So, I'm in Ecuador. Shocking! It's...pretty. But it is 100% a different culture. It's tough going into a new culture, and I knew that, but I had forgotten how tough. The last two times I've suffered from culture shock my performance in school plummeted. I almost failed the 5th grade the first time. Luckily I know how to deal with culture shock a *little* bit better than when I was ten and twelve. But only a little bit.
I'm taking Spanish classes, which are fun. My instructor loves tequila, is Catholic, is very opinionated about drugs (against) and speaks decent enough English that we can understand each other. But taking Spanish for 20 hours a week, with no class to hide in is very mentally and emotionally taxing. Last week there was a day that by the end of the first hour I wanted to go into the bathroom and just cry. But I didn't! I've taken two weeks so far, and I can read bits and pieces of signs and childrens books and understand one or two spoken sentences that are spoken outside of the classroom. But I can't yet speak much beyond asking how a person is. Which is difficult and frustrating. I can do so much while I'm down here, but in order to do the things I would like to do my Spanish needs to be at a much, much, much higher level. Hopefully another three weeks will help to correct that.
Being down here is really pushing me. Even when I'm home I'm hesitant to try new things and meet new people. I'm just timid like that. Now imagine how hesitant I am to meet new people who I can't communicate with, and to go to places around town that are completely out of my element. Most of the time I choose to stay home, under the excuse that I'm tired. Which I am. Rafa and Sarah do a lot of things in the evening and arrive back home close to midnight. By about 9 in the evening about all that I can do is curl up and talk to Amanda, watch a movie or sleep. I don't think there has been a day yet where I have felt rested and refreshed.
To add to my difficulty, I have no friends down here yet. I chat with a few of my classmates, but none of them are the type of people that we can become decent friends. They are either middle aged or looking to retire, college graduates who smoke and are only passing through for one week, or people from Holland who spend their weekends shopping. So I'm alone down here. Sure I have my sister and Rafa, who are great people, but it's nice to have more friends than just my sister and her husband. I'm lonely. I talk to Amanda almost every single night, but when you don't have someone physically there to romp around town with or to just give you a hug, it becomes very tough. I could get a hug from my sister, but that's a different dynamic. We aren't into touching, and I wouldn't receive much, if any, sympathy from her if I told her I was feeling down and needed a hug.
So I've been tearing through books. I've read "The Road of Lost Innocence" "Fast Food Nation", have begun "Pride and Prejudice" and am halfway through "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man".
But there are nice things about being down here. I'm going to try and run a 10k later this month, so I'm working at getting back into shape. During the summer between working two jobs I lost most of my fitness. I get to spend a lot of time with my Sister, which I have never done before. And I've met someone down here who can hopefully put in a good word with his former employer and get me a job for when I come back.
But overall I'm having a really hard time down here. I'm emotionally drained from no friend support and an obvious lack of spending time with Amanda, mentally taxed from studying Spanish, still winded from walking up stairs, and now the uncertainaity of the stability of the nation.
I watched a police officer die live on television Thursday night, while the nation stood on the verge of civil war. Sarah was trapped in a city of 500,000 several hours away and the vast majority of the police men went on strike. The nation is still under a state of emergency so there are men in full military gear patrolling around town. The few police men that are out and about, you have no idea if they will actually perform their duties.
And while I'm not scared from any of this, I am stressed by it. I don't know if the nation will continue to be stable the entire time I'm here, or if Sarah, Rafa and I will have to pack our things one evening and flee the country. After all I've seen and been through, these things don't scare me. What will happen will happen, and I will function to the best of my ability when it does. But it does distress and disturb me. Think about that police officer that was gunned down by his own nation's military. What was his name? Did he have a family? Hundreds of thousands of people watched him die. Did they realize what that meant when he died? That a person was just erased? That he probably suffered and felt terribly confused, sad and frightened? We all die alone, but did anyone hold his hand as he passed? Did anyone tell him one last time that he meant the world to them? Probably not, because I watched him die. I watched how he fell down a six foot concrete embankment. I watched how he moved when he landed, and I watched how he lay motionless for several minutes, alone, until help arrived. It was pointless help. He was gone. Did anyone love him? Did he know?
This place is like any developing nation. It has its extreme poverty functioning alongside the extreme riches. The violence, theft and lack of responsibility are not hidden away like in most developed nations. It's out there in the open for all the world to see. We just turn away and let the child struck by a car in the freeway die. We let people who earn 12 dollars a day live next door to those who spend $160,000 on a new house. It's sad, depressing and hopeless. I can't turn away, I will always know it's there and see it, but I feel powerless to help. I feel helpless.
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