Thursday, October 6, 2011

You Make What?? (And, on a Lighter Note - 12 Hours till Life as an Illegal Immigrant)

On Tuesday our first round of paychecks arrived! Did I run to the office to pick it up? Not quite... There always has to be a catch. Starting from the day we arrived in the country we had 30 days to register our visas with the Ecuadorian government. The school, not wanting to cut it close to this 30 day limit promptly sent off our visa papers and... You guessed it. Our passports. And, without our passports we can't cash our paychecks. So here I am with $20 hidden away in my room and $2.58 in my wallet trying to avoid those delightful fees which seem to be handed out indiscriminately by ATM's to foreign debit card holders.

But life isn't that bad. Tomorrow we are all headed over to the Immigration office to complete some paperwork and get both our Ecuadorian ID cards and our passports.

Except... There's another catch. To fill out this paperwork we need a photocopy of one of our landlord's utility bills and another photocopy of their ID card. And even though an email was sent out more than 2 days ago I didn't learn any of this until late this afternoon since the school had sent the email to the wrong email address... So now it's 11 PM and I'm waiting up for our landlord to come home in the hope that she has these photocopies that we need. Otherwise 11 AM will roll around I will officially become an US immigrant to Ecuador without papers...

Just kidding!! The school already knows of our dilemma and says that we'll be fine. I just needed a good way to rope you guys in.. But the last thing I need is a bunch of people going around saying that they know the newest illegal immigrant to Ecuador.

So, how has life been going here?? Getting our first paychecks (we'll, you know what I mean) has been a really humbling experience. I might as well put it out there.. Although I haven't seen the exact figure yet, my first paycheck is going to be something very close to $300 (And, even though that's for 3 weeks of work, if you assume that I still need to eat and pay rent during school vacations, that means it's about $300 per month). To put it in context, though, you have to understand Ecuador.

For a full time worker the minimum wage is $240 per month. I'll be the first one to say that I'm lucky. I get my wage with 14 hours of teaching time and, let's say, 14 hours of preparation time per week. It's not that bad once you look at the hours. But, as I said, it's still a humbling experience. Most people here seem to agree that to live on $240 a month would be nearly be impossible.

As you walk around Cuenca one of my favorite parts are the parks scattered around the city. Just today I was able to claim my own bench in the shadows of a old church and read the newspaper for half an hour. But, while loving the parks I always wondered why the parks were always so full of people - most of the time just sitting their quietly and contentedly. Yes, there are some cultural differences that explain part of it, but I would argue that the main reason is economic... Sitting on a bench is an activity that is 100% free.

Disposable income is still a scarce commodity around here. And, it's even stranger being a Gringo, yet trying to convince the locals that I have to pinch pennies where I can. Cuenca is a city that, after a couple of articles about it being a 'retirement paradise' has become a Mecca for, mostly, Americans looking for cheap retirement options (Even if you haven't saved for retirement you can still live like a king down here). Just the other day an American was telling me about this fantastic restaurant... But the meal costs about $15 per person. Three of those and I can say goodbye to doing anything else the other 28 days of the month besides eating, sleeping and, of course, sitting on my bench (but this time without the newspaper).

Maybe it's because of this that I have become paranoid about being ripped off... Just today I was at an outdoor market and saw a small bucket full of onions. I asked how much they cost.. $1. Per onion? Nope, for the whole bucket. I didn't need all of the onions, though, and asked how much one onion and one tomato were. 50 cents. I gave her a strange look, wondering how I had just gone from about 12 onions for $1 to two pieces of fruit for 50 cents. I decided to try my luck with the next vendor.

After some hand wringing with the next vendor I came out with a price that even some of the Ecuadorians I work with were envious of (50 cents for 2 bananas, 3 tomatoes and 3 onions). But, don't forget, these are normal sized onions and tomatoes... And I'm starting to realize that 'normal' sized is a lot smaller than I thought it was.

But, back to me. It's crazy to think that I'm basically through another work week (we get Friday's off, but have work Saturday mornings). And, my mind feels numb by the end of everyday because of all of the Spanish I'm using. I guess that's what 2 hours of Spanish class, an hour lunch with Ecuadorian co-workers and another hour or two of Spanish will do to you. But, life is good. I don't think I would know what to do if I had hours of downtime...

Our landlady just got home. We'll have the papers for tomorrow. I guess that's one thing that I can cross of the 'very important, but for some reason I'm feeling ambivalent about' list.

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