Ambato Shore

This week appears to have been the start of the annual festival in Ambato called The Festival of Fruits and Flowers (I am somewhat uncertain about whether it has actually begun because depending on who you ask, the festival either started in the beginning of February or will begin to coincide with Carnaval in March). The festival in Ambato is so named because of the prodigious amounts of fruits and flowers that are supposedly produced in Ambato during this season, although I admit that I am not impressed with the displays of either so far.

One of the events I went to this week was a concert in one of Ambato's parks, and I was excited to try Ambato's signature fruit that I have still not eaten yet called guaytambo. To my dismay, there wasn't fruit of any kind being offered on the streets (not to mention that I didn't see any flowers either). Based on what I saw a lot of that night, I propose that this celebration be renamed the Festival of Street Hotdog Vendors and Boxed Wine.


We Have a Situation

During the concert I alluded to earlier, there was one guy in the crowd who caught my attention almost from the start. He was quite a distance from me, but I noticed him because he was standing on an elevated surface and wearing sunglasses and a tight v-neck shirt. His outfit was complimented by the fact that he kind of looked like The Situation from Jersey Shore. The resemblance became even more striking when he started pulling up his shirt and rubbing his abs at people walking by.

After seeing him flaunt his body at a few innocent passersby I decided that I urgently needed a picture with him, so I pushed my way through the crowd and asked him if he would pose for a photo with me. In what had to have been the best possible response to that request, he asked me "Shirt on or off?"

La Situación

After the picture he gave me two high fives and started waving his shirt over his head.

I'm a Cool Teacher, but my Students Aren't Bad Either

Pretty much the only positive part about teaching at SECAP is that almost all of my students are adults so they like to plan activities together and we sometimes hang out after class. On Friday, my class planned a trip to a recreation center in a nearby city called Salcedo. The place was surprisingly nice, and for four dollars each we got to use swimming pools with water slides, a hot tub, saunas, volleyball courts, and a soccer field for the whole day. Afterward we ate lunch, and my students didn't let me pay for anything the entire trip.

With some students at lunch.

One of my students from last semester who couldn't continue English classes because she just started medical school even showed up, and it was nice to hang out with her since we hadn't seen each other in a while.

"Damn right I like the life I live." -Adriana's baby

Adriana, a student of mine, brought her baby on the trip. I forget the baby's name, but she was kind of a boss at one point when she fell asleep drinking out of her bottle so I took a picture.



Talking with Personality

A frustrating part of learning a language is how proficient you need to be before you can actually show your personality around other people in a non-native tongue. For instance, my personality is expressed mostly through bad puns and one-liners. Unfortunately for me, humor requires a high degree of facility with a language because you need to be able to respond quickly to other people to make a joke and you need to know what kinds of things a certain culture finds funny. So unless you have no personality to begin with, being yourself while speaking a foreign language takes a lot of time and practice.

This weekend when I was driving around with my students, one of the people in the car was a friend of the driver who didn't know me. She asked how much Spanish I spoke, to which one of my students replied "Teacher knows how to make jokes in Spanish!" That was an interesting comment to me for two reasons:

First, it supports the claim that conveying personality (especially humor) denotes a high level of language proficiency because my student was using the fact that I know how to make jokes as a measuring stick for how much Spanish I speak. Second, that was the best compliment I have ever received about my Spanish because he didn't say anything about how well I am able to articulate ideas; he said something about how I am able to convey my personality in Spanish, which is reassurance that my Spanish has been improving in an important respect since I have been living here. After all, who cares if you can speak a foreign language fluently if you sound as interesting as a spelling bee champ when you talk.

Another unrelated but funny part of that car ride was when the person who wasn't my student kept calling me "teacher" because that was what everyone else was calling me and she didn't know my real name.

Things Ecuadorians Like: Being Old and Doing Things

You don't need to spend a lot of time in Ecuador to realize that the old people here are a lot different than the old people in the United States, and I'm not just talking about felt hats and ponchos. The truth is that in their old age, something happens to Ecuadorians that turn them into some of the most resilient people I have ever witnessed.

This contrast was brought to my attention recently when I read an article about a program in some American city that links joggers up with elderly people so that active young men and women can go shopping and deliver food to less able-bodied old people while they are running on their routes. If you tried to help an old Ecuadorian walking down the street carry something, she would probably call you a penis-face and slap you away.

"Take your stinking paws off me you damn, dirty American."

Go to the center any day of the week and you will see men and women older than electricity carrying huge crates and bags filled with produce on their backs. I will occasionally see someone with a full load booking it down the street at maximum senior citizen velocity that makes me wonder if I would be able to do what they are doing now, let alone in my seventh decade.

So what is it that makes old Ecuadorians so much more capable of doing things than their first-world counterparts? I think it is due in large part to the fact that in Ecuador, old people don't get any special treatment. Nowhere is this more evident than on the public buses.

I have already talked about the chaos that is the public transportation system in Ecuador at length, and nothing about that experience is different for old people. If an elderly person is getting on the bus, the driver will start to pull away as soon as both feet are in the vehicle. This sends old people bouncing back and forth in the aisle, fumbling with whatever bags or buckets they are holding until they finally rebound into a spot where they can sit down or lean against a wall.

Old people are impressive to watch getting on the bus, but they are even more tenacious when it is time to get off. Forget appealing to their fellow passengers to clear out a path for them to exit on account of their advanced age; old Ecuadorians just elbow and claw their way through the mass of passengers and scream at the bus driver to stop the bus so they can get off (which is occasionally followed by a chain of mumbled expletives as they are walking down the stairs). This would be a good time to additionally note the unusual physical strength of old Ecuadorians. I speak from experience, as my ass has been the target of many a wrinkled elbow strike launched by an exiting grandma.

On the plane back to Ecuador from my last trip to the U.S., I started talking to the old Latina woman sitting next to me because the stewardess wanted to tell her something but didn't speak Spanish. It turned out that she was from Quito and we had a long talk that involved a lot of me not understanding what she was saying and smiling and nodding in response. I saw that she had an American passport and wondered whether she was really from Ecuador or if she was only going to visit her family (after all, it is incredibly difficult for an Ecuadorian to get American papers). She proved to me that she was a true Ecuadorian when she had to use the bathroom, and instead of asking me to get up so she could get into the aisle, she just climbed over me without saying a word.

My host father is the model of an old person who does things. He is a retired civil engineer, but after he retired he bought a farm and now he goes there every day to take care of his plants and animals with the goal of expanding his land and increasing his production every year. One time a family member was over and my host father gave him a great speech which went something like this: "When most people retire, they sit in front of the T.V. and stay there for another five years until they die. One has to keep active and continue to challenge himself to have something to live for and keep going."

When I grow up I want to be a doctor, but when I get old I want to be an Ecuadorian.

Back for Good

This past weekend I returned to Ambato from my trip to the United States for what will hopefully be an uninterrupted stay in South America for my remaining five months as a WorldTeach volunteer. Similar to the first time I went back to the States in October, my trip was mostly business and I am relieved to be back on a schedule and working again. Big thanks to Nathan, Jill, and Olivia for letting me crash at their places at various times throughout my trip so I didn't ever have to stay in a hotel.

Learn English through Astrology

A few days before I left for the States, my host family's housekeeper asked me if I could help her daughter, who happened to be in the house at the moment, with her English homework. I am always happy to help little kids with their homework because they are very easily impressed with things that adults find effortless, like counting by two's and spelling "elephant."

I was expecting a standard, basic-level homework assignment similar to the kind of Spanish homework I got as a kid, maybe colors or numbers. What I forgot is that the Ecuadorian education system leaves a lot to be desired, and the book the girl had was no exception. The exercise the girl was assigned provided several pictures of people with different haircuts. Underneath the pictures of different hairstyles was a list of adjectives and corresponding astrological signs. The directions asked the student "In your opinion, what sign of the Zodiac matches each hairstyle?"

They forgot to put "Douche-bag Taurus" for letter e.

I have lived in Ecuador for several months now and I have seen my fair share of terrible educational materials, but this book takes the cake. It's bad enough that someone writing an English book thought that matching hairstyles to signs of the Zodiac would be a good idea for an exercise in a basic-level book, but then some teacher saw it and thought to himself "Wow, what a great activity! I agree that this is pertinent information for someone trying to learn English to improve his chances of someday getting a job in an Anglophone country."

Keep in mind that this exercise was assigned to a student who didn't even know the letters of the alphabet in English when I asked her to spell something or the word "green" when I asked her what color her pen was. I can imagine what an interview would have to sound like for any student using this book to be successful in the future:

- Mr. Nuñez, so far I've asked you how you are doing, where you are from, and how old you are, all of which you replied to by staring at me blankly.
- (*continues staring blankly at interviewer*)
- To be completely honest, those questions were all just small talk to get you warmed up. Next comes the most important question we will discuss today, and the answer will ultimately decide for me whether you are right for the job or not. The question is: Using only an adjective and an astrological sign, how would you describe my hairstyle?

Say What?

I learned to speak Spanish while studying abroad in Mexico, so before I started working with WorldTeach I was only accustomed to Mexican Spanish. One of the most salient differences between Mexican Spanish and Ecuadorian Sierra Spanish is how they pronounce words containing "ll". Most of the time, pronunciation differences between different dialects has little effect on practical usage and it only serves as an indicator of where someone is from. In the case of the "ll", however, there are some interesting consequences that arise from how speakers from different countries pronounce it.

In Mexico, the "ll" makes the same sound as "y" (pronounced like the "y" in the word yes). This may lead to ambiguity in cases where two words are spelled exactly the same except that one has a "ll" and another has a "y". For instance, se cayó (he fell) and se calló (he shut up) would be pronounced the same in Mexican Spanish. Most of the time ambiguities like this are easily resolved by the context of the conversation, but it can have disastrous consequences for spelling. If someone hears a word before he ever sees it spelled out, he will have no idea whether it should be spelled with a "y" or a "ll", which occasionally leads to some sloppy spelling.

The Spanish that Ecuadorians from the Sierra speak, however, makes a distinction between these two sounds. The letter "y" retains the same pronunciation, while the letter "ll" sounds something like the "zsa" in "Zsa Zsa Gabor" or the "j" in "Jack". With Ecuadorians from the Sierra, it is impossible to make the kinds of spelling mistakes that would occur in Mexico (or even on the coast of Ecuador, where they also don't distinguish between the sounds of those letters). It is pretty interesting to me to think that Serranos probably spell a bit better than people from the coast because of their accent and the ambiguities it dispels.

Another classic example of how pronunciation affects spelling (and to a much lesser extent, comprehension in spoken language) is the pronunciation of the letters "s" and "z". In some parts of the Spanish speaking world, the letter "z" is pronounced like the "th" in "the". In Latin America, however, "s" and "z" are pronounced the same and spelling errors can lead to comical changes in meaning. This ad in today's newspaper pokes fun at this type of spelling mistake and how it would not be surprising for someone to accidentally write cazar (hunt) instead of casar (marry).

"When you're married you're as good as dead anyway, so what's the difference—am I right?"

Luxuries of the 21st Century

There are a lot of technological "advances" that have done little to really improve life, like 3D television and iPads. However, I feel that people who are overly cynical about new technology often unfairly judge innovations that truly improve quality of life. I would like to take some time now to highlight two such inventions: the electric toothbrush and Franklin's electronic Spanish-English dictionary.

I bring up the electric toothbrush because a friend of mine recently mocked me for bringing it with me when I travel. "Is this your toothbrush in the bathroom?" she asked, "You think you're better than us because you don't use a normal toothbrush?" Yes Jill, as a matter of fact I do think that I'm better than you for using an electric toothbrush. I haven't read any research that proves that using an electric toothbrush is more effective than a normal brush, but use an electric toothbrush just once and try going back to your bristle-stick after feeling the ecstasy of 31,000 strokes per minute stimulating and refreshing your gums while blasting away disease-causing plaque.

The second technology I am supporting is only relevant for people who are learning Spanish. All throughout college I used either a paper dictionary or an internet dictionary. The internet dictionary I use (wordreference.com) is probably the best dictionary available anywhere, but it is obviously not very mobile because I need to have a computer and internet connection available to access it. Using a paper dictionary is also not very practical because the number of entries is limited unless you have a gigantic tabletop edition and it is time consuming to flip through pages to find a word.

It is beyond me how knowledge of the existence of an excellent portable electronic dictionary evaded me for four years as a Spanish Literature major, but now I have seen the light and there is no turning back. I highly recommend the Merriam-Webster electronic dictionary made by Franklin. It is small enough to fit in my pocket so I carry it with me all the time and use it incessantly (it has a regular English dictionary as well, and I just used it to make sure "incessantly" meant what I thought it did).


Search Keyword Abuse

I would like to give kudos to whoever searched the term "krishna surasi is stupid" into a search engine and used the results to connect to my site multiple times. Whoever it was searched that term enough times that "krishna surasi is stupid" is now the number one result on the list of search terms that people use to find my site (a list that I can view on the statistics tracker on Blogger). Well played mysterious Blogger stat-tracker manipulator, well played.

I'm Off!

The past several days have been quite busy for me as I worked through my second week of classes this semester and prepared for the two medical school interviews I have coming up this week. I leave tomorrow morning when my first stop will be Canada to visit the University of Buffalo, followed by a trip to East Flatbush, Brooklyn—the home of Roosevelt Chapman (along with some other notable residents)—to try my luck at Downstate.

Things I've Heard this Week

I didn't do anything very exciting this week, but I did hear some things that made me laugh that I would like to share.

First, a conversation with my friend Matt who lives in Chicago:

Me: I booked my flight to Buffalo a day earlier than the interview because I heard there is bad weather in the States right now.
Matt: It's true; yesterday we had a thunder blizzard.
Me: A thunder blizzard!?
Matt: Yeah, it was crazy.


Next, a friend of mine, Georgia, broke her sandal while walking in the park and another friend, Peter, shared an interesting observation from his personal experience:

Me: You broke your sandal? I'll give you a piggy-back ride.
Georgia: No thanks.
Peter: (In a slightly frustrated and disappointed tone) Nobody wants piggy-back rides anymore.
Me: Peter, you say that like you see people turn down piggy back rides with some degree of regularity.
Peter: Yeah, I ask my girlfriend like everyday and she always says no.


Not really that funny, but one of my students gave me a great response during a game where you have to create a question for the given answer:

Me: The answer is: Michael Jackson.
Student: Who is the King of Pop?


Sometimes I'm the one who says funny things, like when I was talking with my host family the other day trying to find a place to get my suit dry-cleaned and I accidentally said tierno instead of terno:

Me: Do you know a place where I can get my affection cleaned?
Host Family: *uproarious laughter and finger pointing at me*


And lastly, this gem from the new receptionist at the school I teach at:

Receptionist: Why does everyone call you Krishna?
Me: Because it's my name.
Receptionist: Oh, I thought it was just because you are Indian.


Well, I hope they sell winter coats at the Buffalo airport because I don't have anything heavier than a hoodie with me here in Ecuador. At least this trip will give me a chance to wear the scarf my mother sent me for my birthday that I have not had the opportunity to use on the Equator.