Hola!

I have arrived

After a rather stressful week and a 15 hour plane flight, plus a very boring 4 hour stop over in Texas where I could barely keep my eyes open, I finally arrived in Guayaquil, Ecuador around midnight on Sunday evening. John (my boss) was thankfully there to meet me - though there had been some question as to whether this would be the case as he had stopped replying to emails. I have since found out this was because he´d gone away for Easter weekend.) Anyway, I am currently staying with him & his wife, Maria Elena.

They are both very welcoming and Maria Elena has even taken to helping me learn a bit of Spanish. (She is actually an English professor at the University here, but she taught Spanish for a while a few years ago when they lived in the UK for a few years). Today we did numbers, meeting people... and I can cook Spaghetti Bolognaise in Spanish! Of all the useful things I could know!


First Impressions

By now, most of you know the story of when John first rang me for an interview;

Jenni & I were sat in the kitchen laughing & joking as we usually do. We´d been discussing my time in China, for whatever reason, when the phone rang. So, for a joke, I answered the phone in a Chinese accent saying,

"Herro, yoo haf reached da Sheara´ househol´ how can I help yoo?"
"Hello, this is John Warren calling from Ecuador for Amie Shearer?"

It´s safe to say I was stunned into silence & totally mortified that this should be the one phone call that I should answer in a stupid voice.

Anyway, luckily, it didn´t hurt too much as I´m here in Ecuador. However, on Sunday night, my plan was to take a quick shower & go to bed for a much awaited sleep. Nevertheless, as I got into the shower I managed to pull down the shower curtain rail which, if it wouldn´t have been embarrassing enough, made a tremendous crashing sound. John called through the door,

"Amie? Are you ok?" Cursing at this point that I could possibly do something so stupid, I call back rather sheepishly,

"um, well, actually, er, I´ve sort of pulled down you´r shower railing..." (I didn´t know what else to say!) He explained that it was actually on suckers & happened all the time (thank god!). All was well - until I pulled it down again getting out of the shower, though at least now I knew how to put it back up - & I went to bed.

There is only one upside to this that I can think of; I have possibly given the worst first impression possible after all this & so things can only go up... touch wood.


Guayaquil

John & Maria Elena live on the outskirts of the city in a modern ´compound´ type place. You wouldn´t think we were 10 minutes outside a 3 million people city as it´s surrounded by luscious green rolling hills covered with trees, ivy and other random looking vegetation I will never recognise!

The city itself is vast. I haven´t been in the centre yet but from what I have seen, it seems to me like a city which has had another ring of roads and building built every few years and so it´s sort of like an onion... for want of a better analogy! Where we were on Monday is simply mall after mall after mall of shops and restaurants. I suppose it´s the coolest way to shop here but that´s all there seemed to be!

We went to see Maria Elena´s niece who is also 19, Adriana, on Monday too and she lived in ´the 70´s area´ apparently. This was smaller white buildings with little multicoloured balconies, though it looked like it needed a bit of TLC. Also, the giant two-story high gates bolted shut in front of every house were particularly welcoming...

Adriana is very nice, and speaks reasonable English which is good as until I learn some Spanish, conversation would be a bit stilted otherwise! She´s actually invited me out this weekend to her cousin´s birthday in a club, or ´disco tech´as she calls it. (I didn´t like to say that a disco in England is for 11 year olds!) Apparently here the main type of music in clubs is ´reggae-ton´ which sounds like RnB with reggae beats, which I can cope with :) It´s more the sound of the style of dancing which I´m worried about! I think it´ll be an interesting night anyway!


Will keep you posted

I don´t have a whole lot to report as of yet as I haven´t started properly teaching yet & obviously haven´t seen a whole lot either. I´m teaching a class of ´false beginners´today (which means they have basic understanding & that´s about it) but that´s partly just to fill my time and also filling in for John as I have nothing better to do.

Once I have more to say I´ll be back!

Love to all,
xx