Settling In

I’m relieved to announce that classes have officially started. This morning we spent an hour and a half discussing various definitions of “conflict” according to Marx, Gluckman, Weber and many more, in my class “Basic Tools for the Management of Socio-Environmental Conflicts”. Both that and “Phonetics and Phenology of Spanish” are at a local university, while my “Environmental Diversity of Ecuador” and “Internship” classes are at the IES center. While it’s definitely harder to take a class in Spanish, it also allows me to focus on the more important part of any concept, since I can’t understand/ don’t have time to write down the extraneous information. It's a little more exhausting to listen to lectures, but when I'm focused enough to stay attentive, I think I'm getting most of what my professors say.



This weekend, we took a bus to the Historic Center of town (the very first UNESCO World Heritage Site, as every single Ecuadorian will make sure you know). We visited to Presidential Palace with it's huge rooms and mediocre presidential paintings, chatted with a South African drug addict who asked us to buy him paint to help his crusade against graffiti, and climbed the Basílica’s towers to get a fantastic view of the city. I’m glad the South African probably used the paint to get high, because in one of the towers of the Basilica, we found the best church graffiti ever: “Jesus estuvo aqui” . Also this weekend, a group from Colby University stopped by Quito on their way back from the Galapagos, giving me two new housemates for a few days. One guy spoke a bit of Spanish and the other none, so I got to play translator. It was especially hard to speak Spanish when I wasn’t in charge of what needed to be said, but it worked out pretty well, and was lots of fun. It also reminded me how weird it is to be living with host parents and not with fellow college students.


I’ll leave you, for the time being, with a picture of a short Ecuadorian women with a crapload of shoelaces:

Photos of the First Full Week

Hey Boys and Girls: This has been a fairly low key week, in that it was a lot of orientation (sitting in a room reviewing spanish, being reminded not to get stabbed, etc), and a lot of free time to wander through parks. The following is a photo essay of my week, with a little bit of description. (Consider this a gift to those of you with short attention spans). Hope you're all doing well!

Pic 1: The view out my window onto Eloy Alfaro Av.



Pic 2: My room! I make my bed every morning, but apparently not well enough, because Holger still makes it for me again every day while I'm out.

Pic 3: Thursday night I played two games of Bananagrams with Carla mama ( we each won one game). It's a good think I'm so awesome at this game, because thinking of words in Spanish was hard enough.

Pic 4: On Thursday we went to a museum about the multitude of indigenous groups in the area. We were then given the opportunity to make jewelry with local beads. After making myself a badass hunting headband (hidden beneath my hair above), the IES staff guy, René, and I proceded to goof off with various items in the museum. Above, Harry Potter on a broom.

Pic 5: During our 5 hour lunch break on Friday, a few of us took a walk to the Botanical Gardens nearby. Above, the carnivorous plant greenhouse.

Pic. 6: Today, I went with some friends to the Mitad del Mundo, where they actually determined where the Equator is. That's me above, moments before being torn apart by dueling magnetic forces.

Pic 7: At the Mitad del Mundo, they had a continuous stream of different folk dances performed. I still prefer TDC, but these were pretty cool too.

Pic 8: I guess I never mentioned this in the first email, but there are 33 students studying abroad with IES in Quito this semester. Above, you'll find the only two guys in that group. It was about a 1.5 hour trip both ways to the Equator and today was ridiculously hot and sunny. This jump pretty much used up the last of my energy for the day. I returned home tired, sunburned, and very happy.

Quito!

I just finished my travel bag of Zabar's Cinnamon Rugelach, which officially means I am now in Ecuador. I've only been in Quito for 5 days, but so far it's felt more like a 10 day school trip, packed 12 hours a day with activities, than the start of a five month journey.

We've spent a good portion of the time sitting in IES headquarters being orientated. It's all in Spanish, which is fun, but exhausting. We've discussed health issues (apparently mosquitos are a vector for everything bad ever), safety issues (during which I got stabbed with a dry-erase marker several times to demonstrate what will happen if I start a fight, carry my iPod, or resist being robbed), and homestay issues (food, communication, etc).

Speaking of, my host family is awesome. Carla and Holger are incredibly nice and understanding. They correct me when I misspeak, suffer through my "ummmms" patiently, give me lots of advice about how to make the most of my experience, and are generally pleasant, upbeat people. However, my true host has to be Sebastian, Carla and Holger's 6 year old grandson. Whenever he comes over we play lots of games, ranging from Hallway Football to Racing Hotwheels Cars Around The Sofa to Peggle (my favorite computer game). Somehow, he always wins. He's also surprisingly understanding of my language incompetency, and is really willing to explain words I don't understand or teach me words I don't know. He lives with his parents a little ways away, but one of the really nice things about this family is how close they all are, and the whole crew (10, plus me) comes over for meals all the time.

As for other adventures in the past few days, we've done some pretty awesome sightseeing. We spend Friday afternoon seeing the highlights of downtown historic Quito, including climbing on top of some churches for awesome views of the city, and a ridiculously impressive church where almost everything inside was gold plated. On Saturday, we took a bus to a few cool destinations just north of the city, the best of which was the Otavalo market, run by the Quechua indigenous group. There were some pretty fantastic woven clothes of all sorts, carved tortoises and elephants and a solid array of touristy "I love the Galapagos" shirts. In addition to wandering around and some good old consumerism, I got to talk for a while with one of women selling clothes (the top picture below) about Quechua life, and how the community related to the rest of Ecuador in terms of social relations and legal issues. It was really fun, and makes me realize that I have to get in the habit of going out of my way to talk to random people here just for the fun of it.

Next week, when I start classes, I should settle into a regular routine, but for now, I'm really enjoying the newness of it all, and can't wait to explore more!

El elefante insaciable

Holy crap. In two days, I will be getting off a plane in Quito, Ecuador and starting off my semester abroad. Although I’ve been far away from home before (See: Rwanda, India), gone for a long time (See: Camp Seneca Lake, India), and more or less on my own with no idea what to do (See: Chile, India), the next five months will be a fun challenge nonetheless. Between language barriers, a lack of anyone familiar, and adventures planned and unplanned (e.g. is Colombia safe for Americans?), I’ll be keep busy trying to make myself comfortable. Five months is a long time to be away, and I know I’ll miss you all (most) of you a lot. On the other hand, I’m hoping to pack my semester with plenty of Amazonian hikes, volcano climbing, and quaint indigenous market trips, and it will all be over too soon.

To chronicle my adventures, I’ll be updating this blog as often as I can. Hopefully this trip I’ll even have time to spell check before I post! Of course, I still expect regular communications from all of you, so I can try to one-up all the excitement in Ithaca, Boston, East Asia, Western Europe and everywhere else in the world. If you email me, I’ll be able to tell you all the stories that were too shocking for public consumption. Anyone wishing to send me anything can address mail to:

Gabriel Lewenstein
c/o IES Abroad Quito
P.O. Box 17-21-1967
Quito, Ecuador

In the meantime, I’m spending my last day in Ithaca having lunch with my grandparents, seeing friends, speaking English, and frantically searching for some maple syrup to give to Carla and Holger de Galivanes, my host parents. Happy New Year everyone, have a great next few months!