Ahhh...its like 9th week at K + rain= Winter has arrived in Quito!

It's winter!!! What does that mean? Well let me tell you what that means for Quito...RAIN! And lots of it. I of course forgot my umbrella the other day and got drenched coming back home, but whatever...you live and learn right? ;)

Well what can I say, I had plans to go to banos which is a place about 2hrs from Quito but last minute I had to stay in Quito. What went wrong? Well I was suppose to go volunteer and they had given me some work that they really wanted me to get done, so I had to stay and finish it off (it was translating). The next day I was thinking of going and meeting up with a few friends that were there, but someone got robbed and so they were going to come back. However, I also had other motives to stay. I had 2 presentations to research information about and create a powerpoint for one of them, 1 test to study for, and about 60 pages to read. SoOo I was pretty busy, but my host family did invite me to go to this park and I decided to go along. As the week went on, and more work was piled onto my homework pile, I couldn't help but feel like I was back at K during 9th week. Here is a snapshot of my life this past week:

Monday, November 8th :

I had to do a presentation for my  genero y sociedad class, which involoved a powerpoint that I was unable to use (after having worked on it the whole weekend) becuase nobody brought their laptop to school that day. Now, this of course was something I should have planned but everytime one of us (international students) has a presentation we usually borrow someone's laptop, but of course it would be my luck that nobody brought their's that day. However, I made due and it went pretty good, my topic was about feminism and spots. The artilce I picked walked about title IX, women coaches vs. male coaches, and different takes of what the body of a woman athlete should be. After school I went to my organization for 2 hrs.

Tuesday:

I had my second presentation in my Introducion a la cultura Ecuatorian class, which had to be at least 20 minutes long. My topic was plurinacionalidad which is this sorta movement that the indigenous people lobbied a lot to have in the new Ecuadorian constitution that was created in 2008. After, I started to look over my notes for my test that I had in the next class. Now I should say that according to the syllubs its a quiz (we have 5) but they make up more than 50% of our grade, which is why I consider them tests. Anywho after that I had an hour break before going to my next class.

Wednseday:

I had a lot to read for this day, but it went pretty smoothly. After classes I went to my organization and started to talk to Amanda (she works with APDH) and she pointed out that there was a quicker way for me to get home. I took mental notes, and when I got out I decided to be adventures and see if this was a quicker way. Well, I guess I didn't hear her correctly because I apparently got on the wrong bus (it was going South and I wanted to go North). Long story short I somehow got on the Ecovia (what I usually did) but at a stop further away. Once on it I was getting pushed more and more by passangers getting on, and I notice these four guys sitting down and smiling a lot towards me, I had my headphones and kept telling myself that I should calm down, I was being paranoid. When all of a sudden one of them taps me, I take one of the headphones off and have one of the most skechiest converstations I've had here:
Man 1: no pagaste (you didn't pay)
Me: umm si pague
Man 1: pero no me pagaste (but you didn't pay me)
Me: perdon?
Man 1: me tienes que pagar para que no te robe (you need to pay me so I don't rob you)
Me:......
Man 2: Mira si no quieres que te robe tu mochila le tienes que dar dinero (look, if you don't want him to rob your bookbag you have to give him money)
Me: ....(at this point I went from confuesd to scared shitless in less than a second, and I started to think whether I had enough money to pay them off, and secondly EVERYONE was looking so I started to think whether I could count on these strangers to help me if they try and take my bag regardless if I pay them or not).
Men: ...(starring at me pretty seriously)...
Woman: (this lady was sitting right next to the guy who started all this, she starts to nod her head and then winks at me)...no les pongas atencion, estan jugando (don't pay any attention to them, they are playing with you)
Me: ...ooh....
Men: jajajajajaja
Me: (I just want to get the hell off, can't move away from them because we are seriously squished)

Around 4 minutes later I get to my stop, and of course they would get off there too. I stayed in the platform awhile, and then got off and continued my route home.

Later on that night...

I got a call from a friend and we decided to go with a few people to a bar/shwaram place to see a soccer game, I was pretty glad to be able to chill after two heavy days of school work.

Thursday:

Having already done my presentation I now have the luxury to sit in class and listen to other presentations. After my last class, art, I went home but before going home I stopped by to buy Harry Potter tickets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, I am a HP fan, and if I could get my hands on the 7th book I would stay up all night and re-read it again before going to see it.

USFQ and La Selva (part 1)!

Here are some things that I've been meaning to post but haven't:

My courses here at USFQ (Universidad San Francisco de Quito)

Mondays/Wednesdays/ Fridays	Tuesdays	Thursdays
11h00-11h55: Genero y sociedad	10h00-11h25: Introducción a la Cultura Ecuatoriana	10h00-11h25: Introducción a la Cultura Ecuatoriana
13h00-13h55: Política Latinoamericano y su pensamiento	11h30-12h55: Literatura global	11h30-12h55: Literatura global
15h00-17h00: Work at APDH (only Mon/Wed)	14h30-16h30: Etnografía	14h00-16h55: Técnicas Básicas de Pintura

Only in Ecuador...

• will you can find guards with guns
• buy KFC and get rice and beans along with your chicken
• are there no public libraries
• you get a five day weekend for Dia de los Muertos
• due to the high altitude will you party hard one night and wake up the next and feel gassy all day

Only in USFQ (my school here)...

• Would you have your classes canceled in order to celebrate the 22^nd anniversary of the school with champagne and a live band
• Are there tiles EVERYWHERE, which is convenient because it rains almost everyday so the odds of me falling are pretty good :)
• This past week we had pirate week, yeah I like to dress-up as much as the next person but this was quite the experience, heres the link to the school's blog where you can see the events/flyer for this event:
  http://usfqecuador.blogspot.com/2010/10/celebracion-piratica-san-pancho.html

  



Yup we had a sunken boat in the school's
pond and there was a zipline that people got
on to go from one side to the other.

 

There were various activities,
this was a skit that a group did,
not sure why but it was great.



Viaje al Oriente

Octobre 30th:

7h30: Got to Quicentro (meeting place to board the bus)

8h45: Stopped to take a pic infront of Antisana

 

Antisana



9h00: Papallacta, it was great to get into the hot springs. We also played a couple name games with the IPSL students, Duga family, and Ecuadorian students that were joining us on this trip. 

12h30: We stopped at Baeza to have lunch and Natalia (director of our program who was on maternaty leave), husband, and her less than 3 month baby girl joined the group.  

14h30: Llegada a Huasquila! We got keys to our cabins, bri and Hannah were my roommates, and this hostal was GREAT! We had hot running water, great water pressure, a hammick, towels, and a great view of the mountains to look at everyday. 



15h30: Walk through the jungle. Our guide explained that we were going to through la selva secundaria y primaria and the difference is that the secondary jungle has been destroyed by humans but is being  reforested, so at times its harder to walk through because there are small plants that are growing. Unlike the primary jungle, where humans haven't destroyed and so the trees are huge and prevent sunlight from coming in and letting smaller plants grow. We saw some vines, the Dugaditos got to swing on them, went through a waterfall, learned about some cool plants, and went through a cave.

 

Vines, these were tiny campared to those
 you can find deeper into the jungle.




This was the waterfall that Hannah
and I went through (its brings
good luck we were told).



  

This was one of the coolest plants we learned about, its called sangre de dragon and our guide
told us that its acts like toothpaste, heals cuts/scars, stops itching, and other remedies.

This cave got smaller, there wasn't alot of light, there were bats, and at one
point we were told not to tough the walls because there was a big spider there.
However, since most of us didn't have flashlights we still did.



Stew and the Shaman (behind him).

19h00: Got back, showered (this shower felt great, and I was pleasantly surprised to see they had shampoo and conditioner for us seeing as I forgot to bring some). Then we had dinner which started with a brindise from the owner of the hostal and some special pina coladas. Afterwords Steward volunteered to be cleansed by a Shaman, which was totally different than the curandera we saw in Otavalo. The lights were turned off, Stew sat on a stool, didn't have to take his clothes off, there was some smoke involved and wacking with leaves accompanied by music that was being played by 2 other people, and then sucking or perhaps blowing smoke into Stew's hands.

 

 

October 31st:



7h30: Breakfast, which involved pancakes!

8h30: Arrived at Puerto Ahuano and went on a canoe through Rio Napo  until we got to el Centro de Rescate Amazoonico. This place was so cool, and humide! Here are some of the animals we saw:

Loros!



Tucan!



 

Caiman (type of alligator)



  

 

Capuchino monkey! They were so cool, but a little crazy too :)
At one point one of them stuck their hand out and tried to take
someone's camera.

Woolly monkey that was also out of a cage and was just chilling as we passed by on the trail.

Spider monkey! This was the best picture I could get because if you look
at where his hands are the fence had really small holes...but I feel in love with
this type of monkey, you can say it was love at first sight :)

We were walking through and someone pointed out that there were turtles on the path
doing the dirty (thats another way of saying they were having sex) and sure enough they were.

12h00 Lunch at Selva Viva

13h30: We went swimming in el rio Arajuno (I started to have an upset stomach so I got out of the water and decided to go for a walk around the edge of the river with Hannah.)

(on the way to our next destination we saw the deforestation started during the ex president Lucio Gutierrez with his plan of creating another international airport in the city of Tena, it was pretty depressing to see)

We were told that this project was stopped half way because Lucio left but it seems like Correa is planning on finishing the job, which would create jobs but Ecuador is a small country and there really isn't a need for another international airport, especially not near the Amazon where the biodiversity could (would) be hurt.

15h30: Arrived at Museo de la Comunidad de Chichico Rumi where we got to see more animales and learn about several animal traps, quite interesting.



Anaconda! We asked why they had it's mouth taped and we were told that they did it because if not it would try and bite them whenever they went inside to feed him, or her we didn't ask its sex.  



Un tigrillo, Our guide went inside and played with the tiger and I was a little jealous.

The sign says "Trap for fish (big)."

The Capibara is the biggest rodent in the world!! 

19h00: Arrive in Tena and have free time to walk around before we had dinner. I still wasn't feeling too good, and I think it has to do with the altitude changes (it takes awhile for me to feel it, but when it does I know it because my stomach starts to act up...if you know what I mean). So after having a few spoonfuls of food I was FULL and my new friend Noah helped me finish my food :)

19h30: Arrived at the hostal (it had started to rain on our way back) only to find out that the power had gone off, and so we went to our cabins with one headlamp and were completly drenched when we got in. Let me tell you, when it rains in the Amazon...it RAINS! We then had company, Dita and 2 Ecuadorian girls came over and we tried to learn to play an Ecuadorian game called cuarenta (forty) but half way into it had to stop becuase the deck was not complete. I can't remember how MASH (a game we gringas had played during middle school) came up and we started to teach them how to do it, we had fun bonding over this :)





I was drenched!