Homes

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.