Mucho Español

Monday and Tuesday were full days of Spanish classes.  They weren’t kidding when they named the program “intensive beginner Spanish.”  We were in class from 8 am to noon, with one 15 minute break.  Lunch was from 12 to 1 and then we were back in class from 1 to 4 pm, with another 15 minute break.  On the first day, we learned how to ask and answer five basic questions: 1. Cómo te llamas? (What is your name?).  2. Tienes hermandos? (Do you have siblings) 3. De dónde eras? (Where are you from?)  4. Donde estás? (Where are you?) 5. Cuántos años tienes? (How old are you).  We also learned people in the family, professions, countries and nationalities, directions, numbers, a long list of regular verbs and basic anatomy.  It was definitely a lot for one day but I can speak a lot of what we learned.  I also feel much more competent than I did when we got here.  The hard part is understanding when somebody else speaks!

Rosita has a daughter who lives in Bolivia.  She is visiting this week with her son, Oliver, who is probably about 2 years old.  We have been hanging out after dinner the past few nights and playing with balloons.  It’s perfect because neither one of us speaks much Spanish.

Quito is a big city, and it is the capital of Ecuador.  We live in the Northern part of the city, which seems to be pretty wealthy.  The school where we learn Spanish is a little less than a mile walk from our house and the people here are very aggressive drivers so anytime we cross the street we have to run.  Quito has similar architecture to Peru: lots of colors, and the buildings are mostly made up of squares and rectangles, with flat roofs.  We can easily see the Andes in the distance.  There are three buses that run throughout the city.  The one that we will be taking to/ from our clinical sites is called the trole bus.  It costs a quarter for each ride, regardless of how far you go.  Also, the money here is kind of strange, because they accept US dollars, but often you will receive gold dollars as your change instead of bills.  There are also coins that are worth the same amount and roughly the same size as dimes and quarters, but they are not dimes and quarters.  It all seems very random to me.

I love my homestay.  The food is absolutely fantastic.  Sunday night we had tomatoes stuffed with chicken and cheese, along with soup, rice and cucumbers.  Monday night we had a mushroom soup, fish, and broccoli in some sort of citrus juice.  It is getting hard to keep track of all of it because we keep having different stuff.  All of the flavors are so rich.