I have 9 Spanish teachers!!!

For the past 2 weeks, I've been living in this lovely house in the La Floresta neighborhood of Quito, on the corners of Calles Barcelona and Tolsa. I share the house with students that are here thanks to Huayra Causay, the program where I volunteer every weekday afternoon teaching English. When I finally settled on volunteering with Huayra Causay, I was torn between living at the house with the students; staying at a hostel where I could meet other travelers; or else doing a homestay. Staying here is proving to be the best decision I could have made. 

Not only is La Floresta a pretty neighborhood and the house nice and spacious, but the students are amazing housemates. Mostly in their 20s and early 30s, they are here from all over Ecuador to participate in Huayra Causay because they are either farmers or have been studying something related to the field of agribusiness. Most importantly, each of them has demonstrated the ability to promote either the practice or principles of sustainable agriculture in their respective communities. Soon they will be heading to the States to stay on whatever organic farm has agreed to host them for 8 months through the US agriculture program, MESA - the Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture.

But for now they are in Quito for 5 weeks to improve their English. That's where I - and one other volunteer, Hannes - come in.

They are a small bunch, and only 9 of the 11 students actually live in the house.  But we have a great time in between all the classes they are here to take.  Dinner is a communal activity, prepared by 2 different pairs of students each night (with a meal budget provided by Huayra Causay) and everyone is an amazing cook.  So I am eating well.  Besides which I am hearing and learning LOTS of Spanish, which was part of the plan.  Speaking Spanish is a big struggle for me still (!!) and sometimes I wish I could just patter on into the kitchen for tea and shoot the shit in English.  But they are all incredibly patient with me and appreciative of the effort and I guess, if anything, can relate to my struggle.  As Ketty proclaimed over dinner tonight, as I struggled to tell them about my weekend in Otavallo, "You have NINE Spanish teachers!!!"

But lovely dinners and Spanish chitchat aside, the biggest highlight at the house so far was my introduction to Carnival last week. It was the Friday before I left for my long weekend on the Ruta del Sol and we had a massive cookout with every variety of meat thrown on the grill. I'd received plenty of warning that this big festive meal would be followed by the true "raison d'etre" of Carnival which is to make sure everyone gets extremely wet. I was told that everything from water to shaving cream to eggs get thrown and the streets become pure mayham. Which was what happened to the house.  Think Halloween when you were 13 years old x 100. Innocently believing everyone was too drunk and full of meat by the end of the meal to actually start a waterfight, I learned the hard way how Carnival is played: Ruthlessly!!

No doubt the experience (which is of course so much more fun in the telling) will be one of my fondest memories of Ecuador.