My time in Guayaquil got off to a wonderful start. Coming off the plane, the first person holding a sign had a sign with “Ferrell” on it. I met John, who is my sponsor, who I’d been in communication with beforehand. He’s the General Services Officer, which is the person at an embassy/consulate who handles facilities, contracts, supplies, vehicles, and other logistics. He had one of the drivers, a very nice and helpful guy name Gunther with him. Gunther led me right past the line of people waiting to talk to the immigration officials and instead to a window that might’ve been either for Ecuadorian citizens or flight crew, guessing by the people around me, but there was no wait. Gunther spoke with the guy for a second, I handed over my passport, the official confirmed I’d never been to Ecuador and came off the flight from Miami, and we were off to grab my bags. It was undeniably the fastest I’ve ever gone from plane to bags after an international flight-part of that is because the airport isn’t that big. We loaded them into the back of a Suburban the Consulate owns, and Gunther drove John and me back to my house. John gave me some helpful information about the house, the town, my neighborhood, and life in Guayaquil in general. He let me into the house, gave a brief tour, and handed me the keys. He had stocked the fridge with a few things I had requested (they solicit the request) and there were sheets on the bed and towels in the bathroom. There were also some plates, cups, utensils, pots, pans, microwave, toaster, blender, and coffee maker in the kitchen.
This is all part of the welcome kit that the Consulate/Embassy provides in the residence for all new hires. The State Department ships up to 7,200 pounds of household goods as well as 1 or 2 vehicles (depending on the country) for each person it sends abroad in the Foreign Service. They’ll ship 250 pounds of that by air, which comes maybe in three weeks, maybe in six weeks. The rest is shipped by sea, and takes maybe six to ten weeks to arrive. So, the welcome kit is at everyone’s house upon arrival so they can operate fairly normally from day one.
My house is spacious. I’ll post more about it soon enough, maybe after I get a few pieces of furniture moved around. It comes furnished, including a washer, dryer, and refrigerator. It’s two stories, all tile floors, with two bedrooms upstairs, a bedroom/study downstairs, as well as a kitchen, dining room, and family room.
It’s inside a gated community called Puerto Azul, which has one big apartment building, a few sets of townhouses, and houses ranging from two story, two or three bedroom units with no garage, to some absolutely humongous houses-which look to have at least five bedrooms, and three car garages, with huge yards. Because many of the houses have solid cement walls in front of them, you can’t even tell how big some of the larger ones are. John said there are about 2,500 units in the community, so it’s fairly large. Based on the variety of cars and houses, it seems to have a pretty large span of wealth levels. It’s on Via a la Costa, which is a long highway that stretches from a big clover leaf interchange at the NW edge of Guayaquil to the west, eventually connecting with roads headed to the beach, hence its name. There are gated communities on both sides of the road for a good three miles, and there are plenty under construction further and further west.
(some flowers from a walk around my neighborhood)
As my flight got in just before 11, I didn’t do much unpacking, but went straight to bed. The next morning, Sarah, my future boss, volunteered to take me to the store. She wasn’t going away this holiday weekend (as John was). She, her husband, and two boys (2nd and 3rd grade) picked me up and we headed to MegaMaxi. It’s much like a Wal-Mart or Target, with small sections of clothes, a fair amount of home goods, and about all the groceries you might need. I stocked up on a few things I immediately knew I needed. They didn’t have dryer sheets. The spices selection was much smaller than what you’d see at even a smaller supermarket in the US. One liter of pasteurized 100% orange juice was $3.05. At first, I didn’t think they’d have any, because there was none in the entire aisle of orange juice drinks (you know, 20% juice, the rest sugar water). But, they did have the solid dishwashing soap in a plastic tub that was all the rage in Costa Rica. I really like this soap, I’ve always thought it’s a way easier than having to pour out dish soap from a bottle. You just scrape the top of the soap with your sponge-a one-handed affair. A lot of things were about the same price as in the U.S. Whole grain pasta was more expensive, and they had but two kinds. Hand soap was pricier. Bananas were 33 cents a pound, which considering they were probably grown but 20 miles away, goes to show how low shipping costs are these days and thus how bananas are a global commodity.
Later in the day they volunteered to give me a little driving tour of town. Her husband was very knowledgeable and pointed out way too many places than I can remember. We parked at the Malecon, which is a large riverside park/shopping center that was set up a few years ago to revitalize the shore. We walked through a bit of it, and a beautiful old neighborhood called Las Peñas, which is in the area the original city and port were set up by the Spanish colonizers back in the mid 16th century. We grabbed a bit in a museum building and then headed back, as the boys were getting a bit bored.
On Sunday, I headed to the beach, again with Sarah and her family, as they and three other families from the Consulate were making the trip there. We went to Playas (oh so creatively named), which is the closest beach town to Guayaquil. The waves were good, not too rough, the water was a bit sandy, and the sand was a teeny bit muddy, but the beach is very big, so overall a pretty nice beach. They had chairs and tents set up (for a price) and we grabbed lunch in a restaurant, which was passable but overpriced (as expected). Two of the other families have babies/toddlers, so I spent much of my time not reading my book but in pure amazement at how many times a baby can pick up sand, throw it in the air, and still be amazed at what happens next. One of the guys I met that works at the Consulate is from Clear Lake, IA. Apparently there’s a third guy at the Consulate from Iowa, some were amazed at this. I just said Iowa’s full of great people, with kind personalities, and a good education system-so maybe it makes good diplomats. I could’ve just said, there’s a .9% chance any American is Iowan, but there’s variation, and one Consulate isn’t a very big sample size; but it didn’t seem the right thing to say to new coworkers.
Monday was spent sleeping in, doing laundry, reading, watching movies, rearranging some furniture, and lightly organizing the few things I brought in my checked bags.
Tuesday was actually very low key. I sifted through some of the papers I had and got the ones I figured I’d need for the first day of work together. Otherwise I advanced a bit in my book and watched a movie or two.
It’s now Wednesday, February 25, and I finally have internet installed in my house. The guys from TVCable installed it earlier tonight. Nothing incredibly exciting has happened in the past week and a day, besides the fact that I have officially given official visas to a few first time (potential) travelers to the United States, and denied a few people that ability as well. Checked out the mall, movie theater, and a restaurant or two, but nothing too crazy-and watching lots of Spanish language movies-favorite so far has been El Secreto de Sus Ojos, highly recommend.
