SCHOOL

Well, I’ve completed my first two weeks of Ecuadorian high school…or “colegio” here. I don’t even know how to start explaining it, it’s so different! I suppose I’ll start with the fact that we wear uniforms. We have a formal one; plaid skirt, white shirt, navy sweater, navy knee socks (yeah... I know…), and black shoes. The other one we get to wear on the day we have gym, and Fridays. That one is sweat pants, a sweat shirt, a white t-shirt with the school logo on it, white socks (they also have the school logo) and white sneakers. The thing about uniforms is that it makes getting ready in the morning MUCH easier.

                                               Me in my uniform with Lucas (1 of 4 dogs)

My first day of school was something else. It seems like a year ago, but I’ll do my best to remember everything. Mami went in through the gates with me, (the school is surrounded by walls, has a huge gate and a guard at the front). The school is more like a campus with a bunch of little buildings. A lot of parents were there although… I think their children were significantly younger than me. OH WELL! Usman, Maddie (the American exchange student) and I all stood together with our mothers. All of a sudden a siren went off, it sounded like we were being raided or something! Nope, the school bell just sounds like that. Anyway, we followed everyone to the gym area which is outside and includes a basketball court, a small soccer field and track and permanent bleachers. We all had to line up according to grade, then class, then gender, then height facing the parents and staff who were sitting on the bleachers. Here, you don’t choose a list of courses you want to take, you choose one of three areas: chemistry, physics or social sciences and they give you classes based on which course you’re in. Usman and I found the sociales (social sciences) line and started meeting people left and right. Honestly, I didn’t even start remembering names until the second day. Here their greeting is half of the Quebec one. An “hola” and a kiss on the cheek. *Selina- here, somehow everyone knows which side to go to :-p. It took me a while to get used to being greeted like that by everyone every morning, but it’s actually really welcoming.

Alright, back to our lines! All four exchange students ended up at the back, we happen to be quite tall here. We had to stand straight with our feet apart and our hands behind our backs. The principal (who is very nice and speaks English amazingly well), made a welcome speech…of which I understood basically nothing. Then we had to put our right hands on our hearts and sing the national anthem. Haha! I spent the song moving my lips and glancing over at Usman and Sonja (the German exchange student) to see how they were doing. I’ve learned that exchange students click really fast, and we can kind of read each other’s minds seeing that we are usually thinking : “I have no clue what to do, but I’m trying anyway”. After the anthem, the principal called each exchange student up to the front. We stood there while she introduced us to the other students. I’m sure it was something along the lines of “these are the exchange students, don’t kill them”. Not really! ... I just didn’t understand what she was saying. We went back to our lines and got cheered and clapped for, I felt famous or something. When that was all over, Usman and I followed the 14 other students in our course to our classroom. The classroom part of the school is about 4 or 5 rows of single level buildings. Kind of like motels with just 4 or 5 rooms in each. To get from one room to another you have to go outside. Not that it matters much, we never change rooms or seats. The teachers are the ones who move around from class to class. Every time an adult walks into the room we stand up until they thank us and tell us to sit down.

Something really different: the notebooks here all have graph paper; it’s what they write on! I only have one book with plain lined paper and that’s for English class. I have 12 different classes:

Realidad nacional, Lengua y literatura, Ingles, Sociologia, Psycologia, Educacion ambiental, Historia del Ecuador, Problemas geopoliticos, Educacion física, matemáticas, Informatica y Civica. We have 8 classes and 2 breaks a day. During break, we talk, walk around, eat a little. The other day the guys got me to play soccer and basketball with them. Girls here aren’t really into playing sports.

Okay, back to the first day! We got to the classroom and both ended up sitting at the very front of the class. There are four rows of four chairs, a lot of windows, 16 lockers and a white board in the classroom. The reat of the day we played a lot of “getting to know you” games which was SUPER useful. The people in my class have known each other/ have been friends since pre-basica (kindergarten). They’re pretty much a big family. It’s a really fun and warm environment to be in. They all call me Kari here, not Carrie, you have to say it with a Spanish accent J.

For the first week, I would come home from school absolutely exhausted. I always change out of my uniform right away then go to have lunch between 2 and 2:30. After that, it’s kind of up in the air. I go for walks/ runs now!! Do my homework (which takes 10x’s longer in Spanish), run errands with Mami… One day our entire class went to Pizza Delight for lunch, another day we went to the mall.

       

I love these people!

    

My Spanish is coming along, today I wrote two essays, all in Spanish! Obviously I used a dictionary… but still! This week I registered my visa and got an Ecuador I.D. Now they can’t deport me! Yay!

All the exchange students in the Quito area are going to a rotary/ Spanish camp at the beach this week. That means… NO HOMEWORK!! I’m excited to meet all the other exchange students.

So far, I’ve been having a really amazing time. This is such a learning experience in so many ways! I’ve also been able to spend a lot of time reading my Bible and just strengthening my relationship with the Lord in general. I have such a great support team at home that I think I needed to be taken away from everything to really understand what it means to fully rely on God. Yes, it’s difficult, there are trials and challenges but it’s also kind of exciting because I never feel really alone, and that’s amazing.

Love from Ecuador!           

 

Team Canada doing our homework. You can't tell, but

a spanish/enlgish dictionary, word reference.com and a

verb chart were all in use. Mami thought it was very entertaining

 and took a picture.