Day 13: A setback

Today, in the afternoon I call the director of Pacari again. At first he’s in a meeting and wants me to call back in ten days. I say I don’t have that much time in Quito, so he lets me call later in the day. Doing so, he tells me they are really busy at the factory and that this month is not a good time. He talks a bit about doing interviews over skype and whatnot. In any way, there is a setback: my case of this month is not going to happen. I may as well take some more lessons of Spanish and have some fun, but that’s not going to be a problem.
In any case I e-mail my supervisor with two suggestions: Either I go to my backup plan and choose a new case, for example Kallari chocolate; or I go to Guayaquil as soon as possible and do the coffee case first. I hope for an answer soon, so I can make the necessary arrangements. Things just happen this way in Ecuador, some things take longer, some things get cancelled.

Day 12: 3 May

Past Sunday, I appeared to have missed something: Mariela had a presentation of her culture (Indígena from Napo) at the presidents house. I didn’t exactly understand what she invited me for when she called me Sunday morning, but now I do. Perhaps I will get another chance later. She told me she has another performance later this month.

This week we changed teachers at the school. This is one of the strengths of the education I think, because you get multiple ways of teaching. Every teacher has her own way. Now I have Elisa as my teacher. Wednesday is supposed to be my last day, but perhaps I will enjoy some more days of education: I will get back to that later.
At the school, I made friends with another student: Victor from Nigeria. As we walked to restaurant Shakti where I wanted to eat, he was telling me about what he thought of Ecuador. In the 9 days that he’d been in the city, he has experienced quite some racism. People going out of his way, mothers taking their kids away from him and as he told me: A security guard stopped him from entering a bank. Only after expressing clearly (in English, because he just started his Spanish lessons) that he wanted to withdraw money from the bank, he was let through. Nevertheless, they kept a close eye on him. And to me, Victor seems like a very nice, open and friendly guy.
It is also something I heard from some of my Ecuadorian friends, that there are some problems with criminality in the black community in Quito. Of course, I don’t know how it is exactly, but my guess is that there is indeed some racism (clearly, following the stories of Victor), because of criminal activities by a small number of a minority group. I had already decided that not to judge the friends that have these ideas, but should the opportunity present itself I would show them that they’re wrong. It’s a different culture here, and I don’t know the problems, so who am I to judge, right?

When I get to the restaurant, I notice I missed a call, so I call back. “Where are you?” – “I’m at a restaurant” – “But I’m not at the restaurant, but at the café”. Right, so I didn’t get that phone call yesterday at all. Without knowing it, Mariela had started to work at Kallari again and wanted to prepare my lunch. Well, no problem for me. So I walk back passed the school to the café and order a ‘sanduche’ with guacamole, some yucca snacks and a mora ‘jugo’ (juice). Naturally, while not helping clients in the café, she’s doing some homework or another.