Settling in

Saludos (greetings)! I am sitting on my bed in my new room in my new apartment hosted by my temporary familia. Since my first night (three nights ago) I have been hearing a strange clicking noise at night and couldn’t even figure out how to describe it to my host mother to ask what it was. Yesterday afternoon the two of us went for a walk and I finally learned that I have been hearing frogs – very noisy frogs! Apparently they are out in the evenings and mornings during the rainy season (October-April). Other than the frogs, I have been getting used to many other new sounds of living in a big city – cars, horns, loud music, many planes coming in to land at the Quito airport, venders announcing what they are selling over speakers, and many dogs. The first picture is the view from my bedroom window!

The flights on Wednesday went well, the first to Miami was delayed but after that all went well and I landed in Quito around 7:30pm. After passing through the Migration/Immigration and Customs, I was pleased to see that both of my bags had arrived (apparently luggage occasionally gets lost or stolen)! After seeing a sign with my name I met my host mother Marcela and was greeted with a hug. We drove five minutes in her car and we arrived at her apartment.

 Picture taken from plane about an hour from Quito

 Marcela, a divorcee lives on the fourth floor of an apartment building and is surrounded by other apartments, clearly the most common way of living in Quito. Two of her daughters live with her and both work full time. Marcela sells jewelry with a friend but does in home visits to her clients, a very flexible job (and even more so right after the holidays she says). Given Marcela’s flexibility it has mainly been the two of us in the apartment since I’ve been here and she has kindly invited me out on some errands and walks since I’ve been here. Yesterday she needed to run some errands at a mall so I went with her and got a simple cell phone (for in-country use). The mall was very crowded and filled with extremely well dressed people. I felt very out of place with a long sleeved V-neck and corduroy pants as all of the women wore tight pants, nice tops or coats, and almost all wore heels or nice boots. Marcela said that fashion is very important and that women love high heels, even if they hurt their feet.

Marcela has now shown me how to get to two malls and three parks close to the apartment. This morning I ventured out to Parque Carolina by myself (I had to go out by myself at some point!). See the picture below of Parque Carolina and the view of the mountains. I’m happy to say that I made it without any problems. It was very charming with several trees and a fun looking play area for kids complete with a huge airplane to play in, trampoline, and typical playground equipment. There were many families, runners and bikers, volleyball players, and lots of small soccer games and practices. I think I’ll be spending lots of time there when I can!

More things to get used to: throwing toilet paper in the trashcan instead of flushing it, so many cars and pollution, eating the large meal of the day at ~2 in the afternoon, remembering that I can’t drink or brush my teeth with tap water (I now put my water bottle on top of the faucet so I don’t mess up – I already had to throw away one toothbrush!), milk served hot, seeing teenagers in blue jumpsuits during the week after school (all public and private schools require uniforms), development everywhere, popcorn as a side dish with the big meal of the day, lots of soups, delicious homemade fruit juices almost every day and an awesome terrace above the apartment - see the picture below!

For now, I am enjoying getting to know my family and the area and look forward to starting classes this coming week! I hope all is well on your end!