Checking In

Well, it’s been a while. We haven’t made any posts for a variety of reasons. The first is that a lot of the things we usually blog about are related to the transition to living and working in Quito and many of our “firsts” were already posted. This year we have an apartment, a car, a working knowledge of the city, and as a result quite a few of our amusing struggles are kind of not happening right now. That is not something I’m complaining about but it does explain some of the delay in posting.

Anyway, we’re back to school and things are going well. Both Shannon and I have some new responsibilities professionally and while we’re busy at work we are beginning to hit our stride. We have resumed our Spanish lessons and that is going well also. For the first time in my teaching career I have the opportunity to teach students who I had the year before as well. It’s great to start the year with a relationship and working knowledge of the students as well.

As far as a volcano update, we are constantly checking the news and hearing things from other people. We were told that it’s now not an IF question but a WHEN question. We have loaded up on water, canned food, tape (for sealing the windows), and ash masks. We are as prepared as possible. Rumors are circulating about when things are going to go down but to the best of my knowledge no one really knows. It’s kind of odd to compare how people are preparing for the volcano with other experiences I’ve had with natural disasters. Pretty much my only experiences constitute a few hurricanes and blizzards. Those at least give you a warning of when to expect the worst. This volcano thing just has everyone on the edge of their seats holding their breath.

We did get to see it for ourselves while on our way back from Otavalo last weekend (more on that later) and it was crazy to see.

Anyway, we are in a groove of school and awaiting a volcanic explosion. We hope it’s not too serious but all we can do in the meantime is hope. We are still doing some planning for the wedding little by little and have a few weekend trips planned for the coming months. To any family and friends reading this, we miss you all and look forward to seeing you all soon.