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This morning, my roommate and I bought breakfast and coffee along with other breads and tasty treats at a nearby cafe. We went to the Ecole School to meet the coordinator to be escorted to our projects. Today I started at my project at Boca Ortiz Children's Hospital. Both of my roommates (one is an intern for the volunteer project), project coordinator and another intern walked me to my project which is only about 5 minutes down the street. The project is on the 4th floor in a play area for children who are still hospitalized but well enough to leave their beds. We ended up getting stuck in the elevator and with two Ecuadorian women who were freaking out!! Luckily I was in there with people who knew Spanish as the emergency bell did little good. My coordinator communicated with someone on the main floor through the closed elevator door as we were stuck between the ground floor and 1st floor. We waiting about an hour with the lights going off and on. Pitch black in the elevator. In Ecuador. We had two men climb down through the top of the elevator and told us we needed to climb the ladder to the top of the actual elevator. Say what?????
Yeah, so we did that and I was pulled up through the elevator opening through the shaft with all the elevator wires. Scary stuff! I won't be taking the elevators even with the breathlessness I get from climbing the stairs. Thank you very much!
So I finally arrive and the program coordinator does not know English. It's just me and her, Gladis, volunteering and she hands me a paper where the only word I recognize is nombre for name. I am soooo lost! I think she gave up on me because she ended up taking the pad of paper back from me. I ended up playing foozeball with this 11 year old, Joel, for 5 games and he won every time! Some of my Spanish came back a little bit, but it was very frustrating for the first few hours until another Ecuadorian volunteer came and she knew English due to living in the states for a few years. She was my translator for the day and then I tried to communicate with my broken Spanish. This experience makes me want to learn the language and I'm so jealous of people who can speak it!!! There weren't many children who came that day, but it was still fun playing games and trying to speak to them! I had a long lunch with the two volunteers who came later in the day and are from Quito. They were extremely friendly and one even shared her spaghetti and onions with me. They told me that the children's center is run by volunteers and was built in 2000. Two more volunteers came in the afternoon so they didn't really need me after 2:30 p.m. I told them my schedule is flexible and could stay longer if needed throughout the week. I went grocery shopping down the street and surprisingly was a very nice market! We had a welcome cocktail party hosted by the Ecole School to meet other people who were either going to the Spanish school or volunteering. I met people from Switzerland, Belgium, Ireland, China, and Holland. A few of them were planning to travel the next several months to different countries or to explore the different regions of Ecuador. This one guy was traveling for the next 10 months to all these different countries. Amazing! I couldn't do it. Everyone was extremely friendly and I ended up getting dinner with a few of them that I met so I wouldn't be alone! Was an interesting day to say the least. I may do a tour bus around the city this week to see more of Quito. Stay tuned!
- comments
Katie Whattttt--- the elevator broke!? Holy crap. How long were you stuck?
Brittany Wow what an exciting first day!! Thank goodness there were other people in the elevator! The children's center sounds pretty cool, so are the doctors and nurses volunteers too? I'm glad your making friends :)
saritakg8 About an hour we were stuck. So crazy!!! The doctors and nurses are paid by the government just the children's center is run by volunteers. I love it!