Day 3: The gringa makes a big mistake

October 5, 2009

Location: Mi casa

Time: 12:57PM

Weather: Cold, cloudy. Not the kind of weather I am fond of.

The first day of the Fundacion was not at all encouraging. I feel overwhelmed and stupid. The class of 7 (Shanon, Megan, Brittany, Kara, Jessica, Angela, and I) is taught by Professora Isabel, who speaks almost entirely in Spanish. It's, as I said, overwhelming to attend a class for four hours a day when I only understand every tenth word. I'm hoping I'm just freaking myself out, but we have to read 3 chapters of a book written entirely in Spanish and answer the questions for it by this Thursday. I'm very angry that we have jumped head first into conjugating verbs on the first day when the other, larger class is going over numbers and days of the week. Okay, so I sound like a whiney brat, but verbs???

Amauta wants us all back at the school by 2:45 this afternoon so we can go to a museum. I hope the information is in English. I think I may attempt to walk to the school. I'm going to have to do it some time.

Later, 8:40 PM

Today has been hard. Between feeling absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of Spanish I can't understand and the trouble it gets me into, I just feel like crying.

I didn't understand that Manuel was going to pick me up at school at 6 because I couldn't understand Mama Isa when she said so.

The Museum of the Indigenous was interesting but confusing and very, very dimly lit. Our tour guide spoke poor English, so I wound up hoping that she'd speak Spanish so at least Sara could translate for me. We saw real shrunken heads! The entire hillside behind the museum has been cut away into layers by ancient Incans. Mummies were found buried there and it was a significant place of religion for them.

Afterward, a group of about 10 of us went to get ice cream and drinks. The ice cream beats Baskin Robins hands down—and for only $.80 for a cone. The boys wanted cerveza (beer) so we went to a cute little restaurant across the street from the Cathedral Nuevo in the heart of the city. One of the girls got a mojito and I opted for a pina colada. (No, mother, I didn't even get a buzz—chill, por favor.) After, at about 6:30, I hailed a taxi and left for home. The cab driver had no idea where he was going because he was from Quito, so I, the lost American, had to give him directions. I got home at about 7 because of the traffic and the many circles we turned.

Manuel let me into the house and, after 15 minutes of translating in my English-Spanish dictionary, I realized he had gone to the school at 6 and couldn't find me and was worried. He was very, very nice about it, as Ecuadorians are, but he told me that a taxi was a bad decision. He said taxi drivers are, in general, not good people. People in the city are simply not good people. Gee, it sounds like you, Daddy! He said they were robbers and kidnappers and very dangerous. I felt so bad for misunderstanding, I started crying, which is the last thing any man wants, regardless of the country, continent, or hemisphere. Manuel looked horrified. He accepted my apologies and told me not to worry about it.

Isabel is picking up her husband. I think. I don't know when she'll be back. I don't know how I'm getting to school tomorrow. I don't know. No se. No entiendo. No, no, no.