As we’ve gotten settled into our second year here in Quito, Ecuador, we’ve come to see and appreciate a lot of new things about our home. But, before I jump there, I wanted to give a general recap over how the last year went. While these blogs are great for capturing the highlights of our life abroad, we rarely give updates about the going ons of the day to day life. And while the highlights are great, this is what we spend the most time doing. So, I am going to break this down into two sections. School and life in the city.
School:
Delving into this topic was something that I was super scared of doing last year. While so much of life abroad has been dreamy and inspiring, school last year just wasn’t (for me. Nolan is a natural born teacher with unbelievable abilities and passion. He was thriving). If you know me well, you probably know that I never really wanted to be a teacher in the first place. I always loved traveling, and becoming an international teacher was the perfect way to do that. On top of that, our first job couldn’t have been easier. It was online for two years, I probably worked for about 6 hours a day, and we could do it from anywhere (read: the tropical island we lived on, the foodie heaven of Chiang Mai, the bustling streets of Bangkok, and the chaos of Phnom Penh). It was every traveler's dream. But, Nolan is a teacher and he assured me that moving somewhere where we could actually work from a school would be so rewarding. And I was really excited.
Then, when last year started, it was super difficult. Both of my two classes were a classroom management nightmare with specific students causing me to break down into tears. I felt like I was doing everything wrong since I had no classroom teaching experience. Everyday I would come home from work being exhausted to my core, wanting to lay around and do nothing. It was an incredibly tou
gh transition from our last school. I didn’t know if I ever wanted to be a teacher again.
And, all while this was happening, I was receiving really positive feedback from my superiors. I consulted anyone and everyone that I could at school for help, and all of them reassured me that I was actually doing a pretty good job. I learned that many of my students had been trouble makers for years, and that my teaching wasn’t causing any of the problems that I was having. I just had some pretty bad luck with my first lot.
This was hard to hear for me because I have always been a person who strives for success, and it was difficult to try so many things and feel like I was constantly failing. Of course, there were little successes. There were many bright spots when I could see that my students were learning a ton. And my partner teacher and other teachers at our school who are incredibly accomplished and experienced were having the same problems with the same kids. This showed me that it truly wasn’t my fault, and that I just had to push through and do the best that I could.
Life:
Outside of school, life was good in a lot of ways. The community that we found here in Ecuador was something that we were really looking for, and it did not disappoint. We made amazing friends right off the bat. They introduced us to so much of what we love about Ecuador. They showed us the best food (tigrillo) and the best places to hike everywhere. They introduced us to our Spanish teacher who we love and really made this place feel like home.
On top of that, Ecuador is such an amazing place to travel. The stories that I shared from last year do not even skim the surface of the awe-inspring places that we have seen. To name a few, we love the natural hot springs of Papallacta, we are obsessed with visiting the cloud forest of Mindo, the small country town of Nono is the perfect place to go for a short weekend away, and Banos is always the place to head for amazing waterfalls and a great party. There is so much to do in this tiny country and everything there is to do is naturally fantastic and great fun.
But, last year I was never enamored by Quito. Nolan and I would often say that Ecuador is an A+ country, while Quito is a B- city. And, we spend a lot of time in Quito! It's where we live! The food scene (unfairly compared to Thailand) is nothing to be wowed over, and there isn’t too much going on here at any given time to go to.
And, the big thing, the thing that Nolan hated the most, was me being upset about how cold it was. Whenever I tell people that a standard Quito day has a low around 45 and a high around 65, I get a lot of “What are you complaining about, that's perfect!” And then I tell them that I found my ideal weather in Thailand at 90 degrees everyday with 80% humidity and they tend to get it a little more. It’s cold here! I was cold a lot. In the rainy season I would go to school wearing full thermals everyday, with a sweater, jacket, long socks, and a scarf and I would still be cold! The weather really wasn’t ideal and it was something that I struggle
d with all year. Pile a cold day on top of a student telling me in front of my whole class that I was a horrible person, and there were times that I really struggled.
I know that this has been one big pity party so far, and I promise I am going to turn this thing around. I just want to give an accurate picture that it's not always rainbows and sunshine (a lot of the time there was NO sunshine! :( ok I’ll stop). But, like I said before, the weekends were sublime and the people were fantastic and those things really pulled us through the end of the year. And as that time approached, it was time to start thinking about what we wanted to do next. Pretty quickly into the year, we realized that heading back to Southeast Asia was pretty much inevitable. Something about the chaos, the food, the heat, and the people of that region really pulled on our heart strings, and we knew that that would be our next destination.
But, there was still so much to see and do here. We still have a long list of adventures lined up for Ecuador, and in all of last year we only left the country for travel once to Brazil. There are so many countries in South America that we want to see, and the best place to do that would be from here.
Lastly, we had so much fun last year learning Spanish. In Thailand, learning the language was definitely possible, and I picked up a few words and phrases, but overall it was SO HARD. When we arrived here, Nolan already had a huge base that he learned in college, and I had learned French and grew up around so much Spanish that I started picking it up immediately. On top of that, Nolan and I each take weekly one on one lessons that have been crucial for success. By the end of the year, Nolan had multiple verb tenses and a huge vocabulary under his belt, and I was functionally conversational. It was so much fun to go to small towns, or even the panaderia or the fruteria, and have a fully Spanish conversation. It felt like diving deep into the culture, and we weren’t even that good at it yet! It was so incredible to listen to the people who had stayed here for 2, 3, 4 years and hear how amazing they were at speaking Spanish. Nolan and I knew that if we added a 3rd year to our contract, we would get to that level as well which was incredibly exciting.
So, upon leaving the country last year we were looking for a few things to make our decision.
I had to have a better experience at school. The way I felt last year was not sustainable. I needed to have an easier time with my classes.
While the community that we made last year was so strong and supportive, 90% of them left at the end of last year, and we knew that the other 10% would be leaving at the end of this year. This was sad for us, and we were confident that for us to stay, the new group of incoming hires would have to be a stable enough community for us to stay for the 3rd year.
We were going to be moving into a new apartment that our friends lived in last year, and we wanted to love it! We basically knew we would, but, you know, you have to feel it out.
We bought a car! We decided that it would be worth it to be able to leave Quito at a moment's notice. We had a friend who was selling a super cool 1986 (yes, 1986) stick shift (yes, stick shift) Toyota land cruiser which was so awesome! We were hoping and thought it would be likely that this would greatly improve our experience.
We seriously had high hopes coming into this year, and I think I’ve dragged it out long enough, let me tell you how it's been.
I have literal angels in my class this year compared to last. Of my two classes, one of them is a group of actual god-sent angels who want to listen to everything and are so respectful and are super excited about learning, and the other class has 13 boys, none of who are out to get me like last year, but can be a bit more of a challenge. Overall though, it has seriously been the biggest 180. I do feel like I am a good teacher now, I am excited to go to school and teach my classes, and I feel really good after a day of school. On top of that, Nolan and I were both offered department head positions for the year and those are going really well. I couldn’t be happier with this huge change, and I feel grateful for it everyday.
The new teachers have been such an amazing group. We knew we would have Emily here (see epic dive buddy Emily) which we were unbelievably stoked for, but everyone else has been amazing too! They are excited to do things and explore, they are so positive, and about half of them live in our neighborhood. Our year has been full of hilarious game nights, epic mountains, and even a few chaotic party buses. We couldn’t ask for more.
3. Our apartment is so dreamy! Although we had a little bit of a tough move considering this place was pretty full of junk and fairly dirty, now that we’ve gotten it cleaned up and made our own, we love it. We have floor to ceiling windows in our living room and bedroom of a volcano and the whole city, beautiful wooden floors and wooden beams in the ceiling, two balconies, and even a fire place. It has been so cozy, and we feel super happy here.
4. The car has been the adventuremobile of all time! After learning to drive stick shift (a slightly stressful affair) we have taken Coche (pronounced Coach) to multiple mountains, gone camping, and we’ve just had the most fun exploring by wheel. As a bonus, a bunch of our new friends also have cars, so we have been going on epic road trips together (which are even more fun when aided by our friend’s walkie talkies).
I hope this is the positivity that you have been waiting for! We have had the absolutely best start to this year, and would love to tell you all that we will be adding a third year to our contract. Although it is still cold, and the food still isn’t great, the friends, the Spanish, the students, and the entire country of Ecuador (and the entire continent of South America) are calling for us to stay and we couldn’t be more excited. Oh, and our new apartment has two spare bedrooms, anyone want to come?
Comments