#afsecuador

[lynnsworldadventures]

Hi

I had this great idea for an update but tumblr had some trouble posting it so now I lost it... so maybe that'll be some other time...

For everyone in Belgium

I am sorry that this is in English but I want to make this for everyone who wants to read this, also my international friends and maybe some other people who might be interested in my story.

I'm sorry

I'm sorry for not updating a lot but now I'm bored now so I will tell you all about the last 5 months

For those who don't know me

Hi, and welcome on my blog! I am Lynn and this is a blog where I will share my international experiences. I am now 18 and currently on exchange in Ecuador, I am from Belgium.

Now let the update begin

5 months ago I boarded the plane to a new adventure: since then a lot has happened I made new friends, I met a family that would be my family for this year, I went to school, ...

My family

On September 3rd, 2 days after arriving, I met my family. A family with 2 children, Ninette (then 15, now 16) and Thiago (4). They are all really nice! My mom is sweet and caring, my dad is nice and teaches me a lot about the country and culture, my sister is nice and we get along well and my brother is a little ball of energy (sometimes a little bit too much). I am really happy with my family, they are really like a second family to me!

School

It took 3 weeks before I could go to school but on the 25th of September I could finally go to school for the first time here.

To find a school was a little bit difficult, because the first school was a really small school and we didn't like the school so we had to find another school. Now we are in a bigger school called 'Hermano Miguel', I am in that school with 3 other exchange students.

A schoolday is from 7am untill 12:50pm. We have 3 different uniforms; one for mondays and trips, one for sports and one for the other days.

The last 2 weeks of the school year we painted. We heard that the people from the 2nd year painted and being in the 3rd year (last year of high school) we didn't get the chance to do that, so we asked if we could paint something and we could. We made a painting of Steve Jobs and after summer break we are going to paint a world map.

Our summer break just started and will be untill the 15th of April.

Cheerleading

I found a cheerleading team here so that I could continue with (one of) my passion(s). I am in an all-girl team and on a coed team.

My first Ecuadorian competition was the UCA National Experience with the all-girl team. We placed first (I am now an Ecuadorian national champion!!) and got a bit (an invitation) to The Summit (one of the biggest competitions) in Orlando. Sadly, we can't go because it is too expensive but we switched with another team and we are probably going to Mexico instead.

My second competition was with the coed team and there we placed 2nd. After every routine the presentator talked with someone from the team and the coach and since they don't see a lot of European people in an Ecuadorian team, I got to talk with them, it was a nice experience but I was a bit nervous because there were a lot of people and I had to talk in Spanish without being able to prepare myself. Luckily, it went well.

Trips

With our AFS Machala group we made some trips, they are really nice because we have a nice group and because the places we go to are always really beautiful.

We also had 2 national weekends, one on the coast and one in the mountains.

We also have 2 trips planned by AFS Ecuador, one to the Galapagos Islands and one to the Oriente (or the jungle).

My birthday

On my birthday we didn't do a lot but I went to the shopping with my sister and some friends, when we came home there was a cake for me. A tradition here it that you take a bite of the cake before cutting it, but most of the time your face gets pushed into it, that's what also happened to me and I could smell it for 24 hours...

Carnaval

The way they celebrate carnaval here is really different than in Belgium. In Belgium the kids go to school in a costume, some adults also wear one on occasions and there might be some confetti involved. Here, they don't put on costumes but they attack eachother with eggs, water and some kind of foam. For 4 days, you're not safe, I'm kind of glad that today is the last day, but I'm a little afraid that this means war...

Summer break

Last but not least, summer break! As I mentioned before, our summer holidays just begon, but one should we do for 2 months... well, there are a lot of classes for free that you can follow, I am going to take musical classes together with my sister and another Belgian girl. It will be a challenge for us to do this in Spanish but I am looking forward to it!

The organized trip to the Galapagos is also planned during the holidays and maybe I am also going on holidays with my family, but we are in Ecuador so we will still see...

So...

I think I said everything, I promise I will try to update more! For those who have instagram and don't follow me yet, go follow @lynntruyens_ecuador there I also sometimes post some pictures.

I'm sorry, I am really bad in updating...

If you have any questions, ask me (on here or my other social media) and I will do some kind of Q&A with it, let me know what you wanna know!

I will also post some pictures of the trips on here later, so look out for that!

See you later!!

[lynnsworldadventures]

Another update

Hey everyone, here I am again with another update, a little bit faster than last time. This one will be a more detailed one, because last time it was from about 5 or 6 months and I didn’t want to bore you too much with a long blog. Now, I will get more into detail, so it might be kinda long, just so you’re prepaired. I am still going to talk a little bit about the beginning of the year (things I realized I forgot last time and more details about some things), but towards he end I’m going to update you on what has been happening this last month. This one will also be without pictures but I will upload pictures of everything afterwards, then I can add more, tumblr only lets me upload 10 at a time.

Christmas and New Year

I know it’s a bit late to talk about Christmas and New Year but I just realized that I forgot those in the last update.

Christmas is celebrated a little bit different here than it is in Belgium. The thoughts, values and story behind it are the same of course, but the way they celebrate it here is different. They also decorate the house with lights, a tree and other Christmas decorations. They only put on the lights when it is dark though, where as in Belgium the lights are on the whole day (at least in our house). On Christmas Eve, we ate diner with the family (I don’t remember what it’s called, but it was something tipical for Christmas and it was really good) and at midnight we could open the presents. In my family in Belgium, we usually open the presents before dinner, just after or during the appetizers. I got a pair of earrings for my mom, a belt for my dad, a snapback with a rose for my sister and Play Dough from Marvel (Spiderman, Captain Amerika,…) for my brother. Also with AFS Machala, we had a “Cena de Navidad”, everyone had to prepare something from their country and bring that so we had an international buffet. After eating we had a “moment of talent”, where Katelijne and I played some Christmas songs (Katelijne on flute and I on violin), Kelly sang with her hostsister and I also sang a song while Kelly played the guitar (she played it a lot faster than the original so we made an improvised remix).

New Year, or better said, New Year’s Eve, is also very special here with a lot more traditions than we have in Belgium. In the week before, you can see a lot of papier mache puppets in the streets, they are called ‘monigotes’. The monigotes come all different kinds, you will find characters from Disney, like Elsa and Stitch, to politicians. They represent the bad in the old year and when the year changes, they get burned so that all the bad is gone and you can start the new year fresh. Then there are of course also the fireworks that come with the new year and after that you can go to eat dinner with your family and party some longer if you like.

Confirmation

On the 6th of Januari, was the Confirmation (Vormsel) of my sister. After 2 years of preperation and a change of date (normally it would be in December) it was finally time for her Confirmation. She had a little bit of a trouble with finding a Godmother, since they don’t have a Godmother for there whole life here but a different one for every sacrement, they have to search one every time. For the Confirmation the girls had to wear a white dress and bring a Godmother with them and the boys had to wear black pants with a white shirt and bring a Godfather. Afterwards there was a little party in the house with the family and as it was also the birthday of our grandma, it was a combined party.

Graduation

On the 6th of March I graduated (again) from High School at ‘Hermano Miguel’. Together with my classmates I went to practice 6 days before to know what we had to do, we practiced the entrance, how to receive the paper,… On the day of the graduation we had to be there at 7.30 a.m. so we could start at 8 a.m., of course everyone was late, we are Ecuador after all. The ceremony started at 8.30 a.m., we were all packed in a room that was way too small to fit everyone without airconditioning, you must know that we were wearing our monday-uniform (which is with long sleeves) and the graduation gown and it was around 30 degrees outside… After an hour to an hour and a half the ceremony was over, the paper we got, that is supposed to represent your diploma, was actually just a white paper. We, as exchange students, didn’t get a diploma, but we got a certificate of being exchange students at the school. Afterwards we took some pictures and then returned home. At night I could choose where we went eat, as we were going out for my graduation, I chose pizza.

International Womensday

8th of March, international womensday or dia de la mujer like they call it here. It is a big celebration here! While I was in Belgium this day just passed by like any other day, maybe a mention about it somewhere during the day (mostly on the radio or the TV), but mostly it just passed for me without anything special. That is another story here, here I got chocolates from my hostmom, we went to watch a parade in the center of the city where all ages of women participated in, the women of the firefighters and police let their male colegues do the work for the day,… concluded, a big celebration. I sure won’t forget it anymore that March 8th is the international womensday date.

Trips

I know I already said some things over the trips we made, but I actually didn’t really say anything, so now I will tell you a bit about the trips, which trips we made, what we saw and what we did.

Jambeli is the beach of Machala, it is on an island about 30min by boat from the port. While you’re on the boat, you have a nice view of the nature on the rest of the island, you can see a lot of birds searching for food on the shores. When you arrive at the island, right before the beach, you have these big letters that spell the name and we always have to take a picture on top of them of course. When you go in the sea and you swim a bit, you arrive on some rocks that lay there, which our group also finds a lot of fun to climb on.

Montañita is a small village at the beach, about 5 to 6 hours from Machala by car. We were going to do this trip with a van, so that everyone would fit in and we could go all together. But before we could actually leave we already had some complications, Kelly was an hour late (as usual) and then Felix’s phone fell into drain. After we got that out of the way, we could finally begin on our cramped trip (we didn’t really have a lot of space in the van). When we arrive it is time for breakfast, the first thing we saw were pancakes, crepes and waffles so that was what we ate, also the other days and they were delicious! Afterwards we went to the hotel and later went to explore. Montañita is a really cosey, international village that is famous for the surfbeach and the disco’s. So we didn’t let go of the chance to surf and took some surfing lessons, in the beginning it was difficult but after a while everyone got the hang of it. Right before we went back, we went to a viewing point and the view was gorgeous! Nobody wanted to leave because we felt like we were on summerholidays but we had to because we had to go to school.

The Devils Nose in Alausi was our first stop of the next trip we made, it is one of the most well-known touristic attractions of Ecuador. The train of the Devils Nose is listed as one of the most dangerous trains in the world. It takes you on a trip along the mountainsides of the Devils Nose mountain and lets you take in breathtaking views, culture and way more. Baños was our next stop, also a very international village, that is known for the extreme sports but is also just really beautiful. You also have the swing at the end of the world there, which is just a big swing where it looks as if you are swinging about open air because of the way the mountains are formed there. It is just a small park where you have beautiful nature and some beautiful places to take pictures with the view, tricked or not. At night we went to some of the stores in the center after we ate and talked a bit with the people who worked there. Quilotoa was our last stop of this trip and also the coldest one. It was the idea to camp at the bottem of the mountain, at the lake, but as it was already late and dark, we couln’d go down anymore because it would have been too dangerous, so we decided to put the tents up at the top of the mountain. When it was light the next morning we could finally see the beautiful place we were in. At the bottem was the lake and it was in the middle of a circle of mountains, it was really beautiful. To get to the lake, you had to walk for about half an hour down the hill and to get back up it was a little more than an hour. For the less sportif, there are also donkeys and horses that you can pay for to get back up. When we arrived back on top, we were glad we didn’t go down and so we didn’t have to get back up again with all the stuff.

Tumbes is a small city half an hour away from the border of Peru. Here are also students from AFS and we were going to visit them but when we arrived it turned out they were all on holidays with their families. But dispite that, we had a fun time, we ate very cheap (only 2.5 dollars/2 euros for a menu with drink), afterwards we went to the port for a bit to buy some souvenirs before we went back to Huaquillas to cross the border to Ecuador. Huaquillas is a small city on the border of Ecuador and Peru, you can walk over the border without any problems. A lot of people from Machala come here to buy their clothes, shoes, decorations, school supplies,… because in Peru it is a lot cheaper than it is in Ecuador and because it is only an hour and a half from Machala it is really easy, there are a lot of busses and you only have to pay 2.5 dollar for it.

Normally I would also have gone to Cuenca, a city where I really want to go to but because of a competition I couldn’t go when the group went. Normally I would have gone there for my short exchange, but sadly that didn’t go trough... now I am going to Guayaquil (Ecuador’s biggest city) instead in the beginning of June.

We, my hostsister and I, were thinking about buying a dog for the family as a suprise, but when we went to buy one they didn’t have any boys and we knew that our dad doesn’t want a girl. That way we still don’t have a dog, but we are probably soon getting one.

Last Sunday, my hostsister, Katelijne and I went to Loja with our aunt. We first went to Reigna del Cisne, there we went to church at 6 a.m., thats’s the earlierst I’ve ever been there. After that we went to a park in Loja where we took some really cool pictures. It is a 5-hour drive from Machala to Loja, the first one we left in the night and I couldn’t sleep so I sat in church without a minute of sleep and I must say that that’s not the best idea... but during our ride to Loja, I could finally sleep.

So, this was it for now, I will later post some pictures. Hopefully I will be able to update soon and won’t forget about it... see you later.

~Lynn