the middle of the world

The highlight of Wednesday was salsa lessons. The Quito University, la Catòlica, hired this Cuban dance teacher for the afternoon and all 30ish exchange students learned how to salsa. He started us off clapping to the music and by the end we learned how to spin and do some other cool moves like out to the side. I kept switching to do the guys part cuz there was like 5 guys for over 25 girls, and that kinda messed me up sometimes, but it wasn´t too hard to pick up. Some people weren´t as enthusiastic as I was and left early, but many people got the hang of it.

Thursday we spent allll day (8am to 5pm with a lunch break) picking classes. It was painful. Dad called it Tyranny of Choice. There are so many options. I could take classes with my study abroad program or at the local university. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. I know what to expect from the IES classes and they would be easier to transfer, but i would definitely meet more locals if I took more classes at la Catòlica. I picked a tentative schedule but I´ll let you know what my classes are when they´re final.

On Friday la Catòlica sponsered a field trip for the exchange students to La Mitad del Mundo, or in English Middle of the World. Its this big tourist attraction that lies (supposedly) on the equator. We had lots of fun taking weird pictures across the Orange line that represented the equator. Then we went up the big monument there and down through a museum they had inside the monument about all the Indigenous tribes in Ecuador. We then saw a show in the planetarium. It was in Spanish, but a lot of constellations sound the same as in English.
We ate lunch at this area PUCE (aka. la Catòlica) owns. It was a gorgeous area with so many flowers blooming everywhere. We also saw a presenation of various folk dances. Their costumes were very elaborate, colorful, and very beautiful to watch. I don´t feel like I can describe the dances in a blog...but I got some video of them, if anyone is interested later.
On the Equator.

That afternoon I took the public bus for the first time. Previously, my sister had been driving me around and I had only seen the buses and heard really bad stories about them. The busses dont really have bus stops (or if they do, they dont necessarily stop there). They just stay in the right lane most of them time and you wave them down like a taxi when they pass. If they are in the middle lane you either wait for the next one or, if they are stopped at a red light, walk through traffic to jump on. Sometimes they never stop at all, they just go slow enough so you can jump on while they are moving. Most of the busses are a bright blue and say the route in the front window. But just in case you cant read or cant see the sign, they have a person that hangs out the door of the bus and yells the route out the door as they pass people standing on the side of the street. They casually jump on and off the bus while its moving, helping people on and off the bus and also collects the bus fare (25 cents...a taxi to my house from school is about a dollar). To get off the bus you have to tell the bus driver to stop, and hopefully they will slow down long enough for you to hop off.

All of our orientations warned us about the safety on the bus. You should always wear your packpack or purse on the front of your body cuz its easy for theives to unzip your bag. However, one of my American friends was doing this and didn´t feel someone slip her cell phone out of the pocket of her jeans. We were also told to avoid window seats on a crowded bus because you cant escape if someone sits next to you and holds you at knife point to steal all your stuff.

My host brother showed me how to use the bus the first time. I was telling him everything they had told us at orientation about bus security. He said that the front was safer then the back of the bus. He also said that while walking around the city, he had been robbed 4 times, sometimes at knife-point. My sister has only been robbed once. Neither of them were ever physically hurt. From the stories and advice Ive heard, it seems like the theives here like easy robberies. They are just looking to make some money and usually arent doing it with the intent of hurting the victim. Some people have said that if you just surrender your money and phone they´ll leave you. Its still really scary and I can´t wander around the city like I want to.

Anyway, my older sister´s birthday was friday and we went to a party friday night. There was karaoke but I didn´t sing. I hung out mostly with my younger host sister and her cousin.

The next day, Saturday, my family participated in this big procession of cars supporting the cadidate for mayor of Quito, Ricuarte. My older sister had to sign a really important paper. I couldn´t understand exactly what it was for eventhough it was explained to me at least 5 times. As an American exchange student, we are not supposed to participate in any protests, and they discouraged us from being associated with any political movements (espcially if they might turn into protests), but this was safe and pretty interesting to see.

Saturday afternoon, we went to my host cousin´s birthday party where we played ping-pong and watched the cousins play soccer. And today, Sunday, my bro and sis went to go see a professional soccer game.

I would like to note that I went to 2 birthday parties and neither of them had cake. Not even dessert. This is strange to me.
They also generally eat a pretty big break fast, big lunch, and a very small dinner. This to me seems healthier than the small breakfast and big dinner that most Americans eat cuz you eat and then burn calories throughout the day, instead of sleeping on all the calories you ate at dinner. We eat a lot of fruit, frequently in the form of jugo (juice). This morning my host mom made a Tomato and Kiwi juice that was reallly good, a lot better than it sounds. They eat fruits here than I´ve never heard of. We also eat corn in any manner possible, on the cob, corn bread, roasted kernals, this more like pastry thing, etc. Potatoes are also plentiful in every possible way prepared. Meat as well. Not exactly sure what kind of meat we usually have...some part of pig or cow is my best guess. All in all though, the diet is pretty healthy. I was talking with one of my host uncles about food and he said that they don´t have an obesity problem here. Although some of it might be the extra calories expended to breathe at such a high altitude.

peace