Electricity & Spanish Classes

November 12, 2009, Thursday

Electricity
This is supposed to be the rainy season in the central Andes of Ecuador, but they are not having the rain they usually do. It rained one night when I was in Quito, but I have not seen rain since. All of the electricity for the country is produced at a single hydro-electric plant at a dam near Cuanto (a city in the south). Due to the lack of rain, there is an electricity shortage. So, the power is turned off for various hours throughout the day and for various communities and even within the same community. For example, while I was in Quito, the electricity was turned off from 2-4 pm two of the days. Then, the hostal where I stayed was also without power one evening for a couple of hours while we could see whole neighborhoods with electricity.

In Otavalo, there have been power outages each day. Pilar (my host “mom”) has told me everyday what time the power will be out for their neighborhood. It doesn’t seem to be out for the hours that are announced though! Tonight, the power is supposed to be out all night starting sometime in the afternoon! So, tonight’s dinner was early at 5:30 so we didn’t have to eat in the dark. All of the cooking is done with gas, so there isn’t a problem with the cooking, although they had to use candle light while cooking. (It seems the electricity stays on in the center of the city even when it’s out elsewhere.)

When walking down the street, if I get a chance to look into a courtyard, I am still seeing beautiful grass and flowers, so they don’t seem to be conserving water due to the drought.

So here I sit using my computer on battery power for as long as I can tonight and then I guess to bed really early. It has clouded up and it actually looks like it might rain!

Spanish Classes

The Spanish School is a small school, owned by a husband and wife, Fernando and Roci’a. I have had Rocia as my teacher, while Janine has had Fernando. There are other teachers as well who come in for specific one to one lessons. This week I have had lessons 6 hours per day. (I will have a total of 200 hours in the 6 months) A bit much for me! But, they are very willing to get out of the school for the lessons, so that has helped. Yesterday we went to the Cascadia de Peguche in the morning which was a lot of fun. Tomorrow we are going to the “magic tree” La Lucha which will be a longer hike, so we won’t have a lesson in the afternoon. It will be Janine, Adrienn , Czarina and I plus both Fernando and Rocia. If it actually rains tonight, I don’t know how that will be, as there is so much dust right now, there will probably be a lot of mud.

This afternoon’s lesson was fun. Laura was supposed to have Quichiwa language lessons, but her teacher did not show up. So she worked with me and Rocia and both of Rocia’s girls joined us. We played a game *(wish I knew it last year!) and then the girls taught us a couple of kids songs. I also practiced my question words and vocabulary by asking the girls simple questions and then writing down their answers also. It was good practice that I really needed as I don’t think I can take in too many more words – I really have to figure out how to string them all together in the right order!