An Average Day

So yall like the pictures above? If you do, head to My Pictures link on the right. It´s under Useful Links. Two of those were taken not five minutes from where I live and work. Two were taken in Baños, Ecuador. The city, not the bathroom.

So I don´t have much to talk about, hence the reason I haven´t blogged this week. But then I realized the reason for that is that I´m sort of getting accustomed to living down here. My life now is routine, which is weird, but by no means bad. So I figured I´d just tell yall about my normal day, followed of course by blog points. I´ve been teaching now for three weeks and will continue for two more weeks before I come home to work and celebrate the holidays with everyone!

Anyway, my normal day is waking up in the morning and taking breakfast with the Ecuatorian family I´m living with. It´s pretty great, normally some fresh bread, coffee, fruit, juice, and some form of egg. Nothing excessive, but a great way to start the day. Then I help with religion classes from 8-11:00. In those classes, I´m a teacher´s aid. From 11:00-12:00 I have my own class, which is soooooooooo much better. I love doing what I wish and seeing these kids´ knowledge grow. From 12 to 1:30 I have a break where I either study and eat out or return to the house and eat again with my family. Then I tutor everday from 1:30 to 4:00. This is easily my favorite part of the day. I work with four different students all of which need different instruction. This is where I feel like I´m contributing. I try to teach practical stuff as well as life lessons. I will only be with these kids for five weeks, so I figure life lessons will probably go a longer way than sums and subtractions. I try to teach them why it´s important to learn how to read, why it´s important to know how to add, and then we read books and do sums. Then from 4-7 I do my own studying, Spanish and Pediatrics, head back to the house and have a good meal. I get to read for an hour or two before I hit the sack. I hope that blog wasn´t dry, but I figured I´d share what I´m doing. I know my mom will enjoy it at least.

Blog Points:
1. So buses are terribly common here! I mean they are everywhere, but unlike buses in the states, they don´t have bathrooms. So according to what I saw the other day, it´s totally cool to open the window and let your four year old pee in the wind when they need to go. Don´t worry about the open windows down bus!!!

2. The other day I heard this funky song, it was like a clubbing song with a good rythym. Well sometimes in songs like these you may expect to hear the electronic voice in the background say something to the effect of, oh yeah, or oh baby, or yeah yeah yeah, or go. You know what I´m talking about. Well this song had GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL mixed in it a hundred times. Ruined the song.

3. Saw a guy walking down a crowded sidewalk the other day. Was a bit surprised that he was leading five geese in front of him! Was more surprised that no one else on the sidewalk found this odd!

4. Loved this kid...Remember LA Lights? If you never had them, you probably dreamed of winning them on Double Dare or Finders Keepers. Well for those that don´t know them, everytime a kid steps the heel lights up. Pretty cool. Well Latin America took this to an entirely new level. This kid was wearing LA Squeaks! No joke, everytime he took a step, the shoes had a speaker that let out this loud squeak! Poor parents...

5. I passed by this store that was incredibly crowded. Whenever there´s a crowd I generally look to see what odd thing is going on. I wasn´t dissappointed this time either. Turns out it was a clothes store, and they were having a big sale. What kind of sale you might ask? A before Christmas sale? A soon to be after Thankgiving sale? No no, it was an ¨Invierno Venta¨ A Winter Sale!!! Give me a break! You´re on the Equator! What the hell? :)

One last thing. I´m putting out feelers for anyone who is willing to teach me how to ride a motorcycle over Christmas break. If you know how and have a bike, please be in touch.

Latinas, Latinas, Latinas!

So, I would be lying if I said I hadn’t flirted, danced, and kissed Latinas while I’ve been down here. For those that know me, yall probably think that every time I’ve talked to a Latina I’ve probably flirted with her. That may or may not be true, but that aside, I had my first “date” this past Sunday, and a few funny things happened, enough funny things to blog about it at least.

First she tells me that we should go to “el jardin”. I’m like, sure, sounds good to me. It sounds good to me because el jardin translates to “the garden”. I have no idea what the el jardin is, but it’s gotta be a bit romantic right? After all it’s called the garden. So I catch a bus there, knowing what street it’s on. I was actually a bit surprised because on the front of the bus it also said “el jardin.” So I ask someone on the bus if they know where “el jardin” is located, and if they could tell me when we arrive there so I could hop off the bus. He agrees, and five minutes later points to the garden. I look out the window and see a supermall as big as any in Birmingham!!!

So I meet her at the entrance, and we stroll all through the garden (mall) just like we were in eighth grade. I wish I had told the bus driver, “Thanks mom, could you pick me up in three hours a couple hundred yards down the street?” Sure enough we pass by a Sunglasses Hut and an Abercrombie and Fitch. If only I had fully endorsed this and went and tried on sunglasses. Fortunately we saw a Baskin Robbins, which was awesome since they are fading out rapidly in America. I got a mint chocolate chip cone just like when I was eight years old. It was delicious. What was weird about the Baskin Robbins? She paid without me knowing.

So now we’ve trolled through a mall, and she’s paid for our ice cream.

I decide that we should go to the park across the street. She agrees quickly, so I imagine she doesn’t want to troll the mall either. We get there and there is this magician doing a show for a bunch of kids and parents. There’s probably a hundred people all laughing when we approach. As soon as I show up the magician stops his show and gets a free joke out of me. He says, “Hablas Spanish?” That’s the equivalent of saying, “Do you speak Espanol?” I say of course and so then in Spanish in front of everyone he asks me where I’m from. I say the United States, and he then grabs his hat walks over to me and then says, well then I’m charging you three dollars for admission. Everyone laughed including me. It was in good humor. (I didn’t pay.)

So now I’ve trolled the mall, had a girl pay for my ice cream, and had over a hundred people laugh at me.

After we watch for several minutes, she decides that we should go sit down in the shade under a tree. Sounds good to me, I mean hell some people pay six dollars an hour for conversational Spanish. I’ll get get a good couple hours of conversational Spanish for free, and she’ll throw in free Baskin Robbins. Anyway, we sit down for about ten seconds when a soccer ball drills her in the side. I’m talking Valderrama from the nineties might not have been able to kick a ball this hard. I realize quickly that no one is sitting in this shade because it is directly behind the make shift goal that these six guys had setup to play soccer.

So now I have trolled through a mall, had a girl pay for my ice cream, been laughed at by 100+ people, and now have a date on the verge of tears from pain.

Don’t get me wrong, she must have been thinking “Now I’ve had to walk through a mall with this guy, buy his ice cream, had a hundred people laugh at us, and now I get hit by a soccer ball!”

Well she must not have been too discouraged by everything because she wants to go snuggle up under a different tree. I obviously don’t discourage the idea, but do find it odd because within probably a thirty-meter radius, there are probably ten or twelve couples snuggling under ten or twelve different trees. This park was huge. On one sign I saw a water area, a bmx bike area, a basketball area, a soccer area, but funny that I didn’t notice the “public display of affection” area. I guess it doesn’t translate.

Anyway, after a couple of hours she has to go back to where she’s from. (She’s catching a bus to Guayquil later that afternoon.) So we wait for her bus to take her to her other bus. When we see it in the distance she looks me in the eyes and says, “Estas bien conmigo?” Literally translates to “Are you fine with me?” I mean in the land of ambiguous questions, this has to be the Reina!!! You know? I mean what the hell? She’s about to hop on her bus, I don’t have time for her to explain what that means, so I say Si. What else can I say? I mean I’m caught between an espada (sword) and a pared (wall). If you think about it, this question could mean anything.

So in the end, I trolled a mall, had a girl buy me my ice cream, got laughed at by 100+ people, and could possibly be “dating” this girl that I’ll probably only see one more time in my life without knowing it.

With all that said, it was a great time, and she’s a good girl.

A couple of things for those still reading. I’m not going to add blog points. I have a few saved up, but I’ll just add them next time. I want to start writing more so you’ll have them in a few days.

Lastly, I need to shout out to a couple of blogs. First, my friend Rob McDonald’s blog. I’m not sure how I didn’t post the link to his blog on my website yet. He was a big inspiration why I’m blogging. Check out his sight, it’s on the right side. Second, to Jason Wilson. His blog is much more well written than mine, and I’m sure he’s going to have a heyday after he reads this. Lastly, my cousin Merrill is blogging. Check it out at merrillstewart.blogspot.com. He lives with me in Ecuador obviously. (How typical, the only two Alabamians in Ecuador, and they are cousins living together, right?)

Oh I’ve also posted more pics. So go to the link above and to the right to see them. They are actually beautiful!!!

El Centro de Muchacho Trabajador

Wow! It’s been a while. Okay, so as has been my life for the past two months, things continue to change. I finished my training at the Red Cross, and at the end they give us all a test that we have to make an 80% on. By “all” I mean about 22 Ecuadorians and 1 gringo (me). I look at the test, thinking and hoping it would be multiple choice, and see nothing but questions and lines. Lots of lines. Turns out every question had to be answered with three to four sentences, and there were like twenty questions!!! So needless to say, I was the ADHD kid who stayed much later finishing the exam than everyone else. I passed, and then went to get my schedule for volunteering, and it turns out I could only work like 5 to 10 hours a week at the Red Cross. Before I did the training they told me I could work a full schedule there after training. I’m not sure why all that happened but it did, and so I changed jobs.

So since last Monday morning, I’ve been a schoolteacher/tutor. Turns out that a place close to my house needs volunteers for teaching street kids (kids that have to work to bring in money for their family generally selling candy or polishing shoes). I told them I’d be in Quito for five more weeks, and they said that would be great. Everything is in Spanish and so difficult! Not because of the Spanish, but because teaching has to be the hardest job on the planet. Really, we should all call our old teachers and thank them. Anyway, I have a class in the mornings on Tuesday/Thursday/Friday, I help with classes in the mornings on Monday/Wednesday, but my favorite part is the tutoring every afternoon. I work with a teacher for a class of about six. Turns out these six are the “special” class. Special meaning they’ve never had education. They range from 9 to 12 years in age. Let me give you an example of what I taught yesterday. This one child Derio, age 12, can add very well. I was quite impressed, seeing how I’m teaching the rest to add. So I try to teach him to add bigger numbers like 167 + 573. I find out he can add them after I teach him to carry tens and all, but he can’t name them. So then I tell him to write the numbers from 0 to 100 in order and he can’t do it. This kid has learned to add because he has been on the street selling candy, but no one taught him how to count. It was shocking. I mean how foreign must addition be if you don’t know that the numbers go in order. Talk about doing blindly what you’re told. Anyway, it’s been great. I’m mainly teaching reading, writing, addition and subtraction. I have to throw this plug in, my hat is off to my sister who teaches special education and somehow loves it. I mean I enjoy what I’m doing, but I know there is no way I would have the patience to do this full time. Not a chance. I always realized how smart teachers had to be, in the sense of being able to see where all their students were, and somehow getting them all to the same level. But I never realized until now how enthusiastic and patient teachers have to be. God Bless them.

Blog Points:

1. I went to a crazy Latino rock concert the other night. There were mosh pits with people swinging, but the best part was the drummer, who was the same drummer from the Tenacious D movie but without horns. He was bald but with a long mullet, sported a Motorhead shirt for five minutes until he took it off, sweet MegaDeath leather pants, and ran and jumped off the stage swinging at his fans during one of the moshes. No joke.
2. So my friend Naomi broke her arm. She was in a village at the time, and there were no doctors, so thankfully this guy saw her and offered to set her arm until she went to the hospital. In retrospect, the doctor said it was a good job. So two questions…what did he use to set the arm? And how much did he charge? Popsicle sticks and $3.
3. The trolley that I use on a daily basis, plays Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer on a daily basis.