Wrapping Up in Quito

Two more weeks in Quito have flown by and I am now done with classes and volunteering and getting ready for a week of travel in Ecuador before heading to Argentina! After the weekend in Mindo, my next week back at school brought a change of Spanish professors from Fernando to Laura, a more adventurous week at CEMOPLAF and an interesting salsa class.

Each week at school we had a big activity or presentation, and that week we were all assigned Ecuadorian musical artists and were asked to present about our artist and then perform our song. Although some of the students are not as musically inclined as others, after the director served us each glasses of rum ... the songs and dances soon followed.

That week at CEMOPLAF I accompanied Nelly (the social worker I shadowed) to an elementary school about 2 hours away from where I live. We split the third graders into pairs of one boy and one girl and asked them to trace images of their bodies onto paper and write about the physical and personality qualities they like and dislike about themselves as well as more general likes and dislikes about their families or society. After the drawings, Nelly led them in a discussion about sexuality, health, and gender. I was most struck by the following entry. "No me gustan que maten a las personas, que roben, que pegen los hombres a las mujeres." "I don't like that people kill other people, that people rob, that men hit women."

Aside from volunteering and taking Spanish classes, I have taken three salsa lessons in a little salsa studio that is about a 10-minute walk from my language school. They have all been enjoyable and fun, but also quite amusing at times as my salsa teacher asks me to teach him English phrases and occasionally slips in sly comments along the way.

Last weekend a group of us went to Papallacta, a small village about 2 hours outside of Quito with beautiful natural hot springs designed in a resort-style way with 25 different pools. We have quite the Carolina crew gathering in Quito now with my sister, Amit, Hudson, and our friend Angella, a fellow Rotary Scholar studying Spanish at our school who went to public health school at UNC. On Sunday, after Papallacta, I visited a museum of the famous Ecuadorian artist Guayasamin and then attended an "asado" (roast) at my sister's old host family's house.

This past week was sad as I had to say goodbye to Nelly and others at CEMOPLAF as well as finish up my time at language school. But after my CEMOPLAF volunteering ended midweek, I had some more free time to explore, so Hudson and I went to El Panecillo, a large hill between southern and central Quito with a beautiful view of the city from the top of the "Virgen de Quito," a statue that rests on the hill.

We also explored a beautiful cemetery built in 1872 named Cemeterio San Diego, which had a mixture of huge grandiose tombstones and then tall wall-like segments of concrete with lots of individual tombs with decorated areas on the front specific to each person.

After giving a final presentation at school yesterday on a brief history of US Feminism and a little bit about my life and studies at Carolina, all of the students went to an orchid display at a park which looks over Quito.

Jon Waldmann arrives tonight and we will soon be off to Baños (named for hot springs and its proximity to waterfalls) and then to the Amazon!