first monthly report for rotary :)

I have no idea how I'm going to write all about what's happened since I've been here in a reasonable amount of space. My life here is so interesting and so difficult, but I'm learning (and definitely growing as a person) to embrace those difficulties. This year is going to be the most emotionally-testing year of my life, but it's also going to be the best.
I would say what first has been on my mind is my family. I absolutely completely love the huge extended family that all lives next door, and it makes it easy when I'm getting bored at my house to just walk over to their houses. My mom here is a lot different than my mom in Colorado, but I know she loves me, just shows it a little differently. The moms here really care about their kids, and are extremely nervous for them, so they are overly protective, which I am not used to. I absolutely love my dad, he's so funny and I feel like he really cares about me. My sister is a typical sixteen-year-old, and she is kind of always on the computer, so she is nice when she talks to me, but I think she also has other things on her mind. My thirteen-year-old brother, Mateo, actually really has caused a few problems for me. That is an incredibly difficult age, but he has not been helping me at all with my life here. He's definitely better now, but we're still not even close to being best friend siblings. I have hope because I see how he acts with all the cousins, so I think what it is is that he's jealous of the extra attention I have. My aunt who acts a lot like my mom from Colorado hosted an exchange student boy last year who had the same problem with her daughters that I'm having with Mateo, and she said at the three month mark all should be going well.
My school. Honestly, when I was getting ready to come here, I was so upset I would be going to an all girls school. Then I got here, and I really love it. There aren't really any cliques here, and everyone in my class is friends with everyone. There's only one girl who I'm not good friends with, and I'm nice to her when I talk to her, but she talks behind people's backs a lot, so I figured I should stay away from her. We had a presidential school campaign, and it was two huge parties to see which course would have the bigger one and which would win. I wish that was a tradition in the US, because I absolutely loved the giant dance party and the getting out early, even though we lost.
So, now on to that thing that you're probably wondering about what happened. Yeah, there was a problem between the police and the military/president, and the police tried to take down the president, so to make their point they didn't work that day. Here, it's extremely dangerous if there are no police, so that was terrifying. The riots started in Ambato, so we didn't have school Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, in contrast to Quito which only didn't have Thursday afternoon and Friday. I saw the protest in Ambato on Thursday, and chanting completely terrifies me. We were at the post office waiting, so I went back in and on TV there was news about what was happening in Quito. I wish I had stayed outside, there was awful footage of a lot of people getting gassed and fainting. I have to admit, I was pretty terrified and pretty glad I didn't live in Quito. It's kind of weird though, because it just, stopped. Thursday was terrifying in the afternoon, and kind of in the night with the burnings of random stuff everywhere, but Friday was completely normal.
I was in for a few surprises when I got here, and there are definitely some things I wasn't expecting. For some reason, I thought that everyone spoke English, if only just a tiny bit. Well, I was wrong, and it completely startled me when the stop signs said "Pare" and the "No Parking" sign had an E, not a P, in the middle of the crossed out circle. I also expected that everyone spoke with their dogs in English, so when the mom said "Afuera" (outside!) to the dog, I thought, "Wow, the dog doesn't know Spanish." Negra (the dog), went outside, and I thought, "What a smart dog, it knows Spanish." It's kind of hard to explain, but I just expected that all dogs knew English.
I do miss some things about the USA, and they're things that I had completely taken for granted. For example, the streets here have a lot of trash, and there are homeless dogs everywhere. It breaks my heart to see these dogs that don't have homes everywhere, just sitting underneath peoples chairs outside the restaurant. Also, the air here I consider kind of unclean, and I have to say I miss the air, not a food or something else, the most. Coming from Colorado, where there is probably the best air in the world, and going to Ecuador really startled me. I'll get a headache here when I walk around, and I don't know if that's because of the altitude or the pollution here. I also, it sounds silly, but I miss being able to open my mouth in the shower. That and being able to use the tap water here I miss, because now I don't have those two simple pleasures of opening my mouth in the shower or drinking water whenever I want.
So I'm sure you're wondering if I had studied more, and honestly that answer is no. Sure, maybe ten minutes every day or something, but I was pretty prepared to come here. Of course the first two weeks were hard, but I was able to make it through and now I'm on my way to fluent. I understand everything people say to me, except for when old men talk, because they speak in a sort of mumble. Everyone here is telling me that I'm so much better than I was when I got here, which is such a relief. I think that there is only a certain amount of studying that you can spend before you just have to immerse yourself in the language. I am actually kind of losing my English, and someone will ask me a question about it and I'll have to think if the sentence worked or not. My priority is not to keep my English at all, but it would be nice if I had enough brains to write my university applications.
About Rotary, the beautiful program that sent me here. I think it's pretty different here from the USA, but not so different. My club, Ambato Cosmopolita, is different from the other club in Ambato, as my club is held above a gas station and the other is in a fancy hotel. We had hot dogs and Coke the first meeting I went to, while the other club had a fancy dinner. I think it's funny how they are here, but they've all been really nice so far. People are surprised when I say that there were 30 exchange students in District 5470, but then I try to remind them that Ecuador is the same size as Colorado, and has more than double the exchange students. The fact that that number includes only Rotary, not other exchange programs, and that not all of Ecuador is habitable (what with the Amazon), proves that the program is much larger in Ecuador. At least in my family, it's always a question of who will leave next, like, "Oh well David, Anita, and Juan are gone, and next year it's Sebas and after that it's Emi." Whenever I ask my classmates if they want to do exchange, they always say yes of course, and they all really want to go to the USA. A lot of the exchange students I talked to that are in Ecuador also said that their first choice was the USA, which I thought was kind of weird. Then I thought about it, and I realized that the USA is different from everywhere in Europe, South America, and Asia, and we are known all over.
So on to the exchange students here. I kind of find it cruel that we're going to become SUCH good friends, definitely best friends, and then have to leave each other after one year that will definitely pass way too fast. I mean, we're already in October and it feels like I've only been here for maximum three weeks. Honestly I'm dreading so much when I will have to leave this life I have here, and I don't even need to worry about that for, oh no, only eight more months! After this year, it's made me realize that I for sure want to do university in Europe, there's no question any more. I love the people here, and talking with everyone it's making really want to live in Europe. I had been debating it before, but this has just sealed the deal that I'm headed to a different continent when I'm able to. I love every single exchange student here, we're definitely the coolest people and the funnest, and it, like the outbounds from Colorado, only took one day to become best friends. When I got back from the Spanish camp, I missed everyone so much. I can not imagine how much I'm going to miss my friends from all over the world when I have to leave, especially after two Rotary trips we're going to take in April. After that, I'll see everyone, other than those in my city, for maybe one more time. I've met other exchange students that aren't from Rotary, and they're definitely as cool. It's funny how when you meet another exchange student, no matter what, there's a connection and you are automatically best friends. I love it, it's that fact that binds us all together.
Anyways, I hope all is well in Colorado, and I thank Rotary so much for this experience. I have no idea what I would be doing if I was there in Rampart High School, but I'm so glad I'm having the experience of my life right now, and even though it may be difficult at times it's definitely worth it.

in the middle of a national crisis, my life is completely normal.

So these past few days have been kind of crazy, what with the problems between the president and police. I'm still confused on what happened, but pretty much the police were trying to take down the president because he passed a law that was unfair to the police, so everyone was protesting. People were chanting, which REALLY scares me, and burning a lot of things in the middle of the towns. This made me kind of glad that I don't live in Quito, because people there could hear gunshots from inside their houses, and they couldn't leave to walk down the street at all.
Other than all that, it's been really normal. Ambato is still a relatively safe city, much safer than most. We saw a little girl peeing on the sidewalk, which made me laugh until I cried but I kind of threw up a little in my mouth. What I thought was the weirdest about that is there were many people just walking past taking no notice.
I've been meeting more people, and I found out the place to be from 5-9pm is in front of my school, because there were SO many people there, all teenagers just chilling.
My life has been going pretty well. I went to church, which I think was interesting for me because I understood almost nothing. Other than that, it was almost exactly the same, only there was a dog in the mass which I found weird.
We had a campaign today for everyone, but instead of it being like in the US which is people just putting up posters in the halls, there were two huge parties, one for tecnologia (my course) and one for ciencias. It was really fun, a lot of dancing and running around the school yelling "Vota Lista Uno!" We got out early too, which is always really nice. I didn't bring my camera unfortunately, but once everyone else posts the pictures on Facebook I'll upload them here!
I also figured I should start explaining the pictures I post, so one is when we were on the way back from Guayaquil, another is me and Franzi hugging, and the last is a mailbox thing I saw in the post office while all the protesting was going on.

GUAYAQUIL

So, I completely fell in love with Guayaquil. I was so nervous when I was leaving because it's said that it's really dangerous, but I didn't notice that at all. I think I might have witnessed someone robbing a pack of cigarettes from a street vendor, but that's about it. Everyone obeys the traffic signals and doesn't cross in the middle of the street because they'd get fined, and the police are everywhere. There is almost no trash in the streets because there are janitors of the streets and because, well, why would you litter? It reminded me of Florida, as it was so hot and humid, and there was a huge river going through it.
On the way up, we stopped in the tortilla capital of the world, which I thought was like a "Welcome to Ecuador" sign, but after the tortillas I felt so sick. I saw a cock fight, and that just broke my heart. I don't understand why most people here think that's okay, but I was so upset when I saw that. That is by far my least favorite part of here: the mistreatment of animals. Oh, and there are a lot of people that burn their trash here. It makes it smell completely horrible, and it's awful for the environment.
In Guayaquil... Saturday we went to Ecuadormoda, but that ended up being really small and it was more for fashion designers than for people who want to be in fashion. After, we went to another cousin's (or relative's, we didn't really know) house, and I loved it. One girl was fifteen, almost sixteen, and she was so nice and helpful. Another was seventeen, and she was really nice too. We went to McDonald's and I had a Tango ice cream (Tango: best cookie thing EVER) and a hamburger, and it actually tasted like a normal burger. We went to the mall later, saw Letters to Juliet (third time seeing that movie... I know, I'm such a girl) and then ate. We were going to go to a party, but it got canceled so we drove around and I started sleeping in the car.
Sunday we were supposed to go to the beach (!!!) but they said it was too far away for us to only go for an hour, which was a huge bummer. We ended up going to Malecon, this huge mall type thing that was kind of under the street and kind of outdoors. I bought, not a lot, but a few things, especially food. There were all these drinks that are "Oh, you just have to try this!" so I did, and Vivi (fifteen year old) was right, I did have to try them. Everyone is always outside there, and there are so many things to do and so many people. Another piece of evidence that I'm foreign... I walked past a policeman and he said "Hi" but I wasn't listening and then he said later that "Oh, that girl is very beautiful." Later, I had a lollipop and a different policeman said something about the lollipop and then something about me; policemen are silly. We ate more, and I'm now on the way home. I really kind of wish I had been given Guayaquil, even though I am happy with Ambato. I love the climate of Guayaquil and how close it is to the beach, and how much stuff there is to do. I do love my huge extended family in Ambato, but I think Guayaquil is just much cleaner, which is a huge deciding factor in how much I like the city. All in all, an amazing trip and a beautiful city. The family there said I can return whenever I want, and for the weekend we would go to the beach. Yes!

school is getting boring!

Well, that was a joke about me and Mateo getting along. I say hi to him Monday, in a thank-God-we're-now-friends sort of way, and he just looked at me and then turned away and he still ignores me. This is going to take a long time and a little bit of maturity on his part, and probably me not getting mad when he ignores me on my part. His behavior to me though is really making me miss my brother!
On Wednesday we randomly didn't have school, so I went over to Pepe and Carie's house. I love them both so much, but Carie cries quite a bit. Like I would tell the other cousins to not keep saying that because it wasn't true, but now that I know her it is. I adore Pepe, and I keep saying to him that he is going to be my brother later because he is going to marry my sister. It's a joke in the family, but really I would love if he was my brother so I'd be good if they married. Obviously a joke, they're ten, but still! Much later after I went to their house, we went to a Rumba (Zumba) class, which was fun but I only had flip flops with me so my feet were dying. It's a lot different in Ecuador, the room had strobe color lights dancing across it, and all the people in the class were really young, much unlike in the YMCA with all the really fit old ladies.
School has been even more boring, but today (Thursday) was very interesting. I still don't much like the Economy/Products and Services teacher, and that dislike amplified today. Someone asked how many stars are on the American flag, and I answered fifty. My teacher goes, "Oh, I thought there were fifty-two" in this of-course-I'm-right- because-I'm-the-teacher tone, and I just gave him in a but-I'm-from-the-United-States look. Then we watched this movie about money (in Spanish of course) and everyone had to write the moral, but not many people understood it in my class. Sol asked if I had to do it, and my teacher kind of freaked out, saying that I'm here to learn materials as well as the language. Well, the movie was in rapid Spanish, and almost no one in the class understood it. That just bothered me SO much!
Other than that, life has been good. Today I went to Xavier's (Belgium) house from right after school until almost 9, which was fun, we just chatted and ate (of course). Katie (USA) came over for a while too, and I really love them two. Saturday I'm headed to GUAYAQUIL! for Ecuador Moda, which is a fashion show. I'm so stoked, but it's going to be around a seven hour bus drive so that makes me a little nervous. It's going to be a nice change of scenery though, as it's really close to the beach and there's a river that runs through it.

more of my life!

Thursday night:
I was getting ready for bed (10:30) and I got a call from Gaby, who said she tried calling before but couldn't get through. She invited me to go out, and surprisingly, I was allowed out until 12:30am on a school night. It was for a birthday of a friend of her boyfriend's (Chino I think is the boyfriend's name) and so we went to this place where there were a bunch of around-22 year olds. I don't know if I would say that it was insanely fun, but I got to talk with Gaby and a little bit with some of her friends. The birthday guy had a kind-of odd chest, and so I told Gaby who told her boyfriend who told him. He grabbed my hand and told me to feel, and I started laughing but he did that because there's a hole there and that's why his chest stuck out. Interesting.
Friday school:
Pretty boring. Everyone loved my graphing calculator, which I thought was funny. Then it was not funny because I'm not allowed to use it, even though I have one and know how to do the problem without one and will use one the rest of my life.
Friday night:
Ah, I was quite mad on Friday night. I went to Xavier's with Cha Cha, and then we went to a party but I had to be home by 9. How fun! Then, later, I went to go with Chi Chi (yes, that's a different person that Cha Cha) to pick up Cristi and my parents got mad because I didn't ask for permission. I really felt like I couldn't do anything right that night! I came home on time, I can't say the same for my sister, and my parents still found a way to be mad.
Saturday:
I woke up really late, just about in time for lunch. A huge family lunch, of course, and then I went with a few of the girl relatives to buy stuff for the hair. Well, four (slightly boring) hours later, I showed up at the party with all the exchange students. Oh man, I love them all! We played cards, just kind of talked. Sounds super fun, right? Well, it really was and I hope we can all meet up every weekend or even more often. The two from Latacunga who came had to leave early for some weird reason, so after it was just the six from Ambato (Franzi was at the beach).
Sunday:
Hm. I got home, and we had a family lunch of crabs, which was super cool because I really hate all seafood. They look SO fun to eat, but I hate them and they kept telling me that I had to try it. They always say that, but I've already tried the food and that's how I know that I don't like it. I had the chicken, that I don't even really like, and rice. And dessert of course, but I think desserts are pretty much the same in every country, which I love. Later, Mayte, Carie, Pato, Mateo, and I went to this go carting and paintballing place. I've never been paintballing before, and I was on my own team against Pato and Mateo. Pato hits hard, he hit my head and OUCH! It hurt so bad! He came over to my team later, and then it was Mateo against me and I won which was awesome!
We got fries and then went into this place where there were four people singing karaoke, and I was just singing along in my chair. The four left, but one kind of stayed to talk to me. He spoke a little English, and he asked me all this information about me and greeted me (kissed my cheek and took my hand) twice. He asked my number (no idea), my home number (really no idea), where I live (they said somewhere in the center), and stuff like that. Weird. When he left he told me that I'm really gorgeous, and Mayte yelled after him "feo!" which I thought was funny.
Side note:
Mateo and I are getting along now! After the paintball game, I think he stopped being mad because now I can ask him a question and he'll answer me. I wonder if that will change by tomorrow, but I really hope not. An uncle or something of Xavier (exchange boy from Belgium) told me that he has a puppy he can give me, and Mateo and I both want it so I think that's also helping. Yes!

pantuflas :)

Gosh, I'm so bored. Today, I stayed home sick because my nose was runny and my throat hurt. Later, my stomach hurt, and I got a massive headache. What is going wrong with me? Today I researched universities, made braceletes, and watched TV. I'm starting to sense a pattern of my life here. I got a text from my friend from school asking where I was today and if I'm okay, which was really nice because I felt like I'm actually getting friends here, which is awesome!
Editors note: I missed the next day too. I was planning on going but I missed the bus, and my dad told me I didn't have to go because I still felt sick.
Oh! I found out that the package I sent to my family in the USA, my mom opened it and it was completely empty. That makes me so mad! My mom will be sending a few things soon, and I'm really nervous that when I receive it there will be nothing in it.
I forgot to put these few (slightly unimportant, but still notable) things in the last blog:
On the way to Banos, we stopped in Salasaca again to look at the market, and I bought a scarf and a pair of slippers. The scarf was only $2.50 (it was supposed to be $3.50! I'm getting better at bargaining...) and the slippers were only $4.00 and they make me look like a really cool clown.
My favorite words in Spanish: sonrisa (smile), aduana (customs), and pantuflas (slippers). I really love the Spanish language.
Written two days later:
These days have been much better because I leave my house to go to those of my extended family. There are more people who enjoy conversation, like Cristina, which is nice.
Today! We had a presentation on sex and the diseases that come with it. The person started out by saying that one in every whatever number of Ecuadorians has an STD, and then said that if you know two gringos, at least one will have a disease. Well, here I am sitting in class, the convenient gringa, so I'm at the front kind of but the about 20 people in front of me turned to me and just started laughing. Also, the whole class had to take an English test to see what level they were at, and I looked at it just for fun. The three words you had to use in a sentence were: ambitious, punctual, and keen. I literally have no idea what keen means, and almost no one uses the other two words. That just showed me that sometimes the stuff you learn in classes doesn't actually help you out in the real world. The last thing I remember from school is that Pepa (ten-year-old cousin, real name is Pepe but he calls me Dayana so I call him Pepa) saw me at lunch from his class balcony and called and waved to me. I really love being in a school with some relatives- well, two.
School I thought was fun today, and we got out 30min early (at the same time the sciences class does!) so that was nice. I really don't like the classes Productos & Servicios or Economia, and both are because of the teacher. He said that in the U.S., the company most robbed is the bank, and he said it like it was new information. I don't know, I just kind of thought that was obvious. He has that voice that's kind of like a know-it-all, and I think that's what most bothers me. But I think there will always be one teacher/administrator/coworker/whatever that you don't really like, so I'm just gonna deal with it!
So what has been going on other than school?
Well, yesterday it was an aunt's birthday, so we celebrated for lunch and then all hung out. Later, I went to the "almacen" (kind of like work place/store) with Chi Chi and Mayte, and I don't know that I would say it was interesting, but there was internet access. In about a month when it comes time to apply for universities, that's where I'll be spending my days. I talked to David (my host brother who I never met who is in Florida) on Facebook and he gave me advice about my life here and about getting along with Mateo, which was nice. Chi Chi, Mayte, and I got straciatella ice cream (that ice cream would literally be the reason I gained weight here) and then after the almacen we got chicken and curly fries. My dad was kind of mad because he said that I'm spending more time there than at my own house, but that was the first time I'd actually stayed up there for the day so it was kind of weird.
Today, school was fun. Then I went up to Chi Chi's house for lunch (maybe I'm going to start to spend a little more time there) and then we all talked for a while. Not much really happened other than chatting with family... Molde called Corentin again (it's becoming something daily) and again the message on the answering machine went something like "Corentin es feo... OW OW OW OW OWWW!" I still love that kid though, he's so interesting.

info info info!

Other days/ Weekend:
I need to keep this up a little bit better, because I don't really remember much of it. School was school, it's really boring here because most of the stuff I still can't do. I got a hair cut with bangs, and I actually really love it, which might just be the first time I've loved a hair cut. Friday night I went out with some friends (SUPER FUN!), and got back a few minutes after my curfew (8pm) and I wasn't allowed to go to Quito the following day. I was really upset about that actually, not so much about not being able to go to Quito but that neither of my siblings were home and when I got home we weren't doing anything. I swear I'm going crazy here, but since I wasn't allowed to go for a walk I walked/danced circles on the outside of the house for two hours; I'm pretty sure my family here is slowly figuring out I'm crazy.
The next day was my grandpa's birthday, so a lot of people (I feel like it was close to 40) were coming and going from the house. I got my nails and toes done with Franzi and Cecy, and then we came back to the house for the lunch. We all kind of chilled for a really long time, I went with Gaby, Caro, and Carie to this place and got Kahlua ice cream that was literally as big as Carie's head. I showed the song/dance for Waka Waka, we drank mohitos as a family (those are quite delicious) and then I went out with a few of the other exchange students. We met at Choko Banana and then went to the mall and stayed there way past the time everyone else left. I love them all, and honestly at first I was pretty upset I wasn't put into Quito, but I love everyone in my city.
That night I had a sleepover with Franzi, and the next day we went to Banos. We ate (pizza and batidos, of course!) and then had a few adventures. We got to go in these go cart type things around the city, which was so much fun, but ours was the slowest so we'd kind of chill just going up hills. After that we went to a zipline, where we took a TeraBita (sp?) across the canyon, and then came back like Superman on our stomachs. I didn't actually find it scary at all, but I never really find stuff like that scary, but the person who works there told me each person usually goes about 80km/ hour. Cool. We came back, and both Franzi and our family were locked out of our houses. When we got back, there were a lot of people that came over and we all hung out. I really adore my extended family, and I'm already dreading when I'll have to change families in January.
School today, I'm starting to not have much to say about school. I'm sick now, of course, and I slept during class today because I didn't have anything else to do when they took all of their tests. As of now, I kind of dread going to school. I love all the people, but I really have nothing to do. Oh, and math confuses me so much here!