Since my last entry, I have come back to this page many times to write the next one, but without the proper motivation, I just distract myself and stop writing a paragraph into this thing. At this point in the game, some people's parents have flown here and are somewhere in Quito in their son or daughter's company. Some people are staying here without seeing their parents for another couple weeks. Me, I'm flying to Cancun on Monday, this Monday, like, 4 days from now.
I'm sitting here, in my home and bed, procrastinating for the last time of the semester. Today, at 4 o'clock, the 9 people in my group present our DISPs, the final big project of the semester. We will each present for a maximum of ten minutes on this project we began planning over 2 months ago, that we have spent countless hours working on and countless more worrying about and procrastinating on. My paper is 23 solid pages long, in Spanish. It is called "Idioma, Cultura e Identidad: La utilización y falta de utilización del Quichua en San Clemente y otros pueblos indígenas del Ecuador" or in English and just as wordy, "Language, Culture and Identity: The use and lack of use of Quichua in San Clemente and other indigenous towns of Ecuador".
Tomorrow my friend Josh is having his 21st birthday party (just in time for being back in the States) where his real mom and host mom will cook together and host for all the students who decide to show up. Then we are supposed to have a 2 hour meeting at the Pitzer office, though no one really understands what we will do there and after that all of us are going to a nice dinner together, a goodbye dinner because tomorrow is the last official day of the program. I'll be here in Quito for the weekend, saying my goodbyes to the city and eating at my favorite restaurants and of course to my family here.
My family here is beautiful. They are one of the most normal families I have ever gotten to know. There is mom, who does work but always manages to come home and cook lunch and dinner everyday, there is dad who works a lot and is the breadwinner, there is the daughter, who wears too much makeup for her age and probably flirts with boys in school and the older son who is in a band and figuring out which college to go too to study music. I don't have a lot in common with them and they all are busy with their own schedules but they have treated me so well this entire semester, through me exploding the kitchen to me calling last minute saying i won't be coming home for dinner because I'm with friends.
Anyways, I'll have to say goodbye to them and then this experience will be over, in not very many days. There will be no more llapingachos or guanabana juice or buses that cost a quarter or colonial downtown's and churches and no more blog. And that's ok with me. I'll miss all of the above but I'll have home, and that is most important.
jueves, 18 de diciembre de 2008
jueves, 11 de diciembre de 2008
i just nearly choked on a sneeze
in nine days i will have been here for four whole months. i'll also be done with this really big paper thing. i've already written the amount of pages i need but i haven't written everything i need to write, which makes it really hard not to procrastinate. so here i am procrastinating.
alright then, with that i'm going back to work.
alright then, with that i'm going back to work.
jueves, 4 de diciembre de 2008
hot dogs aka jotdougs.
they are delicious, they are american, they are in ecuador. you know as well as i that i am a junk food junkie, or appreciator at least, so know when i say this that i thought about it for a long time before deciding to come public with it via blog.
ecuador can make comparable, if not better hot dogs than the motherland. now this certainly isn't true all of the time, or even most of the time and i'm sure there is nothing like eating a hot dog at doger stadium but i promise, the ecuadorians have made something that was right, righter.
i think what happened was that the hot dog made its way to this country but that the people decided it was kind of boring with ketchup and relish and mustard so they decided to do their own thing with it. at any hot dog stand here, all across the country, if you ask for a hot dog it will come with a hot dog, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, pineapple sauce, cheesy sauce, garlic sauce, spicy sauce, tomatoes, onions, pickles and potato chip crumbles on top. all these condiments on top are bigger than the actual hot dog.
i suppose this isn't the classic hot dog but it is incredibly tasty and to be honest, i, the queen of plain foods, don't think i can ever eat another hot dog with just ketchup on top again.
14 days-final project and presentation due
18 days-fly to mexico and see parents
23 days-fly to la and be home
ecuador can make comparable, if not better hot dogs than the motherland. now this certainly isn't true all of the time, or even most of the time and i'm sure there is nothing like eating a hot dog at doger stadium but i promise, the ecuadorians have made something that was right, righter.
i think what happened was that the hot dog made its way to this country but that the people decided it was kind of boring with ketchup and relish and mustard so they decided to do their own thing with it. at any hot dog stand here, all across the country, if you ask for a hot dog it will come with a hot dog, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, pineapple sauce, cheesy sauce, garlic sauce, spicy sauce, tomatoes, onions, pickles and potato chip crumbles on top. all these condiments on top are bigger than the actual hot dog.
i suppose this isn't the classic hot dog but it is incredibly tasty and to be honest, i, the queen of plain foods, don't think i can ever eat another hot dog with just ketchup on top again.
14 days-final project and presentation due
18 days-fly to mexico and see parents
23 days-fly to la and be home
lunes, 1 de diciembre de 2008
a letter?
ecuador,
you amuse me sometimes. you frustrate me sometimes. for all your beauty, inside and out, you certainly have your flaws and these flaws make me into a pretentious estadounidense who thinks she knows exactly what's right for you. i can't make you change your ways. any change of yours has to come from the inside, it can't be a superficial or a half-hearted attempt. your flaws are a part of your character, they help make you who you are. so maybe i'm just not right for you but maybe we both could make compromises to make a better relationship.
for instance, what was up with yesterday?
i went to parque carolina to play basketball with my friends jed and ellie who watched from the sidelines and agreed. your people were acting a bit unnaturally unfriendly towards me. i promise it wasn't me, your people were different today. my teammates, your people, didn't play fair with me even though i scored the team first possession at the beginning of the game by making the first shot. they wouldn't pass to me even though i was wide open. one of them in particular would look at me, smile, and pass to someone else or shoot. the old guy on my team was the coolest of them but still, they weren't making shots and when i would steal possession of the ball or on the offhand chance someone would pass to me, i would score more often than not.
jed's team won, which honestly i was glad so that my teammates wouldn't be rewarded with a victory after excluding me even though i was the fourth, very necessary, wheel. for the next game, jed, two of our ecuadorian friends, and i played against the same people who were on my team in the last match. just a second into this game, i had the ball underneath the hoop when one guy, the guy who guarded me in the last game, tried to grab the ball from behind me. i decided to call a foul and when he disputed i said that no hugging was allowed in the game. he replied by saying, that wasn't hugging and then tried to grab me with his gross sweaty body saying he would show me a hug but i quickly stepped out of his grasp and went to the top of the court to start afresh.
the same guy, who was not much taller than me but definitely heavier, drove to the basket and ran into me on the way. i called a charge and he said i fouled him. i tried to explain to him that a charge happens when someone on the offense runs into someone on the defense who is standing still, not moving. that is a charge. you just ran into me when i was standing in one place. that is the definition of a charge. but he and the other one on his team that i disliked simply laughed at the little girl yelling at them and took the ball, starting to play, laughing, before i had finished telling them they were wrong. they completely didn't listen to what i was saying and had a good time at it too.
now i know we all have our bad sides, the sides we try and not let show too often but that little exercise in disrespect really showed your true colors to me. that kind of attitude either comes from a society that doesn’t care enough or one that is not in control of its people. neither is a good characteristic to have.
usually i consider you to be well -behaved, friendly and humorous but today, that was not the case. i went to fybeca, the chain pharmacy store, a lot like rite-aid to pick up pictures i had dropped off to be developed. well on saturday your fybeca employees said to come back on monday afternoon. so i did. and without much friendliness, they told me to come back in an hour, that the pictures were not done yet.
so with ellie in my arsenal, i return, pretty excited for the pictures i was about to have from before and after coming to you, beautiful yet far away land. but the same person who rang me up when i bought the pictures, and who i paid $9.10 to, said that i must pay the rest of the price. 'no' i say, 'you didn't tell me i was going to have to pay more, i didn't bring any money!' and there we began the battle between fybeca manager and ellie and i. apparently it is logical to pay when you turn in photos and when you pick them up. half at the beginning and the rest, which is variable, when you come back. apparently i was supposed to know that from reading the fine print that even he couldn't find. he couldn't even find the sheet where they list prices for developing photos, which weren't on the wall or anywhere visible either. they were willing to give me the photos up to the price i paid, and let me come back and pick up the rest when i had the money.
after a very long winded, circular argument that lasted about 20 minutes, the big time manager came by and said, 'i have heard what this argument is about, we will let you take them without paying the rest of the bill', which, apparently, is an uncommon practice with your businesses but certainly isn't in my country's businesses. it is also uncommon that you pay for developed photos twice.
now maybe this is common practice in fybeca but it certainly isn't common practice everywhere else and i don't know how they think they can get away with charging someone at the beginning and not tell them they will be charged again at pick up time. that seems really inefficient, among other, more vulgar terms.
more generally, you can definitely be really inefficient. the inefficiency in that incident really wasn't an isolated incident. many times your stores don't want to break a 10 dollar bill or even a 5 sometimes. how is that good business if you have to refuse customers because you can't or won't break their marginally large bill?
and also, what's up with your road rage? you have no respect for pedestrians and that is pretty self destructive behavior. you're really only hurting yourself and your reputation.
and speaking of your reputation, it's a good one. you are different, multi-faceted and proud, rightfully so. keep it up, with all the good things you do. i really think you are going in the right direction and i am really happy for you.
but soon i will be going in my own direction, and i think our paths will probably go far away from each other. at least for a while. how about we call it a healthy break? i'm sure when it feels right again that i will come back. but i say we take advantage of the time we have left together. yeah. i'll take your annoying facets and embrace them as quirks and how about you do the same.
well, if i don't hear back from you soon, then i think that's what i am going to do, do everything i can to enjoy you for the time i have left and remember the good times once we split ways. and i hope you can forgive me for my flaws too. i think our time together has been worth it, i wouldn't have done it any other way.
con cariño y un abrazo,
maya.
you amuse me sometimes. you frustrate me sometimes. for all your beauty, inside and out, you certainly have your flaws and these flaws make me into a pretentious estadounidense who thinks she knows exactly what's right for you. i can't make you change your ways. any change of yours has to come from the inside, it can't be a superficial or a half-hearted attempt. your flaws are a part of your character, they help make you who you are. so maybe i'm just not right for you but maybe we both could make compromises to make a better relationship.
for instance, what was up with yesterday?
i went to parque carolina to play basketball with my friends jed and ellie who watched from the sidelines and agreed. your people were acting a bit unnaturally unfriendly towards me. i promise it wasn't me, your people were different today. my teammates, your people, didn't play fair with me even though i scored the team first possession at the beginning of the game by making the first shot. they wouldn't pass to me even though i was wide open. one of them in particular would look at me, smile, and pass to someone else or shoot. the old guy on my team was the coolest of them but still, they weren't making shots and when i would steal possession of the ball or on the offhand chance someone would pass to me, i would score more often than not.
jed's team won, which honestly i was glad so that my teammates wouldn't be rewarded with a victory after excluding me even though i was the fourth, very necessary, wheel. for the next game, jed, two of our ecuadorian friends, and i played against the same people who were on my team in the last match. just a second into this game, i had the ball underneath the hoop when one guy, the guy who guarded me in the last game, tried to grab the ball from behind me. i decided to call a foul and when he disputed i said that no hugging was allowed in the game. he replied by saying, that wasn't hugging and then tried to grab me with his gross sweaty body saying he would show me a hug but i quickly stepped out of his grasp and went to the top of the court to start afresh.
the same guy, who was not much taller than me but definitely heavier, drove to the basket and ran into me on the way. i called a charge and he said i fouled him. i tried to explain to him that a charge happens when someone on the offense runs into someone on the defense who is standing still, not moving. that is a charge. you just ran into me when i was standing in one place. that is the definition of a charge. but he and the other one on his team that i disliked simply laughed at the little girl yelling at them and took the ball, starting to play, laughing, before i had finished telling them they were wrong. they completely didn't listen to what i was saying and had a good time at it too.
now i know we all have our bad sides, the sides we try and not let show too often but that little exercise in disrespect really showed your true colors to me. that kind of attitude either comes from a society that doesn’t care enough or one that is not in control of its people. neither is a good characteristic to have.
usually i consider you to be well -behaved, friendly and humorous but today, that was not the case. i went to fybeca, the chain pharmacy store, a lot like rite-aid to pick up pictures i had dropped off to be developed. well on saturday your fybeca employees said to come back on monday afternoon. so i did. and without much friendliness, they told me to come back in an hour, that the pictures were not done yet.
so with ellie in my arsenal, i return, pretty excited for the pictures i was about to have from before and after coming to you, beautiful yet far away land. but the same person who rang me up when i bought the pictures, and who i paid $9.10 to, said that i must pay the rest of the price. 'no' i say, 'you didn't tell me i was going to have to pay more, i didn't bring any money!' and there we began the battle between fybeca manager and ellie and i. apparently it is logical to pay when you turn in photos and when you pick them up. half at the beginning and the rest, which is variable, when you come back. apparently i was supposed to know that from reading the fine print that even he couldn't find. he couldn't even find the sheet where they list prices for developing photos, which weren't on the wall or anywhere visible either. they were willing to give me the photos up to the price i paid, and let me come back and pick up the rest when i had the money.
after a very long winded, circular argument that lasted about 20 minutes, the big time manager came by and said, 'i have heard what this argument is about, we will let you take them without paying the rest of the bill', which, apparently, is an uncommon practice with your businesses but certainly isn't in my country's businesses. it is also uncommon that you pay for developed photos twice.
now maybe this is common practice in fybeca but it certainly isn't common practice everywhere else and i don't know how they think they can get away with charging someone at the beginning and not tell them they will be charged again at pick up time. that seems really inefficient, among other, more vulgar terms.
more generally, you can definitely be really inefficient. the inefficiency in that incident really wasn't an isolated incident. many times your stores don't want to break a 10 dollar bill or even a 5 sometimes. how is that good business if you have to refuse customers because you can't or won't break their marginally large bill?
and also, what's up with your road rage? you have no respect for pedestrians and that is pretty self destructive behavior. you're really only hurting yourself and your reputation.
and speaking of your reputation, it's a good one. you are different, multi-faceted and proud, rightfully so. keep it up, with all the good things you do. i really think you are going in the right direction and i am really happy for you.
but soon i will be going in my own direction, and i think our paths will probably go far away from each other. at least for a while. how about we call it a healthy break? i'm sure when it feels right again that i will come back. but i say we take advantage of the time we have left together. yeah. i'll take your annoying facets and embrace them as quirks and how about you do the same.
well, if i don't hear back from you soon, then i think that's what i am going to do, do everything i can to enjoy you for the time i have left and remember the good times once we split ways. and i hope you can forgive me for my flaws too. i think our time together has been worth it, i wouldn't have done it any other way.
con cariño y un abrazo,
maya.
domingo, 30 de noviembre de 2008
numbers
this, i maybe should not be thinking about, but since i am i might as well put the info out there:
in 18 days the final draft of my directed independent study project is due.
in 20 days the program is completely and totally over.
in 22 days i will go to mexico and see my parents.
in 25 days it's christmas.
in 27 days i fly home and sleep in my own santa monica bed.
for the last few weeks my feelings on coming home have been swinging back and forth like a pendulum or a bipolar person or i don't know what else. some times i just want to be home now and see my parents and friends and family and i think that i don't need to be here anymore, that i'm not going to learn any more about ecuador or in spanish in the next few weeks so why can't i go home yet? but then other times i realize how unexciting life will be when i get home, and yeah it will be nice to see people but i will sooner or later anyways so i might as well be in a place i have no idea if i will ever come back to. and i think, now, that is the right place for my mind to be in. three weeks and a day till i see my parents. that amount of time is completely graspable for me. three weeks and a day i can tell will go by quick.
this final project is turning out to not be so bad either. it has to be 20-25 pages, including the cover page, the index, any appendices and the bibliography and i already wrote 5 pages this weekend. back to writing now.
in 18 days the final draft of my directed independent study project is due.
in 20 days the program is completely and totally over.
in 22 days i will go to mexico and see my parents.
in 25 days it's christmas.
in 27 days i fly home and sleep in my own santa monica bed.
for the last few weeks my feelings on coming home have been swinging back and forth like a pendulum or a bipolar person or i don't know what else. some times i just want to be home now and see my parents and friends and family and i think that i don't need to be here anymore, that i'm not going to learn any more about ecuador or in spanish in the next few weeks so why can't i go home yet? but then other times i realize how unexciting life will be when i get home, and yeah it will be nice to see people but i will sooner or later anyways so i might as well be in a place i have no idea if i will ever come back to. and i think, now, that is the right place for my mind to be in. three weeks and a day till i see my parents. that amount of time is completely graspable for me. three weeks and a day i can tell will go by quick.
this final project is turning out to not be so bad either. it has to be 20-25 pages, including the cover page, the index, any appendices and the bibliography and i already wrote 5 pages this weekend. back to writing now.
jueves, 27 de noviembre de 2008
dia de accion de gracias
thanksgiving has always been up there as my favorite holiday. when i decided to go abroad this semester i specifically thought about how i would miss going to idyllwild to see family i usually only see once or twice a year. well thanksgiving found its way over to ecuador and resulted in a really pleasant, loving day for me and i'm guessing for all of the people who took part with us.
a friend had all 18 of us pitzer in ecuador students over and we all brought some traditional and non traditional food to share. i brought a fruit pie (for all the good fruit and juices in ecuador, this place doesn't really know how to do a pie) as my entrance ticket while other people brought stuffing, cranberry jello, mashed potatoes, chickens and drinks. the chickens were our mini turkeys and everything was absolutely delicious.
through drunken toasts, everyone said how thankful they were for the food on our plate, the people we are sharing it with, and our families who helped us get here and we all, spoken or not, felt like a strange collective representing something like a family.
after the food we all felt like we had to hold our bellies in so they wouldn't explode, and so a few of us went on a nice evening walk around the block a couple times and stretched on a street corner.
then, a few of us decided it was poker time, so seven of us sat around the now cleared dinner table and with a $1 buy in, started playing. a couple of the people who joined didn't really know how to play and that manifested in one of them making a strategy of betting really high when she had something, anything that wasn't nothing. well, i lost quick because i always seemed to have a decent hand but someone else always could beat it, and the only way any of us could play was with betting a lot of chips so a friend and i ran out and lost first. it was tragic. but i stuck around the table and the person who was bidding so high eventually decided she didn't want to play, so i played for her. well, the people's republic of maya won the game, and we redistributed the dollars back out to everyone so nobody lost.
at this point most people had left and so a couple friends and i hopped a cab and went home. it was so nice to talk to my family in idyllwild and even though i did wish i could have been there, i felt the love enough to make me happy just from talking to them for a few minutes. i hope everybody had a fantastic thanksgiving and thank you guys for everything.
a friend had all 18 of us pitzer in ecuador students over and we all brought some traditional and non traditional food to share. i brought a fruit pie (for all the good fruit and juices in ecuador, this place doesn't really know how to do a pie) as my entrance ticket while other people brought stuffing, cranberry jello, mashed potatoes, chickens and drinks. the chickens were our mini turkeys and everything was absolutely delicious.
through drunken toasts, everyone said how thankful they were for the food on our plate, the people we are sharing it with, and our families who helped us get here and we all, spoken or not, felt like a strange collective representing something like a family.
after the food we all felt like we had to hold our bellies in so they wouldn't explode, and so a few of us went on a nice evening walk around the block a couple times and stretched on a street corner.
then, a few of us decided it was poker time, so seven of us sat around the now cleared dinner table and with a $1 buy in, started playing. a couple of the people who joined didn't really know how to play and that manifested in one of them making a strategy of betting really high when she had something, anything that wasn't nothing. well, i lost quick because i always seemed to have a decent hand but someone else always could beat it, and the only way any of us could play was with betting a lot of chips so a friend and i ran out and lost first. it was tragic. but i stuck around the table and the person who was bidding so high eventually decided she didn't want to play, so i played for her. well, the people's republic of maya won the game, and we redistributed the dollars back out to everyone so nobody lost.
at this point most people had left and so a couple friends and i hopped a cab and went home. it was so nice to talk to my family in idyllwild and even though i did wish i could have been there, i felt the love enough to make me happy just from talking to them for a few minutes. i hope everybody had a fantastic thanksgiving and thank you guys for everything.
some fotos
by the end of our stay, our guide had branded us with all natural jungle tattoos from a random fruit he picked on one of our hikes. find which one is my hand!
somehow this blob of nocturnal bugs is actually well camouflaged from further away.
cool people about to climb really high and see cool views.
where we were climbing to, as you can see, the bridge on the left has a broken wood plank.
our guide for our stay, meyer, showing us some inside out and spiky mushrooms.
me, lianna and ellie on a boat on the river we floated down, notice my cool new hat.
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