Arrival in Ecuador

Hello Everyone,

This message is coming to you straight from Ecuador, at zero latitude and high altitutde!

For those of you who I haven’t contacted yet, yes! I have arrived safely in Ecuador. Our trip by plane went off without only a few minor disturbances and nothing that was really troublesome at all. I think I need mention only a few things. First of all when I arrived at the airport in Toronto I found out that one of my bags was 10 lbs. overweight, even though I’d taken out quite a few things the night before. Fortunately for me Jennifer showed up right after I did and because she was so smart and had packed lightly was able to take a few of my items.(Next time I’ll know not to bring so many books!) When being scanned by American security leaving Toronto they actually asked us to take off our shoes!(Pardon the smell…) Our flight to Miami went fine but we had a little trouble leaving. Some passengers who had had their luggage loaded on the plane did not make it to our flight. As a result all the luggage had to be unloaded and for security reasons the missing people’s luggage was removed. I also had fun living through American Airlines new "no vegetarian meals" policy(all terrorists are vegetarians you know). Besides that everything else went fine and we all arrived safely in Quito.

At the airport our group coordinator Maria met us and loaded us all onto a huge bus that took us to our small hotel. Oddly enough the drive to the hotel, which was at night, reminded me very much of arriving in Colombo. I guess it was the all the small shops, painted advertisements, and the feeling of being in a new place. The bus driver had the radio tuned to a station that did a medley of Micheal Jackson songs(influence of American culture?) Once in the hotel everyone collapsed from exhaustion.

Before I begin telling you about this awesome adventure that I’m about to undertake, I think it would be a good idea to lay out some of the basics of this program so that everyone can understand what is going on. My exchange to Ecuador is part of the program Trent in Ecuador(TIE) which is an 8 month work and study program. For the first four months I will be in a small town 30-45 minutes outside of Quito known as Sangolqui. I will be staying in a host family and all taking classes in a small school building that Trent has set up specifically for this program. Our professors all have their PhDs from universities in North America and Europe and are very knowledgeable in their field. I will be taking courses in community development, Andean culture, economy, and history, Spanish, as well as having a seminar on Ecuadorian politics. All of this has been approved by Waterloo(after having meetings with about half the administration) so I will be getting credits for what I do. In the second half of the program we do a work placement which could happen anywhere in Ecuador. As of right now I don’t know for sure what I’ll be doing on where I’ll be working although after my first brainstorming session with Maria it seems that there is a lot to be done in ecological restoration and ecotourism.

The next morning we were treated to a breakfast by the hotel. Cereals of all kinds, even more fruits, eggs as you wanted them, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, it was truly a meal to be remembered. I savored every bit of it knowing that this might be the last time I would get a meal like this for a while. Afterwards we sat down with Maria and Carmen who is one of our professors but because of the large number of people this year (27 participants) has also taken on some of the coordinator duties. Maria and Carmen shared a lot their experiences from previous programs and basically laid down all the ground rules and expectations for us. I have to say that perhaps it was bit too much for our first day in Ecuador but it was good to get that all out on the table. In a way it was like everything they told us in Canada World Youth so I wasn’t too shocked or overly concerned. With that out of the way we can now focus on the enjoying the exchange.

The highlight of the first night was the amazing sing along that took place on the terrace of our hotel. Tim and Jean-Charles both brought copies of the book "Rise Up Singing" which has just about every folk/pop song that you would every want to sing, organized by category(ex: Sea and Sailors, Love, Hard Times and Troubles) and with an artist and song title index. We spent a good two or three hours singing everything from the Beatles, to Stan Rogers, to Arlo Guthrie, to Bob Marley. It was fabulous. Jean Charles brought along his banjo which added a lot to the atmosphere.

As a side note Jean Charles and I have unintentionally pulled several hilarious puns in the last few days. We’ve been sharing the same room so one of us always has the key or doesn’t and has to get it from the other. The first pun occurred because some of the French speaking people in our group where talking and when they were done I came up to Jean-Charles and said "key." Having just been speaking French he thought I said "qui" as in "who." At the sing-along that night another pun occurred. Jean-Charles was leaving for bed and so came up to me with his banjo and said "key." Thinking that he wanted to follow along in the song we were playing I responded "it’s in G." My apologies to everyone. (For those of you who can’t stand bad puns I won’t tell you about my pun at the airport where upon reweighing my bags because they were too heavy the last time and having reduced my weight I said to the attendant, "I’ve changed my ways(weighs).")

Sunday morning we were allowed to relax and do our own thing. After another quick orientation meeting we jumped on our bus again and did a tour of old Quito. We saw churches, historical buildings, street performers, and even someone getting robbed right in front of us! I guess there is safety in numbers. Afterwards we went up Itchimbia which is one of the mountains surrounding Quito. From there we were given an amazing view of the city to go along with the lunch we had bought. The strangest thing was seeing how Quito is actually made up of blocks of houses that are all the same colour. The whole city was dotted with splotches of green, red,blue, yellow, orange, and more. Hopefully I will have some pictures coming for you soon.
Sunday night I had what I think was a small case of altitude sickness. Either that or their was something in the food that we had at a Mongolian Grill (I had no idea Genghis Khan pursued his conquests so far) in Gringolandia (a very touristy and sometimes overpriced area in Quito, we only went because we had no food and all the other places were closed on Sunday night). After we got back from the restaurant I got a headache that just knocked me out completely for the rest of the night. I slept it off though and felt good enough the next morning to write this. Today we are getting some of our official documentation done and then are going to visit some of the Universities of Quito.

Goodbye until next time, stay tuned!