vacation. ish
forgive my errors but i´m really late in getting home and need ot go.
school is over, i´m glad although i went through a lot last week involving the start of major culture shock but i´m learning a lot. i´m physically feeling better, which is good.
tomorrow we leave for the oriente for almost a week, then i´ll be in quito for a few days, then to peru for a few days just so i can cross the border and get my visa renewed, and then i´m going back to saraguro, the people i fell in love with, and doing some volunteer work for a little bit. i will then be returning to cuenca for a few days. so i will be basically unavailable until june 13 when i´m back in cuenca.
special shout out to bro and sis, who i wanted to email before i left, and john ryan who i wanted to email, i promise a long letter when i get back. and dad.
so sorry for being not good at keeping in touch. please know that i miss you all so much, more than you can imagine, and i love you!
congrats to those who are graduating!!! good luck finishing out. we´ll talk soon. love you!
the ups and downs
well sorry to say but i think i'm finally in that "down" phase they told us we were supposed to hit a while ago. i've been sick almost the whole time of this trip, although a different sick than i was in the states so again, i can never predict or figure out anything and i'm sick of being sick and going to doctors who don't help me.
luckily though teachers are understanding and of course i get really sick during the week of final exams and papers but everything's going to be ok. on the bright side, i'm learning how to say all kinds of diseases and symptoms in spanish and that's fun.
so aside from the physical aspect i've been a bit down because i miss friends and it's hard to live in another culture and i think i was a little bit equivocada (i either don't know or forget the word in english) in my expectations of what i was going to do here. but i'm glad i'm realizing this and i still have time here to enjoy myself and meet more people. sorry i'm vague, i don't feel like being too personal over the internet.
so i'm in a down phase, which is perfectly normal and i'll get out of it, and hopefully i'll get physically better and my family is supportive so all is good. and the weather hasn't been as cold and rainy, which is a plus.
i miss you and love you.
happy mother´s day
to mom and grandma. i love you very much!!!!
mother´s day is a big deal here. it´s nice, i liked it.
i got sick again on saturday night. i was better yesterday. don´t feel so good today. i´m going to ask God for a new digestive system.
in other news, i found where my ipod had hidden the Amelie soundtrack, which i had bought just before leaving for the purpose of listening to it here and after 2 months i finally found it!!! it makes me happy because it reminds me of the donkey which indirectly reminds me of my friends Natalia, Leah, and HiuYin. I miss you guys!
more
i have more to say.
actually i thought of the perfect words to describe the feeling i was trying to describe: inferiority and superiority. when i speak spanish, i feel inferior to the native speaker, and when i speak english, i don´t feel superior but i recognize that i have an advantage. this isn´t me being arrogant, because the feeling goes both ways you see. and yes, i know that no one is inferior to anyone, i´m just saying, it´s how i feel.
comments on the weather-today was the first time since i went to coast that i have felt hot. it´s cold here in the mountains. i usually sit in my house at night in 2 or 3 layers, a scarf, and wrapped in a shawl. but it hasn´t rained yet today, miraculously, the sun is shining, and it´s beautiful. also, and this is going to sound sad, but i just realized a few days ago that cuenca really is surrounded by mountians and yes, you can see them from the city! i hadn´t realized this because when i walk, i´m usually looking down and now i see that if i look around, i can see mountains. hooray for perspective!
in other announcements. i have officially changed my plane ticket and will be returning to the states on august 3. i´m out. thanks for reading.
language
i could say a lot on this topic.
first, things i love about spanish. one, having a definite article in front of my name. "la leah" i am and i love it, i feel so personalized. second, the diminuitive. this of course is what i love about a lot of other languages. here in cuenca the diminuitive is used a lot and my favorite is when it is attached to words like "minute." so you have "minutito" which doesn´t really have a translation because "little minute" has no meaning-a minute is always 60 seconds, never more nor less. i love the diminuitive. third, verbs are very useful. you can use the verb "pasar" to say "what´s wrong?" "i swallow" "hé´s coming over here" "i got ran over" "pass me the salt" "i had a good time" etc.
this leads me to other observations-while it might seem that spanish would be easier than english because there are less words, you then have the variety that seems to characterize latin america. for instance, in cuenca alone there are about 5 words that mean "cool" and 6 that mean "ugly" and these words are cuencan slang. so, imagine if you will, how this ONE city has it´s own way of talking and then multiple that by all the cities in latin america minus brazil. and there you have one reason why spanish is difficult.
i have decided that there is no language that is "easy" to learn if you want to be at the native speaker level. the native speaker of a language mumbles, doesn´t pronounce every syllable, contracts words, and knows every connotation a word has. when you learn a language, since there´s so much to learn, most times you only memorize one meaning for each word. which is why spanish for instance is difficult if a word actually has 12 different meanings.
most importantly i want to try to describe a feeling i have and i don´t know if it´ll work out. yesterday a friend of my brother´s came over who is learning english and for his homework he had to do an interview with me. so obviously when i have hung out with him before, we have been speaking spanish and he is soooo difficult to understand because he talks so fast and very cuencano, so i usually have him repeat things or smile and nod (which causes its own problems). anyway, so for the interview we were speaking english and i totally felt like the position of power had shifted over to me. it is a weird feeling. as a non-native speaker, i feel like i am not on an equal level with the person i am speaking with, as if they have some sort of power over me. and now, when i´m speaking english with a non-native speaker, yes, i feel like i have some sort of power over them, but more i can feel exactly what they feel-and that is the feeling of being "lesser" in some way. ah, language.
oh Barbie
ding ding. we have a winner. leah´s favorite catcall of all time: "hello, barbie." haha i love it.
this past weekend i fell in love with an entire indiginous population called the Saraguros. i´m going to go back there and i´m never returning. there were several elements that factored into my falling in love. i hadn´t been feeling well and actually almost didn´t go. but first, the fresh air, the green, and the mountians made me feel more alive. second, the music, food, and people of Saraguro are amazing and beautiful and profound, and while what they did for us was for tourism purposes, i´m still impressed.
congratulations to sister Karena for graduating!!!! i´m proud of you.
i have one more week of school, which is hard to believe. i´m certainly ready for school to be over and i´m excited that i still have more time here. really, i´m so thankful for the opportunity to stay because if this time was all the time i had, i don´t think i would feel...fulfilled. so, i´m happy i get to stay.
apurado
this little story has nothing to do with miscommunication in another language and everything to do with me being a fool.
yesterday there was a friend or aunt of the family, not sure who she is really, who came over for the day. we were eating dinner and my mom had made tamal, which i had tried once before and remember it as probably the only food item i haven´t loved. so there we are eating dinner and i say, "this seems different than the one i had before." and my mom said "yeah, it is." and then i said "well, i like this one better than the other one." and my sister gave a funny laugh and then i thought to myself...and then later i asked my mom "who made that other tamal?" and sure enough, it was the friend of the family, who had been sitting next to me. i was so embarrassed. and still am. but these things happen, my mom told me not to worry about it.
so that´s life. we still have fun.
i´m 5 dad!
happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday to jaclyn janis the coolest pèrson in the world
happy birthday to you
feliz cumpleaños querida amiguita!!!!!!
i love you
discoveries
I feel like i have gone through a time warp because I didn´t check email or talk to anybody for over a week. But anyway i´m back safe and sound from my trip to the coast, and didn´t get sick.
There´s much to say. I´ll say little about what I did. We went to various places, among which were mangrove swamps and an organic farm. Canoeing through mangroves is a cool experience. I felt close to the earth. With the risk of being boring, the organic farm taught me more about how the earth really can sustain life. For instance, they use a dry toilet so that human waste doesn´t go into the water where it contaminates. You use the bathroom, and throw some sawdust on it. After the toilet fills up, it sits for a time and then boom! Safe, rich fertilizer at your service. Genius I tell you.
So besides the daily activities the trip was also…a bit of a personal journey. I realized that I have begun to adhere to the concept they taught me in first grade that if you don´t have something nice to say, don´t say it at all. It´s funny because I think I used to be “the negative one” and on this trip I have found myself being positive because I am surrounded by people more negative than me. This might sound negative in itself, or mean at least but i´ll explain a bit. Lots of people on this trip have complaints and they voice them without shame. Therefore, i´m sick of people complaining (which is of course, what i´m doing right now) and so i´ve been opting to keep my complaints to myself. I can´t change anything but my attitude so that´s what I focus on. Aren´t you proud mom.
And since I don´t complain to the group, i´ll complain to the blog. Ha. Just one more thing though, because it affected how I felt during this past week. People in my group talk about each other quite frequently. And this I can´t stand. It doesn´t matter who i´m with, someone is always making comments about someone else. It´s so frustrating. We are not in middle school and to me, these comments are just so unnecessary. So that is how I felt during the trip.
Worth mentioning is the bus ride back. It was around 11 hours so it offered plenty of time to chat. I talked with my friend for probably around 8 of these hours about love, religion, and idealism. I feel so refreshed and realized that actually talking about what I believe brings me a lot closer to my beliefs than either thinking about them or reading other´s beliefs. Our conversation was challenging and it was a breath of fresh air.
I eventually want to expand on the topics of diversity in Ecuador and American influence. Don´t let me forget. Love you and miss you.
