Now that we are completing our 3rd week of Training I thought it was time to take a look back and see what I have learned so far.
I have learned…
- How to walk with my backpack in front
- That most places I want to go on the bus cost 25 cents
- To greet everyone automatically according to the time of day, “buenos días, buenas tardes, buenas noches“
- To ignore the sounds of barking dogs and roosters crowing
- To enjoy my Malaria medicine dreams
- How to play the card game Cuarenta
- That a popular birthday tradition is to smash a person’s face into the birthday cake
- How to explain the Greenhouse Effect in Spanish (El Efecto Invernadero)
- That the illiteracy rate is only 11% here, which includes mostly elderly folks from the countryside
- To enjoy the times when the internet is working and to forget about it when it isn’t
- How to wake up at 6am and still have enough energy to stay up late with my host brothers
- How to bake and decorate a cake Ecuadorian style
- How to politely refuse more food, a drink, anything unwanted
- That kids are the same here as they are back home
- About the potential health and security threats we may face as Volunteers including Bot Flies, ring worm, Dengue Fever, and petty theft
- Tons of new Spanish words
- The main differences between teaching styles here verses in the USA
- How to give a “Charla“