Scenes and Dreams

Listening to Live Music in the Mariscal

La Ronda

Festival de Guapulo; chillin' with the friends at T___'s adorable little cliffhanger apartment over cheese and wine... meeting more international teachers from the ATL!  Walking down the zig-zaggy street and the cobblestones, all the way into the town square in front of the old church. 800 people from Quito drinking canelazo (hot spiced alcohol) and dancing while the men in blue suits on the stage play all the brass instruments and dance in funny sync and the wooden-tower-of-firework-contest is showed off and then the wooden-STRANGE-cow-structures-that-shoot-fireworks-at-the-people-in-the-crowd chased us around and around and we got shoved and jumped and covered our hair and got as close to the ground as possible... me knocking canelazo all over poor T___ and L____ hovering over me as fireworks shot at us and A____ spilling canelazo all over me and then she lost her shoe while dancing and the 7 foot tall basketball players from LA and Mississippi who have family in College Park and East Point flirting with the redhead and I loved how feisty T___ was one one got too fresh and the WEIRD very drunk teacher from Americano who wanted to kiss me for pictures and the long long long never-ending kilometer walk back up the zig-zaggy streets to T___'s house as A___ stumbled without her shoe and the policemen laughed and we posed against the cliff... then caught a cab and went home by one. Thank goodness I don't like to get drunk (firework cows would be terrifying and i could be the one without the shoe!). More than enough festival for a long time.

Guapulo

Balloons and Firework Towers

Sweet sweet sleep and naps...dreamed about Burger King haha! cutting flowers for our apartment and shopping at the monster-sized mall with Tinita :)

 

Pictures

Old well on the way to Pappallacta

Wild Horses

The Hot Springs of Pappallacta (heated by the volcanos)

My roommate's dog, Nora, in her raincoat

CMSFQ Middle School English Team

The Men in Suits

Brain on overload. Spanish in my dreams (zombies too??!!). Never enough time. Navigating a labyrinth of a huge new school (1400 students in the pre-k, elementary, middle, and high). Calluses from feet not used to running in heels. Teacher buses to and from school. Understanding the dilemmas of the immigrant. Paperwork and laminations. High profile parents in heels and suits. High security gates with fingerprinting. Endless hours in meetings that never end.

Catching cabs for a dollar or two. Shopping and cooking with the chicas. Plaza Fosh, soccer games, happy hour, swirling smoke. Adjusting to 100% new friends. Missing old friends. Family emergencies thousands of miles beyond control. Thank goodness for Skype.

Coming up for air every once in a while to breathe and look at the mountains.

The Church of Cumbaya (Near our school)

Middle (bottom floor) and High (top floor) school

CMSFQ Gym

Cafeteria (yes you can see the mountains!)

Other Gringa teachers on top of a hill

The (very metal) virgin of Quito (questioned to be the last ;))

Some of the Quito (It's like 7 km wide by 27 km long)

Front of my classroom

Back of my classroom

Dinner at our place: Heather's chicken & salad, my potatoes, and blackberry juice =)

So

So yeah. I came here to work on my Spanish and challenge my pedagogy ... be careful what you wish for! So busy these days I have to make myself stop and stare at the mountains (and roses)... so tired its hard to relax. On my own, though; happily staying with a couple of other teacher's until my roommate buys me a bed. Pictures coming soon... if my classroom ever looks presentable.