La Ciudad de Quito

Amigos Y Amigas,

I simply cannot wait any longer to write about Quito. I will not be able to remember.

So here it goes.

CARLO: The best thing about Quito is Carlo. We were acquaintances in graduate school who knew each other through our mutual friend Jessica. And, between many, many, many cultural drinks at my house (read: caipirinhas and mojitos) I told him I was coming to travel in South America and he said I should come to Quito. That experience and his enormous heart has meant 6 weeks in Ecuador, language school, a great apartment with a great view, an outstanding instant set of friends, and a deeper connection with someone who is simply beautiful. We have had a great time between Spanish and English, a series of fun outings and a lot of heart to hearts at this house. I am really looking forward to the weeks to come. For those who always ask – Mother, Drew, Mindy, Tricia, Nicole, etc…I am being very well taken care of.

QUITO: Quito is a beautiful city. The mountains around it are outstanding, the people very open and kind, and there is green everywhere. The bus system is great, the traffic lights work (and most of the time people respect them), and I have yet to feel like someone is not being honest with me. The only down side is that it is basically chilly. It is the end of summer here and between the mountains, the valley and the Andes the nights are cold. But, all is well with my many blankets and heater. The days are actually very nice, mostly very sunny, and actually, thankfully somewhat not overly hot. You say, “Julio does not want it REALLY HOT? What happened?” Well, this is Ecuador, the middle of the world, the equator. The sun is both close and directly above us. A little bit in the sun can really burn. So, the tempered sun is actually better…and well, the skin is important when you are approaching 30….something.

LANGUAGE SCHOOL: In one word language school is HARD. The Portuguese is really getting in my way. I understand 95% of everything and that does make it easier, but trying to talk is another story. I get my words out, I am mostly understood, but I make A LOT OF MISTAKES. Some of the challenges are – while Spanish and Portuguese are close in vocabulary the languages actually come from different roots. I am pretty sure everything comes from Latin (Spanish, French, etc) but Portuguese has a Celtic root thus making the actual structure of the languages different. (Anston, am I full of crap?)

There are three key areas I work on the most: 1) Patience and speed. I am totally impatient with myself and I don’t seem to be able to talk slowly…in any language. My teacher keeps telling me I am too smart and I need to slow down and that I need to think more basically. She says I ask all the hard, exception in the language, questions. Maybe she is right, but this practical brain says…kudos to my intellect, but now I WANT TO TALK!!! 2) Direct and Indirect Complements. These are the lo, la, te, los, las, etc. They are totally referential (not sure if this is the right word). Let us say you start a conversation with I LOVE MY MOTHER AND I BOUGHT HER FLOWERS. That will probably be the last time you refer to your mother and the flowers as mother and flower. From now on it will all become LA and LAS and when they are used together SE. I am in LALALA land. It is a brain click thing and I hope the AHA moment happens soon. 3) Vocabulary. I have to learn more words, and I have to make sure to say the ones I know correctly. For instance, today I told my teacher I had 34 anos. Well, when spoken in Portuguese that means I have 34 years of age. But, in Spanish it means I have 34 anuses. Needles to say I know say I have almost 30 años.

LANGUAGE SCHOOL TEACHERS: My program is also a bit tough because it is all one on one. Each week I change teachers and work with that one person for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. My first teacher was, let us say, interesting. He started the day by asking me a series of personal questions – name, background, work, and relationship. Among my answers I told him I was gay and he said that was ok. I tried not to roll my eyes because he meant well. Then, he proceeded to correct me every time I said I had a novio (boyfriend). “No, no, es noviA.” Anyhoo. That was not the interesting part. He is the interesting part.

Later in the day I asked him the same series of questions. The answers. “I am a teacher. I am a Hindu (He is not Indian and one cannot convert to being a Hindu). I am a vegetarian and I am celibate. Oh, and I do not shake hands.” Now, I am a progressive thinker who has traveled to a lot of the world by now and I am all about respecting people, and I respected him all week. (Ok, this email is a tricky thing, but it is, after all, my Blog, and my experience.) So, here I am all open to my Hindu, Vegetarian, Celibate, No touch Teacher. Except, for the next 5 days many, many of his examples where about women, their bodies, sex, and he even asked me if I was interested in learning dirty words. (A request made by many travelers according to blogs I read prior to language school) All in all, a very odd experience. Very odd. I never thought he did not mean well, it was just wacked. Ok, so now the story does not seem so funny. I hope you enjoyed it. WAIT, THERE IS MORE….

This week I started with new teacher. Ines/Ynes. I love her already. Single mom, kick-ass, told me she was really homophobic growing up, taught her son to be homophobic and then had an amazing reality check when her son told her she had taught him to hate people. Together they worked on a lot of their issues and she is totally open and asks lots of questions and we talk and share. BUT, she received the evaluation Oscar did on me at the end of the week so she could continue my course of study. It read…

“Julio speaks English, Portuguese and has a good handle of Spanish. He understands almost everything. He is gay. He is working hard on direct and indirect complements…” I could not contain myself and asked Ines. Does the fact that I am gay give me some special language knowledge or affect my ability to learn, therefore making it into this report? We laughed hysterically for minutes.

AND, FINALLY, HOW AM I DOING: Well. It has been a little hard to get used to being away from home again. I miss Drewzie terribly. We put together a beautiful apartment in LA and then I took off. It has been hard to be away. He is intensely supportive of my goals and I try my best to support him in continuing his TV work from here. Of course, it has also been wonderful because we do seem to be so supportive even so far apart and that counts for a lot.

This is a very different trip. I am actually living in Quito. Six weeks is a long time with one outfit. Drew has sent me a package of my clothes that should arrive here this week, I bought new shoes (do not all be surprised at once now), and I go out dancing, have friends, and have days I am really energetic and days I just go home and read either The Color of Water or Del Amor y Otros Demonios by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I am also meeting with a guy who does anti-trafficking work tomorrow and I am working on other contacts. I made dinner for friends. A friend (Carla) and I are planning on cooking Indian food at the end of the week, and I go out to dinner. Yes, this all means I spend a lot more money. But it is now and will all work out on the finance thing.

I am happy to have a schedule. I feel like I am achieving something with language school. I am happy that I have plans for the future. I am not eager to have a job AT ALL, but I am ok that I will have to have one some day in the next year. I am doing yoga twice a week. I am continually working on just being ok with all that I am and all that the world brings to my attention. It is easier to be this way traveling. Real life is oddly incarcerating. I really did encage myself in 4 months in LA. I was so damn worried about getting a job, having a life goal, being something. Here I am active, but I do not feel the cloud of MUST BE in the air. It makes sense, I know, but it is actually happening inside, not just conceptually. I am hoping that this type of a trip, this way of traveling with schedules and things to achieve, will teach me more about how I can translate this into my future LA life.

Ok, CPS is kicking in. My arms hurt. Write and let me know how you are doing when you can.

Besos to all,

Hulito

"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." V.

www.brazilbean.net