Home for the Holidays?

I keep thinking that life will be less complicated tomorrow. Or next week. Or month. Or year. The next time, I can organize myself. Or get ahead financially. Or prove my self to people.ç

But every day as I figure out a little more, something else pops up that I have no clue how to deal with. The day I finally accomplish some big task, something happens like... surprise, I need to change my visa before next school year year... and getting an apostille for the process is 70 bucks just to ship to the US. I guess that is what it means to be an adult. Nothing else changes. We all stay immature, clueless, ucertain, and someone is there to hold our hand and get us through it. But then comes the cuttoff point. 

I finally bought a Christmas tree. it´s been sitting in my living room until we finally put it up last night. Of course I had to make gingerbread. Diego was... skeptical about the whole tree thing period. But in the end he had fun. But the woman I bought the tree from didn´t put the connector in the box, so we couldn´t get the two halves together. So we used two paintbrushes as a splint and wrapped it up in packaging tape. It´s kind of lopsided- but so are natural trees. 

This week at work has been suspiciously quiet so far. Knock on wood. This grading period seems much shorter than the first one. There are only 18 teaching days let before two full weeks of Christmas break. In which I plan to Skype my mom, drink numerous frozen cappuccinos at Crepes and Waffles with Adrienne, and  maybe get away from the city for a few days. I keep myself motivated my playing the Kenny G Christmas album in my classes. The kids actually get more work done while listening to Jingle Bell Rock (a song that I personally have never enjoyed, but a jazz version without thats womans obnoxious voice is much better.) That and Sleigh Ride are their favorites. I won´t argue with 24 9 year olds as long as they are on task and semi- quiet. I don´t care how many times I hear the same song. We are planning a class party and hopefully I can pull off some decorated sugar cookies to take in. I had the worst tie finding a baking sheet. I´m currently using a disposable aluminum pizza sheet. It actually works really great and the cookies slide right off without even a spatula. And it´s great for rolling the dough on, too. I´m glad I discovered this because there are no baking sheets in Ecuador that fit into my oven. And not many period. Baking at home is not a big thing here. 

I just try to make my cold, sewage-scented, ocassional-giant-spider-infested apartment seem like home. I didn´t mean to cheat on Thanksgiving, but everyone else already had their tree up and it was depressing not to. So... cultural peer pressure. (Is that even a thing?) 

The Scarlet Letter

So apparantly in Ecuador it is illegal to write with red pen on a students paper.
In the meeting we were all left begging the question ¨Why the heck not?¨.
The bigger question: why are they telling us now as opposed to almost three months ago? There is now a whole grading periods worth of work brazenly scrawled upon with marks of shame.
Oops.

THEN we also found out that even if a student makes ZERO effort they get ten points and not... ZERO? What? And its not as if we are only mean in the US and give zeros. Because Canada and Colombia use them too. And so does everyone else that doesn´t alow kids to squeak by with no responsibility.

And then there was the bank fiasco. Someone forgot to send our sponser letters when four of us went to set up bank accounts. Sooooo only one person walked away with an account. Huge waste of time and money. But at least afterwards we got Papa Johns. Which is amazing here.

Today I hope to consume at least one frozen capuccino at Crepes and Waffles and buy a cookie sheet and bread pan so that I can make gingerbread cookies and  and pumpkin bread in the upcomming weeks. I also figures out how to make molasses. You have to buy a hunk of raw cane suger and melt it until it burns slightly, and also throw in some cloves. For my friends back home, Id recommend just buying a bottle. Hah.

Lately I have been trying to find ways around the fact that so many thing are either completely unavailable or break my piggy bank. Like pizza sauce. A tiny jar is like 4 bucks. And when you can buy a weeks worth of food for 30, you almost puke at that price tag. And its not even good sauce. However, you can but tomato paste and add an assortment of spices and make a legit, custom marinara that knocks your socks off. I also plan to make barbeque sauce and cream of mushroom soup. Campbells is 2 dollars a can. I cant justify it. Its amazing how many things we thing are their own entity and cant be made. But the truth is that almost any flavor is composed of the same set of natural spices and herbs and vegatables in differet combinations and amounts. So. Thats good news. Because I really want to make barbeque chicken with some paprika potatos.

Sooo thats pretty much it. 

At Least Moses Looked the Part.

Being a foreigner is not the funnest thing ever. People mess up your name so you have to go to the same office for the same paperwork 5 times. People exclude you from social things like for example, a man always lets a woman have an open seat on the bus. But when Im next in line for one, some guy always slips in front of me.

Things you find amazing or disgusting are stupid and pointless for others. But when it comes to what they think is important, you have no right no violate it. That bothers me. Just on a human level. I get that I should adapt to them blah blah blah... we do the same things in the US- we force people to become like us. But is that right or fair? On a certain level, its necessary for survival but on another level it robs people of their identity. Its a universal problem that we have always faced since the beginning. We have always rejected what is different out of fear and discomfort and imposed upon others to be more like us. As human beings, we have failed each other in this way.

Enough of that. I´ll rant about the school system here instead.
Even at my poor, inner city high school that everyone thought was unmanageable, there was more respect for authority and more maturity on the part of the student. Kids here are so different. In sixth grade, I still have to essentially check every bag to make sure they take home materials that I instructed them to take home. They don´t listen to anything that is said to the group- they come one by one to ask questons that I repeated multiple time. I write it, explain what I wrote, and then explain in Spanish just in case someone missed something. And they still come ask me what they are supposed to do. Not just details. Like... explain the whole assignment. I don´t know how to get the point across that there is simply not time to carelessly sit there and have me explain everything in private. We will never more into new material that way.

Then theres the arguing with me, and correcting me, and comparing me to other teachers and flat out refusing to do what I ask. And if I dole out any consequences, a parent protects their little angel and files a complaint. So basically we are on our own with zero support from anybody. Its flat out exhausting.

Its simply because I´m different. The kids dont think that they have to pay attention. They disregard me as a person.

Well, time for class. My Fridays are great- I only have three class hours. But its still the end of the week and I just want to go home. All the way home. Because the thing I miss the most right now is probably Chipotle. 

Make Yourself at Home

It's not easy to do, here. After leaving all the things I might have potentially had to make a dwelling a home, the only things that I've been able to afford so far are plastic closet organizers and curtains for my bedroom.

I just wish I had an oven. There are so many things that an oven would do for me to make me feel like this is home. I just want to bake cookies and others things the way I'm used to doing it- not being forced to 'improvise' (Resorting straight to frying EVERYTHING).

It's hard to have white, bare walls and the fact that a sewage smell eeks in from the drain on the kitchen and bathroom floors doesn't exactly bring back warm memories. But I suppose that's how life is in an apartment. Not much you can do to change it.

With Christmas around the corner, I find myself trying to not have expectations. What if my husband hates the tree? Or the Christmas music I've listened to since I was a baby? What if I'm completely disappointed by Christmas in Ecuador? The country is so Catholic that I can't imagine if being without spirit or celebration. I just hope that it echoes what I know in some small part.

But I won't get ahead of myself. I'm finally making a list of house projects so that I have goals to work towards. No use floundering in sadness when I could be scheming and changing the situation. I'm pretty sure taping up the smelly floor drains and getting an oven are top priority.

Three months later.

I got married, got ESL certified, got a job teaching kindergarden.

Any more reasons I have ben too busy to blog? Oh well. Sorry folks.

Life is absolutely crazy.
There is also something that needs put back into balance. Like eating. I can only eat so many fried eggs and rice. Diego could eat that very thing three times a day for the rest of his life. I find rest in just getting a McFlurry in the mall and walking around smelling the news things. Don't get me wrong, the bus fumes and butcher shop scents on the street are great. I just like looking at things. At the same time as it comforts me, it surprises me that just window shopping makes me feel at home. We are so materialistic in the US. Here people value friends and family way more than anything else. They support each other in wye that would make many Americans feel uncomfortable. Another favorite place is El Santo Tome which is a tiny cafe near El Jardin mall. A delicious, fresh strawberry milkshake and a hot chicken sandwich is exactly what I need after a rat-race day. Today the guy that own the cafe gave me an amazing cup of brewed Lojano coffee on the house. Not sure about his intentions. But it was amazing coffee partially because Loja is where Ecuador's finest coffee comes from and also because most Ecuadorians drink Nescafe (instant coffee). Embarassingly, I find it Ironic. Like... why the heck would anyone drink instant coffee with the worlds best coffee next door? Why is it that people don't eat bananas here? It's all about business. If someone buys what you produce, take the money and do without the product. But Lojanos are too proud of their coffee to not own it. And they sure own their braggign rights.

So now I'm sitting here in my apartment all alone. A typical night. Diego won't show himself until nine thirty. So I'm left jumping at every noise because the earthquake last month freaked me out. Every car that zooms by has my heart racing. I've also rid my home of two rather large spider this week. I drown those darn things in insecticide and sweep them up and flush them. I don't play games. I also found a dead roach. Bad sign? I've never seen one before here in the mountains. But big bugs have a funny way of showing up whenever Diego leaves about a hundred dollars worth of plantains on our living room floor. So I'm not too worried. I just wish it wouldn't happen.

Teaching.
Kindergarden is like... being a mom to more kids than even the Duggers can pump out. I have 24 in my class. 24 five year olds that won't sit down and keep punching each other and making ambulance siren noises. Yes, most of them are boys. Most of the girls are little angels. But that's how it goes. I have to put SO many things in planners and just.... I'm not even left with enough energy to write down all the things I have to do every day. And before any official work, I have to tie shoes and hold glasses and open juices and break up fights. That is never part of the job description. From what I can see, the Ecuadorian teachers don't have those problems with the kids. The kids know better than to fool around. With me, they just flat out ignore me. The best part of the day if after the kids leave and only two stay for the after school homework program. I like having just a couple kids to hang out with. I can actually teach them something and I can have fun with them instead of being a policeman. It surprises me that in a private school they would have such large class sizes. But I guess when you have parents willing to pay, the business side of education wins over quality. A shame, but that's the heart of man.


That's all that's currently on my mind. I'm not really sure what I'll typically write about. But I hope to write often.

Post # 1

Well, today is certainly not... easy. Waking up at 4 am is nobody's cup of tea (except my grandma). Finding out that switching airlines requires going through security and extra time and re-checking in isn't either.

I didn't appreciate the heart attack when I got to DC and they told me that Ecuador reserved the right to not give me a tourist visa ( it had never ocurred to me) and the one when I saw that a flight had just departed to Atlanta... I thought I had missed my flight... but then I realized that this was flight that left an hour earlier than mine... so I was safe.

Waiting in Atlanta is torture. Especially when your gate is at the. very.end. of the airport- E36. Then you find out that it has been re-assigned and you have to wait until 3 hours before your flight actually leaves to find out where to go. All the while the bag you bought for your trip (that was actually kinda cute...) rips into shreds every time you pick it up. Sooo now I'm carrying my huge purse like a baby, hanging out at random gates waiting for my flight... cause I refuse to walk to the very end of the whole airport and wait there if I get re-assigned to one on the other side.

Now I understand why that ticket was so cheap.