Things Fall Together

And so the long, long, long wait is over. I've been waiting since April to hear about who my host family is and what city I'll be living in and the email finally came. My mom got the email first, she called me while I was at work and I tried very hard not to freak out too much as she read all of the information to me. Despite restraining myself from jumping up and down and screaming, my co-workers still asked if I was okay. I had to explain to them that I'd been waiting for months to hear about my family and that I finally had information.

So, where in this big world will I be? I'll be living in the city of Guaranda, in the state of Bolivar. When I try to describe a map of Ecuador to people, I say that it looks vaguely like an upside down pear, rounder on the top and then thinner on the bottom. Guaranda is located almost in the middle of the round part. If you look on the map, it's between Quito and Cuenca. See if you can find it!
Guaranda is a city of about 55,000 people, and its at an elevation of 8,753 ft. It's a market town, known for its week long Carnival celebration. I hope that I get to experience that celebration firsthand, and I promise to post pictures if I do. For all of my friends who've been to Peru, the pictures remind me of Cusco. The buildings are the same colonial style, and some of the streets are cobblestone. It looks beautiful, mountainous and green. It looks like the kind of place that is more breathtaking in person than in pictures, which makes me so incredibly excited to see it with my own eyes.

As for my host family, I have a host father named Christian, a host mother named Wendy, and a host sister named Andrea. Andrea is about a year and a half younger than me. I tried hard not to have any preferences about my host family, but I'm terribly happy to have a host sister!

I fly to Miami on August 21st for a Gateway orientation with all of the other American students going to Ecuador, then we fly to Quito on the 22nd. It seems to me that some of the closest friends exchange students make are other exchange students, so I'm excited to get to know the other AFSers!

Now I get to fill out more forms for my visa application and go shopping for anything I need before I leave, all while waiting for more information about my host family and any information on my school. I don't mind waiting for that so much though, because now I have a tangible, if not very detailed, picture of what my life will be like. It feels good to have a place and a family. I no longer feel like I'm wandering around without any sense of direction. I know where I'm going, and I feel like maybe I can belong there.

Hasta luego,

~Elisa