¡Anita, apurate!

wellllll here I am in La Calera. I love it. thus far. Haven’t actually started my internship, which consists of being IN CHARGE of English for three or four grades….there is a lot to be defined yet there….but I love my new host family. My host “mom”, who is like more of a friend then a mom – as she prefers it – is a huge social activist and is involved in about five billion things, which include holding workshops working against machismo and domestic violence, being an asembleista, working for indigenous rights, hand embroidering shirts, making bracelets, taking care of our chickens, cuys (guinea pigs), sheep (only one), and pigs, taking care of a couple plots of land, owning an internet cafe, raising a 7 year old son naimed Kairik (after the Andean emperor) and a small dog named Abel…Inez, thus far, rocks my world. She was even in a play once.

so yes. we have an internet cafe, attached to the house, and a small plot of land and pigs in the backyard. I was walking around today watching people farm and blast Ludacris from radios. this is definitely a rural area…animals are everywhere, there are no street signs that I can see, everyone seems to know each other, I believe there is one local store, one fútbol field, etc., but the contradictions have my head spinning. Kairik literally brought pachamama (mother earth), our sheep, into the kitchen one second after I emerged from the internet cafe which has a bunch of slick slim screen monitors. it seems to be a magent for the local teenagers, all of whom seem to fall in either rockero or hiphoper sub culture.

I went to the school but still have so little idea of what´s happening there I´d rather talk about the other kids I met. My host brother, Kairik, and his five year old cousin, Peta, are pretty much going to be my best friends. They were the ones that took me on the walk. I found out some other very interesting transnational phenomenons, such as the fact that children seem to love, just love, to steal my water-bottle and will always asked to be pushed harder on the swing even if you are afraid you are going to push them right off. I loved hanging out with them because, well, they really like me. It´s all about making jokes, finding the right moment and the right spot to tickle, and to make them think they are smater then you. I´m glad I know enough spanish to achieve this. “Apurate” means hurry up, essentially, and was Peta´s favorite thing to order me to do, including when I was in the bathroom. When I opened the door she was standing right outside, on the verge of opening the door and dragging me out I suppose.

It is an indigenous community and I have already met a couple people who don´t speak Spanish. they are older, of course, but I still find it amazing in this area, which is not isolated at all, not like some of the communities in the Amazon, there are people who don’t know any spanish. I’m hoping to learn some Kiwcha but it looks and sounds fiendishly hard. Spanish has some of the same ancestors as English. Kiwcha…er. not really. I bought a dictionary and literally could not find a pattern I understood the grammar. vamos a ver I suppose.

It´s also great to finally go a day without hearing any English. I´m sure I will have a day when that is all I want to hear, but I´m excited to see where my spanish goes here.

I´m surrounded by mountains, that I can actually see, and there are actual green spaces. the air is full of dust when the wind blows, but it´s still a thousand times better then the clouds of black smoke that poured out of all the cars in Quito. I´m hearing a language I´ve never heard before (Kiwcha), that the Incas spoke. My host family here has about 20 times more books then my well off family in Quito, and more then half are about community organizing and woman´s rights. I loved helping Kairik with his homework and having his other cousin Rami show me the local game, spinning tops essentially that you throw. I love the fact that the fridge is full of vegetables and I dug potatoes out of the ground….who knew potatoes grew in the ground?! Well, I did, but actually pulling out of the ground was fucking miraculous. It´s food. that came out of the ground. I don´t know how I feel when we knock off one of the animals and eat it but I´m sure I will find the experience equally miraculous. it´s just so much work. Iñez seems to be able to fall asleep anywhere and take deep sleep power naps. I don´t blame her. My bed is slightly softer then bedrock but I think I´ll sleep just fine as well. It´s been a lot to take in at once. I´m not looking forward to when I get lice or fleas, which seems to be slightly inevitable, but I´ll wash my hands and be generally fine. there´s no hot water and no washing machine but this house has three floors.

contradictions contradictions contradictions. traditional kiwcha dress and tennis shoes. more palm trees against a backdrop of more mountains. cows in the street and a cell phone in every pocket.

will post photos when I can. I feel so much safer here. I feel so much happier here. I also feel so much more nervous here. the responsibility of teaching. being part of that pattern of three month volunteers re-teaching and re-teaching the english names of colors and animals over and over again because they can´t afford an english teacher, a pattern I hate and would hate if I was a student. the absolute terror I have of 7th graders, the group I will probably be working the most with.

vamos a ver. I plan to take long walks.

 

time to go lesson plan my first day.