Last Friday we were with the whole group at Mitad del Mundo – The Center of the World, which is located a little bit north in the outskirts of Quito. There is a monument built by the Spaniards and attended by virtually all tourists. Unfortunately the inscription, that there is the latitude 0 ° 00’00.000, is not true. The good Spaniards had measured a little wrong and did not agree with the Inca, who had put their own monument of the equator much more accurately. The Monument could have been rearranged, but that has not been done for some reason. Perhaps the fact, that according to my GPS on my phone the Equator lies in the middle of a street, and no one wanted to build a new one just because of some monument. The park surrounding the monument is quite nice and very good for pictures, of which we have done plenty.

I have experienced and learned a lot, in my first week of my language course. Get up every morning at just after 6 – I felt like being back in school. But I had to get to the other side of Quito during rush hour. So I had to plan in about 90 minutes for the journey to the language course. The Spanish lessons are fun and I can use what I learn. I can also understand a lot more than last week and am able, at least from time to time, to participate in a conversation with more or less complex subjects. Speaking is still more difficult, but the long list of adjectives and verbs helps immensely.

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.

Hi all,

right now I am on the Castle “Ludwigstein” in Witzenhausen, Hesse, Germany. Day by day we get the most important Information about our work and our culture and we are encouraged to challenge old beliefs and thinking patterns. For example we talked about and discussed racism. It was incredibly interesting and we realized how one gets his_hers thinking patterns and how deep racism is rooted in our society.

That´s all for now,

Felix