Baños Hermosas

Our trip to Baños began around 1500 on Friday and we arrived at our Hostel around 2000. It took us quite awhile to get there, but the way there was fairly scenic. I noticed a lot of buildings that seems half-way constructed either along the side of the road with not much else, or within small towns. I’m not sure why there were so many what looked like abandoned constructions projects, but there were. We also passed a small town, which had about 20 small shops all selling Jeans, all in a row. It was seemingly odd. We weren’t sure how any of them survived with so much competition. As we got closer to Baños, we encountered a lot more mountainous two-lane roads, with plenty of curves. As we were driving in the dark, this line of cars behind us continued to try and pass our bus on the side of a mountain. So one of them would stick out into the opposite lane to see if a car was coming. There were two very close calls, where the cars were almost going to collide head on if they didn’t merge soon enough. So that was the ride there. When we finally arrived in Baños, we found our hostel, which was very nice. Only 9$ a night with free breakfast and our own bathrooms with hot water, towels and toilet paper. It was great.

We went out to find a late night dinner and ended up eating at a slightly pricey touristy restaurant. Compared to spending about $1.50 for an entire plate of food in Quito, it was pricey. After that we decided to check out the nightlife. We stopped at this one bar/discoteq which advertised free flaming shots and 2$ Pilsener. Pilsener is the beer of choice around Ecuador. The bottles are about the size of 2 beers and when not in a touristy place they cost about 1$. You can easily get totally smashed on 10$-so its pretty cheap here and no I didn’t have any flaming shots. I was actually not in the mood to do much having been accosted by menstrual cramps around dinnertime. I was without any analgesics, so I self-medicated with a Pilsener and it totally did the trick—muscle relaxant and analgesic effects all in one. So after fixing that problem, we danced to what the club advertised on their flyer as F***in’ Good Music…a.k.a. American music. It was pretty funny. Also, the policia came in and we were all worried they were going to be like…you’re drinking illegally (to the people in our group who aren’t 21) because as Americans we have that mindset. The funniest part is they came in there and said, “we’re looking for Cubans.” We just cracked up about it. So after an hour or so at this place, we decided to move on to a different club, where our other peeps were.

It had more Ecuatorian music, like Reggaeton and music in Spanish. So I was dancing and was asked by an Ecuatorian if I wanted to dance. So this time I said okay. It was actually a lot of fun, because he knew how to dance Reggaeton and do spins and dips. So that was great, until the music flowed one song to another which made it quite hard to leave. The music switched to more Spanish hip hop and I was finally able to plead that I wanted to go to the bathroom and then dance with my friends, after saying that, “No I don’t want anything to drink.” He was quite respectful though, so it wasn’t that bad. In the end, I had to start ignoring him and dance with my friends. He just didn’t want to give up. In fact, I saw his face when we went to the bar across the street and asked my friends to hide me. Haha. Anyway, no worries I was surrounded by friends and he didn’t try anything. But the point is these Ecuatorianos don´t like to give up.

So like I said, we went to the bar across the street after the second one. At this place, they had Karaoke. This one woman like sang 5 songs in a row. She was loving it—all in Spanish of course.  Then some of my friends picked songs to sing, mostly all American ones. I had originally wanted to return to sleep about an hour earlier, but I had to wait for other people to come back with me, so we got in around 130—not too bad.

Autobús Tour!!

On Friday, 6/10/11 most of us decided to skip clinic and go on a free tour offered by the language school. The bus we were going in sat about 17 people and we fit 19—a bit squished and of course, no seatbelts. The first stop was a beautiful vista of the city of Quito. To get there we were going up all kinds of steep roads and switchbacks. Most of the cars here are stick shift because an automatic would die trying to handle the hills of Quito.  I can only imagine trying to learn how to drive here. On the way there we saw many of the local people in the traditional indigenous garb. In general, they are all around Quito as well. After we stopped for photos, the second stop was El Panesillo, the Virgin Hill. On top of the hill is a giant statue of Mary—the only one in the world, which depicts Mary with wings. The people of Quito are quite proud of it, because it is distinct. We went up inside of the statue, which is Mary standing on top of the world, crushing a snake creature beneath her feet. She has her 12 star crown and wings, of course. It was pretty cool to go up inside of it and then there is a balcony where you can walk around the world. It’s a bit hard to describe—pictures will show it better. I also incidentally paid to use the bathroom for the first time in  my life. The bathrooms there were run by a little lady. I went in to use one—they were quite nice for being public. She handed us a napkin—an extra luxury in a public bathroom. Most of them don’t have toilet paper. So when we were done she expected a donation. All I had was a dollar and the only change she had was 5 dimes! So I ended up paying 50 centavos to use the bathroom. In comparison, she definitely was not happy about my friends 10 centavo donations.

So another cool thing about Ecuador is you get to barter and haggle over goods, taxi prices, and what not. At El Panesillo, there were lots of booths set up with tourist attractions and souvenirs to buy. So I got to experience some of my first bartering. I was able to get a knitted hat for 2.50 and a medium size purse for 4$. It was awesome. You just can’t do that in the states at all. It’s something I’m going to miss.

After the Virgin Hill, we made our way to one more lookout area on the opposite side of Quito. It was in a nice park area, but we were all about ready for lunch and to get ready for traveling to Baños for the weekend. The way back definitely included lots of crazy driving. This group of school-aged kids got really excited when our bus passed theirs. They were all waving and excited to see us.

Another note, Ecuatorians especially like to stare at white blonde girls. I don’t think I’ve ever turned so many heads in my entire life. They also like to make a point of staring. One man stared at me and continued to look backwards even after I had passed him on the street. Ha and I only looked back to see if he was still staring, which he was.

As promised…

I apologize for the typos in my last post. Spanish keyboards are a bit different and I was trying to type out that post quickly to save money ;)

Alright so Plaza Foch is like the center of the party district. Lots of gringos hang out there and there are tons of guys trying to recruit you into their clubs promising such and such this and free entry that or open bar till blah blah. So we decided to go to this bar that promised free entry for girls and certain free drinks till 11 and 5$ cover for guys. So that was cool and we were basically a group of 25 people filling up their whole club—it was pretty empty when we got there. They had discoteq music, flashing lights, and some pretty intense fog machines. After awhile other Ecuatorians started filtering in. We were using our salsa lessons and dancing and this Ecuatorian guy asked Nicole to dance. And she said she wanted to practice her salsa so she was cool with it for awhile. Although, he was like offering her drinks (which don’t worry she didn’t drink). Anyway, long story short I saved her by telling him we were going to the bathroom. This other guy tried asking me to dance and I was like No thank you….leaving now. One our teachers/friends from the Spanish school taught me how to dance Reggaeton, which was a lot of fun. So we finally had enough of the club and it was around 2330, when we decided to leave. Only the guys from the club seemed to be racking up the price to more than it was originally agreed upon. So there was a little bit of a problem getting out of the club, but all in all it was a good night. It was free for me, which was cool, but some people were feeling a bit chuchaqui the next morning J

Loco Dìa

This should be a good post. I hope you all enjoy it. So today was my first clinical day. I traveled with Maya another student to a clinic in the North of Quito up in the hills in los barrios pobrezas. There is hospital-clinic there, Hopsital Volzades. Many of the people come there from the surrounding area. But its really quite small. The first day I did some nurse stuff-took some vital signs and measurements for the patients before they were seen my the doctor. I also observed several visits with the doctor. One was a couple kids with varicella (chickenpox) and then the more exciting\sad case was necrotizing facitis. This 8 yr old had been hiding his infection from his mama. I suppose he was afriaid of going to the doctor. It was a super bad infection though. It looked like a second degree burn and was quite large. Close to the stage of IV antibiotics--whihc they would go straight to in the states. They dressed his wound with a dressing that had antibiotic in it, prescribed him antibiotics and told him to come back tomorrow. Unfortunately that was yesterday and  we did not see him today. I truly hope his mama gets him those antibiotics or he could lose his leg. Anyway, that was the most of my clinical experience. We then returned by taxi. Drivers are crazy here and I´m pretty sure there arent really speed limits here.
After that we had spanish class and we went to a place for some salsa lessons. It was a serious workout, but lots of fun. We got a bit lost following Alejo he said he knew where he was going but we ended up seeing some rich neighborhoods and taking a 30 minute detour.
In the evening we went out to the Plaza Foch where all the bars and discoteqs are. We found a place to dance and drink. It was an all around good time. I must close this post now, because <i don´t want to pay for more internet but I will tell you all more later!

Energìa

I surprisingly had more energy today than I did yesterday! I think my body is better adapted to the altitude than it was a few days ago. Today was another day of classes for 7 hours. We watched this movie from Peru and played Spanish scattegories—those were the highlights. In the evening we had a presentation on the healthcare system of Ecuador. They passed a law several years back that allowed for free maternal health care and free health care for children under 5. They have a pretty high number of teen mothers, and a high maternal mortality rate. A lot of the mothers don’t receive good healthcare during their pregnancy and often if they have a long walk to a clinic or hospital they will stay at home for their labor and birth. So whenever there is a postpartum hemorrhage they usually die. Anyway, that’s just a bit about the healthcare.

Tomorrow is the first day of my clinical rotations. I will be following a doctor who travels around to different clinics, so it will be a good opportunity to practice my medical and conversational Spanish. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Tonight after dinner I taught Kristen how to play Bezique and she definitely enjoyed it. Oh and this is for you Michael—in our first practice round we played an open hand and I got a double bezique. It was totally awesome. Anyway, Kristen liked the game a lot. I’m sure we’ll play again at some point.

Cultural note of the day—Ecuador include tax in all their prices and its muy excelente. I wish they did that in the U.S.

La inspiracíon existe, pero tiene que encontrarte trabanjando.

The day was non-stop. Breakfast was fruit, tea/coffee, and a cheese toast sandwich (I thought of you and your cheese sandwiches Dad). Kristen and I walked over to La Y, which is where the Spanish school is, more or less home base for most things occurring with the program. We went over the usual introductions, matters of rules and business. Then we took a lunch break and went to a restaurant, where food in general is cheaper than in the US, only you were lucky if they had what was on the menu. There was definitely some serious confusion with our orders, a couple of us had to change our orders and almost everyone was finished eating by the time my food came. And then later I found out, that it wasn’t even all my food-the lunch special was like a full course meal. Sakagawea (sp?) coins are very popular here and I also discovered that even though Ecuador uses the U.S. dollar they also have Ecuadorian quarters and nickels which I have received for change thus far—but its intermixed with U.S. nickels. Apparently you don’t have to tip your waiter in Ecuador—which needless to say I’m fond of. In the afternoon, they took us for a tour and we took the public transpo-the trole bus- to the south of the city and visited the various clinical sites we will be going to throughout the month. On the way it hailed and rained.

So being blonde and white and female in Ecuador feels like I am a moving target for ladrones and I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I was being stared at as much as I did today. Haha, I almost felt like I wanted to cover my hair—like it was a light I should turn off because it was attracting attention. I suppose that’s a bit extreme, either way, I feel as though I can’t quite ever blend into a crowd here.

After all the tours, I went to check the Mass times, at the Catholic Church close to my house. When I arrived there was a Mass happening—so I got there for about half of the Mass. It was definitely a different experience hearing it all in Spanish. And at communion, there are many people who don’t receive every Sunday. So it is much more if you want to receive you get in the line—but many people also do not.

In the evening, after dinner, about 6-8 of us went to a Mall area to a sports bar. People wanted to watch some basketball game and drink. Much to the surprise of many, they don’t serve alcohol on Sunday in Ecuador—but the bananarama and limonada was delicious.

El Primero Día

All I can say is wow. I am finally in Ecuador and it’s fantastico. Everything went without a problem. No flight cancellations, no delays, and best of all no lost baggage. I can’t say how happy I was to see my suitcase whole and intact. I even met a couple other CFHI participants on the same flight from Miami to Quito. The flight to Quito was like first class without the extra space. They gave everyone a pillow, a blanket, and headphones to use for the flight. Not to mention a dinner complete with alcoholic options-- for free. I think LAN has probably done by far the best job in air service. Kudos to them. I look forward to my return flight. Also, the flight attendants were very attentive to people who spoke English and those who spoke Spanish. They would just switch back and forth. Needless to say, I looked like I didn’t know Spanish so they spoke to me in English, but I was happy to find that I understood the majority of what they said when they spoke in Spanish. I have also been able to hold my own with conversing for the most part. I realized that I think I will totally be able to manage the language barrier!!!!! YAY! In fact, I’m tempted to blog in Spanish—because once I speaking in Spanish I keep thinking about how to say things. So, there may be a few posts con Espanol o una mezcla de espanol y ingles. 

I am very tired by now having woken up at 2am, traveled to O’Hare via car, to Miami to Quito, arriving at 1715, gone through customs and finally making it to my host mom’s house. My host mom is adorable, kind and understanding. She lives alone, except for when she has students stay with her for CFHI programs. For dinner she cooked us –what she called pizza. And it was more or less the idea of pizza—but not what you think of when Americans say—I ate pizza. The crust was different, more soft and without the edge. It was in a casserole pie dish. In fact, I think casserole pizza is a good name for it. It was good. We talked about lots of different things mostly all in Spanish, although she does know some English which helps fill the gaps when I don’t understand.

I asked my host mom (Francia is her name) if there was a Catholic Church close by and she was telling me about it. She also asked the other student who is staying here, Kristen, if she goes to a church. She said that she does, but not a Catholic one. Anyway, I thought it was interesting and funny that Francia called the protestant church the one for gringos and Americans—non-Ecuadorians essentially. (I thought you would get a kick out of that dad).

Kristen and I talked for awhile about things and I’m very excited to have her as mi compañero to explore Ecuador with. She is a first-year med student and we’ve been getting along well thus far.

My room is nice, spacious, and I have it all to myself. OH and I have GOOD NEWS—I found my camera cord. So God willing my camera will continue to function and I will be able to post photos. The mountains here are so beautiful. I dunno what it is about mountains, but they just make me want to travel to them when I see them in the distance.

So I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported me and made it possible for me to be in Ecuador! I hope to keep you all posted on my adventures. All I can say is I feel like everyday is going to be awesome. Pray that I don’t get sick! (So far, so good.)