Arrival

4 AM: Wake up and give my family hugs and kisses.

8AM: Flight leaves Chicago

Noon: Arrive in Miami

3PM: Flight leaves Miami

7PM: Flight arrives in Quito. Customs, Baggage Claim, and Meet with my host family

I walked out of the gate at about 8PM where I saw my name on a red sign. I saw the woman named Nancy who is my new Ecuadorian mother. She was with her secretary, Lorena, and they took me to the car. Nancy, nor her secretary, speak a word of English. When I said hola, me llamo Dena, they were confused. They thought my name was Dana this whole time because the “e” makes an “ay” sound in Spanish. I can only say a few stories and things I had prepared, but other than that, I did not understand them. They were trying to ask me questions on the ride to my new home, but I had no idea what they were saying. After passing a McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, and “Fashion XXI”, we arrived at Edificio ZUKO, my new home base. Fernanda, my new sister, called because she speaks a bit of English. Her 8 year old son Camillo really wanted to talk to me, and he is taking English at his school which is in another town out of Quito. I helped him over the phone as well as I could. He has an English exam tomorrow.

Then Lorena, the secretary of my new mother, left and Nancy and I sat down for dinner. We had el pan con salame (bread with salami spread-I think) and peppers. She made me tea and had very interesting fruits on the table. She called one a tomato, but it didn’t look like an American tomato. She cut it for me and told me to squeeze. I tasted it and it tasted like a bitter tomato. She told me to add sugar to make it “dulce”, but that was not too good. I think they use sugar for a lot here, and they do not have any artificial sweeteners like in the US.

I saw another fruit that was yellow on the outside and very strange. She peeled this one, and it was green on the inside. I thought it was a green orange, but when I looked inside, it was a bunch of seeds that look like pomegranate seeds but green with a clear outer flesh. She told me not to chew, you just suck it up then peel some more. The peel was hard and cracked under your fingers when you peeled it. When the seeds were sucked out, there were these fingerlike looking things- it was the strangest fruit I’ve ever seen, and I LOVED it.

Los garanadillos

After eating an assortment of new foods on the bread, she was trying to tell me something. The language barrier is very challenging for me, but I am glad that I will be with other Americans most of the days. Nancy decided she was going to draw out what she was saying. She was trying to ask me what meat I eat. She drew out a pig and cow and I would say the English word and she would say “Si si“! She also explained a lot that went right over my head. I told her that I was going to get way better, and she told me that by the end of the month I will speak very fast. When I told her I didn’t understand something, she would say “I’ll tell you again in 2 weeks” and for the rest of the night, she would say “dos semanas”. She made everything in her apartment a Spanish practice. We practiced for 2 hours.

I unpacked and now I am going to sleep because I have to be up at 7:30 to go the “El Banco Internacional” to get my student visa and consensus form.