A week in Ecuador

My weekends in Ecuador are some of the most exciting I've ever had. I'm almost always traveling somewhere new, trying something exciting, and having some sort of adventure. But I'm definitely not living from weekend to weekend. My weeks are filled as well with my classes, and my volunteering, both of which can prove to be adventure-filled in their own right.

I'm taking five classes: four at IES and one at the university La Catolica. My class at La Catolica is called Biodiversity of the Galapagos, and is about the flora and fauna of the Galapagos Islands. The professor is fun and funny, is a Mac fan (like myself) and always seems to know more about US news than I would expect. The class is an hour and forty minutes, but the last thirty are usually spent watching part of a documentary on the Galapagos, Planet Earth, or some other piece of a documentary pertaining to what we learned. That's good because a day of looking at slides about plants can get boring after a little while. I have a class called Ecuador and Globalization, which is incredibly interesting and mentally stimulating, and usually has my friend Paul, an Economics major, and I discussing some new policy scheme that the Ecuadorian government could try to improve its economic situation. I have an anthropology class which is usually at least moderately interesting, which at best has us debating ethical issues, and at worst teaches us something new about the culture of some indigenous group, which is still interesting. My fourth class is called Indigenous Literature, which is not literature by the indigenous but literature about the indigenous. The class is easy and very interesting. We usually spend our time reading sections of historical writings like the Diaries of Christopher Columbus, Guaman Poma, Bartolome de Las Casas, Padre Gutierrez, and others. It's definitely cool to look at a section of writing by Christopher Columbus and read his description of the new world in its original language. My final class, and my favorite, is my spanish class, in which we do about 40% grammar, and about 60% cultural-related readings. The professor is very intelligent, and has made me think very differently about a number of subjects.

In between and after classes my time is basically taken up by two different volunteering projects. I volunteer about nine to ten hours a week at a place called La Fundación de los Abuelitos y Abuelitas de la Calle. The Foundations is a place where the elderly can go to spend their morning. They get a free breakfast, get to do an art activity, have a prayer service, get a free lunch, and have access to some free healthcare at the on-site clinic, operated by young volunteer doctors and medical students. You never know what a day there is going to consist of. Sometimes I'm painting something, helping build something, or selling bread out of the kiosk on the road right outside (one of the many ways they finance the foundation). Sometimes I'm in the kitchen helping cook lunch, and sometimes I'm helping the Abuelitos with their art activities. It's always very interesting.

The other volunteering project I've undertaken is attempting to teach my ecuamadre and a friend of the family, Luchito, english. My first foray into teaching has been a quite interesting and enlightening one. Usually I make up a lesson a day before class that consists of a Vocabulary section and a Grammar section. The vocabulary is split between vocabulary revolving around a specific theme (like the home, or the office) and the verbs come out of a book of spanish verbs I have. I add about ten new verbs a lesson. The grammar section revolves a new grammatical theme. We usually work a few examples together, and then I give them pre-prepared homework to reinforce the grammar lesson and see the vocab in real sentences.

The experience has definitely taught me a few things. First, all the in-class exercises and homework that I've done in my life I realize now were actually very necessary, as were the exams necessary in forcing me to review and learn the material. Second, there are many strange things about the english language that don't make a lot of sense. For example, the way we make sentences negative is very strange. Usually you add the words "do not" to the sentence. I go becomes I don't go, I run becomes I don't run, and so one. With more complicated sentences the word not gets inserted in strange places. I have come back becomes I have not come back. Why does "not" break up the verb "have come"? It makes no sense! Then there are some things that are very arbitrary in both languages, like prepositions. Why do we do things on friday? Why not in friday, or of friday? And why is my paper on World War 2? I mean, a paper could not be literally on World War 2, but we say that. And there are similar nonsensical preposition choices in Spanish. And then there are things in english that make more sense. For example, a subject always goes before a verb, and an object always comes after. The boy caught the ball. Subject-Verb-Object. But in Spanish it can sometimes be Object-Verb-Subject, and it means the same thing. Sometimes the Object always comes before the verb, sometimes it always comes after, and sometimes they are interchangeable.

There are other great linguistic observations that I have made that I don't need to explain here. But suffice it say with classes and volunteering, my weekends in Ecuador are certainly adventure-filled, but my weeks are not dull either.