I´ve been here in Ecuador for close to three months now. And still, there are certain things that don´t quite seem to translate or cross the cultural lines in the same ways...Some of the funniest moments I´ve had here have been while speaking with my students during our ten minute breaks of class.
The first occurred when I gave my students a very broad week-long assignment to write a story of 15 lines, with the only condition being it had to fall under one of seven genres (science fiction, romance, tragedy, etc.) Keep in mind my students are in Basic 1 and for the most part, have never taken an English class before. When I went around correcting some of their papers, I stumbled upon one by Francisco, who is a 20something student, who had recently scored a 60% on his first exam. Needless to say, Francisco was struggling a little with his English thus far. When I read his story, I felt as though I was reading an excerpt of a September 11th article from USA Today written by a well-read journalist. Francisco, the same student who wasn´t able to conjugate verbs in third person singular, all of sudden learned how to use contractions, hyphenated terms and my favorite was the simile of the World Trade Center to a ¨financial mecca¨. I, then, went into a long discussion with my class about plagiarism and pride in your work, etc. Shortly after, Francisco changed his topic entirely and wrote a very simple but adequate story about a ghost and a haunted house. We had learned these words around Halloween and it was something that was easy to produce based on a little work with some of our classnotes. Thankfully, I didn´t have to give him a zero, or take him to the principal´s office or worse...call his mom.
While the last incident was one of uncertainty as to how strict I´d be (apparently some teachers in Ecuador turn a blind eye to cheating), the other students were purely innocent, simply trying to learn as best they could and use what they´ve learned in their writing.
During the first week of class, I introduced what each title meant (Mr., Ms., Mrs., Dr.) I explained that Señor was the equivalent of Mr. and they diligently wrote this down in their notebooks. Fast forward to a few months later and I gave them the assignment to write about their favorite holiday. One girl chose Christmas. She asked me to be certain what Señor was in English and I answer Mister. As I read her holiday paragraph, I couldn´t help but giggle. I suppose 99.9% of the time Señor translates to Mister, unless of course you´re writing about Jesus and want to translate the phrase Señor Jesús, which would be more appropriately Lord Jesus and by no means, Mr. Jesus. The sound of that phrase still makes me laugh.
Finally my favorite cultural misunderstanding occurred when I was being bombarded by 20 questions from my students. All along the lines of ¨How long are you here for?¨, ¨When do you go back to the United States?¨, ¨Are you going alone?¨, ¨Who are you going with?¨and so on... Bombarded by all these questions, I answered what I thought was a sufficient answer of ¨Julio¨ (July), but alas my students misunderstood and assumed I had met an Ecuadorian boy named Julio, who I´d be taking home to the United States. To this day, they still joke about my new boyfriend Julio.
Other favorites have included confusing farm and pharmacy. For example, the farmer plants vegetables in the pharmacy. Close, but not quite. And of course, there´s certain pronunciation errors that you can´t help but giggle at: for example, bitch vs. beach. ¨I´m going to visit the bitch tonight¨ That very well may be but I think what you meant to say is that you´re visiting the beach tonight.
All in all, with only a month left to go in my first term as a teacher, I have really enjoyed my time with my students. There´s an interesting dynamic of age range from 13-65 years old and they´re great together.
One final note... clearly Thanksgiving isn´t celebrated here but in Quito, I was lucky enough to spend Thanksgiving (two days later, on Saturday) with friends I´ve met here. All in all it was a great blessing to have new friends to share the traditional holiday with and I even gave the first blessing and asked everyone to share something they were thankful for. It was a great day and made me appreciate being here and having a great family back home to be thankful for as well :)
Having to wake up at 530AM every morning for classes, the idea of getting up yet again at that time on a Saturday doesn´t sound too tempting, but alas, this past Saturday, my friend Jeff and I headed North to Otavalo with his host mother, Marianna, for the weekly artisan markets. Needless to say, the early morning wake-up call was well worth it. It was only a short bus ride away (1 hour and 45 mins, that´s short here...remember Cuenca was 8 hours and Lima is some 27 hours.) When we hopped off the bus, we were greeted by a taxi driver that knew Jeff´s host mother by name. The town was small enough that Marianna, who had family in Otavalo and grew up there, was like a legend in the town. After we settled some of our belongings in their family´s home, Jeff and I headed out to begin the wild process of bartering. I´ve been to markets before, both in Central America and here in Quito, but never before have I seen so much hustle and bustle with a market. The actual market covered at least 10 blocks and was filled with jewelry, scarves, sweaters, Guayasamin knock'offs and everything in between. It was a great sight to see. The two intrepid gringos were given two pieces of advice--1st) only speak Spanish as you walk through, which to us seemed like a great way to begin practicing and 2nd) when a salesperson offers a price, offer half and work from there. Since Jeff was headed back to the States, he was able to buy Christmas presents for his family and I was lucky enough to ship some stuff back to some friends with him and buy a little drum for my host brother, whose birthday was yesterday (the big numero dos). After four hours, we came back to the house with eight bags and more than we ever could´ve imagined. It´s incredibly tiring and a lot of times, you´ll see much of the same crafts, just different people willing to sell at different prices. Some interesting things we saw were some large funky jewelry crafted from horn, these beautiful colorful bowls with intricate designs, and of course, a water bottle crafted from a cow´s hoof (Can´t even imagine walking around camp with that! ha) All in all, the market was amazing and definitely worth a trip back. Once we had gathered our things from the market and grabbed a bite to eat, Marianna was able to get us a ride in a camionetta (ie the back of a truck) and we headed to El Lechero. El Lechero is a specific tree that usually most locals just use as a guide that they are half way to the Lake and are headed in the right direction. It´s especially cool because it is of a certain species that produces milk through its leaves, but typically these trees live for 5 years and then dry up and die. Apparently this tree has been there in solitude for 80+ years and has never dried up or deteriorated. It is a sight to see and surrounding the hill it sits on are mountains and an overlook of a lake. It´s absolutely beautiful. 
This past weekend, six Quito kids (one temporary visitor and five English profs) set out on a 10 hour overnight bus ride to the third largest city in Ecuador: Cuenca. Once we arrived in Cuenca, we trekked through the entire city, at times not knowing exactly where we were going and at times headed to ¨Calle Larga¨(which translates to Loooong Street). Once we arrived in our hostal, where the six of us stayed in a dorm-summer camp setup, we were energized to go. We met up with the other volunteers we knew in the city, some who lived there and some who were passing through as well. It was great to see everyone once again and even better that it was for a 3 day weekend!
Our first wandering through the city allowed us to see and experience a different vibe than the hustle and bustle of Quito. Cuenca is more of a colonial town with a great deal of charm and class to it. There were museums on almost every street and interestingly enough, there are an estimated 52 churches in the town. Jeff and I were only lucky enough to count 7 in our time there, apparently some are more hidden than others. The aspect of Cuenca´s festivals I loved most was the gathering of people in different forms of appreciation for art, whether it be paintings, handcrafts or music. The markets were packed with artisans and people willing to make a deal with you. I was fortunate enough to get a very unique and elaborate bracelet out of the situation with a large jade type stone in the center and smaller stones surrounding it, fashioned with a darker string. Impossible to explain but a great gift, nonetheless. My host family was lucky to receive their thank you gift from Andrew as well: a painting. This gift was not easily decided upon and took another volunteer to help make the final decision but is now hanging proudly in our new house that was missing a certain something.
Aside from our uncharacteristic shopping spree in Cuenca, we were able to enjoy an outdoor concert on Friday, with live music, some typical salsa and some Latin fusion mixed in. Jeff, Hilary, Andrew and I were able to escape from the large group and enjoy the smaller group feel with Cuencans and a nice big jar of Sangria. Another favorite moment of the charming town of Cuenca was walking along the riverside (photo above) in one of our many wanderings through town. It was so beautiful and so ¨tranquilo¨. It was just the opposite of what Quito has to offer and beautiful to see a softer side of Ecuador.
Cuenca is where Andrew split off from the Quito pack and will now head to Pisco, Peru to help with the earthquake and Patagonia to work on an organic farm. Today is actually the day, he embarks from Guayaquil (the biggest city in Ecuador) on a 24 hour bus to Lima. Suddenly the 10 hour ride doesn´t seem too bad.
