Mindo and More

So yet again it has been forever since I have updated this and I am starting to get complaints from people. I have actually been really busy lately with school; it’s about halfway through the semester here so I have tests coming up and papers. It’s just crazy. Well I have a lot of updating to do so here is another long blog!

I guess it was 3 weekends ago now, we went to Mindo, which is a small town about 2 hours from here in the cloud forest. I didn’t understand how the bus driver knew how to drive on the winding roads when all I could see out the windows were clouds. But, it looked really similar to the jungle but it was basically in the clouds. Amazingly beautiful. While we were there we went zip lining and horseback riding. First, horseback riding was a waste of our time. The horses were malnourished and our guide whipped them to get them to walk and it was just a sad situation. And it rained while we were riding, oh, and the “trail” was along the road and we had to move to the right every five minutes for the cars speeding down the mountain. But don’t worry I’m not bitter or anything. BUT zip lining was probably the most amazing thing I have done since I’ve been here! It was so much fun and I would do it everyday if I could. Okay one funny story from the adventure. Oh first, the guides were all young Ecuadorian men... But there was this thing you could do while zip lining called ‘Superman.’ Let me just explain this to you. For this one you have to go with a guide and basically you stand in front of him and they attach your carabineer to them and then they say lean forward and you wrap your legs around their waist and then when you are going you lean forward with your arms out (like Superman…). Well it was for sure the most awkward experience of my life but it was so fun! There is a picture of my friend Kara doing it so you can kind of see how awkward it was. While in Mindo we also road on the side of a car, saw butterflies, and walked downhill (then back uphill!) through the mud to see waterfalls. The waterfall adventure also included riding on a cable car across two mountains, which gave us amazing views and helped to cool us off because it went so fast. Overall, it was another good weekend and their aren’t too many complaints to add here!

The weekend after that I just stayed in Quito and didn’t do very much because I had two papers to write and two rolls of film to take for my photo class. I went back to Centro Historico and visited some churches and then went back on Sunday to take pictures. But this weekend my host mom, aunt, uncle, and cousin went to Santo Domingo, another city in Ecuador, where they have a house, to try and sell their car. But since she was gone it was just my host dad, and then my host “sister” (Paula) in the house. On Friday afternoon I went out with her and her boyfriend to get drinks. It was quite a sight. They were drinking and smoking and I was sitting there with my lemonade. Perfect. But as we were talking she invited me to go to the beach with them (we’ll see if that actually happens…) and said we need to get our friends together because all my friends are girls and all her friends are guys. Yes! Ecuadorian friends!! Well, even though we didn’t go anywhere, it was a good relaxing weekend.

Then this past weekend, we again didn’t travel, and I was expecting another boring weekend but we ended up having some interesting adventures. Saturday morning I played soccer with some people from the youth group I started going to (I will update you on that in a second). We played in Parque Metropolitano which I had never been to before, but it is the park in Quito that is a forest, and now I really want to go back just to wander through it and go bike riding. It was a lot of fun to play soccer with people that are my age and not creepy 40-year-old Ecuadorian men. But our choice of field was fatal because of the holes all over the place and the game ended early when one girl twisted her ankle pretty bad.
BUT Saturday afternoon we went to a SOCCER GAME! It was a Liga de Quito vs. Deportivo Quito game (if that means anything to you). I don’t even know where to start it was crazy. First we found out you need to get there about 2 hours before the game to actually get a seat (no assigned seating here in Ecuador) because we ended up running halfway around the stadium to another gate. When we walked in it was like trying to squeeze onto one of the buses here and you literally couldn’t move anywhere. We kind of found some seats that 5 of us squeezed in to. The fans our literally insane. The whole game everyone is singing and waving their arms (in a way that looks like your hand is a fish), I can’t explain it. But somehow they all knew which songs to sing and when, because they all started at the same time. When their teams came out the fans went crazy and by crazy I mean setting off fireworks and colored smoke, and throwing rolls of toilet paper everywhere. Here each team has its own section in the stadium because they would literally kill each other if they sat anywhere near each other. Oh, and who knew you could buy Vodka and orange juice at a soccer game? That was just what I was craving…ha. Well the actual game was really good and interesting, but the atmosphere for sure made the experience. We sat on the Liga side and they won so it was fun to part of the celebration at the end!
That night we saw Alicia en el País de Maravillosos (Alice in Wonderland) and it was interesting but nothing like the original Disney movie. You should all just see it.
Sunday I went to a new church, which I found out is a sister church of the church that I have been going to. It was similar but I think I prefer the church I have been going to because it has more younger couples and families.

I feel like I just tell you guys about my weekends but really my weeks are pretty interesting too. So here are some stories/little things about my weekdays:
-Service: It’s getting a lot better and I no longer loathe going. The kids are so cute and I am beginning to love the school environment more and more. It’s like no place you have ever been. All the teachers and parents and students are best friends and it’s an amazing community that I am glad I am getting to be a part of, if it is only for a couple months. There are a couple kids that just melt my heart (gosh why am I talking so weird…ha.) but really, they are so great. Kevin in second grade always calls me mother when I come in to do their English for the day. I keep trying to tell him that I am just a teacher but it hasn’t really gotten through. And then there is Martin. He is in Pre-Basica, which is basically preschool and he has Down syndrome but he is one of my favorites. They let him roam around the school a lot and you can always find him out in the dirt completely filthy from head to toe. But he just has the cutest smile ever. And then there’s another Martin who also has special needs but he is so big and he always wants to sit on my lap when he is doing his work and I don’t think he understands that he is almost as big as me and that wouldn’t really work out…In general all the kids are amazing and even if you don’t really know them they come up to you and give you hugs and want to know how you are, I just love it. This past week I changed my schedule a little and I am now working with the older kids along with the actual English teacher. It’s a different but good experience.

School: It’s going pretty well. I mean I do hate my photo class but other than that not too bad. I am getting a little nervous for this Buddhism class because I was just talking to a guy in the class who had friends who took it and they said he is a super hard grader. But maybe he will go easy on me because I’m foreign. He is quite a character though and makes me laugh all the time. Oh, we meditated for an HOUR last class. Enough said. Oh new favorite word: Chévere (it means cool) thanks to my Spanish teacher. She says it so funny; I will probably be saying it all the time when I come home

Well, I am about half way through here. It’s so awful. I mean I can’t wait to come home but everything here is just so amazing and I have so much I want to do still. I just don’t want to come home with any regrets. I can’t believe it’s already been two months! There is still so much on my list and I know I am going to want to come back here and see so much more!