March-April

¡Hola con todas y todos!  ¡Espero que se encuentren muy bien!  Hello everyone!  I hope you are doing great!

UNACH's first semester ended in the second week of March which kept me busy with classes and volunteering.  I have learned a lot about lesson planning, grading, and classroom management this past year and have really enjoyed working with students of a variety of ages.  One of my class groups at UNACH finished their final semester of classes this week, and they very kindly threw me a surprise party to say goodbye!  I also got to spend time with my yoga friend, Jenny, and her fiancé, Santi, at their gorgeous house in the countryside where we bathed their pigs, hung out with their llama, and went on a fun hike to spot wild beehives!

During March, I also got to meet my brother George and mom in Miami for a few days; it was a nice middle point since Miami is about a four-hour flight from Quito and a three-hour flight from Cleveland.  We took a bus tour of the city through Little Havana, downtown, and North Miami Beach, enjoyed the beautiful beaches, took a trip down to the Keys to snorkel, and ate some delicious food (I was VERY excited to be back in US grocery stores carrying all of my favorite indulgences including La Croix, Goldfish, and the styles of cheeses I dearly missed).  We also enjoyed a cruise around the bay gawking at some insane mansions on Miami's residential islands before driving four hours round-trip up to Palm Beach hoping to see wild manatees outside a power plant (which apparently manatees love for the warm water emissions) and unfortunately not seeing any, but we still learned a lot through podcasts and the information center.  

After Miami, I flew back home to Erie via Cleveland with my mom and brother to spend around a week at home, which was restful and refreshing.  I was able to see some friends and my grandparents, visit with my amazing high school Spanish teacher "Profe" and her class, and try not to freeze in the dreary Erie weather.  It was really nice to take a break and spend quality time with family, especially my parents.  After around two weeks in the US, I headed back to Ecuador to finish out my remaining three months here. 

Since UNACH was on break in between semesters when I returned, I kept busy attending some US Embassy-sponsored events.  One weekend, I joined a group of students and community members on an hour-long bus trip to the Chimborazo Volcano reserve to clean up litter and celebrate an early Earth Day.  Up in the "páramo" (generally land between 9,500-16,400 feet above sea level), the landscape looks like Mars since it is mostly barren and the soil has a reddish tint.  We spent the day driving from area to area cleaning up and sorting trash and trying to stay warm when it started raining.  The next week, an Ecuadorian Fulbright alumna, Norma, whom I met on the Chimborazo outing invited me to a Kichwa language exchange in an indigenous community south of Riobamba.  Norma went to the University of Pennsylvania and is now doing amazing work through the Nukari Foundation, which empowers indigenous women and girls through free educational resources and focuses on sustainable community development.  The day of the exchange, our small group headed out early in the morning and arrived to the town of Galte Laime in the "cantón" (sort of like a county) of Guamote.  We started off by introducing ourselves to community members followed by a language learning experience that was interactive and engaging.  My Kichwa level is very basic, but I learned a ton with my partner!  

Our group then toured the community and enjoyed some spectacular mountain views in all directions.  Agriculture is a major industry for Galte Laime with lots of farm animals like pigs, cows, guinea pigs, and sheep and crops like potatoes, corn, and beans.  We also got to see a traditional home made with a thatch roof of insulating grasses that keep a stable temperature during the cold mountain nights; today, most houses in the community are made of concrete.  The community served us a generous meal of locally grown produce and meat (which I personally passed on), and the US Embassy took lots of photos and conducted interviews about the project since they are hoping to sponsor this and similar initiatives in the future.  Norma told us that the electricity first arrived to the community just two years ago, and through the support of her foundation they have now brought economic support and Internet there in addition to providing scholarships for young girls to learn English in the hopes of promoting sustainable ecotourism in the community in the future.  In this way, the girls will not have to leave their communities in search of better paying work and can contribute to responsible and positive cultural exchanges right at home.

Galte Laime is located near the Dunas de Palmira, enormous sand dunes that seem randomly placed in the midst of this green section of the Andes.  The dunes are complete with a giant plastic camel, four-wheelers you can rent, or--best of all--waxed metal sandboards!  I tried standing up and going downhill and almost wiped out, and I also enjoyed sitting down on the board and FLYING down the dunes!  Our group also had a nice spiritual mini-ceremony barefoot in the sand at sunset, and it was a great chance to connect with inspiring women of all ages!

During the end of March, I also co-led a virtual training for the UNACH faculty in our department, Pedagogy of National and Foreign Languages.  We focused on techniques and resources to enhance textbook lesson plans and had fun with resources like TedEd, Chat GPT, interactive online discussion boards, and cultural lesson examples.  For me, one of the most interesting things about being in Ecuador has been comparing and contrasting US and Ecuadorian university culture, and it was great to have focused and engaging discussions with the Ecuadorian professors about their perspectives on teaching strategies!

In April, the second semester at UNACH began, and I got back into the swing of teaching.  This semester, I changed up my schedule a little and was assigned to Intermediate English (B1 and B2), School Management, International Exam Preparation, and English for Specific Purposes classes.  I also helped my supervisor, Moniquita, with her Language and Culture class, and she asked me to fill in for her for around three weeks while she was away on a business trip.  It was fun to be the (temporary) main instructor for the course which met three times a week, and I had a great group of students to work with.  She also gave me a lot of flexibility in how I wanted to implement lessons and what activities I wanted to do.  I also continued going twice weekly to the rural schools I've been collaborating with.  Some of my favorite activities with the younger kids include bilingual storybook time, Red Light/Green Light, warm-up activities with jump ropes, flyswatter games (vocabulary written on the board--two students race to smack the correct term with the flyswatter and it gets exciting!), and songs.

I also made it to the base camp of the Carihuairazo Volcano!  My roommate Rachel and I decided to go on a dayhike with a guide which I mistakenly believed was 5k total.  After an almost two-hour drive to the start of the hike (where the guide had to stop the car at a random point on a dirt road because there was too much mud), we began the 11.5k or so round-trip trek to our destination.  The altitude hit me pretty hard, and I had to take a lot of breaks to catch my breath.  Another more intangible but still unpleasant side effect of the altitude is feeling mentally foggy and experiencing headaches, but the views were worth it and so was the feeling of accomplishment when I finally made it!  I wore mud boots since the path was pretty muddy, and when we arrived to the base camp we enjoyed cool views of a yellow lagoon.  After the clouds passed, we also got a glimpse of the summit which sits at 16,463 feet.  

On the hike, we saw lots of vicuñas, South American camelids that to me look like more rugged llamas.  Our guide told us that he had once been spit on while approaching it too closely on a bike, and it burned him so badly he had to go to the doctor for a special cream.  To this day, the area of his skin that came in contact with the spit remains discolored!  While we saw many vicuñas on the hike, I was sure to keep a generous safe distance.  Our guide also said that these wild animals live in groups and form circles while spitting and kicking at threats to increase their safety in numbers and fend off wolves.  When they become old and weak, the vicuñas wander off on their own on a kind of suicide mission and allow themselves to be consumed by wolves, leaving the younger and healthier group members to continue thriving.  During the hike, I joked that I was seriously considering acting like one of those decrepit mammals and wandering off, succumbing to the altitude and giving up on the treacherous hike.  Somewhat early on during the trek, I seriously considered heading back to the car to wait the five or six hours it would take them to complete the hike because I truly wasn't feeling well and was having trouble digesting the prospect of walking more than double the distance I had mentally prepared for.  Thankfully, the guide and Rachel were gracious about taking breaks and were not about to ditch me (as much as I wanted to follow the vicuña's lead), and I was very happy I made it!

To round out April, Rachel and I embarked on an eleven-hour overnight bus trip south to the city of Loja to surprise our friend Riley for her birthday!  She had no idea that we were coming, and her roommate/our friend Halee planned an amazing weekend full of fun activites and surprises!  Although I was pretty much a zombie all morning after the bus, we (all five English Teaching Assistants including our friend Jonathan living in northern Ecuador) enjoyed a really cool coffee tour in chic cafes in the city center (Loja is known worldwide for their coffee production) and went out for a nice Italian lunch.  After a quick afternoon nap, we headed out to watch the sunset over the city at a cool lookout spot in the hills before returning to Riley and Halee's apartment, where some of their Lojano friends had decorated and set out snacks!  She was totally surprised, and we had a fantastic evening playing "Minute to Win It" style games, enjoying some Wisconsin cheddar Halee had brought back from the US that she rations out and was very kind to share, and celebrating Riley!  The next day, we took a bus to Vilcambamba, a small near the Peruvian border known for its expat population and hippie energy.  Overall, it was a great trip, and I majorly crashed the day after the night bus home and slept almost all day!

Finally, one of the most exciting experiences from March and April was enjoying a great concert (in the rain!) with friends--we saw Gente de Zona, known for their songs (and many collaborations) including "La Gozadera" and "Bailando"!

March and April flew by, and I'm grateful for another few months of new experiences and learning opportunities!