the beginning of the end

the title is far more dramatic than real life; its my final week here in quito, my final week of work and my final week of lessons then i am free!
monday was fairly uneventful, i was invited for tea on tuesday by a woman i know from the hospital and some other volunteers which i hadn´t yet met (i accepted) and when i got to school, Jose, the director told me that i would be having a new teacher -Pablo, the oldest teacher in the school, rather odd and nowhere near as fun as my previous teacher, Vilma (worst luck). tuesday, i ran 12km in preparation for sunday, told Jose that i would prefer to have Vilma back as my teacher, he said only on the condition i help him out tommorow (more on that later) and then in the evening i went out for tea. It turns out the woman form the hospital hadn´t told the other 3 volunteers i was coming. so they were rather shocked when i turned up at their house, but were very welcoming. we went to a lovely restaurant and the conversation, half english- half spanish was flowing until we got onto the subject of why they all spoke such good spanish and which charity we worked for. it turns out that they had previously been missionaries in various latin american countries and so they are all here serving their church, haven´t yet put my foot in my mouth. and the conversation moves on, which church?- the church of the later day saints or mormons (oh thats why they´re not drinking beer with me); and so my questions (i just couldn´t help myself), what so you really believe in God? and is it true you can have more than one wife? didn´t go down too well. but all considered it was an interesting evening but they had to be home for 9.30, so it didn´t last too long.
wednesday, i had to arrive at school for 8.30 in the morning in order to help Jose. i hadn´t fully understood what i was to be doing, practising english with local students was as much as i had grasped the previous day, when he explained to me. 8.30 comes and goes, Jose is not at school, so i wait with Boris (the live-in attendant of the hostal) and an ecudorian girl who is also waiting for Jose- and who is getting increasingly angry that he is not here. when he finally arrives, it turns out that i should have left with the girl when she arrived 30 minutes ago! oops, she is fuming and doesn´t speak to me for the whole journey. We arrive at a lovely looking high school and i´m shown into a darkened room filled with (probably year 10 age) students all watching a movie in english. at the end of the movie the students are each given a topic and a short time to prepare, after which they must debate their point in front of he school and a panel of emminent judges (of which i´m appartently one!). the judges must question them on their understanding and then mark them on their pronunciation and eloquency of reasoning etc before choosing a winnner. the students were all excellent, and i was very impressed with the quality of the answers. i did however, feel slightly out of my depth in the questioning of them and among the other judges, who all seemed to work in government departments! it was a fun and different way to spend a morning and i enjoyed it.