Happy Halloween Everyone! Today is actually a civic holiday here honoring the national seal or something like that. There was a special segment on the news about it which featured the song from LOTR. I really have to question if the rights to that music were properly secured.
I'm going be angsty here and talk about my angsty weekend. I'm backtracking and talking about a week ago because I had wanted to write about it before but I've had a lot of things to do. I promise to write really soon about cool and fun stuff that's happening. There's actually a holiday this weekend and lots of festivities related to that.
My host family (parents and siblings) has been gone over a week. They actually went to Disney World. They're coming back tomorrow and I AM EXCITED TO SEE THEM. While they've been gone I've mostly been hanging out around the house and chatting with my host grandma.
Friday I decided I wanted to watch a movie in English and I went with Lost in Translation. I had always wanted to see it and thought it would be appropriate. It was more than appropriate. I recommend it though I'll say it's not a movie everyone would like. It's more about a mood than a plot. That mood just happened to really hit me right now and so I spent some time listening to the soundtrack and watching people in the street.
The thing is that it can be lonely being an exchange student, especially with my family being gone this week. Their absence and also hearing about other students having problems and changing families has made me remember how fortunate I am to have been placed with such great people. Let me reiterate: I am so excited for them to come home.
But this weekend I just wanted to stay in bed and not be here. I was having that lost feeling where you're changing but you're not changed yet. I know my year is going to change me and that's something I absolutely want. But there's that point where you aren't who you were but not yet who you're going to be, and so you're just kind of hanging.
Our neighbors are close family friends and they have a 20-year-old daughter who I hang out with a lot. She invited me to go to some town and eat some food on Sunday and I was pretty much trying to ditch and make excuses. She managed to get me to agree to go for a little while. They have a pick-up truck with a covered back and a mattress in the back. Traveling in the truck bed here is really common and that's what we did (sorry, Mom).
I honestly don't love a whole lot of things more than being in the car and looking out the window, and this blew that away. We ended up driving to about 3 different towns and eating lots of food and just exploring.
I can't describe the countryside here. I wouldn't want to take pictures; they couldn't do any justice. It's so rich. The colors, the smells, the farms and houses. There were clotheslines and horses and children playing soccer. I saw a woman milking a cow into cups and handing them to her children. It's all alive.
The weather here is insane, so naturally there were ten-minute intervals of rain and sun. When the sun was starting to set and shining between the mountains, the clouds moved and the volcano came into clear view. And then a rainbow appeared in front of the volcano. I would not make that up.
As we drove through the rural towns and past markets, I was reminded of what Reid (exchange student in Chile) wrote in this post, about how he was momentarily jealous of the tourist's grand adventure. Sometimes I have moments of doubt where I think I would have been better off to come visit Ecuador for a short time, to ride buses around and look at everything and then go back to being comfortable. But I'm doing the right thing. This land has a richness that I couldn't understand in a lifetime, but at least I get a moment to try.
No comments:
Post a Comment