Right at Home

Well, opportunities just keep presenting themselves for me to do all sorts of things and I didn’t quite manage to get a post up yesterday. This every day thing may not pan out, but I’ll try to post frequently at least.

Last night, Susie told me that she and Marco were going to go to the farm in the morning and invited me along. Of course I said yes, I like farms, and happen to know a thing or two about them, so this morning we headed out of Quito and into the jungle. Turns out I didn’t actually see the farm. The only way to get there is up a steep muddy path, and there’s nothing there but bulls. I wouldn’t have minded getting my shoes dirty to climb up and see them, but my host mom didn’t want to go up there (apparently she has never actually seen it, crazy) so she and I walked along the deserted Ecuadorian country road and I took pictures of all the jungle plants (I promise I’ll post some pictures soon!). We also drove to another farm that my family is thinking of buying (I think they want to sell the one they have and buy this other one, but I’m not sure). We walked around on that farm to see the lay of the land and observe the cows, banana plants, and cocoa bushes. Real live chocolate in the raw people. I was excited. The cows were as uninteresting as cows usually are, but I had a wonderful time looking at the many plants that were growing in the fields.

These last few weeks, I’ve had a number of small experiences that haven’t made it from my brain into a communicable form yet. Many of them are just things that happen here in Quito and aren’t too surprising, but people’s reactions to them, or the way they happen, bring out the fact that I’m in another culture. Or not, depending on what it was I just witnessed. For example, last week, when I was getting on the bus to go home, a man in the bus station grabbed someone’s purse, or bag, or something, and took off, accompanied by shouts of “Ladron! Ladron!” (Spanish for thief). The security guard managed to take him down before he got out of the station, but I don’t know much else about what happened since my bus had already started leaving and had actually slowed down to see what was going on.

I have also been witness to a transportation technique that is totally logical, but impossible in the US for various reasons, mostly having to do with safety laws. The situation that led to this incidence must have been something like this: a construction crew went to pick up a very large metal pole in their little pick-up truck, and forgot to bring rope. The pole being longer than the truck, there was no good way to just set it in the vehicle. One of the guys must have had a light-bulb go off though, because when I saw this crew, two of them were standing in the bed of the truck holding onto the pole. Neither end was secured nor in the bed of the truck. If those guys had let go, that pole would have been a gonner. But really, humans make for very intelligent ropes. I just hope they weren’t going far, because ropes have a longer stamina.

Something that has been happening to me frequently is what I have dubbed “memory in translation.” I’ll hear someone say something in Spanish and remember it in English. Clearly my host mother, who speaks no English whatsoever, did not tell me that we were going to be doing “such and such” in English, but, for the life of me, I can’t remember how to say “such and such” in Spanish. It is a strange phenomenon that happens when you can understand more of a language than you can speak.

I’ve also taken to using the word “bueno” constantly (translation: good). I haven’t yet figured out other ways of saying “yes, I understand” or “sure” or “cool” or “great” when someone says something to me. So everyone must think I just have a good opinion of everything. Which is fine I suppose, but I really need to expand that part of my vocabulary.

Hope you all are having a great weekend!