The Adventures of a Ecuadorian Social Life

Living with a host family has been interesting from the beginning, but the recent development of a social life has made things even more interesting. My host family gets me up every morning at 7 am for breakfast, which had been do-able after SAE events because I usually get home around 11. But after my first night out with Ecuadorians, it was more of a challenge.

I'll start by trying to explain how Ecuadorians drink together. Towards the end of the night, we went to a bar and ordered 4 grande beers. You might think that we would then each drink a beer at our own pace. You would be wrong. We have four cups, and someone fills each cup, then we toast to something (Kansas, Happy Hour, Salud, whatever) and drink our cup. Then repeat. Until the beers are gone. Not a great way to drink if you're trying to slow down at the end of the night.

So the next morning at 7, about 5 hours after I get home, I get the knock on the door for breakfast. As the dutiful host daughter, I drag myself out of bed and go try to eat breakfast. After one bite it's clear to me that I just can't do it. So I go back to bed. My host family wasn't in the room when I left, so about 2 minutes later I hear my host mother come into my apartment and into my apartment. I know I can't form words in Spanish at this point so I just pretend to sleep and let her look at me in what I'm sure is massive confusion. "Is she dead? Is she sick?... What happened?" She leaves after a few minutes and I resume my preferred morning activity: sleeping.

At around 11:30, I'm still in bed and my host mother comes back into my apartment and bedroom (without knocking, I might add) and says "¿Que pasando???" I reply in Spanish that I'm just tired and I wasn't hungry for breakfast. She then asks if I'm sick and I have to reply that I'm just tired. At this point I find myself wondering if her kids ever went out to have a few drinks and wanted to sleep in the morning. Apparently not... She then proceeds to pull the covers over me and tuck me in so I can go back to sleep. It's all I can do to keep from bursting out laughing.

The crowning glory of this event is when I come to eat dinner and find my uneaten breakfast on the table waiting for me. Along with my dinner. I drink the juice but choose to pass on the bread and 12 hour old instant coffee. Needless to say, my host mother is shocked by my incredibly odd behavior. And that sentiment, my friends, goes both ways.