Thanksgiving!

It was definitely the strangest Thanksgiving ever, but surprisingly, it was really fun. I woke up in the morning to a text from Marlo saying that they wouldn’t have power until 10, which means that I wouldn’t be able to begin baking the chocolate chip cookies that I decided to make for our Dinner that night. So at ten, I went to her house and she helped me make cookies. I also met her husband and kids, and they told me that I was welcome to stay with them over Christmas, so now I am not homeless for the holidays. Since Quito is at about 11,000ft, baking the cookies was really different. The recipe called for 1 ½ cups of flour, we ended up using more than 3 cups per batch in order to have them look like cookies and not pancakes. I also had planned on making four batches as to use up as much of the ingredients as possible (because I have nowhere to store flour and brown sugar and baking soda). So we made four HUGE batches (because they had so much extra flour in them) of cookies, and they turned out REALLY well. I left all of the leftover ingredients at their house because in about a month, it will be my house too.

It was almost 1:30 when I finished baking, and we were supposed to be at CIMAS at 2. I took a cab home and changed as fast as possible, and then my mom called another taxi for me to head to dinner.

When I got to CIMAS, I rang the bell…and no one answered. First of all, there are supposed to be more than 80 people there, and second, CIMAS is in a relatively dangerous neighborhood, and the doorman is ALWAYS supposed to be there to promptly let people in so they don’t stand on the street for too long. So I ring again. And again. And again. And no one comes. Additionally, I only have my house keys and $2 to get home, but no cell phone because I am wearing a dress and have no pockets. Oh, and I have about 200 chocolate chip cookies.

Just as I am about to give up, the doorman comes running up the road (with bread, I can only assume he went to the bakery for lunch), and tells me that there is no one at CIMAS. So now I am really confused because I am not early and I know that it is the correct day. The president of CIMAS just happens to live one block up, so he suggests we go there to figure out what I am supposed to do.

When we get there, one of about seven housekeepers answer the door and let us in (this is the biggest house I have ever seen here) and basically she tells me that the location of Thanksgiving is at a hotel downtown, but though she knows where it is, she doesn’t know the address. This poses two problems for me. I cannot tell a taxi driver where to go if I don’t know the address, and also, I only have $2, because that is all I need to get home in a taxi from CIMAS.

So they discuss for awhile in really rapid Spanish that I don’t understand (meanwhile with no luck one of the other housekeepers is calling all of the CIMAS staff), and ultimately they decide that the CIMAS doorman will come with me and tell the taxi driver how to get there. Great. But I still only have $2, and now I am going to have to pay the taxi back for this guy too. Oh by the way, the reason that I was unaware of the location change was because the change was announced on the formal invitation to the families. And since my family decided that they weren’t coming, they threw it away.

So I ask the housekeeper if I can borrow some money and explain that I didn’t bring enough…and she gets in this cupboard and takes $5 from this cup. So to clarify, I ask her if this is her money…it’s not. I have just effectively “borrowed” without permission, $5 from the president of my program, who I have never even talked to.

So we hail a taxi and the guy gets me there, I pay the taxi for the trip and return trip, and head inside to explain to Dr. Suarez how I have borrowed money from him and will pay him back ASAP. He was really nice about it and told me that I didn’t need to worry about it (even though that will never happen)…and so the actual “Thanksgiving” began.

I went downstairs only to find that everyone had a table…with their families. And I was completely alone. Awesome. But previously in the week, I had found out that my next family for next semester was the same family that my friend Laura is living with now, so I went to their table to ask if I could sit with them. They said yes, of course, and in so I met my new family. And I am really excited because I like them a lot. They are REALLY wealthy (I have a chauffeur to get to and from school) and have internet and a working oven. I am stoked.

Anyways, after that we ate dinner. It was a really random smattering of food because all the students made traditional dishes (with improvised ingredients because you can’t really get the same stuff here, only similar) and the families all brought rice. Their instructions were to bring “a side dish” and so of course, everyone brought rice. So we had turkey, potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green salad, and white rice. Sure, why not, right??

After dinner, all the students had to go around the room and introduce their families to all the other families. So since I have no family, I was like “Hello, I’m Kimberly from Washington, and my family isn’t here so I am sitting with my new family. But I do not yet know them well enough to really introduce, so I’ll let Laura take this one.” Awesome…not quite as graceful as I would have liked, but whatever, that’s what you get when your family doesn’t care I guess.

After the announcements, we had dessert. Everyone had made fun of me when I announced that I would be bringing chocolate chip cookies to Thanksgiving, so I wasn’t really very sure. When I got in line, I was looking around, and saw that all the cookies I had made weren’t even on the dessert table! So I grabbed one of the containers, and before I could even get it to the table, it was gone. People in line kept saying “Oh, over here!” And by the time I got to the table they were gone. So I put the other container on the table, and what do you know? My dessert was the first gone. Take that, naysayers.

After dinner, there was dancing, and the whole thing was very similar to a wedding reception. From the buffet lines to the waiters clearing plates to the song “Celebration” that we danced to. I know that they were trying for a “traditional” Thanksgiving for us, but the part that they missed is that it is supposed to be a really comfortable holiday that you celebrate with family. Ours was VERY formal (the turkey was all carved perfectly into perfect slices and served in one of those silver serving dishes with the warmer underneath, there were silver chandeliers lining the dance floor) and almost “stuffy”. Still though, I had more fun than I thought, and it helped that there was so much going on because I didn’t get a chance to be homesick.

Later that night, I went back to Marlo’s house to use their phone. They have Vonage, and so for $20 a month, they have unlimited calls to the US. And she said I could use it to call home, so I went back to her house and called the fam. It was nice to talk to everyone, but I still wish I could have been there (especially when Aidan throws out “Cousin Kimbuhly, I weally miss you”). When I got off the phone, it was almost 11:30, and though try as we might to call a cab for me to go home, no company was answering. So after 20 minutes of failed attempts, I ended up just staying the night at Marlo’s.

The next day, when I got home, we didn’t have any water (and really haven’t since) because there are men remodeling a bathroom here and they turn it off. So I haven’t showered in three days, and only can brush my teeth because I happened to have a bottle of water in my room. The toilet hasn’t been flushed in a while, and it’s starting to get pretty bad…hopefully this remodel is done soon.

In the meantime, I am reading my first book in Spanish: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The progress is unbelievably slow (after four days, I am on page 87, which for those of you who know me, I could have had the whole book in English finished in two), but I am learning lots of new words and phrases that I am going to try and throw into conversations if possible.

Some of the group left yesterday for Atacames, but I didn’t go because I wanted a weekend just to chill and finish up my final essay (which is now done, 6 pages of solid [and mostly correct] Spanish). I have a dairy to write and a composition to write, and then I am done for the weekend. Yesterday, I watched one of the bootleg movies that I bought (He’s Just Not That Into You) and was pleased to discover that it was really good quality and worked perfectly. So now I will be buying more and will actually have something to do here besides read.

I also asked my mom about what needs to be my last day here, and she said that I could plan on spending the night with my new family the night of the 11th (the last day of class). This was a little confusing for me, and so I explained that I don’t get a host family until January 8th. So she asked what I was going to do, and I told her I would find a hostel until I would be living with Marlo…and this made her furious. She didn’t know that I was going to have nowhere to live and was like “I’m calling CIMAS! They at least need to find you a place that is inexpensive and safe! They can’t just leave you on the street!” So this makes things easier for me, because now I won’t have to find my own accommodations. I was not really super worried about it in the first place, because they have hotels like Mariotts and Best Westerns here, so it’s not like the situation was ever that desperate…they’re just significantly more expensive to stay in. But that is the backup, anyway.

So we’ll see what happens on Monday when she calls. I am pumped because all we have left is three days of class this week and then 5 days (all of which are just jokes besides Thursday, when we have our final) next week, and then that’s it! I have finished 1/3 of this trip. Fantastic. Two more and I am done!