How many words can you learn in one day?

Things are definitely still interesting here, and I have a feeling they are going to stay that way. That’s what this is all about right?

Our week of intensive Spanish classes started on Monday. We all learned how to take the bus to the university and back home. Our host families, in almost every case a host mother, took us to the main station and then met us there again at the end of the day. One of the program directors here took us on the bus from Quito to Cumbaya (the university is in Cumbaya). Today I did most of the trip on my own or with other Kalamazoo students. Susie went with me on the first bus, but I took the second on my own and met up with two other Kzoo girls at the main station to take the third bus to Cumbaya. 

I’m learning all sorts of things pertaining to language, customs, and whatever else you can think of that changes from culture to culture and country to country. For example, here “ensalada,” generally translated as salad, could actually be any combination of vegetables. The “ensalada” I ate yesterday at lunch consisted of boiled vegetables that came from a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. There are a lot of other things that are interesting about the food here. The main meal of the day is lunch, and dinner is generally quite small. Just switch your idea of lunch and dinner around and that’s pretty accurate. My host-mom just took me on a tour of the house to learn new words. Of course I can only remember a tenth of what she told me, but I will remember more as time goes on. You never realize the sheer number of words in a language until you have to use it every day and you DON'T know all of the words you need to say. If only I remembered everything I heard.

I’m starting to get used to the sounds of the dog on the roof and the planes flying over my house. By the way, I now believe the dog’s name is Toño, not loco, though I have yet to hear Marco call him anything but loco. I don’t think he’s exactly trained to come to his name, so it doesn’t really make a difference.

I was a little proud of myself today because I managed to let myself into the house. That pride was only a little dampened by the fact that I only had to use one of my four keys since all the other locks were unlocked. There is an outside door through the gate to my house’s yard with two locks on it, then an outside door with one big lock that has to turn a bunch of times to actually unlock, then an interior door into the actual house. Anyone robbing this place would absolutely HAVE to go through a window. Or be an extremely good picklock. 

 The altitude is still getting to me. I feel tired a lot of the time, and going up stairs still makes me out of breath. Sometimes I find myself trying to breathe more deeply, but it doesn’t do much and makes my lungs feel weird.

Tomorrow, while I’m in class, Susie is (finally) going to go and get my other bag from the airport. She managed to reach them today by phone, and they said they had sent me an email about the bag, but according to the time on the email I found when I got home, they sent it AFTER she called. Hmmmm… 

Everything else seems to be going quite well. I haven’t had any terrible symptoms of altitude sickness. Only the lack of energy and appetite and shortness of breath, which is much better than headaches and stomach upsets. 

Pero ya estoy cansada, I am already tired. ¡Hasta el próximo! Until next time!