I Must Get This Candy Out of My Room

I brought 6 lbs of fun-sized candy to Ecuador in my hiking backpack. This stuff makes great gifts, as Reeses, Snickers, Kit Kat and the like are very hard to find and expensive at that. I have it all planned out in my mind who I’m going to give the candy to and how much (150 pieces divided by 5 or 6, depending on how much I want to spread the love). Unfortunately, I don’t have any gift bags and Ecuadorians are pretty big on ceremony for gifts. Actually, I think anyone would be kind of weirded out if you just dumped a plastic bag full of partially melted candies on their kitchen counter. I’m working to find gift bags, but my rout to work and home is much more erudite than it was last time around. There are no cabinas for calling people, no internet cafes, no “bazar-peluqueria-deli-tiendita-minimercado-tienda-de-fiestas-infantiles” that occupied the ground floor of my old rooms.

Besides the awkwardness of giving people gifts after you’ve been hanging out with them for two weeks, the other problem is that I want to eat the candy. I’m still at that point with my hosts of not feeling comfortable walking around the house barefoot and I am constantly apologizing to the maid. I walked into the kitchen and saw she was there with a mop. She and the mop were on opposite sides of the room, but I remembered my mother’s sternness to never spoil a clean floor. I immedietley start apologzing. She’s like “whaaaaa” and keeps washing dishes. I wanted to make myself some kind of non candy snack. I need vegetables, they are usually just as garnish, thin pink slices of tomato and canoes of avocado.

Yesterday, at the subcentro, I had the most disgusting lunch. When I first looked at it, I thought it was some kind of cebiche thing. I’ve eaten raw fish before, and while its not my favorite, it’s paltable. I tasted the sauce, thick and wood colored, little half-potatoes all around. Peanuts. Raw fish and peanut? No, not fish, no blessing of muscle, just the soft give of subcutaneous fat. Oh yuck. Oh god, I’m eating skin. It’s cut into neat squares and there is plenty of sauce and potatoes and rice (yes please, I’ll have some bread with my bread) so I make do, slapping a square between a half-moon of potatoe and a pile of rice. I don’t even bother with the avocado until I’m ten squares in, there is no reason to ruin beauty with this monster of a dish.

I’ve been picking out only the cleanest, whitest squares, not even thinking about thier origin, just looking to get them into and out of my mouth as quickly as possible. As the other doctors enter, including 1 super gringa and 1 medium gringa medical students, I am only mocked for my consumption of, what I now find out, is pork skin. PORK! the dirtiest of animals! The cloven footed sin! The carried of tricknonois and Tay Sachs and botched circumcisions, killer of my people! So recently covered in bristles and rolling in mud. Un cooked, sliced and drenched in peanut butter and mayonnaise. As we are discussing this, I get down to the nastier chunks. Reddish or brownish, they cling together with bits of the skin, or the little tubes and levers that keep us in one piece. I am not eating this. Its time for rice and avocado.

Of course, my suffering is not over. We have to listen to the two gringas complain and be grossed out, discussing the minutea of the texture as I feel it swim in my stomach. I ate in silence, they push food around their plates with complaints and I want to bolt out of there and throw up in the corn plot behind the house. The dentist (who I think is kind of an alcoholic) and the Doña’s husband (the Don) are drinking beer and they offer me some. There’s the perfect 3 once juice glass filled with amber Pilsener, bubbles rising. As I accept the doctor and nurse launch into long rants about how it is deeply irresponsible to drink on the job. My glass sits in front of me untouched, my sociology textbook humming in my ears about gatekeepers and cultural customs, the pigs are flying in my stomach.

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

Updates!

Not much has been going on the last few days. After my Cotopaxi Adventure and my Plaza Fosch Adventure I have chilled out a lot at home. Lots of reading, including this book about a doctor my mom gave me, that, you're right ma, is really terribly written. I've gone to abuelas and done the requisite cheek-kissing of everyone in the dynasty, slept on the couch. I walk across the street and swim 1500 meters which is very impressive because it is more than a kilometer. Are you not impressed with my athletic prowess?

After that, I go back to abuelas, drink cold coffee and eat a banana, and take the bus home.

Yesterday, we had ICRP class (surprise!) and no one knew about it so we were actually like 3 hours late. I haven't actually started my IRCP this month yet. I called the nurse on Tuesday and asked when I should come in and she was like "Monday, or Tuesday...whenever you want." So that seems pretty relaxed.

However, I'm getting really pumped up for my SIP and am going to get my ICRP work to work for that. How? The sub centro at Puembo does a great deal of work with birth control distribution and counseling. I could write my ICRP monografia (sort of like a term paper) about access to birth control in Ecuador, especially among indigenous women, and then that could be (or could be close to) my Literature Review for my SIP! Which would be about birth control among indigenous women in Ecuador! I'm not sure if this is cheating or something, but it's what really interests me and your research is supposed to further more research, right?

Not that I've started writing or anything.

The other thing that's happened lately is going out to dinner a lot and eating good food. The Bio/Ecology students went off to Tiputini deep in the jungle on the 6th to do research, so we kept going out to lavish dinners to say goodbye to them.

On the 5th, we went to this lovely asian-fusian restarurant. I had green curry so spicy and creamy it made me tear up. I've missed spicy food so much, jasmine rice, chopsticks. I am going to gorge myself on Thai food when I get back. I also had a sake bomb which I though would be really good because I always read about them. Acutally, it just tasted like rotten beer with some airfreshener in it. Also, trying to get the sake to fall into the glass, it spilled all over me and made a huge mess. This was not worth a drink that tasted like drain cleaner.

The next day we went to this Mexican restaurant that we had always made fun of because there is a guy in a huge sombrero and fake moustache outside waving a menu and yelling "hey you guys! come on in!" over and over. I ordered enchilladas and was hoping to continue my spice dream, but it was mainly a bowl of melted cheese with pieces of chicken and a single corn torilla wripped up on the top. Yum! Not!

Yesterday, I went over to Jamie's and he and Scott and I made a pimpin dinner of Macaroni and Cheese with mushrooms, a giant salad and....water. We even set the table and lit candles. Then we watched Star Wars and everybody fell asleep.

Today, I am going to eat some toast Pilar left for me, go to the store with her, hopefully go paintballing, go to Jimmy's concert, and maybe hear from my mom. You know, the regular.

Sick Nasty

WARNING: I throw up in this post and I tell you about it.

So, I got home from Tingo and everything was fine. Went to school monday, swimming, ate some grapes, etc. Three hours later, I wake up and go vomit in the toilet. I go to Madre's room, all sick kid scared. I'm shivering so I lay on my stomach on her floor. And start voming again. Prone on the floor. I thought you had to be in a crouching position to toss cookies, but I am constantly surprising my self. So I;m vomiting on the hardwood floor, inching slowly backwards with little flipper hands, leaving this bright yellow trail puddle. Madre comes back with some tea and literally shrieks. Whoops.

Made it back to sleep. Wake up in the morning to find Madre has hired a lady to wax our floors. I feel so bad!

I spent the day sleeping, watching Will and Grace and gagging down saltines.

I'm totally better now, but that was a food poisioning momement that I'm gonna keep with me forever.

Sabaday!

Saturday was so fun, probably one of the best days I have had in Ecuador. I slept nice and late and by the time I had really roused myself, Madre was back from work at the Consultorio and she had brought Tio Malcolm with her. we were all in a great mood and went to the Centro Historico. Its so nice to take the Trole there, to walk up the streets with narrow sidewalks. We stopped in the Indian store again, and this time I had enough money to buy the green dress I wanted last time. But then I spent my money. as you will see. We stopped at a little electronics store, one of a thousand, and bought a memory card reader for me and a new phone shell for Malcolm (its somehting that sounds like "carcass.") So that means there are now photos for me, for facebook, and for the wide world of blogging! if I had known it would cost 7$ for a card reader and not 35$ for a cable, i would have done this alot sooner.

We ate lunch at this Vegan Hare Krishna place, 1.50$ for a huge bowl of bland soup, brown rice, a celery-sort of vegetable, guacamole with corn, spicy lentils, bizarre juice, and apgar-mora-jello stuff. Vale la pena. My madre has already picked out my future husband among the Hare Krishnas present.

My madre bought me lunch, so she told me I should buy her coffee. We went to this old plaza that the Catholic (obviously) church owns but rents out to business to make money. The coffee shop was called "Cafe Fraile." (Friar). Yes. this place is owned by the church. Malcolm got Chocolate con queso which is very rich hot chocolate with heavy wipped cream and pieces of fresh cheese that you drop in and they melt but keep thier sweekyness and flavor....totally not vegan but insanely good.

We went home and my madre went to "un bebay eshowur" and Malcolm and I made about a cubic meter of popcorn in a pressure cooker and watched MTV for a few hours. We do this periodically, its very theraputic. Madre came back and we ate ravioli (weekend pasta) and we took the bus to Malcolm's and a taxi to Nick's and a Taxi to the Fosh.

I've got to say, I'm getting a little sick of going out to the same place over and over again. I like my friends and all but in alot of ways the thrill is gone. Usually going out for me is a way to find that socialy contact that overwhelms and thrills a part of me that doesn't want to be paid attention to during the week. Pati Smith says "I went to the protest to rub against people." This isn't sexual the way I see it, its desiring the random contact that crowds provide. You can get that at protests, always, and K parties often, and I used to be able to get it here, but I'm too surrounded by people and places I know. I never get asked to dance, I get tired early, the people there to bump against are too flimsy or hit back hard. Its an existential crisis when I dont want one. If I want to freak out about my place in the world, there better be a keyboard at my fingertips or a paper and pen in my pocket, not a beer in my hand.

So we got out of that club pretty fast, took those same taxi's home, those same fumbelings for the keyes, the same glasses of water before the same sleep.

This Weekend I Ate Alot

This was the fin de semana of pasta. Or food in general. But a lot of that food was pasta. I’ll go by anecdotes, but its going to end up just describing meals because that’s what mainly happened this weekend.




On Friday afternoon, I had spaghetti on the brain. I stopped at a store on the way home from the bus stop to see if they had tomatoes to make a sauce. They were out, and I was all sad walking home until I went into the kitchen and found….marinara sauce! Just what I was hoping for. Jimmy and I both took naps, and when I got up there was a nun in the living room. I felt like Ke$ha, “wake up in the morning and there’s a nun at the table, grab my glasses Im out the door I’m gonna hit this…stable….” OK maybe not Ke$ha. I’d never actually met a nun before, so I was sort of scared but she was mostly very deaf and silent. She had been a nun since the month before my Ecuamadre was born, more than 53 years. Wow. She is my madre’s great aunt, she’s not just some random nun.



Anyway, so we ate spaghetti, my host mom, my metal head brother, our maid, this nun and I, and drank tea and ate canned peaches. That’s just how things go sometimes.



Wario and Vampira, my girlies, came over, and we went shopping at the cheap import stores near my house, lay around and chatted. We drank mocha and coffee and I discovered yet again that I really can’t drink milk. It really hurts me. We went downtown and sat around at this bar that actually serves those giant fishbowl drinks they warn you about before you go on Spring Break in Miami Beach or something. Instead of paying lots of money to get into clubs, I ate the best hamburger I have eaten in my life. Granted, that number is probably about a dozen, but this was so damnably good. It wasn’t a meat thing at all, it was the fried onions and mustard and perfectly toasted bun. A culinary experience, that burger. And even better given that it was 11:45, I was sitting on a lawn chair in downtown Quito and the fishbowls were going swimmingly.



That night ended late, but I managed to get myself up by 9 and have some fruit and granola and horrifically sweet yoghurt. I drink a lot of yoghurt here, and some of it is good and some of it is bad and bright pink. I went running in Parque El Ejido, which actually meant jogging fast for like 12 minutes and then powerwalking to the playground. They have the best playground in Parque El Ejido! There is a slide that is like two stories high and a zip line and this giant round swing. Everyone should go. I got home and watched some Sex in the City. For some inexplicable reason, we have disc two of season six, so I watched all of that. I didn’t understand the plot lines when I started and now I’m left in suspense. I need to find discs one and three!



At that point, it was time for lunch. My mom has a friend that makes pasta, so we boiled up some of her spinach raviolis and made pesto: basil, spinach, olive oil, garlic, and nuts in the blender. Bright green. We also made a salad with some ancient lettuce, red onions and a whole perfect avacado. Balsamic vinegar and sesemae oil dressing. Perfect. Ate a ton with my ma, chilled out and watched Jimmy and his girlfirned eat a ton. Raviolis are just perfect to pick out of the bowl.



A couple of hours later, I went over to my buddy Mike’s house for dinner. Mike is a big guy, a big Italian guy, and he misses good cooking and big meals, so he had about ten of us over and made pasta. When I got there, they were pouring in the third cup of heavy cream into the pot, and were glad I had brought the vodka. For vodka sauce. Let me tell you, it is really classy going to ask your local bodega owner for the “cheapest, smallest vodka.” You tell them its for cooking, and they don't believe you.



But it was for cooking, and the sauce was excellent. Rediculously rich and excellent. We had salad with dressing Hannah brought from Michigan and this amazing pasta and ridiculously created cookies a la Scott and Dita. We just threw ingedientes that we recalled are in cookies in a bowl and baked little lumps. We also almost added a cup of salt, because Mike’s family likes to keep salt in a jar labled “sugar.” They turned out really tasty, if texturally bizarre.



We sat around for a while, then decided to take a walk. We made it about ten blocks away to near Malcolm’s house, to a giant fluorescent panederia that would make the Beat Generation blush with nostalgia. Madre is sure it is a money laundering place, and I sort of believe her, and sort of just think she is judging the owners for being Colombian. We ordered cookies and coffee and sat there till they closed the place down at ten. We all went home to sleep off all that heavy cream.



The next morning, I watched I Heart Huckabees, which isn’t as good as the first time. Oh well. I ate a pretty bad omlette. Oh well. My madre and I walked near abuela’s house to the big weekend market. The last time I went there, it was my second or third day or something and I was so completely overwhelmed that I think I blocked the memory or something. This time, my Spanish was better, my propreoception less acute, and I was in an overall better mood. We bought fruit for juice, and that was awesome because I got to pick, so no diaretic-papaya juice this week, oranges, bok choi, beets, and eggplants. Ecuadorians have no idea what to do with eggplants, my madre couldn’t even think of the name for it. The lady selling was like “good thing your gringa knows what to do with these, its hard to sell them.” Anytime, old indigenous lady. Another old indigenous lady gave me a fruit so acidic and stringy I knew it wasn´t meant for human consumption. You got me there, second old indigenous lady.



We went to a baby clothes store and bought some really cute little romper things for Madre’s friend who is having a baby in like 3 days. I bought some underwear that say “100% intelegente” on them. Sometimes, its worth the 1.50$.



We went home and started making lunch. Madre gave me detailed instructions on how to make cibeche and I wrote them down in my notebook. Maybe if you are lucky, I’ll make it for you. She worked on the soup, boiling a whole chicken, feet and head included, although she strained those out so that you can put them in when you want them. She claimed the stomach and a food, and left Jimmy the head. Her very very pregnant friend came over and claimed the other foot. I was glad to be left out.



Soup and civeche isn’t really a meal, so my madre was like “COOK THESE EGGPLANT please.” I did some quick internetting and made eggplant parmesian, fried in a skillet in palm oil. Madre, pregnancy Doris and my evil neighbor Parilla were fascinated by it. They were aquainted with the bread crumbs-egg dipping process, but the idea of brining the eggplant, the idea of the eggplant in general was totally foreign. They were like “what could we eat this with?” “what culture does this come from?” “Is this healthy?” At one point, Parilla was like “This would be so good with cheese! And catchup!” She was close.



Malcolm and another friend of Madre came over, and we had lunch. The cibeche was the best I’ve had, the fish tender and flakey, the onions really crunchy, the broth perfect. Of course, we put popcorn and banana chips in it. Two months ago, if you told me I'd be eating blanched fish in orange juice with pop corn in it, I’d have gagged. Today, I just wished for more.



Then we had soup, fresh chicken broth with pieces of ginger, parsnip, and bok choi. Wow. So simple and safe tasting. There’s more of that, and I’m having it for breakfast.



Then we had the eggplants. They were pretty greasy but I got the proper crumb consistency without too many burnt spots or hard middles. It was so funny to see them eat it. My madre refused to eat the skin. Her other friend scraped off all the breading to eat after the eggplant, and the third friend tried to eat it with guacamole.



After that, we just sat around eating the guacamole with banana chips, which is, in my humble opinon, a better guacamole-carrying apparatus thatn the tortilla chip. I know that's pretty sacreligious, but stay with me on this one. We sat around the table and talked about, among other things, urine therapy (that's where you drink your own pee) and how madre’s one friend put her grandson’s urine on his face to cure some sort of white marks he had on his face. She would get him to pee in a cup, and then like wait fifteen minutes until “he’d half forgotten that he’d gone pee” and then “go up to him with the cloth already wet to wash is face.” It made the white marks go away, though. Apparently, the gunk the baby it covered in when it gets born is really good for wrinkles, and both madre and friend are mad they didn’t get it from their kids. Pregnant Doris had no comment.



Then I watched like three hours of MTV and did my homework. Madre and her friend the urine obsessed went for a walk, and when they came back, they were Hari Krishna crazy. Apparenty there are Krishnas in the Old Town on Sundays, and they gave them all this information about healthy vegetarian eating. I’m down for that, so we talked about ghee and baba ganoosh and how to get protein from legumes for a while. Then we had coffee and a some horrible chocolate cake. The weekend was coming to an end. But the cherry on the sundae? From some hippies selling them in Old Town, my madre brought Jimmy and I some aphrodesiacial choclate cookies. I think I’ll save that till later.

Idiot Grin

here are some nicely stupid things I have said recently.


papanicolau is not the word for "Papa Nicholas," even though they sound the same. It means
pap smear. whoops.

The word for a snobby rich person isn't peluquero, its pelucon. Peluquero means
barber. so I was calling kids at my school hairdressers. What an insult.


And then everyday for class we make up sentences with our vocabulary and verb lists. Some of the funnier results.

"She abused our friendship when she gave my money"

"The closet took advantage of World War II"

"The all fled from the happiness of the restroom"

"When I went to touch the rat I looked for a package that was not dead."

"He really worries about the criminal system while resting at night."

"Your BMW tastes good always"


"facebook was discovered in one thousand, two hundred and four"

As I'm sure you all understand, we do it for the lolz

Civil Society

Written Friday Afternoon

Today has been an awesome social-science sort of day. And its not even 4 pm. I was just out in the world, looking at people, thinking about stuff, being part of civilization.

I had to wake up early, and I’d stayed out late the night before, so it wasn’t the best early morning. My madre has a friend from Guyaquil staying for a few days, and she insisted on turning on the TV to some sort of tele-bendiction, that had a lot of loud singing and yelling and an unmoving image of Jesus “hanging out” HAHAHA sorry to be sacreligious. I think it was from clip art or something. Sorry clip art is sacrilegious. We drank this insanely acrid juice that I accidentally described as bitter, but at least that got me out of drinking most of it. We also had yoghurt, and a long discussion about how there is a lot of sugar in yoghurt, and how splenda isn’t actually good for you. Look! Nutricion! Also, to stop my vamanos! Diarreah! I’ve been taking this stuff called intero-germina, which looks like those eye-drop capsules grandpa uses, and tastes like old water. It has like 3 billion bacteria in it. Also, the word for billion in Spanish is mil milliones. A thousand millions. Look! Linguistics!

Took the bus to school, as usual. Have I described the bus to you? Its not so complicated. I walk four blocks north to “la funeraria.” Most of the buildings are funerary plazas, creamatoriums, insurance offices, and flower shops. There is also a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a porno theater. I get on “La Latina” bus, which is usually croweded and then gets less crowded as we pass the Park Elijido, a whole bunch of high schools, and the general hospital. Eventually, we near my stop near the sports complex, and everyone starts yelling “gracias!!!” which means “I want to get off the bus.” I hop off with everyone else and we go wait in line for the next bus. The second bus is called “TransFloresta” and it is a tiny small, green bus. It has to be so small because it takes these twisty, winding roads up and down the mouantin. They are all cobblestone. But, because its so small, there is huge rush to get in, and ends up really crowded. Its very orderly getting on, though. We all line up by this one tree on the sidewalk and wait for the next bus. If you want a seat, you have to wait your turn, but after the seats are filled, people who are running late rush out of line to stand in the aisle. Look! Group Dynamics! I always wait for a seat, its my morning luxury, and contemplate buying an empenada.

Get on bus. Tiny seat. Always window, always left side, always as close to the front as possible. These buses have no shocks, so the back row is a trip to the chiropractor. Ride bus. Get to school. I only have one class on Fridays, and its Rural Socialogy from 8-9. Not really worth the trip to school, but its how it is. We’ve got a lecture about migration and how it effects the rural sector. Main point- remittances are way important. Other point- Europe sucks for not letting Africans immigrate after they totally colonized the continent. This is demonstrated in an emotional and badly put together slide show featuring paintings from the Harlem Rennaissance (?????).

I’ve got about an hour to kill, so I sit with Hailey and we look at our facebooks. Jon Posner talks to me about body modification. Look! Sub cultures! Hailey carefully words a wall comment. We drool over vegan French toast recipies. Look! More nutrition! We go downstairs to get coffee, which for some reason I get for free. I was like “I am going to pay now” and the lady was just like, “no, don’t worry, go sit down.” Ok, cool. Chat with my gringos about last night. Look! Youth behavior! Storytelling patterns!

I’ve got an appointment with my sociology teacher to discuss a volunteering project for January. Its actually an amazingly useful meeting. We are going to get me set up working with older adults who have diabetes in the area of Yaruqui. This is so cool! Not totally sure what I’m doing yet, but I’ll keep you updated. Slash just put my project proposal up here as a blog entry. It was great to really be thinking about social research skills, and to have Prof. Waters mention “when you do your own Fullbright.” Yeah, sure, lets do this.

Bus ride back home. On the way home, the bus is awalys full and I stand. The first bus that comes by, I usually try to open the doors and end up crushing some old lady, the bus is so full. Eventually, the third one I get on, wedge my self in the isle, put on the talking heads, and hold on. Its not a fun ride, curvy and uphill the whole way, making way too much physical contact with your neighbors, getting angry looks from those with seats, although they were in your position this morning. Latina again, a perfect running entrance and seat-grabbing.

I get off the Latina a little early. I want to have lunch near my neighborhood instead of the pricey places in Cumbayá. The mariscal is where all the bars and clubs are, and in the evening its lit up and smokey and loud, but in the afternoon its just a run down neighborhood with more places closed than open. It nice to be there in daylight, to have Spanish instead of drunken Midwestern be the primary language, to just have one reggaeton song blasting per block, to be able to read signs properly. Its somehow more threatening now. Maybe that’s the Zhumir talking.

I found an English bookstore and spent half an hour there, looking at all the romance novels. I found a bunch of books, including Briget Jones’ Diary and Midnight’s Children, but decided on one of those comic book textbooks for introducing linguistics. Look! Linguistics! It was good to speak English.

I found this restaurant called Uncle Ho’s or Tio Ho’s, Ho’s something, “Fresh Asian Food” and now I’m going to tell you about my delicious lunch. It was so good! I ordered the executive lunch, which is like the special that almost every restaurant has. It has soup, juice, main plate, and sometimes dessert.

The soup was really Ecuadorian, which I was trying to get away from, but really good. Little noodles, dark beef broth, pieces of onion, little pieces of chewy beef that tasted so good to this protein-deprived lady. It also had that awesome quality soup sometimes has when you can tell that there is fat in it, it really fills you up and warms you.

Next came the main dish! I ordered vegetables and tofu with noodles. It was sort of odd. The vegetables were semi-raw zucchini/squash on a skewer. It tasted pretty bad. The tofu was also on a skewer but was awesome. It was crispy and sweet on the outside, and then soft and plain in the middle. There was a lot too. The noodles were like vermicelli noodles that were in this thick sauce that might have been marinade. There were also raw cucumbers and whole peanuts. It was good but super strange. There was also pineapple juice, without the three inches of bitter foam that usually come when you make pineapple juice. Then there was deseart, which was a half of a banana deep fried. I wasn’t expecting that, but it wasn't like I was complaining. All for five dollars. I was the only person in the restaurant, so I left a 50 cent tip. Its way nice and totally unexpected to tip in Quito, so I feel good Samaritan.

I walked home a different way, feeling full and happy. Its so cool to be in another country, to hear Spanish and understand it, to learn new things. But really, what's most amazing is just seeing people. Watching men argue, an old couple cross the street, children pay attention, pickpockets plot. People try so hard to sell things, to keep themselves healthy, to meet the expectations of others. And you can see all that stuff everyday on the street, in a lobby, anywhere.

Gotta give my madre the computer and go make spaghetti. So glad to have a world and eyes to see it with.

I'll Have the Usual

<
It was a normal sort of afternoon, as common as they get during the Kalamazoo Study Abroad Experience.

I got to school around 11, said hi to about a third of the people I know at the school (25), and went to Casa Tomate, my nth home. Casa Tomate is salmon colored, hard to get to, and is home to the international programs. I know at least three people who have cried there already. Tania is there, and she is the boss. She is German-Ecuadorian, about 6 feet tall, and pregnant. We do what she says.

She took me to the registration office to get my class situation sorted out, and that almost lead to me being the fourth person to cry; there was just too much going on in that office: Pop music, Spanish chatting, three phone calls, and two computers shared between two people, and me being asked to recite numbers in Spanish.

Finished that up, took some deep breaths, and went to have lunch at the Vegetarian Place. You go in, order “el menu” and for $2.80, you get soup, juice, and a plate full of macrobiotic vegetables and brown rice. There’s always some fake meat with peppers, something raw, and something like potatoes in a gelatinous sauce. The juice and soup are usually the best parts.

At one, I had class, improvisation class, which is really awesome, and a great opportunity. Shoutout to my Monkapult foos. We started playing games with words, though, and that was hard. Two kids got up in front of the class and just started talking about nothing. There is no way I can do that! My conversations have clear subjects, questions to answer, vocabulary words to use. They can be about the time of an appointment or weather Amedenijhad has a mental illness, but I need to focus my mind on what I’m going to say at least 25 seconds before I say it. Whoops, this could make spontenaity a little difficult. But its still an awesome class, and the kids in it are funny and nice. One of the other norteamericanos is actually from Chantilly, so we talked about that, and how he was a truck driver for the Girl Scouts (??)

By 2:30 I was sitting on the front steps of the school with my gringos, talking about how much we hate USFQ. Well, not all of it. We just feel like we’re in 9th grade, and feel the glances down rhinoplastied noses. Its made me even more determined not to shave my legs, but even more embarrassed to show it. Most of my friends went home, so I went to the library to do my Drawing homework: drawing lines. Horizontal and vertical lines with a variety of pencils. Did that for an hour and a half. Re-discovered my love of The Squirell Nut Zippers. The Ipod is a pretty important part of my life right now.

I had drawing class at 4. The class is 10 well adjusted, goofy, talented freshmen, and me, who doesn’t know any words for art supplies, and doesn’t have any of them, anyway. Because I didn't have “tinta china” (is that a racially-charged word for “black ink” or what?), he felt the need to draw me a map of the town of Cumbaya, highlighting the way to the art store. Ver Humiliating. The project for the day was cool though, using the ink and brushes or pens (didn’t have those either) to make pointillism drawings with varities of textures of ink. Here’s my drawing, not done at all.




And here’s one of just me, in case you missed that sultry smile. Sunburned? But of course.

Art class done, I took one, two, three buses to the Consultorio, where I met up with madre et al. Its so odd to kiss my uncle hello as he wears a surgical mask and someone’s mouth is open two feet away. Sanitation is not a worry. Kiss my madre’s patient hello, random man hello, etc. Go say hi to Jimmy, who is giving a massage to an anonomous shirtless skinny person. Go say hi to Malcolm, abuela, and Diego, who are eating geletin and watching Hercules dubbed into Spanish. Guess who is also playing online chess? The person who is always playing online chess, Diego! There are also personal ads scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen, which is weird.

My madre has called a taxi driven by her friend Miguelito. We drive across the city to visit her daughter, Gavi. We are bringing her things. We drive forty minutes. We arrive at the house. Items brought: diapers, toothpaste, some tomatoes, and fish food. Are those things not available in the West part of Quito? Maybe there is an embargo. Gavi rules, though, and so do her husband and kids.

We drive back, disussing the best way to make sangria. The car is divided on weather soda is a good addition.

Back at the house, Madre and I stare depressed at the refrigeratior while the cat humps our legs. We decide to make a “tallerin” which means any sort of noodles and a salad. It actually turns out awesome, she cooks all these wilted vegetables in seseme oil and we put these noodles on it….I stick to plain wilted lettuce/squishy tomato salad. Its also pretty good. Madre offers me a drink she calls “geletina tibia” (lukewarm geletin.) I keep the vomit down and politely decline. She shows up at the table with a beer stein filled with acid-green liquid that she is now calling “Jello On the Rocks.”

Hole away in my room, shutting the door from the evil cat. Jimmy and his gf just got home. I’ll probably watch some TV, and then pack for our trip to Otavalo. All the K kids are going one hour north to this market town for the weekend. I’m looking forward to buying woolen goods from industrious indigenous people, taking a really good shower, and not feeling guilty about speaking English.