Monkeys, alligators, birds and anacondas!

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Jenni

So my Amazon adventure started very early in the morning on Monday, 4:00am to be exact. I had everything packed the night before so all I had to do was get dressed, have breakfast and get to the bus stop. All of the students met at the bus stop at 4:30 and we were on our way by 4:45. This was by far the earliest I have ever gotten up since I came to Ecuador but our flight left at 8:15 so we had to be there for 7:15. We stopped to pick up the kids in Latacunga after about an hour of driving. The drive got a lot more uncomfortable after that. On a normal trip we have just enough seats for everybody, but Angelina’s brother added an extra body. Needless to say it wasn’t the most pleasant drive I’ve ever had. We arrived at the airport at around 7:45 because we got caught in rush hour traffic and construction all at the same time, it was so much fun(read with heavy sarcasm). It was really nice to see some of the other exchange students that I hadn’t seen for over three months. Someone made an interesting comment after we had all said our hellos. On the first trip we met with hesitant smiles and handshakes, the second trip was met with big hugs and happy grins, this trip we all gave each other a kiss on the cheek, thus proving that we are now fully ensconced in Ecuadorian culture. Talking with other English speakers after months with exposure only Spanish language was truly amazing, it definitely made waiting to check in feel like nothing. Waiting for the Rotary people to check their bags through, was a little bit unnerving. Our tickets said that the plane was leaving at 8:15 and at 8:25 we were still outside security. It was an enjoyable wait though. Bella, Fallon, Mitchell(US Exchange students) and I  were laughed at for try to speak German. We would say the words the same way three times and the Germans would say that it was completely wrong. On the fourth try,saying it the exact same way, they told us it was perfect. When we finally were allowed to go through security the plane was almost fully loaded.  We had to rush just to make the flight on time. Luckily for us the plane ride was only 30 minutes, just long enough to finish going up before heading back down again. The unfortunate part, though, was that after touching down and collecting our bags we had a 2 hour drive ahead of us. I ended up being second to last to get on the bus and as such, got stuck sitting in a folding seat with no padding and a wooden back. I got to sit next to my friends though so that was good. We talked for a while but it had been a long morning for all of us, and by the end of the first hour we were all asleep in various positions. I think I got the short end though because they all had shoulders to rest on, I was sitting behind them and only had the hard back seat in front of me. It started raining what I can only think was a short time after that. That fact didn’t make us feel very good considering the majority of our trip was to be spent outside, little did we know that that was the only time it was going to rain while we were there. A half hour later it was sunny and cloudless as we stopped at the boat pick up point for lunch. The food that they gave us could hardly be classified as food. The chicken was way, way , way over cooked, the beans were more like a can of bad pea soup and the veggies were some kind of pickled thing, where all you could taste was the vinegar. It was an interesting meal though. I ended up sitting between three different languages, not including English. I was, however, next to an American so I understood one language, he even managed to make fun of his country. Never try to explain a bad English joke in Spanish to a native French speaker who has no sense of humor, it doesn’t work.
The boats came at long last and we were all ready to get going on what promised to be the best Rotary trip yet. The first group had to unload first though. Two of my friends were in that group so it was good to be able to talk to them for a bit while everything was being sorted out. They advised me to sit away from the food, cover my drink at breakfast and always try to get to the plug ins first. But, most of all, ALWAYS BRING YOUR RAIN PONCHO!!! AS soon as all of the luggage was set to go we had to say good bye, but I’ll see them all again before I leave. The first task at hand, before even getting in the boats was receiving our park passes and having teh rules of the trip explained. The rules were simple, wear your lifejacket(yeah right, we’re in Ecuador people), don’t touch anything with bug spray on your hands(easier said than done), and always lean forwards in the canoe if a branch is coming, never to the side or else the canoe might tip(I think that I was the only one that remembered that rule). Next came actually getting on the boats, something that was more difficult than it should have been. Each boat could only hold ten passengers. This meant that the first boat would hold ten students and the other would have the remaining eight and the two chaperones. Amazingly there was one spot left on the first boat that nobody wanted, I didn’t know how lucky I was to get it until later. Our guide, Luis, told us that if we didn’t stop the trip would take around two hours, as it stood it took us at least four. We stopped so many times I didn’t even try to keep count. Each time Luis would point out something that we would never have noticed on our own and explained a little bit about each animal and plant that we saw. I think that a good half of my pictures are from those four hours alone. One of the most interesting things to happen was when the other guide managed to get his hands on a baby tarantula. When our guide got it, it started climbing on his elbow and then promptly fell off. The four of us in the front two seat let out a scream, lifted our feet and started looking for the thing. I had all the luck, it seems. The spider had landed on my leg and seemed to be content there, it wasn’t moving too much at least. I was wearing pants and couldn’t feel it but even so, I’ve had many people say that they most likely would have wet themselves if that had happened to them. The rest ride was great because both Bella and Fallon were sitting behind me so we talked almost the entire time. I learned that I, apparently, have an accent that I didn’t know about. It was absolutely hilarious to listen to Fallon try, and fail, to replicate it. When we finally got to camp it was wordlessly decided that us three would share a room, so we left to secure it right away. Unfortunately, we chose the room right next to the chaperones :( We didn’t have long to wallow in sorrow though. The heat had been oppressive all day so they took us out to the middle of the lagoon and let us swim around and cool off for about an hour. We had until 7:00 to do whatever until the night hike. My cabin spent that time figuring out sleeping arrangements and getting cleaned off (the lagoon left this green gunk all over you). As the time to leave rolled around we were running a bit behind and managed to get in the second boat, with the ‘old people’, as they were thusly dubbed. We took the boat a short way over to an inlet and started to walk from there. It wasn’t that bad over all and we saw some pretty cool bugs. It seemed to take forever though when ‘the old people’ insisted in being in the front and then proceeded to walk at a snails pace. When we got back dinner was served right away. I don’t believe that any plate had any food left on it, we were all ridiculously hungry after the day’s excitement. After dinner I somehow found myself sitting at a table with Fallon, Bella, Mitchell, Nora (a German from my city), and Lea (a German from Mitchell’s city) playing a hand game. It has no name as far as I know but basically you sit in a circle and cross your arms with the people next to you. Everyone has their hands flat on the table. One person starts and if they tap the table once it goes the same way but two taps and it changes directions, the same for everyone in the circle. You always end up with two winners and I think that Mitchell and I won more times than we lost. We must have played 20 rounds because Fallon refused to stop until she won, she never did. When we all got bored I suggested that I could bring out my deck of cards, it got a bigger and better reaction than I thought it would. We tried a few games but nothing fell into a rhythm like the slap game did and before we knew it it was 10:00, lights out and time for bed. Bella opted to sleep in another room because they had a bigger bed. (throws hands in the air) Don’t ask me, it’s just Bella’s logic.

When I woke up the next morning I wasn’t feeling very well. I’ll never know if it was the food, the lagoon water, or too much sun but I couldn’t even keep down a piece of bread at breakfast. The rest of the morning was to be spent hiking through the forest. I again had the luck, good or bad, of being with ‘the old people’. I tried drinking lots of water but if wasn’t helping very much. I felt a little better when we were walking but we kept stopping and taking about different plants and how they can help in a survival situation. It would have been really cool if only I could have paid attention. 30mins into the walk we stopped and the guide started asking us questions. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to talk without hurling so when he came to me I didn’t even try to fight it. Thank goodness that all I had had that morning was water or it could have been a lot more unpleasant than it already was. I did feel a lot better after that though, even if everyone was constantly asking if I felt alright. After that we got to see some cool stuff like real vines you could swing from, and a hollow tree you could sleep in if you couldn’t find your way back to camp. Like the night before it was an overall good hike but the end seemed to drag on forever. At first the ‘old people’ walked in the back. that worked well, we got to walk as fast as we wanted and than take a short break while we waited for them to catch up. In the end though, they decided that they wanted to be in front, we couldn’t really argue with them since they were the chaperones. This meant that we walked at an incredibly slow pace and didn’t take any breaks, it felt like ‘water torture’, at the time. What should have been a three hour hike turned into a five hour one and everyone just wanted to have lunch when we got back. Luck was on our side and about five minutes after we walked into camp lunch was served. I didn’t eat much, just the smell of the food put me off.

Piraña fishing and swimming took up the majority of our afternoon. I had the bad luck of running late a being in a boat with none of my closest friends. It was pretty cool seeing a real live piraña though. Our guide even gave us a demonstration of how sharp their teeth are be putting a half inch stick in front of one that was caught. The fish took one bit and all you saw was one half of the stick falling to the floor of the boat. Swimming wasn’t as fun as the day before, mainly because I didn’t go. I figured that I might have gotten sick by swallowing some of the lagoon water, I really didn’t want to risk it. Just before it got dark out everyone got back in the boats and we started looking for some alligators. We were out there for a good two hours and I think that we only saw three of them. You couldn’t really get a good picture either because all you could see were their eyes. On our way back to camp almost everyone took a nap after such a long day. Dinner was good, I ate the veggies but I didn’t even try the meat. It could have been better though if I had been able to sit near my English speaking friends. The other boat had gotten in before us and had taken up one table. This meant that I was had to  sit with my boat which wasn’t awful, but I could have been better. After dinner we somehow managed to convince Luis (our guide) to tell us a couple of stories native to the Amazon. They were quite good and I won’t even attempt to tell them here. They are something that is best told and heard in person. I didn’t even wait for lights out before I went to bed. I really didn’t want to be sick in the morning and a good night s rest always makes you feel better in the morning.

I was feeling much better on Wednesday morning. I was ravenous and had two helpings of everything at breakfast. As soon as everyone had eaten we got into the boats to go and visit the Shaman. It was a fairly long boat ride and I think that everyone stayed up a lot later than me because I was the only one that was awake for the whole thing. It was a good thing that we didn’t see very much wildlife or else the girls would have been very disappointed. When we got there Luis told us that we were not to take any pictures until we were specifically told that we could. The Shaman’s hut was like a mini-village unto itself. His entire family lived there as well as grew their own food without the help of the other villagers that lived a couple kilometers downstream. Once the other boat joined us we were taken into his consulting room and he gave us an explanation about what it is he does and how he became a Shaman.
His father was the previous Shaman and he died a few months ago which promoted his son into the official role as Shaman. Training to become one is not easy and only a few have ‘the ability’ to truly be a Shaman. The basic gist is that he drank this special tea that allowed him to ‘see clearly’ and gradually worked his way up with the potency and amount. After he had enough experience he was taken to the oldest tree and given a different tea to drink. He proceed to die and talk to the great spirits who taught him his chant. Each chant is different just as each out of body experience is. After 24 hours he came back and was officially a Shaman. After his tale a number of students volunteered to be cleansed of any ‘bad air’. The ceremony reminded me of a native smudging ceremony in Canada, but with the Shaman doing all the work. We were allowed to take pictures of him once he was done, and a couple of girls even got their faces painted by him. My boat had brought lunch with us so we said goodbye to the others and sat down for a good meal. Afterwards we all painted each others faces to look all shaman-y, most of us accidentally wiped half of it off trying to wipe to sweat that the humidity was causing. Once everything was all packed up we headed downstream to the native village. We stopped along the way to take pictures with the tallest tree in the forest. It was HUGE!! The roots alone were taller than any of us. When we finally got the village we were greeted by one of the women there. She brought us through the steps of making yuca pizza. 1. you harvest the roots of a yuca tree. 2. you shred the yuca like you would carrots for a carrot cake. 3. twist most of the liquid out. 4. spread it out on a pan on the fire and flip it like a pancake when one side is cooked. 5. Serve with any condiments you like. Jam works well. After the entire pizza was eaten we joined the other boat for a game of soccer against the locals. Us spectators got to eat jungle grapes while our team kick butt. The village boys were rather put out when we had to leave. They don’t usually lose and were convinced that they would win if given more time. We had to leave though if we wanted to swim and be back at camp before the sun set. I didn’t swim yet again because I didn’t want to risk it and because all I had on was a t-shirt and a long pair of jeans, it would have been mightily uncomfortable. Dinner was better that night, although us English girls felt abandoned. Almost everyone took the place settings from our table and moved them, it didn’t make us feel very wanted. It all worked out though when we had to put on a talent show. Each city and each language had to do something. Ambato had just finished doing our dance for that party (mentioned in an earlier blog post) so we decided that was the easiest thing for us to present. Unfortunately none of us had the music so we had to try and remember the steps, timing, and words to all of the songs as well as the order of them. Needless to say that it was quite a riot. The other cities did OK but none were as entertaining as ours. Then the language groups had to present a talent. Apparently ‘Canadian’ is its own language because it said English and Canada on the layout. We all had to sing though which was something we didn’t want to do. We ended up in a pyramid with a German in the group singing the American national anthem while one of the guides tickled to bottom guys with a feather. We some how managed to get all the way though the song without falling over or collapsing which earned us a round of applause. Again, each group did well but none were as entertaining as ours. The chaperones then gave out awards to the best language performance: the English Group.  Our group decided to give the prize to the “only non American”, the German student Danny. It was funny that they totally forgot that I was also a non-American…being Canadian).  Some individual awards were given too, like best soccer player(Fallon as goalie), and most pirañas caught. They then gave it over to the staff to decide which city had been the best overall during the trip. They chose Ambato, of course. ‘The old people’ stayed up for a bit as we started singing traditional Spanish songs but went to bed soon after that. We gradually slipped into singing popular 80′s rock hits and the group started to thin until there was only Fallon, Bella, Mitchell, Luis and I left singing. We got to hear a couple more stories from Luis about his time as a guide and about growing up in the Amazon, they yet again are best left to be told in person. Mitchell and I finished out the night when Bella asked for a Disney song. Mitchell had stared in Aladdin so we ended up singing ‘A Whole New World’ while he fed me my lines. By that time it was 12:30 and we had to get up early the next morning. None of were very tired though but ‘the old dude’ came out and started yelling at us because it was late and we should be in bed. That was the end of it for me but not so much for the rest of camp. Bella, of course, had been sleeping in another (unassigned) room and had gotten away with it but ‘the old dude’ decided to do a room check that night after finding some students with a couple bottles of alcohol. We could hear it all from the room and after hearing exactly what happened from her the next mooring I’m glad that I was safely my own room.

On the last morning of the trip we all got up early to watch the sun rise. I really was a beautiful sight and absolutely amazing to hear the forest wake up. All the bird calls bended together to make a beautiful symphony. Then it was back to camp to pack and eat breakfast before we shipped off. A number of us got to the boats early in order to get Luis as a guide, as it had been established that he was the more experienced one. the people who didn’t get a spot in his boat decided to play mind games and tried to get us to switch boats so that all of their friends could fit. There were 12 or 13 friends though and each boat only had 10 seats so that didn’t work. Then they filled the other boat and tried to convince him to switch which also didn’t work as each guide had his own boat and wouldn’t switch no matter what. My friends and I ended up where we wanted, even if we did piss off a few people in the process. It didn’t really matter though, as we saw very little wildlife anyway. The boat ride that took us around four hours only days before took less than two to get back to the pick up/drop off point. We ate at the same place as we did on Monday. I think they just reheated the meals they served us then as well. We had to wait for a bit for the bus since we were early so most of us got some ice cream to stem off the heat and give us a little sugar energy that we so needed. The bus arrived shortly there after and the sugar crash came at just the right time, there were only about three people who didn’t sleep on the ride, thankfully I wasn’t one of them. ‘Old dude’ did wake us up though to give us a lecture about drinking and staying up too late. I didn’t pay much attention because they only thing I did was stay up late and that wasn’t very rule break-y of me. After a two hour bus ride we had to say goodbye to our amazing guides and then attempt to occupy ourselves in the terminal. We must have sat there for four hours. After the first one Fallon, Bella, Mitchell, Nora, Lea and I were all playing riddles, number and pattern games to pass the time. It actually worked surprisingly well, we only got bored in the last half hour or so. The plane ride was slightly longer this time and I talked to Bella and Mitchell a bit about what we going on in the US right now and what our opinions were. Overall it was one of the most stimulating conversations I’ve had face to face with a person since I arrived in Ecuador. After the plane landed we had to say goodbye to our friends. This time it was a North American instead of South American parting. I though it quite fitting to open the trip as integrated citizens and close it with the coming back to our roots. My group was crammed into the same tiny bus with not enough seats. We stopped for dinner at McDonalds, it was as greasy and nasty as ever but at lest the ice cream was okay. The rest of the ride was mostly spent sleeping, though I rather uncomfortable because the spot I was sitting in was giving me a gigantic wedgy. It was different coming back to Ambato and being pick up by a different family than the Jaramillos but not good or bad, just different.

The trip was a blast and I recommend going to the Amazon rainforest if you ever get the chance. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth and is a place like no other.

Posted in El Oriente (rain forest), Events | 1 Comment

Amazon Pictures added

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Dad

Click HERE to see Jenni’s Amazon Trip pictures.  She promises to post a full blog when she finds some time – oh to have the life of an Exchange Student.  ;)

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Change is in the air

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Jenni

My week in school wasn’t that exciting.  Monday was like any other Monday.   Just like Tuesday was like any other Tuesday, but then things got interesting.   All of the exchange students in my club were supposed to be changing families on thursday and so I spent most of my Wednesday night organising and packing all of my things.   I knew that I had collected a lot but I didn’t realise just how much.   When I came to this country I had two suit cases that were under 100 lbs. and one carry on backpack. After I had everything packed away to move I had two suitcases that weighed around 125 each, two backpacks stuffed to the brim, two shoe boxes full of books and other odds and ends, as well as my trumpet.   Based on this fact I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how I’m going to get everything home when I have to leave in early summer.  I have a feeling that most of my shoes will be finding homes here, along with any school supplies I have left over.   Unfortunately the parents had a meeting on Wednesday and determined that we would not be moving until Saturday.   That was good news for all the other girls since they hadn’t started packing yet, but for me it could only mean one thing, trying to find random items of clothing with messing up the packing job too much.

Thursday wasn’t too, too bad since I had to wear the same uniform to school anyway and I could just wear the same clothes from Wednesday.  Friday, however, wasn’t as easy.   First off, my uniform for Friday was in both suitcases, and at the bottom to boot.   Add in the fact that I couldn’t remember where I had put each part of the uniform and you have one stressful morning.   I managed to get myself to school on time, even if I was a little rushed.  The school day was uneventful but I got a nice surprise when I got home.   My parents package had arrived in the mail and I could go and start the process of retrieving it that day.   Before I could do that though I needed to attempt to find my dance outfit from the party on Saturday night.   We (Ambato exchange students) were going to be presenting it at around 3:30 and I would be damed if I could find the whole thing.   I finally found all but one piece but I was already late for rehearsal, so Paulina drove me over to Jessica’s house. We had to do all of our own makeup this time because we were not going to pay $40 again.   The boys showed up later because they didn’t have to prepare as much and then it was time to go.   We walked down to the club, and got a few cat calls along the way, to meet up with Angelina’s parents there.  My family had told me that Angelina’s brother was staying here for a couple of weeks but I didn’t really think about it until we met him.   He was absolutely gorgeous. All of the other dancers there thought so as well since they all wanted pictures with him, it was actually kind of funny.  The dance over all went well, but no where near as good as the first time.   We had to wait for around 45 minutes before we could go on and then another 30 afterwards before everyone was finished.   When we did leave we left in good spirits and we sang and skipped, pretty much the entire way the Jessica’s.   The rest of the night was spent just hanging out in Jessica’s living room talking.   It wasn’t just regular talking though because Tobias, Angelina’s brother doesn’t speak spanish and the rest of us don’t speak Swiss-German.  That was okay though because he also spoke French and English.   It was quite interesting therefore to listen to us talk, Cloe, Angelina and Tobias in French, Tobias, Danny and I in English, Angelina and Tobias in Swiss-German, and everyone but Tobias in Spanish.   It certainly blew my mind to have so many different languages being spoken in the same conversation in the same room.   At around 9:00 Alvaro came and picked me up so that I could finish packing for the move the next day.   All in all I had fun, even if I didn’t understand half of what was being said that night.

Saturday was jam packed with changes and the start of the second half of my year here in Ecuador.  I had packed everything I owned into two suitcases, two shoe boxes and two backpacks the night before, which, let me tell you, is no easy task.  So that morning I was all ready go move into a new house with a new family and a new set of rules.   Needless to say I was a little worried but also very excited.   Jessica was the one moving into my old house, and she was going to get there at 11:30 so I had to be out by about 10:45.  Before I said my goodbyes I didn’t think it would be to bad.   I liked my family and all but I never felt that I really clicked with them.   I was wrong though, when I said goodbye to everyone in each of the three houses they all told me to not be a stranger and make sure to come by and visit whenever I wanted to.   I almost cried when I though about the fact that even when I do visit I will never again live with these people and that in less than six months there is a very really possibility that I might not see them again.   The most touching part for me was when Paulina gave me their jar of peanut butter because she knew I loved it so much.   It wasn’t that fact that it was peanut butter so much as she cared and knew enough about me to give anything to me at all.   Right after that it was time for me to go and move in where I would and will be living for the remainder of my exchange.   When Alvaro and I pulled up outside, Veronica and Roberto came right out to help us with my stuff.   It was an interesting experience trying to get over 200lbs of stuff up two flights of stairs without anyone getting hurt.   We managed it though.  When I got upstairs Angelina and her brother were still packing which I found rather ironic.   Around half an hour after I got there they were ready to go and when Roberto and Veronica drove her to her new house I started unpacking my things.   I don’t have as much room for my things in my new room but I made it all fit.   Before I go home though I will need to get rid of a lot of my stuff if I don’t want to pay for extra baggage or extra weight.   Most of the rest of my day was spent learning the basics of how day to day life goes in the household and getting myself settled in.   Sunday was more of the same with some packing for the Amazon thrown in for good measure.   I was missing a couple of things which my family was more than happy to lend me.

I like it here so far.  The people are very nice, and the house is small but comfortable. I feel like I fit in with them already.   I hope things continue to go well and I will be posting about my four day trip to the amazon soon.

Posted in El Oriente (rain forest), Host Families, Spanish Language | Leave a comment

A crazy time

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Jenni

So since I last wrote quite a bit has happened, at least in my mind. The week following Christmas was very quiet.  I slept in and just relaxed in general.  On the 31st though things started to pick up.  First of all I was invited by the other exchange girls to dance with them at a party the next weekend, little did I know how much fun mixed with some work that would be.   After that we took a drive back up to Quito and celebrate the new year with Paulina’s family.   We mostly just hung out during the day but at around 5:00 the kids, Paulina and grandma all went out to see the año viejos or old years. We couldn’t find parking within 8 blocks of the best viewing street and Dolo was sick and grandma couldn’t walk very far so we didn’t end up seeing any. We did, however, see a lot of guys dressed as girls dancing in the street.   It was really quite funny to see 20 something year old guys dressed in short skirts, heels, and long wigs dancing in the middle of the street for money.   The better the costume or dance the more you pay them, with a maximum of 5 cents.   I was told that a group of friends will go out on different streets and at the end of the night will pool their money and buy a bottle of Zumir, an Ecuadorian alcohol.   Before we went home we stopped for ice cream.   I got vanilla and I decided that one of the first things I want to eat when I get home is a regular vanilla ice cream, the stuff here is okay but it will never be the same as in Canada.   Once we were finished everyone went home to change into some nice clothing.   The reasoning behind this is that if you look nice at the begging of the new year you will bring in a good new year, it sounds better in Spanish.  Most of the rest of the night was spent snacking and talking with the family.   At around 11:30 we all went up onto the roof of the apartment building and set off some fireworks.   We headed back in for 12:00 and celebrated with a glass of champagne each.  We still had some fireworks left so Dolo, three cousins and I all went back up to finnish setting them off.   I learned an important lesson that nigh, never give 18, 19 and 20 year olds free reign over fireworks.   You know those little fireworks that have a very short wick and you have to light them and then throw them right afterwards, I don’t think you can buy them in Canada.   Well the middle cousin Danny was lighting them and then throwing them at us, he scared the crap out of me, especially when one exploded less than a meter away from me. But what honestly scared me half to death was when they couldn’t get a ‘volcano’ to light so they stuck it in the fire.   An Ecuadorian tradition is to burn a life size, paper man to signify the burning of all the bad things from last year and bring in the good.   So, I’ve heard stories of people getting really hurt when they put fireworks in a fire so I got really, really, really scared when they did that.   Everything turned out fine, it only threw off sparks when it finally lit and by that time the fire had shifted it away from us so we would have been okay anyway. By the time we were done with that it was like 2 in the morning and we still hadn’t had dinner.   I also called my parents to wish them a happy new year or feliz año nuevo, they were glad that I called but I couldn’t talk for long because dinner was being served and I was fairly hungry by that time.   The meal was fine and there was definitely enough food to go around but it was just too late for me to really enjoy it.   Sunday morning was a little too early for me.   I got up at 7:00 in order to go to breakfast at my uncles sister’s house.   The family was wonderful and the food was great not to mention I learned a few new breakfast recipes.  We left the house at around 1:00 and just hung out until 6:00 when we went for mass.   I spent my time catching up on the sleep that I miss the night before.   Mass was fine and I hadn’t been to one outside of school for a while so it was a nice change.   After mass we went back to my uncle’s sister’s house for dinner and stayed to talk until 10:00.   Monday was an extra day of vacation and I spent that day traveling back to Ambato and just generally relaxing some more.

Tuesday’s highlight was when I found out that I had a package in the mail, most likely from Canada.   The down side to that day was that I also found out that I couldn’t pick it up for at least 48 hours.   Wednesday was the first day that I got to practice with the girls for our dance at Club Tungaruha.   We all met at Cloe, the girl from belgium,’s house to create our costumes first.   What I didn’t realize though was that two other exchange students were going to be dancing with us.  Danny, a rotary exchanger from the states and a guy from Germany who is with another exchange program(I don’t know how to spell his name and I can barely say it).  Danny was the only other one that could come that day because the other guy was at the beach.   So we ended up going to a couple of different dress shops to see if they could make our dresses in time for us to wear them on saturday.  We finally found a place, then we had to go buy our material.   We ended up getting four different, bright colors of stretch nylon.   The dresses themselves were going to have a top shirt part and a bottom skirt part each in a different color so that none of the four of us had the same dress. Once all of our measurements were taken we all went out for something to eat.  We went looking for ice cream bars but we couldn’t find any.   In the end we stopped at a place that sold crepes.   We all had at least one and two of the girls had two.   We all talked for a bit and Danny told us that another exchange student had been sent home.   Apparently he took some drugs, got extremely high and then got a tattoo of a sun on his leg that said “me no wanna go home”.   I’m sure you can all find the irony in that.  I got home at around 9:30

Thursday was the day that I was supposed to be able to pick up my package but the clerk told us that the paperwork hadn’t been processed yet.   Afterwards I met up with the others at Jessica’s house, the mexican, to practice the actual dance steps.  Cloe was the one that came up with most if not all of the choreography and she drew inspiration from all of the different videos for the songs that we used.   The songs in order were ‘Last Friday Night’ by Katy Perry, Mashup Germany, ‘Champagne Showers’ by LMFAO, and ‘Rain over me’ by Pitbull.   Some of the steps were confusing and it was hard to do the changes in position because we didn’t have a disk with them all in the right order and ending at the right time.   The worst part was that we didn’t have any choreography for champagne showers at all so we had to learn that entire dance on Friday, the day before the show.  We were at the house until 9:30 and ended up having dinner there. We had a lot of laughs, one minor one being when Cloe pronounced naranja wrong, the j is supposed to sound like an h but she pronounced it like a j in english. The best part was when I muttered under my breath about it and Jessica heard me and started laughing like she had never heard anything more funny.   When I got home though my mom was a little upset because I had forgotten to call her.   If there is one overriding thing that I hate about being on exchange it’s that I’m so mood swingy.   The couple of words that she said to me about it normally wouldn’t have affected me, other than to make sure I call her next time, sent me into tears when I got to my room.   I knew that is was just my body reacting but that doesn’t mean that I have to like it.   The worst part is that I never know how I’m going to react to different situations and all I can do is my best with what I have.

On friday I didn’t go to any of my classes and instead went to Jessica’s again to practice some more.  I was the first one there but the others soon followed.   Danny and the other guy were the last to arrive and it was the first time I had met him.   He is nice enough but I think that I make people very uncomfortable for some reason, certain people just shy away from me and, as far as I can see, there is no pattern to it.   We spent the morning teaching the dances to him and learning the rest of the steps that we didn’t the day before. at around 9:30 we went down to make pancakes for breakfast.   That was an interesting experience because everything here is gas powered and the gas hose wasn’t working properly.   We had to have somebody put pressure on it while we cooked until we could manage to jerry rig it.   The funniest thing, though, was when Danny mentioned a road trip that he wants to take and then the other guy bursts out laughing out of nowhere. apparently in Germany and in Europe in general very few teenagers drive or dream of the day when they can drive like in North America, they all take the train.   In light of that he found the whole idea of a road trip absolutely hilarious.   We finished breakfast at around 11:00 and left to go a buy all of the accessories we were going to need for the next day.   The first stop was the dress shop to see if we could try them on yet but the lady told us to come back at 5:00 so we left.   The next stop was at a shoe market to get some heels for me and the other girls.   Jessica and Angelina, the girl from Switzerland, just happen to be the same size and got two different colors of the same type of shoe and just switched one shoe so that they each had one of each color.   Cloe managed to find a pair that fit with no problems but none of the stalls that had the same kind of shoes had my size.   They all had the size below, the size above or only one shoe in the right size.   I finally found a pair of shoes that fit though and we were on our way.  The next stop was to a clothing market for some ties, suspenders and shirts for the guys to wear.   We also got some bracelets, earrings, and what I can only call a kind of garter.  They were meant for your hair but with the kind of style we wanted they wouldn’t work so we put them on our thighs instead.  At last it was 5:00 and we could go back and try on our dresses. Mine fit fine but everyone else wanted or needed adjustments to their dresses. After that Jessica had to go and pack some clothes for the weekend because she was staying at Angelina’s while her parents were away.   Cloe and I stayed behind to finish with the dresses and go meet the guys for dinner.   The boys had already eaten so we shared a small pizza between the two of us.   While we were waiting for the other two to get back, the four of us went and bought some hats to use in our dance.  They were quite colorful and sparkly.   At 8:00 we all went to the club to practice on the stage we would performing on.   It was interesting dancing on it, especially with heels on. The stage was made of wooden risers pushed together, so naturally there were cracks between each of the boards that our heels could get stuck in.   The practice went well over all but just before we finished, one of my heels broke.   Can you say what can go wrong will go wrong.   We went through all the dances one more time and then took a cab home together.

Saturday was the big day and we still didn’t have our dresses and I didn’t have any shoes to wear.   In the morning we went and got some body suits to wear underneath our dresses to help with the overall look of them.   Afterwards we went and tried on our dresses again and both Angelina and I needed some adjustments.   Hers was way, way too short and mine was too big around the seam between the two colors.   It didn’t take very long for the lady there to fix both things but while we were waiting Cloe and Jess went to pick up the CD we had cut with all of our songs on it, in the right order, with transitions between them.   While they were doing that and after we were done with our dresses Angelina and I went to the same shoe market and bought me another pair of shoes in the same stall as before so it took a lot less time.   After that we met up in an underwear store to buy some under clothes that would make the dresses look as good as possible.   By the time we had found and bought everything we needed we had just enough time to grab a sandwich and go to the hair salon to get our hair and make up done.  We got there at around 2:00 and didn’t get out until 5:00.   Our hair was put into side pony tales and then into small curers. While those were setting we got our makeup done.   We all had fake lashes, multi colored lips and bright multicolored eyelids.  The curls were set by the time we were done with that so they were taken out but we wanted more volume so they teased the curls until you could hardly tell they were curls and pinned them on top of our heads.   The guys came to see us for a bit while we were in there but they had to leave soon after to pick up some colorful sunglasses. After our hair and makeup were all done we went to the supermarket across the street to pick up some hair spry just in case.   With the way we were dressed we got more than one whistle from passers by.   The rest of the afternoon was spent at Cloe’s house practicing with the music and trying not to smudge our make up.  It was a good thing that we had some lunch before I went to the salon because we had some very smudge-able lipstick on and the only things we could manage to eat were cookies and small bits of watermelon. I think it goes without saying that we were all looking forward to the time when we would be able to eat without worrying about our makeup.   At 9:15 we headed for the club to get ready for the performance.   We got to see a lot a different costumes and groups, all of them were very creative and a few kept you guessing about what their dance would be.   We had to wait for about an hour before we could go out and dance, and we weren’t able  see the other dancers very well.  When we did dance though, the crowd went wild.   I personally think that our choreography was some of the best but they might have liked us just because we were exchange students and the last exchangers to perform the year before REALLY sucked.   I had fun throughout the entire thing, even if it was some hard work to get the steps down right, and that is all that matters.   It was around 12:15am when all of the performers were done and we were back in the room, when the party began.  I won’t go through every little detail but there were definitely some highlights of the night.   The first was when all of us were in a group dancing together it was nice to just forget everything and dance with my friends.  Later on we managed to pilfer a few glasses of rum and coke which we shared around.   By the time they were done I had just a slight glow but the boys were just smashed, and the best part was when they denied it as they went stumbling around the room.   Not much later Danny’s’ friend, a mexican exchange student asked me to dance and we had some fun just messing around and dancing like dorks on the dance floor.   For a while there after it is all just a blur of light, color, sound and movement.  There were some friends of Angelina’s that thought I was 21 and after that one of her friends asked me to dance.   I was really enjoying myself, just dancing and having fun, until he started to get a bit pushy.  I have never had a guy put the moves on me, never had a boy friend and never had a first kiss, I am sad to say. Well, he stared to spin and dance the tango with me and then asking if I wanted to go somewhere private with him or go and party in Baños with him next weekend, it all started to overwhelm me.   I liked dancing but that was all, I was just there to have a good time and he was starting to ruin that.   I finally managed to bail out by looking for my friends, who I actually couldn’t find.  I finally found them and danced the night away until I was too tired to go on.   It was about 5:00am when I got home and 5:45 by the time I was done brushing my hair, changing, and taking my makeup off.  I slept in until 1:00pm on Sunday, and boy was it nice.

That concludes what was most likely the most eventful week since I got here and I had a BLAST!   I hope that I put enough detail into my recollection of the events but in all honesty you had to be there and live it in order to understand.  I hope everyone had a great new year and all the best in whatever you do.  Don’t forget to check out the pictures link.  I have put some more pictures on there, some of the party costumes and some of the año viejo we burnt on new years eve.

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Christmas

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Jenni

So the Holiday season here is different and yet the same as in Canada in many ways.  Vacation officially started on Friday after school but in all honesty we hadn´t been doing work for the three days previous.  On Wednesday I was out with the Rotary club giving toys, clothes, and a meal to empoverished children up the mountain side.  It was really eye opening to see the pure joy on their faces when they got a new pair of shoes, or a small lightly used teddy bear.  Before we left I think I got more hugs inside of two hours than I have in the past six months and that includes just before I left for Ecuador.  Thursday was spent giving care packages to a community of poor natives with the school.  That was even more distressing than the school children because some of these people didn´t have shoes, proper clothing, or even an understanding of the common tounge.  I remember thinking that they are doing a good job of preserving their way of life but at what cost.  The native peoples in my town are lamenting the fact that more of their culture is being lost but if they were to really hang on to it and preserve all of it they would be worse off than they already are with less power than they already have.

Friday we had a sing along at school where all of the years dressed up as different Christmas themed things and sang a song for the school.  My year went as angels, even if half of my class decided not to show up at all.  Everyone got all set up in the auditorium and we had Mass first.  After that the vice principal called up some students to wish us all a merry christmas.  Lastly he called each year and we all sang our songs, some better than others (my year would be classified as others).  By the time everything was said and done it was only 10:00 but we all got to leave early since it was the beginning of the Christmas holidays.  I spent pretty much the rest of my day talking to family and getting ready for the next few days.  At around 6:00 the other exchange girls came over for a small Christmas celebration where we all tried Ecuadorian eggnog, which is a liquer by the way, and exchanged gifts.  Earlier in the week I had gotten a present for all of the girls but when I got home my mom said that I only needed one.  I was glad that I bought them though because I recived a present from each of the three girls and I was happy to be able to give them each one.  After that there was a lot of dancing to the songs we heard in Manabí, I think I bought three different songs just so that we could dance.

On Saturday the majority of Alvaro’s family showed up for Christmas celebrations.  Normaly in Ecuador, like in Canada, you have a Christmas dinner but my uncle’s father has cancer and this will most likely be his last Christmas so they had to leave early and have dinner with him, so we had lunch instead.  The meal was good, Turkey, salad, potatoes, but no stuffing and I only realized that after the fact.  Pretty muich right after lunch we went next door to exchange gifts.  It was kind of wierd knowing that there would be no gifts to wake up to on Christmas morning but that’s the way they do it here.  I got some really nice gifts from my family and the gifts that I gave were well recieved.  I think overall I got more candy than I would have in Canada because if you don´t know what to get someone, or you didn´t get enough than you go to the store and buy a candy bag.  I got about five of them over the course of the holidays.  Anyway, we just chilled for the rest of the day until mass at seven.  It was nice but I didn’t know any of the songs, not even the tune let alone the words, and there was no pagent to watch.  The mass itself though was nice and it was better in the sense that it was shorter than any Christmas mass I have ever been to.  When we got home my Grandmother had made traditional Christmas eve pasteries called tomales.  I don´t know exactly what they are made of but I do know that the dough was made with corn and not flour.  I managed to add a little bit of Canada to the celebration by making some eggnog and giving everyone a little taste.  It went over really well because it had no alcohol in it, where as everything here does.

Christmas day was I different experience.  I woke up at about 6:30 and my body was telling me to rush downstairs to open the present while my mind was saying that there were no presents downstairs, which was kind of depresing because I knew that my mind was right but I really wanted to follow my gut.  When I did get up at around 8:00 it was kind of a let down not to see any present what so ever under the tree, not even fake ones.  We left for Quito at about 10:30 and I managed to get in a little skype chat with my family before we left.  When we arrived we had another Christmas lunch with Paulina’s family, pretty much the same kind of food, and exchanged gift’s with them.  I got a book from my other grandmother and I was so happy because I love the same book in english  and I couldn’t find it in spanish.  Again the day was spent chilling and doing nothing.  We ate tomales again, this time a different kind, at my aunt’s house for dinner. I talked to Alvaro a bit later about my next family and what to expect when I go to the Amazon, aparently I need to get a raincoat and some boots for either rain, hiking or both.  Monday morning Alvaro left for work and my mom, sister, grandmother, aunt, cousin and I all went bike shopping for him (cousin).  We must have looked in five different shops before finally going back to the fist one to buy the bike.  After that we headed back the their place for lunch and after that back to grandmother’s flat to pack our things.  The last stop was my other aunt’s house to drop off some paperwork and say one last good bye.  I think it was around 3:30 when we left Quito and 6:30 by the time we got home.

So that has been my Christmas holidays.  I only get one week unlike most of you readers in North America but I’m just glad to have that, for everyone else everything is normal until new years eve, not even any after christmas sales to go to.  Feliz Navidad y feliz año.

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pics

Posted on December 17, 2011 by Jenni

I´m sorry that my posts thus far have not contained many pictures.  This is because I have to take them off my camera put in the computer.  From there onto picassa, after that I have to switch to my iPod because I can only decrease the pixels on there.  Then I have to down load them to my iPod and finally up load them to the blog but the formatting isn´t the same and isn´t as nice.  Therefore I am giving you a link to my picassa page where almost all of my pics go.  I will attempt to get them all on there for you guys and once again I´m sorry that you have not had the opportunity to see the amazing as well as the daily things that I have seen.

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Extraño mis papis

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Jenni

I haven’t updated in a while because for the past few weeks I’ve been on a downward spiral.  I was happy for one day and I realized that it was the first time I had been happy in along time and I didn’t want to sit down to do a post and break that happiness but then I started feeling worse and couldn’t put in the right amount of enthusiasm so I didn’t type it then either.  Since then my mood has just been out of control, I didn’t feel like I missed home or my friends and family but when I talked to my parents last week I broke down crying more than once.  After that I’ve been trying to go out and do stuff to bring my mood back up.  For example I went to a party at a club on Friday with some friends and had some fun, I also went shopping on Sunday and Monday for Christmas presents for my family.  I’m starting to feel better but my classmates are noticing that I’m sad and every time they ask what’s wrong I have to answer that I miss my parents.  I hope to bake some Christmas cookies tomorrow or this weekend to get right into the spirit and there’s nothing like baking to do that.

I got some news though, I will be switching families on January 14. It’s nice to finally have a concrete date but that also means that there is now a firm marker of my time here passing.  I also found out though that my next trip (to the amazon) will be on January 16 just two days after I move which will be interesting to try and coordinate.  I’m excited though, the only bad thing is that some of my friends fro Quito won’t be going with me but I get along with almost all of the other kids. Can’t wait.

A final thing, I talked to a police offer today.  Every time I have a music lesson I go to the local supermarket to pick up a snack afterwards and it’s almost always the same security guard on duty, we’re almost on a first name basis by now.  Today though there was an officer with him and I had to wait for my mom long than usual so he got curios and came out to talk to me.  It was an interesting conversation and it made me feel good that I understood almost everything he said and could answer all of his questions without looking like an idiot.  All in all today was a good day, even if I almost cried when I started humming winter wonderland.

Posted in day to day, El Oriente (rain forest), Events, Host Families, Spanish Language | 1 Comment

Parry Sound Rotary 75th Anniversary Book

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Dad

Jenni was asked to write a short statement about her exchange, to be included in the Parry Sound Rotary Club’s 75th Anniversary Publication.

Jenni is the 26th Outbound Exchange Student that the Parry Sound Rotary Club has sponsored in the past 35 years!  The club has hosted 27 Inbound Exchange Students.  A BIG thank you to all involved in providing this ‘game changing’ opportunity to Jenni, the youth of Parry Sound and Students world wide!

The paragraph that she submitted to be published in the Anniversary Book is posted in the Newspaper Clippings of Interest Tab

Submitted: Jenni’s Dad  :)

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Getting back into the swing of things

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Jenni

So, I thought that I would let everyone know what I´ve been up to in the past week before I forget it myself, as I don´t have a schedule for this week like I do for Manabí.  Thursday was my first day back, and just like for language camp I didn´t have to go to school.  It was a good thing too because I think I slept in until 9:00, imagine that, a sleep in that is considered long to only go until 9:00, I must be getting used to South America.  Most of my morning was spent unpacking everything and getting it into the washer before it could start to really stink. The other part was used to start my blog post for the first three days in Manabí, but I got destracted easily by my TV and facebook alarms going off every two minutes about me being tagged in a photo.  At around three o´clock I started getting ready for my meeting with the other exchange students from my local Rotary Club that we had set up the night before. I was ready by 4:00 like we had planned but i wasn´t about to leave without confirmation with the others. Unfortunately, my phone didn´t have any time on it so I couldn´t call them.  I had to wait for them to call me.  It was extremely frustrating, as I didn´t get a call until 5:00 and then it was to tell me that they wouldn´t get there until 5:30.  When they finally came around to my house to pick me up not only me but also my host parents as well were getting a little antsy.  When we were all in a local restaurant called Choko, things went smoothly. We talked, ate chips covered in cheese, mustard, and ketchup, and generally had a good time.

20111106-055707.jpg

This is what happens when you aren´t told that the ketchup is going to cost a dollar to use.

So after finishing up at the restaurant we grabbed a cab back to in-front of the school.  I thought that they were just dropping me off at my house but apparently they had a dance practice for the performance on Saturday.  I decided to go with them just because I had nothing better to do.  To my great surprise instead of finding their class practicing it was my class.  It really threw me though when, after my class noticed me, because they were in the middle of the number, everyone rushed to greet and hug me after my being away for only four days.  It wasn´t just some of them either I think that every single girl there gave me a hug and welcomed me back, my friends in Canada didn´t even do that after I came back from Calgary.  Don´t get me wrong I love my Canadian friends but the people here are just so open and it really threw me for a loop.  After that though the rehearsal went fine.  We still needed to work on our transitions from one song and position to the next.

Friday started out as a pretty good day.  One of the teachers for my morning classes didn´t show up so half of my time before break was spent hanging out and talking to my friends.  At break we found out that one of the ‘political’ parties running for school office had hired a DJ and they had been setting up throughout the morning.  So, as soon as the bell rang signaling the end of fourth (out of eight periods excluding snack) period, music started pounding in the courtyard.  Not only that but teenage boys were wandering the masses handing out different things like hair clips and streamers that had the party name on them (COBI).  What surprised me was not that they were giving stuff out but that the school staff had allowed them to bring boys, BOYS, onto the school premises during school hours.  The rest of the day at school was spent getting ready for the next day´s dance performance.  After school let out the COBI party had one more surprise left for us.  They had rented a party bus.  I didn´t get to ride though because everyone wanted on and I got there too late.  After that the rest of my day wasn’t very exciting.  I intended to go to the movies with a friend after my music lesson, which by the way are going great.  Unfortunately I didn´t have a ride since my father was at a party in Baños and had the car with him.  My phone didn´t have any money on it so I couldn´t text my friend and even if I could it was out of battery so I couldn´t receive calls or texts either.  I ended up calling her using my mom´s phone but she was picking up her costume for the next day.  I couldn´t understand what she was trying to tell me and in the end she just ended up dropping my costume off at my house.  I was a little annoyed because I really wanted to go and it was because of my less than par language skills that I didn´t.

Overall my weekend wasn´t very exciting, the most interesting part was Saturday morning when we had our dance performance.  Let me tell you one thing, I HATED the costumes our class wore.  They were pink flowered corsets with a short crinolin skirt covered by the same material.  They were SOOO uncomfortable.  However the worst part was that my class was almost dead last. so we had to stand around in the outfits in the hot sun for over two hours.  Finally, after we finished our dance, I got to change out of the forsaken outfit and into an extremely comfortable U of T t-shirt.  My friend Vale, her cousin (who I had met at the movies once) and I all left soon after that and walked just down the street to grab some drinks and candy as well as to just hang out.  That was my morning and my afternoon was spent just relaxing.  Sunday really was just a day of rest but we did have a pretty cool lunch.  Coca (name of the grandma) wasn´t home so for the first time since I got here I had lunch with just the four of us.  It was neat because we had hamburgers that were hand made and cooked on a griddle on the stove.  The way they make burgers here is they take meat and put it into a special press that makes it very thin. After that step though it´s pretty much exactly the same as in North America.  Again the rest of my day was spent relaxing, although I did get all of the exchange students information from business cards put into my iPod.  A trip to church was the only distinguishing factor between Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

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MANABI, primero parte

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Jenni

So the last five days have been absolutely amazing! This was the first of two trips that all of the exchangers go on and also the first trip that didn’t include classes of any kind. I met a ton of new people and made friends that I know will last years after we return to our respective countries. Most of the time I was speaking in English but I think the my language skills did improve porque none of the natives spoke English. All of us had about the same comfort level with Spanish, so if you wanted something you had to ask yourself. Over all it was a great time with great people, great experiences and some awesome new dances to show off when I get back.

So the first day was pretty much the same as the first day of Language camp, at least the morning was. I got up super early in order to catch my bus that left at 5:30 in the morning. It was kind of unnerving though because when Jaime, pronounced high-may, told me when we were leaving I got the time right but wasn’t sure about the place. I assumed that it was the same spot as last time but when Paulina and I got there we were the only ones. We were twenty minutes early mind you but even so, there was no one there. I started freaking out to my self and thinking that I would miss my first fun trip because I didn’t know where to meet everyone. The bus arrived right on time though, much to my immense relief. The rest of the students arrived five minutes after that and we were on our way. Now, I hadn’t and still haven’t looked at a map of Ecuador to see where the province of Manabí is but I thought that it was in the south part of the coastal region. I was wrong though because if this was true our bus would have gone down to Riobamba and picked up the kids there but instead we went up to Latacunga like the last trip. From there pretty much the entire bus ride was the same even down to the KFC we stopped at for lunch. I slept for most of the ride because of the ungodly hour at which I got up and the late night I had before that making sure that I had everything I needed packed and ready to go. When the bus got to our hotel though, that was when things were definitely different from language camp. The hotel was not the five star resort that we were so luck to enjoy at the last camp, and instead was what one would call rustic living. The rooms were smaller than my room here and had three beds and four occupants in them. The showers had no hot water, only cold, and there was no pressure behind the water. The showers head faced down just so that you could some semblance of pressure from them. There was a pool though and the dinning area was nice enough with tables outside so that you could enjoy the beach view. The place was clean and it wasn’t like I was afraid for my life but going from the five star, all inclusive hotel we had at Mopiche to this was a stark contrast. So, the time between check in and dinner was spent talking to old friends meeting new people and, of course, dancing. That part was kind of interesting though because it was made clear that the kids from my language camp that were here enjoyed dancing. Most of them had learned how to dance to some of the songs that were played with specific dance moves. It was fun, and I got to meet a couple of new friends who I then continued on to eat dinner with that night. After dinner everyone had to sit through a presentation about the rules of the trip and unlike in Mopiche the presentation was in Spanish. I surprised myself though because I didn’t think I would be able to understand any of it but even if I didn’t understand every single word the guy said the general gist of the rules was not lost on me. Basically there was to be no drinking, someone, or drugs. We were to respect our elders and be punctual to all of the different activities throughout the trip. After that though things got really boring as we had to sit through the presentation of ID cards. Everyone had to go up, say their name, home country and host club here in Ecuador, of course it was all in Spanish. On the schedule we received it said that afterwards we were going to have Karaoke, but the introductions took so long that in the end everyone just went to bed. I shared my room with a girl from the States, a girl from France, and a girl from Alemanea or Germany. The German ended up sleeping in one of her friends rooms and I don’t think she slept in my room once during the entire trip.

Day two was definitely filled with more planned activities but it was still just, if not more relaxed, than the day before. breakfast was at seven but in true Ecuadorian fashion no body showed up until at least 7:30. I somehow managed also to meet up with my friends as they were leaving to eat. After breakfast everyone left for “la boca” or literally translated “the mouth”. It was a beach about forty minutes outside of Crucita where we were staying. The rest of the morning was spent swimming in the ocean, walking along the beach and we also got to take a fantastic boat ride down a river. I didn’t know what we were going to see or do so left my camera on the beach. I regret it. You had to walk about half a kilometer to get to the boats and when we got there they ended up being rickety old things that almost tipped over every time we made a turn. The view though was spectacular. The river banks on both sides were covered in trees and in turn these trees were covered in birds. Every one of them was in a different position. Some sunning themselves others looking for their next meal and still others were demonstrating their dominance. The funny part was all of the leafs underneath the birds were white and one student didn’t have the brains to figure out why. When they asked, the entire boat burst out laughing because it was fairly obvious that it was bird caca that was making the leafs white. The ride was around twenty minutes long and the rest of the morning was spent wave surfing, walking along the beach or just chillin’ in chairs on the beach. We had a snack that consisted of some type of starch ( nobody could tell what it was, it was white, chewier than potatoes, and had no flavor) covered in costal vegetables then wrapped and stemmed in a leaf. I had a very stimulating conversation with one of the other exchange students during this time. It was actually one of the most stimulating conversations I have had since leaving Canada. We debated over the merits and reasoning behind some aspects of religion. We stayed there for another hour before getting back in the buses and heading back to Crucita. Pretty much as soon as we got back it was time for lunch but nobody ate very much since we had eaten less than two hours before hand. We got a little bit of time after lunch to go and check out the different street venders just in-front of the hotel. I didn’t buy anything but it was rather funny to see us gringos bartering and winning against the local vendors. After they called everybody back in I ran and got my camera because I knew that we were going to a lookout point and I didn’t want to repeat my earlier mistake. It took a while but once everyone was ready to go, which included flags and cameras, we set off. It was a bit of a walk but even that was enjoyable when you have over 100 exchange students trying to make their own national anthems heard. It didn’t come as a surprise to me when I could hear both the German and American anthems but I also learned that the French can be very patriotic and extremely loud when they want to be. When we finally got to the top we all took a big group picture with all of flags with a view of the ocean in the background. So many people wanted a picture of it that there was actually a random little kid helping to take them. After that though the German students had the bright idea tie all of the flags together with Ecuador’s in the middle. It worked really well except for the fact that there was so many of them that it was extremely hard to get them all to fit into one picture.  Well that, and the fact that the American flag kept coming in contact with the ground. For any other country that wasn’t so bad but I found out during this trip that if an American flag touches the ground you are suppose to burn it. I also didn’t realize before that both their national anthem and their pledge of allegiance are to the flag, their anthem doesn’t even say American or USA in it anywhere. After many, many pictures on top of the point it was time to head back. Somewhere in the middle of the walk down Rotary fed us a snack. I, at least, was very grateful for it since I had burned quite a few carbs on the way up. The way down wasn’t as amusing but I did get a few more pictures of my friends with their flags. The time until dinner was spent pretty much the same way as the day before with some swimming, talking and, of course, dancing. Diner that night included a talent show and so we all ate outside on the dance floor instead of in the dinning room. Their was a lot of people that signed up and some kids signed up as countries to perform. Some of the most entertaining performances were, a dance to cotton eye Joe by the Americans, a dance by the Brazilians, a Bob Marley song by two Americans, and a traditional Japanese dance by the one Japanese girl. At the end of the show the Japanese girl ended up winning but really, it was just a lot of fun for everyone involved. After that the DJ put on some music, we moved the tables and the party began. Most of my friends went to bed but I let go of all my inhibitions and danced my heart out. It was ¡SO MUCH FUN! At some point during the night some of the boys got the brilliant idea (insert sarcasm here) to jump in the pool then get out on the dance floor and get everyone soaking wet. After that though, everyone decided it was best to just jump in the pool ourselves and continue the party in there. Things got really crazy in there when people started surfing the crowd. I’m extremely glad that we were in a pool because more than a couple people would have gotten more than just a few scratches. I think in total we only got about 5 people all the way across the pool without dropping them. The Rotary, in a very kind moment, let us stay up until 12:00 but then, when we got into the rooms all of the lights in the place decided to blow out simultaneously. I’m sure the screams could be heard throughout the city because of that. I kept calm though and got ready for bed by the light of my iPod. Thank you, thank you , gracias, dad for that flashlight app.

Monday was by far the most relaxed day of the entire trip. We had no buses to catch and no specific places to be. One of the more interesting thing happened during breakfast. My table was just finishing our meals when out of the allyway behind us comes a cow. It had no harness or person watching it, which would obviously never happen in Canada. Then out comes, you guessed it, another cow, closely followed by a third. By this time they had everyones attention and s few kids asked us to take their picture with the cows. Unfortunately, all we got was the cow´s behind because they had started eating trash that had come out of the garbage can. I think that this is one thing that will be imprinted in my mind forever, three cows eating trash like street dogs, all with a beautiful beach background.

Pretty much the rest of the morning was spent on the beach or hanging out in a friend’s room. I did however, get to ride on a Banana boat for the first time. In all honesty all it was, was a tube on a short rope being pulled by motor boat in the ocean. It was still tons of fun though. We had to ride it in teams of four because eight people could fit on the boat. My group was first and we had a blast but nobody got thrown off, although our eyes suffered because of the salt water. The second group though, was all kids from France and they got it into their heads to be more adventurous and let go of the hand holds. Needless to say that that didn’t end well. Two of them did full 360 backflips over the back of the tube. No one was hurt though and it looked like they still had a good time. After that I had lunch in nothing but my bathing suit and towel. It reminded me a lot of the first night in Mopiche when I couldn’t get into my room and so I ate in my bathing suit. This time though it wasn’t awkward like it was then and I actually knew the people I was eating with so everything was fine. After that it was back to the beach for another Banana boat ride and to help clean the beach of rocks. I really don’t know why we did this but if it makes Rotary happy than I guess it does something. Not long after that, everyone was called back to the hotel for some much needed time out of the sun. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes after I got into my room though and the activities director was calling us all out to trade pins. This was one if the things I was hoping they would do here that didn’t happen in Mopiche, an organized pin exchange. It wasn’t very organized for me though as I don’t know who gave me what pins. Here’s how it went down. I was one of the first people out there since my cabin is close to the front and I knew exactly where my pins were, in my nice organized binder. As soon as I got out side I stood by a tree so that I had a place to put my bag of collected pins where I knew where they were if I had to leave. I don’t know what I was expecting when I opened my book but I know I wasn’t expecting what happened next. I was swarmed. I don’t mean with like one or two people, I mean I felt like everyone just charged me. It didn’t slow down for what seemed like forever and I the end I had over twenty pins and business cards thrown in the front cover of my bind with no idea which card matched which pin(s). I knew I handent gotten everyone yet so I started wandering and by the end of the pin exchange I had a bag full of pins and cards and a binder that felt about 5 pounds lighter. I managed to fit all of the pins, with pin backs on them, onto my jacket. I still have some that need pins to attach them and I don’t know where I’m going to find them.

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And this is after less than three months in country.

It took so much time to put the pins on my jacket that by the time I was done, dinner was being served. We all ate together again but this time instead of a talent show following dinner, we had a scavenger hunt. Each country sent up a representative who had to find all kinds of crazy things. Everything was said in Spanish though so they not only had to find it but also understand what they were to find as well. Some of the funnier things included, a white bra, black boxers, a spoon(some people took them from people that were still eating), and black socks. The first three countries to hand in their items got a point. Because of this, all of the clothing items were taken from the bystanders. Yes, this even includes the black boxers. Austria ended up winning but Canada got one point so I was happy. Once the winner was declared we were all herded down to the beach for a campfire. It wasn’t what I was hoping for as no one sang any camp songs and I was too intimidated to start one on my own. It was good though, some groups sung their national anthem and some people just hung out on the beach talking and enjoying the fire. I think that everyone was tired though, after a full day of sun, sports and pins. Again, I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow that night.

I know that this is blog entry is ‘tagged’ pictures and I have included only one, but this is from my iPod right now and I haven’t had the chance to download the pictures from my camera onto the computer yet. As soon as I do there will be more pictures here in order to help with the vicarious living you are doing through me. ;)

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exchange students with flags proudly flying, on top of the look out spot.

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