I arrived in Lumbisi, Ecuador two nights ago now! It seems so unreal to be here finally, especially after that crazy delay in Miami. I do not have internet at home, but my host family said that they will have it within the next week. So.. I am sitting in an internet cafe about a block away from my house. I have realized how much I take internet forgranted in the States, also how dependent I am on it.
Michael (my travel companion) and I were the last two students to arrive in our program. I felt a little behind and slightly overwhelmed since the first day after I arrived we went into Quito. It is beautiful and so different. Things here remind me of a combination of Chicago and Taiwan. The smells, signs, and traffic definitely remind me more of Taiwan than Chicago. We saw several churches and had a giant lunch when we were in Quito: pork chops, rice, lentils, and banana cake. We returned to Cumbaya and purchased cellphones. I am a little worried about my phone since it seemed to break today, but hopefully it will pull through for the semester. (tangent: I just noticed that this keyboard is different, I do not know how to get the contraction apostrophe thing (yeah it has a name) which is why I am not typing in contractions for now)
My host family is amazing and besides for the lack of internet I am pretty satisfied with living in Lumbisi. The food has been great, lots of rice for sure. There are these roosters that crow really loudly at the crack of dawn, my host aunt living next door has an especially loud rooster. At dinner tonight, I thought I heard my five year old host sister, Genesis, say that her aunt was going to kill and eat the rooster so that it will not "sing" in the morning. I asked if she was going to do it this week and everyone started laughing. I was laughing too, but I am not sure if we were all laughing at the same thing but that is alright with me. Then Genesis tipped backwards with her chair. Her 15 year old brother desperately grabbed her pants which slowed the fall but she still went down, chair and all. She was fine, laughing and crying at the same time. Okay, now that I am done rambling, I will give a better context for everyone...
Lumbisi is an indigenous community near Cumbaya and Cumbaya is a suburb of Quito. Quito has the highest elevation of the three, followed by Cumbaya then Lumbisi. It takes one 15 minute bus ride to get from Lumbisi to the University located in Cumbaya. From Cumbaya it takes 2 bus rides (almost an hour) to get to Quito. On average a bus ride costs 25 cents, yes 25 U.S. dollar cents. There are 5,000 students who attend USFQ, I heard there are about 200 international students mostly from the U.S. So I am definitely not lacking friends to speak English to. There are several girls from the U.S. living in Lumbisi with me, a handful from U of I. Many of our friends live in Cumbaya. However, the majority of international U.S. students live in Quito.
I apologize for the disorganized post. I just wanted to get everything on here before the internet cafe closes. I am doing well and enjoying the few days that I have been here. It is definitely a different experience. I have pictures but I do not know if the internet here is fast enough for me to post them. I may have to wait for another day. Goals to work on: better conversational Spanish and figure out my directions.
Until next time!
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