September 17, 2008
Greetings from Ecuador,
I have to preface this e-mail by saying I AM FINE! No matter what you read below please not that I am alive and will recover from any and all injuries.
Ok now that that’s over, I have a broken bone in my jaw! It’s really small and in fact two doctors didn’t think it was a broken bone. They thought it was an ear infection. I think I broke it while playing ultimate at camp, but there is no way to know for sure. Anyways I went to an ear specialist and he basically gave me some great drugs that make my ear not hurt but knock me out for about three hours. I have to take this medicine twice a day with food, so it’s been making classes kind of difficult. Speaking of classes, the TESOL course is heating up. I’ve had so much to do that I really haven’t had time to write an e-mail lately.
Last Sunday I wrote and e-mail saying that I was going to Papallacta with my classmates. It was awesome. First of all I thought we would take a bus but we didn’t. Instead we took a 15 passenger car. I think the trip was about two hours from Quito. We got there right as it was getting dark so it was a kind of “romantic” setting. I mean as romantic as you can get with 8 of your friends and about 20 strangers. It was still pretty cool. The hot springs were really relaxing and we all had fun jumping into the freezing river and then jumping into the hot pool. We didn’t really spend much time there because naturally hot water is only so entertaining.
The last week of TESOL was pretty intense and while I learned a lot, I’m glad it’s over. I taught my third class on Friday (9-12) and it went fairly well. I’m getting better at teaching but there’s still room for improvement. I really like teaching. I’ve found that it’s the one thing where I am totally focused on what I am doing. I really can’t think of any other activity in the world where I am so focused that I only concentrate on the task at hand. Usually whenever I’m doing anything else I have something else going on in my head. For example when observing the other teachers in my class I usually think about my own class plans or the apartment I’ll be moving into on the 27th. I like the fact that while teaching I don’t have to think about anything else. It’s kind of refreshing.
We had a big paper due Saturday and while I was able to finish on the Thursday the rest of my classmates had procrastinated and worked on it Friday night. So I went home expecting to do nothing but read. I was wrong. Carlos (my host father) took me to the centro historico to see the churches. At night they are lit up and they look really pretty. Centro historico is a pretty happening place. The main plaza there was a giant party – kind of like the one in Guapulo, but much much tamer. Also there were all these really cool old streets and restaurants. I’ll probably go back with my friends, maybe this weekend since we aren’t going anywhere.
Saturday we traveled to Mindo – the cloud forest. It is one of the 12 most biodiverse regions in the world. Apparently biologists come from all over the world to study the wild life here. But biology is not the only thing Mindo has to offer. The first thing we did in Mindo was go tubing. Let me tell you about this tubing adventure we went on. The rio was nothing like we expected. We were imagining this relaxing rio that we just sort of floated down. On the truck ride to the rio we saw that it had tons of rocks in it and parts weren’t really that deep. Whatever, we were going with the flow. So we get to the place where we start the trip and the tour guides fix us up with life jackets (seemed normal enough) and helmets. Helmets? ok. We just thought they were being careful. So these tubes that we were going to ride on… they were really 6 or 7 huge inner tubes roped together (very high tech). Then we found out that the guides were riding with us. Umm ok… strange but whatever. As we were “floating” down the river we kind of realized that this tubing was really not tubing at all, in fact it was white water rafting in tubes. Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast, but this was a little rougher than I expected.
After tubing we went to the “canopy” which basically was Ecuadorian for zip line, also another awesome activity that was described as something totally different. I thought “canopy” meant just hanging out at the top of a mountain looking at trees or something, not jumping off trees on a line over a huge valley. My other girls in my group took pictures, so when they put those up on the internet I’ll be sure to include a link.
At sunset we went to a frog concert at this reservation and hostel. What a combination. The “frog concert” was cool because I for one thing frogs are the coolest animals ever (I was only obsessed with them this whole summer) and we got to see glow in the dark micro bacteria.
After that I was beat, plus I had to take my jaw medication so I went to bed. The other people in my group apparently played cards in another room of the hostel and got yelled at by the owner for being up at 10:15. My friends are such rebels.
Sunday morning some of us got up early and climbed this mountain to a waterfall. It was actually the same river we went “tubing” in. The hike was awesome because there were lots of views of the mountain below, and we had a guide that told us all about the plant an animal life on the mountain (life couldn’t get any better for a former Camp Fitch nature director!)
But wait, there’s more. We jumped off the waterfall! First I jumped off the small one, probably a little higher than 3 meters. The other cliff to jump off of was at least 50 feet (we know this because Theresa jumps off of 40 feet waterfalls back in her home town and she said this one was way higher). So Phillip and Theresa went first, and they jumped with no problems. But then Lisa, Colleen and I were at the top of the tall one looking at each other trying to figure out who was going to jump. Finally I decided I had had enough of just standing there so I just jumped. Bad life choice! Instead of pencil diving, I butt smacked. I’m pretty sure it was the most painful thing of my life – worse than breaking my toe. The other girls heard me crying out and pain and backed out of the jump. I’m fine now, but at the time I was pretty sure I was never going to be able to sit again.
That was Mindo. Today (9-17) I taught another class on the phrasal verbs used in the context of dating ( turn on, turn off, ask out, go out, call up, call back, turn down… things like that). I had underestimated the difficulty in the meaning of these words. The class, which usually gets everything really easily, had a hard time understanding the specific meaning of these words in the context of dating. I’m pretty sure they enjoyed the class, but I was a little disappointed that I had to spend all of my time trying to help them learn the definitions. Oh well, not all of my classes can be masterpieces.
This weekend we have no big plans yet. I think everyone just wants to stay in Quito for a while. Next weekend will be busy because we’ll be moving into our apartments then I think going to the beach. But I think on Sunday (9-21) Colleen and I are going to take a bus to Mitad del Mundo, the equator, because it will be close to the equinox. I’ll have to report back later.
So to anyone who is reading this I would love to hear how things are going. Feel free to e-mail me anytime. I probably won’t be able to respond right away, but starting on the 27th I’ll have internet in my apartment!
I hope everything is going well back in the states and I can’t wait to hear from you all!
-Ayla
No comments:
Post a Comment