Feb 6, 2024

In the morning we all had to gather our luggage and move them downstairs to a safe room in the hotel since we wouldn’t be staying there anymore. Today we finally got to meet our Homestay family but not until after school so we had to leave our bags with an employee at the hotel to collect later. I had to wake up at 6:00 a.m. to get ready and pack all of my bags because I had so much stuff,  but once my bags were safe I headed to breakfast in the hotel dining room with everyone else. 

After breakfast, everyone walked to school together by ourselves for the first time. I was not allowed to lead the way; however, because of an incident where I started to walk in the opposite direction of our hotel after we left the Jardín Botánico. It was all taken in good humor, but it’s probably best that I let someone else take the lead on the directions. 

At school, we continued with orientation week where we talked about safety and how to get an Ecuadorian phone plan. Since we were going to meet our Homestay family in the afternoon there was time to ask questions about customs and traditions. This was great because most of the questions were things you would never have thought of, like if you should leave your door open or not. At my house I always have my door closed while in Ecuador it’s customary to leave your door open unless you need privacy. This is because they value family and interdependence more than the US, so leaving your door open makes it easier to communicate with one another. There were other topics similar to that which made me excited to meet my Homestay family since it’s one of the best ways to learn Spanish. Once we were done with orientation for the day we had it off to an Italian restaurant For lunch once again paid for by the program which I appreciate. not that the food in Ecuador is expensive, but free food just tastes better plus I like it when we all have lunch together. We get a chance to walk around the city and leave the building for a bit. After lunch, we headed back to the building though for some exams.

There were only two exams and they were both very short oral exams, more like a conversation than anything. My first exam was a Spanish evaluation which is used to place us in one of three Spanish classes at various levels. The instructor asked a few questions and we talked in Spanish a bit. It was pretty uneventful and I probably could have done better but being placed in a lower-level Spanish class is not the worst thing ever. In fact, it would make my experience easier to be placed in a lower section especially since I don’t receive credits for an Intro Spanish course at my university. After my Spanish one-on-one, I had to wait to do another one-on-one with the director and assistant director of the program. This conversation was about our capabilities in the field and background experience based on a paper we filled out on Day One. You are allowed to do this conversation in English or Spanish but because I walked into the room speaking Spanish we just continued and I felt that I did better in this conversation than I had in my Spanish evaluation;  such is life.

At 5:00 p.m. I was supposed to meet my Homestay family at the hotel but I arrived  15 minutes late because the director insisted on finishing everyone’s meeting. Most people had already left but because Latin America has a large crime problem specifically petty theft, it’s very important to always walk in a group. By the time I finished my one-on-one with the director, there were only six people in total, and three of them still needed to have their meeting. So, it made the most sense to wait for everyone so we could all walk together. I think it was okay to be late but felt bad for making my Homestay family wait.

When we arrived at the house I was shown my room and took some time to unpack my things and get situated since I’ll be here for a while. After I got a good start, dinner was ready so I headed down to formally meet my Homestay family. There are four people that live in the house the grandmother, mother, father,  and their daughter who is the same age as me. Everyone in Ecuador so far has been kind and I’m so glad that my home Stanley is also amazing. The mother is from the coast of Ecuador and she cooks a lot of traditional food from there, for dinner she made tortillas de maiz con queso, empanada Verde, yuca frito, and iced tea (without ice). All of it was so good, that I went to sleep a happy girl after that meal.