4 weeks down! I'm finally settled in to my classes, schedule, family, friends (mas o menos). Life:
- Class: Marine Life. Just finished this module, which was like a biology of fisheries class plus many other marine species. The class was with this amazing professor, who was very philosophical, telling us to ''keep our eyes open, above and below the water''. We learned to identify all of the dominant species here through snorkel trips every day. It feels so cool to know ''that's a sargent major!'' or ''I see you, you camoflauged bravo clinnid.''
- Class: Marine Ecology: I am in the middle of this class, with a teacher who is very passionate about sea lions and whales. Originally from Germany, she has done a lot of work and conservation here in Ecuador and the Galapagos. She is an interesting person, but the class itself is a bit boring. Its a bit repetitive from everthing we've covered so far. I just did a presentation this morning concerning Seamounts, underwater extinct volcanoes that support a huge diversity of life due to their 'island-like' isolation. Those are cool! Deep sea exploration.
- Family: I live with an older woman named Natty, who owns a hostel. The hostel guests sleep in rooms upstairs, but I sleep in the family part. Natty's daughter, Dulia, cooks for the hostel guests, and for me and Carmen. Carmen is her international student also in my program. Dulia and her family live just around the corner but they are over here all the time eating and lounging. They are really only in their own house for sleeping. I'm pretty lucky because Dulia makes prety delicious food and is creative with vegetarian recipies. And she always gives me at least half a plate of vegetables, which is something that not many other people get on this island.
Dulia is married to Puerti who works as a taxi driver all day nearly every day. They also have an 18yr old son who works in a copy shop during the day and takes English classes at night. His English is already really good though. The whole family works so hard.
Friends: I have local friends! I think! A couple of guys were singing and playing guitar in this loft-area down in the Malacone (boardwalk). It took about one song for me to jump in with a ''perdon, tu conoces originales canciones?'' And then I just sat down to sing and talk with them. Since then, we've met up again and just hung around, sharing my ukulele, jumping on trampolines, running into them at the beach. But they like to meet up every night, I guess like I do with my friends in the summer, and I can't handle that because a) I get tired and b) its exhausting constantly communicating in Spanish all the time. Good fun, good patience, good practice, but still tiring at times.
- Class: Marine Life. Just finished this module, which was like a biology of fisheries class plus many other marine species. The class was with this amazing professor, who was very philosophical, telling us to ''keep our eyes open, above and below the water''. We learned to identify all of the dominant species here through snorkel trips every day. It feels so cool to know ''that's a sargent major!'' or ''I see you, you camoflauged bravo clinnid.''
- Class: Marine Ecology: I am in the middle of this class, with a teacher who is very passionate about sea lions and whales. Originally from Germany, she has done a lot of work and conservation here in Ecuador and the Galapagos. She is an interesting person, but the class itself is a bit boring. Its a bit repetitive from everthing we've covered so far. I just did a presentation this morning concerning Seamounts, underwater extinct volcanoes that support a huge diversity of life due to their 'island-like' isolation. Those are cool! Deep sea exploration.
- Family: I live with an older woman named Natty, who owns a hostel. The hostel guests sleep in rooms upstairs, but I sleep in the family part. Natty's daughter, Dulia, cooks for the hostel guests, and for me and Carmen. Carmen is her international student also in my program. Dulia and her family live just around the corner but they are over here all the time eating and lounging. They are really only in their own house for sleeping. I'm pretty lucky because Dulia makes prety delicious food and is creative with vegetarian recipies. And she always gives me at least half a plate of vegetables, which is something that not many other people get on this island.
Dulia is married to Puerti who works as a taxi driver all day nearly every day. They also have an 18yr old son who works in a copy shop during the day and takes English classes at night. His English is already really good though. The whole family works so hard.
Friends: I have local friends! I think! A couple of guys were singing and playing guitar in this loft-area down in the Malacone (boardwalk). It took about one song for me to jump in with a ''perdon, tu conoces originales canciones?'' And then I just sat down to sing and talk with them. Since then, we've met up again and just hung around, sharing my ukulele, jumping on trampolines, running into them at the beach. But they like to meet up every night, I guess like I do with my friends in the summer, and I can't handle that because a) I get tired and b) its exhausting constantly communicating in Spanish all the time. Good fun, good patience, good practice, but still tiring at times.
