First day of school

Greetings from Cuenca!

I arrived safely yesterday without mishap and was picked up from the airport by the daughter of my host family. Karina lives with her newborn boy Martin, her brother Pedro and her mother Maria. Her father spends 2-3 months at a time working in Quito so I probably won´t meet him. Karina, along with being a new mother, is a professor of English at the local university. Pablo is a tour guide and returned last night from a taxing week with several highschoolers. Both of them speak pretty good English and it will be a struggle to not get to know them via English, but so far they´ve proved to be great cheerleaders. Maria and Pablo walked me to school this morning and Maria said rather sternly I must start learning some vocabulary. She taught me pretty much everything we saw on our walk this morning.

The house is about 15 minutes from the school and is on the border of the "old town" and the "new town" which is where I´m staying. There are about 15 other students who start today and they´ll be there anywhere from one week to 4 weeks that Í´ve learned so far. They´re from Switzerland, Montreal, several from Florida and another guy from Portland! We took an entrance test and I´m with 3 other ladies from Florida who know very little Spanish. It should be fun learning with them. After our test, we were introduced formally by the school director and then he took us on a brief walking tour of the downtown area. Ít´s absolutely gorgeous and I´m anxious to do more exploring. We saw buildings built in the 1500s that are sitting on foundations from old Incan (I think) structures. There was a monastery where cloistered nuns live. They offer prayer through a screened wall and are allowed to speak to family through a screen but they are not allowed out of the walls of the building. The door entering the monastery has no handle and can only be opened from the inside. They do sell wine that they make inside as well as a special drink mentioned in Don Quixote - he sent for a bottle when he had need of it for his heart - it was broken. This beverage has something like 17 ingredients and is said to be very refreshing - good for digestion, nerves, melancholy, and of course a broken heart. We also walked by a flower market. Flowers are the largest product exported from Ecuador and 25% of the flowers in the US are from here. It was a vibrant scene and I´ll attempt to post some photos later. The park in the center of the city was a refreshing spot filled with families and groups of old men sitting around talking. Piped into the trees was tango music.

Ok, I´m walking home without a guide so I should scoot. I hope to post every few days or so.