Thought This needed to be blogged ....
This past Tuesday afternoon we had our first
flood. Yup ladies and gents, the rainy season has started in my site. Oh joy!
Our apartments, not to mention the streets, were flooded. My bedroom had
an inch of water, my balcony had probably an inch ½, and Katie's
apartment had an inch of water just pouring in from the windowless
tiny hole that our landlord promised to fix ya mismo. Yup
famous Ecuadorian phrase, “Ya Mismo” will drive you mad, angry,
and push your patience to its limits. Ya
mismo = wait 4-5 hours (when at a party or going out) and when
dealing with house issues, you will probably wait a month maybe two
for them to fix the problem, get irritated and try to get the problem
fixed again. As I am writing this, the windowless hole is getting fixed, finally after two months and a very angry Katie, we got progress.
Well that was an interesting Tuesday,
we had our first real Peace Corps moment of Oh shit this is really
happening to us, this is our life now. Funny
how one moment can change your perspective on a lots of things. I am
a horrible person when it comes to letting friends get close, even
getting to know the real me, I am worse in relationships, haha. There are a few people who I am close to and whom I trust completely. But being thrown in with people you never knew and
experiencing things like floods, a whole new culture, and illnesses
changes you and I realized how much I have opened up to Katie and
Benja. Yeah I know lots of people go through these realizations, but
its a big first for me, specially when it concerns trusting people.
And I hope that I have more epiphanies through my Peace Corps
service. I am glad to be here with new amazing friends, even when shit
happens I am glad they are there with me. My motto, Keep
moving forward just
like in Meet the Robinsons (I
adore that movie!) keeps me going.
I wish I had pictures from that night, Benja took some but hasn't posted them up yet, so I gotta wait. My host moms house flooded and so did many of my students homes. Our street had water up to our knees, it was the most disgusting water ever.
Wed. - Friday
Anyway,
M.D was here for the last 2 days, giving us updates on stuff and also
talking to the schools that will be getting a volunteer. Fun piece of
news, Katie and I will be meeting the new volunteers come February, I
cant wait! Haha we will play nice, we promised. It will be fun to
spend half of Feb. in Quito-Tumbaco at the training center and also
talk/hangout with the new volunteers. I also get to visit my Tumbaco
host fam again, I cant wait. I am also excited to get some training
for the Teacher training workshops we will be doing soon. We get to
travel once a month to a TEFL site and have a workshop with all the
English teachers from that area. Yup massive English teacher training
workshops are on there way very soon. These workshops are much needed and
it is also a great learning experience for us as TEFL volunteers.
Oooo I am going to learn how to play the cello, even if I am not
that good at it, I want to learn it. I need a new hobby and playing an instrument will be a good way to
center myself, that and doing yoga/exercise will help. Ah
cello, just thinking about playing that instrument sets my heart on
fire:
Watch
http://youtu.be/DRVvFYppU0w and
http://youtu.be/Ry4BzonlVlw you will understand why the cello affects me so.
Oh oh one last thing small achievement of the week getting my students to say "May I go to the bathroom" and "Can I come into the classroom." Yup I am so proud of them.
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To two of my closest friends, miss tank and miss gaiaskully, I am so sorry for your loss and the hurt you must be feeling. I wish I could do anything to make it go away but all I can say is I love you both very much. Hugs <3<3<3
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