Tomorrow, half of the TEFL group is going to the coast for our very first tech trip. The bus ride is around 13 hours from here to there. Pray that I dont get horrendous diarrhea and am passed out for most of it. My host mom says that it is so hot there that she never wants to eat anything, only to drink water. And she told me to beware of the moscas, or mosquitoes, that live there. I have enough problems not scratching my mosquito bites here in the Sierra. I´m tempted to sleep with my bottle of insect repellent and to wear long clothes for the whole week to avoid them. They truly are the worst thing about the country, and they love my gringa blood.
This week has been quite duro, or long. We gave our first talk, called a charla, to a group of sixth graders this week about gender roles in the media. We cut out pictures of Justin Biebs and Katy Perry and asked them what they thought of them, and then had them cut out pictures in magazines of people who were sexy, macho, successful, and modest. Then, they got up in front of their classmates and talked about what all of these concepts meant. I was astounded that these prepubescent, sixth grade boys picked photos of scantily clad girls and said that ¨sexy meant wearing only a little clothing,¨ but that ¨modesty meant dressing nicely and having people respect you.¨ Then they started asking each other questions and picking apart each concept. They high fived us on the way out and cheered as we left. It was a promising first charla.
The sessions this last week felt like they dragged on, and on, and on. My Spanish does not seem to be getting better, and I apparently insert ¨like¨ into my sentences. In Spain, and after Spain, I knew I could speak Spanish. I knew it because I dreamed in Spanish. I knew it because I would talk to Cristobal for hours in Spanish on the phone, since he did not speak English. It feels like all of the Spanish has oozed out of my brain, and I am now an incoherent valley girl who is trying to make herself understood. I tried to tell my host dad about the Ecuador vs. Mexico game last night, but he thought I said ¨medico¨ and was talking about my host mom´s headache. I just wish I could be completely immersed in Spanish instead of being surrounded by gringas all day and night. That is the only way it will get better. We are reading this pesado, pesado book, ¨The country of little Manuel¨, that makes me sleepy whenever I open it. I don´t care about Manuelito´s adventures, I can´t understand them since half of the words in the book are not in my Spanish dictionary. Thankfully, my host mom and brother are awesome. My host mom always asks me about my day, my family, my boyfriend. She is my one tie to authentically speaking the language. Without her, most of my words would be in English.
I have gotten to disfrutarme, or enjoy myself, too. We went to a friendly match of Ecuador versus Mexico yesterday. It started raining, so everyone bought pastel colored ponchos. The whole crowd looked like a giant box of Easter eggs. Giant, screaming, whistling Easter eggs. It was my first experience eating fried pork, which probably gave me a few parasites, but was extremely delicious. When Mexico got a goal, instead of booing the Ecuadorian goalie, the crowd started shouting ¨Fuera Ruega, Fuera Ruega¨! Ruega is the Ecuadorian coach, and is apparently a Colombian, so the Ecuadorians don´t like him much. I love how whenever a team in Latin America plays badly, it is the coach, not the players, who get blamed and then sacked. I wish that Redskins fans could somehow get rid of Dan Snyder using a similar tactic.
My new favorite Ecuadorian word is ¨Chuta!¨ which means ¨shoot!¨ You can apply it to so many things. When my exuberant host dog Oso follows me on the bus, I can yell ¨Chuta Oso!¨ and shoo him off. When I spill something on my clothes as I´m about to head outside, I can yell CHUUTA and immediately feel better. It is the PG version of ¨shit¨, and works for any distressing situation. Thank you, chuta, for easing my transition into Ecuador.
Until next week, if the moscas haven´t eaten me alive.
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