intermedio

Believe it or not, I've already spent over 2 months here in Ecuador, and I have about 2 months left. As I approached the halfway mark of my time here, I started to think about what had happened so far and what I wanted to accomplish in my last 2 months in South America. Here are some goals I thought of:

METAS:
1. Find a place to volunteer teaching English
I love teaching English. I volunteer with an ESL tutoring program in Chapel Hill, and I spent last summer teaching English to secundaria students in Tamaula, Mexico. I would love to find a place here where I could do something similar, whether it's with adults, teenagers, or kids.

2. Hang out more with Ecuadorians
I've met a good number of Ecuadorians here, but I definitely haven't spent the time with them that I would like to. And I love my group of friends here, all of whom are American, but I also know that I'll be able to hang out with them in the U.S., and I want to take advantage of my time here to hang out with locals and practice my Spanish.

3. Spend less time on Facebook
It's really quite amazing how much time I spend on Facebook here. It's a great way to communicate with each other here (we like to talk on our phones as little as possible because we pay for each minute), but it's also distracting, and I feel useful when I spend hours and hours on it every day. And as odd as this may seem, I would also kind of like to spend less time talking to people at home. Not that I don't absolutely love my family and friends at home, but I also don't want to get home and realize that I spent all my time in Ecuador missing people back home.

4. Hold my baby sister
Yes, I've been here over 2 months, and I still haven't held my 3 1/2-month old sister. I think it may be because it seems like I'm always sick, and she always seems to be prone to various ailments. I also haven't asked, so that might be the first step.

5. Learn more Spanish vocabulary
My conversation and culture classes are helping with this, but I've realized that while I can speak pretty confidently, I'm missing a lot of vocabulary. And what's a better place to expand your vocabulary than in South America? Hopefully I'll come back with a lot more words under my belt.

I think that's all for now, but I'll add more as I think of them. And I leave you with one more picture of Plaza Grande in Centro Histórico in Quito...