Archive for June, 2004

Muy buenas tardes a todos –
Third week, the Spanish is starting to sink in, at least I am understanding everyone pretty good. Speaking is another problem.

Highlight of last week was attending a Ecuador-Colombia soccer game, which was qualifying for the World Cup Germany 2006, for those that don´t know soccer is very popular outside of the US and this game was no exception. Ecuador won 2-1 and it was alot of fun. Songs, flags, talking to people and not understanding anything.

The other highlight is that I got my first taste of tear gas last week. There is a university near the school and pretty much every day the students highjack buses and start throwing stones at the cops, who then bomb them with tear gas. Needless to say this is pretty entertaining to watch and on Monday my professor and I watched this for about 30 minutes. It is pretty much a game for the students who are usually no more the
14/15 years old. After the gas comes everyone calls it a day. Don´t worry about me, you watch out for kids who have bad aim and stay behind the cops. The gas does really hurt the nose and throat but it is all part of the fun. My schedule is class in the morning and then activities in the afternoon with my professor. So I have been seeing alot of Quito. I usually get home about 5.30/6 study, watch TV and go to bed. Tomorrow is Thursday already time is moving pretty quickly. Hope everyone is doing well and I will talk to you in the future – Jon

Well I finished my first week and am beginning week 2. The highlight of last week was going to the ecuator and seeing the different experiments that they have set up. For instance they have a tub/sink set up with water. On the ecuator the water drains straight down, move it 5 feet south it spins counter clockwise, move it 5 feet north and it spins clockwise. They also had an indigenous home there where I shot an arrow from a blow-gun and saw, in detail description, how to make a shrunken head. No, they didn´t do this for real, but had diagrams and a finished product, which from my limited understanding of Spanish and Quichua (indigenous
language) was the real thing. I guess they can only do this to animals now.

Tomorrow is Miss Universe, it is on NBC in the States. Everyone down here thinks that Miss USA is going to win but I am betting on Miss Ecuador. Take care everyone, thank you for your emails and I will talk to you in the future!