I paid for Fabiola’s ticket, hostel, and half of her meals for the trip. Kari, Fabiola, and I took the night bus there, which was not the best sleep I’ve ever gotten. The bus was dirty and a baby was screaming for an hour at 4AM that woke up the whole bus. I woke up with gum on my legs. I showered in hot water for the first time in a month when we got to the hostel at about 7AM. We then took a nap and woke up at 9 to start the day. Kari had a bad migraine, so I took Fabiola to my favorite restaurant, The Magic Bean, in the Mariscol. For the first time in her life, she tried pancakes and syrup. We ordered Pineapple and Chocolate Chip. When we got back Kari was feeling worse, so we headed to my house to leave my huge bag there and exchange it for the stuff I had left with my Quito host family.
We decided to look at Libromundi for books in the Quicentro shopping center. Fabiola had never seen a mall like it. Quicentro is one of the biggest, if not the biggest shopping center in Ecuador. All the stores are stores they have in the US or England and are mostly designer stores. I think it was a very eye opening experience for her. We looked around at the books, and I think she enjoyed seeing what a book store looks like seeing as there are none in Tabuga or near it. I never realized how great Barnes and Noble, or Borders really is. Books are so important for any child or adult to learn to read in order to learn more and pass on information. Even in the little book store, we saw so many books. After an hour, Kari came to the bookstore and looked over the books we had picked out. There were an assortment from hair and nails, to sports, and a lot of books about plants, animals, and ecology.
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| In the hostal |
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| Fabi and I in Quito |
Later, we ate lunch in the food court. She had Burger King for the first time, and ordered a Whopper! I helped finish, and we all shared our Taco Bell, KFC, and showed her a good American fast food experience.
After lunch, we went to another bookstore in the mall Jardin. We found a few good kid’s dictionaries and encyclopedias as well as another book in the series that the kids love called Emilio y Lilu. I really have a new appreciation for kid’s books, and we had to decide which were going to get destroyed fast, and which would survive the swarm of crazy kids every day.
After we bought all the books, we returned to the Mariscal to get ready for dinner. Kari went to see her Peace Corp friends, and I showed Fabiola Skype by skyping my parents and sister in the US. We talked to them, and they tried using the best Spanish they knew to talk to Fabiola. She said that she wanted to be a secretary in an office and liked learning keyboarding. She really wants to learn English, and I’ve been teaching her a lot. She started tearing up while talking to my parents, but didn’t know why. Afterwards, I told her I would make her a Skype name, and she got really excited.
After skyping, we went to the Mariscal area where there are countless restaurants and bars. I introduced her to my friends from a few of the bars, and then we met Kari’s Peace Corps friend. I called another friend of mine, and he told me he was working, so we went to his restaurant, and ordered food. It was a fancier place, and a good experience for her. My friend was our waiter and gave us free drinks and a discount. I was so happy to buy her food, and she tried the Thai Salad I ordered and really liked it. She didn’t know what wontons were, and was confused by the variety of food. She didn’t know what to order at first, but then ate shrimp. After dinner, we went to bed.
Friday
We woke up and left the hostel by about 10:30 after a breakfast there. We spent about 3 hours shopping for more library supplies and educational games for the computer. I bought Rosetta Stone to learn English, Encarta Encyclopedia in Spanish, and a kid’s game to learn biology called “Los Animales con Pipo”. They ended up being really great purchases!
I realized when hanging out with Tabugans that they do not have many frames or photo albums, and photos are really expensive to print. I personally bought about 5 albums, and a frame, and printed photos for a ton of the kids from the library. I put pictures of the kids by family into each album, and gave them as gifts. They ended up being really well appreciated. I bought the beautiful frame for my host family’s family portrait, but they put a photo of me and the girls of the family in it instead. They now have a giant frame with me in it!
After a few hours of shopping, we went to Megamaxi, a HUGE supermarket. Fabiola was a bit overwhelmed by it all. I bought her family a towel, and Listerine. She bought herself a new shampoo and conditioner, which, I didn’t realize is very low quality, but the cheapest there. (I left her my nice shampoo and conditioner when I left.) It is so interesting how different life here is. I have the option to choose any toiletries, but here, they can only afford what is cheapest.
We then walked across the street to Papa John’s and had the most delicious meal I’ve eaten in Ecuador. Fabiola actually ate a lot, and loved it. It was so worth missing the bus we were trying to catch just to eat that pizza! We went to the bus terminal to return to Tabuga with our stuff. We had missed the direct bus, but there was another one 2 hours later. We decided to wait two hours and not have to transfer buses. We sat around for two hours, and went to get water 10 minutes before it was scheduled to arrive. We walked back and saw the bus leaving. We ran for it, and just made it. Ecuador is NEVER on time, much less early. It did not make any sense, but at least we got it. On the bus, they were playing a horribly violent movie, and we did end up stopping twice. At one stop, the driver got out at a restaurant, ate dinner, and 20 minutes later, and got back on the bus. We then were stopped at a checkpoint to get off the bus and show ids and have our bags checked. It was the longest trip ever, but we made it back to Tabuga around midnight.
