I have a family finally! It was such an amazing feeling. I didn’t realize how upset I was about not having my own family until I heard that I was finally getting one. It feels so nice to have a mom and dad. And I have two sisters, something I’ve never had before. But the best part might be the dog. Such a cute dog.
My home is beautiful. Obviously I love it more than the first one because this one is actually mine. This family has never hosted a student before and they couldn’t be more excited about this. When the mom toured me around, she pointed everything out and kept saying that it was all mine. They even have a little joke about whose eyes I have. It feels so great to be part of this family. The girls were so excited to meet me and I lost all my shyness after just a few minutes of girl talk with them. It was so nice not having them judge me for my terrible spanish but just try to talk to me no matter what. And after almost two hours of chatting with them, I spent another hour talking with my parents. They were so interested in everything I had to tell them. And the best part was when they decided to show me photos of their family trips. They really made me feel like part of the family after only knowing them for a few hours.
The next morning was an adventure for all of us. My mom, Ledy, is from Colombia and only moved to Ecuador to get married. She is very beautiful and is a housewife. She rarely leaves the home which is strange to me, but the house is gorgeous all thanks to her. Therefore, she has never taken public transportation in her entire 16 years in Ecuador. Her, and my sister Carolina (14) took me to school in the morning. The bus was as new for them as it was for me. And what an experience that was. First of all, it only cost 25 cents. But more importantly, the people on the bus were so different than anyone in America. Indigenous women in their traditional outfits, young school children in uniforms, and other working people were all crammed together on this bus that flew around the city coming close to hitting other cars almost every minute. When we got off the bus finally, we had to walk for 10 minutes to get to my school. And there my family left me. It was such a great feeling, being walked to school and chatting with my mom and sister. I feel almost totally comfortable talking to them, except that they do most of the talking and I just smile and say “si” most of the time. Its still very difficult for me to speak, but my family says I’m not as bad as I think. Hopefully they’re right.
Today I switched from the lower level spanish class to the medium one. I’m very happy about this as well. It is a little difficult but it's definitely what I need. I wouldn’t have progressed in the lower class because I know everything they’re teaching, even though I’ve forgotten some thing, they're still somewhere in the back of my mind.
And now for my second adventure of the day. I told my mom that I knew how to take the bus back to our home. I really thought I did. All I needed to do was walk about 6 blocks up the main street, turn right, and walk 2 more blocks and the stop is on the corner. Simple. Well it seemed even simpler that when I turned right, the bus was right there and the doors were open. I was so happy that I got on without thinking. Of course checking the number of the bus to make sure it was the right one, which it was. My mom told me to stand in the front of the bus. So I did. I held on tightly to my bag, as I was told to do by everyone else. My diamond necklace that was a gift from my parents suddenly felt extremely heavy on my neck, even though I specifically zippered up my sweater. Even my rings, my most prized possessions, made me feel even more uncomfortable. But there I was, confident and proud that I can use the public transportation in a foreign country. I knew that in about 10 or 15 minutes the bus should be passing the gorgeous river and that a few minutes after that, I would see the park thats across the street from my house.
But 15 minutes had passed.
So did another 10.
And so did my confidence.
It gets dark around 6:30 here. By now it was 7:30. I started to panic inside but figured that this was just typical me and that we would be passing the river any minute. I turned around to look at the rest of the bus and realized that what was once a shoulder-to-shoulder group of people, was now just a few people scattered around the bus. Now I really started to panic. After a few minutes of getting up the courage, I got up and asked the bus driver when we would be passing the river. He looked at me like I was an idiot and said “que rio?” “EL rio,” I responded. Obviously he should know what rio I was talking about. He kept repeating “que rio” and making me sound dumb. I know my Spanish isn't great but I know how to ask simple things and I definitely know that “rio” means “river” and that at this point something was going terribly wrong with my trip.
It was time to call my family. I called my parents and my sister and the house. No one picked up. By the time I decided to call our group leader, my phone was quickly losing the few free minutes that came with it. We are buying our minutes tomorrow. He picked up and I had just enough time to tell him that I was lost on a bus until a very nice Spanish-speaking operator told me that I had no more minutes left. Great. I asked someone to use their cell phone and that I would pay them a Dollar for just one minute. In New York City people would have been trying to help me. Here they looked at me like I was an idiot and just said no. At this point I was panicking so much that I kept going up to the driver to ask questions that he kindly did not respond to. My heart was beating so fast, and it didn’t help that the elevation here is so high that my heart beats ten times faster when I just walk up a flight of stairs. I’ve never felt more alone or scared in my life. I realized how absolutely “sola” (alone) I was in this foreign country. How accustomed I was to everything being simple back home. And if I got lost there, I could also mapquest it on my iPhone. And if not, I could call my parents. And if those things failed, at least the people in the streets, and especially bus drivers, would try to help me when it was obvious I was lost in the middle of a foreign country where I could barely speak the language. And the part that bothers me the most in hindsight is the fact that I got so nervous that I lost basically all my ability to speak coherently in Spanish. I knew the words that were coming out of my mouth made absolutely no sense but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t calm down.
Thankfully, our group leader called me back. He told me to take a taxi. Then suddenly I got a call from Diego, my father. But it was my mom on the line and when I finally made it clear that I was lost (and I forgot the word for lost at the moment) she was almost as afraid as I was. She told me a few times that she couldn’t understand me but that all I needed to do was take a cab home. But the neighborhood we were in wasn’t very nice. I was told not to be alone there and not to take cabs that we didn’t call. But what choice did I have at this point. So I got out of the bus and got into a cab. My mom called me a few minutes and asked to speak to the driver to make sure everything was ok. Then she told me, “tranquilate.” Calm down. And I did. The city was beautiful at night. And as we approached my home, there was my mom, waiting outside for me. She hugged me and all was well. Coming home, and having a home to come to, was such a great comfort.
And now I’m in my beautiful room, in my beautiful home, in my beautiful city, and all is well.
(originally posted June 15, 2011)
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