Spanish 1 Unit 4

La hora

¡Felicidades otra vez! Congratulations again. You now know how to say many things that you didn't know prior to this course. Now you can talk about the weather, days, dates and a few activities you like to do. You can express things you do in Spanish as well. You must keep in mind that fluency in Spanish (or any foreign language) does not happen overnight. It may seem to be a very slow process to you but it is one that is achieved the more you practice and seek ways to use your new skills.

In La hora, we are going to focus on Ecuador, a small country in South America. Ecuador is a country whose name is indicative of one of the important features of the country. The Equator runs through Ecuador, just to the north of Quito. The Mitad del Mundo is the museum just north of Quito where you can visit to see all kinds of information about the various indigenous tribes that once lived in the land we now call Ecuador. In this museum are artifacts from the various tribes as well as all kinds of information about the scientists and mathematicians who made the calculations to prove that this is in fact the Middle of the World.

Ecuador is a land of extreme diversity. The capital city and many other cities are in the Andes Mountains. Life in the Andes Mountains is interesting to watch. The people are very simple and maintain many of their customs from long ago. In the eastern part of the country is the Amazonia. Known also as the Oriente, this area of Ecuador is still inhabited by indigenous tribal people. A visit to the area will even include a day that you can actually visit one of their villages and bargain with them. Money generally does no good here since the people would rather have some of the items you might have with you. These people still speak their native tongue and only boys are taught Spanish at all. On the west are coastlines and offshore quite a ways are the Galápagos Islands which are also part of Ecuador.