Orientation forever

Really long day of being oriented today. Arrived at the campus (which is literally a 5-minute walk across the street. A busy street, but just one.) at 8:35ish and proceeded to hear the program directors and administrative people tell us about things like

• what to expect in the classes
• what to expect in the country
• what to expect in our homestays
• what to expect in registering our visas
• what to expect in food
• the fact that NatGeo's "Locked Up Abroad" has had 3 episodes about stupid travelers trying to do or sell drugs in Ecuador. Apparently their anti-drug laws are bastante estricto. 
• etc. etc. etc... A lot of it was about cultural sensitivity and how to not be rude and inappropriate in our host families. I think I can do it. 

Campus is really awesome though. Apparently it has one of the only Asian Studies programs in South America, and is one of the three or so Confucian Institutes in the continent as well (more pictures to come). Here are some shots of parts of campus. 

(What I interpret to be) the main courtyard. 

Other side of what I interpret to be the main courtyard

This is the building for my Tropical Ecology class. It has a gorgeous dome ceiling upon entry of the main door. I didn't photograph that though. 

Mmmm failed to capture the beautiful mountains in the distance outside of the room we had our sessions today. 

Portion of campus right by the entrance. I know I'm not making it easy to envision the campus layout right now, but I'm not clear on it myself. And this is a good picture because Savannah took it on her camera.  

The very green pond probably meant to house koi by the Asian Studies building, which apparently has 2 meditation rooms and is constructed like a pagoda. I'm guessing they don't focus on South or West Asian studies. 

USFQ has several buildings with three stories of classes and offices, a pretty orange building of administrative offices called “Casa Tomate”, really prompt wireless service representatives, a bank, a cell phone stand, and tons of places to eat. There’s also a chocolate shop at the exit end of campus, and they took us on a tour through the kitchen areas. There are two or so restaurants run independently on campus and 4 restaurants run by students. Once the students get far enough in their classes and progress, they move through the ranks of the restaurants until they work in the nicest one. The restaurants serve the general public, and we got to eat at one of them for lunch today. Here’s our food. Yum yum yum, riquisimo! 

Our seating for lunch today. Lunch normally won't be here.  

Main course with strawberry juice/added sugar water. Looks small, but it was the perfect food portion size. 

Dessert was really good. 

We went on a very very brief walking tour of some parts of Cumbaya. There is a huge selection of restaurants here and quite a few parks for walking around and relaxing and whatnot. The narrowness and closeness of some parts reminds me of Cambridge, but no other aspect of Cumbaya does the same. 

Street view near one of the park entrances. 

Portal Cumbaya, entrance to a long park and trail area. 

General street view

Walking, however, was a challenge today due to altitude complications. I can feel my lungs fighting to absorb more oxygen. I’m supposed to acclimate within a day or two, according to what I found online. I’m also very tired due to this sudden increase in altitude. Oh brain, do your thing and make me comfortable again. 

Teo was begging for us to play with him when we got back, so we did that for a while.

Teo sad that we had to stop playing with him to do other stuff. 

 

Also, I learned that Spanish grammar is really hard to do when exhausted. I’ve identified some verbs that I constantly confuse but are very useful: 

venir - to come

llegar - to arrive 

regresar - to come back

llevar - to take 

Some words I learned today: 

orinar = to urinate (versus hornear, which is “to bake”) 

perejil y apio = parsley and celergy (which was in our yummy vegetable soup for dinner today. It was parsley, celery, green tomatoes, carrots, and one tomato pureed together with maybe other flavoring stuff.) 

almohada = pillow 

bolitas = sweet dessert balls served at birthday parties, basically the same thing the Da Costas brought me last year from a Brazilian party (which were delicious!). We helped Natalie cut tissue paper to use for wrapping for her 2-year-old daughter Malina’s belated birthday party. 

Some words I re-learned today:

estacionar = to park 

puente = bridge

fuente = fountain (while Savannah and I had dinner at 6, which apparently is way too early for them to eat normally, Natacha tied Malina’s hair into a fountain pony tail and I accidentally called it a bridge of hair.) 

wawa = baby

gelatína = gelatin, duh.