An A to Z of Latin American Sport

Today's blog is brought to you by ESPN, which we actually have in our host family house, thus enabling me to watch more sport than I was technically able to at home. I'm all for expanding my culture horizons but hey, I have needs. So here's a quick rundown of life in Quito this week from a sporting perspective.

Athletics- numerous disciplines including triple jumping across pavements (drain covers are optional here and the holes are about 20ft deep) and hammer (what I would like to do to the dog downstairs which, let me put on record, is the most annoying creature on the planet and which I am going to drop kick into Colombia when we leave)

Basketball- unlikely to garner any medals for Ecuador. I am above average height here and Chris is some form of giant.

Cricket- little success so far in explaining this to either Ecuadoreans or Americans

Darts- how one gets across roads. Highway Code not invented here yet.

Equestrianism- Chris did not allow me to go on the Oh-so-tacky horse drawn carriage tour round the Old Town. Spoilsport.

Fencing- what keeps us away from the numerous vicious and possibly rabid dogs here.

Golf- one of many varieties of VWs of which Ecuador is particularly fond. Chris is keeping a Beetle tally

Hiking- quite a lot of this required. We have a 30 minute walk to work and we also come home for lunch. Two hours walking per day and that's uphill and before we get to the fun stuff.

Ice-skating. Technically it's winter here but so far we've been living through a heat wave and it's been 22 degrees or higher everyday.

Judo - required to keep the kids we are working with in check. They don't play by the rules and tend to swarm on you all at once.

Karate- see above.

Live Football- due to the delights of cable television and the existence of a dubious Irish bar called Finn McCools in the Mariscal, we've been able to watch a lot of english games and the american football but we've also seen our host dad and his team play in the local park league on Sunday. Unfortunately they were thrashed 11-2 but we learnt a lot of useful vocab.

Mountaineering- Later this week we're off higher up into the mountains to visit our host brother, who is building a pig farm in a village further north in Pinchaca province. So far I have not succumbed to altitude sickness although my girly-weed boyfriend seems to have a mild case.

Name that Food- not a sport but an amusing pastime nevertheless. Not always recognisable but so far always delicious. Phew.

Orienteering- so far so good. If you keep the statue of the Virgin on the hill on your right generally going in the right direction. Haven´t worked out how to navigate by the sun yet. it doesn't seem to behave the same way here.

Polo- saw some of this while trying to find our way to work in the thursday market having got off the bus too early. It was a welcome relief from waving at all the soldiers in the army bases that we had inadvertently stumbled across.

Quizzing- not a sport of course more of an art form, but those of you worrying that Chris is lacking home comforts will be pleased to hear he's located a pub quiz for Tuesday nights.

Rowing - haven't had any fights at all yet (see what I did there?)

Squash- What happens on the trolley bus on a Friday night

Torture- there is an exercise bicycle in the living room and the kids in the family (abetted by Chris) take great pleasure in making me sweat away on it in the evenings. I'm trying not to take this too personally.

Union, Rugby - THEY'RE SHOWING THE SIX NATIONS! :-)

Volleyball- national past time. Nets stretched out across parks and some roads. Very popular. Only played by men though.

Wrestling- what we're still doing with the language, albeit much better than last week.

X - country. Trips planned this month include a trip to the beach (six hours away), Otavalo market, Latacunga and the Quilotoa Loop. More on these later.

and finally...

Ziplining- we're heading off to the Cloud Forest of Mindo next Monday (yes, it does sound like it should be in Star Wars) for some hardcore ziplining through the forest. Apparently I get to jump about like Spiderman. It's a hard life.

(P.S Yes, I missed out Y. I didn't think anyone would be awake after such a long posting)

Language barrier

I had been under the impression that I was fairly competent at spanish. And it´s true that when I arrived I was fluent in Hola magazine terminology and could name parts of my body. Coming to Ecuador has been something akin to falling into a well of Spanish. The family we are staying with are fantastic but they don´t really speak any english at all and so I had to hit the ground running. Drawing pictures of pineapples and forks will only get you so far. I was doing fairly well yesterday until I tried to explain to the assembled family over dinner that I needed to buy a pair of sunglasses. ´Neccesito comprar las golfas´I proudly announced. A moment of stunned silence and then a roar of laughter. The word I was scrabbling for was ´gafas´(goggles). What I had actually declared to my kindly Catholic hosts was ´I need to buy some whores´. Not even one whore. Whores in the plural. Nice introduction. As my host dad pointed out though, at least I said it at the dinner table and not in a shop. Spanish- one. Lucy-nil.
As part of our volunteering experience we are doing a crash course in the language (20 hours intensive) which I hoped would reduce the number of such incidents but I still managed to substitute the word ´fear´with ´shit´. Miraculous, I think, that of all the inappropriate words in spanish I have discovered two by accident within 48 hours. Good work.
My spanish teacher has the somewhat unorthodox approach of using Lady Gaga to form all her examples and questions. So I have to date described Lady Gaga using the imperfect tense, discussed whether I would like to be her in the conditional tense, and postulated on her next antics in the future tense. In between I have read a pornographic story (to demonstrate the pluperfect tense,with the additional benefit of further expanding my dinner table vocabulary and ensuring I know exactly what to ask my golfas for when I procure them) and learnt the history of Ecuador. Between these fascinating cultural exchanges I have also been given a lot of homework in the form of long lists of irregular verbs. When I asked why all the verbs were irregular she just shrugged and said ´Es la culpa de Espana´. It´s the fault of the Spanish.
Quite.

First impressions

So, here we are in Quito. The journey was long but largely uneventful although we were bumped to an earlier flight so instead of a relaxing amble through the delights of the duty-free shops there was an unsightly scramble for the departure gate. Perhaps for the best as less time to dwell on the magnitude of the forthcoming plan. Spent large part of the trip scanning horizon for sight of land. The Atlantic Ocean turns out to be rather big- who knew? - and rather dull view-wise although I did spot at least 60 separate cloud formations masquerading as shoals of hammerhead sharks.

Flying into Quito is a pretty impressive sight as the city is in an Andean valley and the mountains sort of roll down from all sides. Despite my hypochondriac tendencies I couldn´t really notice the fabled thin air at altitude but then again walking from an airport to a waiting car is not exactly taxing exercise wise. The people who picked us up helpfully spoke to us in the slow, careful spanish reserved for small children and nervous looking gringos and I was pleasantly surprised to understand at least three quarters of the words. We drove through the new part of town and through the old quarter which has some nice looking colonial architecture and steep paved streets. I think our leg muscles are going to get a hefty work out. We are staying with a family in the south of town, about 30 minutes walk from the HQ of our volunteering offices. The family- a mum, dad and two girls aged 10 and 19, seem really lovely, although by this stage my spanish was running out so I was answering everything with a sort of inane smile and a newly acquired ridiculous 1980s gameshow host double thumbs up, much to my embarassment. With luck I´ll have gotten over this little gestural tic before too long as I couldn´t really look more of a twat doing it. There is a girl from Denver, Rachel, staying here too this week (a previous volunteer) who helped out as an informal translator as the family speak only spanish with a bit of spanglish thrown in. Ate a very nice dinner with something called mote- kind of big soaked corn husks fried in something and then I went to bed while Chris stayed around showing off his mastery of the subjunctive and endearing himself to everyone in his usual manner.
This morning we have been down to Volunteer HQ where we have met the other volunteers (mainly american) and been given some duties for the next week or so and this afternoon we have an orientation session. We will be having spanish lessons in the morning (thank God!) and then working in the afternoons. Everyone we have met so far has been really lovely and while everything feels VERY strange I am still very glad we came. Will update later in the week when we have started on our project.

Insert reality check here

Welcome to the blog! This first bit is by way of explaining what Chris and I will be up to in the coming 11 months or so. For those of you who have been to the pub with either of us in the last 18 months or so this information has already become tediously repetititious so feel free to skip ahead.
On January 18th at 4am we shall begin the 12 hour process of flying to Quito in Ecuador, where we will be hosted by an Ecuadorian family for three months while we do goodly works in the community and Chris tries to learn to like fish stew. From here we travel via the Galapagos Islands through Ecuador and northern Peru in a month before pitching up in Cuzco, where we spend two more months volunteering, climb Macchu Picchu, swim Lake Titicaca, farm the llamas and change socks. Then a whistlestop tour of Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil, before collapsing in a heap in Rio and flying home in time for Christmas.

At least that's the plan. The problem with planning a trip for so long is that when it actually arrives it doesn't feel any more momentous or real than booking a long weekend on the Isle of Wight. Consequently I've thrown a load of equipment (crampons, quindingles, everything solar-powered) out of Chris's backpack that he will almost certainly require immediately upon arrival, and have failed to go to the dentist to have a tooth filled. I call this 'intrepid and fearless'. Chris calls this 'badly prepared and foolhardy'. Potato, Patate...