Day 2

I went to visit the class I'll be teaching today and the class and teacher seem great. It's a class with 20 5th graders who are all bilingual. They are only allowed to speak English during class though. But still I really want to learn more Spanish because outside the classroom everyone conversates in Spanish. A girl at the school today offered to teach us conversational Spanish twice a week for $5 a lesson, so I'll definitely be taking her up on that. I'll try and take pictures tomorrow of the school, the school facilities are really impressive, far more impressive than any school I've ever seen. Here's a few random photos until then.

This is the view outside my room at night. Pretty amazing.

This is a partial group photo before we left Atlanta.

This is a cool park trail I found nearby.

Arriving in Ecuador

After a year of anticipation I finally arrived in Ecuador late last night. I met the family I'm living with while I'm here in Ecuador also, and they are very welcoming people I feel comfortable in their house already. It's a really nice place too the view from the top of the house is incredible, I feel like I can see all of Quito(picture). I had a chance to explore around today and found a pretty cool park and a cheap place to get lunch ($2!). The altitude difference is something to get used too, the first night I was here I had to stop and take a deep breath every 30 seconds or so even while I was sleeping, I'm just now getting used to it.(The elevation is 10x here what it is at home.) Quito seems great thus far; the locals are really nice and patient with my Spanish, which I can already tell I'm going to learn a lot, because I am definitely immersed in it. I also visited the school today, and wow what an impressive looking school, the staff there are also extremely welcoming and knew exactly who we were. Tomorrow is the first day I meet my 5^th grade class, which I definitely look forward too.

Student Teaching

I am going to be keeping this blog for my student teaching experience in Quito, Ecuador. This will be a very different experience for me since I haven’t ever been to a non-English speaking country, and the only exposure I have had to Spanish is the kitchen staff at the restaurant I work at. Writing is not one of my favorite things to do, but I will attempt to keep a consistent blog going while I’m in Ecuador. I’m going to spend four months in Ecuador, so I imagine it’ll be a life changing experience which is why I want to keep this blog. I will be living with an Ecuadorian family while I’m in Ecuador in hopes of immersing myself in the culture and language.

I'm not exactly sure where I will teach with my degree after graduation, but in the back of my mind I have the idea churning that I'll teach overseas somewhere in a third worldish type country. So, this experience could open doors to that possibility. I'll also know whether I really like the idea after four months in Ecuador..