Jumping Off Bridges & Rio Pastaza

View from my apartment!

What a weekend!  My friends and I went to Baños again, but this time we did a whole lot more than last time.  We stayed in Ambato on Friday night.  After a nice dinner, we came home and hung out on the roof of our complex for a while.  We have an amazingly pretty view.  Our apartment complex is an 8 story building and there's a ladder that goes up to the very top of the building.  The scary thing is that there's no ledge, so we stayed in the middle and sat off to the side that dropped down only one story, not 8.  Sitting up there was nice and relaxing!  We left to Baños, which is only about an hour away from here, on Saturday morning around 9 or 9:30.  We were the first of our group to get there, so we had to wait a little bit, so we chilled at a café for a little.  After a little waiting, we made our way to Rio Pastaza (which is where we were going to go rafting), stopping to witness some people zip-lining.  I would have done it, except it would have been a 30-45 minute wait.  We continued on our journey to Rio Pastaza, but we stopped at another bridge where people were doing what they call "bridge swinging" which is kind of like bungee jumping, but kinda different.  You jump off the bridge, but you're not tied at your feet, and instead of jerking up and down, you swing back and forth.  A couple of my friends and I did it.  It was such an incredible rush!  I loved it.  Paragliding is in store for the near future.  I'm working myself up for jumping off a plane!  (But seriously... I want to skydive).  There's another touristy town near Ambato that apparently has some of the best quality jeans in Ecuador, and they also have paragliding there!  So we're going!

Jumping off a perfectly sturdy bridge :)

Like I said, jumping off that bridge was suuuper fun.  I thought that the scariest part would be the jumping off part, but the worst part was when we were just standing up on the ledge.  Jumping off was kind of easy.  When you're falling, there's this moment when you think, "oh shit!  What the hell am I doing?" but other than that, it's all fun and game.  Then it's over and you want to do it again!!  My head jerked quite a bit, but it didn't hurt in the moment.  Probably because I was on such an adrenaline rush.  It's a little sore today, but a lot of it probably has to do with rafting too.  Okay, so, rafting!  We finally got to Rio Pastaza and the company we were doing it through drove us down to the part of the river where we were starting.  They gave us a quick run through of how we were to steer the boart and what we had to do if we ourselves or anybody in our boat fell out of the raft and into the river.  The sky was absolutely beautiful when we were on the road, but by the time we got there, you could see a raincloud in the distance.  That wasn't going to stop of us from going rafting, though.  We had two boats, ours was yellow and we found a Barbie in it, so we named it Barbie's Banana Boat.  Our guide was awesome.  He knew that river like the palm of his hand.  Towards the end of of the rapids, I fell out of the boat.  It all happened in slow motion.  My foot was where it needed to be so I was dangling off the edge of the raft for what seemed like an eternity.  But then my knee got stuck in an awkward position, so I decided to move my foot from where it needed to be and I fell into the river.  Getting back on wasn't the easiest of things, especially because we were in the rapids.  I finally got back into the raft and assumed by position as if nothing happened.  We jumped into the river and swam for a little bit.  About halfway through our 17 km trip down the river, it started to drizzle a bit, and within the next hour or so it started to rain a lot.  My eyes and contacts didn't appreciate it.  The rain made things so much more intense.  It wasn't any more difficult to steer the raft through the river, but look wise, we looked like such badasses rafting in the rain!  At some point when it was raining a lot, one of the guys on my boat said that this all reminded him of the rain scene in The Notebook.  I took this as a cue to begin quoting it, so I said, "Why didn't you write me?  Why?  It wasn't over for me," and two of the guys (both of whom will remain nameless) on my boat automatically responded: "I wrote you 365 letters.  I wrote you every day for a year.  It wasn't over…it still isn't over."  Witnessing them quote The Notebook is definitely the most manly thing I've ever seen (heard?) a man do.  The rain was teasing us.  It would stop raining only to start again with greater force.  It got to the point that the rain was dropping down on us like needles.  It hurt!  But still, it was so much fun!!  At the end of the 17 km, we got out of the river and into the van that was to take us back to our original location.  We stopped at a mini aquarium that housed various types of creatures that live in Rio Pastaza, including electric eels, various types of tilapia, piranhas, and several other carnivorous, scary, ugly-looking fish.  We were supposed to go hang out with monkeys but we weren't able to because of the rain and because it was too dark outside by the time we finished rafting.  So we ate dinner and then went back to our hostel where we showered and got ready to go out in Baños.  One of my friends' co-workers was having a birthday celebration, so we went to that.  By the end of the night we met a bunch of cool people, including but not limited to, Jonathan from Israel, Caya and her brother, Cedar, from Canada, and Patricio from Ecuador.  We woke up early yesterday morning to secure a spot on a bus back to Ambato because Emily, one of my roommates, had to be back here for a meeting at 4.  We got home around 1ish, so I decided to take a nap and I didn't wake up until around 4:30.  Other than not getting to see the monkeys, it was definitely a successful trip.  :)

Chao!

Atenas

Alas, I am an English teacher!

Last week was my first week of work.  Before starting my job, I had to, obviously, get a teaching certificate.  As mentioned in previous posts, I was in Quito for about 6 weeks.  During that time I took a month intensive course (every Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 6:45 p.m.) for my TESOL certification.  Upon completing that, I moved to Ambato, Tungurahua (also in Ecuador) where I was to start teaching English at a K-12 school called Atenas.  The school year actually began in early September meaning that I missed about a month of school.  Because of this it would have been next to impossible to let me step in as a ''real'' teacher.  What I mean to say is that I don't have my own classroom...I still am an actual teacher, haha. 

My official title is ''English Tutor'', but I am doing more than just tutoring.  I'm not actually going to get my own traditional classroom per say, but I am going to be teaching solo in what we call tutorial rooms.  So I'm assisting the teachers but I'm not an ''assistant'' teacher.  Does any of this make sense? 

Explanation: The ''colegio'' (what they call high school) students, from 8th grade to 3rd year I.B. (11 year olds to 18 year olds), are going to come to me once or twice a week during their regular English class hours.  I coordinate with their actual English teacher and he or she gives me the topic of the lesson and we split the class into two groups, one of which comes to me.  The other group stays with their regular English teacher.  Basically, I'm a conversation teacher and we use their regular topics to converse in these tutorial rooms.  All of my classes are anywhere from 6 to 12 students, which is awesome!  We split the class up in order to give them more practice with their conversation skills.  The overwhelming part about it all will be coordinating with the English teachers.  They are going to plan my lessons for me.  On one hand it is nice because I don't have to worry about planning lessons, but on the other hand, I won't know what I have to teach until a few days beforehand.  This means that if I don't know the subject matter, I am going to have to do a lot of research and at least pretend to know what I'm talking about when I attempt to teach it.

That is it for now!  I hope to start updating more frequently once we get internet set up in our apartment!

LOVE!

Goodbye, Quito; Hello, Ambato!

Maroon 5 was playing as I packed my things to move out of my host parent's home and right as I put away the last of my things, Adam sang the “I can't believe that it's over” line in “Just a Feeling”. Crazy coincidence, huh? I honestly cannot believe that my time with them is over…that my time in Quito is over. It's been just about six weeks since I've arrived here. In those six weeks, I've traveled to a few different places, seen many beautiful things, taken Spanish classes, gotten TESOL certified, met amazing people, and formed a bond with this family.  Here's a picture of my TESOL group!

Back to my host family!  They have been so great to me and even to my family back in San Antonio. As we all know, mothers worry…a lot, and my mom is far from an exception. Señora Laura has talked to my parents on a few occasions, and talking to my Ecuadorian family is comforting to my real family. I don't completely understand why, but I'm also not a parent. Maybe one day I'll end up with a rambunctious little girl that decides to move far away from home and worries me just as much as I worry my mother and maybe then I'll know how she feels right now. Maybe. Anywho, the Badillo family welcomed me to Ecuador and they took me in as one of their own. Having them as a family definitely eased my transition from the States to Ecuador and I will always have a spot in my heart for them.  Here's the closest to normal picture of them that I have of them (we took some pictures on photobooth, but I don't think I ever got just a normal one…oops!)

Although my time in Quito is over, my Ecuadorian adventures still continue. I'm going to be in Ambato, a city about 2 to 3 hours (depending on transportation, rain, and traffic) south of Quito, from now until around July or August of 2012. A few days ago I got the news that I was “sort of” hired as a teacher at Atenas, which is a private colegio (or K12 school) in Ambato. I say “sort of” hired because although it was kind of confirmed, it wasn't really. I can go on and on about this, but basically, it's the way Ecuador (and most of Latin America, for that matter) functions – everything is very laid-back. Always. We United-Statesians are quite spoiled in that regard. We have deadlines and we either expect people to follow them or others expect us to follow them. Deadlines do exist here, but if someone says that they'll have an answer to you by today, you probably won't get that answer until one or two weeks later. And even if you keep on pestering people about it, their seemingly automatic response is: “oh, don't worry about it, things will work out” Thankfully, things have worked out quite well so far. I went to the school yesterday, and things were finally confirmed for real. I start my job as a conversation teacher for 8^th, 9^th, 10^th, 1^st year IB, 2^nd year IB, and 3^rd year IB this coming Monday. Phew! I'm excited but also ridiculously nervous to start this new stage in my life.

Three of my friends are going to live here in Ambato, too. They will be working at my rival school, CEBI, but we're all going to, hopefully (if things work out), live together. Mark and I were looking for apartments for a good while yesterday. Let me tell you, finding a furnished apartment that people are willing to rent out to complete strangers is far from an easy task. I called about 15 different people yesterday and no luck. Mark and I kept going on our research though, and we found a listing for a seemingly amazing furnished apartment. Upon further investigation, however, we learned that the listing was posted on September 12^th, almost a month ago! I called a few times anyway, but I kept on getting voicemail. I called again this morning, though, AND IT'S AVAILABLE!! We're going to go look at it today after the lady gets off work. Please please please keep your fingers crossed for us!!  For the time being, we are living in a hotel.  Which is a pain on so many levels.

Also, when still in Quito, we visited this absolutely gorgeous basilica.  We got to climb up its towers and see it's amazing architecture.  The entrance was definitely worth $2!

This is a picture of the four of us from the top of the bell tower.  And that's Quito in the background!

Like I mentioned earlier, I start my job on Monday.  I wasn't given any sort of assignment, so I have no idea how it's going to work out.  I'm probably going to plan some lessons on greetings because it's what seems to be the most fit for the circumstances.  I'll definitely keep y'all updated on how things go!

Tata for now!

Steph