Wandering with Tedder and Tamara

* Tamara posting *

Sunday 6/17

We didn't do a ton today, just went shopping and explored. The main road in front of our apartment was closed to autos in one direction to make way for weekend bicycle riding. It appears to be sponsored by Bike Stop Ecuador. There are a lot of families out bike riding and playing in the parks (which Quito has a lot of).

I went out with our moto friend Josh for dinner with Eleanor, whom he met at the hostal. We had an enjoyable evening with lots of conversation.

Monday 6/18

Today was more of the same really. I met with the volunteer office for Children International and did my orientation. I will be working in a poor area in the south of Quito at a community center with a dentist and doctor. My volunteering starts properly on Thursday, but I get to visit the clinic on Wednesday to learn the way there and meet the staff. I am really looking forward to this as it should be a very rewarding experience. It will be fun to combine my medical interest with neat kids and more practice of the language.

I also was able to find a Spanish tutor to come to the apartment to give me lessons. This will be better than a school because my volunteer schedule goes until afternoon Mon-Thurs and I won't have to spend more time going from the clinic to a school and then to the apartment. Hopefully it works out with Ted since we will have to share the space.

We spent more time with Josh today. We were going to go to Mitad del Mundo (middle of the earth at the equator) but he isn't feeling well. So we had more good conversation and were able to help him find some heated riding gear to order for the rest of his journey south.

Tuesday 6/19

We met Josh this morning and went together to Mitad del Mundo. Ted made sure to take the GPS so he could see how far off we were from the actual equator - it is really far off! The actual line isn't even on the museum property. Still, the monument is cool to see and there were some fun tourist shops and a post office where we got to stamp our passports with a “middle of the world in Ecuador” stamp.

Hanging out with Josh really paid off for us today. He was able to talk his way into taking our bikes into the property - up to the museum entrance to take pictures of them across the line. He is apparently a 'famous writer' and we're his, uh, photographers. :)

I had my first Spanish lesson here in Quito this afternoon with Monica. Apparently the professor I had spoken with on the phone had somehow gotten the impression that my Spanish was very good. She had a full schedule but set me up with another instructor who got the proficiency information... so the first lesson was not planned for my limited abilities. It is funny to think that I came across as being an advanced student - especially on the phone, which is very difficult for me. Future lessons should go well though, now that the professor has a better of idea of what my skill level is.

I tried to make coconut rice like we had in Panama. I cooked the rice with coconut milk and had to add some water so that the rice would cook fully. It never did get very fluffy and it didn't taste enough like coconut. It was okay, but definitely didn't live up to what I was hoping for.

Wednesday 6/20

I met the other volunteer, Laura, today at the volunteer headquarters and got shown the way to the community center where we will be working. It is in a poor neighborhood and about an hour from the apartment by bus.

The community center was very interesting - they have a nicely stocked library and computer center that are open to the whole community. In addition, they have, of course, the dentist and doctor's offices. The people there are very friendly and there are tons of cute kids everywhere. I will be working Mon-Thurs 8:30-2:30 and get a long weekend. I start tomorrow morning and I'm looking forward to it!

I had my second Spanish lesson this afternoon and it is going better. We went over the names of the parts of the body and other volunteering-specific phrases. In addition, I finally learned the Spanish alphabet (so I can do eye tests). I feel like this should be a nice mix between regular lessons (learning verbs, nouns, etc) and experience-specific learning from my questions and what I need at the clinic.

Ted explored some of the malls around this area and found some good stickers. There are apparently a lot of shopping centers here with a good variety of stores.