balancing eggs and other such fun

Classes are progressing quickly as usual. I have just finished my third week of classes, have 1 two-hour class to teach left (in which we’re focusing on reading comprehension through Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well Lighted Place”), and then supposedly I’m ready for the real world. I’m nervous about this real world, but excited as well.

I will be teaching within the English Language department (CEC), which is part of a local University. Crazy. This will be very different from my prior teaching experiences, and even from the practice I’ve been receiving in my courses. But a great experience nonetheless. Plus it gives me great vacation time/travel opportunities in which I will spend my meager earnings.

So, other than taking classes, teaching classes and completing class work, my weekdays are rather boring. However our favorite dreamland, the land of weekend, always comes around again. =)

This week and weekend there has been a cultural festival in Quito so the plan was to meet up Saturday to attend some of the concerts. However, when it was time to meet up with all my classmates to go to Parque Carolina to enjoy ourselves with some musical entertainment, a HUGE storm swept into the valley. At the time I was in a mall, El Jardín, with Lisa getting lunch and looking for a few things for school and for the birthday of Colleen. All of a sudden, the lights in the stores went out and a pounding was coming down from the sky. The metal roof of the Supermaxi (supermarket monopolizer) alerted us to the teaming rain outside. We were thankful to be inside. Unfortunately, one can only stand to be in a mall for so long so eventually we braved the fierce weather outside. Got drenched trying to find the rest of our group who was nearby at a café and then gave up to go watch Elf at my house. It was so stange though. Usually the storms in Quito have passed by rather quickly. This was the most violent rain storm I have witnessed so far, and also the storm with the msot endurance.

To make up for missing the concerts (which were cancelled because lightning hit one of the tvs set up to display the stage to the crowd) my classmates and other miscellaneous friends and I met up in the evening to chill and go dancing. It was fun, but I really hate that here they can smoke inside at some public venues. There is no way to avoid reeking of cigarette smoke. Not my favorite aroma.

Sunday we got up early despite our late evening out and met up to go to the Mitad del Mundo. Though I´d been to the monument before, I had yet to visit the sweet indigenous museum, Museo de Sitio Intiñan—or the Path of the Sun. Ayla, Claire, Colleen, Laura, Lisa (classmates), Meadhbh and Felim (Irish friends) and I went up and learned all about the old native traditions and tested some of the typical equator activities. We toured some authentic and/or recreated homes and buildings, hundreds of years old at times. We also saw a recreated tomb in which their indigenous ancestors would bury their dead in the fetal position in clay pots. This tradition was to help the dead depart in a similar way to their entrance, growing and coming from the womb. However, they also had a tradition for when a chief died. Apparently, when a chief died, all the family and servants of the chief would be drugged with the meat/juices/something of a certain cactus plant and then buried alive inside the tomb with the chief. They would be knocked out, hallucinating as they were interred and then would die of suffocation once the tomb was closed. This was a tradition of honor seeing as the chief was a good person, all who go on to the next life with him will also have good lives.

We learned all about the indigenous sytem of calendar and solar clocks. It was pretty cool because our tour was around noon and since it is so close to the Equinnox the shadows were crazy. For the solar clocks, 6 months of the year, they use one side of the stone, and the other half of the year the other—but with the Equinnox, the sun’s direction is perpendicular so must be read in a different manner. We also got the do the typical water experiments, watching the water swirl in opposite directions in the two hemispheres and go straight down on the equator. I balanced an egg on the head of a nail. Our strength was tested multiple times. Resistence is less when physically on the equator, and you literally weigh a kilo less when you are standing on the equator. We rounded out our day with a lovely lunch and then headed back into Quito, except for Felim who had to catch a different bus back to the village in which he now works and harvest sugar cane. Good work for an engineer. He now has mad machete skills.

Alright, well I’ve got to finish up my lesson plan and preparation for tomorrow and start to put together my portfolio. Hope you’re all well!

written by  Theresa on September 21, 2008 from Quito, Ecuador
from the travel blog: Adventures in Teaching and Living in Ecuador
Send a Compliment

comment on this...