Family Visit: Week 8

This week some of my dad, brother, aunt, and uncle came to visit Quito! I had told them such wonderful things about Ecuador and they took advantage of some cheap airfare and Labor Day weekend and came on down to the southern hemisphere. Sinamune was on break the whole week, which was really nice. I used the time to catch up on my Spanish lessons, for FOUR hours a day, which was a lot. I also continued teaching at the Nucleo. My family arrived late Wednesday night and would stay through the weekend.

Monday, August 27^th, 2018

Today was a great day. It was so nice to get back into things, and also to have a reasonable defined schedule where I knew what to expect. I had four straight hours of one-on-one Spanish lessons and it actually wasn’t as bad as I expected; it went by pretty fast.

Then I actually had time to eat a quick lunch before heading to the Nucleo. In my first group, only one student came, so I essentially just gave her a voice lesson, which went really well.

In my next group, I had five students. We did some really good work on technique and then I reviewed the songs we had been working on. I isolated some problem spots using solfege, and they successfully sang in three parts for the first time! It was so exciting because they realized it, and to see everything click and their faces light up was just the best!

I came home and had cafecito with my Quito family and then went to bed early, because I am still a little bit agripada and need the rest.