UBECI? Why, yes I am!

Warm greetings to everyone!

I am alive and well, and have really started to enjoy my time in Ecuador to the fullest! I have a bit of a cough, but the fresh air in Ilumán seems to be doing it good. I´ve been getting plenty of exercise, am making new friends, am connecting with old ones, and am going out and having fun, and am about to begin an exciting volunteer placement.

Si señor, it feels like lot has happened since my last post! I began salsa lessons over a week ago. I had tried two different salsa schools (in addition to the gym I had one lesson at) before deciding on the Ritmo Tropical Salsa School. I found it really friendly, plus they didn´t ask me to pay in advance for my lesson, unlike the other school I checked out. I´m loving my lessons! Usually I have an instructor named Marco, but I´ve also had 2 lessons with Arcaelí, the school´s director. She helped me learn how to dance the woman´s moves in salsa more correctly. Now I´m able to move my hips more – although I still have trouble remembering to move my hips if I´m doing a complicated step. The lessons are quite tiring – but so much fun!!!!

I had hoped to go to Seseribó, a really popular salsa club, on Friday night. There was a free concert there, and I figured it would be amazing to get to hear live music AND do some dancing. But the Fiesta de la Virgen del Carmen is this weekend and began on Friday, so I headed to Ilumán instead of staying in Quito for the concert. More about that in a bit.

Two Wednesdays ago, I went to the South American Explorers Pub Quiz. It was great fun. I met a number of other ex-pats (some from the U.S., one from Estonia, one from France, one from Barrie (yay Ontario!) and two Ecuadorians, and I got to show off my considerable knowledge of random facts about things like books, geography, and films. My team won 3rd place (out of 6 or 7) and we received a pitcher of Pilsner as a prize. I decided to have some since we had won it (and a teammate told me they couldn´t have won without me, hee hee) and I ended up a little giddy and silly later on in the evening.

Also on that Wednesday, I received an email from the person I had planned this trip in order to visit!!!! He explained that there had been signficant misunderstandings on both our parts, and filled me in on what had happened. The summary is that he had been upset my by apparent accusation. Anyway, he let me know that he was sorry for the misunderstandings and that he very much did care about me

Also, his email address hadn´t been working, so he was unable to contact me until that day. A day later, I called him, let him know I was in Quito, and we met up that afternoon. It was really good to be in touch again, and even more so to  be able to see him in person! His schedule is very, very full, but we´re going to hang out again on Monday. I am being cautious, but I am also really, really glad we are friends again. I truly hate being estranged from people I care about.

This past Wednesday, I met with the directors of UBECI (Unión de Beneficios de Educación y Colaboración Internacional), the organization that works with street children and working children. It was quite the production to get there, because first I needed to go to the bank, but found I had come to the wrong bank, and then had to walk quite a ways to another bank, which ended up being so full that after waiting a while for my number to come up on the digital screen in the waiting area, I just exited the bank and used the ATM outside. That meant that I had to return to the bank the next day in order to exchange the $20s that the ATM had given me for smaller bills that are actually accepted at most stores and by most street vendors here.  Next, I walked to the bus stop that I had been told to go to, only to learn it was the wrong place. So I took a break from my quest and ate a healthy, cheap lunch (including spinach!!!!!!!! and broccoli!!!!!!! And BROWN rice!!!!!!!!) at an Indigenous restaurant that a new friend had shown me the day before.

After that, I finally hopped on the right bus (well, actually a trole bus – a  bus with a streetcar-like antenna that raises to connect to an overhead power source and lowers when the power source wires are not overhead). I rode right through the Centro Historico (Old or Colonial Quito) and all the way to el Recreo, a large shopping complex in South Quito. (I had passed by el Recreo once before, during an ill-fated, VERY long bus trip that I mistakenly thought would involve the bus turning around and returning me to where I had come from and close to where I needed to go…)  UBECI´s office is in a part of Quito that very few tourists visit, and which has its fair share of poor neighbourhoods. I meet with Byron and Monica, who are in charge of the organization, and learned more about it. I am very impressed by UBECI. On Monday I will receive my orientation, and on Tuesday, I´ll start volunteering. I plan to volunteer every weekday morning. I feel like I should be volunteering full days, but I still have a lot of things I want to do before returning to Canada on August 10, like visiting a lot more of Old Quito´s churches, monuments, and museums, as well as teaching a lot more English to Bruno and Tadeo. I really haven´t taught them anything yet, except for random words that I tell them the English for, and occasional pleasantries and queries that I issue in English.

Back to UBECI: I will be working in the markets in Quito, gathering children to come and participate in a program I will be helping to implement, which will involve songs, games, academic and practical lessons (e.g. teaching them about things like math but also about hygiene), and I´m not sure what all, really! A lot of the children who work in the marketplaces helping their parents sell fruits and vegetables or candy haven´t had the opportunity to go to school. Even though it is officially mandatory in Ecuador, in reality many children don´t receive an education because of the need for them to contribute to their family´s livelihood. In other words, the children don´t have time to go to school because they are spending 10 hours per day selling goods in the market.

I´m currently writing this from an internet cafe in Otavalo. I went to Ilumán on Thursday night (which involved me taking one wrong bus and not getting off at the right spot on another). The Fiestas de la Virgen del Carmen are taking place. Yesterday there were processions of people that made their way to the central park of Ilumán, singing hymns (I think) and led by someone bearing a shrine to the VIrgen del Carmen. I didn´t go down to the park because I was helping Esthela, whose family I´m staying with this weekend, to make bracelets which she is selling at the Otavalo market today. And then it began to rain. I did go with Esthela and her family (husband Alejandro and children Yarina, Angie, and Moroni) to the park at night. We watched some indigenous dancing, and I ate some local snacks, including some fried dough treats, corn-on-the-cob and a shish-kebab consisting of whole baby potatoes, a hot-dog-like meat, grilled banana, and some tasty BBQ beef.

Afterward, I went to visit my former host family, and had tea at their house while they and a bunch of their relatives chatted and had supper. They were very amused by my recounting of how I had, a while ago, accidentally referred to my eyewear as contact LENTILS. I didn´t regale them with the tale of how I had accidentally told my Quito host family that in Canada, instead of going to small local bakeries, it is generally more common to buy bread at the supermarket, and that there are lots of ¨PRESERVATIVOS¨ in the bread, I expect. Unfortunately the word doesn´t mean ¨preservatives¨ as I had thought…

Tonight there is supposed to be more partying. It has been raining on and off all day, and I really hope the weather is better ths evening. I really want to do some traditional dancing!

Oh, and as I was helping at the market today, I met a fellow Canadian, who is in Ecuador doing a veterinarian internship. She´s also from Toronto. But the uncanny thing is that we both live on the same street in Quito!!!!! She´s just a handful of doors up from Maria Elena´s house. Her American housemate had been telling me about how it´s a really steep walk uphill to her house in Quito, and I said that it was the same with my street, La Gasca. Turned out that was her street, and that she lives at the same intersection, too! Out of all of Quito, we live steps away from each other! I love coincidences like this!

Well, I´d better go and find Esthela and Alejandro before they pack up and head back to Ilumán without me!

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