Early Morning Antics

Quito, Ecuador

Ahhhh, good afternoon everyone. I just thought that I would try and catch everyone up with what's happening in my life (I'm sure y'all have been just desprately waiting to find out, but I have an hour to kill before salsa class, and I've run out of things to do to occupy my time, so what are you going to do). Last time I wrote, I believe that I was just starting classes. Well since then I've gone on numerous side trips to beaches and cloud forests, learned mucho espanol, and had a kick ass birthday party. I'm getting along with my family very well. My host mother is constantly fussing over me, making sure that I have enough to eat (like I'm on the verge of starving), I'm not allowed to make my own food, or wash my own laundry, we have a maid for that. It's taken a lot of getting used to, but When in Rome, as they say, and who am I to go against a country's culture.

Also every morning, I'm treated to a comedy of the highest standards. I'm convinced that my mother, Rosa (our maid) and Gabby (my sister) should go on tour. A typical morning consists of me waking up around 7:30 or so and coming out to breakfast around 8:00. Every morning I surprise my mother who's in the kitchen trying to make sure that my breakfast is ready and on the table before I get there, god forbid I walk in 5 minutes early. Every morning she boils milk for my coffee (here we are surrounded by the best coffee growing countries in the world, and we drink Nescafé, don´t ask me why, also for some reason they like to boil and mix the coffee in milk, instead of water). It's about this time that Rosa enters the kitchen and hilarity ensues. While my mom scurries about the kitchen, and Rosa attacks the mountain of dishes left over from the previous day, the milk boils over (it wouldn't be that funny, if it didn't happen every day), before I finish my breakfast some other disaster will take place (yesterdays episode was Rosa breaks the shelf that holds the dishes, the day before's episode was Mom tries to soften the nutella in the microwave, but forgets to take off the foil) After breakfast, around 8:30, Mom yells at Gabby that its time to go, and she scurries (she doesn't ever walk, only scurries) down to start the car, assuming that Gabby and I are right behind her, as I need to be at school at 9:00 and it's about 10 minutes away. This is the time that Gabby makes her first appearance, hair and clothes looking immaculate, she saunters in (she never walks, only saunters) and commences to eat breakfast and sip at her coffee, while mom honks the horn and rings the phone from the front gate buzzer. Invariably Rosa answers the phone, and says that yes Gabby is coming right down. Five minutes later, Mom makes her first reappearance back upstairs to rally the troops, and then charges back downstairs to the car assuming that we're right behind her. While Gabby stretches, gets up from the breakfast table and saunters back into her room, where she starts to dry her hair. The first couple of days that this happened, I waited for Gabby downstairs in the car with Mom, but I've since realized that the better viewpoint, is upstairs with Gabby. After a couple of more reappearances and charges, around 8:56, Gabby saunters back out of her room (usually in a completely different immaculate outfit, and a completely different immaculate hairstyle) and we finally saunter down (her sauntering is infectious) to the car. As we enter the car, the mother smiles and says "Hey Gabby, how did you sleep" (in Spanish, of course) and she takes off as if she has not a care in the world. This happens every morning. At first it worried me that I was getting to school ten minutes late, but I've since discovered what I call Ecuadorito time, which means class always starts at least fifteen minutes late, and if someone is even more late, it's not a big deal.

Whoops, this is getting long, so I had better cut it off here. I, of course, haven't come close to catching you up, but I will have to do that another time, as salsa class awaits, and I'm sure that y'all have lives of your own. So once again, I bid adieu, and I hope that this message finds you well. Moe