Week one was full of fun and not so fun orientation stuff. The 22 students 8 or which who are boys were all in a pretty nice hostel in an area of town called la mariscal. It is the hostel, touristy area with lots of restaurants ands bars and stuff which also draws some more crime, but we all made it through with out any problems. Just stayed in groups and kept our heads alert. One kinda weird thing about safety here is that the police aren’t necessarily your friends. They get paid nothing and live off bribs and stuff. They said if there are cops on the street you can def consider crossing the street to keep walking passed them from a distance. A weird concept for us gringos. But that was orientation: scare the pants off of us about safety here so we could all be informed and move on. Street safety, home-stay safety and don’t offend people stuff. Current events to make conversation without sounding completely uninformed. Then we went over every assignment we will have all semester which is also pretty overwhelming too. We had our little lectures in a meeting area in the hostel from our two academic directors and other guest speakers… all are super cool interesting and smart people. Then we had the evenings to eat and hand out and get to know each other.
Every one in the group it super cool! All outdoorsy people nerdy and excited about ecology. There are always a couple annoying ones but we have all done a great job at valuing every body’s strengths haha There is a guy form the south with the accent, the mam’ and the conservative views and even he manages to make me like him. Also the Texan little lady, with the increadible valley girl talk (who I thought there was know way we were gonna get through the semester without me killing her) but now I actually love her. I embraced it and she is great haha. All are really cool people and all of which I could sit down and have a meaningful and fun conversation with. quiality
The academic directors:
Sylvia is a super strong super cool lady with quite the edge. She tells it like it is and I respect that. She thinks im funny so I got on her good side early. She is from Europe and worked in Ecuador on the same program for 20 yrs so she had got it down to a science. She has seen every problem you could imagine. So a good person to be leadin us.
Xavier is out other athletic director. He is an Ecuadorian of French lineage. He is more loosy goosy, nerdy and fun. He has the funniest little laugh and gets really excited
About butterflies (he is writing the butterfly guide to Ecuador, woah)
Aldemar is the behind the scenes super busy guy who keeps everything running. He is Colombian and pretty fun, although he is always so busy it is hard to interact with him unless you got something urgent!
Jorge: Spanish teacher, cute old guy who is super chill. He talkls super slow and thoughtfully (kinda like poppop) and he is also pretty opinionated. I think its gonna be a fun class
What else about first week… I tested into the top Spanish class (I know im tooting my own horn but sooooo excited and proud because all the work is paying off! so gotta put it in there) Sylvia speaks in English most of the time and Xavier switches back and forth, and Alde speaks all Spanish. But they all respond in whatever language you speak to them in… which is a pretty good way to do it I think. I understand everything unless it’s a big group of people talking fast, and can say most everything I want to say… it’s a little tricky casue the people in the group all speak English to eachther but once the homestays start and paula there will be more Spanish!
Paula: paula is my Ecuadorian friend who grew up in quito but studied at Scripps for a year. We a pretty good friends and she is my super sweet connection here. She picked me up one night and we went to her parents house to hand out, they were super sweet kept saying “this is your house, whenever you need anything, this is your house” we went out with some of her friends in the mariscal district (where the hostel is) it is cool how different it was to walk down the same street in a group of locals than in a group of my program buddies haha first of all everybody knows eachother, second you just feel so much more fitting in and secure its nice so super stoked to have paula here.
Not much else in the first week off to cloud forest!
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