Last Saturday we spent the night with all newbies at Ossie's place, one of my fellow colleagues. Before heading to Ossie's, I decided to meet up at Chelsey's place together with Craig and Megan for a pre-Ossie's. The girls had decided to make us self-made piña coladas. Needed: a coconut, a pineapple and a bottle of rum. Purchasing that coconut was not the most difficult part, but how to ask the salesguy to make a hole in your coconut as big enough to be able to get out both the juice and the meat? Besides this, carrying the coconut uphill with the hole on top was just one of Megan's majoraccomplishments of the day. Obviously we were committed to get out the meat as well, so we decided to drop the coconut from the 2^nd floor balcony. After two tries, Chelsey desperately instructed us to stop because her landlady might not be pleased to see a coconut getting splashed in front of her door. However, Megan and I decided to give it another try. I firmly grapped the coconut from the terrace and tossed it up again into Megan's hands. With a nice splash the coconut split into two parts and we could finally enjoy our piña coladas.

We then moved over to Ossie's, who cooked us an amazing multi-course dinner. We discussed all kinds of issues that matter in our daily lives as travelers or teachers aboard: US homeland security issues (or: how to get stuck into Canada?), how do I make a living as an English teacher, why to be a vegetarian, Chinese bank officials going crazy on stamps and last but not least should there be an obliged license to raise kids? Another major issue here in Cuenca is the so-called Gringo inflation. About ten years ago, Ecuador adopted the US dollar as its currency and since then has experienced relatively stable economic growth and welfare. Although bills and coins are US, price levels are definitely not. You can have a decent three-course meal for $1.50. However, local vendors have found out that most gringos are willing to pay higher prices or simply lack knowledge of the price levels. This is now causing significant increase of prices, so locals are unable to afford buying their food anymore or taxi drivers only pick up gringoes because they know they can charge them more. Apparently immigration is not just a Western issue, kind of intriguing!

During the past two weeks I've been spending most of my time teaching my new classes. I teach teenagers aged between 11 and 16 years, which is pretty intensive, but mostly fun! Teaching a language seems more than just presenting information in a logical order. It's all about making connections with your students. Presenting grammar and vocab is essential but pretty boring without any flavor or salsa. They are definitely likely to pick up more if they like the topics or feel familiar with them. Cracking their coconut is what you need to do so as to make it make sense to them.