February dated the month of new beginnings. After the majority of our exchange group left to continue their lives elsewhere, we, as an exchange group, felt a bit empty. Truthfully, our whole group became a family the first 5 months. We were all going through the same things so there were so many things we all shared. In the end, we were few that stayed (about 10 or less compared to our 25+ in the beginning) but then two new exchange students came along from Alaska and the Czech Republic.
Now, just in the last year, the whole education system was changed by President Rafael Correa. Because of that, the school year was changed from quarters I believe to quimesters (meaning two 5 month parts). That resulted in us having our "winter break" in February which was a bit strange. Babett and I had a wonderful time though learning how to cook typical dishes with our host mother Lorena and exploring the Quito during that time.
The month started out with "Candelarias" (Feb.2nd) to celebrate 40 days after Christmas.
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| Everybody went outside to light the candles. |
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| When one lights this candle, it is supposed to represent the inner fire that has been lit within one's self. |
My host family attends a quaint church which is a 10 minute walk from our house. They tend to go there sporadically but we always go when a special day is celebrated.
Alright, time for cooking.
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| My host mom, Lorena, preparing tortilla-type things with meat and cheese inside. So good. |
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| Bacha, our host Aunt, preparing "quimbolitos" which is a type of desert which contains corn dough, raisins, as well as other ingredients. What makes this dish special is that it is steamed within banana leaves. |
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| Babetti learning the chef's techniques. :) |
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| My host sister, Brenda, in a typical fruit store. |
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| Quimbolitos ready to be steamed. |
Overall, Babett and I had a very nice time cooking with the family and spending quality time with them during the February break. Yes, it is possible to make "quimbolitos" in the U.S., one just has to either search down banana leaves or cook them like muffins.
As I said before, we had a few new-comers in our Xplorer exchange group: Marek (Czech Republic) and Kayla (Alaska).
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| Our Xplorer group as of February. |
Every month Xplorer brings us on some sort of excursion such as exploring Quito or driving out to other sites. This time, as seen above, we went on a tour of the city starting in the famous "Parque La Carolina" which is the biggest park in North Quito. What is cool is that I'm just a 15 minute bus ride away so I've had the opportunity to enjoy this park quite a bit within this last year: biking, having picnics, and going to the botanical gardens.
What I've been very blessed with are wonderful, genuine, and hilarious Ecuadorian friends.
It's always a bit harder to make friends and share one's feelings in another language but as the year progressed, I've become very close with a lot of people at Paul Valery (the high school I'm attending).
In the beginning, I was put into quinto curso (which is junior year) for some reason and I was offered to switch into the senior class but in the beginning, I didn't want to because I felt like I had already gotten to known my class so well. In the end though, the school allowed me to switch between quinto and sexto (senior year) cursos as I wished. Better said, I was able to take the classes that I wanted to in both the classes.
When the new exchange students came though in February into our school, changes were bound to occur. In the end, I had to choose between staying in quinto curso or moving up to sexto curso full-time because there wasn't enough space in both the classrooms. That was definitely a hard decision but I ended up moving up to sexto curso because I knew that I would learn more Spanish in their classroom environment instead of easily having a awesome conversation with Tj (an exchange student from Canada and a great buddy of mine) in quinto curso.
Overall, I've had a wonderful time in sexto curso and I've become very close with a lot of them. We are only 20 people in the senior class so we're all a family. Because of this close-knit environment, I've gotten to know a lot of them at a much deeper level.
