friday at work was for the most part in the office but in the afternoon two people from the foundation, jack and i all headed out to the streets to find some new recruits. we went to the streets of a mall which borders one of the poorest sections of town. under a freeway over pass we found about 15 kid vendors watching a game of street soccer. the soccer game was so good i could have sworn i saw ronaldinho. immediately all theses kids swarmed around us asking questions. they were particularly interested in jack and me. we were like aliens to them and they all asked us some very good questions about our homelands. while me and jack entertained most of them the other two members of the foundation told some of these kids what juconi could do for them. after work i headed home to get ready for a party at the house of one of coworkers. the party was supposed to start at six but i didnt even end up meeting up with all my friends until eight. when we finally got to the party three hours late (tiempo latino) the scene was dead. everyone was sitting around barely talking to eachother. we felt like we walked into a stereotypical bad party but after a toast to my coworker-who had just graduated college-they turned up the music and everyone started to dance. we danced merengue or i should say i learned how to not look like a fool dancing merengue. it was a good time. after that we went to another house for an after party party. saturday i woke up very late and then just hung out most of the day until i was informed that i would be going to a family event. my whole host family piled into the car to go to grandmas house and i can say that arriving at this party it felt a lot like going to a berg family event. there were so many people and i mostly didnt know any of them. i ended up sitting with all the uncles who broke out into a conversation about south american politics, chavez, and corruption. it was particularly interesting to me because of the guys sitting there was from columbia so i heard a different side to what president correa is doing here in ecuador. after that pepe and i ducked out to go to one of his friends houses and we stayed there until late. today was pretty boring and the only thing to speak of was me writting this. my spanish seems to be dragging at the moment. a week ago it seemed like it was better but now i am having trouble listening and understanding people. i know it will get better in a few weeks though. ciao
-mark

i guess the news of ecuadors flooding has reached american media. according to claire ecuador is in a state of emergency because of all the flooding. today i was watching the nationiled media which didnt mention anything about it but that argentina and the us have sent aid in the form of food and money. which brings me to an interesting point: media here is either run by the state or it is monitered by the state and everything seems to be toned down a little. every night prime time television is interupted to give a state of ecuador announcement which ussually talks about what a great guy pres. correa is. yesterday (wednesday) i went to the malecon (river front) with pepe, eli (one of pepes friends) and anita. we went boating which was really sunny and not very interesting and thus not worth writting about. later that night we went to concert featuring what else but music from madigascar. i loved it. i was dancing in my seat looking like a fool. it was very good music played by the afican islands nations best(i never heard the name of the group becuase they spoke in french). after that we went back home to have another feast of barbecued chicken. today was very hot and i am very tired. i started today helping a thirteen year old boy multiplication and some reading (in spanish). i think encountering illiteracy in adults if a very difficult thing to deal with emotionally, luckily thats only happened a few times. i went to the poorest sections of town and started to realize that its what the families have (in terms of possesions) that really reminds me of their poverty. this statement sounds very simple but one family i visit only has a tv, a matress, a box to cook food in and folding lawn chairs to sit in-the houses are made of cane which is like crused bamboo. another house i visit has more stuff, more stuff that isnt what you need to survive with-a playstation, a blendor, paintings on the walls. there is a great range to the quality of houses i visit i can tell you that. i wish i could write more but i dont have too much time.
-mark

o yeah check this out
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7256479.stm

i am tired. for me monday and today have been a lot of work and a lot of weather. monday started as a pretty normal day of me meeting my workmate patricia and heading to the slums. it had rained nonstop on sunday night and the entire city was still soaked the next morning. in balerio (one of the the neighborehoods i go to) i made puzzles with some of the kids and also helped them with their abc s. toward the end of the day-at the house of the last family- i was looking through the houses doorway at the houses close by and the very green mountains in the background wondering how exactly how i ended up in south america. a few minutes later it started to rain very very hard. hard rain is a very loud thing when you have a tin rough. it kept raining very hard and in just a few minutes a biblical flood swarmed through the streets outside. the brown water had white caps, was very deep and moving very fast. patricia started to get woried saying that if we didnt go during the next break we would be stuck there all night. about 20 minutes later the rain let up temporarily and we very careful crossed the flooded streets. i wish i had my camera or my cell phone beecause it was such a sight to see white water rapids pushing parked cars down the hills. when we were taking the bus home i had to make a connection at a junction. i was outside for less than 30 seconds in the rain and when i got in the bus it looked as if i had just jumped into a swimming pool. on the bus ride home the streets were so flooded and the traffic was so bad it took an hour to go what usually takes me 15 minutes. when i got home i took a cold shower (hot water doent exist around here) and dried my cloths out on the patio. later that night jack, some of pepes friends, anita (the girl staying here from belgium), pepe and i all prepared crabs and had 40 crabs between the six of us. it was good stuff. today work was really borin because we had to spend the day in the office planning which means that me and jack just sit around while the therapist and educators do paper work. when me and jack were heading home (he lives close and we usually take the same bus home) the clouds were once again gathering to give us a good shower. we practically ran to the bus stop but the clouds didnt open up yet. when i got home it very suddenly started to pour. water came from every crevice from every house on my block there was lots of thunder and lighting too. when i was cleaning my room i was very rudely interupted by thunder that was so loud that it not only made me think a bomb had been dropped on the house but it also set off every car alarm in the hood. now i am off to eat some inventive belgian food, wish me luck.
-mark

well its been a pretty low key weekend. friday was also a low key day at work. jack and i didnt really have anything to do on friday so we ended up researching beach houses to rent during a break we have in may. after work i went home and i met on of pepes friends who is visiting from belgium. she is backpacking all the way from here to argetina. im a little jelous but me and pepe are already planning the same type of trip. anyway her name is anita and she learned to speak spanish in valencia spain so it is very easy to communicate with her. friday night pepe, anita, some of pepes friends and i just hung out here at the house on the upstairs patio. i decided that this weekend i would only speak spanish and no english and so far (its sunday night) i have been completly successful. we ended up talking global politics. i asked anita what has happened to her government (belgium has been going through some political problems lately) and then we talked about bush and all the problems that my country has around the world. i had to do a lot of defending of my countries foreign policy (this wasnt the first time this trip). the funny thing is that i feel very patriotic when i can slightly change the image that my country has in the eyes of people from other countries (i hope that makes sence). saturday i didnt really do anything and it felt really good. i took a long nap and read in the hammock for a long time. saturday night we went to the birthday party of one of pepes friends. it was my first party at the house of someone else. people were very well dressed (i went in flip flops) and there was a lot of dancing but still a lot of fun. this time i talked politics with some of my ecuadorian friends. aperently president correa (current ecuadorian prez) isnt really liked here in guayaquil. he is seen more as a dictator because he disabled the power that congress once had. we all got home very late and i fell asleep so easy last night. today was more of the same as yesterday. i just read and slept. tommorow i start work early in the morning going to the slums. i giess ill be well rested for that.
-mark

for the last three days it seems like i have been working nonstop. maybe its not nonstop, maybe i just forgot what work is. tuesday was the first day where i figured out what i will be doing at juconi. basically i go as a team of three to houses of families in slums here in guayaquil. the families that are members of our organization, which means that our programs gives certain incentives (like food, medical supplies and emotional therapy) to these families to keep their young ones from working on the streets. the team members include one educator and one therapist. i am a volunteer which means that i assist the other two doing the things they dont want to do or i get to play with the kids. tuesday was the day where we plan out what exactly we are going to do that week. therefore it was really boring for me and jack (my austrailian friend who also works at juconi). it actually ended up where the director said there was nothing for me to do so i could go home but i decided to stick around just in case something came up. that was a bad idea. about 20 minutes after that i sat through one of the most boring and pointless meetings of my life. i had nothing to say on any of the issues present. so yes that was my first day of work in the office. later that night i met up with the rest of the afs kids here in guayaquil at pizza hut. it was really fun to see everyone again and hear about all their expiriences. after pizza hut of course we had to ditch the afs adults and go to a bar. that expirience didnt last long though we were all so tired and we had to work the next day. wednesday was the first day which i would be working with juconi in the slums. i met my coworkers at a bus station and we took a one and a half hour bus ride through the city to a shanty town on the south side of the city which didnt have any paved roads to speak of. when we were arriving i remeber i could feel my heart pounding inside my chest. i knew what to expect but i didnt know what to expect. i knew it was going to be poor but i didnt know how poor. i knew there was a good chance of getting robbed but i didnt know when. i think the thing that was making me the most nervous was how i was going to react to the children. it all became more clear at the first home though. it wasnt as bad as i thought and the family was very happy to have all three of us there. i played jenga and blocks with the two young boys and i also tought them a few words in english. after all the playing the whole family was lectured by the therapist on how to best fit your respective family role. we also handed out some medical and hygenic supplies. we saw three families that day and it all was so exhasting. the last family was really interesting to me. they were a family of about six kids who pretty much lived on their own-their mother was in jail and their dads have never been seen. after all of that at about three thirty i got home and retreated to my room and sleeped for and hour and a half. the emotional and physical strain of touring the slums was intense. for all that i saw on wednesday thursday was supposed to be worse becuase i was going to the poorest of the poor to meet with some families and kids that need a lot of help. i was heading to a place called isla trinitaria with only one educator. when i tell people from guayaquil that i am going to isla trinitaria they look at my with eyes like mellons and then think i am joking. the poverty there is too much for people who live here to handle. once again it took a really long time to get there. all these slums are on the edge of town far away from people who wouldnt want to see such a thing. the first family we visited live in the kind of conditions that i have only seen on those christian charity commercials, where some guy is holding some innocent little girl in the poorest place you can think of saying "for only 25 cents a day you can help this child". the mother of the family was a drug addicted prostitute, the floor was cover in chicken shit and in the house lived eight people. the other families werent nearly as bad and today i wasnt so tired. i am learning so much from going into families homes and seeing how they live and talking to them about their life. this job is a real challenge, a very personal challenge but right now i feel its worth it in so many ways. i think what i saw today was some of the worst poverty that i can imagine but im sure that somewhere in the world it is worse. before this week i never thought i would see poverty like what i saw today. the shocking thing about it is that when i go into the homes of these families im not shocked. i admire the stregnth and the bravery of these families that i work for more than i pity them. tommorw we go out on the streets to meet with kids who might need our program. ok bye.
-mark

so i have been doing a lot the past weekend so brace yourselves. on friday afternoon i finally met with my afs representative and they showed me how to take a bus to my work place. it was my first expirience on a public bus in guayaquil and it sure was uncomfortable. ecuadorians apperently have no legs, that or they just arent into leg room because i cant fit in the seats, i have to stand. the roofs are very small so you can imagine its a little clostrophobic. my workplace is kind of out there way out on the south edge (i live in the north) in the outskirts of town. i met with some directors there but unfortunately they didnt tell me exactly what i would be doing when i will work there. after this little excursion i met up with my friend from austrailia jack who actually lives pretty close to me. we hung out at his house for a while and ate a really good barbeque. after that pepe and i went out on the town. we ended up meeting one of pepes friends who lives in the canarie islands (spain) but she is visiting for a little while. we went out on this hill that overlooks the city of guayaquil and had beers at this one bar that had a great view of river. it was a very beautiful night. the next day pepe, his friends and i planned to go to the beach for the weekend. we where planning to go at about two in the afternoon. i spent the morning running errands with pepe and getting the necessary supplies for the beach. finally at about four thirty we got to the bus station-which is quite a spectacle having three stories and shopping mall in it-and we got on the bus for the hour long trip. this bus was pretty comfortable and we got to see some very interesting tropical scenery along the way. once we got to the town of playas (which litterally means beaches) it was like entering another world. there were fish markets, sand was everywhere and a very low key vibe was easy to get into. the eight of us all hoped in the back of a pickuptruck and drove to pepes auntes house. we got there just in time to see a beautiful pacific sunset. at pepes aunts house we decided to camp (pepes friends had all the gear) at the end of her property which was just on the beach. we set up a nice camp and a nice fire and enjoyed ourselves for the rest of the night. one of pepes friends melissa went to american school and so she speaks fluent english. once we started a conversation a few others wanted to use their english skills and we all talked well into the early morning. saturday night was also very beautiful, i fell asleep watching for shooting stars in an open sky. the next morning we all did what probably the rest of you guys did sunday morning and jumped into the very warm pacific ocean. after our swim we had to pack up camp because it started raining very hard on us. we moved our stuff onto pepes aunts porch and went into town for some breakfast. everyone ate plates of seafood, i had a kind of ecuadorian paella, it was delicious. after breakfast the others either went back to guayaquil or went to the beach. i on the other hand took a nap in a hammock that had a very nice view of the beach. at about three in the afternoon we got our things together and headed into town. in town we stopped to get some cerviche (a seafood cocktail) and then headed to the bus. when we arrived at the bus stop the street that the busses were supposed to arrive on was clossed and there was a horde of people just standing in the middle of the steet. i thought there was another overthrough of the government but then i realized that all these people wanted was to get on the bus back to guayaquil. we were very much out of luck because we had not purchused tickets and it didnt look likely that we would get back to guayaquil on a bus. we headed for the edge of town and tried to bum a ride from all the rest of the cars leaving. the reason leaving playas on a sunday afternoon is so popular is because it is an ecuadorian tradition to go to the beach during carnival (which was last week) and everyone wanted to return home. finally a not so full (but still full) bus pulled over to the side of the road to let us on. there werent any seats left on the bus so the five of us pilled into the front cabin with the driver. it was packed and it was a real expirience. then just as we were leaving the city limits the cops pulled our bus over (i think because its illegal to have a bus that full). the driver bribed the police with $25 and we were again on our way. with so much traffic back into the big city it took us twice as long to get there. finally pepe and i got home and i was exhausted. the next day (monday) was supposed to be my first day of work. i got on the bus with one of my coworkers and i got to talk with him about what was expected juconi (my job). o yeah i will be working with street children and their families here in guayaquil, thats all i know right now. work only lasted two hours because they explained to us what we will be doing and other basics of the job. we start really working on wednesday. ill keep you posted on what hapens. well i can tell you that this past weekend has been one of the highlights of the trip so far and next week we might go to another perfect white sand beach. ciao
-mark

time is a little limited today so i wont be able to write too much. wednesday was a pretty basic day. i hung out most of the day and then in the late afternoon i went out on the town with pepe and some of his friends. the next day being thursday was slightly more interesting. in the late morning i hung out with one of my neighbores who is my age and is currently attending university. he is a very interesting guy and right now he is studying international relations (which is what i want to study). we talked in spanish about our interest for about two hours and then he had to do some home work so left him in peace. he is a very good guy to talk to because he knows enough english to help me out with my spanish. when i dont know a word he can help but he doesnt speak english to me so that is very helpful. after this i spent some more time lounging around until my two host sisters made me go with them to run some errands. it was a good time because they give me good commentary on the city around me. on part of the drive we saw about two hundred or so soccer fans (of the home town team of emelec) who were going to the barcelona-emelec game later that night. barcelona is actually a team from here in guayaquil so the rivalry is fierce. its kinda like the rivalry between the giants-dodgers but its in one city and thus a little closer to home. a little later that night i went with my host sister evelyn to watch the game at a bar. it turns out that it is illegal for bars to play ecuadorian soccer games inside because the police are affraid that fights will break out. so learning this we went to evelyns boyfriends house to watch the game. there we watched it and it was a very good game because the underdog barcelona won-the only problem was that i was in an emelec household. after the game i met up with pepe at a bar in downtown guayaquil to see one of his friends perform her second solo act. it was a very good concert, pepes friend was very talended, the bar was packed with enthusiastic people and the salsa inspired songs were really entertaining. after the concert was over pepe and i got back to the house in the wee hours of the morning. it was a very good night.

yesterday i made two observations about society in general here. the first being that the ecuadorian people, and i think south americans in general, like to feel secure (much like north americans). i noticed this when i was in a mall. a shopping mall is a very american thing but ecuadorians love them because they feel security and freedom. freedom to buy what they want, bank where they want and eat when and where they want. there are always armed security guards present in malls which makes the atmosphere very safe. i also noticed that there are more malls here than in san francisco. back to the security idea though, security guards are present everywhere. sometimes they are decrepid old men dressed up like police and sometimes they are armed studs that give GI joe a run for his money, the point is that they are employed-whether they can do anything or not- to make people feel safe.
the second observation is that it is really hard to call myself american here not becuase of some issue of pride but because everyone here beleives they are american too-south american. most of the time when i am introduced im said to be from california not from america other times (in rarer cases) im just from the united states. it gives me some nationalistic pride to say that im from california but i feel a little empty when i cant say im american. another thing is that im not classified as a gringo here because my host family realises that i have family roots in sweden and ireland and other parts of europe. americans arent hated here but sometimes they are classified as ignorant (which is sadly true). i think its safe to say that hugo chavez and fidel castro are some of the biggest american haters in this part of the world.
ok i gotta go.
-mark

well yesterday was a pretty low key day so i wont write too much today. i spent a lot of the day reading in this really cool hammock outside my room on the outdoor patio. later in the after noon i went to the sol mall which is an american style mall about half a mile away from my house. there i got a milk shake, some sunglasses and a pair of flip flops. i went into a surf shop to buy these last two items and it felt exactly like being in california. after that i got a cab back to my house which actually was a little hard because the directions are very specific. last night i went to the water front melecon 2000 with my host sister evelyn and her boyfriend. it was good because i got to use a lot of spanish and when i dont know a word she speaks a little english so it is pretty easy to communicate. thats pretty much it. oh and yesterday i got a new cell phone so if you want the number just comment on this page and ill send out an email to ya. miss you all and i am still standing for change with barack obama.
-mark

ok this is kinda cute. my mom sent me an email with some questions and im going to answer them below the written question.


>
> Did you get your bags finally from the plane?
yes i did. one girl got her bags 2 hours after the plane landed and she was forced to wait in the airport with her host family.
>
> While you were walking through the parking lot, and entering Guayaquil, what
> affected you as serious cuture shock? Smells? Dress? Poverty? Noise? Hot? How
> does Guayaquil feel different from Quito, other than the weather and tropics
> versus mountains experience?
Guayaquil is much hotter than quito and it is the most humid place that i have ever been (it even beats out somoa). i had a sweater on, i had jeans on i was just not ready to be in a tropcal climate. i think it also affected me because its like summer here but i am still in winter mode. in quito it was still like winter to me because it was a little cold and rained a lot. another thing was that everything was outside. all the cafes, all the stores, there are always kids playing in the streets there was something about that that made me really shocked.
>
> By urban Spanish do mean, old and architecturally like Spain? Or is it anything
> like Morelia?
in a lot of spanish cities they have a very beautiful city center. usually-like in salamanca or avila- the city center is at least a thousand years old and has some historical significance. surrounding these city centers are more basic modern developements. there are apartment buildings and houses and small businesses. this is what my area of guayaquil is like. the architecture is pretty basic there are some new buildings some that look a little more classic but the overall feeling to is that when they built this part of town they didnt build it because it looks nice. im not saying that this place is ugly it is just simple. quito reminded me a lot of moreia but guayaquil not really at all
>
> Is it lonely at the very top of the house? Do you feel separate from the family
> by having to walk through the patio to get there? Are there lizards on the
> wall? Can you take a shower whenever you want?
its not exactly lonely but is true that sometimes i enjoy the solitude. i think the family put me up there because i could have some privacy and my own bathroom. at home home i sleep with a cat on bed here there are lizards, roaches and bugs in my room at night. its all good though it reminds me that im in the tropics. i can take a shower when i want but i take one downstairs because the one near my room has no door.
>
> Sounds like the Spanish language is very fast and difficult now. Do you like
> the sound of the accent? Does it get any easier?
i like the sound of the accent very much. its very similar to the colombian accent which is said to be the most beautiful in the world. its not that its too fast to understand its just that i have to concentrate a lot on what they are saying something. its also hard when they talk really fast and in the middle of their statement i dont get a word, then i have to backtrack and ya know. another thing is that people here are usually soft spoken and a few people do some serious mubbling which is a problem when there always seems to be some distraction during conversation like really loud reggaeton music or are bar full of other people mumbling. i hope i can adopt the accent but i think that will take at least a month.
>
> How do you get along with Jose? Is he interesting and fun? Is he good to you?
> What are you doing for Mardi Gras?
Jose my host brother who goes by pepe or pepito is a really good dude. he takes me out every night to meet his friends and go to bars and stuff. he says that we are going to do a lot of traveling around this country a lot and i think he is already planning a trip to the amozon basin (the oriente as its known here) and a trip to the beach this saturday. mardi gras is known as carnival here and it is celebrated all week long by just lots of partying and lots of water-i have been pegged with water balloons and water cannons twice this week. also a lot of the shops are closed because people take the whole week off and it is common for families to go to the beach or to other cities.
>
> In what way is guayaquil different than what you had imagined? The good ways?
> The not so good ways? What is it that feels like culture shock? Please explain
> what is culture shocking you.
guayaquil is more developed than i had thought there are also some interesting parts to it. the people have more soul than i expected and there arent massive shaty towns like i had expected. i guess at this time i dont know what was so culture shocking mabey it will take some time for me to figure out. i dont think im culture shocked any more but it will still be some time until i get used to this place.
>
> Does your room need some decorating? Do you want anything from home for your
> decorations? Do you need a pillow from home or....?
actually i think im good i just have to find some tape and then i will have a national geographic map of south america on my wall.
>
> In what way is Guayaquil going to take some getting used to? What is
> challenging? .
the whole daily routine and what is expected is going to be the biggest thing to get used to. also cultural ideocicrecies, what i can ask of people, what i cant ask of people and really what is expected of me; thats what i am learning now and it can be difficult. i still have to learn about peoples personalities and traits of this culture as a whole. when i was studying about the different aspects of this country the reading material (provided by my program) it was very inadequet and made this place seem a lot more concervative than it really is. i think someone was judging this country through the eyes of one person in one part of the country. the thing is ecuador has every sort of enviroment known to south america and with that enviroment comes the necessary cultural changes, changes in language and ediquite and i think that is why i was so culture shocked after getting off the plane from quito, because i thought these two places would be so similar but theyre not. it seems like a whole different world down here and its hard to imagine just by reading about it.
>
>

well i cant write much more but i will say that yesterdays lunch included chicken gizard and tripe. yumm. after that i went on a drive around the town and we saw a really posh suburban gated community and the poorest of the poor-it felt exactly like when i was in africa. anyway i will keep you all updated.
-mark

uhh well i would just like to thank people for giving me all the comments on this page and also for all those text messages especially for the ones about the super bowl. speaking of that game it sounded amazing and i wish i could have seen it. yester day turned out to be a good day. after having the ecuadorian delicacy of cerviche for lunch pepe, my older host brother, took me out on the town with his cousin and his girlfriend, who happened to be an exchange student from france. we first went to mall. which was really big, having four floors and lots and lots of space. it felt a lot like being in santa rosa. anyway after that we went to meet another friend in downtown guayaquil. as we were driving to meet him i realized that guayaquil is much more developed than i had ever thought. this is a very sophisticated city and very beautiful in many respects. we met pepes friend at his place of work which is a car tunning place. after that we went the area known as malecon 2000 which is this river front property with lost of bars and restaurants. it was very beautiful and by this time night was already setting in and the temperature was perfect. after that we met even more friends and went to an appartment of one of the them. the apartment was very posh and had lots of artwork and a great view. we hung out there for the next couple of hours playing the suprisingly entertaining game of jenga. after that we headed home because it was pretty late. after getting home the only thing to report was that after i came back in from brushing my teeth my door fell off. weird.
well i think as time settles in im going to get more and more used to this place. the other day i tried this think thats called like a yuca cake which looks like a biscuit but its made with yuca. i thought it would be sweet and really pleasant but instead it was hard and salty. i tried it yesterday again and it tasted better to me. i think that as soon as i can learn to like things like the yuca cake i will be set and really happy with living in this place. my host family is really nice and my host brother pepe is a really good dude. right now everyone is celebrating carnival and and all the shops and stuff are closed for the week. i guess ill just see what happens today. happy birthday claire.
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first day in guayaquil

ok so now i am in guayaquil. lets start with yesterday morning because thats pretty interesting. we (there were seven of us going to guayaquil) all headed for the airport at 10:30 which was supposed to give us enough time to catch a plane at 11:30 but this is ecuador and nothing really ever goes the way it is planned. its carnival weekend and many people really want to travel around because they have the whole week off. the line to check in at the airport was herendously long and we waited for about an hour-which meant our flight left without us and most of its passengers. the airline soon realized that it had well over a hundred people who missed their flight because of the long lines so they set up an auxilary flight for later that afternoon. so all of us disgruntled passengers wait for about four hours for our flight to show up-the airline had trouble finding an airplane. the seven of us spent our time watching the american tourists (who all met several stereotypes) and eating sandwiches. finally we got on our plane and took the 40 min flight to guayaquil. on the flight over i got some pretty cool pictures of the city of quito. when we got to the airport we of cource had more trouble, this time with our bags, but soon enough we exited the airport with a bunch of families we had never seen before waving signs and greeting us with a lot of excitement. my host family was tiny bit late but they showed up and we took off. ok this is where is gets interesting. right as we were walking through the parking lot i got some serious cuture shock. guayaquil feels like a completely different place than quito. for me i still think its winter but here in the southern hemisphere on basically on the equator its really hot and really humid. people dress and act like it is a sunny summer day in california. then the buildings look completely different. it feels more urban spanish than i thought it would. then we got to the family home and they show me to my room which is at the very top of the house. to get there i have to walk across this patio, it has a very interesting feel to it. after spending an hour getting settled in i spent some time with my host mom and older host sister who doesnt live at home. they are really stretching my spanish skills to the fullest extent and they speak very fast and with a very tropical accent (not a lot of s´s around here but i do like the accent). i spent about two and a half hours talking to my host family. they are very nice people and they have had a lot of experience with having exchange students. i think they said that they have had 3 others but i am the first american. after giving them my gifts from home i went out with my older host brother. we enden up meeting some of his friends and going to two really cool bars downtown. i spoke a little bit to jose (my host brother) and his friends but it was really hard because of this new way of speaking spanish. i think last night i must of said "what" about a hundred times. we came back home in the wee hours of the morning and i was VERY tired. i crashed and i didnt wake up until 10:30 which was a real bummer because i missed church and breakfast-ooops! right before writting this i went for a walk around the neiborhood. i saw this pretty nice shopping center and mall close by as well as all the other houses and i got a good feel for the neighborhood i am living in.
ok so, guayaquil is much different than i had imagined it would be in some good ways and in some not so good ways. i think it is safe to say i am still quite culture shocked. my accomidations are simple but i know i can bring life to them. this place is going to take some getting used to and i think it will be a challenge but i can do it. i miss you all and i hope you are all doing well.
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well in just a few hours i leave for guayaquil to meet my host family. ive emailed them and they said they will meet me at the airport so hopefully everything goes smoothly. some of my friends have already left for their host families, now only seven of us remain. its a little earie right now with collin and erik gone (two of my clossest freinds) and also im a little nervous and a little excited to see my host family. oh by the way we are flying to guayaquil. uhh any way, yesterday was the last day of language school. it was a pretty normal day except for in the end two things happened. the first being my teacher made me a test to see how far i had gotten in this course. i did really well and i didnt get anything wrong. after the test we had a little good-bye ceremony. we all received diplomas and got pictures with our teachers. later that night the whole group had to go out on the town one last time. we ended up meeting some of our teachers (only the cool ones) at a very ecuadorian club. there were two bars a really big dance floor and kareoke rooms. the kareoke was a good time but the music was really awsome (so i had to do a little dancing). collin and i decided that we would call it an early night so we headed back to the hostel but not before stopping at a mexican restuarant for some tacos. early this morning i said good-bye to the people that left, packed and now i am just waiting to leave. wish me luck.
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today is the last day of language school and pretty much everything that has been happening has involved the language school. tuesday after lunch every student and their teachers went to two markets. the first market was mercado santa clara. it was a basic market that had stalls for fruits vegitables, baskets, clay pots, house hold goods etc.. most of the fruits i had never seen before and the meat section smelled like death. the next market we went to was more of a supermarket. there you could get anything you need. all of the items made in ecuador were really cheap but all of the imported good were more expencive than in america. the next day at language school we took a side trip to a park that was close by. we spent about two hours there and it was the perfect place to show our teachers how to play american football. after that i went to lunch with my friends and a spanish teacher. we went to a nice cafe where we practiced our spanish with some of the teachers friends. most of these days we have been so tired that we that we just head back to our hotel and rest but last night was a little different. after school we all head to a dance school to take some salsa lessons. i really sucked but at least i tried. after the lessons we went out on the town. we went into a part of town called gringolandia. we met some of our teachers and their friends there. it was a good night but a long one and in just a few hours i have to take some giant test...we ll see how that goes. anyway i miss you all.
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