First Impressions

Hola Todos!

I arrived in Quito at about 10:30 last night and made it through customs in a flash. I found my program director at the airport entrance and he introduced me to my host family. I was met by two women, Rocío and her friend Helena and we took a taxi back to Rocío's apartment. Both are very friendly and thankfully, they aren't super fast talkers so I can actually understand what they are saying most of the time. I learned that Rocío is a maestra (teacher) at an elementary school less than a block away from her apartment and that Helena is her secretaria who also lives with her. Both of them are in their mid 50s (they openly shared this with me so don't worry, I wasn't being nosy or anything haha). Helena has 3 hijos (children) that all live on their own now and she has 3 nietos (grandchildren) while Rocío has one hijo and one nieto.

So far, I'm extremely happy with how everything has gone so far. My host family and I communicate pretty well and they were impressed with my pronunciation and the fact that I didn't sound like a typical gringo (white foreigner). Today they showed me how to get to ACLAS (Andean Center for Latin American Studies) where I will be going to school. It's about a 20 minute bus ride which costs 25 cents and is a couple miles north of the apartment. Other than that, I've basically been reading an Ecuador travel book to find out places I'd like to go as well as helping Rocía and Helena with some of their school work grading. I haven't gotten the chance to take many pictures yet but I've taken a few of the city from from Rocío's apartment on the 4th floor. The internet where I am right now is really slow so I'll upload those pictures later.

I have orientation tomorrow morning at 8:30 but I don't really know what is going to be going on because I lost the arrival instructions that the director gave me within 15 minutes of getting them. So I've got that going for me. Which is nice. I'll be meeting up with the one other student (and her family) that lives near here tomorrow to take the bus to school and then we'll see what happens from there. Don't think I've ever been this excited for a first day of school before! I'll try and post pictures tomorrow.

Until then, chao!