7 August 1:15 PM
I’m sitting in my host family’s family room watching “The Simpsons” in Spanish. Luckily it’s one I’ve seen before, so I can follow pretty well. I had my first Spanish class (4 hours one-on-one) today, and it was pretty grueling. My tutor, Veronica, is quite the taskmaster, which is good, but it takes a lot out of me. Although I have a lot of Spanish coming in, she’s starting me off with the basics and building from there. I think that will work well for me, as I get a bit sloppy about that stuff.
I have now met most of my host family, and they seem really nice. This morning I had breakfast with my host mother, Rosario (to be known as Madre) – or I should say I had breakfast while she watched me eat. It was a bit uncomfortable. She asked me lots of questions, I did my best to answer, but I didn’t have the vocabulary and grammar skills to be polite and ask questions about her. Oh well, I’m sure she understood.
Oh, first faux pas – she served warm milk with my breakfast, which I drank dutifully. I didn’t find out until later that it was for the instant coffee that’s kept on the table. Ooops. I’ll just have to tell her to skip the milk tomorrow.
It’s really weird being waited on. I finished my class to come home for lunch, which is a big family meal here. Madre will not let me help (probably thinking this spoiled American doesn’t know her way around a kitchen). But on top of her making three meals a day for me, she will also be hand-washing all of my laundry (yeah, I bought new underwear for this), changing my sheets, cleaning my room, etc.
Ok, so I have to share something pretty embarrassing about myself. I hate using other people’s bathrooms. And by other people’s I mean any bathroom that isn’t in my house. So what do I do? I run off to Ecuador to live with a family with the most centrally located bathroom I’ve ever seen. Oh, and in Ecuador, one doesn’t flush toilet paper, one throws it out in the trash. And yes, it is extremely likely that I will have, como se dice, violent diarrhea at some point while I’m in South America. Now, I mentioned earlier before that I’m only comfortable in my bathroom, but not even my bathroom is of much comfort during such an episode.
So anyway, last night I really had to pee, just plain old urination. I sat there in my cute little room, worrying that my bladder would burst because I refused to get up in the middle of the night to go to the aforementioned centrally-located bathroom. And I knew I was being an idiot, but that still didn’t get me out of my room. I waited until the morning when I knew where everyone in the house was (boys asleep, Madre in the kitchen) and I rushed off to save myself from needing a new bladder. I’m really going to have to get over this.
Ok, enough of my bathroom stories. Lunch is almost ready, so I’m going to sign-off. More soon…
If you’re curious, it’s the episode where Homer goes to space on the space shuttle, after beating out Barney for the slot. The scene when he’s eating anti-gravity potato chips while the theme from 2001 plays, is awesome!
I have now met most of my host family, and they seem really nice. This morning I had breakfast with my host mother, Rosario (to be known as Madre) – or I should say I had breakfast while she watched me eat. It was a bit uncomfortable. She asked me lots of questions, I did my best to answer, but I didn’t have the vocabulary and grammar skills to be polite and ask questions about her. Oh well, I’m sure she understood.
Oh, first faux pas – she served warm milk with my breakfast, which I drank dutifully. I didn’t find out until later that it was for the instant coffee that’s kept on the table. Ooops. I’ll just have to tell her to skip the milk tomorrow.
It’s really weird being waited on. I finished my class to come home for lunch, which is a big family meal here. Madre will not let me help (probably thinking this spoiled American doesn’t know her way around a kitchen). But on top of her making three meals a day for me, she will also be hand-washing all of my laundry (yeah, I bought new underwear for this), changing my sheets, cleaning my room, etc.
Ok, so I have to share something pretty embarrassing about myself. I hate using other people’s bathrooms. And by other people’s I mean any bathroom that isn’t in my house. So what do I do? I run off to Ecuador to live with a family with the most centrally located bathroom I’ve ever seen. Oh, and in Ecuador, one doesn’t flush toilet paper, one throws it out in the trash. And yes, it is extremely likely that I will have, como se dice, violent diarrhea at some point while I’m in South America. Now, I mentioned earlier before that I’m only comfortable in my bathroom, but not even my bathroom is of much comfort during such an episode.
So anyway, last night I really had to pee, just plain old urination. I sat there in my cute little room, worrying that my bladder would burst because I refused to get up in the middle of the night to go to the aforementioned centrally-located bathroom. And I knew I was being an idiot, but that still didn’t get me out of my room. I waited until the morning when I knew where everyone in the house was (boys asleep, Madre in the kitchen) and I rushed off to save myself from needing a new bladder. I’m really going to have to get over this.
Ok, enough of my bathroom stories. Lunch is almost ready, so I’m going to sign-off. More soon…
If you’re curious, it’s the episode where Homer goes to space on the space shuttle, after beating out Barney for the slot. The scene when he’s eating anti-gravity potato chips while the theme from 2001 plays, is awesome!
posted by Melissa In Ecuador at 5:31 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home