Week Two…and I don’t ever want to leave!

Sat. Sep. 6

I think I’ve finally become a part of a group at school. Leo and Diego, my first Ecuadorian friends have slowly introduced me to the rest of their crowd and intermixed with a few gringos here and there I meet up with them in between classes, to grab lunch, and usually to catch the buss home. Leo makes fun of me because I stear clear of most white people in fear that they will want to talk English..something I’ve really enjoyed not doing for the most part..aside from these writings. On Friday I left from Lumbisi to meet a group of them at the University. Me and another girl watched a bunch of the guys play soccer for awhile then all of us piled into Diego’s car to drive back to Quito. Most of the time everyone takes buses, but occasionally someone will borrow a car and take all of their friends home. With 5 people in the back seat we were laughing the whole time. All of the Ecuadorian guys I know are super funny..and they are always surprised that I jump right in and make fun of them even though I’m the one struggling. ‘Siempre te burlas! O Te caigo bien’ they say. Every says my Spanish is really good..and although I know they are just being polite, I can tell that everyday it is getting better.

Anyways, One of Leo’s friends from high school was visiting for the weekend so the plan was to meet up with them in the ‘Mariscal’ (Quito’s downtown full of restaurants and bars) after I had a chance to shower and clean up a bit. Apart from the night I went out salsa dancing (another long story) it was my first time to ‘go out.’ As my night at Serseribó, a famous salsa club, had been kind of a disaster, Leo and I were looking for a place where he could teach me a bit of his crazy salsa skills. The boys showed me around a bit, but because it was only 4:00 not many places had dancing yet, we settled at a little bar with a patio overlooking the street crowed with people. After awhile two other girls that Javo knew joined us and we spend the afternoon talking and laughing. (oh yea..Leo’s friend from HS is named Javier for all of you who know the significance of that name! haha) After awhile a Salsa song came one and even though there wasn’t really a space for dancing we ran inside to use the music for what it was worth. It was so fun to actually be dancing with someone I knew and he was very patient making sure I got all the steps. It was so great too because in the states if someone started dancing in the middle of the bar people would react..but here, it was just normal. I think I’m ready to try out the Salsarias again, but I made Leo promise that he would come and bring more guys for us to dance with! I’m thinking about signing up for privet lessons too once a week.

I went that night to sleepover with Claire and meet her family. Javo lives really near her so it worked out great to travel together. Its about an hour north to her house on bus and its really dangerous to be alone at night. The boys were really careful and a bit obsessively paranoid that I be safe. They made me call Claire about 3 times to make sure she would be right there at the bus stop Javo said if he didn’t see her right with the bus stopped he was going to get off with me. They always make me text them when I get home too just to be sure. (This is for you mom..I promise I am very well taken care of!) Claire’s siblings are much younger than my sisters and it was so fun to get to hang out with them for the night. Stephi, her sister, is the age of the girls I had this summer and I really enjoyed trying to keep up with her fast Spanish and teenage culture. It is so interesting to talk about our different experiences living with families and get to meet and share that part of our lives together.

Today, having caught up a bit on sleep, I returned home in time to meet Leo and Pablo to go to the Ecuador-Boliva soccer game at Olympic stadium. I didn’t think I was going to get to go..but the day before Pablo assured me we could scalp some tickets outside the stadium..he was right. I know I always rave about these boys, but I LOVE that most of my friends have turned out to be Ecuadorian because I get to meet lots of people, do things the right way and never have to do much planning. Pablo had two of the bright yellow jersey’s so he brought one for me to wear..except for the white skin, I totally fit in! They also brought sun screen because they knew I would burn not being used to Ecuadorian sun. They never let me carry my own bag, warn me about anything I might not expect culturally and never get tired of teaching me new words or phrases. Sometimes I call Leo ‘Profesor’ because he’ll randomly quiz me on vocabulary or things I had learned the day before. Pablo on the other hand just makes fun of him and we joke back and forth about his goofy English accent. I taught him yesterday the phrase, ‘You crack me up’ because I was dying laughing the whole time.

Soccer games, they say are the only place where it is ok to use bad language publically. The crowd was CRAZY! They are always screaming at the ref ‘arbitro’ and oh my goodness..when Ecuador scores, its like Christmas morning. Everyone yells ‘GOOOOOOL’, jumps up and down, hugs all of the people around them..and this goes on for about five minutes. My favorite cheer was ‘Vamos Equatorianos, Esta tarde, tenemos que ganar…’ Ask me and I’ll sing if for you when I get back! Haha Well, Ecuador dominated Boliva and we left in a crowd of people honking horns and screaming with excitement. Pablo dropped me off at home again…I think I’ll be asleep by 8:00!