Daily life in Cuenca

Buenos tardes, todos! We are officially into our schedule here, and we love it! We went to church the first time last Sunday, and it was fun, but rather difficult to understand the sermon. Actually, I didn´t catch any of it, which was kind of sad. But Ruth and Jessica are able to translate the main ideas after, so that´s good. Our Español continues to improve, little by little. Monday we started teaching at the Blingue Escuela where Ruth´s dad is the principal. Next Thursday and Friday (I think the 7th and 8th) there is going to be a huge program with the entire elementary school for the Day of the Family. There are 700 or so Elementary students, and we are teaching Kindergarden through 2nd grade a song in English. We haven´t worked with the 3rd or 4th graders at all, since they aren´t doing much in the program this year. We have been helping the 5th and 6th graders as well...we aren´t teaching them the song, but we help the teachers in whatever way we can. One time they were allowed to ask us questions in English and we would answer in English. Their first question: do you have a boyfriend? lol! They are learning about the bones in the body, so Laura was asked to tell all of her stories about fracturing bones and they would have to translate it in Spanish to their teacher. It was pretty funny. Today we taught a whole class by ourselves, which was very fun! There are a few kids from the older classes who are doing a sort of drama for the program. We really enjoy working with them too. There is one class of Kindergardeners (the classes are usually split in three with 40 kids per class) that fell in love with us. When we were leaving their class all of the girls attacked us with hugs and Laura couldn´t get out of the door because she was surrounded by 8 little girls! So cute! Now whenever they see us they come running and give us big hugs and stay by us until either they or we have to leave. We just love them! It´s so fun to enter the school in the morning and have kids yelling our names and saying Buenos Dias! Oh, by the way, the classes each have their separate rooms, but all doors open to the outdoors and the hallways are ourside as well. Very different, but very fun!

School starts at 7:20 and we always leave at 7:05, so our days start pretty early. Class ends at 12:20, we often walk home for lunch, spend a few hours around the table eating a talking, and then head out for afternoon activities. Some days we hang out and play sports with Christian and Loida, Ruth´s younger brother and sister. We love them so much! We like to spend time in the market in the Central and we´ve gotten to know some of the English teachers pretty well. Especially Isabel, who lives just around the corner from us. She is so fun! Next week we´ll be at the school every day, since we´ll be helping with the program and Thursday and Friday. We love being there!

Tomorrow we are going to the town of Nabon with Jessica. It´s about a two hour drive and we leave at 6:30 a.m. It´s going to be fun, but we´re not entirely sure what to expect. On Friday we are going to the school for a couple hours in the morning for a program for the Dia de la Niño...the Day of the Child...they have a lot of celebrations here. :-) Then the Lackey´s, a missionary family here that we know, are going to pick us up and take us hiking on one of the mountains near Cuenca. We´re going to have a picnic and spend some good quality time with them. In the evening we´ll be going to our first Futbol game! Cuenca is ranked 2nd in all of Ecuador, so we´re really really excited about that. Muy emotionada! Not sure what Saturday is going to bring. Sunday is Ruth´s birthday and we´re having Guinea Pig for lunch! It´s considered a delicacy here and it´s kind of pricey...especially since most jobs pay about 200 to 300 dollars a month. We´re excited to try it though! The Ecuadorians laugh at the fact that some Americans have Guinea pigs as pets.

Hmmm, what else would you like to know? There really aren´t many bugs in Cuenca, which we much appreciate. Lots and lots of flowers though, as I´m sure you could tell from our last post.

We usually walk everywhere here, but we´ve gotten to know the bus system as well. I love being able to walk everywhere that we want! I´m definitely going to miss that when we get back to the States. Sometime´s I find myself reading Enlish words with as Spanish words and occasionally I´ll sing the English song we´re teaching with a Spanish accent. We´re teaching Loida and Christian how to play Dutch Blitz, and they are now obsessed with the game. Their favorite English word is Blitz and they´ll often say it random times during the day. Very funny! Family is very tight here and we spend a lot of time around the dinner table. We´re still having difficulty getting in contact with the orphanage, but hopefully we´ll be able to get there next week, if we´re supposed to.

lol...the Internet cafe we´re in right now is playing music from India...how random. We here a lot of popular songs from the US, which always makes us shake our heads. Even the radio here gets English stations.

Well, we best be going for now. Hope all is well back in the States! Thanks for the comments, we love reading them!