Last night I had my first real run-in with "Ecuadorian time". So my ecuafamilia really wanted me to take salsa lessons while I'm here because it's important to the people here and I don't know it. I wasn't going to pursue it, but they found classes for me that were cheap and just a few buildings down, so I decided I didn't really have a good reason not to go, so I would. The first class was at seven, so at 6:50 I got up and announced that I was leaving. My ecuapadre looked at me quizzically and said it was at seven. I was confused. I looked at the clock. Yep, it was definitely 6:50. I checked my brain. Yep "siete" was definitely what he said and was definitely the spanish word for seven. I said, yes, it's in ten minutes. He nodded, exactly, I had ten minutes, and it was right over there. I was so confused. I told him it would take me ten minutes to get to the building and find the class. He smiled and shrugged and kept watching tv. I was going to say goodbye to my ecuamadre, but she was in the bathroom, so I just left. I got to the building and started looking for the class, when all of a sudden my phone rang. It was my ecuamadre who was in a frenzy. I had left and we were just about to eat dinner. I told her the class was starting. She spoke so quickly that I couldn't understand what she was saying, but I gathered that she was saying, again, it was time for dinner and I had to come back. I was SO confused, but I told her I would come back and she calmed down and we hung up. Back at the apartment, she was bustling around the kitchen speaking in a frenzied voice about how she had come out of the bathroom and my ecuapadre had said that I had left and we hadn't eaten. I said, okay that's totally fine, I'll just go to the class tomorrow. At that, she looked at me quizzically. No, I could go today, after dinner. But, I countered, the class starts at seven, and it's 7:05. She found this very funny. If it started at seven, I could be there at 7:15 no problem. For someone as punctual as myself, ecuadorian time is very difficult to swallow.

After the class, I came back to find that some friends of my ecuapadres were visiting. The man was a longtime friend of my ecuapadre. The contrast between them could not have been more different. My ecuapadre is the stereotypical grandpa, especially when his grandson is around. His friend was the the stereotypical, old school business upper class type. I had a good time talking to them, and we talked about the states. I asked if he wanted to visit the states and he said, no, he had already seen enough of it in movies. To which I said that the real United States was very different than what they presented in the movies. My ecuapadres mentioned at one point that I was trying to visit Machu Picchu, to which he scoffed and said Peru was the same as Ecuador and that I didn't need to visit there. He told me after Ecuador I needed to visit Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, and after that I didn't need to see any more of South America.

I went to the class again today, and I got back at around 8:15. When I did, I walked in and found my ecuapadres, my ecuahermano, ecuahermana and ecuasobrino all on the bed, watching something on a laptop. My ecuahermano's wife stood off to the side of the bed. I walked in and said hello to everyone and greeted my ecuahermano's wife, because I had not seen her yet. At that my five-year old ecuasobrino told me to watch the laptop. I figured it was a youtube video or something and peeked my head over the top of the laptop to take a look and see what it was.
It was a sonogram.
I looked up slowly, and looked at all the smiling faces looking up at me. I turned slowly to look at my ecuahermano's wife who was standing next to me, and after a pause, asked if she pregnant. She was! It was quite a happy and celebratory evening!

A final note. My spanish is definitely improving. I'm quite pleased.