"I live up? Yours?" Wait, what?

I have a friend from college that I worked with at the Telefund who is living in Quito right now, Jena. She's been here since the end of December, and will be here until around July. We've tried to meet up several times since I've been here, but it hasn't worked out, especially because I live pretty far from where she lives. We FINALLY got the chance to meet up on Sunday. It was really great seeing her, especially because we were both in Badger red. We found a bar downtown that plays the NCAA tournaments, and we sat watching the tournament on Sunday afternoon. Too bad the Badgers were EMBARRASSING and LOST by a ton. The good news is that no one else was watching the game, and that they actually didn't show very much of the game, because it was so bad, and because there were other games going on at the same time. To all of my fellow Badgers - I desperately missed watching the game in Madison, but know that I was thinking of all of you watching it here in Ecuador.

Every day, the students ask me more and more personal questions about my life. At least twice a week I get asked what kind of music I like. When I say Lady Gaga, they all go NUTS. Good answer. I think that on Friday I'm going to introduce them to the song "Telephone", because, much to my dismay, I've only just heard it for the first time a couple of weeks ago (as Taylor said "Sara, that song is OLD."), and it has not yet reached the equator. Well, MY students are in for a treat!!

The students are constantly asking me where I live. I actually live near a couple of pretty well-known landmarks, so my house is easy to locate (I'm never very specific...). Yesterday, one girl in the class, Domenika, was trying to tell me that she lived near me. In Ecuador, you say "arriba" to describe near, but translated, "arriba" means "up". So, Domenika is struggling for words, and she can't seem to find them. From what I gathered, she lives one block up from me (una esquina arriba). She keeps saying "Up, Teacher, UP!" And I looked at her and (as I often do) said, "I have no idea what you're saying." The girls around her are trying to help her and say, "Teacher, she lives up? Yours?" I start laughing. They don't get the joke. "No, Teacher, really, she lives up yours!" No, Angelica, I assure you that Domenika does not live up mine. Any more questions?

In other news, braces are becoming more popular for the youth down here. In one of my classes of 20, a whopping TWO kids have braces. One of them has a mouthful, and I swear he is ALWAYS picking food out of them, and he sits right in the front, and it REALLY grosses me out. His name is David, and he is a trouble-maker. Today, he was goofing off, and making faces and obnoxious things like that, and I was NOT laughing. Until. He somehow made his lips so you could only see his braces, and his face was contorted in this huge cheesy smile. I rolled my eyes.

All of a sudden I'm thinking "Oh, shit, this is going to be bad," because he stops laughing, tears come to his eyes, and his hands fly up to his mouth. His cheeks AND lips got STUCK in his braces, and he COULDN'T get his face out of this contortion. All of the students are laughing, and David is laughing as well, but it's one of those I'm-going-to-laugh-so-I-don't-cry laughs. HOW do you handle a situation like this? Never in my 3.5 years of braces (3.5 of the best years of my life, I might add), did I EVER get stuck THIS BAD. I literally just sat at my desk staring at him, while all of the students made a circle around his desk laughing and pointing.

Finally, Fabricio (David's fellow braces-buddy) goes over to David and does the un-thinkable: he literally RIPPED David's face out of his braces. I CRINGED, and everyone else did the GAAAAAAAAAASP!!! Now David is NOT laughing, but tears are still running down his cheeks. And there was blood. I'm still sitting at my desk in shock. Finally, I get my act together and bring him a Kleenex (I always have Kleenex handy because I have a fear of unexpected nosebleeds. It's happened before, and I haven't been prepared. It's a nightmare.) and send him to the doctor.

About 20 minutes later, David returns. When he came in the door, oh Lord did I TRY to not even SMILE, but I LAUGHED at the poor kid. He had cotton balls wadded up in his poor cheeks, and he couldn't move his face. He looked like a chipmunk. To make matters worse, some of the blood got on his white shirt, so he looked like a battle victim. The other kids start laughing, and I tell them to stop (my laughter was VERY brief), and I let David just basically sit in his desk and feel sorry for himself for the rest of class. I will say this - I don't think that David is going to goof around as much in my class anymore. I'm cringing just thinking about Fabricio yanking David's face out of his braces. Ouchie.

Until next time,
Sara - forever a Badger

PS: Shout-out to Sara Schoenborn. This update is for YOU.