Orientating

 (the inside of Comision Fulbright del Ecuador-->)
I've been here 5 days, and I have: bought a cell phone, opened a bank account, received my first stipend (yet to find an effective method of getting to the money, but it's there), gone to the embassy for a scary horrible security briefing, completed roughly 20 stacks of paperwork, found a temporary place to stay in Ambato, and done a whole host of other little things to start life here. I would like to pause and appreciate the magnitude of these bureaucratic achievements. Here in Ecuador, errands inevitably begin with waiting in a chaotic room, where you must elbow old ladies to hold your position in line. Then you must talk to about 6 different people about the nature of the errand you are trying to complete-- all of whom furiously type, ask you to sign 18 things, scribble illegible things on pieces of paper, and direct you to the next window. I recently discovered that if you skip a window (even by accident because you're just a gringa who didn't quite understand), armed security will approach you like the very fate of the country depended on the flow of the windows. You eventually leave the office/business, with only a vague idea of what you've actually done.

I have spent the last few days at Comision Fulbright for orientation. It was fun and informative, nothing like the DC orientation this summer. On Friday, a bunch of Ecuadorian Professors came in to lecture about various topics, like the current political situation and what might be called "500 years of Ecuadorian history in an hour." I was pretty into it. Basically nerd paradise. Yesterday we took a 'Fulbright group bonding' field trip. We bused a few hours outside of Quito, hiked through a cloud forest, and zip-lined across six valleys. Um, best orientation ever? My supervisor came from Ambato to meet with me last week. She seems wonderful. 3 families in Ambato want to adopt me, including a former Ecuadorian Fulbrighter (he studied at Arizona State). But I might actually like to live alone. So who knows where I'll end up.

There are 14 US student grantees in Ecuador this year-- 4 ETAs (English Teaching Assistants, like me) and 10 research grantees. All students have research projects, yes, including us lowly English teachers. The projects range from chronic child malnutrition to Colombian refugees to a film about sex trafficking in Quito. Grantees range from recent graduates, to PhD students working on their dissertations, and there is one woman doing a post-doc. There are also 3 visiting scholars from the US, who are teaching at Ecuadorian universities. I took a LOT of notes at the Commission and the Embassy this week, but here are a few things I learned:

- I have a 20 hr/week max work commitment at the University. I'm a TA, so I won't teach my own classes...thank you Jebus. I'm also the only native English speaker in the languages department.

- Anthropologists estimate that 30-35% of Ecuadorians are ethnically and culturally indigenous, though only 12% willingly self-identify as indigenous in the census.

- About 1/3rd of all Ecuadorian children are chronically malnourished. About 1/2 are iron-anemic.

- Due to huge numbers of Ecuadorians leaving the country, "New York City is the 3rd largest city in Ecuador."

- Cotopaxi is the highest active volcano in the world, overdue for an eruption, and is quite close to Ambato (it can also be seen from Quito on a clear day- picture above from Google). Cotopaxi is white and snowy, but due to climate change, all glaciers will be gone from the volcano in 40 years.