Don't hate the Playa, hate the game.

A seven hour bus ride later, we were in Atacames, a beach town on the northern coast, the closest beach to Quito. We arrived at 7 am, passed out at the hotel for a few hours then headed to the beach. High tourist season only lasts through the beginning of September leaving the town fairly quiet. Our hotel was a 10 minute taxi ride away which was the best part of the trip, because they utilize mototaxis. They more or less consist of a dirt bike engine and seat attached at the front or back to a small bench with a roof and open sides for up to three passengers.

Atacames is popular for being the most convenient beach for Quiteños, because it's definitely not very aesthetic. I thought it looked more like Misquamicut than Florida beaches, which is where my beach experiences max out. We also only got a few hours of sun, on Friday afternoon, for the entire weekend.

Despite the lack of sol, it was hot and perfect to just lounge on the sand and go swimming. I'm so spoiled from growing up with Manasota beach - I don't like crowds, and I got annoyed by the vendors every 5 minutes trying to sell us sunglasses, hair wraps and braiding, fruit, coconut milk, etc. There was plenty of beach beyond the hotels and bars, but it's dangerous to stray away from the action, especially as six very obviously American girls.

The northern coast is especially famous for its seafood. For lunch, we went to this wide alley off the main road that was lined with grills and small food prep areas. Each was owned by a different family, and could serve up to 10 people at a time at their respective picnic table. The food was delicious. The first day I had a rice dish with shrimp (Ecuador's 2nd largest export to bananas, not counting petroleum which is #1 over all), and on Saturday shrimp and fish cooked with coconut milk. Everything was served with fried plantains, and big portions for $4. They made everything a few feet away from us, and you could watch them pull the plantains from huge green bunches hacked straight from the tree. Later that night when we were out at the bars, they offered amazing 50 cent snacks of roasted choclo (a type of corn on the cob) and plantains covered with cheese.

I bought some cheap jewelry made from coconut and tagua (a really hard tree nut that resembles ivory) and some coconut candy to bring to my staff meeting at the colegio Monday. We also enjoyed huge batidos (shakes) made from milk, fruit and ice for $1 apiece. The best part was they filled our cups, then when we drank about a third of the way, they refilled them to the top, so we got almost an entire blender's worth of shake. Not bad. Again I failed in the picture-taking department.

We caught a bus home to Quito at 11 pm Saturday so we could avoid paying two nights at a hotel. I got home around 6 am, went to sleep, woke up at 11 and my house was full of people. Apparently we were having a barbecue - just like Real Home, no one tells me anything around here. I was exhausted but I had to suck it up and mingle with Ecua family and neighbors, some of whom I had met and some new ones. I get really confused with names and relations here.
Today there was a big rival futbol game versus Liga, the Quito team and Barcelona, the Guayaquil team. Some of the fam is from Guayaquil, who lost 4-0, so a few (male) cousins were a little cranky. They had been whining for 15 minutes about how their team blew it, when Ibis's aunt Albertinita, who is very much on the deaf side, asked, "Who won the game?" José answered, "Liga," and her response was a casual, "Oh, ¡qué bueno!" I couldn't stop laughing, it was priceless.

Excited for my last week of 7 a.m. grad class, not to mention last week in Septiembre..chuta.


By the way, I really have no idea who all is reading this, so don't be afraid to leave a comment once in a while. I'm curious about how efficient my promoters (otherwise known as Real Mom and Real Dad) have been.



-B

The hotel was very very big and very very boring and very very sad.

-a fifth grader writing about his summer vacation. Why was the hotel sad? I'll never know.


This more or less sums up my weekend...look I have friends! Plural!

Chivas are The. Best. Invention. Ever. For $160 we rented a chiva discoteca bus for Saturday night to celebrate some birthdays. Basically, it's a big colorful bus with open sides and a dance floor in back, speakers, a DJ, and some ropes to grab onto when the driver stops short. We cruised around Quito for 2 hours, literally on a moving discoteca. AMAZING. We drove through the main part of the new city, through the Mariscal, then through the historic district, being incredibly obnoxious, yelling at people on the street and just loving life.
The price includes a huge container of canelazo, which is a hot drink made from sugar cane liquor. It's better if you're at a bar outside at night or something, but they gave us all little plastic cups on necklaces. It was so cool to drive around the Old Town and see all the buildings lit up because it can be sketchy at night. Chivas seriously need to be introduced to the U.S., it was so much fun.



This week was full of work for my grad class - I can't wait until it's over in October. I really like working at the colegio for my internship. Monday I had to sub for a 7th grade class for an hour, and they were little monsters. All 25 of them would NOT stop talking, no matter what I did or said in any language. I finally bribed them into being somewhat quiet by saying we could play a game after reading the story instead of doing questions in the book. They got vicious when I said we were playing hangman with vocab, because they wanted to go outside and play soccer. The other teachers laughed when they found out I had to cover the class - they all managed to avoid it. The kids are very friendly, there's just a lack of discipline in the school and I think a lot of the teaching methods are boring. Even my boss, Leti, said her sons went to a different school because she wanted them to respect adults. The staff is really nice though, and the kids are great in small groups.

The best part is the administration is letting me do more or less whatever I want. The English classes are straight out of textbooks, which I think is terribly boring, so have some ideas brewing. I didn't really want to work in a colegio originally but I'm happy with my placement.

We're catching a bus to the beach at 12:30 tonight, first time to the Pacific!

¡Tome, Profe, tome!

There are a billion volcanoes in Ecuador...Cotopaxi is definitely the most photogenic.


What's new in Quito? Too much homework this week...and too many social engagements...tough life here.

Last Saturday there was a huge free concert in a park overlooking the city so a few of us went. It was a weird mix of metal and reggae, made for good people-watching. Enjoyed some fun nights out in the Mariscal, one with my IES friends and another with my pretend cousin Whitney and her friends (there are Careys EVERYWHERE.)

Sunday was BIZARRE. I went on a field trip to a little town about 2 hours south of Quito for a festival with my Andean Culture & Religion class at Católica. I was excited to see another place in Ecuador and to hang out with the kids in my class. It ended up being way more interesting than I could have imagined.

We left the university a bus around 8:30 and stopped at a gas station. Some kids collected money and went inside, I assumed to buy snacks. They came back with at least 5 bottles of liquor and a bag full of beers. Our professor had said something in class about drinking with the locals during the fiesta, and I thought she was cracking jokes or maybe we would try some indigenous drink or something. Needless to say I was a little surprised about the purchases, as well as impressed. However I was actually speechless 2 minutes later when they started mixing drinks and passing bottles around the bus. AT 9 IN THE MORNING. Professor and bus driver were both up front not caring a bit.

I couldn't stop laughing at the situation. I was riding a bus with 15 Ecuadorians, all drinking hard alcohol at 9 a.m., looking at cows on the side of the highway and passing trucks with entire families sitting in the back. On the way to a religious fiesta.

The actual festival was really interesting. There was a regular Catholic mass outside the church (terrible sound system) followed by a dance competition and lots of socializing. It was called Fiesta del Señor del Árbol, Festival of the..Tree Man? Kind of. There are a million versions of the story but the idea is that a long time ago there was a forest, and they started cutting down trees for wood, and when they got to this particular tree and tried to cut it it started bleeding and the image of Jesus/God appeared, and now it performs miracles..? Anyway, there was a tree branch and a Jesus statue on the altar of the church that people lined up to touch for a blessing.


After the mass I hung out with some of my new Ecua friends, ate some delicious corn and cheese tortillas and talked to some of the locals for our assignment. I was the only non Ecuadorian for miles, surprise surprise. There was also a makeshift bullfight that consisted of a bunch of drunk people jumping in a wooden paddock and angering bulls, then running away before they got trampled.





I was looking forward to a nap on the bus ride home because I had a big paper to do, until we started driving and the bottles started popping once more. Everyone was having a good time until one guy started acting up and got into a fight with some of my friends (as in fist fight in the back of the bus.) The next day in class our professor revoked field trip drinking privileges.



I started my internship on Monday working at a Pre K-12 school in Quito. I'm going to be helping kids who are behind level in English classes. It's very small and centered on culture and bilingual education. I was surprised how bratty the kids are in their classes - they don't listen to the teachers, pretend not to understand English, and never shut up. Kinda like Windham. I start working with them on my own next week and they will not be getting away with that.

In less exciting news I think my cell phone got stolen on the bus...or I just lost it..both of which are equally possible. Ibis was more upset than I am, I tried to explain that I lose things all the time, it doesn't phase me anymore. If it did get stolen I'm impressed because I usually keep track of my bag on the bus. Thief: 1, Brig: 0.

This weekend we're celebrating two 21st birthdays in my group. We started on Wednesday for my friend Samantha. Her parents threw a party for her and we taught her entire extended family some American drinking games. Nothing like cultural diffusion.

¡GOOOOOOOOLLLLLL!

Back by popular demand. Third World internet isn't the most reliable. Here are some pictures from Baños a few weeks ago..I realized I haven't put many up of Quito itself, I don't bring my camera out much. Part laziness and part chance it will get stolen. Use your imaginations?

That's me in the helmet, thinking about how logical it would be to jump off that bridge



I haven't been jumping off any more high objects lately, but I've been living an Ecua-lifestyle. Last weekend I went to a house party with my cousins Jose, Daniel and Daniel's girlfriend Ingrid. It was a lot of fun hanging out with locals, even though they're all obsessed with Metallica and think I have bad taste in music. Everyone was really friendly and funny. I think they're mostly all bilingual to an extent, and I got so confused switching languages I would just answer everyone in Spanish. It was hilarious to hear them dropping English swears and slang, I'm still not sure where they picked some of it up. Daniel told everyone I was from Conocoto because Connecticut has no Spanish pronunciation whatsoever, kind of like BRIGHID. I got home at 6 a.m. and slept a few hours until they picked me up to go watch the Ecuador national game versus Colombia (futbol, duh.) After the game we went to Daniel's apartment for another party for someone's birthday. I had a lot of fun again, they tried to teach me to dance salsa but I'm too white and uncoordinated.

I knew Latin America was obsessed with soccer but I guess I didn't realize the extent of nationalism. Heading to the bar Saturday, nearly everyone in the street (including this gringa) was wearing a yellow jersey, or had flags on their cars. All the bars and restaurants were packed with people yelling and going nuts over the game. It made me wish we had something like that in the U.S. It was kind of like when UConn bball dominates in the NCAA tourney, a Sox or Yankees game or the Superbowl, except literally the entire country gets into it - because it's not just any team playing, it's ECUADOR. There are other leagues that I haven't quite figured out, kind of like regional rivalries. All I know is that Jose tells me I like one team and Ibis tells me I like a different one...I'm sticking with neutrality for now. I was bummed when we lost 2-0! Luckily there was another game on Wednesday versus Bolivia and we rocked them, putting Ecuador in the World Cup (South Africa 2010). There's a home game in October at the stadium in Quito, I'm so pumped.

I can't get myself used to the whole Latino time thing. It was the same in Spain, everyone is always late because time is sort of subjective. I'm always the first one to my Ecuadorian classes even when I'm 5 or 10 minutes late. Yesterday my professor was half an hour late, so we got started at 9:30, then people started packing up to leave at 10:35 when the class is supposed to go to 11. I'm not saying I mind cutting the class in half, it's just so strange, UConn professors would never let that fly. The Universidad Catolica where I have one class reminds me more of high school than college. It's small and everyone is divided into their majors, so they basically have all their classes together starting freshman year. Each major has all the classes on a specific floor so everyone knows each other and hangs out before and after class in the halls. Also, apparently in Ecuador there aren't copyright laws so instead of textbooks you have to buy a stack of copies. The two I bought came to a total of $24.50 USD. Proof for the "textbooks are overpriced" argument.

I actually have a lot of homework to get done this weekend (taking a grad school class was a brilliant idea) so adventures will be minimal. Maybe.