February and March

So… it’s been a long time since I’ve written. And not much is different. Slocomb and I are enjoying our apartment and living by ourselves. We’re still working at CEDEI school and fighting all the time with the administration about basic things (like why we have meetings all the time instead of having classes, our workload, supplies, etc). Cuenca is still Cuenca.
We finished another round of Spanish classes. My class, especially toward the end, became pretty much a conversation class, which was really fun. It’s nice to be advanced enough grammatically to be able to have significant and meaningful conversations with people in Spanish. I still make tons of mistakes (simple stupid ones too… ones that I would avoid if I studied more… but unfortunately, school sucks up most of my energy, so I don’t really feel like studying once I get home.
We did have internet at the apartment for a while, but unfortunately we don’t anymore. We were getting it from the hostal upstairs in exchange for helping the owner with his real estate business (translations, contacts, etc). However, about two weeks ago, the network no longer showed up on our computers all of a sudden, so Slocomb went to go talk to the hostal owner. He said that he didn’t feel like he was getting anything out of the exchange, so he changed the network and the password. And wasn’t planning on telling us. Very passive aggressive… very typical.
Anyway, in better news, I have a new English student, one of the parents of the students at the school. She’s already taken English classes, so mainly she just wants to practice speaking and listening (which is something I can do very easily!). We’ve only had a week of classes so far, but I think its working out well. Slocomb also has a potential new student, a niece (or something) of the owner of our new favorite ice cream place, Helados de la Tienda (which, no joke, means ‘ice creams from the store). They’re planning to start next week, so we’ll see how it goes.
Since losing internet, I’ve started drawing and painting again. The other teachers at CEDEI from the states (Jen and Liv, but Jen especially) are very artsy people, so hanging out with them has inspired me I guess. It’s something fun and time consuming without taking too much energy. I’ve also been cooking a lot, especially now that Slocomb and I bought an Ecuadorian cookbook (that has lots of pictures so I don’t have to worry so much about translating the words). So far, I’ve made tortillas (not the Mexican style ones, the ones with egg and rice and herbs. Very yummy), bolónes (balls of grated plantain with cheese or meat sometimes), and Ecuadorian style lasagna (with a white sauce instead of ricotta cheese). I’m planning to make Easter dinner out of the cookbook, including locro de choclo (a soup with corn, potatoes, avocados and onions in a creamy base), pork chops with a tomato sauce, and oritos (baby bananas) wrapped in pastry with maracuyá sauce. And salad, because I guess we should eat veggies. I found out the secret to salad here (which is really yummy when it doesn’t get you sick – normally in Cuenca its okay because the water is drinkable): lime juice. They don’t use salad dressing, they just drench lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions in lime juice. Very healthy and yummy.
Right now, Slocomb and I are on the way to Guayaquil (meaning that we’ll be in Guayaquil when I finally post) to go to the beach and to pick up my parents!!!! They’re going to be with us for two weeks, one of which we’ll spend in Cuenca, the other in Peru. It’s been nuts planning the trip (flights, hotels, tours, etc), but I think its pretty much all planned, which of course is good because it’s upon us. Anyway, Mom and Dad arrive in Guayaquil Friday night, and we’re planning to spend Saturday in Guayaquil going to the Malecón and the Iguana park, etc. Saturday night we’re flying from Guayaquil to Cuenca (because I’ve heard that flying can make the altitude adjustment easier). Sunday is Easter so we’re going to go to the cathedral for mass in the morning (Slocomb was there for Christmas – he says it’s an experience) and then have lunch at home because most things will be closed. Monday Slocomb and I have to work, but I’m hoping to start the museum runs that afternoon. Cuenca has a lot of great museums, most of which I haven’t been to yet, so hopefully having Mom and Dad here will get me to go. Tuesday we’re going to Ingapirca, the largest archaeological site in Ecuador, about two hours south of Cuenca. Wednesday I’m going back to work and taking my parents with me. Luckily Slocomb doesn’t have any classes on Wednesday, so hopefully he can entertain them a little when I’m in my classes (though I’m sure Mom at least is gonna want to play with the little ones – I should warn her that behind the cute exterior they can be vicious). Wednesday afternoon we’re going to Cajas, the big national park just to the west of Cuenca to hike a little and see how beautiful it is. I’m also planning to subject my parents to the whole-trout-for-lunch thing that Slocomb and I did with Angel back in October. Thursday we’re going to museum it up again and go to a Deportivo Cuenca game. The last game we went to, Cuenca lost 4-1, so hopefully they’ll make a better showing this time. Friday is another museum day before we go back to Guayaquil on Saturday to catch a plane to Lima. Sunday morning we fly to Cuzco and hang out there for two days. Tuesday morning we are going to Machu Picchu!!! We’re going to spend the night in the close-by town and come back to Cuzco on Wednesday. We’re going to spend two more nights in Cuzco (one day really) going to the other Inca sites in the Sacred Valley and then back to Lima on Friday morning. We’ll spend all day Friday in Lima (probably not enough time, but the point of the trip was Cuzco and Machu Picchu anyway) before flying back to Guayaquil on Saturday morning. And then Mom and Dad will leave for the states again on Saturday night. Its going to be a great trip, but very busy. I’m hoping it won’t go by too fast!
On a somewhat random note, Slocomb and I finally bought the Monopoly Ecuador Edition. The pieces are the same and so are the rules, but the spaces on the board are important places in Ecuador. I’m hoping to play with Mom and Dad so they can dilute Slocomb’s ruthlessness a little bit. Or maybe we shouldn’t play because Dad, Slocomb and I are all so competitive. We’ll see.
Okay, now I’m going to back-track and tell some of the stories that I’ve missed since… January. The most memorable one for me was our last trip to Guayaquil and Playas. We stayed at a new place in Playas that was only $10 a person a night. But it didn’t have air conditioning, which meant that Slocomb didn’t really sleep and by proxy I didn’t sleep (because he was mad and frustrated and not very quiet). There was also a violin festival going on at the hostal the same weekend which was cool but kinda random. Most of the violinists were kids, so that was very cute. We found out that we really do have to have air conditioning when at sea level in Ecuador. Sleeping is just way too important. Anyway, the memorable part of the trip for me was getting sick on the way home. On the bus from Playas to Guayaquil, I hadn’t been feeling that good, but on the bus from Guayaquil to Cuenca, it got a whole lot worse. Luckily, we got stopped about two hours into the trip for road construction, so I was able to get off the bus and hurl. People were very nice, trying to help, etc, but there’s not a lot that can be done in that situation. Unfortunately, I was still getting sick when the bus started up again, but me and my plastic bag made it work. But also unfortunately, I was in such a hurry to get off the bus and go home that I left my good sunglasses on the bus. Sad day. It turned out to just be a food bug, but it was very unpleasant being sick. But I got two days off of work for it!
Backtracking some more, we went to the beach for Carnival (which is apparently what everyone in Cuenca does). We found a trip that was only $100 or so for each person and went to Manta and the beaches around Manta. Everyone else on the trip was Cuencano, which was kinda fun. Or so we thought… The first night was the over-night bus ride (everyone’s favorite!) and when we arrived in Manta, it was pouring down rain (and I of course forgot my raincoat). We checked into the hotel, watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics and promptly fell asleep. When we woke up, everyone was gone. Luckily we’d gotten the phone number of one of the trip organizers, so we called and found out that everyone was at the beach close by in Manta. So we went to the beach (half of which was flooded because of the rain) and hung out with about ten thousand of our closest friends. We came back to the hotel, had dinner, and went for a swim. We decided to turn in early because we were still tired from the bus-ride-night, and were happily sleeping when…. A mariachi band starts playing at 3 in the morning. Complete seriousness. And they weren’t a nice quiet mariachi band. They were a very loud mariachi band serenading someone’s wife/girlfriend for about an hour. I was livid. But I went back to sleep. The next day we went to Canoa, one of the most famous beaches in Ecuador. To get there from Manta, we had to take a bus for about 2 hours, a ferry across to the actual island of Canoa, and then another bus for about 20 minutes before actually getting to Canoa, which despite its remoteness was crawling with people (not as bad as the beach in Manta, but still pretty busy). And that night was supposed to be the big Carnival party. It was supposed to start at 9 and go until 12 or so, but it started about 11 and went on until 4. With very loud speakers right outside our hotel room. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I was very very tired of people playing loud music outside my hotel room at all hours of the night. The next day everyone (escept us) got up early to go to a different beach (no idea how they did after having been up until at least 4 the previous night). Slocomb and I decided to sleep in and go back to the first beach, which turned out to be quite nice. Still really crowded, but we got to take a nice walk on the beach. The final day was the trip back. We stopped in Guayaquil to go the Parque Historico (combo zoo and mini-colonial Williamsburg), which I thought was pretty cool. Not as informative as I would have liked, but they had moved a block of buildings that were built about 1900 from the Malecon and restored them there. The architecture was very similar to a lot that you see in Cuenca today, but Guayquil is a much more modern city (complete with concrete jungle). The zoological part at the front had some really cool animals, but it was in an area with the original costal vegetation. Meaning mangroves and mosquitoes. Lots of mosquitoes. And we ddn’t bring bug spray. When we got done at the Parque Historico, the tour organizers told us that we were going to head across the street to the mall to get some dinner. We had already eaten at the Parque, so we didn’t really care. Apparently most people (but not all) had already eaten, so there was a huge whiny outcry of “let’s just go back to Cuenca.” They were using the argument that the majority had already eaten and wanted to go ahead to Cuenca (to get home an hour earlier). Very inconsiderate. And very whiny. So all in all, our Carnival trip was quite uncomfortable and not very pleasant. We were very tired of Cuencanos by the time we got done with the trip.
I’m trying to think about other interesting things that have happened… I think that’s all of the trips, but I did do a lot of thinking about graduate school. Back in the fall, I applied to Latin American Studies programs at UCLA, UC San Diego, Berkeley, and University of Chicago. I got into all of them except Berkeley, and I even got offered a 1/3 tuition scholarship at Chicago. However, the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to do Latin American studies. I kept thinking about coming back to Latin America and trying to research, etc, and I just couldn’t get excited about it. I knew that I definitely wanted to go back to school, but I realized that I just couldn’t see myself in Latin American Studies. So I started thinking some more, and, as I wrote in my new personal statement, I realized that the answer had been in front of me for a long time. I’ve known that I want to study history, but I’d had a tough time deciding what world area. And I remembered that my first introduction to history and museums and all of that fun-ness was when Mom and Dad would drag me to tons of museums and historical homes when we lived in England. So I’ve decided that I want to pursue British Studies. The great thing about that is that I can study a lot more than just Britain. If I do imperial studies or something like that, I can also study Africa and India and the south Pacific and even a bit in Latin America. Anyway, I applied to a program at St. Andrew’s in Scotland – a one-year masters in “Scottish Historical Studies,” but I’ll also be taking classes in general British history, and got in. I’m working on funding applications right now, but even with living expenses included, I’d probably spend a lot less at St. Andrews than at UChicago. And considering how much it costs to Live in San Diego or Los Angeles, I might save money over them as well.
Another lovely part about the St. Andrews thing is that Slocomb found a theology program that he’s really interested in. For seminary (i.e. post-St. Andrews), he wants a more ‘practical’ training at seminary as opposed to divinity school which has theological and practical components. So before seminary, Slocomb has thought about doing a divinity degree or study for a while. Anyway, he applied about two weeks after I did, so he should be hearing back in about a week or so. If (and if you ask me, when) he gets in, we are going to start looking into housing options and plane tickets and visas and going to live in another foreign country for a year. Slocomb doesn’t want to loose his Spanish, so he’s going to try to get a TA job or something with the Spanish department. And I’m hoping to work on campus (in the library or something) or find a nanny-type job. With the student visas in Britain, we’d only be able to work 10 hours a week, but if we live on campus (i.e. can use US Federal loans for living), then hopefully we can afford it. We’d be looking at a significant amount of debt for the degrees (£11400 each, but I’m hoping we can get scholarship) and then maybe £8000 for living on campus, but even with all of that, it would be cheaper for both of us to get degrees at St. Andrews than just my tuition at UChicago even after the scholarship. And with the new federal law about student loans, we would never be required to pay more that 10% of our income to student loans. Anyway, this would all work if I get the scholarships I’m looking at and can get a job back in the states afterwards and then get a PhD program paid for after that. That’s a lot of things that have to go right, but I’m hopeful. Slocomb is trying to be realistic about St. Andrews and is worried about getting in. I on the other hand have decided that he will get in and am counting on the power of positive thinking/making one’s own destiny to make this all work out.
So beside some sub-par trips and a mini-mid life crisis, things are pretty normal here. I’m really excited to have my parents here and take our trip to Peru. And to show off my Spanish, which isn’t great, but its definitely passable. And considering that I started working on Spanish 7 months ago and studying it 5 months ago, I’m feeling pretty happy.
I’ll hopefully get back into blogging mode and keep better updated. I’ll certainly let ‘everyone’ know about St. Andrews and our plans for next year!