Ecuador Nightlife, My Host Brother, and Learning Spanish

The nightlife in Cuenca is spectacular and thrilling.  Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights were prime times for us students to go out and enjoy the evening.  Juan Pablo, my 19-year-old host brother, would come home from his classes at the university, eat a bit of dinner, and then walk up to my room and say, "Ok Mathieu, les go!"  This is always humorous, because my name is Matthew, but the "th" sound is very hard for many Spanish-speakers to pronounce, so my name ends up having the French pronunciation of "Mayh-tyuu".  I give him credit though, as the "th" is almost audible, and he is way closer than anyone else in the family to getting it right.  Anyways, we drive around the city, and it amazes me that he is familiar with so many people and places.  Anytime there is a cool view or a neat building, we go check it out.  We go to the bar, the dance clubs, and even the street stores and sidewalk vendors to buy delicious hot dogs at one in the morning.  We usually run into a few people that Pablo knows, and we always have pretty cool conversations.  I love speaking Spanish with all of them.  That being said, most of the young people that are Pablo's age know a decent amount of English.  This underscores the amount of interaction that Ecuador's residents have or will have with people from English-speaking countries like the U.S.  This demonstrates the USA's economic power because the Ecuadorian government has mandated English be taught because of its value (They need our dollars).

By traveling about the cities, I have had the pleasure of being able to hear so many peoples' accents in not only Spanish, but also in English.  I always go out and try to talk to as many people as I can, in as many places as I can, such as in the Galápagos, Intag, Baños, Guayaquil, Otavalo, and of course Cuenca.  Hearing all these different peoples' take on the Spanish and English languages will only further my knowledge of what it means to truly understand a language in all its aspects.  It all gets added to the collection for my future job as translator/interpreter (written & spoken word).  Of course, one of the greatest learning tools I have is Juan Pablo, my bi-lingual host brother who I constantly talk with about everything, including Spanish and English, IN Spanish and English!

Juan Pablo (right) and I (left).