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