Grace's Ecuador Foreign Exchange

I'm going to Ecuador my Sophomore year of High School. Here's stuff about it for anyone interested.

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Temblores, they keep piling up

I'm not getting back to bed until tonight, as I was woken to my bed moving under me this morning. This would be a fun time to catch up on temblores I've experienced.

I felt only 2 while in my first host family. But the lasting effect from a 2016 Earthquake meant my host grandmother refused to park in large parking garages and entering multistory malls was not an option.

Having now changed families to one with 3 kids all under middle school, the parents go a little crazy trying to get their kids outside.

The first with this new family was really early after the switch, probably even week 1. It hadn't seemed particularly dangerous to me, so my memory is fuzzy only a few weeks later. That is to say, I don't remember exactly where I was. I would guess my bedroom as I vaguely recall walk/jogging out calmly to find my host mom and the plan.

Somehow or another I got downstairs to the living room where my oldest sister Adamy was waiting for her parents. Vicky, the 5 year old came careening down, and I'm not sure where 4 year old Enmanuel was in this (either carried by his father or sprinting by his sister). I thought we would go out the front door and was rather confused as everyone walked through the doorway toward the kitchen. Eventually my host mom guided me out onto the patio.

From there I got a closer look at how everyone responds. The temblor I'd been in pajamas ready to sleep and missed most everything other than checking family and the Earthquake strength. Now I learned they would find the epicenter (they always know so fast!) then call or be called by family. After that we would wait until helicopters got out to assess for damage before returning inside.

Overall, it was nice to learn other than the crushing panic after 2016 bleeding into the parents that had lived throughbreal Earthquake terror.

I even got a talk with my family on how they handled 2016, learning they'd been in church. For whatever reason, the people of Portoviejo didn't know to vacate buildings in an earthquake (I don't blame them, I didn't either) so they stayed inside that church. They got lucky it didn't collapse on them, which is likely a big reason they're faith continues strong.

I don't know the exact timeline from there with the younger kids mentioning snippets they remember despite being 2 or 3 years old at the time. There was mention of living in the car for a little while (I can only guess due to debris blocking the way home or there was no home left to return to or a combination).

I learned that all due to the first temblor experience with my second host family.

Now, I've just had my second temblor with them, much more disorienting this time.

I woke up in bed feeling uncharicteristically dizzy and unbalanced for just laying down. I sat up and braced myself, working to pinpoint whether my inner ear was screwing with me, or this was cause for raising a temblor alarm in the house. My host grandmother decided for me, yelling temblor from down the hall.

I didn't bother grabbing my charging phone as the temblor had been strong enough to wake me from sleep and was still moving the house at a sway.

I moved first toward my sister's room as they might need a chaperone before realizing all of them were in my parents' room. I just made it to their door before Vicky was opening it, her mother just behind. Back to the stairs, I took Vicky's hand halfway down to make sure she got out quickly.

The back door was padlocked (as you do when paranoid about burglars). I stepped aside for my host mom that was a ways behind, Vicky hugging my legs before we all filtered outside.

There was a bit of waiting to see what more would happen, Enmanuel the 4 year old oblivious to all of it as his father had carried him sleeping down the stairs and Enmanuel just kept up sleeping on the couch-bed of our patio kitchen. Parents were the first to reenter, Mamá going to change and my host dad doing...whatever.

We kiddos were left outside for a while longer, Abuelita claiming the temblor was continuing based on the fact a string-held whiteboard was still moving. I did what I could to explain in spanish that the white board was moving because it wasn't well secured--strings continued to work out tension a good while after the force has stopped if they're treated like a pendulum. The whiteboard was weighing down the string, the grip of the chain was making the fan's switches move, the earth had actually stopped for a while. I tried to point out observing more secured objects would work best--things a little more unsteady than a wall, more steady than pendulums (I used a tree and column as an example). In the end it was Adamy putting a water glass on the table to prove the lack of ripples that convinced Abuelita.

Eventually we returned inside, staying in the downstairs living room and close to a route of escape. Family members were called, epicenters were located, and the strength was catalogued. According to the first report found by Mamá, it was a 7.8 all the way in the Oriente (but first reports tend to have higher levels on the Richter scale than the final conclusion, so it was likely closer to 7.6).

We stuck downstairs for some 5 minutes, Enmanuel sleeping on the couch until people got to talking about some embarassing story of his. Once we felt safe enough, people got to moving upstairs to dress or return to sleep.

I had just started toward the stairs to retrieve my phone and check in with other exchange students when Mamá said there was another one. Turning back I tried to locate where she noticed or felt it (after Abuelita's insistence due to trusting pendulums to tell her when the moving stopped, I wanted to be sure this wasn't a false alarm). Apparently with feet planted I was secured enough not to sense anything, but a decorative circle on bent wire was bobbing as it hadn't been previously and I had my answer.

I and Adamy were at the back door moments later only to find someone had gonr to the trouble of padlocking it again. Adamy screamed (I chastised her as the 4 and 5 year olds did not need encouragement in panicking). Mamá unlocked the gate after the glass door, cursing my host dad for locking it in the first place.

The first thing I noticed was Adamy's water glass rippling like those Jurrasic park movies, no clear visiable source. I still couldn't feel a thing.

My host dad came out along with the kids I'm pretty sure he took up to change out of pajamas.

It was 5:45 now, I was still in PJs and phoneless, retainers in meaning I probably wouldn't eat unless I wanted to put a few people through the gross sight of removing something from your mouth.

We didn't wait as long this time, Mamá asking if I wanted to get something and finally I was free to go unplug my phone. I got the retainers out and came back down pretty quickly.

I checked in with the Ecuador group chat, of course filled with 2 sentence anecdotes and questions after everyone's wellbeing.

Next was the Portoviejo groupchat. Having thought the second temblor might just be an aftershock and weak enough others missed it, I asked as much. From there I learned, in fact, it had been a second Earthquake (5.5) in Guayaquil, a coastal city, perhaps caused by the first strong earthquake.

Lastly, I went to the groupchat of my meme friends in Cruz del Norte to see if they were alright. Aldo was the only to answer, and informed me there had actually been 3 Earthquakes, all before dawn. The first was a 6.2 with the same Oriental epicenter as the next, a 7.6. Whether the temblor of the 6.2 or 7.6 was the one to wake me, I didn't notice any initial difference between them, so thank goodness for Aldo. The final had been a mere 5.5 around Guayaquil.

After all the excitement, I figured this would be the time to appease my mom and grandma who insist I catch up on the blog (I have after all been through Christmas, New Years, an Amazon trip, my birthday, a host family switch, a temblor, a Galapagos trip, and another temblor, so they are right). I took my phone and the eastern direction Adamy had found with a phone compass to half watch the madrugada, or sunrise, and type out an uncoordinated post since I haven't gotten nearly enough sleep to face the day. I'm too used to a 7 o'clock wake up.

That's the temblor update, I'm gonna go eat my cereal breakfast.

[gracetoecuadorexchange]

The Week of Lazy Success

1. 2nd Place:

Cruz del Norte, my high school, was sponsoring a 5K. If you signed up and paid the $10 entrance fee, you could immediately pass one of you upcoming class exams. I signed up not realizing this, but now I’m thankfully passing Chemistry. What I also didn’t realize was just how few people actively run, especially in my 11-17 age group. I had planned to practice through the previous week, but didn’t. After managing to force my unfit body to run the entire way, I ended up with a lack-luster time of 23:16, and somehow won 2nd place with $60 in prize money and a box of cleaning supplies.

2. Prize Money:

After running, one of my school friends offered to take me home, but first the family was going shopping. This trip was probably planned as only a short errand run, but we got sidetracked buying empanadas, I told more camp stories to Marcela (namely the Walmart one, Purple Oompa loompas, and Jimmy the Head as Timmy the Monk had already been told the previous Friday), and we realized ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet was in the theatre. We had an hour of wandering the small shopping mall in which I bought a few foods with my prize money before the next showing came up, and I did my best to follow another plot in Spanish.

3. Semana Holistica:

This past week of school was dedicated entirely to presenting our learnings to peers and other schools. The first three days had specific subjects that students of a chosen grade demonstrated over. Day one was Social Studies, and as I hadn’t been warned (or didn’t understand someone’s warning) I came to school in my usual uniform to find everyone of my class dressed in traditional dresses or plain button-up shirts reminiscent of how farmers dress. I got permission to head home and change, so I ran the whole way down and back. I still don’t know whether my host family even realized I had returned as all of them were still camped out in their rooms. Day two was Math, but as my class wasn’t presenting I could wear the regular uniform and walk around stands demonstrating or explaining math. Many had some sort of game with the prize of sweets to encourage people to participate. As my math quick skills are quite good, I got lots of sugar by the end of the day. Day three was Science, but rather than walk around as a group and enjoy everything, my class was assigned as greeters and guides at the entrance for other schools to come explore. The partner I was supposed to lead a bunch of younger students around with didn’t do the best job keeping track of the students, or me, and at one point I was in the plant section with no one of my group around and eventually found her walking out the doorway of a room across the outdoor basketball court. I still don’t know what happened to the group we were leading. Day four was the last day of presenting and demonstrations, with my class as greeters again. Guides weren’t needed as all would be around the outdoor basketball court. I spent most of the time helping a few classmates practice English as we talked about school differences. The highlight was when the dance compilations each grade had been practicing for weeks were finally shown off on the court and we all got to watch. If I remember right, there was 60s, Grease, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s. Day five was nonexistent as I got to just hang around at home. There was no class since exams start Monday and nothing would be taught or retained after a workless week.

4. Semana Holistica:

Nothing much to say, this is just another picture, highlighting my prizes from the Math day.

5. Tortellini:

Here was a real highlight of my week. Back during the Thanksgiving picnic with the exchange students of Portoviejo, Paula had talked of making tortellini with her friends and wanting to do it again. So began the Tortellini group chat, agreeing to join forces Thursday and learn to make Tortellini. Johanna agreed to host as her kitchen was larger and better furnished the Paula or mine. Paula and I met up at the Grocery store to buy supplies. Alessia got to join in last minute as she wanted something to do that day, and I don’t regret it as she was the one to anoint us in flour. Although we couldn’t get the shells quite thin enough, the dinner was a ton of fun to make and then eat to the sound of Queen music.

6. Tortellini and Grindelwald:

Shortly after this picture we were eating as at a rather fast pace as the Portoviejo group chat had proposed watching The Crimes of Grindelwald that night at 9. After around 4 hours of cooking, we were cutting it super close. Alessia, Paula, and I power walked to the movie theater and made it in with about 2 minutes to spare. So little time we had to skip the snack line, which turned out not to be a problem as I had bought sweet cereal for myself at the earlier grocery store run and no one ordered me to show what was in my bag. In fact, along with cereal, I had two fully ripe mangos as well from Johanna’s mango tree and a baggy of extra tortellini.

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It Rained Today

    It might not seem like a big deal. I looked up from my computer where I’d been typing up a recent story idea, disappearing into my newest fantasy world and bringing its structure into words.

    Suddenly, the world froze when over Cami’s bent head (as she watched YouTube while ascending the stairs to the second floor I was writing at the stair’s top) the window was no longer clear. Watching for only a second, and there was another disturbance against the window. A drop…then another…and it was raining.

    I can count the number of times I have known it to rain in my 3 months of being here. The first was hardly anything that counted as I watched mist barely cover the front window of a car as we drove back from the coastal city of Manta. The second was another top-of-the-stairs experience as I looked over Cami’s head and noted ‘Oh, it’s raining pretty hard, I wonder if it’ll do that again soon’. The third was when I saw the leftover raindrops on the old car as I got in to head to school.

    The wish to feel rain again, or smell it at the very least, arose with a post from Monticello. It had nothing to do with precipitation, only walking a dog for the winter. In the background behind two smiling high schoolers holding up their furry charge, the laws were blanketed in a healthy amount of snow. It hit me, then—harder than the imminent Thanksgiving I would miss—I was so far from home I couldn’t even smell the snow.

    Within moments, I was shooting back into the group chat that ‘No, I can’t walk the dog’ immediately followed by ‘I miss the smell of snow.’

    The idea didn’t settle like the Thanksgiving one. Making a Thanksgiving of my own was only a text to the exchange students, and I was eating food with a bunch of friends. Scenting the rain couldn’t be a text away. Rain wouldn’t follow my schedule.

    Now, today, November 26th, and the rain had returned. The computer in my lap was forgotten and didn’t matter anymore—

    No, I needed to go smell the rain, feel the temporary water, anything to stave off this longing for something that had been so common before.

    The only preparation I made was grabbing a stick of chocolate to eat outside and enjoy at the same time as the rain. I didn’t even bother with shoes before pushing out in only my socks and finally—finally—I could feel the cool misty air that only appears around rain.

    It wasn’t enough to just stand under the awning and feel the air and smell the watery dust of the street, I needed the sense of surprise little unpredictable raindrops again. First I stuck one arm out, then switched it for the next, not unlike how I started my morning showers to acclimate my recently woken body to the cold tap water.

    Moments later and I was leaning out as far as I could while keeping my socks on the dry tiles of the porch. It still wasn’t enough, and the socks were discarded, my feet planted on the damp raindrops at the porch’s tile edge where the awning hadn’t protecting it. After that and I shoved the socks in my pockets then stepped off the porch. No particular plan, no excuse to tell any confused neighbors, I meandered across the brick street, hopped up on the smoothed sidewalk, and made it safely to the false lawn around our neighborhood pool.

    It wasn’t the same smell of damp grass or soaked asphalt, but the misty feel of rain-filled air was the same and it was like home. The smell wasn’t all, as I could also watch the splatter and ripples  in the bright blue pool before me.

    I’d come into this expecting the sounds to be the most acute sense of loss: no longer hearing the voices I’d know daily and instead getting them filtered through a phone, no more slammed cabinets and outrageously loud garage door and the stomp of snow boots through the entryway, no more plinking of the cereal I’ve eaten almost every of my childhood for breakfast.

    Behind sounds I figured tastes would probably be the next source of longing: microwave popcorn couldn’t be the snack I came home to when I was out of Cross Country practice for two weeks, Penne Pasta Hamburger Helper certainly wouldn’t be in the recovering Ecuadorian city of Portoviejo, oatmeal butterscotch cookies couldn’t be made with Kayla on slow weekends because there was no guarantee of butterscotch.

    After that, maybe, just maybe, I would miss some smells. Maybe I would want that butter scent from popcorn, but I could get that easily enough at a movie theater. Maybe I would miss the smell of summer sun against warm asphalt while running, but surely the streets would get warm enough from the more direct sunlight. Maybe I would long for the smell of the recently mowed lawn, since I had no idea how upkeep of grass would be achieved in an entirely different country.

    I hadn’t been too concerned about the smells with all the other things I thought were more prominent in my Illinois life. Certainly, the missing smell of grass could be a little bothering, but not as missed as no longer hearing shucked winter coats or the crushing of snow.

    Instead, I found myself walking out into the rain with no umbrella and no shoes and no plan, missing the smell, followed by the feel, followed by the scene of drops in a pool. Even now, walking into my room with it’s open window to the continuing light rain, being enveloped in the smell of rain once more is like walking into a comforting embrace that I’d missed for 3 whole months.

    It wasn’t quite the same look that came with a summer thunderstorm—no broken lightning splitting the cloud imposed darkness or smeared scenery behind the curtains of rain. It wasn’t quite the same sound of a summer thunderstorm—no roiling crescendo or pounding downpour. But the scent…I finally had it again. It rained today, and I stepped through the sprinkles as each brought me back to the familiarity of home.

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More Lazy Photo Guidelines

Alright, let’s do this again. At this point, I’m pretty out of order, but who can fault me? It’s been an eventful week (although at least one of these is from weeks ago) and not all of it was in pictures so I’ll stick those little anecdotes at the end.

1. Park Swings:

After multiple failed attempts to swing in one of these crazy contraptions, I finally caught one unoccupied. It probably helped that the Rotonda, my favorite park so far, was almost completely empty anytime before noon. As I’m trying to get halfway in shape for a 5K, I finally got around to running this morning after a fun talking-to with my counselor and some snowflake cutting and crane making. When I was on one of my walking breaks, I decided I was going to try out the swing platform with benches facing each other. It probably would have been more fun with a companion.

2. Smooshed Cookies:

Now this is a fun one, and by fun one I mean I ended up crying by the end of the night and then my youth counselor came over this morning and I cried again. It would take a long time to explain in detail what happened, so maybe I’ll make that a separate post some other time. Either way, I put 9 cookies on a tray and stuck it in the toaster oven to cook. When I came back in the kitchen, 4 more cookies had been added to my tray without my consent or even knowledge. I ended up feeding these cookies to my school friends, and everyday since Anthony has asked me if I brought more. “No Anthony, I’m not making you cookies every day unless you pay me.” Then he said “Que cuesta,” so I need to go calculate and debate whether I should become his cookie dealer.

3. Upcoming 5K:

This is the 5K I’ve started running for. I decided to participate as a means to encourage myself to stop slacking on my running. Turns out, running this also lets you get a 10 on one of your exams according to the exchange students I shared a taxi with. Looks like I’m passing French after all, even though it’ll cost me ten dollars and a morning of pain.

4. Usual Vendor:

This is where we tend to go if we need something small and fast. Today we stopped briefly and Mami Nina yelled to the woman for some bananas. Earlier, Cami and I looked through the candy shelf and brought back chocolate filled hard candy hearts to play to win in ‘Go Fish’.

5. Halloween Costume:

It was probably a bad idea, but I didn’t want to miss out on a year of dressing up. Seeing as how I’m already gringa (foreign, usually referring to white) I went for a tourist costume: heavy sunscreen on my nose; sun glasses; flower necklace; and a bi-i-i-ig floppy hat. The flowers were a little difficult to do as I had to draw a bunch on notebook paper, outline in highlighter, cut each one out, and then stab a pen through the center to string them.

6. (Unfortunately no pictures of) Finally Seeing Bohemian Rhapsody!:

I have been trying for a week to get someone to go with me to Bohemian Rhapsody. My host family is homophobic, and there was no way that wasn’t coming up in the movie, so exchange students or school friends were the way to go. I decided on trying exchange students since I hadn’t seen them in a while. The only problem was, our initial date got put off as suddenly the three people all had things come up. After a few more failed attempts, we finally got a good chunk of people on Thursday. I showed up late thanks to Mami Ale not calling a taxi until 10 minutes before the showing, so I have no idea what happened before the flash forward. I won’t spoil the movie, I’ll just say I was grinning every time I heard a song come up. It was quite confusing to go from mouthing along to English lyrics and then the dub came back on and I had to focus on Spanish once more (it would’ve been subbed that first week, I’m still salty I couldn’t go initially).

The great time with Bohemian Rhapsody and my school friends’ happiness at getting some cookies definitely helped balance the mess that came after making cookies. It’s going to be so much fun having to explain the first time I cried here was because someone put cookies on my tray--not because I miss the smell of snow, not because I want to hear my family member’s voices, not because I don’t get to decorate a Christmas tree. Needless to say, that’s going to be my next post. It has not been the greatest week.

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My movivation levels continue to plummet, so you get some pictures and snap-shot explanations of how they came about.

1. My home:

You're welcome, Grandma. Mom kept insisting this was what you really wanted to see. It's quaint, and the interior has been overrun in Christmas decorations already.

2. Flag on the beach:

This is from ages ago, but is also a pretty good picture. While on the first huge group trip of exchange students, I didn't have my flag (we realized I'd left it on the dining room table in Illinois) and had to borrow one from an Ohio boy to get the picture before we went across to swim with lifeguard supervision.

3. Portoviejo picnic:

The exchange kids in my city all agreed to meet at the café area of one of two city parks. I had the forsight to bring cups for the drinks I had (still proud of that) and literally no one brought food of substance. The guy in red sitting across from me gave me kinder chocolate secretly, like a drug dealer.

4. Parade through Portoviejo:

The second full-group trip was around my province, Manabí. Portoviejo is the capital of this province, and celebrating its liberation from Spain. All the exchange students donned their jackets and flags (mine arrived in the mail, thanks Mom) and waited around some 2 hours in the heat. Jackets ended up wrapped around waists and flags became sun umbrellas.

5. Manabí tour:

After the parade, we piled on buses and first came to a museum celebrating some Ecuador history. In particular, one of the presidents that was buried in the mausoleum just behind us (it was set in a slight hill and can't be seen properly in this picture) that the museum said worked towards getting women into work.

6. Tour bus:

Still on the Manabí tour. This was my bus, the shirtless kid is from Ohio. They played some awful movies (San Andreas, and this utterly insane horror mountain climbing low budget thing) but at least it was air conditioned.

7. Tongue Twisters:

As my English teacher insists the exchange students take what should be their break in the day to teach more Spanish (as if I'm not immersed). I'm supposed to memorize one of these Spanish tongue twisters for a grade or so. I'm not looking forward to it.

8. Cousin's birthday;

I got my pizza fix when one of my host cousins came over for his birthday (13th maybe?). The birthday experience was interesting. They did candles and singing, but the birthday song went twice in Spanish then English. The birthday boy got his first bite by taking it straight from the full cake. Also, people would randomly say 'Viva el cumplañero' along the lines of 'long live the birthday boy' and everyone else would have to repeat the semtiment. In the end, it was fun (even with rather dry cake).

9. Puppies!

Tete's two puppies are continuing to grow, found curled around each other most of the time. They can walk for maybe four steps before toppling, and it's adorable. They're so soft, even as their hair is starting to grow longer like their mother's. Cami can be seen doing Tik Toks of them every now and then.

[gracetoecuadorexchange]

Engaging

Well, after another week of fighting more avidly against boredom, I am feeling pretty good about myself.

I got lucky last week after failing to do anything for the first day of my three-day weekend. Rosetta joined my family and me at a traditional countryside restaurant, although her refusal to eat food (the premise being that she wasn’t hungry having just had lunch herself) came back later with a vengeance in the form of ordering a full pizza and chicken hamburger at the park we walked around later. Even Henriette, who I’d thought would miss out as she was sick, joined us. She and Rosetta took a paddle boat around the man-made river.

Monday, although almost as activity-less as Saturday, still had something to do--make a “lemon pie” with Mami Nina I could take to Tuesday’s picnic at school. I say “lemon pie” in quotation marks because it was truly just a glorified casserole; without the baking, or spices, or really anything that goes into a casserole or pie. After layering the bottom of a casserole dish in plain cookies, then spreading a mixture of condensed milk, 50% milk, and lemon juice over the cookies, the process was repeated one more time. I got to leave my two lays of cookies and milk in the fridge for the next day and wonder how in the world I was expected to keep it cool while at school waiting for the last class.

I still don’t know what Tuesday’s picnic was celebrating, but it may have to do with diplomas/certificates that were given to some students at the start of the day.

I have no idea what gets you these diplomas as the year hasn’t ended, but I assume it’s a good thing as the studious kids were the ones called up. I can’t say I am one of the studious kids, but I did pay attention and even got homework and points in classes (except Quimica--Chemistry--because I hate everything about it with a burning passion).

Thankfully my worries over keeping the “pie” cool were assuaged when Mami Ale told me I could ask the snack bar to put it in their fridge. When the picnic rolled around as our last hour of the day, I was able to present my full sized “lemon pie”/casserole-stacked-cookies-not-even-baked thing to impress all my peers. Other “dishes” brought by these freshman-aged students included; Nutella, potato chips, pizza chips, chifle (chEEflay--salted banana chips), strawberries, Coca-Cola, caramel dip, packaged cookies (I took some home to savor later) and some gummy rings. It entertained a few students when I tried the potato chips with Nutella, and Aldo went so far as to test the pizza flavored chips with the chocolate as well.

Even at home I felt productive, able to work on some slides in a presentation I would be an active part of in school next Monday.

Wednesday and I investigated half-heartedly into the running organization one of my classmates is in, “Federation”--like Star Fleet!

I made sure to talk to my school group when Theatre class did nothing, and I even taught a camp game.

By the end of the day I had confirmation that grades would start being written down for me, which is a huge win. It’s hard to keep track of your language progress and feel like you’re doing good. Getting outright confirmation on schoolwork will definitely help in stabilizing how I feel I’m doing. Also, school work is insanely easy (except Quimica because no one wants you, Quimica) which is bad for the students that should actually be engaging and learning, but good for me as I already learned most things in depth in eighth grade.

Wednesday also marked the day I finally got the mail package containing a few things I hadn’t packed the first time around: a small stuffed bear that I like to brag has traveled the world, a large American flag, more journals since it’s been a little over a month and I’ve filled almost the entirety of my first one, and some documents bureaucracy prevented from finishing in time for my arrival.

I had learned from a friend that Venom was out, so of course I took this opportunity to try and connect with friends and watch the movie. Unfortunately, Mami Ale changed these plans without first consulting me, and movie watching was put off for Thursday, meaning I had to be that irresponsible jerk friend that cancels with only 2 hours to go.

This also happened to be the day Tete, the pregnant dog, was expected to have puppies, so I was given the option to stay home. My entire social life is currently at school, so I declined. I still got cake, as I think they were celebrating the new puppies even though nothing had happened (or would happen until the eleventh--that’s what happens when you assume dogs operate on human expectations).

With no one but me needing to wake early on Thursday for school and work, I had to walk down to Cruz del Norte. Unfortunately, sidewalks are not a guarantee, and I’m pretty sure my nice white uniform shoes were covered in a thin layer of dust and not smelling fresh by the time I was in the building. It didn’t help that I couldn’t shower that morning when the water pressure fizzled out as I washed my hands.

On the up side, I now had my trusty stuffed bear Jarfrey, who was a hit with the ladies of my friend group. I passed him off during PE, and by the end of it, Katherin claimed he was her husband.

Katherin was the Ecuadorian friend I had planned to watch Venom with the day before, along with the only exchange student that responded in our group chat when I first sent the invite out. Unfortunately, something came up and she couldn’t make it, but lucky for me, now Marcela could.

Her mother accidentally introduced herself as Marcela’s sister, but it was sorted out rather quickly and we watched Venom. Totally in Spanish. I think I understood about 50% of spoken words, followed 90% of the plot, and caught 40% of the jokes. On the car ride home I learned the family had a Wii U, so I will be looking into a Mario Kart tournament sometime in the future.

I didn’t get a chance to see Tete and her new-born puppies when I got home, but that was rectified the next morning.

Friday dawned, and people were late rising-- except for me because I’m always up at 6 and ready to leave by 6:45 as I was told to be. I saw the three little black puppies Tete can now call herself mother of, but I still haven’t dared to touch any of them in case that would hurt something.

At school, Marcela joined in Inktober late, coining the term ‘Latetober’ and letting me join in as well, along with Ysabella. In English while Marie was stepping out to find Henriette and my desk mates were talking amongst themselves, I drew a hamburger and a tiny hungry cat since the first day’s theme was ‘comida’.

Jarfrey of course joined me this day as well, becoming Marcela’s wrist adornment as she beat us all in the basketball game trying to make shots from different positions.

I learned from Marie halfway through the day that exchange students would be having a picnic. I have not kept up at all with the exchange students, but a picnic sounded nice and it’d be fun to enjoy the outdoors for a little while. I got to the park with four liters of sparkling apple juice and twenty cups--that’s right, I remembered to bring something to actually serve beverages in. I was the only one to remember to do so, and no one brought plates.

At one point, the French boy across from me passed Kinder chocolate under the table and we joked he was our drug dealer. He was the same one to eat tuna straight from the bag and try rip-off Cheeto puffs with guacamole. My second picnic of the week ended a little while after one of the girls got out their Ukulele and another sang along to ‘Riptide’.

It didn’t end before a woman we later learned had no connection to any of us sat down at the table and asked about exchange. People ended up leaving the chips and Nutella with her when we left for a walk. My day finished around 12 am as I enjoyed the two new Miraculous Ladybug episodes (2 in a day again!) and I started off the new weekend right.

Once more, I have fought off boredom, this time engaging in a combination of movies, drawing, and haphazard excuses to eat a ton of junk food with friends. !Ole!

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The Encroaching Quiet

As I'd suspected it would happen, the lack of close friends at my side is starting to wear on me. Sure, I've slotted myself into a friend group with little resistance, and I know I'm doing better than some of the other students that have no defined friends outside of other exchangies. I'm extremely thankful to Ysabella for being completely shamless in showing off her fandom participation so I could establish common interest quickly. I'm super greateful that Aldo and Marcela went over the 'curb your meme' tune so I could show it off on my phone and get the school WiFi password. I definitely appreciate Maria Grazzia's grasp of English so we can talk in English class while she learns and I avoid boredom and cringing at incorrect interpritations of idioms and phrases.

All these people definitely helped in holding off the loneliness, but they're all at school. Because of this, my hours in school have given me a love-hate (but mostly hate) relationship. I love the recesses when I buy my milkshake popsicle and do my best to participate in the group's conversation. I hate waiting in a strict teacher's class for everyone to finish their work. I love watching Miraculous Ladybug just after it's come out with both Marcela and Ysabella while the soccer game is in the background. I hate trying to talk to the math teacher who doesn't ever slow down even when speaking directly to me, the poor confused exchange student. I love being able to do school work in Science (never thought that would be the case). I hate having to say 'Chao' and walking away through the blazing sun to the alcove I'm picked up from.

School isn't all bad, but it's improving as my participation increases. Just this Friday I was part of a presentation on DNA and RNA, which was a huge step up from reading in the back corner waiting for my friends to be freed from school work. I also got to help in Portuguese as we made a Brazilian dessert and the teacher mistook me for French.

No, school is where my social life improves and my mood stays positive.

It's when I return home, finish eating lunch, and suddenly have a whole afternoon of blank space staring me down that I get an empty feeling. I'm not used to all the free time--school used to go 'till 3 everyday, I used to have Cross Country practice or Track 'till 5 and later, dinner used to be at 6, I'd be finishing the last of my homework by 7. Sure, there was blank space, but it was easier to fill the space when it was only 1 hour until I'm technically supposed to sleep. I could easily fill it reading, writing, surfing youtube, or texting with friends. Now, that blank time streatches from 2:30 until 7 and beyond. There's so much time to text friends, read for hours, catch up on youtube and join a whole new fan base while I'm at it (I have now added another few to my roster), and write. Whatever homework I get is done in a matter of minutes, my dinner at 7 eaten often alone as the family disperses after lunch, and you can only watch youtube and read for so long before you click away after 1 minute, and that's just not fulfilling. Then there's the whole texting friends, which used to just be filler until I could see them the next day; now I don't see them the next day, and I haven't seen them the previous day, and sometimes it's been a week since I heard their voice. It's so...empty.

I've tried in this past week to fill it some, proposing on the exchange group chat that people join me at the park. I would run as I know that always makes me feel better about my chances. Maybe afterwards I would get some time for deeper human contact, maybe a bit of English where I actually have the words to talk fully about how I feel. It didn't have to be specifically about the silence piling up at home only broken occasionally by Cami's Minecraft videos. Even just talking about my love of Pokémon or some other senseless subject so I could express myself in a language I had a better grasp on. Unfortunately, no one responded, and I ran alone. It was fine, in the end, but only staved off the boredom and ache from a lack of contact for the one night.

The quiet just keeps creeping up. I sent a invitation to my direct exchange friends (mostly friends by circumstance of understanding each others' exchange feelings, but friends none the less) hosted by my same club. I wanted to get out of the house, walk around, maybe buy some ice cream and talk to someone for more than a few stolen seconds between class. When I got no timely responce the first time, I tried again. Except now it's not looking promising on that front either as one of them is sick, the other reclusive and probably wrapped up in a game.

I just want to get out. Not anything drastic like out of the country--I still love it here, but the awe-struck 'How could I ever miss home' is starting to wear thin. With this being a 3 day weekend, I know I'm gokng to fall down the homesickness hole if I don't find someone to just walk with me through the park for pete sake.

Now it's going on 6, and I've spent the whole day quietly observing it fade away on my phone's clock while I watch the new Miraculous Ladybug (it was a good one and I spent a few seconds smiling as I fanned over it witb Ysabella through text) or jump haphazardly through YouTube or send Rose a pep talk and congratulate her in finishing her last race of the middle school Cross Country career or read for hours on end as even Cami's videos fail to interrupt me because she's with her father in Guayaquil for the weekend.

Nothing is overwhelming yet, but the quiet is encroaching.

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Paseo to the Countryside

After an invitation to one of the Rotary Interact meetings (Rotary club for 12-18 year olds) the three exchange students sponsored by my club were asked to join them on a weekend trip to a country house. While one of the girls denied outright, the other agreed to come for the first day. I was the only to stay the night.

The day started off meeting the other two girls at the home of the one that wouldn’t be going. While I ate a second breakfast--banana chips and bits of cheese that was surprisingly good, we got papaya smoothies to go.

From there, the two of us going with a couple Ecuadorian teenagers climbed into the cab of a truck where we would stay for the next two hours. This truck would then continue to pack in far more people than the 5 seats were meant to have. By the time we had stopped at the middle-of-no-where house, 20 some students were in there, most sitting in the bed.

Leaving my things on the top bunk of the bed I would be using later that night, I helped in assembling a tent the kids were nearly clueless on (it didn’t help that the instructions were English). The two story, unairconditioned home didn’t have enough beds for all the kids, even if people shared.

After the tent, I was left bouncing between groups working on lunches. In an upstairs kitchen, I picked lemon seeds out of a large bowl of ingredients to later become ceviche. At the open kitchen with a counter of firepits and mesh siding I fanned fires using a Styrofoam plate. By the end of everything, I was very confused as to where I was supposed to go for lunch. I figured out a bit late that I had needed to chose one--this left me disappointed over never eating the chicken nuggets I had helped cook in the open kitchen. Thankfully, no starving took place as people brought food at random intervals to the confusion of the American student that was content with some chicken nuggets and handfuls of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (TM).

Immediately after eating overcooked rice with the open kitchen group we made our way to the pool hidden from view of the road. The party within it was short-lived when someone managed to step on a board under the cloudy blue water and cut their toe on a nail.

The in between periods were filled with eating more cereal in handfuls from the box, playing Uno with rules I’d never encountered before, practicing English with a few of the older kids in my room, and losing epically at pool (a tune that has become the anthem to my exchange already). At one point the other exchange student fell off the map and didn’t reappear until it was nearly time for her to leave for Portoviejo again.

None of this was quite as memorable as the cult-ish bonfire the official night ended on. After a few mishaps with matches and someone pouring a liquid (I’m guessing alcohol) on the wood, we got a full-on blaze started with thick leaves. With red-hot flames licking away at the sky a good ten or more of the students took the time to dance around the new warmth. I did the reasonable thing and stepped back because my face was on the edge of melting. The club leaders said a few words, people cheered after having a good day, and everyone dispersed.

This wasn’t quite the end for my room as we took a moment to hike the cow fields for a reason I’m still not sure on: maybe they were curious, maybe they wanted to be scared--I was just along for the ride. After gaining countless mosquito bikes and little scratches on my sandaled feet, I curled up on my top bunk to sleep. I only had to get down once as they retrieved mattresses stored under my own to lay out on the floor of another room--and of all the ways I could have been injured from stepping on a nail in the pool to toasting by the fire to stubbing an unprotected toe on a stick, it was getting down from the bunk bed that had my scrapping my knee enough to bleed.

Although I would like to say I slept well after a long and entertaining if confusing day, that was not the case. My roommates had no problem talking late into the night, and the fan between rooms blew directly on my unblanketed form. The little pangs from the cut on my knee didn’t help, and the cold got bad enough I had to put on socks to sleep--I hate feeling like my feet are confined while trying to sleep, yet there I was forced to don my socks and block out the Spanish conversations continuing on below me.

It’s no surprise that I woke up absurdly early when roosters started crowing every 30 seconds; I certainly hadn’t been sleeping deeply. Because I’m a generous human being, I didn’t immediately rise and wake my disruptive roommates and their boyfriends. That luxury was taken from me as one of the others students flung the door open at 6:10 to flip them all off and wish them good morning. After that little scene, I was done waiting around.

I found out where all the other students ended up sleeping when I came up the stairs to the kitchen and found a bedroom door open with some 12 teenagers covering the floor and sitting on the bed talking in the early morning. The day didn’t truly start up for another few hours as the students (excluding me, unfortunately) went between sleeping and talking, and I continued to eat cereal from a cup.

The second day was for heading to the nearby beach to enjoy ourselves, so once more we all piled into the truck. The cab I had been lucky enough to snag early on became more of a curse as 7 people squeezed into the back bench meant for 3. I ended up with another student on my lap and numb legs by the time we unloaded.

No one actually swam at the beach, instead soccer was played in the damp sand before hightide and volleyball was improvised using the soccer ball (that thing hurt so bad when I hit it over the way too high net) when the water came in. People bought drinks (a few of them alcoholic because of course it’s a good idea to let teenagers drink somewhere they can go swimming) and I got to appreciate the different shaped shells of the Pacific and the absolutely huge sand dollar pieces.

We ate lunch on the beach, and the trip wound down as everyone, all 19 teenagers, piled into the truck. I didn’t make the mistake of taking the cab again, and got front row seats when the police stopped us for driving backwards on the road to pick up a hat that flew off one of the students. 20 minutes later and the truck was emptied as all teenagers but myself were left at the bus station to take a tourist bus back to Portoviejo.

With only the adult Rotary Club president and his wife I got the nice, airconditioned cab seat and a stop at a sweet shop. I was finally dropped off with my things at my exchange counselor’s house for a dinner party we’d have later that day.

The second question once I’d asked “can I please take a shower” was “Is there internet here.” After being WiFi-less for nearly long enough to loose my Snapchat streaks, I was able to breath a sigh of relief when I was back to save the ones on the edge of breaking. And that was how my first Interact outing came to an end; with a new cut on my leg, way too many mosquito bites, a new sand dollar, and saved streaks.

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Temblor

Is the name used most of the time for Earthquakes as they’re so common in Ecuador. Temblors are the ones you don’t worry over, like little thunderstorms. Sure you’ll go somewhere to stay safe, but you aren’t panicking. You start panicking for the Terremotos.

The first time I was sitting on the bathroom floor brushing my teeth and watching YouTube. Initially, I thought I was just swaying after the exhausting week of Language camp. However, this was proven false as I looked up from the phone and watched the shower sway back and forth as well. At that point, I left the bathroom after getting rid of the toothpaste coating my mouth, and stood dumbly in the middle of my second story room. They don’t exactly teach you in school what to do during earthquakes when you live in the middle of Illinois.

I’m not proud to say that I ended up texting a friend ‘The earth is quaking’ before actually thinking about addressing the problem at hand. Don’t text and deal with emergencies, children.

Mami Ale knocked on the door and opened it to get me outside. This was how I ended up in the middle of the street with the 50 people that had been in the middle of a town meeting in our living room, wearing my pajamas and no shoes. I didn’t even bring my phone with me. Honestly, children, get your priorities straight and bring the phone to text and check the internet later rather than texting first and dropping it on the bed to make sure your knocking host mom doesn’t catch you acting like an idiot.

September sixth ended with me sat on a living room stool using a wet wipe to get all the dirt of my feet after the relaxed people took their photo and left for their homes to clarify that no one was hurt. I finally returned to the phone and sent quick texts to everyone in case they heard about the earthquake and panicked that I hadn’t responded to them.

The second time was September twentieth, during the school day. Once more, I misinterpreted the movement of my body as something other than the earth shifting beneath me. I sit in the back corner of the class in a row over crowded with desks. When the desk below my forearms started moving, I figured the buddy in front of me was pushing her chair into it. It was a little strange that the feeling was also coming through my chair, as if someone was banging the other side of the wall, but I didn’t think anything of it.

The attack from all sides was explained as the siren used to signify the ends of classes blared longer than the its usual second of run time, signifying what I’d actually felt was an earthquake, and no one was being disruptive except the ground. Everyone filed out of the classroom, and I copied one of the girls in holding my hands over my head in case random debris found its way over the top of me.

In the end, both experiences felt more like fire drills than anything to worry about. People would get up, walk out of the building they were in, then mill around talking about what just happened but not particularly panicked. The city meeting walked around in the street and commented on the fact the epicenter wasn’t hit that hard. The students all sat down on the soccer field playing games in a circle and learning from the principal that the epicenter still wasn’t hit that hard and it was safe to reenter the building.

It’s definitely not been as scary as I expected to feel the earth, something I’ve always seen as constant before, start moving below me. It probably helps I wasn’t outside and able to see how much actually shifts around me, proving just how small and insignificant humans and their creations are in the view of an earth that can wiggle around until it all topples. With that happy thought in mind, have a nice weekend! I’ll probably be a seasoned temblor survivor by Christmas at this rate.

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Personalities

In the rush to write down the first interactions I’ve had, I may have left a few basic stones unturned. The people I’m living with are still just name place holders at this point, so allow me to rectify this.

Host Mom:

My host mom is Alejandra, dubbed Mami Ale by her children and, in turn, by me. Mami Ale is in her early 40s with two kids, one of whom is currently on exchange to Japan, the other of which is 11 and here in Ecuador. As the fastest way I can probably convey what she’s like is through my daily interactions, I’ll give a quick overview of the ones involving her.

In the morning, if Cami forgot to grab her cloths the night before, Mami Ale will enter my room to grab them. The closet of my room houses both my things and Cami’s, and Cami doesn’t function well enough in the early mornings to get her cloths and shower in time. The first few days, this was how I woke in the morning. Unfortunately, Mami Ale is not the most consistent in her exact time of entering, and I definitely need an hour to properly wash my hair (I have a lot of hair, and it’s curly, and it’s long). There was a day I was woken at 6:30 and expected to be in the car by 6:45. I didn’t make the deadline or wash more than the basics, and still didn’t have time to sit at the table to enjoy my breakfast sandwich or return back up the stairs to brush my teeth. I never thought before that brushing my teeth would have to be a luxury I needed to wake up early to achieve.

After I set up an alarm on my watch, the first interaction with Mami Ale would usually be downstairs, either in the kitchen or near the table. Mami Ale will usually have set out placemats and breakfast for myself and Cami by the time I’m downstairs after showering and dressing in the school uniform. There have been times due to her sleeping through the alarm that I’ll make my own breakfast (usually cereal since I don’t yet know enough on how to operate the sandwich-press thing) and meet Mami Ale in the kitchen for her to smile and mention without much worry that she slept through the alarm.

Mami Ale’s job revolves around plastic surgery, as she gives massages from a designated room within the house. I haven’t figured out yet if she does these before or after surgery removing fats, but either way what she does improves the final result. Since it’s all from home, Mami Ale doesn’t have to worry about waking early except to take care of myself and Cami. She’ll be the one to drive us out to school, and she’s the one that provides two dollars for buying snacks (you’d be amazed what two dollars gets you. I could have 4 ice cream scoops, or 4 Oreo packages).

The rest of the day doesn’t usually have any specific interactions as she’s working in the designated room, and I avoid having to go in there (massages require nudity). She might come out briefly to say hello between and while greeting clients. By the evening, everyone of the family is doing a bit of their own thing. I might get invited to watch TV, or Mami Ale will drive me over to Rosetta’s (another exchange student) as our host families are friends.

Host Dad:

There’s not much to say here as Alejandra and he are split. For a name, all I got was Ali. He helped in getting me from the airport, carrying my insanely heavy bag to and from the car. In the end, those first two days were the only ones I had sight of him, and we didn’t have any one-on-one moment for me to assess anything about who he is.

Host Sister:

Having had an 11 year-old sister before when I was 13, it’s so weird to get another one at 15 now. I’m not complaining, as now that sister isn’t working specifically to annoy her older (and totally more mature) sibling. Instead I get to watch and wince as Camila directs her whines to her exasperated mother.

The first I’ll see of Cami is usually at the breakfast table, silently eating cereal and between asleep and alert, as we all are at 6:00 in the morning. She’ll say ‘Chao’ while getting out of the car she tends to be the last to when exiting for school.

The next I’ll see her is on the living room’s golden couch watching YouTube when I get back from high school in the car, or maybe she’ll be in the car as well holding an ice cream. After I’ve taken a moment to drop my things off, Cami will be the one sent to grab me from my room for the family meal of the day -- lunch.

After lunch I can almost always here her enjoying a Minecraft video from the seat at the top of the stairs. Sometimes I’ll go out to propose a card game, sometimes she’ll come into my room to do the same. The card game of choice has become Go Fish as it’s the only one other than Kemps that I knew how to play. We took the time to work on her English as it’s pretty atrocious for how long she’s been learning. I definitely won some cool sibling points by making the prize some of the candy I came over with. I’ve learned that the Mini Reese's cups are definitely a hit with her.

However, if she’s not playing Go Fish with me or complaining to Mami Ale that we’ve run out of sweets in the kitchen, Cami is attached to her phone. She’s at the angsty 11 year-old stage where she kind of wants to be mature but still enjoys buying slime and giving her mother the silent treatment for forcing her on the caterpillar train.

Host Grandpa:

 Papi Teto was the title I was given for my host grandfather, Guillermo. I’ve slowly picked up a few things about him that have given me the insight into the fact I’m part of a politically (or at least previously) involved family.

Papi Teto was a minister in the past, and is now an architect from what I’ve observed. This doesn’t mean he’s fully left the political game, as we’ve had at least two ‘town-meetings’ within the living room. The first one I saw had some 50 people all in the room made to comfortably hold 15 as they sat and stood in a circle discussing city affairs. The second was smaller with maybe 5 people, at least one of them being a police officer in uniform.

If those weren’t enough to convince me Papi Teto had been and probably still was someone important, we got to go to the port of Manta as they unloaded the first subway cars shipped all the way from Spain to be put into Quito. The whole thing was supposedly going on national TV, and was definitely note worthy. Papi Teto was there and in the pictures, along with the son I’m pretty sure is now a Senator.

With all this in mind, it makes sense that Papi Teto is the one sticking to formalities. He makes sure to say ‘Buen Provecho’ (Bon Appetite) and ‘Buen Día’ (the even more formal version of Buenos Días). The formality isn’t keeping Papi Teto from being welcoming, though, as he has referred to me as ‘mija’ (the combination of mi hija, my daughter/child). The fact that he was a minister definitely helps as he can speak English well enough when I don’t have the words in Spanish.

Host Grandma:

My host grandmother, Alejandrina, is referred to as Mami Nina. She was the one to make sure I was informed of my options on what to do after my late arrival in Guayaquil, and she was the one I turned to for random questions on words I didn’t yet know as Mami Nina knows some English and understands some foreign exchange as she was a student herself to Maine.

Although Mami Nina doesn’t tend to be the one to take me out places, she’s the one I’ll see around the house actually talking (Cami’s glued to the phone). Mami Nina will speak with Mami Ale’s waiting clients and make sure I know I can eat food. In fact, the first week was mostly her making sure I ate before going to bed and that I enjoyed whatever we were eating for lunch. Since then, she’s talked with a few clients about the fact I’m willing to eat pretty much everything except mash potatoes.

It’s hard to try and describe Mami Nina, honestly. She’s like the semi-strict grandmother that wants to make sure you’re staying healthy and out of trouble, checking up on your day and how the food is. She also wants to make sure I’m actually trying to learn the language, although I’m pretty sure she stopped worrying about that after I integrated into one of the school groups rather than sticking to the other exchange students.

So there you go. Everyone above is living within my house, except for Ali who is in Guayaquil. It feels a lot like my own family, with people maybe seeing each other in the kitchen or sitting down in the living room to all do something on the phone. Interactions don’t feel forced, and I get to chose for myself whether to interact. It doesn’t feel like a camp where counselors are paid to keep you occupied, it feels like an actual home and family that I’m given the privilege to be a part of.

Note--I don’t care enough to go back through for spelling mistakes, so no calling me out this time, Emily.

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The Caterpillar Train

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Caterpillar Train

Fairs really are a curious thing. You walk in, bombarded by the smells of frying and smoking foods, accosted by flashy lights, and you’re sold rigged games you know you can never win back your money's worth playing. By the time you leave it's hard to hear over the ringing left by blasted music, and there's a 50/50 chance the food you ate will be thrown up a couple hours later either from rides or food poisoning. Despite this, people keep going to fairs, and they keep exiting with smiles on their faces, excited for the next one in town.

I can't say I was any different after Portoviejo's fair on the 13th. Being a smaller town, the fair-goers all seemed local. There was no English to be seen, except on the shirt of a go-car worker which read 'Don't grow up, it's a trap.'

Walking through pathways of the gravel, I constantly had a hand near my pockets because I really didn't want to lose my only form of communication. Despite this nagging constantly at the back of my head, I was still able to feel the familiarity of everything around me: the smell of greasy fair-food, shrieks of happy little children, the warmth of so many bodies near each other. It was a breath of home in a place still so new and different.

However, I quite enjoyed myself observing the differences to later tell my buddies about the most outragous one.

Initially I thought there was no way anything could beat our first stop. It was one of those ship rides that swing back and forth, nothing too rediculous there. What I found amusing was the apparent Dragon Ball character going Super Saiyan with neon hair and everything in the middle of it.

Our second stop, a kiddy roller coster made up of green caterpillar cars, was still a little ridiculous, but nothing compared to random Anime. It was somewhat strange that the ticket was labeled as Disney and the platform painted with Disney characters -- most notably Thanos with a completed Infinity Gauntlet. They didn't actaully expect to trick anyone into thinking this was a Disney ride, right? It was a giant green caterpillar of goodness sake. Either way, Dragon Ball was still more out there.

Things started to get really interesting at bumper cars. Forgive me if it's the same on all bumper cars, but I found it different and a little infuriating when turning the wheel far enough to one side lead to the car backing up. That wasn't the highlight, even though it did lead to a few jams I couldn't escape without flipping the wheel all over the place. What did take the first place ridiculous spot from Dragon Ball was when my sister's cord to the electrified wiring above went straight through a gap in the mesh. As we all waited for the worker to come over and simply push it back in place with his hand like this was a regular occurance, I properly appreciated how many gaps had been filled. I also notticed the sparks that would occasionally light up the wires above us when we sped into each other. Bumper cars was fun, but I don't think I'll ever see it quite the same way after witnessing the ease with which one's wire can misplace itself.

I thought that was a pretty good way to round out the night. I'd had my overpriced rides, and I'd be content just to watch everyone enjoy themselves and maybe join them in eating that risky food. However as we crossed the street to the quieter park I learned there was one last ride -- a tradition of the fair. We walked down the sidewalk for some time, avoiding bicyclists and runners as I continued to have my one hand by a pocket.

Finally we came across what looked like one of those themed trams that goes around amusement parks to get the lazy people from one side to another. Except rather than being a generic tram with maybe a few of the park’s stickers plastered to it's side, this was much, much more loud and hideous. The one we climbed in was a lime-like green, light covered, smiling caterpillar.

When I say light covered, I don't mean lights strung only along the covering above our heads, I mean lights along the covering, and on the bands connecting the two sides of thd covering, and lining the entire sides of the tram cars themselves, making swirlling patterns on the backs of cars as well even though only front row seats like my own in the car would be able to appreciate the glowing back end of the one ahead of us. And just to clarify, when I say lights I mean those long cords you can program to switch between green, red, and blue. Let me tell uou, I don't think a single strand stayed the same for more than 2 seconds as the lights flashed blindingly. I hope you can properly envision how lit up the contraption was. There were lights lining the caterpillars eye lashes and a disco ball on its tounge for crying out loud.

So I climbed into this glowing death trap to be imidiately enveloped in painfully loud music. The covering above was the right shape for accoustics to batter us on all sides. It didn't help that the music was already loud outside of the seats, and that our driver was not against suddenly changing what was playing. No thanks to the constant pain, I somehow managed to hear and understand when popcorn was bought to be passed along between the three of us. I couldn't help but worry a little at what state my stomach might end up in later should I eat the popcorn. I went for it.

Together we sat far too long in the flashing lights and ear-stabbing music. Mami Ali attempted to take a picture of the three of us, but Cami was being an angsty teenager and wouldn't even glare into the camera. The best we got was the back of her head and a few laughs when she would almost turn out of habit when her name got called.

A previous train came in (still a caterpillar, but I think this one was pink) and we were off. It took me until we were at an intersection with actual cars to realize we'd we taking this monstrous ride out into the actual streets for the rest of the world to enjoy. I couldn't tell whether the citizens would take it as a heaven-sent gift of flashing salvation or a noisy caterpillar from the fiery pits bellow.

By the end of it, I think a taxi got annoyed with us once, and when it honked laughs traveled up the train. Otherwise pedestriens either waved or didn't respond. I suppose caterpillars in the roadways is an annual occurance.

We drove around for sometime, music continuing to drill into the side of my skull with a vengance up until we neared the end where it would cut randomly, only to be heard from the first car with our driver. Every pothole driven over would be felt a few extra times with how many cars were attatched, and we had to slow to a near crawl to make it over the unnecisarily tall and long speed bumps of Portoviejo.

The parts to look forward to on the ride were going down long, straight, and empty roads. The driver could more us back and forth on these, creating a fun whip from one side of the seat to the next. There weren't any seatbelts, something not particularly surprising as citizens rarely bother with seat belts in their own vehicles.

At one point we made it to an abandoned intersection large enough for the entire train to loop in circles like a dog chasing its own tail. In that moment it wasn’t too hard to forget I was sitting on an uncomfortable green caterpillar that was probably going to leave me blind and deaf once we were back to the fair. People whooped and laughed, and I think Cami might have smiled despite her eleven year old angst.

After the caterpillar ride of doom, there really wad nothing to beat it. Sure, there was still music, but I could think over it. There were also lights lining way too many random rides, but that was nothing compared to a disco toungue and green lit eyelashes. I had my most ridiculous event to report back.

There wasn’t much more to our night after completing the train tradition. I risked more possibly contaminated food, admired the Dragon Ball boat, and enjoyed myself at the fair with my host family.

If anyone out there was to ask (as I know they never will) I enjoyed myself. Even if going back required risking my senses and whooping withe the other caterpillar train-goers as we chased our own tail.

[gracetoecuadorexchange]

Learning the Language

I’ve had limited access to Wi-Fi and communications home for the last week for one reason -- Language Camp.

After a 5 hour bus ride through towns and country roads and the generally beautiful landscape of Ecuador, I and 83 other exchange students in the country arrived at Mompiche’s Resort Hotel. Everyone got three to a room and only one key to share between them. This made for lots of group chats asking someone to let their roommates into the room while they were out socializing into the wee hours of the morning. We obtained a schedule that was barely stuck to and didn’t list locations to meet for the events and placement exam, and a whole lot of free time all in our first day. After that everyone came to the ampetheater for the the obligatory reminder speech to follow the 6 Ds: Don’t do Drugs, Don’t Drink, Don’t Drive, Don’t Date, Don’t Discotech, Don’t Download Pornography (they’ve said it’s 7 within my own hosting club-- Don’t disfigure your body i.e. no tattoos or piercings).

Once the first day was through and I’d prepared for bed only to realize I hadn’t packed any pajamas, I woke in the morning to my obnoxious watch alarm and took my usual cold shower as I hadn’t yet figured out hotels often provided hot water while homes stuck to cold. I got into the highest level Spanish group and we spent some 4 hours going over Spanish facts and structures I’d learned relatively early in my Freshman year of the language. Although it was nice to learn cabello [kab-EY-yo] is hair on the head while pelo [PEL-oh] is all hair on the body, I’d rather not waste time going over more Saludos and introductions.

Truly, the Spanish lessons were not of note as they passed with more boredom than my second day of school at Cruz del Norte. I might get lucky and learn a small technicality or slight variation from the more Mexican Spanish we learned in the United States to the Ecuadorian Spanish we learned in lessons, but it was only slight and probably something I could have found easily enough simply talking with my host family and school friends.

There was one really entertaining lesson where all 84 (I assume it was all of us, it’s not like I actually counted) students filtered into the Discotech room to listen to and sing along to ‘Despacito’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQP7kiw5Fk in case you’ve somehow escaped hearing this all over 2017′s summer). Actually looking at and reading the lyrics as everyone stumbled their way through pronunciation -- except in the ‘Pacito a pacito/ suave y suavicito’ part where they all came back with a vengeance and way too loud voices -- that song is super sensual. Just one line I managed to translate as I was reading and singing was something like ‘I want to undress you with slow kisses’. Being a bit more averse to expressing sensual opinions myself (I don’t even reveal harmless crushes to close friends because it makes me feel so weird), I’m pretty sure I blushed and awkward smiled through the two times everyone sang. Thank goodness the Discotech room was dark.

Other than Despacito, lessons felt almost completely useless. In the end, the interesting stuff was everything in between.

Despite my dislike of swimming, especially in anything wider than what I can see the opposite shore of, I ‘swam’ (more of walking and a little floating) in the ocean everyday it was an option. I even continued to do so after confirming there was wildlife out there in the form of seeing a crab close to shore and a little snake-worm-thing in a tide pool. I boogie-boarded with a Taiwanese exchange student in my club and her fellow Taiwanese student she’d met at the Language camp. I got in pictures taken by GoPros as oncoming waves lifted us from the sand. I cheered on a few crazy people that played chicken and fell down as waves pushed them back into the water.

Then there was the dancing, music, and random nightly activities. I think there might have been at least some sort of event every night for it.

The first day of lessons there was a supervised dance party on the beach that maybe 15 people, myself included surprisingly, attended. We circled up and moved animatedly if somewhat cringily to music. ‘Watch me Whip’ came on, and I know that sounds like a nightmare, but being able to share a moment with all these foreign kids where each of us knew the same dance move and when to do it was so great.

The second day there was a play (I got caught up in playing pool in ping pong and didn’t go) and the beach party again. I turned in relatively early that one, but apparently a whole bunch of people went into another student’s room. I think the story I heard was that a popular French boy knocked on the door, had it opened, said ‘Andrew’ in a sing-song, troubling voice, and then walked in with an organized line of rotary exchange students behind him. A picture ended up in the group chat of all of them sitting around the room watching the television.

Day three of lessons and we got official dance lessons, first at the beach after swimming in the ocean, then again at the pool. There’s so much movement in Regaton (I think that’s what we learned). Then there was the true party -- Karaoke. Someone found ‘Dancing Queen’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s). Someone else found ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s). A few other familiar songs were sung (Vivir mi Vida, Just the Way You Are) but those two were my personal highlights. As day three’s night was to be the last night in Mompiche, the Discotech was opened and students attended with rotary supervision, even though it had been against the rules (they explained they really didn’t care too much about following the rules so long as you didn’t do drugs). I personally didn’t participate as I could understand the words of the music even through the closed door and 50 meters from the Discotech. I quite like being able to hear myself thing, and be able to hear in general.

The fifth day (we got five days, three of lessons, actual day one being Sunday to move in, day five being Thursday to move out) was meant to be for students to do whatever they wanted. Unfortunately, it rained the entire day, so a bunch of kids just waited around in the lobby, the only place with free Wi-Fi that wasn’t even good. Then we were off, saying goodbye to the quick and interesting friends that had been made but happy to see our host families and communities again.

To recap, what I truly learned at the language camp is: how to dance, ‘ich’ means ‘I’ in German, how to fold a napkin into a flower, I don’t have any idea how to boogie board, and the detailed rules of the Flag Game <--if you’ve been on Rotary Exchange you’ve heard of this, otherwise you can look it up for yourself. Like I said, I don’t even tell people about things like celebrity crushes. There’s no way I’m explaining the Flag Game.

[gracetoecuadorexchange]

Starting School Again

--It may be a week too late, but I’d still like to at least give the basics on what happened my first week of school.--

I have never lived anywhere but my home town before. The only time I had to experience a new school system was when I first entered it in Kindergarten. Although plenty of friends have moved in or away, I’ve still known at least the names and base personalities of most of my classmates. Starting up a new school in which I knew absolutely no one was a completely different experience.

Colegio (high school) for Ecuador is (of course) set up differently than the States. The first and initially alarming difference was the appearance of uniforms. The next -- I don’t move from my one classroom often. For another, unless I’m in an advanced class, I’m always with the same set of classmates. No longer seeing new faces every hour can be nice, but it also means that if I tick a person off, I’m going to have to deal with them the rest of the day.

Thankfully, days are not long in Colegio. I get to school around 7:00 am and I’m leaving around 1:30 for lunch at home. In between these times I get 2 recesses, something I haven’t experienced since 5th grade. At these recesses, I can buy food to tide me over until the late lunch and sit around goofing off with the friends I’ve made.

If you think it sounds like I’m practically living the dream, you’re absolutely right. Other than needing to try and make friends, I barely have to participate in school -- especially as I’m repeating the equivalent of freshman year. That may sound about as fun as living in the fiery depths of the sun, but with little contact to the other grades to make fun of me and joining halfway through the school year, I’ve got nothing to lose but a little dignity at hanging out with these younger kids.

Despite this apparent dream state, the ‘trying to make friends’ bit can be difficult in a non-native language. Interestingly enough, I’ve managed.

The first day of school, Tuesday, was definitely the most bombarding social-life wise. Coming from a school-system where most everyone knows everyone else’s name and (at least while in school) personality, there’s little reason to interrogate a person. Joining this new school and specifically class, this is what everyone was doing the first day. I would sit down at my desk at the back of the room (the only open spot left) and people would trickle over to talk to me until half the class is questioning me and the other half is listening in to assess whether I’m friend material. I ended up showing off some origami skills in History in English and received a drawing of me with a note offering to be friends from another girl. I caught a lucky break in friend making as I commented on someone’s Miraculous Ladybug pencil pouch and how I was still waiting for the next episode. I was later approached by the anime and generally creative friend group of the class because of this.

After being introduced to enough people and speaking so much Spanish (I kept getting complimented on how much I knew and learned previous exchange student’s had arrived with no knowledge at all previous years) I could almost feel my tired brain sagging in relief as the day winded down. Someone would say their name and I would immediately forget it if I even got it through the accent and stress in the first place.

The second day was much less stressful and much more boring. I happened to jump into the year during exam week -- similar to USA finals, but more frequent throughout the whole year. Classes were either spent taking an exam, presenting an exam project, or “studying” (playing card games, honestly) for an exam. I think I honestly had a moment I was so bored and tired of trying to befriend people and speaking in Spanish and not understanding teachers that I actually momentarily hated all of it. My ‘wow’ factor largely wore off for that second day as another exchange student joined the class. She got the similar ‘group up and grill’ treatment as I had the day before, and I was left to my own devises.

To stave off boredom, I willingly took one of the exams. As of right now my grades will transfer back to the States as a Pass/Fail, so getting started on building up to a pass was a reasonable idea. In English, when given the chance to study, a bunch of girls pulled out cards and I watched while also talking with some of the girls from the creative group. In Physics, I pulled out the diary I’ll be working on to remember the days and wrote through the little that had happened. In Theatre, I actually participated and got into a group to create a short skit as the exam project, only to remember later that I would be at a language camp the next week.

The relief of leaving this day wasn’t because of the escape from constant social interaction and Spanish, but because I no longer had to sit in the back corner watching ants crawl up and down the wall to pass the time

Third day was infinitely better as I got all the creative more abstract classes to push away the boredom.. The beginning of the day was engaging with a Portuguese word search I could participate in due to cognates between Portuguese and Spanish. In English, I joined the card playing girls in the unnecessarily long and complicated (kinda like silent football) game, Telefunka, and ate one of the brownies a girl brought in. PE was great with incorrect Tennis and Music was fun (I walked into the room with some elementary aged kids singing some of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Js-XbNj6Tk). I finished crochet animals to give as gifts to people, and we had a class dedicated to creating felt animals to which I submitted my sky blue octopus. I still took an exam (Math this time, over linear functions I hardly remember how to do in English) just to pass the time, but now I used my empty notebook in the free time to draw and write ideas.

The relief wasn’t as apparent this day as my Spanish was already improving and my adjustment to the accent was no longer insanely difficult. There were still teachers that would rush through their words much too fast, but I didn’t hurt all over from concentrating on the new language in most other settings.

The fourth day, Friday, and I was starting to actually form proper friendships. I knew I wouldn’t be back the next week until Friday again due to language camp, I gave the octopus to one of the creative kids to submit for me. I got the Language and Literature exam I took the second day (deemed the Day of Endless Boredom) and managed a 6/10 despite not having been in class when the teacher taught about it and having to read a bunch of semi-cognate Spanish words. I took a Social Studies quiz on dictators of Latin America (I know that getting that one back will definitely not bring me closer to passing Social Studies in the States). I ate gelatin with the other exchange student and sat with the creative group through most of PE. We found a baby ?Parrot? and they set up a small house for it. I helped with pronouncing English words for an English presentation on super heroes -- I got to learn a bunch of new facts about Hawkeye, such as he’s an orphan and apparently has a brother. In English I yet again played the complicated Telefunka game, still too long to finish in one period. People showed off cool physics exam projects.

It was a little closer to disappointment having to leave on day four since by then I’d made a few almost-friends and was enjoying the days (especially with how short and easy they felt). Now I would have to travel off to learn more of Spanish, even though all I needed was a little review and a whole lot of practice.

That pretty well encapsulates the first week of school. If you didn’t read through that whole block of text, I don’t particularly blame you.

It’s definitely been eventful, and I won’t be too surprised if it gets more eventful as proper teaching starts up next week.

[gracetoecuadorexchange]

The New Home

Although getting to Ecuador had a few more hiccups than I would have liked--the flight I was meant to get on was 2 hours late, an airport employee directed us to the wrong gate so I had to soccer-mom power-walk back when we figured out the mistake, and the woman at customs in Guayaquil didn’t speak English and needed her employees’ help with my passport--everything was surprisingly light hearted and almost fun.

The first flight passed mostly in sleeping, glancing out the window that I should have been seated next to, and reading Carry On (in Spanish, of course). I made it into Miami without any problems and got to my gate. I think it may have changed from 42 to 39 once, but I didn’t have to worry much as the flight was still a ways out. The 'sitting tight’ started up again, but this time it wasn’t too bad. I’d already said goodbyes, now I was just waiting for the greetings.

Bella, another Outbound student I’d met at the Central States Rotary Youth Exchange conference, had the same flight as me and we ended up sitting together. We conversed in broken Spanish and English to the family waiting next to us that had just finished vacationing in the United States. Hobbes, an Outbound from Ohio joined us, and together we waited. Hobbes got the two of us into the Exchange student group chat for Ecuador, and my phone has been constantly blowing up  since as there’s always some conversation happening.

The time to have boarded the flight came and went multiple times as it continued to delay. We got directed to another gate at one point, only to later turn around to sit back down exactly where we’d been because the employee had been misinformed. We boarded, Hobbes sad he didn’t have a window seat, me happy because I was the first to my seat and no-one could steal my own rightfully given window seat this time.

The four hour flight felt slow, as the view quickly slipped into night over the water. One can only watch the ocean reflect the moon for so long before growing bored and wishing to see the city lights of one’s destination. I watched Ready Player One (I haven’t ready the book, so I have no idea whether it would be controversial to say I enjoyed the movie).

The plane finally touched down and I once again had the smile no-one else would see as I looked out at the country I would be calling home. Even as we came in to land I could sense the slight difference, as if the streets were laid out in an almost familiar pattern and the lights were an almost familiar yellow, but all of it wasn’t quite the same.

Other than the slight confusion with my visa, I got through Customs and picked up my bags (one of which was 48.5 pounds. It wasn’t particularly fun to carry) to trudge my way out of the airport. It was already 10-something, and I was ready to get to Portoviejo to sleep.

I came around the pathway, my first view past baggage claim being of an Ecuadorian McDonalds, and found my host family waiting behind a giant sign spelling out “Welcome to Ecuador”. Bella and Hobbes were already long gone, having escaped the plane and Customs before me, and my family was the last host family waiting. We got pictures, I received a “Bienviendos” (Welcome) balloon from my younger host sister, and I passed my bags off.

Leaving the airport was amazing, as now I could see all the glory of the airport parking lot. We came to the car as my host grandmother, Mami Nina, explained Portoviejo was 3 hours away and we would be spending the night in a Guayaquil house their family owned.

The drive was not the most comfortable as I didn’t have a seatbelt to wear, but seeing the city of Guayaquil (even if I could only get the general impression due to the prevailing darkness) left me with only excitement over how cool and new everything looked. Stop signs no longer said ‘stop’, they said ‘pare’ (PAR-ay, for those of you that don’t ready Spanish). We stopped once to admire the view from ‘Plaza del Lagos’ (Square of the Lakes) (It might have been ‘Plaza del Lago’ actually) and came to the nice and out of the way home rather late.

I put my things into the room I would be using before getting the list of 40-some questions you should ask on the first night to your host family. After all that I settled in to sleep, waking the next morning for the 3 hour drive to appreciate the countryside and nearly complete Spanish emersion. Just in that first drive I learned what proper Tortilla’s could taste like and that toilet paper isn’t guaranteed at bathrooms.

Portoviejo fell in around us 3 hours after the stray-dog filled streets of Guayaquil. 

My new school was pointed out ‘Cruz del Norte’ (Cross of the North) and we closed in on the building I would be calling home. One of the things I’ve noticed about Portoviejo is that although neighborhood homes tend to be rather open to each other with neighbors greeting or outright leaving doors open to let in the air, these neighborhoods are protected behind walls and gates. The same went for my school when I got to visit it; the building is surrounded by a wall, but the interior is very open with the building itself only having doors to the classrooms, the hallways leading straight into courtyards without actual closing doors.

One of the other first things I noticed was the sun. It was very bright. I could feel the slight sting on my skin just from stepping out of the car and standing for two minutes.

I got all of my things into my room to begin the unpacking process. Gifts went on the top shelf of my closet, specific cloths in the bottom, normal ones in-between. Conditioner and Shampoo were set on the sink to be moved into the shower at a later time, and the toothbrushes in the mug at the sink’s other side. My laptop was left haphazardly on the unused top bunk for later use in practicing my conjugations in past tense verbs.

That first day bled quickly into my second, where the biggest thing I did was create a felt, sky blue Octopus (it would turn out later I could use this as a submission to a school project) and finish my small collection of crochet hedgehogs to give as gifts.

The third was where things began to pick up as I was given a tour of the school to learn Mami Ali (my host mom’s) initial claim that I would take my first day in September was overruled by the Principal introducing me to my class to start school the next day. 

However, this post is getting a bit long, and I’d rather leave the first days of school to another one.

Those first few days of entering the country are worth remembering, as all I was able to think the whole time was how amazing and interesting and new everything was all of a sudden. Vacations can only get you so far. Seeing the non-tourist areas, eating the non-tourist foods, enjoying the non-tourist sights, might honestly be more enjoyable to me that getting the same experiences as all the tourists that come to Ecuador only for a little taste of a new culture.

Vocabulary

Outbound -- a student heading to exchange

Guayaquil -- most populace city in Ecuador

Carry On -- a really good stand-alone fantasy book worth looking into

[gracetoecuadorexchange]

Week’s End

--Late post due to a lack of time last week--

I’ve had my first full week in Ecuador now, and every time I think how much has happened, I inevitably speculate (or outright panic) over everything that could occur in my next 10 months. Just thinking about how it’s going to be 10 months gives mixed results every time. I usually switch between three.

1) Oh my gosh, I’m going to be away from home for 10 months. I can’t even touch my friends and family from Illinois for nearly a year. Sure I can hear their voices via phone, but what about birthdays? I can’t eat the cake. What about finals? I don’t get to complain with everyone else. What about the small things like hiding away in my room? I can’t do any of that anymore! It’s going to be 10 months before I can even sit next to my sister on the couch in my living room!

The first reaction isn’t very common yet. I might mourn for ten seconds before remembering how cool everything is. I’m speaking Spanish almost all the time now, it’s not insanely humid like Illinois summers get, and I don’t have any hard school work. Things are all good here, which is where my second reaction usually inserts itself.

2) 10 months isn’t nearly enough time. I’ve had a week and I already love this place. I’ve made friends, I’ve unpacked my things, I’ve found new favorite foods, I can’t leave all that after only 10 months!

It’s not like my Illinois life where I just skip out on it for a year--this life is never coming back after my 10 months, and 10 months is way too short a time to find a way to say goodbye. However, I mostly avoid letting this reaction play out because it goes in circles with my first one over which thing I’ll miss more and the things of both I’ll inevitably never regain or experience. The only reaction I let play out is my third, which isn’t anything special:

3) Wow, a week already. Mom’s not going to be able to convince herself I’m just at church camp any more.

[gracetoecuadorexchange]

First Solo Flight

Saying goodbye the first few times was easy. I wasn’t right there, about to walk through the doors to my new life.

The first times were at school. Maybe just a quick, “Bye, see you in a year” as I pass a school friend in the hallway.

After that, the goodbyes started to get a little more nerve wracking as they went to my closer friends. I might hug them as they’re leaving my going away party or wave when I walk out of the high school Cross Country practice for the last time, knowing these are the friends I had seen and thought about everyday, and I was saying goodbye to that for a long time.

Then were the goodbyes I had to detach myself from because I truly didn’t know how I would ever handle all the emotions tied to them. I gave my sister and father somewhat awkward hugs before pushing through our squeaky garage door, because how do you say a true, proper goodbye to the people you’ve lived with your entire life?

For my last goodbye, there wasn’t any way to detach, and I’m probably going to get teary eyed over it for years to come.

Mom and I drove to St. Louis Friday night after I’d had my best friend over to hang out the last time for a long while. I said my goodbyes to her, she joked about moving into my room and eating all the food in our home, I wished her luck and asked her to avoid burning my quarters before my return. I got through my awkward goodbyes and best wishes to my father and sister who couldn’t come to see me off as my sister had a Cross Country meet (there was no way I was letting Rose skip her Cross Country meet just to sit around in an airport with me for 3 hours). I promised to call to see how the meet went, walked out the door, and got to the hotel at a reasonable hour.

The next morning nerves were high as I could barely get down enough food, and although eggs sounded nice, I couldn’t convince myself to eat more until we were through airport security. The scariest tests were passed as my bags weren’t over weight and I wasn’t stopped by airport security (not entirely true, I forgot to remove my phone, but that hardly counts as I went straight through without a hitch after dropping the phone in a container).

The waiting game wasn’t particularly calming as there wasn’t much to do other than wander, learn to play cribbage, and slowly eat my . . . breakfast . . . omelet . . . thing. I called Rose as I promised to at about 9:30, then 9:45, then 10:00 when she failed to answer. I still don’t know what time she got at that meet.

Although there were plenty of knots in my shoulders, butterflies in my stomach, and warm little fireflies creeping up and down my sternum, nothing really sunk in until they started calling boarding groups. The numbers came steadily closer to my own, and I waited somewhere between nervous and excited to show my boarding pass and get this show on the road.

That was when Mom hugged me from behind to silently cry into my shoulder.

We became those people; the ones that quietly cry at the gate. (I would be more serious here, except I don’t want to start crying in the middle of my host family’s living room to then try and explain in Spanish that I can’t remember ever seeing my mom cry over me before.) The tears I’d always expected but hadn’t felt threatening until that moment spilled over as the numbers continued to climb toward mine, and I reassured my mom.

Boarding group 7 came on screen. I hugged her goodbye for the last time in 10 months, and handed my passport and boarding pass over.

It truly came crashing down as I traipsed down the walkway in my pin-covered Rotary Blazer and Pepsi backpack that I was leaving, alone, on my first flight without parental guidance to create a new life in this country I had never seen before.

The nerves overshadowed some of the sadness again, but the excitement joined in as well. My wait was nearly over. I was off on my first solo flight, hopefully to change my life for the better. So with tear-stained cheeks and a smile no one else would see, I found my seat 29A already had someone in it, and settled for the aisle seat because I didn’t want to deal with confrontation to the woman that didn’t bother to enjoy the view in the seat that had been assigned to me.