7. What to bring to music camp. On our first day of music day camp, a young boy (7 years old) brought a very large bag almost the size of him. He was the first one there and was 45 minutes early. I could tell by the shape of it what it was: an electronic keyboard. Were the others going to bring instruments? Was this on the information? No, it's just what this boy thought he should bring to music class. Why not?
6. El Concurso de la Langosta. One Friday on my daily walk along the coastal malacon (park district), I stopped to look at some large lobsters in a tank under a tent. A man invited me to a "concurso" later at 2:00. I was sure this meant a course/lecture about lobsters (langostas). Wanting to learn everything about the local culture and not wanting to miss a thing, I showed up promptly at 2:00. There were a bunch of men under the tent, talking excitedly. Then a man with a mic said that the "concurso" was about to begin. They took out a large lobster out of the tank and began to measure it. Then it dawned on me that probably "concurso" did not mean what I thought it did. "Concurso" = contest/competition
5. Kent's Problem with Accents. It's very important to put accents on the right syllable. I seem to have more problems with this than others in the Dutchersmith family (but then again, I talk more than the others). The blue-footed booby is a funny looking bird that is a huge attraction around here. (side note: I do not plan on buying the very popular tourist t-shirt, that says "I Love Boobies!") In Spanish, the booby (the Galapagos is also home to the red footed booby, the brown booby, and the Nazca booby) is "piquero, " with the accent like "piQUEro." However, I kept saying it like PIquero (similar to Figaro), which means a crazy obnoxious person. Actually when I was trying to talk about blue footed boobies, I was really talking about all the blue-footed crazy obnoxious people.
4. Teresa's Waving Problem. Teresa loves waving to cute children, people in parades and people in boats. Teresa and I were on the pier one day watching sea lions and Teresa starts waving to 3 yellow boats because "the people were staring at me." They were staring at them because they were water taxis and wanted their business. A wave means you want their business, so the water taxis started coming towards us to pick us up. Teresa had to do the "no thank you" signal to ward them off.
3. Kent's Special List. One thing we have in common with our host family is that we are both on various lists to host international people. I was trying to tell our host family that we are on a list with the MCC IVEP program, we are on a list to host long-term international students from Bethany, and we are on a list to host international students short-term. Well, instead of saying "short-term," I said that we are on a list to host short people, which got some very strange looks and laughs from Magdalena (what's new?!).
2. The Water Bottle Hunt. We brought four water bottles with us to Ecuador. By week 2 we had lost our best two water bottles, and by week three we broke another one. So, we needed at least one new water bottle. I went on a water bottle hunt, not really sure where to get one. I went to a grocery store, but once in the store, I began to have doubts on what to even call it. Do you call a water bottle something different than a bottle with water in it? At the grocery store I asked for a water bottle, and sure enough, they gave me a bottle of water. So then I asked if they sold water bottles without water in it. The woman running the store looked at me kind of funny as if she was saying "well if you want a bottle of water without the water then buy the bottle and just dump it out." This was a bit of a demoralizing moment for my Spanish confidence. The next day, Pepe (the grandfather in our household), was filling up his water bottle. So, I asked him (in Spanish) "where can I get something like that?" He said that he got his free at some sort of promotional event. Again, I apparently wasn't communicating well, so I asked if there was a place where I could buy "one of those things." He said (in Spanish) that he did know and that he would be happy take me right away. So, we hopped in his car. When we got near the store he yelled out the window and asked a really fast question, presumably "do you guys have any water bottles?" In the time it took to do a u-turn and pull up to the store, they had 4 different kinds of water bottles ready to chose from, but they weren't as big as Pepe's water bottle. By then, I finally caught the word for water bottle: "Tomatodo!" Which literally means "drink everything" because you can put any drink in it. Pepe asked if they had any tomatodos that were bigger (like his). The young man went back into the crammed general store and came back with several pitchers. "Those aren't tomatodos!" said Pepe. "Sure they are!" said the young man who began to demonstrate how you could drink directly out of a pitcher. I politely told him that a smaller tomatodo would be better, and selected a nice metal one with some soccer players on it.
1. What's That Song and Where is it Coming From?. It was a Wednesday evening, and our first week in Ecuador, in the city of Guayaquil. Jennifer, our host and guide, told us to take out the trash that night at 8:00 p.m. We should take it to the guarded gate of the housing complex we were staying at. So, a little before 8:00 I took the trash to the front gate. Not really sure where to put it, I asked the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper said that I was supposed to have a key that opened up a door to the place where the trash was. I could either ask the woman at the housing complex's small general store, or he could wait their until the trash truck came. Well, not sure if 8:00 really meant 8:00 or if I'd have to wait for awhile, I decided to ask the woman at the store. The store looked closed, so I headed back to the apartment with the trash. We decided to wind down the evening by playing cards. We heard this very short, loud catchy whistling song, and assumed it was recorded music coming from the neighbors. Then I heard it again, and again, and again--for at least 30 minutes. The first three times the music played, it was kind of a cute little song, but then it got more annoying the more it played and it seemed like it was traveling around the neighborhood. When it got close again, I ran out to see if he could figure out what the heck it was. Then he heard the familiar sounds of a garbage truck--with the music blasting from the top of the cab. OOOHHHHHHH!!! The garbage truck plays music so that people know when to put their garbage out! Jennifer later confirmed this, saying that if the trash is out for too long, dogs just get into it.
Fun to read these. You're catching on fast.
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