Family day.

Today we spent the whole day with our host family. We started the morning with breakfast made by Carita, the youngest sister. We had some fresh bread, queso fresco, hot dogs (might sound strange but was great with breakfast...spoken like a true ex-vegetarian!), hot chocolate, fresh juice, and fruit. After breakfast we all got ready and started the journey to have a family lunch at a cousin's house. On the way, a road was closed for a parade. We had to stop and there was no way of getting out so Luis, our host dad, told us to get out and we all hung out at the parade until we could get through. This part of the day helped me appreciate the culture here. I was thinking that if this happened in New York, people would be sitting in their cars, laying on their horns for that hour. Before we left, our mentor from UBELONG, Cedric, said that it's important to remember that the culture here isn't better or worse than American culture, it's just different. This seems simple but it has already helped me a few times. Here are some pictures from the parade!

 

We've been noticing that after listening to a lot of Spanish, we feel very drained. This happened during lunch today, but I felt better after talking to Courtney in English for a few minutes. It's a very interesting thing, but I guess it just takes a ton of energy to understand a language that you don't speak fluently. We're trying our best!

For lunch we had chicken, rice, potatoes (big surprise!), salad, and avocado. We were so full but then they made us eat two desserts (and by that I mean we gladly accepted every delicious thing they put on our plates). We watched fútbol and the Ecuadorian team beat Barcelona! Everyone was pretty excited about it. I'm going to skip over the part of this post where I pretend to know something about professional soccer :)

We went to mass at the church here in Tumbaco. The whole congregation says a rosary before mass which is pretty cool. And I know the Hail Mary in Spanish so I just played it cool and totally blended in, with my blonde hair, blue eyes, and all five-foot-nine of me.

After mass we walked home, had some tea and a snack, had our orientation, and helped Geovanna with her English homework! Geovanna gave us our orientation, which was mostly about the project we'll start working on tomorrow con los niños! She also told us not to flush toilet paper (too late) and that we are very welcome here. After that she took out her English books and we got cracking on writing topic sentences. English is stupid and inconsistent. Geovanna works for UBELONG and another job, takes English classes, and takes classes for her Masters degree. She's awesome. We had a good time helping her with her homework.

And now it's time for bed! Goodnight!

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