Familia

As you saw from our last post, we are staying with a family in Cuenca. The family is very large, and the mother/grandmother welcomed us immediately into her home.



We call her ´´Ma-ma´´ and she considers us her 7th and 8th children. Yes, she is mother of 6, with the youngest being 33:


It seems a natural progression that Mark and I be her 7th and 8th children. We greatly appreciate the warm welcome into this temporary home.

In the Ecuadorian family, the weekends are usually spent with family, and this last Sunday was no different for us. We went to ´´El Campo´´ (the country) where the family has a small house.



Five of Ma-ma´s six children were there, some with their spouses, children, and ´´adopted´´ international students like us. Ma-ma´s oldest daughter´s husband took to liking Mark and talked to him for 2 hours about how he built this precious home with his own hands and planted all kinds of trees and plants in the land surrounding the house. The house itself has one small bathroom and two bedrooms, and a large table in the kitchen, perfect for gathering around for the large meal of the day: almuerzo or la comida (lunch).

It also has a patio/front porch with cushioned chairs and benches to gather and have a siesta.
At el campo, we had a large lunch and the food was delicious, as always: mote (hominy) is common to eat by itself or in a soup. We had pork and beef roasted outside, a salad, rice, and potatoes. (Next week, I´ll be blogging about our typically lunches, and will include a picture from each day!) We also celebrated Ma-ma´s sister-in-law´s 80th birthday. You can see the video of us singing ´´Feliz Cumpleanos´´ to her in the video.

After lunch, we then chatted, rested, and read. Towards evening, we helped to clear off some of the old logs from the land and burnt the rest of the pieces. Mark had a blast. Men and fire...not sure I´ll come to understand it completely, but it was fun to watch the guys interact.

Una Cuidad Hermosa

Cuenca es una ciudad hermosa. (Cuenca is a beautiful city.)

 

After school, almuezo (lunch-the main meal of the day), and una siesta (nap, which is common during the afternoon), we walked along the river and took pictures.  

As you can see: puffy white and gray clouds hover over rolling green mountains that surround the entire city.  And Cuenca is a city.  The streets are cobblestone mostly and cars bounce down the street at about 25-30 mph (so not fast).  The sidewalks hold about one person, maybe two in certain places, and the streets are lined with stores (clothing, electronic, sports, shops similar to tiny 7-elevens, cell phone stores, furniture stores, etc.).  The stores are small by U.S. standards, as most hold no more than 5 people at a time, and with 5, it would be crowded.

 

One of our favorite places is the parque en el Centro where we study, read, and do homework.  Our favorite ice cream shop (se llama ``Nice Cream´´) is right on the corner, so easy access to increase our blood sugar during the afternoon lull.

 

 

We spend most of our time these first few weeks either at school,

or at our home.  Here are pictures of those, for now.  Our room (one of six rooms in the house!) is the one on the second floor with the curtains open.

 

Addendum to Miami

I meant to mention this in our Miami post, but forgot.

In Miami, it seemed that 80% of people spoke Spanish. I knew that Miami had a lot of Spanish-speakers; however, knowing there are a lot of Spanish-speakers in Miami and actually being surrounded by them are two different things. Of course, I loved it, because I love the language and was able to practice :)

Example:
While sitting at breakfast in the Miami hotel on Sunday morning, I overheard a gentleman (non-Spanish-speaker) sit down and converse with a waiter. It went as follows:

Gentleman: What do you have for lunch?

Waiter: [written as it was pronounced with a strong Spanish accent] We have a lunch boofeh, lasagna, and the vehetal es es-parra-goose.

Gentleman: As-parra-goose?

Waiter: Si, es-parra-goose.

Gentleman: As-parra-goose?

Waiter: Si, es-parra-goose.

Gentlemen: Oh! Sprouts?

Waiter: No, es-parra-goose.

Lindsay: [interjecting] Asparagus.

Gentlemen: Oh, asparagus. Thank you!

Waiter: Si, es-parra-goose.

Lindsay: [to herself] I love Español.

Aprendemos Español

Aprendemos Español. = We learn Spanish.

Today was our first day of language school. Over our 4-hour lesson, my professora and I (Lindsay) covered almost every topic under the sun. It was a relief to be able to discuss a variety of topics in Español...or at least understand 80-90% of what my professora was saying. The Spanish here is crisp and clear and I simply enjoy listening to folks share history, opinions, stories, etc. Through these lessons, what I hope to improve most is my ability to respond with similar fluidity. Currently, I stud stud studder when called to speak. To build vocabulary, I am reading novels and short stories. Today, I began reading Eva Luna by Isabel Allende.

Mark is on an upward learning curve too. Already, we are communicating with one another in Español! He is working on verb conjugations and building his Spanish vocabulary.

Our teachers are sisters and both have a lot of energy and enthusiasm for teaching. We are looking forward to tomorrow!

Boots on the ground

We're in Cuenca, after a roundabout tour of airports in the US and Ecuador that was longer than we expected...

The town of Cuenca is beautiful, and we're already very comfortable here.  For example -- we've already found an ice cream shop that we like, that's on the walking route between the language school and the house where we're staying.  Excellent.

The family we're staying with is a large one, and they live in a nice house about a 20 min walk from the language school.  We're going to be comfortable here!

Miami

Our flights were a little bumpy heading out of Dallas, both in the air and on the ground: we were delayed and missed our connection to Quito. After an hour of working with helpful airline personnel, we have been rebooked on a flight one day later. Not a bad first snafu. We now will get some great sleep and be fresh as we begin to think, speak, listen, and dream in Spanish.

¡Buenas noches!

Itinerary Jan-May 2010

Here's our itinerary as we know it now.  With a trip this size, we expect to plan a little, do a little, plan a little, do a little.



First Third:
Jan 16 to the fourth week of March:
Cuenca, Ecuador, studying Spanish and travelling.  We'll be staying with a host family there.  We don't know them yet, but we've heard through the grapevine that they're great.

Fourth week March:
Cuzco, Peru, hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu

Apr to May:
Farming and practicing Spanish in and around Costa Rica.



Second Third:
We have plans to meet several people around the US this summer, and we'll firm up plans for that during the spring.

For the summer, we'll be in the US June to August.  Our plan in this order is:
Dallas
Colorado
Arizona
Zion Nat'l Park
Yosemite
SF/Napa Valley
Portland
Seattle
Sun Valley
Yellowstone
South Dakota
Chicago
Washington DC
Virgina -- Charlottesville, Richmond, Williamsburg



Third Third:
For Sept - Dec, we have plans to work with Semester at Sea as administrative staff, if we get a positive response from our applications to that organization.

...If not, we'd like to visit several countries in Asia!



If you'd like more specifics, let us know over email...

Packing up, moving out

We started our year around the world by packing up our world in Austin.  Even for a place our size, there was still time for blood, sweat, and tears, as shown by my blood on the kitchen floor, courtesy of visit from a 9x13 baking dish disintegrating in midair above my head :).

We made it out of the house (we loved that green house), with a little help from Mike, Tim (on the left), Rachel, who convinced us to take some extra stuff last minute.


We didn't get to see nearly everyone we would have liked before leaving, but we look forward to keeping up over mail and when we get back.

We'll post our itinerary soon...