Ecuador

Hello Every body

Yes I know hear it is going on February but I have been consumed with both the classroom and exploring of Ecuador. Oh how beautiful is it. The scenery is so lovely hear. When I first got to Ecuador, my original home stay not available but I had the opportunity to stay in Cumbaya for the weekend with Shelia, who is the principal for high school at Colegio Menor. She is American but has lived in Ecuador since 1998. She took me in with open arms and is so kind. Afterwards, I was moved to Quito, which is the city, where I am now staying with a woman by the name of Govanna and her 8 year old daughter. They are wonderful. In her apartment, I have a great view of the city lights and Pichincha Mountain, which is actually a volcano. The Great Eight of K-State, as I may refer, are us eight students from Kennesaw State experiencing this cultural opportunity, have had the opportunity to roam the city of Quito, and see the country life of Cumbaya.

Six days after I arrived here, I experienced my first blackout. The news reported that 80% of Ecuador was with out power for about 3.5 hours. I almost got stuck in an elevator and I was later left standing on the corner looking crazy because traffic was ridiculous and I could not catch a taxi home. The police shut the tunnel down, which caused a massive traffic jam. But-luckily two of the girls from The Great Eight of K-State saw me standing on the corner and they picked me up. I was so happy to see familiar faces. Later that night, I caught a taxi and made it home safely.

Oh my god, there might as well be no street laws here. Everyone drives like they want to and if you get ran off the road… OH WELL. People will dodge in front of you and not think twice about it. “PARA” (stop) means nothing. Heck the red lights mean nothing. I saw a city bus run a red light that was on for a good 5 seconds and as a pedestrian… you better run like crazy across the road because the people here do not stop and they are good for honking the horn at you.

It has been three weeks and so far we have roamed the city, hiked up Ilalo Mountain, which is a mountain, and visited Papallacta, pronounced “papa-jack-ta,” which is another volcano. Within in the city we have 2 major malls.
Quiencentra Mall and El Jardin. The malls are nice but many of the clothes in there are imported from the states and VERY EXPENSIVE. So I don’t shop there. There are many little markets around and people selling things on the street. There are a few grocery stores here. The biggest one is chain here is called Super Maxi and Mega Maxi. Yes-It sounds like a Maxi pad. Everyone has a joke to tell. Speaking of which, Maxi-pads are pretty much the only feminine products sold in the store. There are no tampons sold here but occasionally you may find O.B. (No thank you.) Betty Crocker cake mix cost about $3.50, and Peanut Butter cost $6. Anything imported is ridiculously overpriced. I must confuse I did pay $6.00 for some peanut butter when I first got here. I was starving.
Ilalo Mountain was awesome even though it took my 3.5 hours to climb to the top. Way to spend a day right. I was layered up in clothes. Thank goodness because the mosquitoes were on full attack. They attacked my ankles and I had a couple of bites on my arms. Everybody else got ate up because they wore shorts. The last 45 minutes of it was extremely hard. I could barely breathe. I would take 3 or 4 steps and have to stop to rest. DON’T THINK I WILL BE HIKING ANY MORE MOUNTAINS ANYTIME SOON. LOL. I can at least say I went hiking. Hey, you should try everything at least once, right?. The attitude got to me and I felt sick afterwards but I made it to the top and it felt so good to accomplish it. In the end, it was a nice experience, the view was so beautiful., I was so tired. NEXT WAS THE 1.5 HOUR DESENT DOWN. (HELP ME!!!!!).


Papallacta Mountain was really cool. We took almost a 2 hour drive to get there. We went to the hot springs. Here there are pools of hot water that are heated by the volcano. There was a group of about 20 of us. We were all relaxing in the hot waters then everyone jump through the cool water pools, and back to the hot pool again. What a rush. The water was freezing and you could feel your body tingling for the change of waters. We even jumped and laid down in the freezing river. It was so cool. Afterwards we all went for pizza. The next day, I felt so relaxed and my skin felt so soft.

This weekend, I chose to just relax. Oh yeah and we watched Superbowl Sunday. Yes, we got the Superbowl here, we are not completely cut off from the world. Ha ha. The only disappointing thing was that we did not get to see all the really cool commercials.

Colegio Menor San Francisco de Quito is a English speaking private school. Many wealthy families send there children to go to school here. The campus is awesome and looks like a college campus. The school houses grades Pre-K 3 year olds to 12th grade. There are about 1250 students here. The school is really big on Liberal Arts. Oh yeah and there are 19 music teachers. Each grade level has a theme. I work with Kindergarten and there theme is the mountains and volcanoes. My room is called Kinder Quilotoa. I work from 7:45 to 3:30. I am a little lucky because kindergarten children get to leave school at 12:15pm. The teachers leave at 1:30 but the assistant teacher and myself have to stay and set the classroom up for the next day. There is always work to do. THERE IS SO MUCH WORK TO DO. The teachers in my room are nice and the kids are even better. They call me ‘Ka-Re-na.” (you have to say it with a Spanish twist.) Everyone at the school is on a first name basis. That includes the principals and the owners of the school. Another great thing is that there is no dress code. Everyone can dress as they wish. We can be as casual as we want and wear jeans all week or dress up if we want. It is really nice. It is especially nice being able to wake up some mornings and just throw on a t-shirt and jeans.

I am not home sick. I love it here so far and I am having some great experiences and looking forward to more. More to come soon, until next time, see you later. Buenos Noches.

Love,
Correna aka "Ecuadora the Explorer"

Future things to come…
Gallopagos Islands- Darwinism
Banos- an awesome town with an active, smoke blowing volcano called Tugarungha
Tena- The jungle
Mindo-???