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.
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