Hiatus and Field Trip

I neglected to mention that Marguerite and I were going on a field trip last week. For security reasons, and for lack of internet access, we were encouraged to leave laptops at home, so we were out of touch. We came back yesterday (Saturday).

We traveled from the Quito/Tumbaco area to Guayaquil, which is the largest city in Ecuador. It is also reputed to be the most dangerous, so we got lots of security information before we left. The bus ride averages 10 hours. With connections, etc., we reported for our taxi ride to the terminal 6:00 yesterday, and got home around 6:00.

It happens that our sites are not far from Guayaquil, so Marguerite got to meet her counterpart, and I got the chance to visit my school, and meet my counterpart and some of the kids. We also taught some lessons there.

The school is very different than I expected. It's called a "colegio", and in one of the towns we visited on our last trip, that meant the top grades, roughly sixth through twelfth grades. In my school, that means grades one through six. So I have to rethink the kinds of activities I will be trying to arrange and develop. There are 432 students. The class I taught had around forty kids in it.

We also got to visit Santa Elena where we will be living. It struck me that in all of the other places we have been, the strangers would remain strangers. In this town, they're our future neighbors. The restaurant where we found lunch might become a regular choice for us.

The town is perhaps a little nicer than some in the area. We noticed that most streets are wider than some towns. Since the area is so flat, the street grid is more orderly than some other places. The park in the center of town was apparently recently upgraded, with lots of seating and an active fountain. There is also a family of iguanas that act like they own the place.

We were taken on a bit of a tour of the town, including a trip to the top of the tallest hill, where a new church is being built. Among other things, we watched some of the stone work being prepared.

The first picture is a panorama from the top of the hill.

There is an important museum in the town, probably its only tourist attraction. It's the oldest documented archaeological site in the country. There is a cemetery that is at least 8,000 years old. The second picture is a display near the entrance to the musueum. It looks like a mosaic, but it is actually woven reeds that have been painted. I couldn't tell if it is really as old as it seems. It's in such good shape, it's probably a reconstruction.