limbo #3: mi casa es tu casa

Dear all,

It's been three weeks but I did promise! And now it seems there's finally something to write about...

I have spent these weeks despairing a bit for my social life, which basically consisted of eating breakfast with this professor named Chad, who studied abroad here in 1993 and kept coming back! He is a very interesting and fun person to eat breakfast with, don't get me wrong, but he's 37 and spends all day in the archives. I also got food poisoning last week, which oddly enough made me feel more comfortable here. I guess I just needed a breaking in... I have visited some cool Ecuadorian culture museums, and an artisan's market, which I loved, but touring has been kind of a lonely activity so I started over on the Harry Potter series and found a used bookstore, and dove in to try and break my old records of reading 100+ books in a summer like I did all through elementary and middle school. Until instant messenger came out, I guess...

I found two Indian restaurants in the past week, a taste of home, and decided to start cooking for myself instead of eating out every day, so I walked to the grocery store yesterday and picked myself up some groceries -- a week or two's worth for only $10! A tiny bottle of sunscreen cost as much... But as I don't want to look like a sun-ripened potato chip when I get back in September, I decided it was probably worth it.

I am FINALLY getting the hang of my night receptionist job. The hotel has been fuller lately -- Lori laughed that I have a "buena espalda:" literally, "good back," or that I brought business when I came. At the beginning that was more bad than good, seeing as I had no idea how to do reservations or write up receipts, or answer any kind of questions about the area or on the phone, but it is getting better. I have met a cool Dutch couple that came through a few times, and last night around 11:30 this Australian guy hurriedly paid for a room to crash in so he wouldn't have to walk around the sketchy tourist district at night with a huge backpack on. He was a character, for sure. Today at breakfast he started us on a lively conversation about malaria and jungle illnesses by asking how he's supposed to take his malaria medicine with food when he can't eat it within two hours of ingesting calcium or iron. Chad said he avoids the medicine like the plague, and we decided that two gin and tonics a day (which apparently have enough quinine to prevent malaria?) and lots of bug spray are the better route to take. The other professors, Georgians, agreed laughingly.

The Ohio State students arrived this weekend, and today I sat in on my first Spanish class with a few of them. I am very happy to meet all of them and they seem like a solid group. At first most of them sidled around me nervously, until I joined a conversation through a kid in my level or just standing on the street, and somebody would ask "¿Y cómo te llamas?" Then they would all laugh and someone else would confide, "I thought you were Ecuadorian and I didn't want to speak Spanish!" I was, of course, delighted to hear that I had been mistaken for a native, but laughed and inevitably started a lively conversation with them. I was surprised, coming from St Olaf, that the boys outnumber the girls, but the group is small enough (17) that each of their personalities picks up its niche in the group, and it's always dynamic and interesting.

I spent the day with them, and as we waited in a telephone shop a mochilero (backpacker) approached me and asked what we are all doing here. We got into a conversation and as it turns out he's Irish, traveling with a buddy or two, learning Spanish and basically doing an Andean review. A week in Quito, a few weeks in other parts of Ecuador and then moving down through Peru and Chile, etc. Very interesting. As he walked away he waved, "¡Hasta luego!" and Dana said, "Ooh, he's cute!" She has invited me out already, and has her eye open for fun bars.

It took me awhile but I'm feeling more hopeful and starting to learn some useful things, about Spanish, sketchy equatorial parasites and diseases and about FARC, about working, about myself, and about life in general. I got my groove back. I also finally got resourceful and Facebooked a VERY old friend whose parents worked in the same missionary org as my parents and my grandparents, who I haven't seen in at least 10 years and possibly even 15. He is also in Quito this summer and though we may have only spoken 3-year-old Spanglish to each other he was enthusiastic about the idea to meet up, so that may also be an exciting blast from the past. Next on my agenda is to take some of the OSU girls to the artisan's market, and do a tour of the old town churches. I've heard they are spectacular, and I've always marveled at cathedrals and places of worship.

Also as promised, the link to the hotel's webpage, which has bits and pieces of my handiwork/penmanship scattered through it.

I think about all of you very often, and hope that your summers are going well.
Besitos,
Clarita