Ah, I think I have finally established a schedule here.  I like having some sort of routine so I don’t feel so frantic all the time.  My week is now set up where I teach with Tia Patti every day except Wednesdays.  On Wednesdays I head into Quito and volunteer with FINCA.  And then in the late afternoons Monday through Thursday I have my Spanish class at the university.  Perfectly filled days!

This was my first week really spending any time in the FINCA office.  Tuesday was mainly giving me information to read, looking over existing and future marketing creative and meeting some people in the office.  I’ll admit that Tuesday was HARD.  I was thinking maybe I’d be working more with the other two non-FINCA employees who speak English and Spanish fluently (one woman is from England here for 6 weeks, one guy is Canadian here as a contractor until at least May) so that I would have some help.  Nope.  As of right now I am only working with the Marketing Director who speaks only Spanish.  It took all my brain power to concentrate on what she was telling me and to try to respond in some reasonable fashion.  I was about done by lunch time. Ha.

Since Tuesday was more of a “set up” day I came back to FINCA on Wednesday, but actually had an opportunity to go out into the barrios and visit some bancos comunales (I wanted to include a photo of the meetings but my iPhoto doesn’t seem to be caught up with my uploaded photos.  Boo.  Another time).  FINCA uses the village banking system where they give a loan to a group of people and they are all held responsible to one another.  The meetings were really great and nicely enough the English woman was with us so she could translate things I wasn’t following. It was interesting hearing the loan officer from FINCA give her opinion on the village banking method, what she finds effective about microfinance and what she would improve.  And of course at each meeting they were super hospitable and made little snacks for us which I thought was nice.  I got to try my first colada morada and guagua de pan which are the traditional foods for the upcoming holiday on Monday – El Dia de los Muertos.

Speaking of the holiday, we get both Monday and Tuesday off here so it sounds like I’ll get a chance to go to Tena!  Tena is the jungle and where my cousin Marisa lives.  I didn’t get a chance to go there last time I was here so I’m looking forward to the trip.

In general everything is starting to feel a bit more familiar and I’m happy to have this opportunity.  Each day I feel a little more welcomed into the community.  This evening when I was walking home a car was driving past in the opposite direction when all of a sudden a loud, high voice called out “Hola Miss Lauren!!” and there was one of our students waving her little head and hand out the window at me.  It was great.