I had my own homecoming today, although not the dancing kind. Today was the end of the Adjustment orientation, and while I had a blast seeing and hanging out with all of the other AFSers, I actually found that I was excited to come back to Guaranda. I missed it, and I was so happy to be back, especially after the six and a half hour bus ride. I've been feeling more and more at home here over the last couple of weeks, but it really felt like home when I kept thinking that it would be nice to be back in my own bed and take a shower with hot water in my bathroom. My bed, my shower, my house, my family. I know that there are still going to be plenty of days when I miss my bed and house and family in the US, but its a nice to feel like I belong here in Guaranda after a lot of feeling kind of awkward and out of place.
As for the orientation, it was a lot of fun! It's crazy how completely similar and also completely different all of our experiences have been in the first month. Life on the coast is different from life in the mountains. Life in the big cities is different from life in smaller places like Guaranda. And yet, despite all of the differences, there are always thins that are exactly the same, or at least very similar. Milk comes in a bag everywhere, and everyone eats a ton of rice and chicken. Everyone has a uniform for school and everyone both loves and also doesn't like school. We all have a lot of the same struggles, and we find a lot of the same things strange. That's one of the biggest comforts of being around exchange students. We are all leading different lives, so we always have great stories to tell, but at the same we are all understand each other's struggles and we can all relate to each other.
Our orientation was on the coast, only a couple of blocks from the beach, which was wonderful, although it wasn't nearly as warm as I expected it to be. All I really cared about was that, although it wasn't incredibly hot, it was warm enough to go swimming in the ocean. Colorado is wonderful, but there's no beach, so it always feels special for me to get to swim in the ocean!
This guy was just hanging out at one of the beaches we went to. We couldn't get too close, because he wasn't friendly, but everyone stopped to take pictures. I have no idea how common sea lions are in Ecuador.
The Sea of Clouds
When you're driving from the mountains down to the coast, there's a point where you descend straight into the clouds. Just before that point, there's a fantastic view where the mountains just seem to disappear. Its hard to capture the beauty of it from a moving bus, but this was my best picture. The closest thing I can equate it to is looking out the window of an airplane, except that you'r not flying thousands of feet in the air, you're on the ground. Its one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
Hasta luego,
Elisa
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