Otra Semana...

So I have made it through another week in Ecuador and have quite a few stories to tell...

I have settled in nicely with my host family and can't believe I have to leave them in 2 weeks. My host sister and neighbors are so sweet to invite this gringa to do all kinds of things with them... mainly experience the night life. It is great because I feel safe going out with them and I get to practice my Spanish that much more. They also came with me to the "family BBQ" for all of the volunteers and their families. We had a blast and even got to play some soccer. I am loving being surrounded my soccer here... we watched the ¨la Liga¨ game on Wednesday which is the Quito team. My neighbor happens to be a fanatic and we won!!!! so much fun. This afternoon I am meeting some friends to play a little pick up soccer.

After the family BBQ last Sunday my neighbors took my housemate and I to the Equator! It was quite the trek to get out there but it was bacán (I keep learning new ways to say cool). There was live music and lots of picture taking. I will hopefully post some pictures soon.

Speaking of adventures... yesterday I took a trip with about 7 other volunteers to a town called Otavalo. They have a huge market there where I got a pelota (ball) to use in my classroom and a little jewelry. It was fun to haggle a little with the merchants and see all of the random stuff that was sold. We also went to a few of the neighboring towns where we got to see a beautiful waterfall, eat some fresh boscochos (biscoti), and see a lot of scenery along the way. For lunch, one of the people in my group ordered Cuy (Guinnea Pig)... an Ecuadorian specialty. Quoting him, "it tastes like chicken."

Salsa classes last week were a blast! However, they also showed off my inability to dance. According to one of my Ecuadorian friends the class made a big difference so I am scared to know how bad I was prior to the class haha. I signed up for another class on Wednesday so hopefully I wont be embarrasing myself for too much longer :) They also play quite a lot of American "popular" music in the clubs such as the song we all know and love... Vanilla Ice. The dance moves and excitement that I saw accompany that song will forever be burned into my memory haha

We have two more weeks of training left and I start practice teaching tomorrow!!! ahh... I have the advanced 1 group but I am not sure yet how advanced they will be. The first day is group teaching and we are just doing get to know you type games to get a feeling for their abilities and are setting the rules. I teach solo on Tuesday and Wednesday and our group has decided to base the two weeks on an Ecuadorian theme. The students will teach us about Ecuador using grammer/vocabulary/etc that we want them to learn. I am nervous, but it will be nice to have a little time to get used to teaching before I have my own class for the whole year. I will also have the chance over the next two weeks to observe other teachers and to get feedback from my directors/fellow teachers.

This week is going to be super busy and filled with lesson planning, but hopefully I will have another report at the end of the week saying that I didn´t crash and burn.

Chao