First Weekend

My first weekend in Quito was incredible. Saturday morning I awoke to salsa music and mi madre had just returned from the panderia, or bread shop. Abuelita (grandmother), Pedro, Maria Gracia, Maria Paz (mother) and I crowed around the kitchen table for our first meal together as a family. On paper, it says the father lives here, but I think the parents are separated. They invited me on an adventure and we all piled into the car, including the poodle-like dog, Chola. We went to a neighborhood just outside of the city to a piece of land they are thinking of buying with their current neighbors in order to build a house. We passed one of the most affluent neighborhoods followed by one of the most impoverished. The contrast struck me especially because most of the neighborhoods in L.A. seem to be separated by more space. The land was beautiful and I played my first game of futbol with the kids. On our way back to Quito we stopped in a small town famous for its flowers and ate a traditional Ecuadorian lunch (the dog sat under the table because it was too hot to leave her in the car). My family has been great about not eating red meat, which is somewhat difficult when the national food includes a lot of pork. They ordered for me and I ended up with a special potato dish (sort of like latkes) with tomato and avocado on the side. I spent the afternoon with Nora and her 19-year-old host brother. She wanted to buy a cell phone and I needed a chip for the phone that I have. It was my first time on the troley (tram) and these guys randomly asked if I was from Los Angeles…I was so stunned that I stupidly said yes, which led to them basically trying to get information out of me and Nora. Her host brother ended up telling us to get off and we took a different troley to avoid them…So we finally made it to the store and called our parents, which was a huge relief.

Sunday again started with salsa music, and during breakfast Abuelita told me about some of the folklore of the Churches in the city and places that I should visit outside of Quito. Then Maria Paz and the neighbor father rode in the front of a pick-up truck and the neighbors’ kids (Isabel, 10 and Alesandro, 9), my host siblings and I climbed into the bed and we drove pretty fast to el centro to see the famous churches in Quito. On Sundays the streets in this area are closed, which is perfect for riding bikes or walking and people watching. We walked into churches and observed a few minutes of services and went to an amazing museum about the history of the city dating back before the Incas. The kids all wanted to go to McDonald’s and I did not really know how to get across that it was pretty much the last place I wanted to go. Luckily, my host mom told me that she did not want to eat there either and that the two of us could do something different. We went to a family-owed restaurant with traditional food from the coast region – mostly seafood. I had a great conversation with her about education and her work as a real estate agent and I felt that for the most part I could understand and contribute to the conversation. After coming home, I took a taxi to Nora’s house ($1.50) because she was upset / not feeling well and we talked and alternated between the Australian Open Tennis Finals and Grey’s Anatomy. Upon returning home, Pedro and Maria Gracia were super excited b/c their mom bought the land for the house. We played cards and it kills me every time Pedro told me to “go fish.” I am finally feeling comfortable in the house and with my host family…they are incredibly welcoming and patient with my attempts at Spanish.