Deep Breaths

I am alive. Severely overwhelmed, completely outside of my comfort zone, but alive none the less.

I guess the beginning is a good place to start, and the beginning for us, is Miami. After my last post, I met the other three American students going to Ecuador, Hannah from Alaska, Madison from the San Francisco area, and Gavin from Washington. I'm happy to say that we all hit it off right away, and had a blast together at both orientations. We had a short orientation in Miami, before heading off to Quito, where we were picked up at the airport along with Sacha, who is the only AFSer from France and who we adopted into our little band. Then we drove to a retreat/camp place where we met all of the other AFSers in Ecuador, and had a day long orientation. We talked about safety, cultural norms, the visa registration process that we have to go through now that were in-country, and how to deal with earthquakes and active volcanoes. The most natural disaster type thing that ever happens in Denver is snowstorms, and the occasional tornado warning, so hearing about tremors and ash fall was a big change.

The sense of time and punctuality here is very different. At all AFS USA orientations, there was always a schedule to be followed with specific times for everything. Here, they told us the general things to be covered, we didn't cover them in any specific order, and the only things with generally set times were meals, but even those it was okay to be late to. I hate being late to things, so all of that was quite an adjustment for me. Hooray for cultural differences!

Then Sunday morning everyone left to their respective host communities, which meant a five hour bus ride for me and the eleven other AFSers going to Guaranda. Five hours is nothing to me (we routinely drive anywhere from 7 to 19 hours to visit family in the US), but to my Belgian friend Bram, five hours was an eternity. Apparently in Belgium you can drive a couple of hours and be out of the country!

When we got to Guaranda, we were picked up by our host families, with a couple of exceptions, including me. Turns out my host sister is starting her first year of university in Quito this week, so she and my host parents were in Quito getting her set up. So instead of being picked up by them, my host mother's sister, Maria, and my host grandparents picked me up, along with my host cousins, Alejandro and Orlando. They took me to my house and we watched some movies. I was incredibly excited to figure out that I can watched dubbed movies in Spanish and understand them, for the most part! I unpacked and everyone stayed at my house with me for the night. Then today I met a ton of other people and relatives, because in Guaranda, everyone knows everyone. I've tried to remember all of the names and connections, but once I started meeting the friends of my host cousins I gave up and just smiled and kissed lots of cheeks. My host father arrived from Quito this evening and picked me up, we talked as he drove me around the city a little and then came home, where I finally got connected to the internet. I like my host father a lot so far, and I cant wait to meet my host mom later this week!

So here I am, writing to all of you, checking in with my parents to tell them about everything, and generally unwinding after a long day. There is so much to take in and thus far all of the years I've spent speaking Spanish in snippets are being put to the test. I'm trying to just go with whatever happens and not break into tears when things almost seem like too much.

Adjusting is hard, but its also exciting. For so long I've wanted exactly this, and now that its happening I've had a few moments of panic, but for the most part I can't believe that it's actually real. But I'm alive, and I'm pretty sure I can do this, so I think I'm ready for tomorrow, and the rest after that. Deep breaths are key, and I'm becoming very good at them.

I promise to post pictures soon, it's just that posting pictures requires taking some, which I haven't done yet. It's nice to write, but it's also nice to hear from people, so if you think of anything to say, please comment!

Hasta luego,

Elisa