Determined Unknown

As we all grow a year older....icckkk

Say goodbye 2005 as this is my last post of 2005.

Almost 2006

Happy New Year's Eve!

Merry Christmas!

Feliz Navidad!

A great holiday season to all!

Oh..how I am missing Ecuador...

A quick hello from what just may be the most amazing place on Earth. Never in my life have I seen just amazing animals, in the populations and the distance I have hear. Just to start to mention the sharks that were 3 feet from us in the water and when we swam and snorkeled with the sea lions! Welcome to the Galapagos is what I told myself!

I shall say goodbye all too soon. Tomorrow back to Quito and Friday back to the Unites States. How odd that seems to say.

I must say I have not written in a while as the last few weeks almost since the beginning of the month have been crazy as I have been finishing up my classes and preparing for my trip to the Galapagos Islands followed by my return to the United States (EEUU).

In the last few weeks of my time here I was fortunate to be able to visit the last part of Ecuador I wanted to see and that was the jungle. At the beginning of the month I was albe to visit the jungle in a tour and got to see some really awesome. Without going into details, our boat was nearly attacked by an alligator, I saw freshwater dolphins, and went swimming with piranha's!

The end of this semester has obviously been different as I have been studing abroad but not only that it was different as normally I spend many hours studying in the library or the union to prepare for the hours of exams I have. The end of this semester was almost as busy but in a very different way. I have has to rush with all the last minute work the teachers have been putting off till the end. And not in a manner like the US but worst. Some of my classes we have not done any work until the final week (or so it seems). I guess it is part of how the relax society of Ecuador gets something accomplished. All of these tasks were small and difficult but there was plenty at times that there was not enough time in the day. Not to mention I had to shorten the end of my semester even more since I will be going to the Galapagos Islands for one of my classes during my last week here.

I must say I have started to think about how I will be leaving this country, how I am going to pack my suitcase, and how I am saying goodbye to friends (Ecuadorian and North American), I am realllllly sad. As happy was I am about the idea of seeing my family, enjoying Christmas, and starting a new semester at U of I, I have grown to love lots of things about Ecuador and know am going to miss the Spanish and this country. This thoughts are what make me the saddest. Everyday when I wake up here in Ecuador, I know that life will be an adventure and I will always be learning. Whether am I learning how this part of the bus systems works, how popcorn and soup go together, or how to say a new word in Spanish, everyday is exciting for me. The idea of returning to the world filled with a day of regular old English seems to bore. With this I am sad but I guess here is life. All I can do know is dream and plan about my return to Ecuador, the next time I will speak Spanish, and my visit to new counries.

Voy a extranarte, Espanol!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my friends and family!

Feliz Accion de Gracias!

I know the Thanksgiving blessing is a little belated but this is the first chance I have had to post since then so I wanted to still wish everyone the best.

I had a very different but still great Thanksgiving here in Ecuador. It was odd as this is the first Thanksgiving I did not spend with my family in ND while we participate our yearly activities. A change of tradition for me. I celebrated the day by first of all attending classes and that was definitely a wierd adjustment as obviously it is a normal day for all the Ecaudorians. In the evening we had a dinner for Thanksgiving with all the students of our program. We are were looking forward to this as we all were cooking different parts of the dinner and bringing them to the host students house. This was an adventure for all of us as we prepared for many days in advance about what we were going to cook, how we were going to cook, and where we were going to get the ingredients. Since this holiday is not celebrated all of things we consider traditional and easy to find in the store are a much more difficult task here. The girl who was going to make the pumpkin pie quickly realized that you can't find pumpkin as a whole fruit or in a can here in Ecuador. The guy who was going to bring cranberries could find them in no store at all here. So our Thanksgiving dinner quickly became a modified one.

I also had lots of trouble and plenty of hassle to find croutons for the stuffing like dish I was bringing. One other very interesting thing I noticed when buying the things. Anything that is typical Ecuadorian ingredients are cheap, and anything that is purchased in an at all ready manner (even the croutons) is much less typical Ecuadorian and much more expensive. It made it interesting to convert these recipes from the united States version to the Ecuadorian version. I ended up making a crouton carrot baked dish (which everyone loved, thanks Jackie and Mom) and a pasta salad. They both were delicious and reminded me how much I love this holiday in the United States.

All of us students gathered with our dishes for the meal and we finally ended up eating later as we were waiting for all the people that were late. Some two hours later we started to eat the abundance of food that everyone brought as we started the meal in true Ecuadorian style, not on time!

It was a great meal and everyone had lots of food and fun.

Shortly after the dinner, I had to help clean up, hurry home, and pack my bag as I was off to continue giving thanks on the beach! We took a bus my night arriving in Guayaquil (the most populated city of Ecuador, as Quito is second) in the morning. We were able to experience the city of Guayaquil for a short while and notice all the culture differences from Quito as it is very different since Quito is in the mountains and Guayauil on the coast!

After that we headed up the coast from Guayaquil to Montanita, what I would call the best beach in Ecuador. A great little surf village with some of the best enviroment, waves, and beach of the coast of Ecuador. We spent a few days in Montanita and lots of relaxing. I even surfed one of the days. It was really fun and I was pretty successful. I really forward to being able to try again somewhere in the future. There was also pleny of fun and partying at night!

We returned from Montanita this morning and I must say I am thankful for a different but great Ecuadorian Thanksgiving!

First of all I must apologize as I have not updated in quite a while as I have been pretty busy here. When I think about it I am not sure what but I have been busy.

One of the biggest feats I accomplished this previous weekend was the worst assignment of my semester here in Ecuador. For my Vulcanologia class, I had a report on the volcano of Cotopaxi of 15 PAGES ENTIRELY IN SPANISH. I have not had many papers/assignments of that length in English let alone a foreign language. It was definitely a use Spanish accomplishment for me. I must say in retrospective the Spanish was really not a bad part of the paper at all and while working on it I hardly noticed it was work to right in Spanish. Granted it was not my best Spanish work but 15 pages would not be my best English work either. I literally worked the whole weekend all day Saturday and Sunday on that stupid report and finished in time for the deadline last night. I was so glad that was over and just wanted to do nothing.

Another special event of the past weekend was that on Sunday I went with my parents to the country club that they are member of. It was an interesting experience not only cause I have not attended my true country clubs in the United States and it also helped me see more of the varied parts of Ecuadorian life. I mention the varied parts of Ecuadorian life since it is definitely not common for the average Ecuadorian to be part of a country club. It was a fun time as I swam, sun tanned, watched the golfers, and walked around a little in this smog free area of the country while my parents played tennis. I unfortunately passed time working on that stupid report also. It was an enjoyable time and would have been even more fun if I would not have had work to do. After tennis, we all ate lunch together and returned home. A fun country club Sunday!

Well I look ahead to the week and even though I have work to do remain pretty relaxed as it will not be a 15 page paper. Also I will be giving thanks over dinner with people in my program on Thursday evening after I am done with classes. How strange for classes on Thanksgiving! It is really hard to fun certain traditional Thanksgiving meal things here but we are making do. After that, I think I am planning to continue giving thanks this weekend with a trip to the beach! I love the beach here! I think am going to go to surf school too! So we shall see...

Ah!

It has been a long week of everything.

I just finished buying my tickets for my night but today!

I will be spending the next 4 days on the beach and enjoying it. Not to mention two days of scuba diving!

This is long overdue and here I come...

¡Hola Familia y Amigos!

I have been in Ecuador now for a little over two months and am definitely getting into the groove of everything here. In the beginning of my time here I was getting frustrated as many of the foreign exchange students speak English with each other but I have gotten into my groove of the language. I pretty much speak Spanish all day long so it has really been helping. As the language was getting better and more frequent, I was excited to hit my first landmark of language learning when I had my first dream in Spanish and since then I have had more. That was really exciting and weird! I also then hit another landmark when I forgot my first word in English. People usually laugh when I tell them that but it is odd how when you don’t use words for a while, they are not as fresh in your memory. There are definitely days after I have been speaking in Spanish all day and have some trouble when I sit down to write an e-mail in English. It takes a while for my brain to switch; it is a really exciting feeling!

Everything else has been keeping me busy! Classes are going really well and I understand everything going on in them. The last three weeks have been extra busy in classes as I have had mid semester exams!

I have also been busy during the week with my volunteer job. Our program suggests that we participate in some volunteer activity to get other perspectives of life in Ecuador and I have been volunteering at the “Museo Ecuatoriano de Ciencias Naturales” (Natural Science Museum of Ecuador). In my time there I have been helping with guides in English for tourists as well as translations of the exhibits. This is an exciting part of what I am doing as I am the only English speaker in the museum. Just this week I also had a new step in my time there as I had to give my first tour in Spanish for a class of 5th graders. It was very nerve racking as my Spanish vocabulary in biology is not very advanced. It turned out well and the kids really enjoyed helping me with words!

I have also been traveling a lot on the weekends especially with my classes of Volcanology and Mountaineering. With these classes I have hiked a few crater lakes and I was also able to go real mountain climbing for the first time ever with the ropes, helmets, and harnesses. It was a really neat experience to go mountain climbing in the Great Andes. With Volcanology I was also able to visit Cotapaxi which is the tallest active volcano in the world. For the class we climbed up half way but it was exciting as there was snow at this part. I also got to climb up a little further and touch the black ice glacier that sits on top of the mountain. I definitely did not expect to touch a glacier for the first time ever while I was by the Equator! While we were up there it started to snow which was fun but gave me a nice reminder of what I will be welcomed by when I return to the US in December.

I am definitely ready for a change in pace of the scenery as I really enjoy Quito and all of the mountains I have visited but I have had enough mountains for a few weeks and am really excited for exploring some of the other areas of Ecuador. Next weekend we have vacation from school and I will be traveling to the coast with my Scuba Diving class and be completing my scuba diving training when I go scuba diving for the first time in my life. I am not only really excited about the scuba diving but the trip in general since we are also going to get time to chill on the beach for a few days. I am can’t wait for my Pacific Coast vacation!

I hope that his e-mail finds everyone in good health and keeping busy. I hope that you have/had a great Halloween!! (I am very much missing Halloween as it is not celebrated here but is my favorite holiday in the US!) For those of you that are interested I am posting entries/writings about what I am doing here in Ecuador on my website at http://www.livejournal.com/users/lifeisacrzythng/. I have real exciting news as I have been able to get my pictures from Ecuador all updated on my photo website at http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mysterymachin122000/my_photos. Hope you enjoy! I hope that the fall is going well and it seems Thanksgiving may be here before we know it (Another American holiday I will miss). Keep in touch and take care!

Chao

So today I proceeded to my take my Volcanology class mid semester exam at 2:30. This was going to be possibly my most difficult exam here in Ecuador yet since it is technically difficlt and about volcanoes in Spanish. When I got there, the class was empty. When I went to the teachers office it turned out the exam was moved to Thursday. This is the third time this exam has changed dates. This has been part of my fun educational experiences here in Ecuador since this is not the first time this has happened. One other time the whole class showed up for an exam except the teacher. At the U of I it has occured that professors change exam dates and this is not a big deal but what is really interesting it when they change the exam date not a week in advance but on the day of the exam!

These I think is a good demostration of the some of the differences in the educational system here as it is definitely more relaxed. I have really learned to be flexible. Not many people stress out about school as it is not considered something to stress about. Deadlines are more like attempt dates and professors are much more flexible. Also in general people don't spend as much time on homework since there is not as much. This is a big change form U of I where I spent many late nights studying in the library and here there are some nights when I have no homework at all. It is a nice change of pace to take a outer perpective look at stress over work but it will be tough to go back to the long nights.

The last weekend I had a trip with my program so it was the students from Illinois and we went to visit a town north of Quito called Otovalo. There are many indeginous communities that sell the things they make for gifts etc. throughout the country but this town/village is the center of it all as it has the biggest and best market for this type of thing. It is a big tourist place but it is necessary to visit. The great thing about visiting is that it is like a big outdoor market that can well serve as a shopping mall!

Most of us students arrived there with much intention of getting family souvenirs or Christmas gifts. I was one of those students! The market was a lot of fun and there was a great selection of really interesting things. There was defintely a lot of things I really liked but I was pretty good about restricting what I buy for myself. Some of the other students and I were joking about singing Xmas songs to help us get in the Xmas shopping mood. I must say it was kind of odd to be thinking about Xmas already especially when there is definitely not any snow here.

Later that day after we had somewhat shopped until we dropped we settled into the rest of our trip and bid the indigenous shopping mall goodbye.

The one other big highlight of the trip was later that day when we went to visit a waterfall close to the village. It was a nice view but more importantly is that it was a very strong waterfall and had much pressure. The only friend who had brought swimming trunks decided to enter close to the waterfall but you could not get very close since it was a lot of wind and pressure. That was when I decided that life was too short for this waterfall experience to be passed by and stripped down to my boxers and started to waid up the stream towards the waterfall. Some other students followed and then we played by the waterfall. There was so much pressure from the waterfall that the wind and mist was like hurricane winds as you got closer. It was intense and a lot of fun! I am sure it was fun for the other tourists who were taking beautiful pictures of the beautiful waterfall and the half naked students in it!

So just a quick update since I have to get back to working on internship stuff.

I will be going mountain climbing tomorrow so I pretty excited about that! All of my other trips thus far have been hiking but this one will actually be climbing like ropes, harness and all. We will also be camping in tents tomorrow night in the mountains. That is going to be cold! Which reminds me that I have to figure out what I am going to do about sleeping bag.

Also, in 3 weeks I will be going to the beach for a wonderful 4 day weekend vacation that will include finishing my scuba diving certification and tanning on the beach. I have visited so many mountains thanks to Andinismo class and Volcanology so this will be my first time to the Ecuadorian beach and I am pumped!

Today was a great day of Spanish even though I have lots of work for tomorrow!

I did a great presentation in Conversation abotu Sexual Education in Ecuador. It was a fun topic but more importantly is that I felt like my Spanish speaking went very well! A classmate even complimented me! I was really happy about it!

Now back to the busy week I have...

One long crazy weekend....

Ecuador won the futbol (soccer) game and will be advancing to Germany for the World Cup Championship stuff...it was az crazy game. It had the emotions of American sports but without the rules and laws we have with fans in the US.

and now rain, rain, rain...now I see why sandals are so bad in Quito!

This will be short as I don't have much time before my next class starts. On a positive note before I rant is that my next class is Fotografia and Oh boy! do I love the dark room.

So for the first time since I have been in this country today I feel the worst about my Spanish. Pretty much every day when I get up I am excited to learn language and speak but today I think there has been a serious of events that have just done a good job at making me upset with my language sklls and has really made me feel like I have learned nothing of this language and I am not good at it. I really hope that it is just me having a bad day and my mind blowing it out of proportion but I really feel that I now owe it to myself to work even harder with the language as I reallly want to be achieving more. That is why I am here.

One that note to class and more work...more Spanish I hope too...

I am doing well and had a great weekend! It was the first
trip with my Andinismo (mountain climbing) class and we went
to Quilatoa which is a crater lake. Once we arrived in the
village next to the lake we spent the night in a hostal but
this one was very simple as there was no running water or
shower and the bathroom was outside. Also at night since it
is high up on a mountain it gets really hot and there is no
heating. Therefore when I slept I was wearing pants, two
pairs of socks, a jacket, and a winter cap. I was sleeping
with all of this inside of a camping/hiking sleeping bag which
is tight and zips up very small with only a small hole for
your head and under blankets. It stayed warm but it was a
fun adventure. I thought many times during the stay about
how my sister would handle it as I know her feelings about
previous crappy hotels and this hostal may make the typical crappy motel in the US look
good. It makes me really want to take her to show her what life could be like.

It was a also a great weekend since the teachers are
Ecuadorian and some of the classmates therefore we spoke Spanish
the entire weekend and I had my first dream in Spanish on
Saturday night!!! This was really exciting and makes me really want to speak alot more. This is more difficult thanks to my stupid American friends here.

The climb was great workout, beautiful view, and very refreshing!!

Altough I had a crazy fun weekend with many interesting sites and trips, I am going to maybe talk about this later but for the time now I going to vent about a continuing frustration here in Ecuador that was revisted late last week.

Ever since I started the first day of school I have been dealing with the frustration of not being able to the find the right school supplies I desire. So many of there school supplies here are different, awkward, and in my opinion simply insufficient.

At the beginning of school, I fortunately had 2 wide rule (I hate wide rule) notebooks from the the US to start with. I then began the adventure to buy more notebooks and folders for classes. I first went to an office supply store more or less (as you think that would be obvious) called Superpaco (similiar to a Staples of the US). Here I began my excursion of insufficient school supplies for what I desire and expensive other supplies as Post It notes have a tariff from the US and cost a lot of money. After this I thought I would simplify as all I desired was simple college rule plain color notebooks and folders. Therefore I decided to go to Megamaxi (the Walmart of Ecuador) since they must have this simple object there.

I was sadly disappointed...

All of the notebooks I have found thus far have the following problems: There are either wide ruled with a silly marginal frame around them or they are cuadras (grid paper). They are also all smaller than our notebooks and many students use little notepads to take notes. Also ALL notebooks are themed! I don't think there is a single plain colored notebook in this whole country! They have two types: children cartoon characters and almost pornographic. Obvioulsy aimed for children and high school students, not? The typical college student uses this grid paper notebooks with many times pornographic pictures.

As if it is not enough that the notebooks are like this, all the printer and copy paper is bigger than the paper in the US so no photocopies of syllabi and worksheets fit into regular folders and you have to use these odd folders that do not have pockets.

This is not to mention that fact that I have yet to see a calendar for sale and that agendas are rare and very expensive!

WITHOUT SUFFICIENT SCHOOL SUPPLIES I FELT IN THE BEGINNING LIKE I COULD NOT FUNCTION!!!

So after being reminded of this wonderful issue when I had to do some more shopping last week Friday I came to a lightbulb conclusion: There are many social and political problems and issues in Ecuador that are constantly trying to be resolved by this country and with the help of the government of other countries. I think all of these problem solvers are missing the obvious source of the problem. INSUFFICIENT SCHOOL SUPPLIES!! If the government and other countries would stop spending so much money to try to fix all of these other problems we would they not go to the source of the problem. They just need to buy sufficient pens, pencils, notebooks, agendas, and calendars and distribute to the people of this country. In the streets, in the markets, perhaps from the rooftops of the buildings if necessary! ;)

Letter from the middle of the world!

Hola from Ecuador!

So I have been in Ecuador for three weeks now and going on a month. This is a scary reality that time is flying this fast as I know my time here will be done in the blink of an eye. This is why I need to spend my time busily and wisely. I have not send any e-mail thus far since I have spent much of my time getting settled in many ways but now I am settled in and getting into the Spanish groove.

Upon my arrival I enjoyed being in Quito (capital of Ecuador and second largest city) although I spent my first two days not feeling too well as I had altitude sickness and was adjusting. Quito is a city built between many mountains and is very high in altitude (8400 ft I think) therefore your body is not used to the high altitude and it really keeps you short on breath most of the time. I live with a somewhat wealthy family (mom, dad, and sister) in the north part of the city. I enjoy my family since neither of my parents speak English well at all so it makes it easy to practice Spanish. One other interesting thing that was an adjustment with my family was that we have a maid! She cooks my meals for me as well as cleans our house (including my room). Also, she does my laundry but not in a washer and dryer, by hand!!! It has been kind of weird to adjust to this as I feel I need to always clean up so she does not have so much work to do. It is a regular thing here for almost all middle to upper class homes to have maids so it is something I will culturally adjust to with time!

In my first week here we got to take a trip to THE EQUATOR as it is only a half hour drive from my house. This was a really fascinating trip as I have never imagined in my life that I would live that close to the middle of the earth. There is a really fun monument at the point on the earth that was historically measured to be the Equator. This is a great photo opportunity for everyone to take a picture with there body in both hemispheres at one time. Right next to this monument is another museum/monument that is smaller and less flashy that claims to be the center of the earth also and states the other one is wrong. We also visited this center of the earth just to be sure that we were for sure on the center of the earth at some point. It is funny to think that there is a difference of opinions on something that should be as obvious as the center of the earth.

I have also had some other exciting weekends well I have been here as I have currently been traveling most of the weekends. I have visited a city called Banos which is known for its hot spring baths/pools. Bathing/swimming/standing in the pools (since they were very full) was an interesting cultural experience as many Ecuadorians come there to bathe believing the water is healing. Also the water is very hot and brown/muddy in color which makes for an interesting experience in the pools. It was definitely a cultural experience! So much that I could feel the culture on my body when we were done!

During my weekend trips I also visited “El Nariz del Diablo” (=Devil’s Nose) which is a world famous railroad since it climbs down the side of a mountain in a way that should be an impossible engineering feat. If it is not scary enough with this ride, during the entire train ride we were riding on the roof of the train! That is right, most of the passengers ride on the roof to make the trip even more fun. It was a little scary but definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity! My favorite weekend trip thus far was to a rain forest in Ecuador. There are pretty much three regions of Ecuador, which are the mountains, the jungle, and the coast. The country has a lot of interesting diversity and this rain forest has proven to be my favorite part of Ecuador thus far! Although many people, thought it was humid, I really enjoyed the weather as it felt refreshing and a nice change of pace from the pollution and dirt in the city. I really look forward to maybe planning another trip there!

My classes in the beginning were stressful as they are all in Spanish so I had trouble understanding a lot of what the professors were talking about. In the beginning there were also a lot of changes in my schedule to find classes that I was going to enjoy, be able to understand, and still learn something. Now my classes have become more concrete and I understand a lot of what is going on.

Overall, the pace of school and life is a lot different but it is something I am adjusting to and it is a nice change of pace from the typical semester at the University of Illinois. I have at times not been speaking as much as I like but I am working more at this all the time to speak better and more often. It is a crazy and tiring experience to speak and listen to a different language all day long. I really realize how much we take advantage of being able to speak when it is a task everyday. Despite the energy it takes I am really enjoying the time with the language!

I am hoping to write more e-mails throughout the semester to stay in touch with family and friends but I will also be posting entries/writings about what I am doing here in Ecuador on my website at http://www.livejournal.com/users/lifeisacrzythng/. I also hope to get some pictures posted online but it is tough to do as the internet connections are so slow. With this e-mail I also wanted to include my phone number and address as I would also love to get a pleasant surprise from the family and friends back home. My phone number is: (593) country code 95373839. My address is:

Brian Fisher
Calle Manuel Guzman # 200 y
Eloy Alfaro
Quito, Ecuador
Sud America

I hope that all is well for you in the EEUU (=USA) and I hope to stay in touch while I am a continent away. I hope that everyone has a good fall and winter with greetings from Ecuador! (Or as I would say here) ¡Yo espero que todos tengan un buen otoño e invierno con pensamientos de Ecuador!

With thoughts,

Brian

I have not journaled here in a long time as I debated about its value but I told myself I would broadcast my life to the world while I study abroad. Therefore I shall start my entries here with my first days in ECUADOR...

So I arrived in Ecuador almost 3 weeks ago and that was the beginning of my semester abroad. I have spent a lot of time getting settled and now that I am I finally have time to make the posts I told myself that I would. So first let´s recap the last three weeks...