Our story last left off with our protagonist in the lovely southern city of Loja the night before she is to depart for the capital city: Quito. We rejoin our story there...
The day is November 15th and the time is early. Too early in fact. As foolish as I have been before, nothing could prepare me for the harsh reality that being told we were actually leaving for the airport at 6am did not mean that it would be ideal for me to be outside of my warm bed and locked house and standing on the curb with all of my bags. We flew from Loja to Quito but only after convincing the powers that be that it would be a waste of a day to make a 13 hour drive when we could make an hour flight. (I know for most of us that math doesn't make sense but just try to imagine how windy and dangerous the road must be for that to be the reality.) Not that my family in Loja was terrible, but I was ready to leave. Having nothing to do all weekend was nice, but again I was ready to leave. Apparently however I was too ready as I snuck downstairs to carry my bags to the door I set off the alarm and woke up all of my family. I then carry my bags outside and lock myself out of the house. The time is 5:45 and I assure myself that since they said we were leaving at 6 I shouldn't have to wait that long. Then comes 6:20 and my family finally realizes that I am outside and they bring me in for breakfast. Breakfast done I go back to wait outside. Finally at 6:45 the taxis arrive to take us to the airport (which is an hour away) so that we can make our flight on time (boarding ends at 7:20). At least I felt like slightly less of an ass when I found out Maddy had also been waiting outside since 6.
We get held up at check in as we have too many bags for our tiny plane and they tell us they will just take them all - to which everyone else starts adding all of their carry-ons -- and then they stick us with the baggage bill. We try to give Marta cash to pay for it but she insists that she doesnt' want us to worry about it so she will just use her credit card. She is of course ignoring the fact that it took forever to check in because the airport was lacking electricity. The rest of us go ahead and go through security as it is now 7:40 and our flight is scheduled to leave at 7:50. Sherrilynn (who is a mix between an overprotective mother and Dwight) insists on going to help Marta. I am trying to tell the others to just get on the damn plane as all of the plane crew is yelling at us to get on the damn plane but it takes a good 10 minutes of convincing to finally get Heather and Maddy on the tar mack. As we are taking a tiny plane we have to walk out to it and make it all the way to the door before Marta and Sherrilynn come out of the terminal door. Apparently Marta insisted on using her card despite the lack of electricity so the poor worker had to go digging around to find a manual credit card thing. Way to make sure you are living the Rotarian values and not being a pain in the ass to other people.
We arrive in Quito nice and early and all a little tired. My host family however has other plans for me. For once I totally luck out and get parents that speak fluent English. (Adam, you will be happy to know they are also 1 of only about 100 Jewish families in the city of 2 million people.) My "dad" and "mom" want to take me to the historical city center to see the sights and Maddy decides to join us. In retrospect, it was a great decision as we are given no other time to see anything in the city and I totally would have missed out on the experience. We check out a cool old church that is COVERED inside with gold leaf and see some of the old traditional buildings, grand plazas, and the virgin on the hill. They gave us Monday "off" to adjust to the altitude and then they have us hit the ground running.
In 4 days we spend time with 4 different clubs and attend/present at 4 different club meetings. Yes, it was exactly as fun as it sounds. A lot of us got frustrated as we were really starting to see that there is so much of an agenda behind the things that we do and we don't know about them so we are just stuck following along despite being sick, tired, or both. We only visited 2 schools and 1 preschool all week and neither were very enriching. We also visited a medical center, a revived pueblo (with a cheese factory) and some school buildings without children. The best program related thing we did was visit a boy's home where we got to talk with 6 of the 8 boys that live there about how they ended up with out a home or family in Quito and what they were doing to keep themselves off the streets. They all had a very special bond with the woman who runs the place (7 days a week and 16 hours a day as a volunteer) so it was cool that I had my printer as I took photos of each of the boys with her and gave one to each of them. They all put them in their wallets right away and showed them off to anyone who would look.
Friday was our free day and other than my Monday visit downtown and a short trip to The Middle of the World (to "see" the equator) we didn't get to do much touristy stuff. Heather, Marta and I headed out early(ish) to Otavolo which is a tiny town about 2 hours from Quito that is knows for its amazing market. Unfortunately the market is Saturday but the Quito clubs changed our schedule so we had to go on Friday. It was still pretty cool and not having to battle a million other tourists was worth it. The best part of this free day was trying to go home and having all of the roads back into the city blocked due to a religious procession wherein pilgrims walk about 30km to a church to pay homage to the Virgin de Cesine (Virgin of the Swan). The closed the roads without notifying anyone and wouldn't open them back up to anything other than foot traffic until 4am. It was at this time 730 so we pull into the closest hotel which doesn't have lights to find a room for the evening. Heather and I room together in a room that has no key (they can't find it) and no lights (power went out right when we pulled in). We bought and drank a bottle of wine, washed our faces with wet wipes, and chewed some gum to brush our teeth before setting the alarm for 4am and turning in for the night.
Saturday we did stuff with our 4th Quito Rotary Club which included but was not limited to visiting a butcher to meet the cows that were going to be slaughtered, standing outside a cheese factory for about an hour waiting for a tour/presentation, planting a ceremonial tree in a monochromatic town square, getting sunburned, and drinking wine out of plastic cups. You can guess what the highlight was.
Sunday we headed to where we are now, the lovely city of Ambato. You would have no reason to come here unless you are headed somewhere else (which we are tomorrow). While we have been here, we have been mobbed by children wanting stickers, eaten local foods, visited a school that wasn't expecting us and wasted over an hour wandering around its campus, eaten local foods, eaten hamburgers with local flavor, eaten local foods, visited an electric generator, eaten local food, tried local sweets and eaten local food. The group, sans Sherrilynn (the 3rd to get sick) visited the nearby town of Banos (which is the only reason you would know Ambato) and rode an aerocar to a waterfall, hiked through the jungle, crawled our way to the very edge of another waterfall, and tried local foods.
We are not really liking this town as 1) they are totally unorganized and have had to set schedule for us, 2) we are splitting our time between 2 clubs and no one ever knows what is going on 3) we had to switch host parents after 2 days (although my first family did leave me waiting for them for 2 hours and my new family has WiFi so I am not complaining) 4) we just spent almost 4 hours at their ridiculous joint club meeting and 5) they waste a lot of our time. Tomorrow is our first travel day where we are expected to do vocational work as well. We are also not happy about that - and neither is our next town's club. However the drive is only an hour and it is our last day here so we are hoping for a smooth ending and transition onto the next.
As of today our adventure is 2/3 over and talk is increasing about being reintroduced into our lives in the States. Listening to the others talk though, I can't be happier that I only really have myself to worry about. I actually missed my students yesterday (for like a second) and panicked that I won't remember their names but mostly my thoughts of returning focus on only having school for 10 days and then having 2 weeks off for winter break and what I will do with my free time. Right now I am contemplating recovering from this trip well into the new year.
I still don't have a working camera so I have been using Heathers. Most of my pictures are under her folder on our site. Check out all of the photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/Ecuadorgse09
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