Ok so i realize it has been over w week since the last update, but 10 hour school days, coupled with nightly readings and planning lessons, have left little time for extraneous activities. I'll do my best to catch you up.

We started our first week of TESOL training already behind. Due to landslides/ road closures our instructors had to travel for many hours at a snails pace, with all the traffic coming from and going to Colombia, to get into Quito, we had no morning classes on Monday. So to take advantage of a free time slot I met up with a couple classmates to explore the Centro Histórico of Quito a bit more. We took a taxi down there and wandered all around the narrow, often steep, and European feeling streets of the historical center of the city. All traffic, including busses, still drive (if you can call what they do with cars here driving..) these streets. So when the sidewalks are barely 2.5 feet wide, and sometimes abruptly non existent, this made for an interesting morning stroll indeed. We trekked our way up an extremely steep hill to the Basílica and explored the beautiful and enormous structure.

 It was steeper in person.. and at 9500ft elevation...

The Small Chapel 

The main aisle and altar

Outside in the square

 Carla and Tito look like ants..

The rest of the week was spent with loads of information and workshops from 8:30am to 6:30pm. On Wednesday we met our students, who are volunteers from the community that are wanting to learn more english and are willing to be taught by people that may or may not have any clue as to how to teach English. The Learners we have are much more advanced at speaking than we had anticipated which resulted in our first lessons having to be tweaked to accommodate a larger vocabulary. We have split into two teaching groups and two groups of students (one higher level and one lower level.) Each group has roughly 10-12 learners, depending on who shows up on any given day. I am in the group teaching the higher level learners first. We will eventually switch. Our age range is from two high school brothers, to three older men who are commercial pilots, studying to take their english proficiency exam to make sure they have correct and effective pronunciation. Teaching has been a fun challenge so far, but we have only taught two 30 min lessons. I start my hour-long sessions on monday. I have enjoyed the teaching because our learners are so easy to work with. These mixed groups all work well together and are enthusiastic and motivated to learn and practice with us which makes the learning process on the teaching end much easier and comfortable. I look forward to working with them more.

Last night we went out for a few much deserved and anticipated drinks in the Plaza Foch with my oldest host sister Mary, where most of the young nightlife is in Quito, it is full of bars, dance clubs, and tons of people.

Until next time,

Chao