Que Chevre

I met my host family! After a long dat at the migration office, and a post lunch beer in the Mariscal aka Gringolandia we boarded a bus to the suburb of Valle de Los Chillos. There we were dropped off in front of a church and waited with our academic director for the families arrived, my family came second. They drove me to their neighborhood, San Pedro de Taoaba, and then into their gated community which I think is called Hacienda. I live in a three story house, on the second floor. My room is the former baby room of my host sister who also lives in Hacienda. My host dad is reserved, to be honest I have difficulty understanding him, but he has been nothing but nice thus far. My host mom is a house wife, but not in the typical sense. She does most things, but leaves many to either the kids or house workers. Shes a sweet lady and I look forward to talking with her more. My host brother, Felipe, is ridiculous, in a good way....I think. My first day here we went to pick up his dad from work, met a few friends at the mall and then we hit the town (after a minor bout of gringo stomach). With seven people and two cars we drove into Quito to farrear, and we danced. It took us a while to get organized but eventually got into the club La Bipolar. We danced to American Pop, Reggeton, Electronica, just about everything. It was a blast. At first they were dismayed by my choice not to drink, but after a while they didn't care, it just ment more for them. We danced for hours, I was even taught a couple new moves to add to my salsa repetoire! All in all it was a fun but long night. Apparently we are going to be going out again tonight, it might be a challenge to get some rest on the weekends around here. So we didn't go out! Which I am totally cool with, I was exhausted and the alternatve was my first semi-bilingual experience. Let me back track though. I woke up today to breakfast, that being a snadwhich my second in two days, not bad odds but it seems to be a popular snack in my household. I was offered eggs and more but I figured I would let my host mom, who had already moved on to cleaning, continue doing what she needed to do and not worry about me. At around 2pm I went down stairs to what I thought was family lunch, after asking my bro “estamos iendo a un lugar para almuerzo?” to which he replied “no,” I quickly realized I would in fact be leaving the house. Still in pajama mode (though wearing jeans for presentableness) we left the house together. Me, Mom, Dad, Bro, Sister, and Baby. We arrived in a new part of Los Chillos, along the drive I managed to call my host mom a rat and be convinced that another person in my program would be joining us for lunch. Neither were true (suprise, suprise, lost in translation seems to be the theme of these last two days). The house we pulled into was spectacular, big and beatiful. We sat down at a table and were served by a woman I would later find out was the wife of my host dads friend from childhood, and introduced my host mom to my host dad. This culture is completely new to me. We were served dinner by this lady, with two other older Latinas cooking in the kitchen. She didn't eat with us but talked with my host mom while the rest of us ate. I felt really bad because I barely scratched my plate, after being told a million times how offensive it is to not eat what youre given. After all, a happy student = a hungry student, or so goes my directors take on Ecuadorian homestays. I ate as much as I could, while I was winning the battle with myselg I was definitely losing the war. I was saved by a phrase my host mom dropped which I translated to mean “If you're not hungry you don't have to keep eating.” Good looks host mom. After lunch I went on various errands with my bro, meeting with friends and chatting or just hanging at the corner store. It ended with hanging with the guys we partied with, and some we didn't, last night at the park. After that we returned home, I ate another sandwhich, finished my laundry, and then as it got closer to 8 began meeting up with friends at the house. I was cohersed into eating dinner with the family, something I was glad to do. Unfortunately the sandwhich held me over, and again I had to excuse myself before my plate was clean; I hope host mom isn't offended. I also took part in my first dinner table discussion with my host tio and tia, and host sister and brother-in-law (who oddly enough reminds me of Abe; so if you're reaidng you have a semi-twin down here in Ecuador). Friends began to come over, Mauricio, Clara, Nati, Sharon, and Christian. I told my bro I was too tired to farrear (party) tonight but would be down to smoke hookah (pipa). He told me plans had changed (I have no clue when) and that we were just gonna chill and drink beer, my kinda night. I chatted for 4 hours with these people. It started with Clara asking me why I didn't talk much, and that she dind't care if my Spanish wasn't great. It was on. I don't know how, but I got indo a dicussion and managed to share my feelings of learning language and what I want to do, as well as discussing Mauricio and Nati's majors and future careers; all in Spanish. When Christian and Sharon showed up I had an English speaking buddy (Christian lived in NY for two years trying to go to architecture school). I talked all night, some in English, some in Spanish. I made jokes, laughed with the guys and girls, shared stories of camping and city life, it was fantastic. It ended with me and Felipe (host bro) walking Nati home and laughing the entire way, bringing up jokes from the day before, again all in Spanish. Not to toot my own horn but I think I'm getting the hang of this Spanish thing. Tomorrow is soccer with my new friends here in Hacienda and the Superbowl with my gringos. What a weekend. Classes start Monday and I have my first assignment due Wednesday. I'm not ready at all but it's time I got back into school work and preparing for my ISP. Sorry for the long post but more so than ever, I can't wait to see what this trip has in store for me.