Friday´s are free days for us, unless we have a trip planned, like next weekend we´re going to Baños. This Friday (May 13th), I went to ACLAS to finish up some homework and happened to meet up with three other George Foxians. We decided to go back to the old central part of Quito where we had the night tour the first Monday we were here. However, this time, since it was in the day, we would be able to go inside several of the churches rather than just see them from the outside. They were so magnificent!! Words cannot describe the ornateness and amazing architecture of these churches. On the way to the churches we passed the building that the President works in I guess you could say. Last time we went by there, it was calm, no one was really around. This time however, there were guards, all dressed up in big hats and the works lined up along the balcony railing and there was a band with giant horns and drums and there were also armed guards (one of them chose to stare at us very intently from the balcony, kind of intimidating since he had a big gun). The crowd was being diverted around the stairs up to the balcony of this building and so there was quite a pile up of people. We finally asked someone what was going on, and apparently, the president of Panama was there to talk something out with the president of Ecuador.
Friday night my host parents and Jessica and her host parents (my neighbors and my host parents good friends) went again to the old central part of Quito to a street called La Rhonda (spelling might be a little off, but you get the idea). This street is very lively at night. There are tons of street vendors, music coming from every bar and restaurant you pass, food vendors, and lots of people. We walked around for a while, then went into a restaurant and got some empanadas that were fabulously delicious! We did not get back home until 1am!! Which wouldn´t have been a problem except that I had to get up at 5:30 the next morning.
Saturday, we went to Otavalo, which is a place that has a huge market where 100s of people set up booths to sell stuff. This stuff ranged from food to scarves to musical instruments to clothes, etc. It was pretty overwhelming! On the way there we stopped at this place that makes figurines out of marzipan. I found a couple super cute cows that I got....haha. We spent about 2 hours in Otavalo shopping and walking around, then we headed out for lunch. Lunch was at this hotel a little ways outside of Otavalo, it was so beautiful. I have many pictures, but unfortunately, as I´ve said before, I have no way of sharing those pics until I get back home. We could choose between steak or fish for the main course and of course there was soup before that and actually, there was also empanadas before the soup. For dessert it was this cake with a berry sorbet type thing on top. It was pretty good, I liked the sorbet stuff better than the cake, but then I´m not much of a cake person to begin with so....After lunch, we went to this lake that is made in the top of an old volcano. We took a boat ride around the "lagoon" (that´s what they called it, but it´s not what I would normally think of as a lagoon) and the boat stopped a couple times so we could see the bubbles rising in the water. Even though the volcano is dormant, it still kind of heats the water. After that we headed home, stopping at one more place: a town that´s famous for it´s leather. While there, this group of little kids ran by singing somos tontos, somos tontos, which in English is we are stupid. They seemed to be having a grand time and it was funny to hear them singing that.
One thing about Quito is that there are stray dogs everywhere, and I mean everywhere. We were specifically told not to touch them because they are probably diseased and might bite us, but they are soooo cute. I´ve taken some pictures of a few of them. I wish I could take them all home with me. My host mom told me that once when she was at her country house, she had 11 dogs at once because she´d take in all the strays that came by!
Sunday, my host parents and I went with Jessica and her host parents to Jessica's host parents' country home. It was about 40 minutes outside of Quito out in the country. It was very different than the apartments we live in in Quito. It was beautiful. They have a garden with avacado plants, lime and lemon plants, peach trees, lettuce, zucchini, peppers, tomatos de arbol (tomatos from a tree, more a fruit, not at all like our tomato), carrots, and much more. The house is very spacious compared to the apartment. We had chicken for lunch there and it was a very interesting way to cook the chicken. They rubbed something that looked and smelled like a pesto sauce all over the whole chicken (and it was a HUGE chicken, like Turkey sized chicken) and then sat the chicken upright over a can of open beer. Then they placed that on a flat pan over a charcoal fire and put a giant flower pot looking thing over the top of the chicken and let it cook for 2 hours. We also had emapanadas, salad and corn. It was super delicious. And then for dessert, they had made popsicle like things out of tamarind juice and some out of chocolate. They were also super good! After we ate we played cards. It was a game very similar to phase 10. It was a lot of fun and I won!! We stayed at the house until about 7-8pm, then returned to Quito.
Monday was another day in Tomas Moro. I was with 1st and 2nd graders this time. After class, the teacher asked me if I could come up with an acitivity that helped teach the long and short a sounds. She said they pretty much had the short a sound down, but were still working on learning the long a sound and recognizing that the two sounds came from the same letter. She wanted me to teach this activity on Tuesday.
So Tuesday, I taught my activity to that class of 1st and 2nd graders. My two George Fox professor were there to watch me so they can write me a letter of recommendation basically saying how I taught in a classroom in Ecaudor, etc. For the activity, I found a short poem in the school's library called The Name of the Game and it had many long as well as short a sounds throughout. I read the poem once to the class and told them to really be listening to when they here the long a (which I sounded out for them) and the short a sound (which I also sounded out for them). Then I told them I was going to read the poem again, but this time, I wanted them to do a motion when they heard the different a sounds. For the long a, I had them glide their hand through the air (it´s hard to explain in writing....haha) and for the short a, I had them make a fist and pump their arm up and down a few times. After that second reading, I started a list on the board of short and long a sound words and then let the students add to the list. I think it went fairly well. The teacher told me she was going to keep using those motions because she liked them so much. I actually ended up teaching this lesson again later in the afternoon as I was with the same teacher, but in a different classroom. She asked me to teach my activity to this class (which was also 1st and 2nd graders, but a different class). This second time it did not go as well, mostly because the kids in this class were more out of control, but overall, it probably still went okay. The teachers at Tomas Moro were so welcoming and so ready to include us in everything. It was a great experience and I hope my experience at LeTort is also a great one. I was also very much impressed with the level of English the students were at. Tuesday night I participated in Salsa dancing lessons with 5 other George Fox students. It was a blast and I actually caught on a lot faster than I thought I would. We also learned the first half of a traditional Ecuadorian dance. We have another class next Tuesday where we'll learn the second half.
Wednesday was my last day in Tomas Moro. My time there was so short, I wish I could have been there much longer, or at least for full school days (we leave at noon each day, but the students stay until 2:30). For lunch my host mom told me the night before that we would have Spaghetti. Well, the lady who comes and cooks lunch came up to my room to tell me lunch was ready and as I went down the stairs, I see this plate of bright pink stuff with a greenish brown blob on top......I had no idea what to think. Well, it turns out it was Spaghetti, just not Spaghetti like I was thinking. Apparently the noodles are pink because they're made from Tomatos. I´ve seen reddish noodles before that are made from tomato, but not bright pink. And the green blob was a meat, onion, etc. mixture. It was actually really good. This time there was Strawberry juice which was of course delicious. Wednesday night I played cards with my host mom, my host sister and her boyfriend. They ordered pizza and coke as well. It was the same card game that I played when I went to Jessica´s host parents country home. However, this time I did not do so well, I lost big time....haha, the beginners luck wore off I guess. Well, the loser gets to buy the food for next weeks game, so in this case, that´s me.
No comments:
Post a Comment