change is good

Buenos tardes amigos!

The past few days have been an improvement to say the least. I have started class and am currently enrolled in five classes: lengua y literatura, siglo de oro, gramatica avanzada, conversacion avanzada, and vulcanologia. I might end up only taking four but as of now i'm ok with this schedule. My first day of class went very well, no problems getting to school on the buses by myself and found all my classrooms pretty easily. My siglo de oro and lengua y literatura classes are going to be a lot of work and a lot of confusion because the professors speak very quickly and there's definitely no english involved. Fortunately, the textbooks are much cheaper here and I don't need as many either. On the way home I somehow missed my stop at Rio Coca and ended up having a taxi back home because I had no idea where I was.

 As far as my hectic living situation: resolved. I say this because I do have a new family and new home in Quito who I like very much so far. Before I got here though, there was one last storm. Thursday afternoon I got home from school around five and no one was home and I wasn't hungry so I passed over the lunch on the table and went to my room to relax. Around seven that same night Rosa the housekeeper came in and asked me how my day was and then preceded to explain that I needed to pack a bag for the weekend because we were leaving in twenty minutes on a bus back to Tandayapa (the rainforest area where I went last weekend with Vicky). She told me that Vicky needed her to come and I had to come too because I couldn't stay at the house alone. My immediate reaction was...que? Are you serious? I had no desire to go back there, especially not for the whole weekend. I semi-panicked and checked my email to see if Maricarmen had sent me the list of new families I could live with and it was there, so I replied to her immediately saying that I would be happy at any of the families on the list. The phone rang and Vicky wanted to talk to me and I realized that I was going to have to avoid being passive in this situation and just tell her that I was not going to go back to the cabin, so I did. It wasn't only that I didn't want to go, I had a meeting the next day at school and I also wanted to do something in Quito with new friends this weekend.


The next morning I got up early to pack up all my stuff so I would be ready to leave when I got back from the meeting later that day. I got to USFQ around 10 and went straight to Maricarmen's office to see what my status was. She said that she couldn't get in contact with my favorite family but she would have something ready for me by the end of the afternoon and that I would in fact be moving that evening. Gracias a Dios! So I went exploring the campus a little bit...there's a husky and a really furry cat that just hang out on campus every day and I love them both because they just sleep in random places and are really friendly. At one I went to meet some new friends Hannah and Colleen from UNC and Ashley from UNC-W at the little cafeteria place on campus. It's so funny to talk with other Americans about family experiences and all the weird little things you see in Ecuador. We had our safety meeting at two and afterwards Maricarmen told me the Diaz family was ready for me to move in so I gave her my phone number (finally figured out how to get minutes on my phone...sorta) and told her I was ready to go when I got home. Then we went across the street from USFQ to a restaurant called Empanada Comany which has really good empandas and combos that are so cheap. I wasn't hungry so I got a beer called Club and we just sat around talking for a little bit.

I got home after nearly getting lost again...don't know how this keeps happening. I received a text of my new family's address so I called a private taxi and the guard helped my bring my bags downstairs.
The taxi came and put my stuff in the trunk and after a few seconds of driving I realized he was listening to a sermon on the radio. At this point I couldn't help but praise God for sending me a Christian taxi driver on my way to a new family and I just felt good. We pulled up and my host father Guillermo was waiting outside for me and helped me carry my bags up FIVE STORIES...ouch I could not breathe at the top of the stairs. My mother's name is Germania and they have a son, Juan Carlos, who is 24 but he is in Florida with his girlfriend until December. They gave me a tour of the apartment and while it is not as nice as my first home, the people, the views, and my new bed make up for all it lacks in appearance. My bedroom window overlooks the entire city and faces the volcano Pichinicha in the west and you can also go onto the roof and see nearly everything around Quito...tan linda! I unpacked and went to bed because I was exhausted.

The initial experience i've had here in Quito has been a strange one for sure, but I am grateful to God for providing for me once again. I have had my patience and commitment to being here tested in the first week alone but I know I'm being built up for the things God has planned that are yet to come.