It has been far too long!

It has been quite a long time since I have posted, and I must admit that it has been weighing on my mind. 

El Feriado.

I have gone to Salinas on el feriado, or vacations, with the French exchange student, Emma. It was really great and luckily, did not hinder my Spanish at all. (Due to the fact she could not speak English). We met up with Signe Bottcher, the Danish exchange student, and one day took a side trip to Montañita. Montañita, as I have said, is very international for a small town. While we were riding on our way in the back of a truck there, I dared my friend, Signe, to find someone from Denmark. She doubted it could possibly happen, but when we were playing volleyball, someone approached her and asked her where she was from. Signe responded "Denamark" and he said, "me too!", and they commenced to talk in the language that few people understand. He said in fact, a group of Danish people had just left Montañita the day before. It surprising how small the world is.

We also went to a mini-concert in a place that reminded me of a small town coffee shop, like the one I know fondly as River Road. A band from Minneapolis played, and I was happy to see fellow gringos. We also met up with Johannes Wolbeck and I was surprised to learn that he was with my brother Tony, because his host brother is good friends with my host brother; weird how things work out. Embarrassingly, all of this feriado shenanigans happened in the end of October and my second camera around this time had not arrived (or was it the third?), so all photographic evidence of all that occurred cannot be accounted for. 

Maumee Valley

In November, the students from the "well-renowned" school Maumee Valley came for their three week program to Steiner. These students, from the coincidental Toledo, Ohio, were all the rave once they arrived. One of the girls was talking to me and said, "Wow, you speak really good English", and I said "thank you". She continued to say how I had no accent like any of the Ecuadorians. Feeling guilty, I finally admitted that I was actually from the states, the same state in fact. It became good for me, because I was permitted to skip classes to take dancing lessons with the students, take a field trip to el Malecón and I was even their translator. I was even more stunned that I could do it too. 

The students were here for culture week and each course had a different day to present: Gestión, Sociales, Qubio, and Fima. I was really creeped out by the feti (plural fetus for those ignorant of Latin) on display, as well as the random human brain quibio students were poking. Totally not in the U.S. We Sociales, did a presentation involving the Greek Gods. We had to dress up as a god or goddess and present a monologue. I was Persephone.I may or may not have forgotten my lines in front of the the whole school. So that was fun. 

Soon enough the Muamee Valley students, still ignorant of how to speak the Spanish language, left and everything returned to normal, which meant I had to attend classes :(. 

Barcelona

So, I have already been to two soccer games in Guayaquil, the most recent "el clásico". The game between Emelec and Barcelona is known as the classic, because it is between the two teams from Guayaquil. Naturally, this comes with a huge rivalry. As a Barcelonista, I was happy that Barcelona came out with a 2-0 victory, however, I discovered the real action occurred after the game. 

The Barcelonistas were permitted to leave the stadium first, and I was wondering why we were delaying so long after the game in our suite. Then I saw it. A Barcelonista sitting in the balcony of one of the suites threw a flair-like firework into the throng of Emelec fans. Catcalling and taunts were already being exchanged, but this only escalated the insanity. Emelec fans threw rocks, pieces of toilet seats, and even bottles of urine at the Barcelonistas who lingered above. I felt sorry for a guy who got hit in the face with one of the bottles of  the repulsive liquid. A fight broke out below, and the police lined up and pepper sprayed some involved. Those unfortunate to get sprayed in the face, then started fires on the stone benches, because the smoke apparently neutralizes the effect of the spray. All I can say, is that I do not remember any of this kind of incident happening at a Columbus Crew game. 

 My host brother, Daniel

Crazy Barcelonistas

Thanksgiving in December

In Guayaquil, there are three Americans: Kendel Lipe, Sophia Greif, and I. Kendel came to me with a proposal to help her put together her favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, Sophia was unable to attend. It took more planning than we had thought, and we ended up having it in the beginning of December. On the morning of the dinner, I left early and went to the grocery store with Signe to pick up some extra ingredients, and we headed to Samborondón to Kendel's house. Kendel stays in the house of the sister of Rafael Correa, the President of Ecuador, but I already had been there once before. Still, I was pretty excited at the prospect of celebrating a very American holiday.

When I arrived at her house she wasn't even there. I waited a few minutes in the kitchen, which seemed to be filled with foods of all sorts.  It was clear someone had been cooking by the disarray. Soon enough, Kendel came into the house out of breath and in a state of stress. She told me she had just put the turkey in the oven, an important appliance that she lacked in her house, so she had to go to someone else´s. She immediately set me to work on snapping beans, and as more exchange students arrived, so did help. 

Titta (Finnish), me, and Viki (Taiwanese)

SO MANY BEANS! but they were the most fantastic I have ever tasted.

Kendel sent me to another house in her ciudadela, which wasn't the house where the turkey was being baked, to bake the casseroles. Not having an oven had us running around her ciudadela putting in, checking, and taking out foods out of ovens. 

When everything was prepared, we brought the food outside, to her patio where we lined tables up to create a long Thanksgiving table like so:

Kendel had put together so much; we had salad, potato casserole, green beans, fruit salad, rolls  oreo truffles, TURKEY, and foods I probably have forgotten. 

 So much food.

Your Austrian sense of humor.

Yum.

Before we dug into our feast, all 30 of us stood around the table to say our thanks; exchange students and Ecuadorians alike.  It didn't matter whether it was in English, Spanish, German, Austrian-German, Danish, or Chinese, we said it. And as we cheesily held hands, we all smiled and laughed in embarrassment, but all the same enjoying the moment. But above all, the food was delicious. 

Random dancing breaks out (my shoulder on the right).

This is about half the table.
Parque Histórico

I ended up staying over at Kendel's house, because we had to clean up the Thanksgiving mess. We woke up pretty early, and as we were in Samborondón, we decided to go to el Parque Histórico. We arrived around 11:00 by a car driven by Kendel's body guard, yes, body guard. 

While we were there we saw a  parrot, of which I obtained a colorful feather from the ground. This could have involved jumping over the fence. (Signe Bottcher)

 Just being plain silly in a famous building of Guayaquil Antiguo.

 We allowed ourselves to be childish, it was a park after all. 

 Observing. Not jumping over fences.

Of course a great group picture. From top left: Moritz (Germany), Kendel (USA), Julian (Austria), Signe, Signe's host sister, and I. 

Bottom Left:Adriel (Brazil), Titta, and other Ecuadorian girl with a totally awesome camera (It took this photo by itself).

Just Life in General

So, I have been attending school everyday. Two of the days  I had to take a taxi by myself to school, because I missed the bus. I have come to use taxi's quite often, and though cheaper than the U.S., it still costs money. Now I am extra glad that the rotarians give me money every month.

 I am treated like a normal student during school, and am expected to complete assignments on time, take quizzes and even the exams that are coming up soon. In English class, we had to make an advertisement, and ours came out the best (though I can't say it was the best I have done). Actually, while doing this project I needed video software, but my computer is not advanced enough here to even have windows movie maker. So I used Signe's laptop to create the video. It seemed too good to be true, and of course, her computer is in Danish, thus she had to accompany me and we had to mandate to her what we wanted in the video (We being my commercial partner, Alejandro Avendaño and I). Our commercial is trying to sell false mustaches. For those of you who do not know, "bigote" means mustache in Spanish. We were going toward the idea that all the successful men have staches. If you want to watch it, it is here: 

Though there was some improper grammar in there, the teacher still loved it, or didn't seem to notice it.

I have been hanging out much of the time with Signe Bottcher and Alejandro Avendaño, but recently (yesterday) Signe has moved with her other host family to Salinas (which is about one and a half hours away). I wasn't able to say goodbye to her, but it surprised her as well. Normally, we would hang out nearly every day. She has a pool, so after school I would go swimming with her or we would go on walks. We had gotten so accustomed to walking a maneuvering around the dog crap, making stops at the vini-mart, and listening to the same songs over and over again on our cellphones. Now I am sad, because she is my best friend in Ecuador and she is not returning to Guayaquil until the next school year starts. :´( I am hoping to see her on New Years, because everyone goes to Salinas then. I will sure be there for the party :D

 Signe jumping into her pool

 Me in a tree.

Me under a tree.

Hop on pop. Just kidding.

My friend Alejandro Avendaño in Ceibos Norte, my ciudadela. 

I have also adopted the Ecuadorian lifestyle of going to parties. Everyone here likes to dance and I am glad, because I do too. I notice the difference between Ecuador and the U.S. in the mere fact that not many people like to dance in the states. Both girls and guys like to dance here, and everything seems more open in friendly in that sense. Nearly every relationship I have here seems a lot closer than many I have had in the U.S. I have spent four months here, and I can't imagine leaving. I LIVE here. I have friends and family and a daily routine. It seems hard to think of ever leaving. Signe and I talk about this idea to each other, and we are already sad at the thought that we have to leave at some point in time. 

 The bus maximum occupancy 16 people. Maximum occupancy for Ecuadorians yet to be tested. However, 23 has been our record so far. We are rivaling a clown car.

 What happens when we discover Signe has a Mango tree.

 Breakfast Navideño turns into a photo shoot.

Rafael Garces, commmonly known es "el negro", dressed up as Santa Claus for the breakfast.

 Ecuadorians really love photos.

 Renatta Gonzalez and I

 Joaquin Rocha doing a bicycle kick-like thing.

Pamela Barreto and I. Also referred to as "La Pamela"

Two sets of identical twins in quinto curso, where there are only 50 students. Nonetheless, I tagged them on  Facebook like a boss. 

From the left: Sebastian Giler, Nabyla Yeber, Eduardo Giler, and Yamile Yeber. 

At my school we had a Christmas breakfast for our mothers where we drank hot chocolate and ate Christmas cake (awful stuff, stick to the Christmas cookies, America), and sang a song in Spanish, English and French. I was disappointed we didn't sing a more traditional Christmas song, but some contemporary, crap song. If you want to waste a few minutes of your life click this link to hear the song: 

Shake Up Christmas- Train

The lyrics are so bad that I think I honestly prefer Jingle Bells. 

We sang this other song called Angel, in Spanish. Angel- Cristian Castro

We were initially going to sing this song for our Spanish song, but we had too many bad singers. I like it better though: Contigo Aprendi- Nicho Hinojosa

And we sang this French song. Toi et Moi- Guillaume Grand

I had painted a little glass window for my mother at school, and I felt like I was in grade school again. I also made her a card, which was far less incredible than many of my classmates. As opposed to making it extremely beautiful, I put more thought into the words and it paid off for me. As result, my host mom and I have a better relationship, and she even let me go to my first discoteca called Siete Cé last Saturday. I now believe Janes Austen words when she said that a letter can fix anything, because so far in my life, it has. 

 Planking in heels, as Carla Beckerley says, "A whole new art form".

Signe and I made this for Adriel (Brazilian) for his birthday on photoshop. These are all the Rotary exchange students in Guayaquil.
Guy hiding behind the B: Tim (Germany) He is incredibly awkward, so we thought this photo fit.
Guy planking on "uenos": Adriel Cristiano (Brazil)
Girl pointing in the air: Signe Bottcher (Denmark)
Girl sitting by the stars: Viki Li(Taiwan)
Girl posing surprised: Kendel Lipe (Texas)
Girl posing like a boss, with fiery, red hair: Sophia Greif
Guy with the green sunglasses: Johannes Wolbeck (Germany)
Girl drinking the coconut unhappily: ME
Guy giving the thumbs up: Julian Dittrich (Austria)
Girl sitting and giving a weird hand sign: Felicitas Schieffer (Germany)
Girl with the dog: Emma Deguilhem (France) 

Me, Margarita (host sister of Signe), and Signe at a quniceañera. 

Signe and I spooning after cleaning up Thanksgiving

Spooning has become the new planking. Apparently this can be said in Danish, Skal vi ligge i ske? or "Do you want to spoon?" This is one of the only phrases we Guayaquileños know how to say in Danish.

Adriel, Signe, and I at Chili's enjoying our mugs of water. 

Rotary Event

I went to a rotarian's house who anually hosts a Christmas gift giving to villagers who live in the middle of nowhere. They came to his house in Guayaquil and we gave gifts to the children and ate good lunch. It was so adorable. Each rotarian was assigned one or two children to get a gift for, and they bought it for them. I have so many photos, but here are a few. 

 My parents were not able to come, so I stood in their place of the gift that they gave him.

Maybe my favorite photo. Some generosity was just too much. 

 A really happy kid. 

The kids got their faces painted. This is a son of a rotarian who understood me when I spoke English, but would respond in Spanish. 

So cool!

Additional Thoughts

I am really excited and both saddened by the holiday season. I am sad that I am missing the traditional white Christmas of Ohio and my family with it, but I am still eager to see more of the holiday season here in Ecuador. The other thought on my mind is the Amazon trip which comes up on the end of January and the beginning of February. I will finish school this Thursday and need (?) to come back to school in January just to take exams, and then VACATIONS! I will probably be going to a different school next year, called Montessori, which I have only heard bad news from other Ecuadorians, including Emma, who attends there. We will most likely end up changing schools, and I am still unsure whether I am looking forward to it or not, because it involves me moving across the city and starting over again. We shall see.

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Manabi- Paseo Numero Uno

So now I am actually going to tell you about Manabi. I can already say it was completely incredible, even better than Machala. We stayed in Crucita in a place, once again, filled with cabañas, however I can´t say they were as nice. My room here as well, did not have hot water, however, it did have the dangerous looking wires hanging above the showerhead to suggest it. I talked to some other exchange students and they had hot water, lucky. One night, the power even went out due to someone´s shower and I saw flashes of electricity and it sounded like something exploded. Other than room accomadations, is was pretty awesome.

Us Guayaquileños arrived early, it seems to always be that way, because we did that during our other trips too; always prompt. We were served lunch on our early arrival, which was fried fish, and was suprisingly delicious (served also with the obligatory straw in coke glass). We were eating outside and the vendors, knowing we were foreigners, were trying to take advantage of us. We were first approached by a man selling Panamá hats (hats really from Ecuador), who tried to sell one for 20 dollars. One of the exchange students knew that was not the price and managed to get it down to six dollars. A man selling sunglasses came around and I finally bought these lovely pair of red sunglasses (you will continue to see these buddies in the rest of my photos).

 We each recived a nametag, which purpose still defeats me, because they were never used for anything, suprisingly my was pretty nice and professional.

Already with the sunglasses
Note: Kendel Lipe in the background

 We had our luggage checked by some Ecuadorians, and we walked down these stairs to go to our rooms, which looked like this.

Since we arrived early, we began our "Guess what country that person is from" game. When the person was getting his/her luggage checked, we would try to guess what country they are from. We were guessing for this one guy who we thought was from Chile or Brazil, and we quickly realized when he grabbed the luggage that he actually was a native Ecuadorian, oops.
We exchange students bonded quickly, once again, over swear words, planking, and dancing.

 Moritz (Germany), as ususal, with the planking

We learned things like Sut Min Pik, other planking models, and DANCING. Dancing was always my favorite part, which we did everyday. It was encouragd to go crazy, like so:

Matt (Colorado) one of the many exotic? pole dancers

The amazing Brazilians during the talent show (the song became very popular among exchange students).Unfortunately the only thing the Americans could bring to the table was the Cotton-Eyed Joe dance, but it was fun.

It is so amazing how fast people get along, and even warmly throwing their friends into the pool, like in Machala, however, here they threw even the Rotarians. I got pushed in one time, resulting in nicely, drenched clothes. This was not the only time my clothes got wet. The second time was when all the exchange students were dancing and everyone was moving towards the pool. I ended up jumping into the pool with a friend still with my clothes on and all of the exchange students were moshing in the pool. We would fall backwards off the ledge of the pool, to be caught by many hands and carried acrross to the other side. Others were simply dancing around the pool, of which wasn´t the safest, but no one got hurt. Here are some photos from the insanity.

In Crucita we climbed to the  top of a hill and took many pictures, where we showed our pride for our countries. 

Climbing the Hill

 The smart Germans, who decided to tie the flags together

 Group Photo

 Everyone´s Flag tied together

Birds´eye view

 THE AMERICANS!

Danish guy doing a a flip dangerously close to the edge of a drop, but still, FLIPPIN´ SWEET!
 We did of course do plenty of touristy actvities, including going to MonteCristi, where we bought the famous Panamá hats. There were many vendors, and it was really cool to go around and buy hand-made items. I am really regretting not buying a llama jacket :(. Some of the Germans were yelling and try to help sell some of the Panamá hats for some lady, by yelling "muy bueno, lo mejor precio!" it was pretty hilarious.

 We were also lucky enough to be in a parade In Portoviejo. Everyone was screaming their national anthems, and in the case of the French singing Frére Jacques at the top of theire lungs. I felt bad for the people from Feroe Island, Hungary, or Japan, who had no one or almost no one to sing with them.

 The Fantastic French

The Germans, I don´t even know what to say... the taxi driver probably didn´t either.

The Great Wall of Germans

 Pikachu!

 The Feroe Islanders! (which is not Denmark)

Kendel Lipe (Texas) and I

On the last night we went out to a Rotary meeting, which was more formal. We had an election of the King and Queen. The Queen was Savannah Jankosky from California, and the King the Danish guy named Valdemar Bødker, who did a flip while doing his model walk. It was entertaining. But before this, we went on a Chiva Ride. It was one of the best experiences of my life, it was basically a bus with musicians playing on top of it.People were hanging off the sides, or dancing on top. Yes, you could say this too, was a bit dangerous. It took three of these babies to carry all 135 exchange students, Rotex students, and Rotarians. All the while, our camera man, who had been filming everything we did on the trip, was filming everyone while riding alongside the buses in a truck. Everyone was waving to random people on the street, sitting in restaurants, on motorcycles, in taxis; all from which we recieved huge smiles. We basically were parading around and bringing the party to a community (which exchange students normally do).

Notice some of the exchange students hanging off the side. Some would jump off the Chiva when we got to a stop light and commence to dance in the street. When the light turned green, they had to quickly board the bus, that they sometimes had to chase after. Only in Latin America, right?

 This photo is from a boat ride we took, where I got some good pictures of pelicans.

 My Michael Jackson photo taken in a Mausoleum

By the end of the trip, nearly every exchange students´ wrists were filled with bracelets. We traded bracelets (and pins) from each others countries, or got them from street vendors. The one that says Freundschaft means "friendship" in German. I had no idea what that meant, considering I do not know how to speak German I asked my friend, Johannes, if it was a place. Now he won´t let me live it down. 

 The Latina mocking photo. Latinas always like to drape their hair over their shoulder with their hands on their knees leaning forward.

 My friends Yuki (Japan) , and Johannes, nicnamed Yo Yo (Germany)

 Me at the beach, or as the Ecuadorians say ,"bitch".

 Yo yo y yo in a slightly shady picture.

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