First impressions of Ecuador

I arrived in Quito late Thursday night. I left from Salt Lake City, Utah at about 12:45 Utah time and arrived in Houston at about 5 Houston time. I had about a 45 minute layover in Houston before bording the plane for Quito. Everyone going to Ecuador flew together (meaning the Cuenca girls and the Quito girls.) We arrived in Quito at about 11:30 pm or so Quito time. We were met at the airport by Angel our project director and Ashley the assistant project director and a bunch of other people that helped us with our bags. The airport in Quito wasn´t as intimidating as I thought it was going to be.

We arrived at the OSSO house shortly after being picked up and that´s where the chaos began. Staying in the house Thursday night were all of the new girls (including the Cuenca girls who stayed the night and then took a bus the next day to Cuenca), the old Quito girls that weren´t going home yet, as well as the Quito boys (there are two of them), the old Quito girls that were on their way out, as well as the project managers and assistant managers and their families. It was really fun though.

My group is awesome. There are 11 girls and 2 boys. I´ve had so much fun getting to know them.

We were able to walk around and see our neighborhood on Friday which was fun and Friday night, we all went out to dinner as a group. It was way fun. We went to this hamburger and hot dog place by the Quito hotel. No Dad, I did not eat a hot dog. I ate a hamburger. The patty tasted kind of like sausage and I found out that in Ecuador, they put eggs in their beef. I thought that was kind of interesting. They also don´t dip their fries. They put a lot of stuff on top of it like ketchup and salsa and a bunch of other things and then eat it with a fork.

Another thing about Quito especially is that there are guards and police everywhere. It probably would make me a little scared but surprisingly it doesn´t. I haven´t been at all scared since I´ve been here.

Obviously, I stick out like a sore thumb here in Ecuador. It´s kind of funny because I´ll walk down the street and people will stop and stare at me as I walk by. I´ve gotten accustomed to getting a lot of whistles and cat calls from guys already and have learned to ignore it.

A few things about the house. It´s considered big in Ecuador. It´s surrounded by this brick wall with a door that can only be opened if you ring the buzzer and say your name. It has to be big because there are so many people living here. There are about 15 adults (all the volunteers and the project managers and assistant) and four kids. It gets kind of hectic around meal time. Last night, we had about 11 people in the kitchen at a time and it was way crowded. Not to mention we were all moving around because we were cleaning it.

I had shift this morning but I was still able to go to sacrament meeting. It took us about 30 minutes to drive there. We had to go to a different ward because our ward meets at 9. It was really awesome. A lot of the members came up to us and welcomed us and shook our hands. I love how every where you go it feels the same even if you don´t understand the language.

Overall, I love it here. I´ve loved it since day one. I´m surprised about how at home I´ve felt since I´ve been here. All the people I´ve met have been so nice. The language is still a bit of a struggle but I´m trying to learn a few phrases everyday so that by the time I leave, I´ll know a lot. Angel encouraged us to learn at least one word a day so that when we leave, we´ll know about 90 words.

Oh I forgot, on Saturday, we went to the Artesian which is this big market where you can buy a lot of stuff like paintings and clothes and other artsy stuff. It reminds me of the market they have at the Folk Life Festival only 10 times bigger. I didn´t buy anything on Saturday but I will definitely be back. We don´t live too far from it.

I think that´s it for now. I´ll try and take some pictures soon and post them. ¡Chao!