So lying underneath the stormy skies, I know the sun will set to rise

A lot has been on my mind lately…let’s see if this makes sense.

Before I begin, I decided to write one good thing and one bad thing about Quito, the Center, or just general stuff. I credit my friend Katlin Hess with her superior blogging abilities with this one!

Like: I like how all of the walls between houses in the majority of the city have an extra protection with broken bottles cemented down. I’ll have to get a picture up of this.

Dislike: I dislike taxis honking or flashing their lights at me for being the gringoist of gringos, and also people starring at me intently when I’m running (knife in sports bra, no ipod, don’t worry!). Though, this does prove an inspiration not to slow down despite the lack of oxygen I haven’t fully adjusted to yet.

Back to business…

The last two weeks have been good ones. Roberto (my nightmare child) has moved out of my special ed class and I am left working with Alex, who even two doctors and a woman with 10 years of experience at the Center can’t handle. I’ve made it my personal challenge to rise to this challenge and teach Alex a thing or two about math, language, English, being in a classroom with other students, and Stevie Wonder. Okay, that was a one-time thing and was part of my reading program with him, but rest assured, I was happy to bring in Superstitious, For Once in my Life, and Isn’t She Lovely on my Ipod. He liked both Stevie Wonder and my Ipod, which he has asked about every day since.

My Spanish is steadily improving and I’ve changed my schedule a bit to accommodate exercise time, lesson planning time, mass time (2x a week), Spanish time, and yes, even a bit of sleep! Though this does require my alarm going off around 615 instead of 715am. We’ll see how long this goes before I crash and am up to my snotty nose in tissues and tea. The weeks are so busy it’s quite hard to be social lunes-viernes which perfectly fits my reserved, loner type personality, so by the weekends, I can handle floating around a bit as a butterfly. Still, no time is really my own, so I still find myself hiding in my shell in moments I would (in the past) normally be the one pouring one more shot before we head out the door, or insisting that everyone comes out. To this I realize that people have a somewhat strange impression of me, but maybe this is me. I haven’t figured out if I am growing up, getting boring, missing my friends and finding everyone else subpar, or whether I still let the fact that I have a hard time letting people in get the best of me. I think this is still left to be discovered. Though I broke this Friday when I decided at the last minute to go out, told myself I wasn’t going to be out late since I had to be walking around the city with 20 adults the next morning at 9am. We went to this stupid hookah bar for the millionth time (I hate this place, but the mojitos are good lol) and everyone was either drunk from happy hour which I didn’t go to because I had baths, or just piss drunk in general. All I wanted to do was dance which is the reason I ever go out here (I know, its funny because this is never my motive in the “estados” and also I have no rhythm haha), but I decided go to against my better judgment and say screw it, and go out dancing when everyone else but one went home. So I did, scored a few free drinks no thanks to me, but to my much smoother friend Meredith, a convo about the bills and giants (in Spanish, to which I defended the bills), frank lloyd wright with a Ecuadorian architect, and an extraordinarily overpriced cab ride home. I also stumbled upon a “German” bar, which failed me in every sense as they only had 3 german beers bottled, and I’m almost positive 2 of them don’t exist in Germany. Anyway, I digress.

Much has been bouncing around in my mind as you may have guessed from the previous paragraph. For whatever reason, I’m stuck in one of these self-discovery moments. Everything around me is suggesting to me that it’s more than what the surface offers and that it can help me figure the purpose or end result of this year for me personally, my students here, and my future (if that makes any semblance of sense). Perhaps my awareness is heightened as all of these things are on my mind, but I feel I am just now starting to see my flaws, my strengths, how I understand myself, and how others see me (for better or worse, of course).  I must say, this is all very daunting, terrifying, and curious to me. I honestly have to put a share of the blame on the new Coldplay song “Paradise” (so excited for the new album I preordered it!) and the fact that two of my good friends are recently engaged and have indirectly made me wonder what it (life) is really all about…like I don’t get enough of that here! I have always expected big things for my life, really. I worked hard in school and in life because of my high expectations, but here, so little of what I spent 4 years obsessing over matters in the same way it used to. Sure, I use my philosophy and theology everyday to stretch my understanding of the world, along with history (we took our adult ed class to the centro historico and this woman cleaning out the Iglesia del Robo (circa 1600s) was explaining more of what they were doing and why to what we had learned in Quito’s leyendas (legends) that week), but no one cares what I wrote my thesis on, what grades I got in class, and what extra curriculars I did, including myself to a small (very small, I still miss school and the library!) extent. For the most part, I’ve spent 23 years living for myself, and somewhat selfishly keeping my guard up, hiding whatever piece I either haven’t discovered of myself or whatever piece I’m scared of, in fear of perhaps something greater than even what I have in mind for the rest of my life. So with this, I will do my best to let go a bit…for my fellow volunteers, for my students and families here in Quito, for my friends at home who have probably seen this all along, for my family who loves me despite this, for whatever higher power I struggle to find, but most importantly for myself.

MMMkay, so besides that, you should know the following:

1.)   

My plans for 5 days in the Amazon fell through for the first weekend in November and I am now going to Cuenca. I am excited about this as it was my second choice, and I think it will be a good time.

2.)    Machu Picchu is a go! I will be in Cuzco on the 26^th of Dec and hike the Inca trail with Barbara, Carolyn, and 2 volunteers for 4 days. We will spend new years eve sunrise overlooking Machu Picchu and hopefully make it back into Cuzco for midnight. I normally hate new years,  but I think I will like this one. Still have to figure out what else we want to do in Peru, but I feel much better knowing my reservation for Machu is a go!

3.)    Mary Kate is officially coming for Easter! She will get to experience some of my classes and then we will do some fun stuff in Quito inside and outside of Quito.

4.)    David (volunteer) and I did a minga this morning (630 left cotacollao, 500 returned). We cleared a piece of land high up in the hills to be used for cultivation. It was exhausting and I got sunburned, but it was nice to spend some time away from the volunteers minus david and with the people. They were so nice (and from La Marin so I don’t know any of them) and one lady paid for my bus fare both ways which was extraordinarily generous (50 cents total incase you were wondering). It was a beautiful day. The man’s house was about 2 hours from ours in the south and it was a long journey, but good to see more of the city too. It’s such a crazy/awesome/beautiful/poor/rich place. I’m still cracking that egg too!

I suppose that is about it. Days begin early and go late, and as Coldplay has so gracefully put it…

When she was just a girl, she expected the world

But it flew away from her reach

so she ran away in her dreams and dreamed of para-para-paradise,

Everytime she closed her eyes.

When she was just a girl, she expected the world

But it flew away from her reach

And the bullets captured her teeth,

 life goes on it gets so heavy,

the wheel breaks the butterfly,

every tear a waterfall,

in the night the stormy night she closed her eyes,

in the night the stormy night away she flies,

 and dreams of para-para-paradise, para-para-paradise, para-para-paradise.

So lying underneath the stormy skies, I know the sun will set to rise.