Time Flies When You´re Having Fun....

The date today is Thursday October 27. It´s been practically a month, A MONTH since I´ve written in my blog. Things have been happening I guess you could say. Im not sure why I haven´t been writing. I guess it´s because I haven´t exactly dedicated time to write. Where to begin, where to begin...All at home are enjoying the lovely colors of fall, probably even getting ready to hibernate for winter. Here in Ambato it´s been hotter than ever. No color change, just hot sun, with various rain showers here and there. The sun is nice, but I already know that I am going to miss the season change throught these next two years that I´m here.

Work has been progressing. We are sooo close to getting our addiction and mental health survey up online for the first semester students to take. In doing my CAT tools with students it is obvious that there is a lot of alcohol consumption around the University. Yesterday a student came into the office and wanted to talk to Eulalia (my counterpar) in private. Come to find she was considering suicide. That being said I believe that there needs to be more research on the mental health of students and further support for them. Hopefully this encuesta (survey) that we do will help tackle or at least begin to tackle the problems of mental health and drug abuse here in the University.

Our plan for the prevention and attention of emergencies has slowly come to a hault..not really sure why. We went around to each of the facultades that we will be working with, presented our ideas of the formation of brigades and had to leave it up to them to form their own groups. I think some have but the next step would be to start the capacitaciones (trainings) and it doesnt look like that will be happening any time soon..?

The newest project that I´ve formed a part of is ´Charlas de Motivación´. Eulalia, Juan (clinical psychologist), Alvaro (motivational speaker, professor) and I are going around every facultad and doing what we call charlas of motivacion. We do an ice breaker, talk about what it is to be resilient, work as a team, etc...It seems like a very simple subject but as many of the people have mentioned in the reflection we do at the end, most come to work, do their work and dont really interact with people outside of their work atmosphere. For example, there are the people that work in the office. Those in the office tend to be in the office and interact only with office personal and not with persay the janitors or the tech people. So far the reviews have been pretty good. It´s the first time that the University has done any type of "togetherness" with faculty in the University and personally I think that´s something really important for an institution like this.

In a couple weeks my counterpart and I will be traveling back to the beloved Tumbaco for Re-Connect. Im excited to see everyone and hear how things are going in the different sites. I think the presentations of our CAT tools will be boring and I dont have high hopes for what they will have us do in terms of project planning. Regardless I will go into it with a positive attitude and do my best to learn what I can! Im not gonna lie, I will miss Ambato...oh how I will miss my lovely mormon family..NOT.

Speaking of family, starting tomorrow I will actively starting to look for apartments. I told Eulalia this morning about my plans and she goes, "well I should call my friend in Ciudadela España (one of the barrios that Im interested in living in) and see if her apartment is available. With one phone call I already have a possible place. It sounds nice...now lets just hope the price isnt too steep! The lady of course, has to check with her husband and get back to me but I think there is hope! There are also other places around my neighborhood that might be possibilities but I have to physically go to the houses, knock on doors and talk to people...que pereza..I´ve got a couple weeks so I think that should be enough time. SO EXCITED tho to get out on my own!!! Just the thought of cooking my own food and not eating the SAME THING every morning for breakfast makes me feliz :)

Friends are good. I´ve become very close with one of the guys in our friend group. It´s getting to the point where he would be my "enamorado" but Im not sure if I want to claim that title yet...We went to parque de la familia yesterday. Gorgeous views of the city and of the volcanos!! Whoever comes to visit I will take you there :) The guys have started a tournament in Pillaro, about 30 minutes away. There are some more challenging teams which is good. Last weekend they lost by 3 points..sad, but they played a really good game. It´s still early on in the tournament and hopefully when they play them again they will win! They have contracted a Cuban to play on the team with them. He´s crazy tall and plays for one of the professional teams here in Ecuador. He came out with us last weekend which was fun. Very very difficult to understand him, def puts my spanish to the test! I´ve had this ongoing battle with Chino about whether or not I´m "Rubia". If you were to look up the definition Im pretty sure it means blonde, and I am most definetly NOT BLOND! But Chino says that because my hair is lighter and my skin is lighter I am considered a Rubia. I still dont agree. So the other night I asked the Cuban what he thought, if I was blonde. His answer, regardless of your skin or hair color your sangre is white...to say that in a way I´m "white blooded" that I come from a place that is considered white, rubia..etc..

The answer kinda surprised me. I guess, maybe because the way I´ve been raised, skin or hair color, any physical feature doesnt seem to have an impact on who the person is. Here physical appearance has a lot to do with background. And to a deeper extent it seems that down to the blood people are different...Even after different travels to LA countries and being here four months it still amazes me as to how White, American Women are perceived. It´s like we are these mystical, exotic people. And not because we come from a completely different culture, you dont even have to go that deep. It starts simply with our appearance. No matter if the person is ugly or not, people seemed to be obsessed with this idea of Americans. Not to say that all Ecuadorians are shallow and creepy...which some most def are, but it´s just interesting to hear how we are perceived in this country and then to actually live it....

Alright time for lunch...i´ll write some later