Mas o menos

We made it to Ecuador! So much has happened in the last week... On January 15 we had a day of orientation in Jamaica, New York. Then at 4 a.m. we left for the airport in New York. We flew from New York to Miami and left from Miami to Quito, Ecuador. We arrived in Quito at about 8 p.m. In New York we marked all the Peace Corps bags with rose colored yarn so we knew whose bags to pull off. After we made it through customs we watched all of the bags come through the belt when we realized that none of our bags where there (there are 25 of us each with at least two bags). We waited for a bit and then we went to talk to the baggage people. We found out that our bags were on the second flight from Miami and they weren't going to be in Quito until 10:45. We talked to our Peace Corps representatives who (after a while of waiting) decided we would head to the training center since we still had an hour drive! We arrived at the training center around 11:00. Some of the staff stayed behind with our passports and baggage claim tickets (good thing I kept them!). They picked up our bags and brought them to the center.

As soon as I got off the plane I felt the altitude difference with a huge headache. I've been getting headaches everyday, but they seem to be getting better. Except for that, the experience so far has been great. Here are some pictures.

This is the view from the top of the training center. The city in the mountains is Quito.

This is the view on the right of mi casa (if you turn right from the picture below).

 This is the house of my host family.

This is our room! Sorry it's a little messy. I'm not sure that we have unpacked all of our stuff yet... We have two closet drawer things for our clothes. Our bed is quite firm, but not too bad. There are roosters that like to talk to each other early in the morning! Aye.

My host family is great. They really like teaching us Spanish and have been very patient. Our padres are both teachers for 9-10 year olds. My madre calls her house Gringo Landia because their family has had five volunteers before us and they all come back to visit.


Much love,
Emily

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