Aqui en Cuenca....

Yesterday we arrived in Cuenca! It is a beautiful city. A lot like Quito, only smaller, and cleaner. Kind of like Portland vs Seattle. My family is great. My host mom´s name is Olga, and she has one son named Diego and two daughters. One of the daughters is single and supposedly ¨gorda¨and on a diet, but I met her this morning and she´s definitely thin. Anyways. The other daughter is married and lives in the floor above the mom and I with her two daughters. Diego also has a son. The kids are ages 5, 6, and 7. Quite a handful, but a lot of fun! The littlest is named Anabel, and she´s pretty wild. I was told that as long as you close your door you´ll be garanteed privacy... well, not with her. I was taking a nap yesterday after I first got in and she barged in and jumped on the bed and started playing with my hair. Hahaha.

Anyways, my house is nice. It´s really big and has three complete apartments in it. The mom, and single daughter and I live on the middle floor. It´s on a really busy street so I´m going to have to be using earplugs this whole time. Good thing I brought some. I have my own bedroom and private bathroom, which is really nice. I´ll post photos as soon as I´m able. The card readers here don´t seem to work and I forgot my usb cable.

Anyways, on Tuesday, we had two lectures. One from Narcisa, our program coordinator (from Cuenca, not the lady from my school) about general things to know about Cuenca and our families. Later that day we had another lecture from an American woman who has lived in Ecuador since the 70´s. She was quite the radical (as are all the women associated with our school here, I think) and gave us a quick and dirty history of modern Ecuador. Interesting stuff. I wonder how it happens that most places in the world are so much more active and so much more democratic (in my opinion) than the states. You rarely see people take to the streets or really voice opinions. I´m not judging, because I don´t exactly do that either, but it´s just interesting... anyhoo, the group here is fun, I like everyone a lot. We might go out tonight since we don´t have to be at school until 3pm tomorrow. Some of our familys have young people who want to take us out. Should be fuuun! So far I haven´t had any trouble with guys here or anything like that, except for the short flight from Quito to Cuenca. An older business man sat next to me and talked to me the entire time. He was nice, but I was tired and didn´t feel like talking. But he was excited to talk to me in English and he made me respond in spanish... he asked about boyfriends I´ve had and said I had a face of a latin american but I was tall like an American... I told him he should meet my family. Hahaha.

Ok, I want to go munch on some chocolate and I need to call my host mom to pick me up sometime soon.

Later, skaters.