Quilotoa- I think i said in my last post that i was heading to quilotoa. i read in my travel book (and heard from my friend anita from belgium) that quilotoa was an incredible place to visit. ill get to why. the only thing is that quilotoa is really far from everything (four hours from quito and 8 hours from guayaquil). so saturday may the 24th we woke up at 7 to get to the bus station by 9. i was traveling with pepe and aniko, evelyn decided that she should go back to guayaquil solo that day. we arrived at the terminal a little earlier than normal and caught a bus easy to latacunga. two and a half hours later we were in latacunga waiting for another bus. latacunga is a large town if not small city that is famous for being a market town for the countless andian villages that suround it. saturday was market day and thus public transportation was clogged with not only people but gooods. after about 45 minutes we caught a bus to some town up the hills that the bus driver and his mate assured us was the right place to go. the bus was packed with people and goods (chickens, green plantains and some other stuff) were stacked on the roof. i ended up sitting on some stairs in the door. all the ladies on the bus wore boler hats and everyone spoke quechua. on the map quilotoa is only about 30 km from latacunga but because we mostly climbed all these kilometers it took forever(or about 2 hours). finally we arrived in this other town that will go unamed. there public transportation was non existant so we hitched a ride for the remaining 30 minutes of the trip. the entire ride was really bumpy but we road first through an incredible valley that runs alongside cotopaxi which one of ecuadors largest volcanoes. finally in quilotoa we arrived to find the village clogged with more fog than a depressed san francisco and it was really cold (5'C or in the 40s). we bartered for a cheap hotel room- $5 for two meals, a room and most importantly a wood stove. bundled up we headed to find a meal. i was suprised to find that everyone spoke quechua and everyone dressed like a typical serrana. we were lucky to find that most people spoke spanish. after lunch we set out to find the quilotoa laguna-which is why we came. the quilotoa laguana is a lake in the middle of a crater, an immense crater. the photos i saw before i went were simply incredible so i had to go. as we were walking down the trail i didnt think we would see anything because of all the fog but as we walked down a little more the clouds roughly disapeared only to reapear in another 30 seconds. at first sight i was awstruck. the steep clifs lead dirrectly into the aquamarine water. we went down some more and in an hour we had gone down 200 meters to the lake. next to the lake everything was sillent. we could only hear ourselves and the serrana (people from the ecuadorian andes) shepards. after two hours of just enjoying the beauty of the crater we went back to our hotel hungry and tired. our hotel turned out to be completely full mostly with americans but there were also a lot of people austria. at dinner i talked to a dude who went to uc berkley and was in a program similar to the peace corps. he had been in ecuador for two years but it seemed that we had had completely different experiences. he had no idea of what it meant to be ecuadorian or even latino. all he knew were social statistics on ecuador. i think my life is a lot more happier than his. after dinner we tried to thaw out our room which was by now really cold. starting a fire at 4000 meters up was impossible, we had to ask for help from our hosts. the next day after breakfast we set out for the crater yet again. we spent the morning there. pepe and i explored everything we could from the smallest pebbles on he beach to the best lookout poin up top. returning to our hostle we got our things and headed for the bus again. this time we got a bus directly to latacunga. in latacunga we took another bus to ambato. in ambato pepe and i said good bye to aniko as she was heading in the opposite direction as us. 6 and a half hours later we arrived in the dead of morning in guayaquil-it was even late for pepe. that capped off one of the best side trips of my life. this tuesday i am heading to the galapagos islands. pepe and i have been working on a visa for him to come to the states for the summer. i hope it works out there are a lot of holes that we have to go through at the consulate.
-mark

i havent given up on blogging! i just took a bit of a break. what happened well i dont really know. what i am going to do though is rather than go day by day with all the details from my life i am just going to recap on some notible memories. right now i am in an internet cafe and i dont have too much time so i think i will only talk about what i have been doing this week.

QUITO- the reason for coming to quito was to go to the french embasy to get pepes visa to go there. if i havent mentioned this already pepe has a girlfriend from belgium that he wants to go visit. one of pepe and my mutual friends offered pepe a visa to go to france. a visa to go anywhere inside the european union gives you the freedom to travel anywhere inside the continent (which includes belgium). so monday night we headed by night bus to quito. the bus was 8 hours nonstop through the night. everyone i talked to said how awful the trip was but i didnt find it that bad because i slept the entire way. when we got there we had an hour to check into a hostel and go to the consulate. we did that and then evelyn (she came too) and i waited outside the embasy for about an hour for pepe to come out. when he came out he didnt have a visa or even his ecuadorian passport. the embasy had told him that he would have to come back on friday to get his passport and visa (if they decided to give it to him). so we elected to stay until friday night waiting for the passport and having a good time in quito. later tuesday we met up with my friend from argentina aniko (i met her in cuenca and we keep crossing paths). aniko and pepe went out on the town tuesday but evelyn and i stayed in the hostel resting. wednesday was far more interesting. we got a late start but after we were actually doing something we headed to quitos historic center. there we toured around the various plazas and cathedrals. i went into one cathedral which i think was called san marcos and it was by far the most incredible cathedral i had ever been to. the entire place was made with gold. everything was beautiful inside- art work, the cusufixes, the chapels- everything. then after that we went to an ecuadorian history museum. i know only a little bit about ecuadorian history (this museum didnt help that much) but all i can say is that poor ecuador has some bad luck. first of all it was conquested by the spanish and one of the last notible things that happened was when ecuador lost a war with peru (ecuador lost most of its jungle in this conflict). the last touristy thing we did was we went to the top of some mountain to look out over the city. at the top of this mountain was a statue of the virgin mary. below us quito sprawled out endlessly. it look as though quito stretches so far out that it falls of the high altitude valley it is situated on. wednesday night we bought food at a grocery store and cooked and ate in the hostel. thursday we set out to go to one of quitos most famous tourist attractions-el teriferiqo. its this tram that hauls toursist high up into the mountains surrounding quito. the view going up once again was stunning but once we arrived at the top everything was covered in fog. the four of us hiked around enough to enjoy the andes and then we returned back to the hostel. at the hostel we arrived just in time to watch a really important soccer game. the game was the semi finals of a club cup (meaning not national teams) played all throughout latin america. a team from quito played and beat a team from san lorenzo argentina. once the final goal was scored and the people of quito realized that their city was in the finals the city exploded. people broke out of bars to party in the streets. the streets were full of people singing, people cheering, people drinking and riot police. it was a good night. friday morning was the moment of truth for pepes visa. aniko and i went with him to the embasy and when it was all over pepe came out shaking his head. he didnt get his visa. i was stunned, angry and dissapointed. i couldnt beleive that they didnt accept him, the embasy didnt even give a reason. moments later pepe tearfully called his girlfriend and said that he probably wasnt coming. we thought of everything we could do, all the people we could call for pepe to get another invitation to go to europe. we unfortunately didnt come up with much. however later that afternoon pepe and i went to the american embasy to see if we could get papers to fill out for the visa and the invitation. we didnt get any papers but a website where we can fill out all the material. dissapointed we havent done much today. pepe and evelyn are planning to return to guayaquil tonight. aniko is going to some town in the middle of nowhere and i am hopefully going to spend the night in quito and then go to quilotoa. quilotoa is a crater lake high in the andes, it looks cool. maybe in the next couple of days there will be some result on pepe going to europe but we will just have to wait and see.
-mark

sorry i havent been posting stuff with gerat frecuecy but whatever. monday was my brithday. in the morning i went to work until about 12. two things happened that are worth wrtting about. the first thing is that when my group visited our first family we found that one of the family members (a 22 year old son) had been slashed with a machete. apparently this happened due to a heavy night of drinking. the three of us juconi workers were shocked. we then walked about a kilometer to the nearest doctors office. then the clinic shocked me. it smeled like infection, the "doctor" carried in dirty instruments, and he did a very bad job of stichiting up the wound. i didnt stay long at the doctors office. my job was for the day to take pictures of all the family members in our foundation. this is the second interesting thing that happened to me: i went out in the slums alone. most juconi workers refuse to do this because there is a heavy risk of getting robbed when you are alone. i feel safe enough in this particular slum and i know my way around quite well and therefore i did this. i got most of the pictures of the families (a few members were missing) and then returned home. at home my host family had prepared a lunch of lasagna and decorated the house with ballons. after lunch we had cake and took pictures with everyone together (minus evelyn because she was working). after a pretty basic afternoon some of my friends came over and we hung out on the porch until the wee hours of the morning. on tuesday i was supposed to go in early and teach math to some kids but no one bothered to tell me that they werent coming in. this made me mad because i now officially only have to come in on tuesday for two hours. jack and i ended up leaving early because we had a concert to go to. the concert was incredible to say the least. we were seeing mana. the first expirience came when we were about two miles from the stadium that they were going to play at. there was traffic stopped that far away. after we parked the car (i got a ride with fernando evelyns boyfriedn) we had to brave the lines. we did the line the latino way and cut in front of everyone else. then we went to find our friends somwhere in the 60,000 plus stadium. we ended up climbing over people just to get to four square feet of space. we then wated for the concer to start, it started on latin time about two hours late. we were in the bleachers and the stading room only spots where all below us. it was like a sea of black haired heads and then a giant stage surrounded with speakers the size of houses. once they turned out the lights (and turned the spot lights on) the sea of black heads turned into lights from cameras and cell phone, almost like stars. mana came out and played a song but i couldnt hear it because everyone was so amped that they sang along. it seemed like everyone in the stadium was a mana fanatic. i went for the expirience because i really didnt know the music and it was definatly worth it. wednesday i went to work completely solo. i liked that because i had a lot of freedom to do things the way i wanted and i didnt have to wait for people. one thing i did was i cleaned the wound of the poor guy who got slashed. thursday with some sort of glitches i didnt have to go to work at all. i mostly just loafed around and put off writting a blog. in the after noon all the exchange students met at one girls house to talk to a doctor about medical issues in ecuador. that was pretty boaring because the doctor was actually a specialist in diabetes and only talked about that for two hours. after that all us exchange student hung out a little. friday i only had to go to work in the morning. in the after noon i had another meeting at the afs office to meet the new guayaquil director. saturday morning, at the crack of 7 o clock, all of us exchange students met at the bus station to go to the beach. we went to the beach to stay at a hostel and have some sort of conference. the beach was right behind us as we talked about a series of really boaring exchange student topics. at the end of the day and the first part of sunday we had time to enjoy ourselves at the beach. i got home to guayaquil tired, feeling a little sick and a little discuraged. even though the beach reunion was boaring i came to realize that i hadnt done anything out of my way culturally. i havent taken dance lessons of learned about native art or anything like that. so i am going to try and do that with the help of my host siblings. this week has been different because juconi is doing some sort of workshop that they dont need volunteers, so i havent had work all this week. monday collin and max (two afsers from cuenca) came to stay at my house for one night-they were on theyre way to the beach. we did a lot of hanging out and catching up. they are having a very bad time with their situations in cuenca. monday night we met up with all the members of our group and had a party. the only problem was that i felt sick and didnt exert much. i felt bad about that but o well. tuesday i spent resting. wednesday jack and i planned to go to cuenca. i wasnt too sure if i was going to go because i had some kind of sickness that i was nursing but i got up the strength and headed to the bus station to meet up with him. our bus was nice and me and jack ended up sitting in the two front seats (what gringos), the only problem was that there was no window. o well we tried to sleep for the duration of the four hour bus trip. we didnt see much, including the bad roads, but at the end of the trip we drove through the extrodinary cajas national park(we did see that). when we arrived in cuenca we got in a cab and went to a really groovy hostel. they had room and so we decided to stay there. i must say one thing: i really like traveling with jack because we always try to do things as cheap as possible. this makes expiriences that much more interesting. our hostel by the way costs $6 a night. after setting our things down we headed to find some lunch. we did that at $1.50 and we ate until our stomachs were bursting. after lunch we wondered around town and stopped in at a tourist information office. then we rested at our hostel a little. after that we set out to find jacks host sister who is in town for a university seminar. we found her after a few minor mishaps. i should digress here to describe what cuenca is like... cuenca is a town high in the andes mountains in the south of ecuador. it was built by the spansih and there is an incredible old town with lots of cramped european like streets dalloped with sky-skrapping churches two monistaries and a cathedral-that means they are really good catholocs. the people seem very affluent and sometimes i feel more like i am in spain than in ecuador. people are also very sophisticated here-ill get into that. anyway once we met up with jacks sister she called a friend that we were going to meet up with. he picked us up and took us to his families bar. the bar was probably the coolest, most classiest bar that i had ever been to. there was all this cubist art on the wall, really cool lighting and it had a great view of the city. the guy who took us to this bar was also really interesting. he spoke four and a half languages and was a really classy dude. after the bar excurssion we headed back to the hostel early. to our surprise we forgot that our hostel was also a working bar-meaning very noisy. we went to our rooms and found the place still very noisy. the next morning (today) we woke up later than expected and ate pancakes for breakfast. at breakfast jack and i met a girl from argentina who was traveling to mexico-like i havent met enough of these people. we decided to go to cajas national park. so we went to the bus station and did that whole scene and finally got there an hour and a half later. the mountains in this park are amazing. they are jagged yet bumpy and glacier like ponds are speckled all over the place. the three of us set out on a trail but only made it about one kilometer. we climbed a bit of a peak and just chilled there for about an hour looking at the incredible scemery below. it was very cold, a little windy and of course there were some annoying bugs but the worste part was the altitude. this is probably the highest i have ever been- about 13,000 feet-without the help of an airplane. also physically speaking it was also the closest to the sun i have ever been(my hands and face got sun burnt. exhausted we limped back to the bus stop to wait for the bus. in cuenca we just rested, ate, and showered. after i finish this blog we are going to try and meet more cuencanas with jacks sister. cuenca is cool. my parents are coming this weekend so maybe i will have all new stories to tell soon. also i cant put up pictures on my blog right now, sorry the computer is a little sick.
-mark

okay last week was pretty fun. mainly because there was a couple from belgium visiting. they are friends of pepes belgian girlfrined and are traveling from argentina to mexico (most of that by bus). monday and tuesday nothing too interesting to speak of happened. wednesday got a little more interesting. in the morning i met with pati from work and we headed to the city center to buy our juconi families some school cloths. i never really spend too much time in the center but it can get interesting during the day. its very south american, its very busy, its also very much a city center. people selling everything everywhere, lots of heat, lots of smells, lots and lots of busy people and a couple of head hunting buses that sprint through the packed streets. somewhere inside of inside of this were three juconi members and three families going from store to store buying shoes and uniforms. my job was more or less crowd control, controling the masses of little ecuadorian children running enthusiastically from one distraction to another. at midday we finished and i got to go home to have lunch with my family. after lunch i went to an afs event at the main office. there we met up with everone and headed to a home for batered women and children. going to this home was incredible not because it was an interesting place but because the director told us about the foundation in a long two and a half hour introduction with no breaks or questions. some of us fell asleep. after this all of us afsers went to have some drinks and discuss our situations. after that i went with my friend from norway christine or "la puka" to meet up with pepe and the belgians (their names are jean-yevs and cora but its just easier to refer to them as the belgians). we spent the rest of the night enjoying the night scene that pepe and i know well. thursday i helped another juconi worker (yasenia) get uniforms for her juconi familys. yasenia has a gift to work for juconi; she is the best worker that i have seen at juconi. she took eight families (the average size of each family was about six people) through all the steps. i worked crowd control. we finished early and i got to go home early. that night i went to see a movie with jack and evelyn. we saw that one movie where the prez of the usa gets shot. even though it was in salamanca i really didnt like it. friday we had more global education in the morning, this time slightly more interesting. friday afternoon i spent shadowing jack as he went to rent a tux for some event he had and then we both had a meeting at the juconi office to asses our sistuation. that meeting went fine. it sounds like we are doing pretty well in our jobs and for that we dont have to work quite as much anymore. on saturday after a lot of loafing around pepe, evelyn, and the belgians headed to playas, the closest beach town to guayaquil. we had planned that a lot of my friends would go with us but when it came to be saturday everyone seemed to have other plans. when we got to playas it was dark which was a bummer because we didnt see the sunset. we stayed at a hostle owned by one of pepes friends. on that note i have discovered that very few people in this country arent friends of pepe. this hostle was in this guys farm house so we stayed along side the family. after settling in we headed to the center to meet up with a friend. also at this time two of my friends met up with us. they had been traveling the andes and had to traveled eight hours to get to the beach. the rest of the night, and some of the morning, we spent checking out the night life in downtown playas. on sunday we woke up at about 11 and our hosts fed us a breakfast of friend fish, fried plantains (verdes which are harder greener plantains) and other breakfast stuffs. that kept us all stuffed for the rest of the day. later half of us went to the beach and me and pepe went to meet my friend poncho-my other two friends went back to guayaquil early. poncho is cool guy who met in guayaquil a week ago but we spent a lot of time hanging out this past weekend. he is really into surfing and he lives in playas on the weekends just to surf and relax. so we definatly had to take out some boards and go surfing. pepe, poncho and i surfed pretty much all afternoon on some kind of small waves. it was a lot of fun and hopefully i will get a chance to go back to playas and do this again. later pepe and i met up with evelyn, and the two belgians to see the sunset. it was a nice sunset, slightly obscured by some high rise apartmemnt buildings, but such is ecuador. it was tough saying good bye to the belgians because they were very good people and we spent a lot of good times together, pepe even teared up a bit. we got on our bus (it was packed but we got seats) and headed back to the big city. shortly after leaving playas the bus was stopped by police and every man had to get off the bus and every woman had to stay on the bus for inspection. there were two dozen police armed to the teath with submachine guns going through our bags and patting us down. such is ecuador i guess. after this was all done we were aloud to get on the bus-the cops didnt find anything-and about 30 guys piled back into their seats mutterign "shitty police". finally around ten we got home ate grilled cheese sandwiches and slept. no major plans this week but i will keep you all updated.
-mark

3/28 to 4/7

well last sunday sunday marked the end of an almost perfect week in ecuador. i had an incredible time in the mountains. this is the thing i love about ecuador: in the same week-in the same day even-i can be sitting on a beach enjoying perfect sand an surf and then three hours away i can see the awsome andes mountains. everything becomes different when the ecosystem and climate change, the culture, the people, the language etc.. anyway i waited all friday for sonja and pepe to get off work. we where supposed to leave by one but that soon became five. our bus left with us on it at six. the bus trip took three hours and we had no scenery to look out because we left after dark. about an hour and forty minutes into the trip our bus ran out of freeway and we traveled on bumpy mountainous roads. we were headed for the small town of pallatanga but we were on a bus bound for a city past that place. we ended up stopping at a place for everyone to get something to eat. pepe told us that we were very close when we at this bus stop but once we asked someone at the resturaunt we found out that we were actually in the town itself. feeling pretty dumb we went into the center of pallatanga to find a hotel that one of pepes friends had recomended. the town was completely deserted at nine a clock at night; a total ghost town. we found one open resturaunt, ate there and just went to sleep; its incredible that we were all in bed by ten on a friday. the next day we woke up to the sounds of noisy village life. the town of pallatanga is a the center of life for so many people who live in the mountains around. people come into buy stuff, go to church, go to work etc.. i said earlier that the culture changes with the scenery. in pallatanga women wear boler hats and wrap themselves in colorful shalls. the faces of people look more incan. the spanish accent is less agresive and the people are so much more friendly. after breakfast the three of us treked up a road that was supposed to take us to a bunch of water falls. what happened was we followed a river for an hour and a half then we climbed into the surrounding mountains. i thought these mountains would be rock faced and there wouldnt be much vegitation. actually everything was green and exploding with life. as we climbed up and up would be greeted by farmers and families of farmers who spoke in thick quichua accents. we saw one water fall, it was really nice but the view from this water fall was even better. as soon as i can i will put up some pictures. we continued upward to one last mountain farm and then we decided that it was a good idea to turn around. we had no water left and the next village up was three hours by car. back in the village-which got busier- we were ravenous and dehydrated, luckily we got a big lunch at a friendly sierrano restaurant. we rested for a little while after that but when we woke up we realized that the village was having some type of festival. we went out for a little while to see this specticle and we determined that it was just a saturday night and people were having a good time. the next morning we were invited to go to a farm by a guy who lived in pallatanga on the weekends and guayaquil on the weekdays but we missed our invatation because we got a late start. at around miday we set out up the mountains again to enjoy a part of some raging river. we sat by the banks of this river and i realized that there was no human made object withing 360 degrees of my eyesight-i always love that feeling. i wanted to go to the mountains to breath some fresh air and clear my head, by sunday afternoon i had accomplished my mission. later sunday afternoon we had to get home. this was supposed to be easy because pallatanga is a junction town, busses stop there on their way riobamba. unfortunately every bus was really full and after waiting for an hour we took whatever bus we could find. the bus we got was indeed full and the three of us ended up standing for the duration of the three hour trip. when i got home i was exhasted but sunday night i got a good sleep, enough to start the week off on a good foot. monday was a normal day of visiting families in the balerio district. tuesday all the people from afs were supposed to meet to having "global education" which is where some dude talks about issues in ecuador. he didnt show up and then afs in guayaquil insited that there was never such an appointment. so the seven of us all went down town to go to an artisan market. it was pretty cool i got an andean bag. after the market we went to the mall and hung out there for a few hours. i went home midafternoon to help set up for the birthday party of my host cousin. after that we had a pretty mellow, low-key party and it was fun. wednesday was another boring day of work. after that i went home to sleep. thursday i went to work with families in the south. there i work with one boy tutoring math and the other (in a different family) just mentoring him. the boy who i teach math didnt show up. i found it really difficult to talk to the kid who i mentor but i enjoy the challenge all the same. at first he only gave me one worded answers but later when i took out my spanish atlas we got to talking about geography. at the end of the day we had ice cream and he then said more things to me than i did to him. thursday night i went to the gym for the first time. all i can say is that it feels good to be doing some form of exersice again. after that i went out with my friends to play pool. that was a good time but a little expencive but still cool. on friday i worked at the office a little bit but then four of us from the foundation went to recruit some new street kids. we went to a highway over pass next to a mall in the south. there we played soccer for a couple of hours. this was a little tricky. the overpass that we were under was surrounded by a constant stream of cars and buses. kids would kid the balls-by accident- into the streets and we would have to rush across the hissing and honking road to get the ball. it was also a humid 95 degrees out. it was a fun time and it was fun playing some soccer. one kid wanted to play but said he couldnt because he had to sell his packet of breath mints. pati and i said that we would try to help him by selling them for him while he played. this was impossible for me to do. i would have to ask people to buy them practically begging them. after half an hour we gave up i played goal for the next hour and a half. i guess thats another reason why i respect these kids; their job is next to impossible. later friday night pepe and i went to go meet some friends of his from belgium who are traveling from buenos aires to mexico city (that is really really far) by bus. we took the metrovia (its works like a subway system but its above ground and uses busses) which i like. it felt like i was taking a subway in any developed country. but then, when i wanted to get off the bus the doors started closing. pepe got off but i didnt, so i got off at the next stop and walked back to where pepe was. that pissed me off a little bit but it was a beautiful night in downtown guayaquil and i was intent on enjoying it. once we met the belgians we met up with my friends at a night club and hung out there until the wee hours of the morning. it was a good time and the people from belgium turned out to be really cool. saturday i spent resting and washing my cloths. sunday was going to be a day of epic adventures and it was. first thing we did was take the belgians to the parque historico which this place that is half zoo half historical park. the zoo part was interesting because it there were native ecuadorian animals in their native habitat-the park was built on a mangrove. then once you exit the jungle there is a reconstruction of what downtown guayaquil used to look like. appently there was some great fire that burned the place down back in the day and most of the buildings here where built withing the last forty years. the historical part was nice but i had to leave early to meet one of my friends to go to a soccer game. i went with my friend jose and his cousins to an emelc game. beforehand pepe had warned me to be careful because such an event can get out of hand. entering and buying tickets was just like any baseball game but with longer lines and more "police" with submachine guns. we went to our seats, which were actually just designated places to stand, and waited for the game to start. once the game started the 25,000 fans (all dressed like me, in a blue emelec jersey) started thundering away with chants, songs and some serious drums. it was like a dream, i loved it and i must go back again. i rooted for emelec the best i could but i didnt know any chants. some of them where really simple but others captured the heart of the blues. good stuff i hope to get some photos up of the game and other stuff but unfortunately my computer at home broke and now i have to go to internet cafes. ill keep you guys updated the best i can about the this week.
-mark

right after i wrote my last post i got a phone call from one of my friends who lives in salinas-a beach town two hours aways from guayaquil-asking me if i wanted to go there for the night. so tuesday afternoon i got my things together and hopped on a bus and headed there. when i got there i met my friend patricia-who lives in salinas, jack, his host brother, caterina-my friend from italy, and some of patricias friends. we ended up hanging out at patis house that night. her house is a really cool place. salinas is a really cool place. but anyway patis house is this really old wood house (contrary to all the concrete houses here) that is surrounded by tropical trees and right next to the beach. salinas is a very affluent town because it export a lot of ecuadors oil. parts of salinas look like miami beach with high rise apartments and hotels, water front bars and lots of really white sand. anyway tuesday night was really fun and really early wednesday morning we all decided to take a swim at patis beach. the next day we went to salinass water front to hang out at the beach and eat sea food. then in the afternoon jack, his brother and i headed back to guayaquil. later wednesday night pepe and i put on a party at our house for caterina because she was leaving the next day. it was a good time because so many people showed up, many of whom didnt know caterina, but whatever. thursday i went to see caterina off at the airport but saying good-bye was an anticlimatic experience. i rested much of yesterday and then last night pepe, a friend and i went to club to hear some "jazz" music. it wasnt a good concert and we left early. today i am going to the andes with pepe and sonja-my friend from austria. hopefully we will get there before it gets dark but if we dont o well. i am really looking forward to some cold air.
-mark

i put some pictures up but if you want to read about what i was doing then read the next two posts.

i guess im having some technical difficulties but whatever. okay last weekend (the weekedn of march 15 and 16) pepe, evelyn, her boyfriend fernando, evelyns best friend naomi, sonja (from austria), christina (from norway), cateriana (from italy) isabel (from norway), elizabeth (from wisconsin), her host brother, jack and his host brother and sister and me all went to this funky beach town called montañita. the place is a famous ecuadorian surf spot and it manages to attract a hefty number of foreigners from all over the world. the beach was nice but we where there for the legendary nightlife and it was legendary. the whole town partied until the sun came up. then we spent the rest of sunday relaxing on the beach. it was a lot of fun. montañita is in a region called ruta del sol (sun route) where there are many towns next to the beach. it is a really beautiful spot with white sand beaches, clear water, real ecuadorian villages and there arent towns that are poisoned by concrete hotels. it was a really fun weekend to say the least traveling though was not so pleasurable. saturday we took buses which was nice enough but for half the trip (which was three hours) we had to stand up because the bus was packed. then returnning i got a ride with fernando but his car was packed so someone sat on my lap for four hours-we ran into traffic. the next week work was more or less the same routine but the juconi workers became more and more tired and frustrated. by the end of the week people were very precicely deciding what they were going to do with their free time. amzaingly wedenesday i gathered up enough energy to go to some discos in downtown guayaquil with my friends and some of pepes friends. it was a long night but really fun. our group ended up meeting a group of americans on spring break. i remembered then how much i dislike americans in large groups. the next mornin at breakfast my host mom told me that i was going with her to the beach that day with some of her friends and i would stay there for two nights. so i had to go to work and tell my boss that i couldnt work that day then i returned home to get ready to go. we where supposed to leave at one in the afternoon but that soon turned out to be four in the afternoon. i should say here that in this past week my spanish has gotten significantly better and now i dont really have problems communicating. also my brain has started to program itself in spanish where somtimes, i think of phrases or words in spanish first and then translate them into english. even writting this is a bit difficult. anyway so my host mom and some of her girlfriends and some of their kids (three were my age) all arrived at a beach house in ballenita. ballenita is a collection of houses that mostly belong to people who live in guayaquil but stay there on the weekedns. at this beach house i got a lot of rest, i read a lot and we spent most of friday at the beach. the beach we went to had very mellow waves and mostly families showed up. the only downside was that because i have had baking problems i had no money and i felt a little constrained. the next day, saturday, i traveled by bus to meet up with my friends in montañita (i cashed some cheques so i wouldnt starve). on the bus i met a couple of american spring breakers on their way to the beach. it was nice to talk to some people from back home who werent complete idiots. i was really excited to meet my friends in montañita but when i got there they were all tired and they didnt feel like doing anything. we spent most of saturday at the beach. then saturday night we went to the discos and bars the problem was that the town was completely packed. it was hard to breath let alone dance. the next day evelyn, pepe and i (they were there too) got a ride to guayaquil with pepes friend. we where really tired when we got home. this week i dont have to work so i have been resting, playing poker with evelyn and fernando and just hanging out. hopefully later this week i will be able to go to the andes. i miss dirt and cold, fresh air so the andes sound good. i was going to visit some friends in cuenca but since one of them is ill i dont know if that is a good idea. ill keep yall posted.
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perhaps this post will be of epic porportions-because i havent written anything in a long time- but more than likely it will just be like the rest of the crap i put up. almost two weeks ago on wednesday the 12th i had my first full day back from work. that wednesday i felt in good health, well energized and really eger to get out of the house and off my ass. a lot of emotions where backed up inside my and that day i was very enthusiastic about helping out with the projects that we where doing at work. which brings me to what we where doing. the whole juconi foundation had all the street kids go to one of two schools. the first school was in the south of the city-we went there in the morning- and the other-that we went to during the afternoon-was in the north. this was kind of like summer camp. the kids played soccer and volleyball, they painted, they played games, they danced and so on. the age range was about 4 years old to 18 and each school had somewhere between 60 and 70 kids. there were about ten adults looking over the kids so it was a lot of work. from wednesday the 12th to wednesday the19th my job was pretty consistent. in the mornings i would help whoever needed it with setting up the premisis. then i would help jack with volleyball workshop-we usually ended up just playing a game. then i would get the end of day snack together. finally all the juconi workers would pile into a pickup truck or a bus and head north. it took about an hour and a half to get there. in the north we would eat at the same returaunt and then rest and then get back to work. in the north i helped out with soccer. usually i was put with the really little kids or the group of girls and we would do drills and then play a five minute game. this is the girls team at the end of the day i would set up the snack and say good bye to the kids. then at the end of the day we would travel home which took another hour and a half. after it was all said and done i was exhausted. amzaingly i was still pursuaded to go out after work some nights.

okay i dont know what happended to my browser but i have to make a new post so this post will continue up top.

hey people, i havent written anything for a long time and i just wanted to assure you all that im still alive. i have been in good health and i have been doing a lot of really fun things that i will hopefully be able to write about later. my life lately has been so busy but still, good.
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ok i made a photobucket account for yall to see my photos. if it doesnt work for some reason let me know.
http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/cc249/NathanSux/ecuador/
check that out.
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well i am feeling better today and i am even mobile. a few interesting things i failed to mention about being in the hospital: one i was there for only45 minutes and i didnt wait in a line or a waiting room. two, there was only one doctor working in the emergency room of one of the largest hospitals in ecuador. and three when i walked out of the hospital medication and care only cost $40. i think in the states my little stay would have been well over $200. sunday evening i was really missing some american food so i asked my host brother and sister to take me to mcdonalds. there are a lot of american fast food resturants here in ecuador but only mcdonalds has the same menu here as it does in the states. so i went and ordered the classic cheesburger, fries and coke. before hand i was so excited it was pathetic. later that night jack called me and told me that everyone from afs had to be downtown the next morning to do something called "global education." so i went to that expecting that i would get to sit in the airconditioned afs office for a few hours talking about the world. i was wrong. instead we were lead around town by a geography teacher (luis) who had been volunteering with the organization for years. we first went to a catholoc charities organization which makes houses for the poor. i had mixed feelings about this organization because they will make a house for any family that needs it but after the house is built they do nothing else. these families need a lot of help and in my opinion a house is only the start. then we saw the line of people who needed a house and it was about a hundred people strong. the people who lead us around the compound then said that the seven of us could pay $20 to build a house on some saturday. most people in the group were really inthusiastic and it sounds good so i think that might happen soon. the next place we visited was an organization that works with the black afroecudoriano communities in guayaquil. they did a multitud of things involving helping families but mostly the director told us about his mission of enhancing an afro identity in ecuador. it was interesting stuff. race relations arent quite as volitile here in ecuador as they are in the states but there is definatly a divide. for instace many rich people who i have met are taller and blonder than people with less. the afro population isnt segregated but like i say there is definatly a cultural difference. we had lunch at a peculiar vegitarian resturaunt but not before seeing a group of communists rallying in front of a french bank-im not quite sure what they were after. the final thing we did was talk about ecuador with our afs host. we talked about an insiders history of ecuador, politics, religion, wealth and then we talked about traveling in ecuador and where to go and what to see. it was a very interesting day but after it was all done i needed an ice pack. today i plan to see a doctor and have her okay me to work tommorow because i think im getting cabin fever hanging out here so much. o yeah and dad, have i ever been one for spelling things correctly.
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i havent written a whole lot this past week because there was wasnt much to talk about. i was sick with the flu and i spent a lot of time chilling around the house reading. unfortunately i only went to work one half day. that was wednesday. if i had gone to work this past week i would have been helping my organization with this day camp type thing they are putting on. everyday last week and this week coming up the kids in our organization go to a school where all the other therapists, educators and volunteers entertain the kids with games and activities. wednesday i helped the organizers of that day by just running errands for them. after only a half day though i was too exhausted to do more. i was told i needed to be completely well before i returned to work so thursday and friday i hung around the house some more. the crisis with columbia (thats what they call it here) is now over but not before i had to defend my own country in conversation. on several occations i was talking to my host brother and or his friends about the situation. they all had the unanimous consensus to join their governments stance of hating columbia for what they did and all that. after a few minutes into every conversation they would say "im sorry i have to say this mark but" and then they would relate the current situation to how america is trying to take over the world. i tried to defend our foreign policy saying that the US has very little to do with ths affair but that statement always went unheard. on saturday i was fealing much better and my flu was almost totally gone-except for a heavy cough. i was coughing so hard that i managed to throw my neck out and now it is very hard to move without pain. i spent all of yesterday in bed. today i woke up early with hopes of meeting the rest of afs here in guayaquil to go to a nature reserve. but when i got there they (the leaders of the afs chapter here in guayaquil) figured out what was wrong with me and told me i needed to go to the emergency room. a few hours later my host brother pepe drove me over there and i was checked out by a doctor. the doctor diagnosed me with wipflash and gave me some anti-inflamitories. being in a hospital reminded me of when i was in a ghanaian clinic for three days. i guess in the next third world country i visit i will also have to make a visit to a hospital. so now i will have to take off more time from work and hopefully in a few days i will be able to move again.
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i wanted to write something today because of two reasons: one i had some free time today and two, there is some unsettling news about ecuadors foreign policy in the news. the link

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7275732.stm

think what you will but its all politics.
today i came down with a bit of a tropical flew type thing. pepe says i have some sort of bug common to all the foreigners that have stayed in this family. i think i will be going back to work tommorow.
saturday after i wrote on my blog i went to this graduation party. it was a real site. it was the party of my host sisters best friend who has just graduated from university. this girl is very well off. in my last post i said that i havent seen too many rich people while here in ecuador, well i can say now that i have found them. this party took place in one of ecuadors-if not ecuadors- nicest hotel. i had to rent a tux to go. that was a little bit too much because everyone else were in suits but i fit in better than if i had been in jeans. there of course was lots of dancing. a band played that switched off from playing all different types of music like meregue, slasa, bachata and a couple of others. my whole host family went and everyone got down. it was also cool meeting some people there. i would have been perfectly keen with using my spanish skills but many of the kids spoke english fluently, some had studied in the states or europe. one girl asked me dance and i did. the first question she asked was "are you rich?", then she asked my my name. anyway it was quite a site. sunday i went with a friend to the really tourist district of guayaquil to take some pictures. i got some sweet shots and now i have to figure out how to load some pictures on this thing. today i woke up real early for work, realized i didnt feel good, called my boss and went back to sleep. once i woke up many hours later i organized some papers to take to the immigration people. after everything was organized pepe and i spent 4 hours going to the right offices to deposite all the right papers. when it was finally over they gave me my ecuadorian identity card. going to those offices was worse than spending time in the dmv because unlike the dmv there were no lines and no one was willing to answer questions. hopefully i will be able to go to work tommorow.
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this past week has been very busy for me and thats why i havent been able to write something. my job is starting to be too much for me. monday morning we started at seven. that day we went to deliver food-4 pounds of oast and 4 pounds of beans, i dont know how you can eat that but o well- to the families that need it. we drove around the unpaved roads of the slums in a 4x4 truck of one of the coordinators at juconi. we also made our regular family visits. at about three a clock i got to duck out to go to a meeting with afs in down town quayaquil. there we met with the coordinator of afs guayaquil and talked about all the rules of our stays. she was a scary lady and im not planning on breaking any of those rules. because the guayaquil 7 (all the other afsers in guayaquil) were together we decided to go out for a bit. we had pizza and met some guy from chile who had done afs as well. it was nice listening to a different kind of spanish accent and he was a very interesting guy who was traveling all over south america. tuesday was a planning day i mostly did other peoples jobs in the juconi office. after work i came home to a pepe that said: ok mark get ready we are going out-it was only six thirty. i got ready and after our plans changed four times we went to meet up with the guayaquil 7 to go bowling. there i met more host brothers and host sister of other kids and their friends. we had a good time.

wednesday i was very tired and i woke up very grumpy. that crumpynes turned into anger and through out my morning bus trips (i spend about an hour and a half getting around by bus in the morning) i was very critical of ecuador. this anger helped me think about a lot of things in this country that have been surfacing in my brain for a month. i was angry at why no one ever picks up the garbage from the streets; i was angry that people never fed their dogs; i was angry that no one ever talked on the bus; i was angry at all the poverty here and who ever let all of it happen; i was angry that no one shares the oil wealth. then toward the end of the day i saw a giant poster of pres correa, where he was literally lager than the poster board and his hands were flailing in the air with praise of whoever was supporting him. this poster was in the middle of the poorest part of guayaquil, a place where he has done nothing to help the poor or stick to his word. the poster read something like patriotism is for everyone. that decided it: i hate this dictator. i should point out that here in ecuador people dont have political opinions they have geopolitics. people from quito think correa is the next che, people from guayaquil think correa is the next castro. correa is just another south american dictator whos ego has grown larger than his political agenda. anyway back to me being angry on the bus. it seemed like my thought process changed and i was able to observe ecuador a little better. i realized that people here in ecuador always only have enough. they always have just enough to feed themselves, just enough money to get by, just enough laundry detergent to one load of laundry. the people i have met dont yearn over job promotions and people who beg for money just keep on begging. there are no people who drive around in mercedess or wear rolexes, i have a hard time eyeing out rich people. i think that there is very little motivation in people to go out and make millions like in other countries-or the one that im from. i thought more about the current state of ecuadors economy and now my opinion is that ecuadors economy is like the state of some of its children: both things have never had a solid foundation to help them make the right decissions. okay back to what i was doing on wednesday. that day was alittle special because we were helping repair the home of a very poor family, the poorest of the poor. we first had to replace a beam and then patch the roof. in the beginning i kept quite and just lent a hand when it was needed. then later on it seemed that people working on this project really didnt know what they were doing so i stepped in and said that i thought if they did what they were about to do the house would fall down. also being the tallest meant i had to do a lot of lifting and pounding of nails in hard to reach places. we finally patched up everything. in the end im not sure i would let jj live in that house because it is so rickety. after work i helped a friend move her stuff from one apartment to another. when i finally i got home i was lucky that pepe didnt want to take me out he just wanted to sleep too.

on thursdays i visit with a family and tutor one of the kids. that day we worked on math, english and geography. im learning that the best way to teach this kid geography is by encorporating soccer into. where is ronaldinho from? i aked. brazil he said. then i asked where am i from? peru he said. that wasnt exactly right but we are working on it. half way through the day i went to juconi to organize toys that we are going to use next week. man i hate being in that building. later thursday night jack and i went out on the town with jacks brother and some other friends including two english girls from work. it turned out to be a really good crowd and we had a lot of fun.

friday was another day at the office. we were setting up everything for this summer camp type thing we are having next week for all the kids. thats right its summer here. if i were a kid i would be really excited about going to this thing. then friday night pepe and i decided to have a party at the house here. i invited close to everyone i know and we set up the upstairs patio for a perfect party setting. there were was good music, some dancing, cold beer, lots of people to talk to. a really good party that lasted welll into the morning. now (saturday) i am getting set to go to a party of my host sisters best friend. she just graduated from college and now she is throwing a really formal party. i even rented a tux. ok i miss you all.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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