high school. We were obsessed with making these huge (literally, we used a large roll of butcher paper and a few poster board) lists of things we loved and hated. Some things that seemed prophetic at the time now just seem banal ("I love: freedom, being right, pure sounds, being outside at night, talking to boys on the phone"). Some things seem pathetic in retrospect only ("I hate: not having enough money, that I want to be foreign" and the fact that most of the people on the I Love list were fictional characters, family members, or beloved teachers). Other things really get to the root of the problem ("I love it when someone figures out what they are trying to say, when you can understand directions as they are given"). And others you just have to laugh at (three different tries at spelling "dirreah," Sigmund Freud highlighted as "Leader #2," A certain unnamed person crossed off I Love and moved to I Hate.)

It was nice to look at the lists for giggles, but it also brought back very visceraly a time of my life three or four years or so ago. When we made them, these lists were the highlight, the pinnical, the absolute most articulate and interesting and organized and open about the things I loved and hated in this world. The free assocation, the loose placement of the words on the page, the varied hand writing: these are things that show me how I felt about making the lists. How helpful and clarifying they were. And of course the scattered and messy words themselves, how they showed what mattered to me. They brought up this very specific time in my life, the winter of 11th grade and the time I spend with Emily in those afternoons and weekends.

And reading that brown thick paper puts me there, reminds me of my motivations and how I felt and what made me mad or cheerful in that particular time. And of course seeing those things so clearly makes it easy to compare myself to my 11th grade winter self, to see the distances between the two.

Chuck Klosterman, one of my favorite opinion-makers talks about remembering a period of his life with the same eerie clarity in Killing Yourself to Live.

"What's so disquieting to me is how this kind of life- a life of going to joyless keg parties and having intense temporary aquaintences and spending most of one's time in basements and crappy rented aparements with five bedrooms- was once my life completley. Those were the only things I ever did. That wasn't part of how I lived, that was everything. But now its like those experiences never happend at all. I can recall having conversations with people in college that would seem impossible to have today (both in subject and overall tone)."

He describes meeting a girl at a party and discussing the merits of Soundgarden album and then never speaking again.

"The whole episedoe now strikes me as random and innapropriate and inexplicable. But that used to be my life, all the time. That used to be my life, all the time. That used to be normalacy, and now that normalacy is completely over. Things like that will never happen to me again, even if I want them to. And I did not choose to stop living that life, nor did I try to continue living that life, I just didn't notice when it stopped....When you start thinking about what your life was like ten years ago- and not in general terms, but in highly specific detail- its disturbing to realize how certain elements of your being are completley dead. They die long before you do. "

So here Chuck's talking about maybe his sophomore year in college, a time whose details I'm intimately familiar with. I used to take a nap twice a week at 11 30 AM, I ate a ton of yoghurt, there was a constant fight in my life about vacuuming the stairs. Whenever I'd see a dog I'd get innordanantly happy, and I was trying to reduce my cheese intake. I spent hours at night in those basements and apartments and I once had a 45 minute conversation centering around Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam, an album I have never even listened to.

But those details are recent, and it scares me to think that they will get lost without getting caught on butcher paper of their own. For example, those Saturday nights with Emily in high school, we usually consumed huge bowls of cereal, watched two thirds of a movie, reviewed every single romantic encounter we had ever come accross, discussed how much we hated our fathers, and scared ourselveles thinking "the devil" was going to enter the room. We generally listened to The Smiths. I remember attempting to smoke weed one time, but we had made the cigarette of graph paper glued with honey, so I just ended up burning my hand and having to keep it in a bowl of ice water for two episodes of Will and Grace. And I can remember the emotions that went with those evenings, and I can judge those times objectively, but I think what's most important is those details, the little actions that pushed the clocks around.

But Chuck mentions that he doesn't notice when those things stopped and how other things replaced them. For me, I keep track of how and when habits drop away. And in my experience most of the time the changes and what cause them have been obvious. Being at college stopped the sleepovers and added the Strawberry Jam. The verbal honestly of improv made me less drawn to the release of butcher paper.

And of course, there's the geography. My life in Quito, the daily stuff you do for 20 minute periods that add up to an evening were different. I took a nap every Friday afternoon while Jimmy's metal band thrashed. I swam at my grandmother's house many day's after school and sat silently at the table while my uncles played online chess or read the paper. I read The Stranger articles that I'd opened on endless tabs. I stored money in my bra and shoes, never more than $50 in one place. I rode the bus standing up, listening to songs over and over. I ate ice cream almost daily. We'd come over to each other's houses at 7pm, eat french fries and chicken silently with host families, obsess about clothing and our bodies. We'd drink cane liquor and chase it with apple flavored soda. I'd take 2$ taxis to filthy clubs and eat shwarma. I watched hours of American TV sacked out on my back on my host mom's futon.

It's things like that, and rediculious conversations about the development of feminism with my grandma, answering "so, did you need to pee after you lost your virginity?" from my host mom, explaining Passover to a cousin, defending the fact that I looked fat to a neighbor, are things that seem absurd as I try to describe them here and I laughed at them when I pulled myself out of them and looked at it from Kalamazoo shoes. But in the situation, as it happened, it was normal, acceptable, expected. Before I went to bed that night, I'd usually be able to pull out of it to notice that that'd never happened before. But the next morning, and when I tried to write about it almost always, it was alreay old news. Of course I found an entire pig's head in the refridgerator. How else would I treat a headache besides herbs and a shower? Did it not always rain each night, was I not always afraid of being alone outside, did I not always eat hot dogs and drink fishbowls? My only home I'd ever known was on the corner of America y Caracas and the set of keys in my pocket could open the only door.

It's probably good that the brain can do this, can smooth over memories to make the past seem simple and the present seem sane. If I compare those three eras of my life, they all seem nuts to the way I live now. But as I return to any of them, as I did today, as I did for six months, and as I will once I set foot in Kalamazoo, the details will expand to normalicy and this present will slide backwards. I won't remember my interval-technobeat runs through Magruder Park. I won't remember being delighted to eat hummus again, to order a salad, to wear my green sneakers. It won't be important to me whether I drive Lester to school tomorrow or not. The snow melting, the mess in my room, should I donate this shirt to the thift store or not? will not matter one lick.

So I sit in those basements and bedrooms and do my little things, have conversations, interact, eat, prepare, study, rest, work, in the time-and-place-specific ways that we do. And most nights I'm siezed with the urge to write about it, to remember the routines that I completed, the behaviors I've been trained into. Maybe I put too much emphasis on my daily behavior. But to me, there's something important about not letting that stuff slip away. It's not so much to be remembered after I'm dead; its more to remember parts of myself that are gone while I go on living.

ALSO!

I just realized that you can't leave anonymous comments and that you have to jump through all these hoops to leave comments. No longer! Leaving comments is much much easier now, so drop me a line- no registration or type-out-the-jumbled-word required!

Culture Shock? More like Culture MOCK!

My internet in Quito was too slow to read most of the webcomics I usually keep up with, so I kept myself to Thursday Savage Love and incessant facebook. But I just spent the last hour and a half reading the last five months of my favorites ( Toothpaste For Dinner, Natalie Dee, Married To the Sea, XKCD, A Softer World, and, to a lesser degree, Questionable Content and SuperPoop)

NOTE: these links have bad words and sekzual references in them. some reference marijuana. Please avoid if this is not funny for you.

Another NOTE: It's much easier to get all this if you open each comic up in its own tap (Right Click, choose Open Image in Another Tab). Just for your help, grandma.

Reading them has really brought back all the things I am looking forward to about my life in our great nation: joys of the English Language, brilliant industrial developments the continuing drug war, liberal nut jobs, immigration reforms.

Things are going to be just great at Kalamazoo, too. I can look forward to classroom dynamics, people who think just like I do , playing games, cooking with my friends, bizarre fashion choices of my fellow students, making things smell good, having a really clean house, hip hop remixes at parties, working on my major, living with other people, yelling at people for eating cookie dough.

and in my own personal life: hypochondria , anxiety, getting at the clothes in my storage locker in Kalamazoo, personal transportation, speakin spañol, chillin out, interacting with local law enforcement, being a vegetarian, making fun of pop music/promoting public health, my own personal brain chemistry, puns, feelin great.

And of course the future: finally getting a Big Brother, havin babies (and pets!), staying in hotels all around the world, craft projects.

Enough links for you? Just one more? Okay. Gotcha with that one, didn't I? It's not all fun and games here in Washington. Now I must smack myself for writing that sentence.

I hope everyone has a nice friday and a good weekend. I'm off to eat breakfast foods, see "the worst movie ever made" and march for women's rights. See you pre-Oscars!

what I've been doing

I've been home now for time that no longer makes sense to count in hours. Got home Sunday night and now it's Wednseday afternoon, well into the "time to do things" era of the Post Study Abroad Experience. I haven't really done much, though, but I don't particularly feel bad about it. I saw one of my two neighbor-friends and I can't wait to see the other. I ate the beloved chinese food and really, it is that good. Really. I took a shower in water that heated up so fast I was sure someone was tricking me.

The main out-of-the-house expedition was a stretching class in Takoma Park. You may be saying "that is a load of hooey bullshit" unless you are one of my mother's hippie dippie friends in which case you are probably in the class with me. Hidden, in the back. Was it you that put the hot water in my shower? Anyway, the class is about actively stretching specific muscles (in fact, its called Active Isolated Stretching) so that they can strenthen and relax, both of which cause you less pain and stress. So I did that which required about an hour of driving. It's not so fun to drive after watching three major car accidents in Quito. I'm so worried a bicycle will enter the lane and I'll hit him and his neck will go all crooked or someone will cut me off and I'll kill there seven unseatbelted children in the backseat or a giant gasoline truck will rear-end me and my skin will sizzle off.

I called a lot of people, the lovely EMILY among them. It's strange to be able suddenly to communicate with the ease of the telephone after having to type up everything I wanted to say to a friend or have to struggle with skype. And of course we are way more connected than we ever have been, waaaaay more, you can read this from Estonia (who is my one reader from Estonia? I would love to meet you), write me about it on facebook, or just send me an emoticon. The internet has changed the world! Did you know this!

Ma and Lester go to work and school in the day. I read Chuck Klosterman and eat cheese. I watch four ERs in a row. I obsessively update my planner. I miss Pilar.

Enough boring, more smarts.

Things that astonish me

-bricks as buliding material

-its cold and the trees are dead

-its safe to be outside at night.

-People use ovens frequently

-There's such variety when it comes to packaged/processed foods. I haven't been to a grocery store yet, but I can see it just in the pantry or the cabinet. Low sodium chicken and rice soup, fat free chicken noodle. Baked beans, refried beans, cuban black beans, white beans, garbanzo beans, white beans. Crackers: water, spelt, grahm, stoned wheat, granola bar (and granola proper), pretzel.

Field Notes from the Miami Airport

Written when I was in the Miami Airport, not surprisingly

There are a lot of fat people. A lot of very fat people. And not old-person fat, the fat that gathers around the face as it ages, but big belly backfat fat.

There are more black people and the majority do not seem to be isolated from society so taht they may be motivated to commit crimes.

No babies, only strollers and crying.

Soda tasted like syrup, like melted popsicles.

When I look at the young people I feel happy. So many of them are pretty but not in the monocrome way that imples for Quito. For girls that is Abercromibe shirt, cheap tiny jeans, and very long hair. for boys its cheap giant jeans and oily hair done into whips and dallops. Here, girls wear all black and have short hair and boys wier red cowboy boots and have wide shoulders and flipflops. And I'm no longer one of the tallest people in the room!

The shuttle bus we rode on between terminals was cleaner than the hospital I worked at .

Cellphones are just as prominant and annoying, but they are bigger.

More bookstores, more books, more varitey in food. Although I won't I didn't get my hopes up when I saw a restaurant at a distance with the same colors as Cebiches de Rumiñauai. A hotdog-and-fries place? no way.

It's silly that our first place to speak english all the time is Miami, because people here are speaking Spanish all the time. We go to a pizza place for lunch,

"Yo quisiera..... Oh shoot, I'd like"

"que querias?"

I say gracias when I get my change, Jameson asks, "what is aji in english" and the counter guy hands him the hot sauce silently.

I'm almost sure I got throught customs without a hitch because the attendant decided to test my spanish against his. But it is strange, not to be quite so noticed for my pale skin and skinny jeans. To have it be her fault and not mine that a latina lady is yelling "SKUSE ME GERL" when she pushes past me in line. It is strange to be back. Of course it is. Of course it will be.

Going to the bathroom is a way less involved, personal process. I almost feel like I'm doing some medical as opposed to personal but social and shared. I walk in the bathroom, no door to push only a bend of corridor. No one asks for my 15 cents and gives me toilet paper. The bathroom is empty and very clean. Only one person per stall, no children waitting outside, no one doing thier hair or chainging clothes or diapers.

And I put my pale ass on the seat, pee, and the toilet paper is right there. I let it drop from my clean fingers into the previously potable water below. I stand up and water from the automatic flush hits my ass as I'm pulling my pants up. The door lock is modernist plastic and slides as if greased. I stick my hands under the spigot- no guesswork, no broken handles, just clean lukewarm water. A puff of soap to kill less jerms than I've had contact with in months. Paper towels? Not my jeans?

I'm used to hitching up my pants to knock on Jimmy's door for the toilet paper- he and his friends use it for earplugs during band practice. I'm used to finding blood or beets in the toilet, there's a lot of both in the house. It's part of the routine to wad up your papel hieginico and put it in the little yellow wastebasket by the toilet, and its part of chores to take that garbage to the curb. I wash my hands with non-potable water and bar soap with cracks filled with grime. For my zits, I pour some agua oxegenada (and that is peroxide!) on some paper towel and wipe my forehad, face, back and armpits. And I shower, sure, and I wash my hair and stuff. I'm not a dirty person. But I think my higene needs have devinitely changed in Ecuador. I felt damn uncomfortable in that bathroom, not happy to be in a nice place but like I was in a place I should be, like a classroom for the very young or the very smart. Or an operating theater or a temple.

I'll have many opportunities to contemplate this. Yesterday, I ate approximately 6 servings of fruit, 4 of which were mango. I guess I will have time to reflect very FIRMLY on Ecuador REGULARLY. Ha ha ha poop.

home!?!

Ok guys so I'm home, sitting in my hyattsville basement, typing away. Home. Home where its cold, i have different clothes, constant hot water, a sister, a dog, a refrigerator with more than just cabbage and queso fresco in it. Home? Weird. I'm without a laptop charger so the few entries I wrote between then and now are safely inside my sleeping computer, but I'll summarize them here: I'm glad to be back. things are more unfamiliar than I thought they would be. United States politics are shameful. A woman should have the right to choose. It's cold here and all plants are dead. My family has a lot of cushions and food. Two of my suitcases have broken. I am unpacked an have moved into the "piles" phase.

I can't wait to see everybody and all that. And keep writing. And EAT CHINESE FOOD. There is Shezhuan (sorry actual geographic location, I cannot spell you) string beans, Ma Po (If you are a place, Ma Po, I also apologize) tofu, and lo main. I will use chopsticks and my cup will overflowith.

If you live round these parts, give me a call/comment/facebookmessage and we can hang out!

And don't worry, the blog don't quit just cuz I changed hemispheres

GUYS I AM LEAVING THE COUNTRY IN 23 HOURS

GUYS I AM LEAVING THE COUNTRY IN 23 HOURS.

6 Months?!?!?

I haven't written in days, I know that. I haven't really done anything in days, either, and I know that too. No huge island-hopping adventures, no food poisioning, no hook-ups or break-downs. Just things, small things, ice cream bars and taxi rides. Some days I've gone to school, some days I've woke up with every intention to be productive. I have my coffee, get dressed and fall back asleep for two or three hours.

I turned in my paper and finished school. I'll put the abstract for it (in English) up here in another entry. I don't know, whatever, I'll tell about the little things I did later, when I'm walled in by snow and culture shock.

A lot's been going on in my head lately, but much less anxiety than usual and more static intersperced with these clear, revalatory thoughts. Normally on the bus I'll fret over that they might reject my five-pennies-in-place-of-a-nickel for blocks and blocks. The last week or so I just sit quietley internally and externally, bouncing my foot incessantly. I hand over my five pennies, get grumbled at, and wonder about how fish socialize. So it's been a floaty, detached few days and I'm almost glad. I haven't been hit by the transtitions-mean-the-end-of-the-world notions I usually take up at least a week before a plane flight, and I've avoided the macabre thought that "that could be the last time I do/see/ talk to X!!!!" everytime I leave the house.

But Blanquita just came in and we talked about how six months is a long time and how it passed so fast. And it is, and it did. I came here in AUGUST. August is hot and I could barely speak and I weighed ten pounds less and my hair was short. My mom walked with me to security waving and crying. And then I met Pilar and Jimmy and I listened to conversations and I went to rediculous family gatherings. I rode the bus endlessly and cleaned my plate. I went to sleep so early each night and watched TV religiously on the afternoons when I was alone. I walked in parks and did laundry and struggeled to read academic articles. People langued at me and stared and ignored me. I socialized and sat alone, lonely or not. I wrote more often than I have in years, less whiney than forever, not particularly wonderfully but with words. Used my words that I couldn't and didn't want to all day. Let myself stay quiet in arguements and at lunch because I knew my keyboard was waiting for me. Of course, the stories and the gossip and the questions were still there, but they were easy to swallow when I knew no one else would like it. I developed much better control.

And I stayed in the same place for six months. Sure, I traveled and stayed out late and slept at Aracely's, but my life was in a time span of more than ten weeks, which is something I've beaten out of myself. I acted like a long-term liver, not just surviving from quarter to quarter, living for the next Monkapult show or DOGL or my Poli Sci presentation. I know I've talked endessly about routine but it's almost impossible how little routine my life has at K. Sure, there's the caf and then SusHouseFamilyDinner, there's Monkapult, there was the midnight boyfriendPhoneCall, but those are things that happen. Those are things to put on your calender. But the motivation, the daily life stuff that fell between those appoinments was almost irregular. Things happen often or they re-occur. But for some reason, I feel safer here in this routine even though I don't like the life as much as the fun of K.

And that's sort of shocking to me, but it also makes me understand things better. K is fun, but routine is soothing. I see why people pass up the fun, the excitement of a less steady life for a more stable one. The saftey is worth it. The calm of knowing what comes next is better than the exhileration of not being able to know. I've never really understood that feeling before, and certainly well enough to articulate it.

So we'll see, I guess, weather I can make a routine at K, with more or less fun that before, liking it more or less. We'll see what parts sobresalir as important, what melts away. We shall see how I set up my tiny life in the palm of the mitten, how I teseract home and back, where I go to, how I tell you about it. We shall see.

Nearly

I haven't written in a while. I'll put that off to the big ole paper I had to write to finish up the ICRP class, but that's not that good an excuse. Mostly, I've been doing very little and qualifying it as a lot, hoping to squeeze the final drop of toothpaste out of Quito's tube. I didn't approach the Crest with a very good strategy and there's holes in the plastic and I've still got a bad taste in my mouth but at least I'm trying. I'm hoping for no cavities as what I remember from here.

I didn't make huge travel plans, I'm not going to Colombia or the beach or the USA like some people. My sister isn't coming and I'm not going on some epic Oriente adventure with my host family. I'm watching movies and staying up late and talking spanish. I'm trying to learn how to cook all the things I've come to love. I'm on facebook chat a lot, trying to remember slang and how we communicate. I'm missing my mom. I'm eating a lot. I'm not writing every day, I'm not reading, I don't write down how much I spend, I've started taking taxis over buses and eating french fries.

It's ok, I hope, to do all this. To relish the cheapness and the conjugation while I can. To watch 30 Rock with pilar, to wash the dishes. It's ok that I'm not off having the adventure of my life. It's alright to stretch packing over 6 days of folding and rolling. I'm doing ok, I'm saying goodbye, I'm transitioning in that slow, miserable way that I do.

And it's not all going to be boring. On Tuesday (tomorrow! Only one day to slog through!) I'm going to Mindo with Aracely and her sister and cuñado to zipline and eat chocolate and see orchids and on Thursday I'm going to Otavalo to buy monstrous amounts of handicrafts. And friday? Saturday? Breathing deep, packing suitcases, hugging people, feeling anxious outside at night, and getting ready for that too-long layover that will take me home.

The Galapagos Diaries

So, I wrote a reflection/diary for each day in the Galapagos, its in the next several entries. I posted it anti-chronologically so that it would be easier to understand. Pictures will come at some point!

Sunday, Jan 30

Our first day in the Galapagos! Even after being here for so little time I can already tell that it is a unique place that seems to have more in common with both Haiti and Yellowstone National Park than most of Ecuador that I have seen.

The flights here were very normal, they had those fancy individual TV screens and I watched 2/3 of "Easy A" which was hilarious, like Mean Girls but with more social commentary. We got there within five hours; it was all very well organized. We re-united with the bio kids at a restaurant where they complained vigorously about the food. We would soon find out why. After lunch, we went on a very long walk that they told us would be a short walk. We walked on long stone paths, raised and made of volcanic rock. First we walked to a nature-center sort of place and then continued to several viewpoints around San Cristobal. The plant life and ground there is so different from Quito. It reminds me of Texas, actually. Jamie and I had this long discussion about how it looked like Port Aransas or something, Latino people walking to the beach in wife beaters with the same type of vegetation.

We climbed endless steps to a beautiful view over a cove and then to a giant paper maché statue of Charles Darwin. We descended to Playa Mann, a small beach that faces the front of the USFQ campus. The school looks like how people imagine college in California, a single stucco building. Cross the road and there's a beautiful beach. So we went snorkeling there and I began my snorkeling-meditation-cognitive-behavioral-therapy routine that I would develop over the next several days. I'll describe that later. We saw lots of beautiful blue fish, the occasional shadow of a sea lion, algae and anemones waving in the breeze of the waves. It was fun to swim and play around with your friends. Also, it was comforting and a good place to go for our first time snorkeling because it got deep very fast so you could see lots of life but still be very near the shore.

We had to get out after about an hour. I had a really hard time coming in because I sort of got stuck on some rocks. It didn't hurt or anything but I had to scramble and while I was doing that everyone started yelling and pointing at me. I had a sea lion like two feet behind me and I got so scared. Abstractly, and in the future, I have and would consider sea lions interesting and un scary. In the water, different story. I just stuck my head underwater and kicked really hard until I got to shore.

After that experience, I breathed deeply for a while and then we went to another snorkel spot, a cove we had seen from our walk. It was very different water, much deeper and clearer. I started to do little underwater dives that were fun if very salty. I could swim right by whole schools of fish, get close looks at the floor and generally have a much more three dimensional experience. It reminded me of that moment in The Sword in the Stone where Merlin and Arthur are fish and Merlin says, "You are now living in a world that exists between the ceiling and the floor."

Highlight of the day: Seeing a puffer fish!

Galapagos Jan 31

I woke up very early that day to help Jacob with his project which is counting sea lions on a particular beach. Only problem: Jacob kept sleeping, leaving me sitting on the steps waiting for him. It was fine, though, because I had a nice conversation with the owner of the hotel about things you need to do to own a tourist operation successfully.

Once the day officially started, we did a lot of touring and seeing sights. We went to the highlands to a crater lake called Lago Junco. It was very misty and foggy and we could barely see anything until all of a sudden the fog cleared and there was this giant round hole that looked like something out of middle earth. Actually, most things in the Galapagos look like things from fantasy novels, expect many references in the coming entries.

After that, we went to a turtle breeding station. Turtles are so slow and cute when they walk! Their bodies are just not designed for fast movement. We learned about the different verities of turtle on each island and how they developed.

We took a long, hot hike through desert like craggy trees to this gorgeous beach. It looked like some sort of Caribbean fantasy, flour sand, clear sky, turquoise waves. We ate horrible, huge quantities of fried rice that was what was for lunch every day. Now I understand the bio kids complaints. We swam and played and lay in the sun in that beautiful locale. And then walked the hot walk back. Some unmentioned friends did not want to put on their shoes and tried to run 3k back on volcanic rock barefoot. There was a lot of screaming.

On the way back, we passed a hill with wind turbines. It’s a good idea because there is a lot of wind there. Back in town, we had hours to kill. Stew, Iggy, Jamie and I hung around for a while eating ice cream and looking at the sea lions. It's sort of ridiculous how the sea lions act there. There is this playground by the beach and they just lie around on the benches and in patches of shade. They barely notice if you get close, until you get too close and then they snap and bark at you. Beyond the playground there's a beach where endless sea lions lie and cuddle like bums. There is a constant low-level of movement, adjusting and twitching and snuggling closer. It’s adorable and alien.

We found Natalie and she bought us milkshakes and we talked about if English is better than Spanish. No conclusion was reached. We ate dinner, walked around the sleepy beach town, sat on the roof of our hotel and talked about the stars and space and constellations. We also had a discussion about breast milk which would become a prominent theme in the coming days.

Highlight: sea lion viewing, beach appreciation.

Galapagos Feb 1

Tuesday was boat day and lordy am I glad that I do not get seasick. We woke up really early, at 4 am, then realized there was a time difference and slept till 5. We went to the boat port and waited an hour and a half. I took a sea lion-esque nap. Our boat ride took 2.5 hours and I was on the boat for "people that do not get seasick" and people got seasick. Eventually, we found some land and looked at boobies and friggit birds. We learned how they evolved co-dependently and how neither is evolved to deal with predators.

We went snorkeling in open water which was originally scary but I got over it fast. It was just so beautiful! You can see how the island shelf/volcanic material just drops into the deep ocean below. Fish flutter in schools and divide endlessly around you, around rocks, around currents. Some people got to play with sea lions but I never saw any, I was really enjoying the fish and the geology. We swam a long way; it’s so easy with fins and beautiful things to keep your eyes busy.

We got back on the boat and went to the island of Floreana which has an insane story that was told by our guide Jeff in an insane way. It involves a baroness, polyamory, living in caves, and death by chicken soup.

Back on the boat, a long ride, too many games of 20 questions including one about Mr. Peanut that almost caused a fistfight. We arrived in Isabela and got into our hotel. Our guide, Jeff, works at/ owns? the hotel with his wife Courtney. She is gringa and met Jeff on vacation. He's from San Cristobal. Story goes, they fell in love, she came here to teach English and see where it went, and now they have a two year old and a tourist business. It's pretty amazing. They are both very fun and successful people and they must really love each other. They both have interesting life stories and seem to be really happy here.

So their hotel served us this enormous meal, huge pieces of chicken and tuna, endless rice. We took heavenly showers in brackish water (all the water on the islands is brackish, you have to buy sweetwater) and went to sleep.

Highlights: Seeing a beautiful sea star, ridiculous story, beautiful friggit birds

Galapagos Feb 2

Wednesday was the Big Hiking Day. We took buses to the Volcan Chico walk. It was probably 10 k on muddy horse trails, not bad at all. Walking, we had these long discussions about our religious beliefs and how we were raised. Interesting. An hour or so in, we stopped to look at this enormous volcanic hotspot/crater/I don't know that much about volcanoes. It was a huge hole at least 20 k across with sulfur deposits on one end and it was just huge and brought out the agoraphobe in me.

Another thing that was going on during the walk was one of our coordinators was constantly pumping breast milk. She has a 6-month-old baby that she left at home but she was producing milk and was storing it in bottles because she had a psychological attachment to it. This lead to a long question-and-answer session about breastfeeding while we had a snack.

After that health class lesson, we started our descent to the lava fields. This is where I understand when people say the Galapagos looks like Mars. There was so little life, only tiny plants and just endless lumps of lava. You felt in danger there, remember the heat that had rolled down those planes so long ago and so recently, depending on whose eyes you use. It was so hot and sunny and reflective there. I could see coming here, being a pirate, and feeling as though this were hell. And to be stuck there, to not know trails or where the edge was, with no water would be hell. You would die. We climbed up this huge mountain of hard lava (imagine that forming! swirling and bubbling!) and saw the view: forest to one side, ocean to the front, grasslands to the west and hell all around

Alana, Sarvie and I decided to run on the way back. And by run, I mean jog for 20 minutes and then walk the rest of the way. It started raining very very hard midway back so we were very cold. Of course, we beat the rest of the group (but not the people who actually ran) so we sat in this pavilion and contemplated stealing this family's food. We went to this restaurant that would have been lovely had it not been raining because it was entirely unconnected grass huts. However, they gave us scalloped potatoes and hot sauce and fruit and it was good. We took vans home and took naps.

Highlight: is there life on mars?

Galapagos Feb 3

Thursday! It was still raining! We went to el Muro de Lagrimas (wall of tears) which was appropriate because god was crying. You know, rain. Originally, parts of the Galapagos were used as penal colonies and they made the prisoners build this giant wall of volcanic stones. It was a very impressive wall and even more impressionable because Jeff talked about how much suffering went into the wall. So many prisoners died there, they started with like 3000 and after a few years only 300 were left. Humans do really horrible things to each other. Organized government, especially when it's into punishment rarely ends well for individuals.

We walked a trail along the wall, looked at more of this bizarre thin vegetation. Walked some more along boardwalks saw stately pale flamingos. Their knees are backwards and their throats are flexible tubes. Its amazing they can stand and fly both- their bodies seem designed for neither. Our walk was then along the beach which was beautiful but we were all very sick of the rain and cranky.

In the afternoon we went snorkeling and sightseeing. We went to a place called Tintorearas which is several very small (the size of a house) islands very close to the water level. The whole place looks like it is made of lava dribble castles. We saw boobies and penguins and friggits and sea lions! They were all sitting next to each other and many pictures were taken.

After that we tried to go snorkeling and it was really scary. It might be time to explain the Dana Snorkel Stay Calm method now. Basically, snorkeling involves a lot of things that are scary: being in the water, not having totally free breathing, not being to see clearly, feeling alone, seeing creepy plants, waves, possibility of hitting something, possibility of getting lost, drowning, etc. Basically, I am a fraidy-cat about a lot of thing and snorkeling combines many of them. But I also like water and fish and animals and exploring and I certainly wasn't going to pass up this opportunity. So I tried to look at snorkeling like a meditative, spiritual activity. I worked to slow my breath, audible through the tube. I tried to relax my jaw and shoulders. I kicked evenly and reminded myself bodies float naturally. I let the wave add rhythm. Of course, I still hyperventilated every time I got too close to seaweed and when rocks got too near I almost gave up and sank. But I'm proud of what I did manage.

However, despite my excellent mental control, the snorkeling was pretty bad. The water was deep and cloudy and you couldn't see anything. We tried another spot and that was better but extremely cold and had Dana's enemies, rocks covered in algae, near the surface. I saw a giant ray, though, just chilling out under some sand.

We got out of the water and took a walk to mangroves, another natural environment that I am unreasonably scared of. There was a beautiful bay at the end, though, that reminded me of the dock in Requiem for a Dream. But not horrific and drug addicted. We walked back. There was only van, so half the group stayed behind and drank beer while we waited. Beer is horrible here.

Highlights: lava formations, cute animals! Not dying while snorkeling.

Galapagos Feb 4

This was probably my favorite day of the whole trip. We had a relaxed morning which entailed me taking a two-hour nap. Being on antibiotics really takes it out of you. At 10, we went to the subcentro de salud on the island. It was fascinating, both to see it with my own eyes and see other people's reactions.

It was very similar to Puembo, same paperwork, posters, and organization. It was larger, with a special OBGYN and pediatrician and a trauma room. I was very impressed and pleased to be there, but I think many other people were not. Many pre-med students I was in a group with were surprised by how small and bare the spaces were. Additionally, they were shocked by the trauma room. Alcohol, agua oxegenada (peroxide?) and other cleaning fluids were stored in Gatorade bottles and most of the equipment was very old.

I'm really of mixed opinions about this. On one hand, yes, healthcare all over the world should be equal. The ecography machine should be less than twenty years old, records should be computerized, alcohol should come in its own bottle. On the other hand, its impressive that an island 600 miles from shore is integrated into a national health care system, that this system gives free care and medications, that there is alcohol and a trauma room to use it in. Additionally, when you think about it, most emergency room visits can be treated with a few stitches, a bandage, antibiotics, an IV for rehydration and other simple procedures. Probably 75 or 80 percent of medical care can be considered "basic." And cases that aren't basic might be just as likely to die in an excellent hospital or a basic one. It’s a matter of perspective and where to put your money. And in most cases, Ecuador has put its money where its mouth is.

Ate lunch, got on the boat to Santa Cruz. On the way there, I overheard a really interesting conversation between an unnamed student and an unnamed teacher/coordinator/guy in charge. Student was pointing at something and accidentally poked Adult's exposed belly (we were all sitting around in bathing suits)

Adult: Hey man, don't touch me

Student: sorry, it was an accident.

A: No man, I notice you, I see you touching a lot of guys.

S: We are a close group of friends. We are comfortable with each other

A: Its pretty gay.

(Silence for a long while)

S: so, you've worked with kids from K before? So you know what Crystal Ball is?

A: No, what is that?

S: Its a dance, where the guys dress up like girls, and the girls like guys and everyone just sort of goofs off about gender. So you have to understand that homophobia doesn't really exist in our culture

A: I'm not part of your culture; so don't touch me any more.

Wow. How do you respond to that, to a person in power showing such...bigotry might be too strong, but its also appropriate? And what if the Student had been gay? What if he was unsure about his sexuality? I'm proud of my friend for defending his relationship with his friends, the culture of K, his own rights. And I feel uncomfortable that the Adult went automatically to judgment and anger in a situation that started off as relaxed. Of course, its part of Ecuadorian culture drilled in early that being gay is the worst possible thing that you could be. But this Adult is hired to make international students feel comfortable. We had been speaking in English and using USA standards of behavior all day, the whole trip. Of course, in lots of parts of the USA, in places all over the world that kind of behavior is OK, but on that boat between two islands, we all felt uncomfortable.

Ok, moving on. We got to Santa Cruz and it was beautiful, island paradise style. Oh! We saw this giant solar-powered boat in the harbor that is traveling around the world-teaching people about solar power. So that was cool. We went to our hotel and it was lovely and had a pool. Of course, the guys were acting as though they were all in a giant romantic relationship so as to put off our favorite Adult. Also, because they are friends and like to make human pyramids in pools.

Highlights: Public heath and fighting homophobia where you see it: both things I think about on a daily basis.

Galapagos Feb 5

Friday! In the morning, we went to the Charles Darwin Research station where we saw many giant tortoises. We learned about how the tortoises and the cactus-trees evolved. As the tortugas' necks grew, the cactus grew taller. That's a simplification of a millions of year’s process, but its simplicity and slowness is what makes it beautiful. We watched a tortuga eating leaves with its pokey jaw, strong tongue. They are pretty stupid, actually, they can't see very well and drop much of their food.

We also saw Lonesome George who is the last of his species on earth. Despite many attempts, including an attractive Swedish evolutionary biologist helping him out (the imperfect of the word is 'masturbaba,' which is endlessly funny), he just isn't into reproducing. Good thing tortugas live like 200 years and George is only 130 or so.

In the afternoon, we went to Tortuga Bay which is a bay that often has many turtles and fish. Unfortunately, it was raining and cold so there was barely any life in the bay. I saw a sea cucumber which looked, honestly, like poop. Also, many marine iguanas which have very defined claws, move hilariously, and leave a little trail in the sand where their tails drag.

In the evening, a bunch of us went out to a bar and did that bar thing. It was overwhelming for me, as usual. I wish I could just relax and enjoy dancing. Jamie and I left and walked around the pier and looked at pre-teen galapagüeño (isn't that a cool word?) kids harass a sea lion. I went to hang out in the boy's room, which was filled with bugs, attracted to the lights. I was so scared that my room would be empty of people and filled with bugs so I slept on their extra bed on top of the covers. No bugs ate me in my sleep.

Highlights: evolution is awesome, I was not eaten by bugs, dinner was really good.

Galapagos Feb 6

Our last day! We left early with our huge awkward bags on the top of the bus. We went to visit Los Gemelos (the twins) which are these ditch-crater things that are very deep and large and filled with trees and plants. We were almost late to our plane so we were running and flashing our passports and saying goodbye to Jeff and Courtney and then the plane didn't have those nifty TV screens so I read Midnight's Children. We were back in Quito nice and early so I had time to take my absolutely filthy clothes to my favorite Laundromat and eat pasta and take a nap. What a trip!

Independent Lady on the Streets of Quito

Written Monday but its not like much has happened since then.

Today wasn't that an exciting day, nothing really to write home about. But write home about it I will.

I woke up early because I went to sleep early, before ten. Jimmy was grouchily eating breakfast and his wound still hasn't healed. I didn't really have to be awake just yet, so I flapped around my room frantically trying to pack with two weeks still to go and no clear plans. I managed to put five books in a box and make a pile of some things under my bed.

Got to school with my laptop safely in my bag all the way. I worked for a long while on my monografia. My topic is...well maybe I'll just give you my thesis. "Voy a explorar la situacion y organizacion de salud publico en Ecuador con focus (palabra?) de la region de la sierra rural, programas de anticonceptivos y la poblacion de mujeres indigenas. " I'm going to examine the situation and organization of public health in Ecuador with focus on the sierra region, birth control programs and the indigenous female population. There's lots of information about this topic from different angles, as well as articles that are really interesting but not really related ( Imagining the Unborn in the Ecuadoran Andes

Author(s): Lynn M. Morgan Feminist Studies, Vol. 23, No. 2, Feminists and Fetuses (Summer, 1997), pp. 322-350

Poor Adolescent Girls and Social Transformations in Cuenca, Ecuador

Author(s): Ann Miles

Source: Ethos, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Mar., 2000), pp. 54-74

Using Home Gardens to Decipher Health and Healing in the Andes

Author(s): Ruthbeth Finerman and Ross Sackett

Source: Medical Anthropology Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Dec., 2003), pp. 459-482 to name a few)

Bri and I met up at noon and ate lunch. Salad and frozen yoghurt, I'm a yuppie even here. I worked for like four million hours on trying to pick out my classes for next quarter, that perfect balance of easy and interesting. Not that there are any really easy classes, CIP staff members who are reading this, but I'm leaning towards Basic Nutrition over The American Jury Trial.

At 230, I had a meeting with my sociology professor who is helping me get my SIP in line. We are gettin that SIP in line, gosh darn! hopefully I'll visit Tingo Pucará some time next week so that I can discuss project details with them. And Lester could come along! (I'll tell you more about this soon, Lester).

I went home after that, or to the laundramat for my lovely clean clothes and then home. It was raining and kind of nasty but I had ganas so I took my usual walk. I take this same route almost without fail, I'm surprised no one has noticed and mugged me. I'm slowly realizing that things will not be as miraculously cheap in the EEUU and am trying to take advantage of this while I can. Of course, no one is going to be spray painting a hot dog stand while customers eat at the counter and no one will be eating french fries out of plastic bags, and umbrellas may be actually water-proof but still! I've just got to get these shoes! They are only 4 35!

I made my usual stops and something at each place. The technical bookstore by the bridge where I usually read my sociology: A 2011 Planner with the theme of "Ecuador is a megadiverse country." 7$. The stand in the artisan market with the really nice ladies: A new nose ring because the other ones always break. 5$. So, cheap isn't always awesome. The woman selling them had a two year old baby drinking morocho who was so cute, I felt horrible asking her to help me put it in. A candy-and-junk stand, looking for my very specific snack goals: Cloretes Masticables (gum), Amor Limon (wafer cookies) and granadinas (delicious fruit you crack against your head). I found them in different stands, at 50, 75 and 25 cents, respectively. The DVD store where the Pirotecha knows me. Gave him a piece of the gum, bought an only-English, special-features-included, excellent-quality-te-juro copy of Burlesque which I totally loved in theatres. 1.50$.

Home, damp, to an empty house. In my planner, I wrote "calientica," which I just learned means "cozy."

Sunday Slow Sleepy Saliteration

I will definitely miss the little routines of the house. Sundays in particular, even though when there's school tomorrow you sort of feel like making it to the nearest bridge with a hard landing. Alone, they are horrible, dark, frozen slow moving stones. Even with family members or friends its not like they move quick or anything. Naps cut things down, the hours in the afternoon when it invariably rains hard. I always think meals will take a long time to prepare and eat but I'm always done in under fifteen minutes and even washing the dishes takes five. TV shows, though, those take forever. Each commercial break stretches it's five segments over and over, the disputes and drama between characters could be resolved in seconds. The lies every episode of Seinfeld is based around (it's true, isn't it? The characters always lie) are so frustrating; Kramer should just go to therapy and get it over with. Of course, there's nothing as wonderful as Seinfeld on on a Sunday. It's mostly Drop Dead Diva re-runs and ancient movies about horse racing.

Abuela and abuelo and Romario were over today as well. I still don't really understand how Romario is related to the family. I think he is a godson which seems to fall between biological child, recipient of scholarship and servant. He lives with Carlos, the suspiciously unmarried Cordova brother and has his own room and stuff. He's over at abuela's every day after school on facebook. And then he came over to help abuelo move around and is always cleaning things with Javier the guard who definitely falls somewhere on the child-empleada spectrum. But it's good that he came because Abuelo really needs help. He is just so old and frail. He has to live in the lowlands of the coast because he has lung problems and there's not enough oxygen up here. He came to Quito for Christmas and either cannot (physically? logistically?) or does not (consciously? actually?) want to return. There have been many attempts and plans and strategies but in Quito he stays.

When I entered the house he was asleep on the floor. His head and shoulders were on the bump of the futon but the rest of him was on the floor, slip on sneakers with skulls and music notes, ripped cardigan, pants far too large. Pilar and Abuela were asleep too, watching said horse-racing movie. Romario was watching it too, seated on the floor. Is that because he's a 16 year old boy and doesn't want to be too close to anybody or because he is a servant and must sit on the floor? the mysteries of another culture! But anyway, abuelo woke up after a while and Pilar and I hoisted him up by the armpits and helped him walk to the bed.

"Mi amor," he croaks to the half-asleep abuela.
"Hola mi marido, ven aca, hay una pelicula de caballos" says abuela. She is very into the word "marido."

I found him a while later with his cane still in his hand but his body slumped over the kitchen table. He hadn't fallen, just resting bent at an 80 degree angle with his face smushed into the wood. It was a napping kind of day, he fell asleep on the bed again, I took a bone-crushing nap, and even Romario drifted off.

I´m baaaaack

Written last night.

Hey there, long time no see! Sorry I was absent for a while, I just happened to be in the Galapagos Islands for six days. You know, no big deal. We left Sunday morning and just got back a few hours ago. My absolutely filthy clothes are currently at a laundromat, I've got a blister the size of a football on my baby toe and I've gotten so tan I would.....still feel guilty about calling myself "not white." I stick to my guns no matter how much sun exposure I've gotten.

I absolutely promise that I'll give you more details about what happened. this is partially because I am academically required to write an 8 page reflection about the experience and also because I love my blog readaaaas (holla at my gurls) and also because I feel a little dip in the panic level when my fingers are touching the keyboard.

But I will give you a little teaser, saying that highlights of the trip included: A volcanic crater, endless fried rice, antibiotics, a possible allergy to corn, a pufferfish sighting, obscene statues of turtles, too much rain, many many ice cream bars, a complicated pants exchange, fighting homophobia, riffs from rap songs, rotten breastmilk and boxed wine.

Additionally, I would like to point out that it is the 6th. And what is 20 minus 6? It is 14. So leaving on the 20th, I have 14 days left here. And what is 14 days? Two weeks. Two weeks on vacation in Ecuador is a lot, but two weeks to write ten pages, arrange meetings, pack, cry, eat arepas, make lists and plans and promises I can't keep is tiny. My blister is bigger than two weeks. My backpack can hold two weeks in the little pocket. I walk at least a month and a half on the way to the store at the corner. So there's the job of fitting my life into these impossibly tiny folds that I make in the paper of my days, and in the stupidly simple bits and bites of this blog, and in the seconds of eyecontact and understanding speech and doing-it-right that push me through the hours. So two weeks is tiny, flimsy, wears down its resolve with each hour. I haven't learned how to manage myself in the face of two weeks.

Hay que gozar la vida, I guess I'll take a nap.