My Set-up

This is my first post from Ecuador. After 9 weeks in the country, I am finally getting around to it. Don’t expect any great work of art at first…this is my first time blogging. But I will do my best to make this interesting, and succinct…maybe. But most importantly, please respond. I hope this can be a launching platform to staying in touch with my American life.

So…to begin, my basic set-up.

“Home”: Quito, Ecuador. My motto: never a dull day in Quito. As a large city of 2 million, Quito is very polluted, kind of dangerous, loco, but full of city-excitement.

My job/work/reason for being here: I am teaching English at Ecuador’s military school, ESPE (Escuela Superior Politecnica Ejercito). My boss is a colonel, I have to attend civic ceremonies before class on Mondays, ESPE is a military bureaucratic nightmare, and a few of my students are military personnel (but only a couple). Most of my students are civilians studying accounting, auditing, business, engineering, or whatever. (Side note: about 50% of my students are studying finances of some sort. I predict that in ten years, there will be an enormous glut of unemployed accountants…or Ecuador’s corruption will get even worse since everyone will know how to do it “legally.”) (Funny anecdote: on my first trip to the main campus, I saw a tank driving around. Haha.)

I sometimes feel like I am only a “pseudo-English-teacher.” My lone qualification is that I have spoken English for 23 years and counting. I am not trained to be a teacher and the only English grammar I know is what sounds right. (I did receive a month of training from my organization, so I have a few pedagogical tools to help me out and I have a general idea of what I am doing.) But unfortunately, I am a big step up from what my students are used to. (Whoops. That sounds conceited.) This is because the book ESPE uses is a piece of s*#!. I think most of the teachers are solid, but everyone seems very grateful to have a native speaker to practice with.

I have 11 different classes. Yup...11. Plus 130 students. Equals crazy. Since I only teach conversation, I float in between 11 classes in one hour chunks, and I see each class once or twice a week (hence the feeling of pseudo-teacher). The benefit of my schedule is that I only lesson plan a couple of hours each week (compared to every day for other teachers). But the downside is that I do the same lesson plan 11 different times each week. This does get a little boring, so I take every opportunity possible to deviate from my plan. This is risky and requires a lot of quick improvisation, but it is way more interesting. Plus my best conversations have been unplanned.

The Fam: I have a host-mom (50s), brother (late 20s), and two dogs. My host-mom (Mariana) is wonderful. She is incredibly nice to me, a great cook, and patient with my gringo-Spanish. While we don't have a lot in common, we always find a way to chat at meals, although this has led to a repetition of the same jokes, which I am having trouble laughing at after hearing them at every meal. But she is still a great person, and easy to live with.

My host brother (Luis Fernando)...the best way to describe him is solid. I don't think we'll ever be good friends, because he is rather introverted, stoic (just a little bit), chats on-line, and plays computer games. Pretty different from me. But he is trustworthy, and if I ever need help, I can turn to him. A solid guy I can always rely on. Plus, he is easy to live with as well.

My host family has had volunteers for 12 years now. This makes things “easy”, because they are used to living with an American. But, it also means that gringos are "old news." That is, I am nothing new to them. They live their life, I live mine, we eat every meal together, but our lives are more or less separate. They haven't shown me around Quito or Ecuador at all. I will just have to do that on my own, or find some Ecua-friends.

Well, that is my situation down here in Ecuador. After two months, the state-of-the-me is “strong”. I am having fun, my Spanish is doing very well, I am learning a lot, Ecuador is incredibly beautiful, the people are nice, I like teaching, I like my family, and I am even starting to make Ecua-friends. All is well in the Southern Hemisphere.