Last days at home

I am nearing the time to leave home again. I think I have almost everything I need. Sometimes it feels like I've been home forever and I can't wait to leave, but other times it feels like I just got home and I just want one more week. One more week would be nice because I of course waited until now to get everything together and go shopping for the things that I need, but almost everything is done. One week from now I will be in Uganda. Actually, in about four days I will arrive in Entebbe. I will write back in here when something significant has happened, i.e. when I have arrived in Uganda. Until then, I will be hanging out at home. A new telenovela started in place of the one I just finished watching and I like it. Too bad I'll miss most of it while I'm gone. I'm also trying to finish up some books and clean up my room a bit, but time is slowly running out. Chao chao!

Pictures

Hey all. I forgot one thing-the link to my pictures on Picasa, which is:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dutkoc

Enjoy!

'Mother Fire Throat'

Well, too bad I'm not in Riobamba anymore becuase it appears I'm missing quite a show. Volcan Tungurahua is doing a lot more these days than spewing out ashes. It's beginning to erupt. The government is starting to evacuate people (which I'm sure many of them aren't too happy about, especially after hearing about Peggy's ISP on exactly this topic). I remember when I was there around the 25th or 26th of November people began to get a little more concerned when more ash started spewing out and heading towards Riobamba, but now it looks like Banos is right in the way of lava flows. It would have been cool to see the eruption happening, but perhaps it's better for my lungs that I'm here and not there.

This is what the volcano looked like in November from the roof of my host family's home

Here are some stories, the first one in Spanish and the second one in English:

http://www.elcomercio.com/noticiaEC.asp?id_noticia=163628&id_seccion=10

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3331315.ece

On another note, only two more weeks until I leave for Uganda. Things around here are kind of boring but I'm getting some reading done. It will be nice to have a change of pace, espcially in quite a different environment. I still miss Ecuador though-hopefully I will be able to go back soon. Hope everyone is staying healthy, happy, and safe.

A few weeks later

I'm slowly adjusting back to life in the US, reclaiming my clothes and c.d.s that have wandered out of my room over the past four months and listening to as much Latin Pop music as possible (which Amy and Laurie aren't too happy with). I went to the mall for the first time yesterday and really was disappointed by the general lack of warmth (and rudeness) with which my fellow Christmas shoppers greated me. My comments about the materialism and commercialism of this culture were apparently too frequent for my family, but that is one huge difference between here and Ecuador, at least for most of the people I was spending time with in Ecuador and the Americans I have been observing here. I especially like the Burger King commercial where they pretend to take the Whopper away and people react with shock and disbelief. My comment is that at least they have food to eat and it probably shouldn't be a whopper anyway. I will admit that I had my first McDonald's cheeseburger a few days ago and it was delicious, but I wouldn't be heartbroken if it was discontinued and I'm thankful that it filled my belly for quite a while.

I went down to Kenyon with Jennie last weekend. It was nice to return but I'm really glad that I will still be gone next semester. I still really like Kenyon and I'm (usually) glad that I chose to attend this college, but the student body becomes more and more, I don't really know how to say it, cold maybe every year. Plus it was finals week so the campus was dead and Jennie and I felt like we were intruding pretty much wherever we went. It was nice to see Riley again and the three of us will be abroad next semester (Jennie in Ghana, Riley in Russia and myself in Uganda) so it was good-bye for a while. Plus it snowed so campus was beautiful, although it stranded us there for an extra day.

My plans for Uganda are still on but there is an ebola outbreak that has killed at least 30 people since August, most of them health workers who didn't know what they were facing because it is a new strain. I still really want to go but I'm a little worried about this. Kampala, the city where I would be spending a lot of time, is under high alert for the disease. I'm not sure if SIT would cancel the program there due to health concerns but I'll keep this updated with whatever news I hear. Meanwhile, I will continue to read my books and hope that I will be able to study there beginning in a little over a month.

And now, as Shakira begins singing, I will sign off. I think I'm supposed to write our Christmas card this year and it will be late (as usual) but I should probably work on that tonight. Chao chao!

Homesick for Ecuador

So on Saturday, I spent the morning packing up. Surprisingly, everything fit well into my bags and I even had a little room to buy a little more, but I didn't. I walked around the Mariscal a bit and then went to the Centro Historico to eat lunch with some friends. However Akiko and I didn't meet up with Amanda and Cara until after we had eaten. Then back to the Mariscal for more hanging out. Then we headed off to the airport early and said some final goodbyes to the ADs who really were amazing and incredible throughout the entire trip. It's really because of them and because the group was so great that the entire trip was awesome. I feel so fortunate to have met them all and gotten to hang out with them for the past four months. So, the flight had to go from Quito to Guayaquil because a flight from Spain had run off of one of the runways a few weeks ago and they still haven't opened all of the runways and don't fuel up the planes in Quito, so we had another hour in Guayaquil until we headed off to Miami, where we got in around 12:15 a.m. Passport control took a little while because the lines were long but customs was really quick-we just had to give our customs declarations sheets to the agents and that was it. The seven of us who had taken the group flight back got to the hotel around 2 and slept for a bit. Amanda and I had flights out of Miami at 8:00 so we headed off to check in at 6:00. Security lines were a little long but we got through pretty quickly. Then off to my gate. The plane from Miami to Chicago was a little late to takeoff so we got to Chicago a little late. However, we were also made to sit in the remote parking lot for close to an hour because the plane taking off from our gate had to be de-iced. So we got in a little late and my two-hour layover turned into a 30-minute layover so I had to rush to get to my other flight, but I had ten minutes before boarding. The flight from Chicago to Cleveland was on time as well but we also had to be de-iced before taking off so we were a little late getting into Cleveland. Once there, I met my mom by luggage pick-up and we found that one of my check-ins was missing. This is the second time that American has lost my luggage from a flight from Miami, and I've only flown on them a few times. However, I got my luggage last night at 10:30 so all ended up ok. So we took the luggage I did have and drove back home but we stopped first at Laurie's Christmas band concert which was nice. Then home at last.

It's really strange being back in the US. I have been thinking and speaking in Spanish sometimes without realizing it. I still throw out the toilet paper instead of flushing it. I drank my first glass of tap water at the hotel in Miami and it was really good. I have had two salads since I got back. People are much better drivers here. I went to the library and got a ton of books out to read (most of them about Uganda-I'm sending in my VISA application tomorrow). It's really great to be back but I miss Ecuador. I miss seeing mountains every day. It's really cold here (for me, 50 degrees was cold last week) and I miss the nice temperate weather. I'm sure I'll return someday and when I do, I already have a list of things to do and people to visit. So I arrived home safely and all in all it's good to be back. Oh, and here's a link to an article that I wrote for my school paper: http://media.www.kenyoncollegian.com/media/storage/paper821/news/2007/12/06/Features/Notes.From.Abroad-3137440.shtml

Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. I can't believe Christmas is coming up so soon. It really feels to me like it's time for summer vacation or something like that, but not Christmas.