So, I´ve had my first two days teaching and have discovered that not too much changes with the students, the exception being that you don´t know how large the collective vocabulary is. So, more than ever, I might be talking and talking and nobody might be understanding. Which gives me more motivation to stop talking and check to see what is being understood... ah, the teacherly inquiry.

I have also found out that I will never again whine about the hoops, bureaucracy, random necessities of college adminis-distraction again after having copy-center, bus-center, and computer experiences from hell. Not really from hell, because I´m not at the point where I care too much, but to the point rather where I could see that these could simulate hell with the right sort of impatience factor. The copy center, in case you wondering, fronts as the college bookstore (copyrights to hell), and everything I want my students to read, I need to put on ¨reserve¨ there, although it appears that certain sections have been lost, and I´m not sure what materials I really am using anymore. I plan on getting there early tomorrow and seeing if I can make heads or tails of anything.

It's a good thing I am enjoying my students, who seem as sweet and cajoling as any students, and have already proffered a great deal of excuses that I´m going to allow for a week before busting a move. But they at least ·seem· to be laughing with me, not at me, especially when I demonstrated my hopping-on-the-bus experience.

This weekend was probably just the prep that I needed before hopping down on the tracks. I tried to drag friends somewhere (anywhere) with me on Saturday, without much luck, and even called the German woman who gave me her number to see if she was up for a tour in exchange for dinner, but she ever-so-politely asked for my name three times, ignored it three times, and then never got back to me. By the way ¨calling¨ someone here means ¨texting¨ them via cellphone, since it costs dollars, not cents for a few minutes on the phone, but a text message is about 3 pennies. Back to the point, while I´m not exactly giving up on the people I´ve met, I´m not exactly counting on them for hanging out. So, I went to the city-center by myself and had a great time.

I took the bus for the first time, even climbing on while it was still moving, as if I had been doing it for years. I got scared that maybe I was going to the wrong spot, but quickly realized that I could ask someone, and did so. It´s pleasing and surprising sometimes to realize that you do indeed have words and the capacity to break stranger bounderies.

Downtown Guayaquil is an interesting spot... from block to block you wander from tourist centers, slums, business centers, black markets, town beautifician project, and upscale stores. One block smells like piss and the next block sports colors you would lick if they were lollipops. I climbed to the top of ¨Las Penas¨ and noted that Guayaquil is a vast white series of barrios with new little nobs at the center, from which I could see very very very far, both down along the swampy river with its floats of vegetation and Venitian boats, and also out into a great smoggy white sheen of houses. I live to the north of the two nobs, next to the airport, which I can hear at all hours, and I could see it from the nob of Las Penas, even better from the lighthouse on the top of the nob of Las Penas. Up there, the air is lovely, a breeze that floods water out of the air, and the fresh fresh smell of a salty-seeming river. It smells like a port town.

I also got to go to a contemporary art museum, which was well worth the 3 bucks it cost to view modern/realist/surrealist/parodic paintings, drawings and sculptures from Ecuadorian artists. The focus seemed to be on representing the struggles of the subaltern, los indigenos, los negros, y todos los pobres de este parte del mundo. A full room for ¨boundary-crossing¨ art, which made me think of NAM who is studying the lands of crossover, clash, head-bashing, and blurring. I was also happy with two hours of air conditioning.

Speaking of which, this town is cooling down, and I´m surprised to hear myself say words I never imagined myself saying: thank-god for a cooling. Anyhow, times up at the La FAE cybernet cafe.