Revenge Of The Nerd! Part 1

Museums and libraries are my drugs of choice.  I can easily spend whole days in either, usually in rapture to some obscure book or object that most other people pass by. ("A Clovis point! Cool!" "Ohhh, Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd!")  So when I heard that the King Tut exhibit was in Seattle (a mere 7 hours away) I bought the tickets before alerting the rest of my family that we were making a little detour on our trip to kayak with orcas. 

AHHHHHHH!!!!   (I should mention that Orcas terrify me.)

 

The exhibit was at the Seattle Science Center (And is ongoing until January 2013 I think) We had to buy tickets to go in at a specific time, and the line was enormous, But really, none of that mattered.  Because an archaeologist in the King Tut exhibit is worse than a kid in a candy store.  "Who cares where the rest of the family is!  Look at that!!"

Ooooh, and that!

AND THAT!

It. Was. Awesome. 

There was one thing though that bothered me.  I am very big on being respectful to other cultures, even if those cultures don't exist anymore.  So when I am looking at the coffin of Tutankhamen's stillborn baby daughters, and I hear people say, 1. "They were pretty stupid to make all this stuff for after they died." 2. "She looks like she would have been a good lay." or 3. "You see, they thought animals were gods, that's why God destroyed them."  It makes me want to hit them!  Really, people?  You pay to come and see one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time, from one of the greatest cultures of all time, and those are your comments?! Gah!! Just...just GAH!!  When I heard idiotic comments like that, I would grab my audio guide, hit play, and listen to Harrison Ford instead. (Oh Harrison Ford, what would I do without you?)  But I can now gleefully say that I saw the King Tut artifacts!  (And I even resisted the gift shop as well.)

Top 10 Things I will Miss

Sadly, my time here in Ecuador is fast coming to an end.  And naturally, as according to Murphy's Law, it's just as I am fully settling in.  I realized yesterday that I can walk down any street, go into any store, and eat at any restaurant, and feel fully comfortable.  Compare this to my first month here, when I was terrified to simply walk two blocks down the street to the Mall.  Also, I have finally figured out what kinds of food (and juice) I love and can ask for.  So, because I'm feeling nostalgic, this is my list of things that I will miss from Ecuador.

10. No Bugs (At Least in Quito)

    In Quito, there are no screens in the windows. (This in itself makes me quite giddy simply because I can lean out of my window, and drop things down to people on the sidewalk) In Quito, the only bugs you will see is an occasional fly, and mosquitoes can't live this high up!  No bugs makes me very, very happy.  (This does not apply to the rainforest, where all the bugs live and try to make up for the fact that they aren't able to get to you at all times.)

This is from the rainforest, not Quito.

9. The Rooftops
     Again, this seems to be mainly in the Highlands, but practically every house here utilizes their roof.  Every building with a flat roof (most of them) has laundry strung out across them, dogs living on them, kids playing soccer, women washing clothes, etc.  If it weren't for the fact that it snows in Montana (and Wisconsin) and having a flat roof in winter just begs to leak and eventually collapse spectacularly into your living room, I would totally want a flat roof.

My Roof

8. The Centro Historico
     I am a history geek.  And on top of that, I love architecture.  So, when I have one of the best preserved colonial cities just six stops away on the Trolebus, you know I'm pretty much in heaven.  A 400 year old church? Great!  A grave from 1536?  Wonderful!  A perfect example of early colonial architecture that I can actually explore?  (I don't have a word for that, just shrieks of joy)  Nothing in Montana or Wisconsin can hold a candle to it.

7. The Cheap (And Easy) Travel
     Did you know that for $10 you can travel pretty much anywhere in the country?  The bus system here is fantastic.  You can go to almost any little out-of-the-way place, and if you see someplace interesting, you can tell the driver to stop, then just hop on the next bus that passes by.  This beats American travel so hard.  I can go to the rainforest, the mountains, or the beach, not pay more than $20 round trip, and have a good seat on a comfy bus with windows that open.  It makes me happy.

6. The Thunderstorms
     I love rain.  And I love thunderstorms even more.  In Montana and Wisconsin these are relatively rare, usually confined to a few big storms in spring.  But here in Quito, it never just rains, it always thunderstorms.  As I write this, there is a thunderstorm outside, and there have been thunderstorms every day for the past 5 days.  It's been like this for 3+ hours now, with lightning every minute or so, and thunder every 2 minutes.  And the thunder here is amazing!  It starts off far down the valley, and you can hear it working it's way up, growing in intensity until it's crashing down overhead with enough force to shake windows and set off car alarms. (And yes, the alarms go off every time, but you learn to ignore it)

A lightning strike

5. The Trolebus
     The Trolebus is not for those who are claustrophobic, need personal space, or are faint of heart.  It is an adrenaline rush of humanity, and one of those places where you realize that if you were to trip and fall, you could easily die.  First there is the push to actually get on the bus, and then grabbing on to a pole or a window frame and hanging on for dear life against the rush of people elbowing their way past you, then, finally, you are packed in like sardines to the point that at one point I actually couldn't take a deep breath.  And you know what?  I love the rush of making it on and off the Trolebus, and I will miss it sorely. 

Sorry, but this is probably the clearest shot of the Trolebus I'll ever get.

4. My Friends
     They're my friends, don't really have more to add to that.

3. Being Tall
     I'm 5'4.  My siblings are 6'2, 6'1, and 6'0.  Here, I'm taller than 80% of the population.  This is deeply (and kind of vindictively) satisfying.

2. My Students
   They're my students.  What else can I say?  I love working with them, seeing them progress, and they' ve finally stopped calling me Stacy (the name of the previous volunteer), though they seem to think my name is Isabelle instead of Elizabeth.

1. The Food
     This is a given, and easily the thing I will miss most.  I have been trying to figure out how I can continue to get this quality of food, and have come to the realization that in Montana, it's just not possible.  The juices are amazing, fresh made from fruits that I had never heard of before coming here, and the food is always fresh and easily some of the best I have ever had.  The bread most of all.  I have decided to take up baking because I need to have bread in Montana like they do here, not just sliced bread, but rolls and buns of every kind you could imagine (and a good deal that you can't).

What Are The Chances? (Pretty Good Apparently)

Quito is huge.  And when I say huge, I mean it in an M.C. Escher kind of way.  It goes on and on and you would swear you are going in a straight line, but then you end up right back where you started.  Quito is sandwiched in a rather narrow valley, and as such, has extended down the valley to the point that driving the city lengthwise from one side to the other (w/ good traffic) STILL takes 2-3 hours. (While going width wise would be maybe 20 min)  It's gotten to the point that I have stopped trying to figure out how it appears to mess with the time-space continuum, and simply accept that once we enter Quito, it's still an hour drive to our destination.  (Even though you can see the destination from the where you are)  So in a city like this, it's kind of increadible how you can run into people from the stangest places.  Example:  I would always run into Daniel, a Spanish teacher I know, along one specific road, at different times, on different days, usually because of a spur-of-the-moment trek to someplace.  Or Gen, another volunteer, who I ran into consecutivly in different places on different days, as she was exploring the town.  But my favorite has to be the American family I ran into on the Teleferico, who were only visiting for a few days.
                                          

     The Teleferico is a cable car that will take you from the valley (at roughly 10,000 feet) to the top of  the mountain range that cradles Quito (13,400 feet).  From there, you can view the city, take horse rides, or trek up a volcano.  I happened to run into these folks as they were talking about things to do in Quito.  They had just arrived from (Tennesse? or Texas?) and had decided to get the Teleferico out of the way (poor brave fools) ((don't do this, the altitude will kick your butt)).  After talking about things to do and places to shop in Quito and beyond, we parted ways.  The next day I had school, and as soon as it was finished, I went to Centro Historico to do some work at the Public Library.  Who should I run into in the Library building, but that same American family.  Seriously, nearly 2 million people living in an M. C. Escher painting, and I keep running into the same people.  I decided that it was too much of a coincidince and I needed a picture (see above).  Maybe it's just me, but I run into people in the strangest places, in other cities, in other states, even in other countries.  It's like I have a homing beacon on people I have met, and then I will find them.  They could be trekking through the middle of the Amazon rainforest, miles from human settlement,cutting through brush with machetes to make a path, and I would run into them.  Considering how often the odds tilt in my favor, I should try Vegas one of these days.

A Frank Assessment of Quito: Part 2
Quito is difficult to describe accurately, even if you have visited.  The best way to describe it is to take a large city in America, (like Chicago) and imagine cutting it up into itty bitty pieces, then sticking it all back together with no regard to order or place; that is Quito.  Small pieces of middle-class or upper middle class sandwiched between a slum building or an underground nightclub or a hole in the wall shop.  And then often buildings will have a business in them, say a gym or health clinic, and will also have apartments or a full house squirreled away somewhere within their hallways.  Houses are built on top of other houses, jenga-ed together in very inventive ways.  Also, you can't tell by looking if a house is poor or well off.  There is a law that when you finish building a house or building, you have to pay a tax.  For this reason, many people live in houses that are half finished.  The bottom one or two levels may be complete, but the upper levels may be nothing more than concrete, open to the air without windows or doors.  My house has rebar sticking out on the roof, as do the majority of buildings in Quito.  This way, people can say that they're not done building a house, they still need to add a floor or two. (Even if they have no intention of doing so)  It makes it very hard to know if a house is being built, falling apart, old, new, or even inhabited. 

A three level house that also utilizes the roof of a store off to the side; notice that the stairs are outside.

Across the street from my house.  The back is a house, the blue part is a nightclub, and the front (other street) is several shops for mechanical parts.

     The North of Quito is a little different.  It looks more like America, with space between buildings (When I saw that all the buildings had space let between them, my first though was, "How wasteful."  Shows how long I've been here.) and fences that go up to the sidewalk.  As a result, everything behind the gates is green grass and very modern (and expensive looking) buildings and products, while in the street beyond it is graffiti and street stalls and sellers hawking merchandise to passing cars.  It's a completely different world behind those walls, and if you drive everywhere, you never need leave that world. 

A Frank Assessment of Quito Part 1

     So, Quito back in the day (say 10 years ago?) was known mostly because of how unsafe it was, with the Centro Historico (Historic Distrect) being so filled with thieves, robbers, muggers, and every type of unsavory character that even the locals didn't carry anything of value and shut their shops before dark. Southern Quito wasn't much better (Northern Quito is the rich area). However, the gov't decided that the way for them to start making some money was to focus on tourism; and that meant making Quito safer and more attractive to the touristas. So the gov't invested however-many-millions of dollars into clearing out the unsavory types from the Centro Historico and fixing up the buildings. They also invested in some heavy security and some much-needed lighting. Along with giving the tourists something to see, they needed to give them someplace to stay and someplace to reaaaally spend their money. Hence, Mariscal Sucre! (also known as Gringoland) It is full of restaurants and nightclubs and basically everything a tourist could want, all at sky-high prices of course.       I, of course, live in the South, near El Recreo, (a huge mall) so I have a better knowledge of this area than any other. Compared to most western countries, this area would be considered a slum, or ghetto. As I look out my window, I can see trash up and down the street, two tires randomly on the sidewalk, and stray dogs ambling about. Loud music plays every night from a club across the street in a rusting warehouse. The decades of high crime have left an indelable impression on South Quito, with every house being built like a fortress. I've only seen one house without either a high barrier wall or heavy metal doors with multiple locks. My house has huge metal doors with 3 locks on the outside, plus another locked door in the garage, and another heavy metal locked door at the entrance of the living area. The houses around us are the same, or have 15-20 foot walls topped with barbed wire or broken glass set in concrete. Also, practically every car in Quito has a car alarm on it, most of which are prone to going off for no reason at all, so you will hear a constant stream of alarms of different types going of though the day and into the night.
      I live one block off of a major street and two blocks down from a major trollybus station, so transportation is easy enough. (a trollybus is an elongated bus that runs on electified wires above the street) The trollybuses are an experience, let me tell you. I have to cross the street to get to the station (an experience in and of itself) but it's easy to get in. A ticket is .25 cents, and the trollybuses are regular so there isn't too much of a wait. Getting on the trollybus is a different story though. Ever seen a rugby scrum? Yeah, it's kind of like that. It's one of those crowd situations where you are being hurtled forward and jostled and shoved, and you realize that if you trip and fall, you might just die. The trolleybuses are always packed, and personal space is a foreign concept. Thieves are also known to frequent the trolleybuses, ranging from pickpockets to muggers. When riding, everyone holds their purses or bags tightly in front of them. I never carry anything of value in my purse or in my pockets, and wear conservitive clothing without flashy jewelry, and so far it has worked well. Getting off is equally a struggle. You have to literally shove and elbow your way through to the doors without any thought to personal space as you use all of your strength to work your way through areas no wider than a few inches. There's a lot more, but I am going to have to write about that later. As it is getting late. Adios, and Dolce Suenos.

Update

So, the longer I am here, the more I realize just how lucky I got.  Let me start at the beginning.  Coming into Quito, the lines for immigration are very long, and usually take 45+ minutes, I was there for more than an hour, and I wasn't more than 1/3 back in the line, (So if you are visiting Quito, schedule that time into your trip) Immigration was fairly simple, and I had nothing that required more paperwork, so I was able to get out just before minnight.  The UBECI person was easy enough to spot, and had a sign w/ my name on it.  They drove me to my homestay (all of them are in the south) and I ended up in Mayra's house.  Now my room (which I love and also find hilarious) is also the kids playroom, so half the room is just toys, and I have Hello Kitty and Disney Princesses on my wall, while the colour scheme is pink and purple.  And you know what? I love that room!  It has a good bed, lots of drawers, and a huge window. 
  Now Mayra is my host mother, and she lives here with her husband and 2 children, Allison (7) and Jose (2).  She speaks English well, is studying tourism, and is increadably kind and thoughtful. Also, I have to mention that the food is absolutely increadable.  (Seriously, the food is among the best I've ever had)  This was my first piece of luck.  As I have talked to other volunteers here, the most common complaint has been the food, most of the complaints I have heard have come from the Volunteer House, the kindest being that the food is "bad enough that I need to buy a new belt" (as he had lost so much weight)  The second complaint I heard was about the noise.  The noise from the street is constant, but after a day or so, you don't really notice it. (and to me it's actually somewhat comforting)  But again, at the Volunteer House, the complaint is that the walls are really thin and you can hear everything through them.  In my house, I hear nothing except from the street, and that isn't bad at all.  However, there are advantages to staying at the Volunteer House, chief among those is that you meet other volunteers.  There are at least 7 that stay there, and if you like to party and go out on the town, then that might be the place for you, as they have things going on almost every night.  As for me, I'm not a party girl, and I have so much work to do with Spanish lessons, my classes at the school, and TEFL, that I don't have enough time as is.  So I really don't miss out. 
     The second thing I really lucked out on was the woman I was replacing at the school, was in the same house as me and I had several days with her.  Unfortunately, if you are teaching English as an assisstant, they don't really give you much help.  For Stacy (the woman I was taking over for) they literally just dropped her at the front of the school, and that was it.  UBECI focuses a lot more on the Market Children Program, and there are a lot more people, so you have more support.  Luckily for me, I had Stacy.  She took me to the school and introduced me around and showed me how to get there and back again on the bus.  I really would hate to think of where I'd be without her.  I also went to Mindo (another story) over the weekend, and she told me all about pretty much everything she knew about Quito and the school, as well as how to handle the students.  I would have been completely lost without her, bith literally and figuratively.  As for right now, I need to get back to studying my Spanish.  Adios, I'll write again later!
 

Well, This is New

Ok, so things have changed since my last post however many months ago.  At the moment, I am in Quito, Ecuador, to teach English through International Volunteer HQ (IVHQ).  I am in a homestay and will be here for three months, though at the moment that seems rather terrifing.  I will post again, later today about all the insanity here, it should be interesting.