Mid-year

Back again! Back again and trying to find a state of normalcy. The time leading up to and after Christmas is a complete blur. I don’t know that I’ll feel “back to normal” until the middle of February, though.

Things, of course, were wonderful at home. I managed to get through customs with a boatload of gifts and souvenirs from Ecuador without any problems at all. The beefy security guard scrutinized me for about two seconds before asking me, “Where did you travel?” Ecuador, I said. “And how long were you there for?” Three months. “What were you doing there?” I was a volunteer. “Okay, go ahead.” Thanks.

I attended three medical school interviews. The first took place two days after my arrival home, at the Medical College of Wisconsin. They’ve already gotten back to me, and the news is good. I’m in at one school, so I will be attending medical school next year somewhere! The other two interviews were at Rosalind Franklin University located just north of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, which is where I really, really, really want to end up. Each day I bite my nails when I open my Gmail account because I’m expecting my parents to relay the message that some a very ominous letter has appeared in the mailbox. It could be any day now, or I could be holding my breath until March. The application acceptance process isn’t easily explained.

I returned to Ecuador just in time for New Years. I went to meet a bunch of other volunteers in Montañita, which is that gringofied beach community an hour and a half to the north. The highlight of the night happened just before midnight, when all of the hardcore surfers appeared out of the darkness with their surfboards raised. Everyone had filtered down to the water to ring in the New Year and a giant bonfire was burning in the middle of the beach. The surfers began circling around the fire, holding their boards in the air with one hand and beating them with the other. The other volunteers joked that they were paying homage to the surf gods, thanking them for a good year and asking for another, and it wouldn’t be surprised if some of the travelers visiting Montañita really did believe that. Soon a number of the surfers were jumping over the fire. This inspired a number of the drunks who had been watching on nearby, but their audience had soon turned to the sea when all the surfers dashed into the water to catch the first waves of the New Year. It’s supposed to be a competition to see who can catch the first wave of the year, but I can’t possibly understand whom they decide actually wins. Maybe winning isn’t everything after all…

I took off on New Years Day and returned here to La Libertad. I hung around and rested up for the night before taking a ten-hour bus ride to the southern tip of Ecuador, to Loja and Vilcabamba, two cities well known because of how tranquilo, or peaceful, they are. I spent an afternoon hanging out with Katie and Megan, two of the three Loja volunteers. After squatting on one of Megan’s classes to catch a showing of Mean Girls, I hopped the $1 bus that took me to Vilcabamba. For those of you who need a little refresher, Vilcabamba is the place Isaac, one of my favorite volunteers from orientation, calls home.

I hung out in Vilcabamba for three days, during which there were a number of highlights worth summarizing. I did a whole bunch of hiking in the mountains with Isaac when he wasn’t too busy teaching, and Megan when he was. The morning before I took off, Isaac and I actually went running along this trail leading into the mountains, and for those of you who know how much I enjoy running, this was pretty much one of the coolest things I’ve done in Ecuador. Too bad I could hardly breathe because I’m not acclimatized to the elevation. Whenever we weren’t in the mountains we hung out at Isaac’s host family’s restaurant, Natural Yogurt. The name definitely appeals to a certain market, yes, but for a very apparent reason. You’d be amazed with the gringo presence in Vilcabamba. Retired Europeans, especially, are attracted to this place because of its beauty and its reputation as a place where a lot of people will live past 100 years of age. I, for one, didn’t see a lot of extremely old people, but it’s possible that they just look that damn good. Isaac and I had a lengthy conversation as to whether or not all the rich Europeans are better or worse for Vilcabamba, and Ecuador as a whole. We’re still undecided.

The other interesting occurrence that happened during my trip to Vilcabamba was that a fire nearly burned down of the city’s homes! A bunch of kids were shooting off fireworks in the city’s central square and one must’ve taken an unusual trajectory. The firework went through the window of the house and fell in among a couch. The couch started up and pretty soon the whole town could see the plume of smoke rising into the night air. Isaac and I had been eating dinner before we decided to head downtown (if you can call it that, Vilca is pretty small). Even from a distance, we could see a long line of men starting from the decorative fountain in the middle of the square. They formed a fire line to extinguish the flames! The fire line must’ve worked pretty well because the plume of smoke was almost entirely subdued by the time the Loja Fire Department arrived an hour after the blaze had begun. I thought it was really great to see how fast the Vilcabambans had banded together to help out one of their fellow citizens. Everyone seemed extremely cooperative.

Another ten-hour bus ride back to Guayaquil put me in the airport by about 10:00 P.M. I had some time to kill before my girlfriend, Steph, flew in from Atlanta. Her plane was supposed to arrive right around midnight, but I didn’t begin to get a little worried until 1:00 rolled by. Her plane had been delayed in Quito. This was early in the morning on January 7th.

We got out of Guayaquil the next morning. Steph was there for my first day back to teaching and throughout the next two weeks. I think it goes without saying that some of my lesson plans were slightly rushed during Steph’s time here. I’d do my planning early in the morning or late at night so that we could hang at the beach in Salinas or Punta Carnero. Over the weekend, we went to Montañita and checked into an upper end hostel (which isn’t necessarily saying all that much). At night, we met a bunch of Guayaquileños on the beach who formally invited us to come hang around their bonfire.

The next day we were chilling out on the beach when a small black dog we now call Diggy came up to us. Diggy smelled the sand near our towels and, sensing something that must have triggered his canine instinct, he begun to dig furiously (using both front paws at once!) into the sand. Before long, his hole was pretty deep, and by the nature that Diggy dug, it was growing closer and closer to where we were laying in the sand. Eventually, Diggy found what he had originally sensed: a small pink crab that had burrowed itself into some crab-fashioned subterranean tunnel system. The crab emerged and pinched its claws whenever Diggy brought his mouth down. It was quite the battle that was going on before us!

Diggy had just unearthed the crab when a man approached Steph and me from behind. As Diggy went to work trying to find a way to eat the crab without having a piece of his lip destroyed, this guy, in English, started giving us his life’s story and telling us all about how Diggy, the crab and, of course, all of us are connected. Apparently, he was a biochemistry major from Germany who also happened to be a world traveler and a Buddhist. Interesting, to say the least. Steph and I were primarily concerned with tracking Diggy’s progress, and the guy soon buggered off (Peter must be having some unconscious effect on me) when we didn’t give him the same attention we were giving the dog. Only in Montañita…

On the teaching front, things are going well, but things are a little different now. First of all, I’m teaching two classes instead of just one. ESPOL, the school I work at, sees a larger number of students during la temporada, which means that some of them become mine (so to speak). I’m now teaching module 5 and module 8, an intermediate and an advanced course respectively. My module 5 class has fourteen students in all, and, after a few late additions, the module 8 class is now thirteen strong. This is the class full of students who I originally started off teaching in module 6, my very first class. They’ve moved forward along with me, and, for better or worse, this is the end of the line. There is no module 9, so once they get their proficiency certificates upon completion of this final class, I won’t be seeing much of them anymore. This depresses Mark greatly. I’ve gotten to know a number of my students pretty well, and this is kind of the end of the line. I don’t know how much I can hope to keep contact with them. Aww.

Fortunately, the module 5 kids are finally starting to warm up to me. They’re really shy, and the class is a bit larger than what I’m used to, so it’s taking them a while to speak up. Don’t worry, though, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s forcing (or tricking) my students into speaking. Once they’re willing to do that, a lot of barriers begin to break down (and they learn more!).

I teach earlier in the afternoon too. I teach five days a week, from 4:00 to 8:00; each class is two hours long. Other than the printer not working, however, things at ESPOL are fairly average.

Now that I get done saying all that, today isn’t a normal day and neither is this week. I had off today because everyone in Santa Elena is celebrating the cantonización of the area, which is basically the same as celebrating the area having—once upon a time—become a county. There were a bunch of parades this morning that I managed to catch a glimpse of while I caught up with some Internet stuff at school. It was pretty obvious when the fire trucks came chugging through. Concerning scheduling, what’s even worse is that I don’t have class on Thursday or Friday either. Gosh, I’m a slacker lately… but with good reason! My volunteer organization has scheduled a mid-service meeting where everyone (all of the volunteers, field directors… everyone) will be getting back together just up the coast. We’ll be talking about our experiences so far and some strategies we can employ to improve our teaching and continue on with all of the things we’ve been doing for the last few months here in Ecuador.

So, that’s it. I’m already halfway there. I’m already halfway done. Gosh, half my year has come and gone.

And how do I feel about all of this? Okay, I guess. Good and bad, really. I’ve accomplished so many of the things I set out to do. I’ve learned a ton about teaching, about living abroad, about Ecuador and about myself. I don’t feel as if I need to sit here and reminisce about the things I’ve done. I understand them just by living day in and day out. Really, the hang-up comes when I think about home. I miss being in Madison (even in January). I miss my friends and family a lot. I miss my girlfriend a ton. By no means are the coming months simply going to fly by. I’m still going to struggle because I feel extremely connected to home. That scares me, but I realize that I may never have an opportunity like this again, so I have to take advantage of it now. I need to find a way to make the most of my last months in Ecuador.

I suppose that ought to do for now. Pedro is actually celebrating his 31st birthday outside with a few friends from the area. Peter is here after a day full of windsurfing and, believe it or not, Isaac is staying the night on his way up the coast for mid-service. At least for tonight, I’ll be distracted. Tomorrow should be all right too; I have a lot of lost ground to cover in my classes. Plus high tide is at 6:30 A.M. and I promised Isaac we’d go surfing!