Blog Post 12: Host family update and Neque

1) Upon meeting Maria Dolores initially I was a bit worried. For the first night we arrived and part of the first day we hardly spoke to her, but ever since she realized that Caitlin and I can speak Spanish fairly well things have been great. We talk with Maria every night at dinner for at least an hour and usually at breakfast for about a half hour. We have covered a wide variety of topics and Maria is very curious about what life is like in the United States. We talk about politics, jobs, food, college, family, our days, the weather and much more. Maria shows a genuine interest in the lives of both Caitlin and I as well as our pasts and plans for the future. Maria is very easy to get along with and very relaxed; we share a lot of laughs and stories. Maria works in a hair salon and has even offered to cut my hair for me. Listening to Maria talk about everything from the recent influx of Venezuelan refugees to her thoughts on her son's girlfriend (she isn't the biggest fan of the girl) has been an invaluable way to both practice my Spanish and learn about Ecuadorian Culture. 

 2) Today at Neque we made flowers with wooden sticks, felt, paper and paint; I was in the room with the older kids. Older children can be a bit more difficult to please at times: little kids are usually just happy to see you, older ones often take some prodding. I found myself talking with a table of girls for a bit casually and then at the glue station. It's important with kids that are a bit older to treat them accordingly, they don't like to be talked down to. I made sure while gluing the flowers and leaves onto the sticks to try to give the children choices like how they wanted the leaves positioned. Though it was a small thing I think that it is important for kids to be able to make choices for themselves and be independent. I think I was able to make the children feel a little of that today by treating them with the respect they deserved.

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