UPDATE

More & more I am aware that I am living, not visiting here.  In no way do I feel like a tourist, but I am definitely not a local either.  Perhaps it’s like I am an outsider who is living & working here.  It is not easy & may never feel easy.....talk about pushing one’s limits.....I am doing that!!  

My weekdays have become somewhat routine--getting up long before the sun, having breakfast, going to my school, teaching my students (7 AM to 9 AM), going home & preparing for the next day’s lessons, having lunch, & if there’s time, going into Centro Historico to explore a little (even be a tourist!), going back to school to teach the evening class (6 PM to 8 PM), going home, having dinner & going to sleep.  One day a week I have to go to the laundromat to do my laundry--the hardest part of this is lugging my laundry there.  I wish that I could figure out how to carry it on my head, but I haven’t mastered that skill.  

Except for when I’m teaching English, everything is in Spanish.  I can’t tell that my Spanish has improved.  I certainly can speak well enough & understand the gist of what is said much of the time (as long as it’s said fairly slowly, with vocabulary I know, & without idioms about which I am more often than not clueless!), but it is quite frustrating that I do not understand a lot of what is said around and to me.  My silence at dinner with my family when they are engaged in a lively conversation is difficult for me, but when I understand only an occasional word or 2, I am not going to chime in on their discussion.

On Saturday night, November 19, I went with Fernando, the 15 year old son of the family with whom I am living, to see the movie, Crepúsculo, (Twilight).  That’s not a movie that I would have chosen to see in Ecuador or the U.S. with the vampires & werewolves, but he wanted to see it with me & not only did I not have any plans for that Saturday night, but I thought it would build our relationship & be a good experience.  The movie was of course in Spanish & I would say that I understood about 80%, which isn’t bad.  We shared lots of junk food & had a good time together.  I now know the word for vampire in Spanish: vampiro; one never knows when that word might come in handy.      And werewolves are hombres lobos or something like that (wolf men).

The biggest issue that cropped up recently, but is more and more behind me, thank goodness, is that I have had major back pain.  I don’t know if I contributed to it by carrying my backpack with too much weight in it, but when I lifted a large pail of water about 10 days ago, I went into agony.  Perhaps this would have happened anyway, but it reached the point that I went to a physician who said I had to have 3 full days of bed rest--no teaching, no walking, no nothing.  It was difficult.  He prescribed hot compresses, pills & an injection (for 3 days--which I received at the local pharmacy in the pharmacist’s bathroom).  I believe the pills & injections were to relax muscles &/or to reduce inflammation.  Fortunately my teaching colleague agreed to take my students into his classroom, even though he teaches 3 levels about mine.  I believe that it was frustrating for my students, but it was either that or extending the hours of my classes to make up the lost time when I return to work, which would be difficult on them and me.  One of my students telephoned me during their break the first evening of my absence, which really touched me.  She called the next day to see if they could come visit me after class that evening.  Six students arrived at my house with candy & a beautiful flowering plant!!  That was the best medicine I could possibly have received.  They stayed about an hour.  I was so touched by this.  Anyway, after the bed rest, etc., I improved a little.  I went back to the doctor (on Thanksgiving Day) as planned & he prescribed 10 sessions of physical therapy, which I have begun.  The fact that I am on the mend is enormous, as my worries were growing.  I have so much to be thankful for.  To feel that I am getting better was a wonderful Thanksgiving gift.  The doctor said that I could return to teaching on Monday, which I will do, but will no longer be carrying a heavy back pack.

A small postscript about getting medical care here is that there is no such thing as HIPPA!

Another postscript is that my colleague, Eric, who has been covering my class, loaned me two books as I told him that I would lose my mind if I didn’t have something to do while being prostrate.  I had immediately finished the books that I had.  I have now read more than half of Indians, Oil, and Politics, A Recent History of Ecuador, not a book I would generally choose to read when being laid up.  It’s like a text book on Ecuador that might be required reading for a Latin American college history course, but it’s really good & I have learned so much.  It is SO relevant.  Nothing in the book is funny, but I almost fell off the bed in laughter when I read that Lorena Bobbitt, (who I didn’t know was Ecuadorean) was invited to have dinner with Abdalá Bucaram (also called El Loco), the former president of Ecuador.

water & bathroom issues!

Just when I thought that I was more often than not winning the competition between how fast can I take a shower and how long the water remains somewhat warm, now we have NO water!  I'll take a cold shower over NO shower any day.  The waterless situation is not just in my house, but basically the whole barrio (neighborhood) & then some.  I've been told that it's related to the fact that there has been a lot of rain & as a result, I think there are some trees or other things obstructing the path of the water.  I don't completely get it, nor do I not like the fact that I have not showered for 2 days.  Yuck!

On this same subject, I have gotten somewhat used to that fact that the bathrooms in the school where I teach are basically non-functional.  Without going into detail, no water in the sinks there is mostly the norm, so when the water exploded out of the faucet the other day, giving me sort of a shower (prior to the waterless situation at home), I reacted by laughing.  Laughing is really the only way to deal with the ongoing unpredictability and inconsistency of the life that I am experiencing.

UPDATE

So now I have 2 months under my belt here.  The first month, September, was orientation in Quito.  Mostly that was good.  I stayed with a great woman, learned a lot, and received a lot of information--culture, history, teaching do’s and don’ts, safety & health issues, Spanish classes, a salsa class, etc.

Then I arrived, where I am and will be until the end of June, in Cuenca.  The adjustment has been so much more difficult than I could possibly have dreamed.  I thought I would just slide into life here.  Not so!  Teaching, which I did not assume would be simple, has had its challenges.  One of the most difficult aspects is that there is no curriculum so deciding what to teach is hard and extremely time-consuming.  Some classes go very well, others are ho-hum.  Trying to be creative, interesting, engaging, while teaching a mixed level of students, all of whom are supposed to be at level Intermedio II, is very demanding.  I chuckle to myself at how strict I am: absolutely NO SPANISH is allowed in the classroom, no cell phones, no talking to your neighbor (in any language), and I am about to institute no use of dictionaries for translating when someone is speaking (because you’re not paying attention & are missing whatever is being spoken about or done while your head is in your dictionary).  So doing the job I came to do--teaching--has been hard work.

A particularly fun class, was about 1 1/2 weeks ago, when the topic I chose, after receiving the suggestion from one of my students, was Ecuadorian food.  We went, as a class, out to dinner to eat Ecuadorian food and had cuy (guinea pig).  See plate with cuy below.  What a great class that was.  Everyone let their hair down.  Amazing how relaxed everyone was outside of the classroom.  The only rule that I had was that until 8 PM, when class time officially ends, English was the only language that could be spoken.  Several students continued in English well after 8 PM & 2 of those were 2 students who hardly speak in the classroom!  A very insightful experience for everyone. 

Another challenge, which has been harder than I had thought would be is living here, in a developing country.  The family with whom I’m living and I have recently overcome a hurdle.  Suffice it to say, that after a sort of confrontation when we laid the cards on the table, we’ve reached a better understanding.  There were a lot of misunderstandings, miscommunications, misinterpretations, and incorrect assumptions, many of which may have been related to cultural differences and the language (my Spanish is improving, but there is so much I don’t get!).  Without going into detail, after a meeting of the minds last week, my family and I are in a much better place.  Yeah!!  Now I am included in many of their activities, we can laugh, and seem to have a much better sense of mutuality.  

Last Saturday (10/29) I went with them to an amazing extravaganza at their sons’ school.  Then on Sunday (10/30) I went with them to the grandmother’s country home.  Very sweet little place in the country without the usual sounds of the city--traffic, machinery, sirens.  All I heard there was birds, sheep, frogs, and of course the usual barking of dogs.  Grandmother raises cuy!  This past Tuesday (11/1) evening, the evening before the El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), my family picked me up at the school where I work and we went to the cemetery to lay flowers on the grandfather’s grave.  What an amazing place.  Graves are placed one on top of another in what looks like buildings that go on forever, filled with thousands of people who have died.  You have to climb ladders to bring the flowers to some of the graves.  There are no words that I know that I can use to describe this place or the experience.  

Nov. 2 through Nov. 4 was a holiday, celebrating Cuenca’s Independence Day.  The whole country was on vacation.  On the morning of Nov. 2, I went with Olga, the mother of the family with whom I am living, to the Feria Libre, a huge outdoor market where everything under the sun is sold:  vegetables, fruit, grass for cuy, fresh (unrefrigerated) meat, chicken, fish, grains, clothes of all kinds, etc.  

It was fun shopping with her, but also difficult lugging everything that we bought.  (There are no grocery carts!)  Later that day we had a special feast at my house.  Several of Grandmother’s cuys were brought to the house.  (I had been told that they would arrive alive and I would help to kill them, but they arrived having previously been slaughtered.)  They were skewered on long wooden poles--through their mouths and coming out the other end.  I cooked 2 cuy to a golden crisp over a fire outside.  I must say that they tasted delicious.  Grandma, 2 aunts, an uncle, and 2 nephews, ages 2 and 18, and of course my family, all took part in the feast.  One of the aunts cooked the cuy with me.  We chatted endlessly (en español) and made a very nice connection.  I really like her and hope to see her again.

On the morning of Nov. 3, I took Fernando, the 15 year old son of my host family, and one of his friends to an amusement park.  I should have known better that it wasn’t my kind of thing, but it was a good way to make a deeper connection with Fernando, who is a sweet young man.  I went on one ride with them.  I think Fernando wanted me to do more, but one was enough for me.  The only casualty was that his friend lost his hat and felt that it was Fernando’s fault.  

Another challenging living issue is making friends.  In general, I don’t find that to be easy & it is not easy in another country with so many barriers, language, culture, limited time, to name a few.  It seems to be happening, but slowly, which is to be expected.  It was very validating during one of the afternoons over the vacation period to run into a group of 5 of my colleagues from my program who decided to come to Cuenca over the holiday to get away from their various sites, which include Guayaquil, Quito, Riobamba, & Loja.  We got together for a drink & shared our various stories.  It’s been up and down for all.  Some have had family issues, some school issues, feeling lonely, all are still adjusting.  No one has just slid into this experience without some bumps along the way.  All expressed some degree of envy that Cuenca is a great place to be............   

On Nov. 4 I went with my family to a resort-like place about 1 1/2 hours away from Cuenca.  It’s good to get out of the city & breathe clean air.  I swam my usual 50 laps that I haven’t done since I left the Berkshires.  What a gift that was & I can still do it without any difficulty.  I believe I impressed my family!  I left my family on my own (by bus) to get back in time to attend an ex-pat gathering at a local bar in Cuenca.  Not than I am an ex-pat, but I have known about this group that gathers every Friday night & thought it might be a way to make some connections.  (Normally I cannot go because I teach until 8 PM & the group is pretty much disassembled by the time I would ever be able to get there.)  The gathering was fine, but not something to get all that excited about.  The ex-pat community is living a completely different life than I am.  

On Nov. 6 I spent the entire day with my host family at grandmother’s house in the country.  The women (mother, grandmother, & Claudia) worked hard in the kitchen making ceviche.  So good!  The 3 sons and father played, relaxed, rested, read the newspaper, etc.  I did have a conversation with Olga (mother of the household) about the macho culture here.  She works so hard & seems frustrated & exhausted.  It seems to be a given that the women wait on the men.  She feels that it’s changing, but slowly.  I don’t really see a change in the household where I’m living and the boys certainly are not growing up with any sense that they should lift a finger when it comes to giving a hand in the kitchen before, during, or after a meal.  One of these days something is going to give.....

Anyway, this holiday time has been a nice rest from the rigors of teaching.  The next break is mid-December........  Hopefully I will find more opportunities to play in between the teaching.........