Watch your back...it's Carnival!

This week we've been recommended to carry an extra pair of clothes with us. You know, just in case we're walking down the street, and we happen to, you know, be the target of a projectile water balloon or a bucket full of water. Yep, we are in the Carnival season.

Carnival is the series of last hurrahs before the beginning of Lent, the 40 days preceding Easter during which devout Catholics often abstain from eating meat and partying. Maybe you've heard about the famous festivals in Brazil, which includes street parties, music, dancing and masquerading. (Think New Orlean's Mardi Gras on steroids.)

Around here, the most common manifestation of the Carnival season is water fights. Basically, any person in any public place is prone to be wet at any moment. Most common players: school-aged boys. Most common targets: adolescent girls. Most common aftermath: targeted girls scream, and may pick up sticks and rush toward the boys. Sticks are sometimes substituted with the hand. Boys quickly flee. Girls stand aghast for a few minutes at the site of attack, comparing the wetness of their clothes, and then continue--albeit soggily--on their way.

My friend Abby and I were so lucky to be such a target. It actually happened a few weeks ago (more or less, it seems that the Carnival season begins as soon as boys buy water balloons, even if Lent is still weeks away). We were walking home from the bus, happily chatting. There was a boy, probably 13, standing on the side of the sidewalk a few feet ahead of us. I saw him, we made brief eye contact, and we kept walking. But in the next moment, a whole pack of boys--probably 6 total--was upon us, dumping buckets of frigid water and smashing water balloons on us. We were so surprised, we basically just stood there and took it! I think I sputtered something like, "Ahh! Que malo! Todavia no es Carnival!" (Ahh! How cruel! It's not carnival yet!) But they were gone. We laughed hysterically the rest of the way home.

A few pictures we took at the end of the next block.

Mis abuelitos

It´s not a new realization for me that old people are cute. I love old people! This definitely includes my abuelitos (grandparents) here. They are my host mom´s parents, and although they have their own casita (little house) in the historical center of Quito, they´ve been staying at my host family´s place since I´ve been here. My brother told me it was because the abuelita (grandmother) had surgery on her throat, so they would stay while she recovered and then move back to their home. I´ve really enjoyed having them around.

I am not sure how old they are. Abuelita has a youthful face, but a frail body - she has restricted movement of her arms, and she gets around very slowly using a walker. This, combined with her whisper of a voice (I guess from the surgery), makes her seem quite elderly. But, despite all this, she has a young mind! She loves implying that I meet a nice Ecuadorian boy, get married, and live here. She says she knows many young American girls who have done it! And, ¿por que no? When my Ecuamama is concerned about me getting home at a reasonable hour, Abuelita encourages me to go out, have a good time, and dance a lot!

Abuelito (grandfather) is equally adorable. He is definitely older than Abuelita. After dinner, he always excuses himself from the table and hobbles with his cane over to where Abuelita is sitting, and helps her get to her walker. It´s simple and lovely. Abuelito is fluent in both Spanish and Quichua, the indigenous Andean language...and apparently, he knows bits and pieces of English, too, from previous international students! The other evening, I was sitting in the common room reading, and he entered the room. ¨Good morning!¨ he said to me. But I acutally didn´t understand what he said, maybe because I was in Spanish mode and wasn´t expecting English, or because it was in fact the evening, or because it sounded something more like ¨gumonon,¨hehe. Martin (my 13 yr old brother) was sitting nearby, and he said, in spanish, ¨No, Abuelito, it´s Good night¨. Then, a few nights ago at dinner, I was sitting at the table with the Abuelitos. Before Abuelito gets up from the table, he usually says, ¨Perdon.¨ But instead, he asked me what you say in English, so I told him you say Excuse me. He repeated it several times, exoose me, exoose me, exoose me, exoose me, and then he and Abuelita left the kitchen. The next night, after he and Abuelita finished their dinners, he looked up at me and said, with such gusto, ´Esqueeze me!´ Ahhhhh it was soo cute! I corrected him politely, and since then he´s been saying it like a native. And now, he also says good morning and good night at the correct hours of the day. :)


Interesting side note: If you have studied spanish, you probably learned the word grandparents as simply abuelos. It is common Quiteño Spanish to use the diminutive of many words, by adding -ito or -ita as a suffix, which is the basic equivalent of adding ¨little¨ before the word youre using. So abuelitos literally means little grandparents!

They have good cheese here too

Otavalo

Last weekend, our BCA group took a bus up to Otavalo, a city two hours north of Quito. Otavalo is most famous for its incredibly large market, where vendors are selling lots of woven crafts (rugs, wall-hangings, hammocks, bags, scarves, etc.), cheap imitations of Andean instruments (panflutes, regular flutes, mini-guitars), and lots of little trinket type crafts. It was cool to look at everything. While the amount of vendors was overwhelming, I quickly realized that they were all selling really similar stuff, sometimes the exact same stuff. I bought a few things, including a cheap flute that I paid too much for. My plan is to get really good and then buy a professional grade one!

On Saturday night, most of us went out to a pizza place, where there was an Andean band playing traditional Andean music. I LOVE the Andean music! The rhythm is provided by a guitar and a smaller, 10-string guitar, and the bass by a drum, and then the melody by the flute and panpipe. It´s awwwesome! So I was totally into the music, and I think the band noticed. During a break, I went up to ask about the drum -- turns out it´s called a ¨bom bom¨ here -- and then the drummer let me try it out. Then, he handed me a panpipe to play with them during the next song! Let me just say that these aren´t 3 minute pop songs. I was probably standing\dancing up there with them for over 5 minutes, squeaking a note out of the panpipe every once in a while, but mostly enjoying the music that they were playing. Hah, but it was so fun! Some of my friends took some photos, and one even took a video, so maybe, if you´re lucky, those will emerge at some point for you all to see.

We also paid a visit to the ¨Mitad del Mundo¨ (Center of the World) monument, located directly on the equator at 0´0¨. Why is THIS spot the center of the world, you ask, when every spot on the equator could be the center of the world? Well, good question! They say this site is especially special because it is situated in the mountains, with an excellent view of the sky. It was from this place that the indigenous people many many years ago observed the cosmos and realized that the equator was there. Other spots along the equator, including the Galapagos Islands, the Amazon Rainforest, Indonesia, Africa, aren´t as special as this place because they don´t have the clear, unobstructed view of the sky. While it is a touristy spot, it was still cool to see and literally be in two hemispheres at once. This is my mandatory "one foot on each hemisphere" photo:


We also took a hike to and around an amazing waterfall. It is a common pilgrimage site for indigenous people to come and bath in, and we saw some people doing that. There were also people repelling down the waterfall, which looked crazy sketchy! They had their ropes tied around rocks under water at the top of the waterfall. AHH! But the guy doing it made it down alive!

Here are a few of the pics I took over the weekend.

Pretty butterfly


Woman making yummy empañadas


A small shop near Otavalo


a beautiful pup

Snapshots

Street scene in el Centro Histórico (Historical Center) de Quito

Two musicians in el Centro Histórico

Church in el Centro Histórico

Llama and a view of Quito

Fancy-Pants U

It is quite stinky to feel like a freshman again- you know...not knowing your way around, not knowing other students, not knowing what the school's norms are.

And this school is SO different from Juniata!

First of all, the campus. Juniata's campus is pretty, but USFQ's campus is paradise. It's SCARY how beautiful it is here! The school is located in a valley down below mountainous Quito, so it's (pleasantly) warmer here. There's a beautiful pond with a waterfall, surrounded by plush, green grass where you can sit and soak up the sun. The yoga, tai chi, and tai kwon do classes are held in this beautiful, simplistic pagoda building next to the pond. The classroom buildings have a modern colonial feel; one is covered with ivy and others surround a courtyard where on Thursdays, there are student performances. There is a beautiful fountain and beautiful tropical flowers and beautiful chirping birds. Seriously, it's beautiful. :)


BUT, you know, this is not Ecuador. The students here are quite affluent (the top 5% of society), and it's pretty apparent. The Ecuadorian students are well-dressed and well-groomed. I'm not accustomed to being surrounded by so many fashionable and fancy people! It's actually very intimidating. But maybe it's good that here, I can't just roll out of bed and go to class in sweats... :) And I have met a few approachable people, with whom I can practice my Spanish.

They say this is "the best university in Ecuador," with the most serious academics and most qualified professors. So we're lucky to be here. For instance, I'm taking a Volcanology class with a prof who is the most-published in Ecuador in his field. But it's unfortunate that this place is completely out of reach of nearly all of the Ecuadorian populous.

My host brother, Sebastian, is a pre-med student at the Universidad Central de Quito, where it sounds like he's getting a good education. He studies a lot and he's incredibly smart. Some day when I don't have class, he is going to take me to check out his school. And another day, he will come with me to USFQ, even though he's been here before. I'm excited to see what another university is like.

En la casa

I'm moved in with an Ecuadorian family!!!! The situation is GREAT. Get this: I have
a mom named Susana and a brother named Sebastian! HAH! How coincidental, right!?!?!? But the whole story is this: I have a mama and a papa and two brothers, one who is about to turn 20 (Sebastian) and one who is 13 (Juan Martin). They are all so nice! The family lives in the second floor of a 3-story apartment building, but the apartment is more or less like a one-story house - this one has 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. I have my own room, and my own full bathroom connected to it (which is incredibly lucky)! The room is small but nice, just enough room. There is a single bed, a desk & chair, a bookshelf, and a some built-in drawers and a built-in closet. Es perfecto!

AND, the family has a dog! She looks like a mix between a golden retriever and a yellow lab, and her name is Lady. She is so friendly, but she doesn't listen very well! She was so loving to me when we first met, with hugs and kisses (or the equivalent dog form). The family has had a lot of international students before, so they know the drill. My brothers showed me a little book of their previous international "siblings", which had their contact info and pictures. There was actually a guy from Germantown, MD, who lived with them. The families have been told to only speak Spanish with us, even though they know a good amount of English. My papa lived/studied in the US for a while, and he´s even been to Ohio! :-) My Ecuamama's parents are also staying in the house now, which I'm not sure is for good or just for a little while. They are pretty old and SOOO cute!!

Last night my brothers and I talked for a while, and Sebastian showed me his music and dvd collection and what he´s studying (he´s pre-med, and he´s very passionate about it!) I was actually able to communicate, but needed help with conjugating verbs, but they were all very nice about it. When I said something gramatically incorrect in the car home after they had just picked me up, and Martin (the 13 year old) corrected me! It was so great. I also accidentally told my mom that I was excited to have "hijos", which means boys/kids, instead of "hermanos," which means brothers, and which is what I meant! We laughed that off, too. I´m going to be laughing a lot here!

Estoy aqui, en Quito!

(I am here, in Quito!)

OHMYGOSH, the city is beautiful! Located at 9300+ feet, Quito is a city in the clouds. Beyond the high-rises in almost any direction you look, you'll see large, inviting mountains, just begging to be trekked. Here, just a fraction of a degree below the equator, the sun is not stingy. Its strong rays seem to make every color brighter.

We're staying at a hotel for the first couple of days while we do our orientation, and Sunday night we move in with our host families, where we will live for the semester. The "we" I'm referring to is our Brethren College's Abroad (BCA) group, made up of 22 students (14 gals, 6 guys) from five different US colleges.

The highlight of today was riding the public buses from Quito to the university, which is a 30 min bus ride from the city. I'll be making this trip every day, but I doubt it will ever lose its beauty. The bus winds back and forth, up and down, through beautiful passes. There was so much to look at!

It's going to be an awesome semester. :-D