First day of school!

I arrived safely in Ambato yesterday, despite the threats of strikes that would shut down the highways starting on sunday night. I need to check the news to see if there really are demonstrations in quito and elsewhere. The people (mostly the indigenous people and some teachers) are protesting new laws that are being made regarding the use of water and minerals and education. The president, Correa, is in the process of reforming the education system and some teachers are not happy about it. Anyway, traveling on sunday morning was no problem.

I arrived in Ambato and moved in with a fellow volunteer named Kat. I´m definitely not staying the host family that I with whom I had originally been placed. I just don´t think I could deal with their two crazy kids and a newborn. But I had left half of my stuff in their house!! So yesterday I went back there to visit with them for a bit and gather my belongings. The visiting portion of the day mostly involved sitting with the family in the parents bedroom and watching TV. This sounds strange, but apparently this is a very common activity in Ecuador. However, most families love to watch their telenovelas. This family watches dvds of reggaeton music videos while their five year old son immitates what he sees on TV... It makes me think of mean girls when Regina´s little sister is watching girls gone wild and lifts up her shirt to be like the people on tv. It´s awful! So that´s pretty much what i did for 2.5 hours yesterday. Then I gathered my stuff and left. Hopefully I´ll stay in contact with the parents of the family, because they´re lovely, but i´m glad i´m not staying there for the year. I can only handle so much reggaeton.

Today was my first day of teaching! so far, so good. my class at 7 am had 22 students in it. They hate my no spanish rule and the no coming in late rule, but they seem to like me, and there are no discipline issues.. yet. I have a mix of professionals, college students and high school students, but they´re all at a fairly intermediate level. I have another class this afternoon, I hope it goes just as well!