What a week!

Well, what a week, to say the very least. Wednesday, I got lost in the evening, trying to find my way home. Thursday, I went to Plaza Forche, the social area with my roommate Gina, and got hit on by Ecuadorian men. Yesterday, I got really emotional because I could not understand the most basic question (What did you eat for dinner yesterday?) that my housemom's brother in law asked me. *sigh* I spent the rest of Friday night crawled in the bed, crying to my mom on the phone and reading a book to soothe my mind.

What overwhelmed me the most yesterday was the fact that I completely and totally realized that I do not have a clue about anything here in Ecuador, from the language down to the culture. After dinner, my housemom said that her sister and brother in law were coming over to play cards. About 10 minutes later, they rang the bell and they were in the kitchen introducing themselves to me. What always kills me is that people here cannot pronounce my name. There are maybe 100 (if that many) Spanish words that start with the letter K, so pronouncing Kimberly is obviously muy dificile (very difficult). My housemom's sister (I forget her name) kept staring at me and hovering over me as I sat at the table. To me (and probably most Americans), personal space is a HUGE deal, and she was definately invading mine. The conversation (and the hovering) continued, with me trying to understand what everyone around me was saying. I can pick up bits and pieces, but I very rarely understand a whole sentence without me asking what a specific word means. So somehow the brother in law got to asking me (in extremely fast Spanish) what I ate for dinner. I told him what I had (rice, beans, tuna, soup and tree tomato juice). Apparently that wasn't what he was asking. Then I thought he said what Ecuadorian food had I had since I had gotten here. I tried to tell him the same thing again. THAT wasn't the right response either. I told him that I didn't understand what he was asking me, and made sure that I had a confused look on my face. Gina thought it was all insanely hilarious, and started laughing hysterically. Come to think of it, THAT is what made me extremely mad. I snapped at her, "if you know what he is trying to ask me, why don't you tell me and stop laughing?" At that point, I was done. Eventually someone (I don't remember who) told me what he was trying to say, and I did my best to answer it in my limited Spanish. But I was already upset and ready to give up. Everyone at the table knew I was frustrated, so my housemom tried to bring up the fact that we were making farm animal sounds at the dinner table for the past few days. I just gave a weak smile. I wasn't in the mood to laugh.

The whole situation was WAY too much for me. I have almost ALWAYS been able to communicate with someone, no matter what the situation. I have been expressing my mind, thoughts and feelings since I said my first word. I really don't know what it means to not understand AND not to be understood. To my housemom's brother in law's credit, he tried to make me feel better by saying "Hey, you don't speak Spanish and I don't speak English". Even though it was true, I didn't really want to be consoled at that point. I just wanted to be able to communicate. To understand and to be understood. To not have my housemom's sister hovering over me and staring down at me like I was an animal at the zoo while I tried to speak enough Spanish to join in. To have Gina to HELP me and not think that the whole situation was a sketch on Saturday Night Live. Most importantly, I just wanted to go home.

For the past couple of days, I have been craving random things that they don't eat here. Like turkey burgers. I really wanted a turkey burger yesterday. With lots of cheese, mayo, lettuce, tomatoes and grilled onions. They don't even eat turkey here (except for on Christmas). Then I just wanted to go into the kitchen and scoop myself a big bowl of cookies and creme ice cream and have a big slice of red velvet cake. Nope, not here either. Then I wanted some REAL papas fritas (french fries), not the homemade kind. The McDonalds kind, loaded with chemicals to make you crave them. Now that, I could actually get, but I didn't feel like catching a cab at night to go to the Auto-Mac (what they call the McDonald's drive thru). I also miss waking up, turning on CNN seeing what has happened in the world while I was sleeping, texting my best friends, getting a trillion emails in an hour on my Blackberry and surfing the internet all day, without walking up the street and paying 90 cents an hour. Twitter. Sending pictures back and forth though Blackberry Messenger. Walmart. Krispy Kreme. Pizza Hut. Papa Johns. Bravo TV reality shows. TV in English. Street signs in English. People speaking and understanding English. Bath and Body Works. Victoria's Secret. Forever 21. Hot showers. Biscuits. Macaroni and cheese. Popeye's Chicken. MTV. VH1. BET (as much as I hate to admit it). Simple (American) pleasures.

What has kept me the most sane is being able to talk on the phone, especially to my boyfriend (mi novio). Our conversation is light, in English and most importantly, hilarious. I know that I can say whatever I want and be understood. Even though everyday has been an adventure here, just listening to him talking about his (self-proclaimed) boring days at work makes me feel so normal. I laugh at everything he says, even more so than usual, because talking to him makes me feel...regular. We are the same. We have the same sense of humor and language, and we've been through similar experiences. We get each other. I really miss that, even in a six day time span. I even miss my mom calling to yell at me about something that she can't find in the house that I must have moved. That makes me feel normal too.

Reading frivolous American non-fiction books has made me feel connected as well. Tori Spelling's sTORItelling was great, but now I am re-reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. It was recommended to me a couple of summers ago by a good friend of mine, and I thought it necessary to dig it out from under my bed before I left. Gilbert chronicles a year of her life traveling to Italy, India and Indonesia and her journey of self discovery along the way. Even though I found it relivant and refreshing when I first read it, it seems even more so now. She talks about how depressed she got in Italy, how she missed her America, her struggles through the Italian language, and even her experiences at her language school. When I am reading it here in Quito, I feel like I am having the same experiences as her, only in a different time and place.

I don't want to make it seem like Quito is the pits, because honestly, it isn't. This is one of the most beautiful and interesting places that I could have ever traveled to. When I walk down the street, I can see both an old woman dressed in indigenous clothes and a KFC within a 30 second time span. I can be caught up in rush hour traffic and look up in the mountains to see nothing but greenery and clouds. Its like a conundrum. Modern and ancient; rural and urban. It's nothing that I've ever seen before, and everything that I have ever experienced, wrapped into one. I am also trying to appreciate the little things. have eaten some of the most amazing fruits that I have ever tasted. Pineapples and kiwi taste like candy here. Leeche (uglyfruit?) are delicious. All of the babies that I have seen, are absolutely gorgeous. Big brown eyes, puffy cheeks and curious looks on their faces. I know things are going to get better. This past week was both really great and really hard.