My first week in Quito, Ecuador is already over without me realizing what actually is happening right now. I have been on a 12-hour flight, followed by jet lag, and my uncontrolled sleeping in the first few days did not help either, but now my inner time zone has also arrived here in South America. Additionally I had a three-day camp by VASE, the local exchange organization of the network ICYE, with 31 Germans, 3 Austrians, 3 Swiss, 2 Englishmen, an Irish and a danish girl. The commonly spoken language was of course immediately clear – English ;). There were minor complaints, because too much German was spoken :*).

The topics were almost equal to those on the preparatory seminar, including the usual questions about expectations, fears, desires and so on, but there were also very interesting topics. Once we talked about important data relating to the Ecuadorian society and culture, with the help of the so-called iceberg model, and the highlights were the two evenings. On the first night of the camp there was a welcoming ceremony with two women, who are educating people in traditional medicine, in which we were greeted with smoke and wind, fire, water, earth and tobacco and received bracelets as a talisman and stones, which should help with the healing of diseases. The ceremony lasted all evening and we were all very tired, but it was definitely worth it! The highlight of the second evening was a salsa lesson. Of course, with a local and the corresponding music. The dancing was great fun and I have already learned much more difficult dances, though of course only basics were taught in the lesson.

A task for each volunteer was to complete a little Spanish test so that team leaders would be able to estimate the Spanish-level of each volunteer. I only managed to do about a tenth, despite my course in Germany -I should have studied more. This day showed, that the basic course is not really boring, although we started with such phrases as ¿Como te llamas?, but very soon I started learning new things. And it can not hurt to repeat the basics either;).

Friday, so day three of the camp, because the camp had begun Wednesday, was then filled with preparations for the departure to the host families for the duration of the Spanish course, a small scavenger hunt in Quito, whose difficulty was raised by the unclear bus routes in Quito, the arrival of the great, but incredibly annoying cell phones, which could be purchased for a small price, a presentation on Ecuador by a College Professor of International Relations, and presentations of the countries of the volunteers in front of the host families. I got an old, somewhat broken Nokia from Bernie, who is team leader at VASE and she will inhabit my room in Germany for one year, starting in September. The presentation by Professor was very interesting and packed with information, but not dry, and with wit.

Since one can not put 31 people on a single presentation, Germany was divided into regions and presented by the volunteers living in those regions. We were 9 people for North Rhine-Westphalia. I myself told about the suspension railway in Wuppertal, the textile industry in the ‘Bergisches Land’ and about the bergisch coffee table. The presentations were either in Spanish or were translated by a volunteer from VASE. The host families seemed to have enjoyed it, even though it took a long time to get through all the presentations.

I live with Rebecca from London and Constanza from Toluca, Mexico at Sara´s house. The apartment is located in the north of Quito in the suburb called Calderon and it takes quite a long time to get into the downtown of Quito with public transport. Today it took Rebecca and me 2.5 hours with packed buses to get home. One should not try to get home in rush hour. Otherwise, one needs about one and a quarter hours. The traffic here is generally very different. Instead of indicating one just squeezes oneself into the tiniest gaps, even with SUVs and pickups, and when one sees that someone is threatening to drive into your bumper, then one honks two or three times. That seems to be enough rules, because although I faint sometimes when, once again a car passes the bus with a distance of a few centimeters, but I have not seen any accidents yet. Good thing I do not have to drive here, because I would be totally screwed as mannered motorist :*). And the bus system is also a little different. There are so many bus lines that hardly anyone knows all of them, not to mention that there are no maps of the bus routes. Best one asks three different people for directions and when they agree, then one can be relatively sure that the one has the right directions. The three of us already know what what will happen, if this is rule is not followed. We climbed into a bus that goes from one of the main terminals of Quito into our suburb, but unfortunately he did not take the route to our stop, but drove to the completely different side of the city. That meant that shortly before 8pm we sat alone in a bus that drove on dirt roads, from where one could already see the far outlying airport, and had eventually reached its final destination, without us having any idea of our approximate location. What do you do, when you do not want to get off in a random dark place? Just ask the bus driver if he knows how to get to a particular address. However, we did plan to walk, but wanted to take a cab. Suburbs in the evening are not necessarily the best place to get noticed as a white person. Instead, the bus driver gave us a ride straight to our house for just a small fee. When does one have the opportunity to have a bus as a private taxi with three just three persons?! :*) So everything turned out well and a little later we were back home with just some bare nerves. Since Saturday evening we have not lost our way. Just getting off the bus is sometimes a bit difficult, because you instead of real stops on the route, one can just shout ¡Gracias! or push a stop button and the bus stops in the middle of the ride. So one has to be aware of the buses location at any time.

Sunday we were in the old town with Sara and I tried a specialty of South America. It’s called Chocolato con Queso and one gets what it says. I got a cup of cocoa and a small plate with pieces of cheese, which are so similar to Gouda. Then you put them into the cocoa all at once and let them soften a bit in the hot cocoa. However, the cheese does not melt, but just gets soft. And then you can eat the cheese with the cocoa together. It tastes very good and I highly recommend it!!

The food here is dominated by rice, chicken and lots of fruits and vegetables, but there are also meat and spaghetti. I did not know that you can turn bananas in so many things. There are banana chips, banana bread, banana pie, grilled bananas, banana fried banana chips, normal bananas and many many more things. Of course not all of them are like our yellow, curved friends from our supermarket, but also green bananas, which are much larger and straighter. The EU would certainly have something to complain about them.

KFC, McDonald’s etc are also represented, but I’d rather eat Shawarma, a kind of Döner, one can enjoy almost everywhere. During the next two weeks I will have Spanish classes and we will have a trip with VASE into Quito´s Old Town with many colonial buildings and a trip to the Mitad del Mundo -the Center of the Earth. It will be exciting! I have not yet managed to look through the pictures, but they will follow soon. We do not hear or see a lot from the volcano Cotopaxi, although the level of danger seems still to be yellow. My flight was not delayed or disrupted by a cloud of ash, as well.