Back from Abroad... I mean the States

After a week long stint in the United States, I am finally back in Ecuador. The journey from my home in Staten Island to my home in Ambato lasted 19 hours, but I easily slept for 10 of those hours so it wasn't really that bad in retrospect.

Could you do me a favor?

Before I left for the United States, I made the big mistake of telling everyone where I was going. It didn't take long before friends and students began asking me to bring things back to Ecuador for them. A doctor friend of my dad's asked me to bring back a lab coat and a laptop, and a student asked me for an electronic Spanish/English dictionary. The most ridiculous request came from one of the students in my Intermediate II class.

This student lived in the U.S. for a number of years and during that time he became addicted to Orbit gum. I say he is addicted because he wanted me to buy him $100 worth of gum and bring it back. I had no idea what $100 dollars worth of gum looked like at the time, so I expressed my concerns about how much space that would take up in my suitcase and whether or not customs would give me a hard time about it (they might think I was trying to sell it in Ecuador for profit, which seems like it would be pretty illegal). The next day in class he gave me $60 anyway. He is a good student and he gives me a ride home from class every night, so I submitted to the pressure and agreed to get him some gum.

As I was going through customs the x-ray guy actually pulled me aside and asked me what was in all the boxes in my suitcase. I told him it was gum, to which he incredulously replied "all of it?" I said yes, and that was apparently all the convincing he needed because he didn't even check my bag afterward.

In case you were wondering how much gum $60 buys you, it's 72 packs.

Tour of the East Coast

My first stop in the States was Atlanta. As I said in earlier posts, I was very lucky that one of my good friends from Notre Dame, Michael T., goes to med school at Emory. I was excited to get to see him again, but I had no idea what surprises awaited me in A-town. Another good friend of mine from Notre Dame named Andy, who graduated two years before me, apparently lives in Atlanta now too. I had lost track of him after he graduated because he went to Africa to do some service work and I hadn't kept in touch with him.

Michael T. picked me up from the airport and I was shocked when he told me that we were going to Andy's house. The night got even better when we met up with two of my other friends from Notre Dame, Aaron and Shelley, and we all hung out for a bit. It was a great way to relax before my interview and I am so glad I got to see a bunch of my friends unexpectedly.

Speaking of my interviews, they were all pretty standard, but there was one incident at Emory that stood out. At Emory, they have a one-on-one interview and a three-on-three interview. In the three-on-three, three prospective med students sit down at a table with two faculty members and one third year med student. The questions are asked by one interviewer to one interviewee in sequence, so it works like a one-on-one-on-one more than an open forum type of thing. The reaction to the style of interview was very divisive for the group interviewing that day. Some people were completely apathetic to the idea and treated it like a regular interview with no one else in the room while others found it frustrating and distracting.

After a series of standard med school interview questions, the last question in my group interview came from the third year med student. She asked us "If you could be any kind of Krispy Kreme doughnut, which would it be and why?" Everyone in my group seemed to come to the same conclusion independently that it was a silly question to lighten the mood that deserved a silly answer, and we all responded accordingly. The first guy said "Plain doughnut, because it is generally appealing like me" or some similar bullshit. The second girl responded "Cruller, because they are delicious" (said nothing about how it reflected her personality). I said "Plain doughnut with chocolate on top, because it's what the first guy said, just a little bit better." The interviewers laughed at my answer so I figured I did good work considering the nature of the question.

After the interview, on the tour of the school, a prospective student from another group started talking to me about the group interview.

- Hey Krishna, what did you think about the group interview?
- I thought is was strange they had us all in the same room considering it was essentially a one-on-one-on-one, but it didn't really faze me.
- Really? I hated it. I bombed on one of the questions.
- They asked you hard questions? My interviewers were really laid back. What question did you have trouble with?
- I blew the doughnut question.

I laughed out loud because it was so funny seeing someone visibly upset at the thought that he had incorrectly answered a question dealing with what kind of doughnut he would be if the opportunity to be a doughnut ever arose. The only way I can imagine that one could incorrectly answer the question is to say something that is not a doughnut.

- So Mr. Surasi, if you were a Krispy Kreme doughnut, what kind would you be?
- An everything bagel.
- I think you should leave.

He went on to explain that the other people in his group said doughnuts that somehow tied into the rest of their life story and that he said something silly. I'm not really sure what the admissions committee was trying to learn from us by asking the doughnut question, but I sure as hell hope they weren't looking for a serious answer, otherwise I probably won't be invited back to Emory this cycle.

Re-adjustment

When I was planning to return to the United States for my interviews, I was nervous that I would get homesick and not want to come back to Ecuador. Surprisingly, I did not really get homesick at all. All the while I was back at home I felt like I was on a trip and that my permanent residence was in Ecuador.

I think this reaction is mostly due to the fact that I have a very involved job here in Ambato. Being a teacher requires a lot of creative thinking and planning. It is not like I have a regular 9-5 job where I work by myself at a desk and forget about work as soon as I leave the building. I have almost fifty students I see everyday who depend on me coming to class prepared and excited to teach English. My students jokingly asked me if there was a chance that I wouldn't come back to Ambato if I went to the States, but I seriously couldn't even think about abandoning them mid-semester.

The last day before I left my students were definitely sucking up to me trying to make me feel sentimental about the class, and I think it is because in the back of their heads they thought there was a possibility that I would not return. One of my students even bought me an Amboto themed Monopoly game called "Ambatolio." All the properties are well-known areas of Ambato and the pieces are famous people from Ambato's history. I hate Monopoly, but I have a feeling I'll be playing Ambatolio with some of the other volunteers very soon.

So really, what I thought would turn out to be a re-adjustment to life in Ecuador has been more of a relief to be back "home" in Ambato. My trip to the U.S. was tiring and I did more work than relaxing, but now I can get back into my routine and catch up with my friends in the southern hemisphere.

Updates

Considering I devoted a substantial amount of energy to bashing my miserable Ecuadorian phone, I thought it was worth mentioning that I ditched it and bought a new one. I got a Nokia that has great reception, tells me who is texting me without having to jump through ridiculous hoops, and best of all it has Snake. The first cell phone I ever had in high school had Snake, and now I can say without nostalgia that it is the finest cell phone game for broke-ass cell phones ever crafted.

Also, I picked up a small point and shoot camera when I was back in the States. I have a sweet SLR (read: big-dawg) camera with me in Ecuador, but it is scary bringing it most places because there is no way to walk around with it without announcing that I am carrying an expensive camera around. Now that I have a cheap, small one I will try to bring it around with me more places and take a lot of pictures to upload to my photos page.

Tomorrow I am having a Halloween/Día de los Difuntos celebration with my classes, so I'm sure I will walk away with at least a handful of absurd pictures. This weekend I am also headed to the colonial gem of Ecuador, Cuenca, to partake in their famous Dia de los Difuntos celebrations.