Blogs from Guayaquil, West, Ecuador, South America - page 15

So I haven´t written in a very long time. Bad me, oh well I will try to catch up a bit. I didn´t get to write about the Juramento de bandera in the last one, so here it is: They have a lot of celebrations, ceremonies and appreciations etc here (when asked what ¨Actos¨ my high school at home does, I didn´t really know what to say… we have homecoming.. but that´s really not the same. I guess we don´t do this kind of thing). Anyway, flag day is very big in the educational world here, sixth year students of every school have a big flag saluting ceremony, lots of pictures, lots of anthem singing, you know. Long, kind of boring even when you do understand what´s being said, and hot. I went to my sister ... read more

Estoy triste. all of my pictures from the last two weeks are gone. a girl at school accidentally deleted them. oh well though. no more soccer madness photos or Milka doing her chicken dance. The whole time I´ve been here, Canditates for "Assambleista" have been campaigning like crazy.. parades in the street, giant faces plastered on buildings.. the whole deal. One even held a sunday bingo tournament in my neighborhood. Yesterday was the big voting day, and there were street fairs EVERYWHERE. So many. We (the family, abuelitas and all) all piled into the truck and drove to all the voting sites, it was nice in that I got to see another area of this very large city. Today there was no school because of the elections, so my sisters and their cousin and I all ... read more

School. I am in fifth year at Collegio Fiscal Ficoa de Montalvo. If you didn’t know about the school already, you would have no idea where it was, you have to turn down two dirt roads and then into what looks like an alleyway. It’s small, mixed (boys and girls), and goes from 1pm to 6:30. My uniform is a button down white shirt on Mondays, and a choice between that and a polo shirt all the others, with a pleated blue skirt, white socks, and black shoes. Wednesday is PE day, and we wear a tshirt and blue sweatpants. Everyday I get a ride with Mayu, a teacher and friend of my sister Ruth (also a teacher there) who lives nearby. Her car is awesome. I’m a bit afraid it will just break apart at ... read more

Where in the US could you walk down the street, buy some rolls at the panaderia, and walk a little further and choose from pigs feet, cow tongue, testicles and liver at the carniceria? just a thought. Today I went to work with Noe, she is a teacher. What an experience let me tell you. Its an enormous (2000) girls school, they all wear little white dresses (its a collegio, or highschool). I went in three classes with her, and the girls were so excited to see me, most of them said they had not seen tourists before. They were really sweet, but I still felt bad that I couldnt communicate very well. They constantly asked if I had a boyfriend, how old I am (when I said 15 they all gasped because I{m so much ... read more

Hello All, Quick update as it´s getting late and we have to be up early tomorrow for our flight to the Galapagos. We will be there for a week so we won´t have interenet access until 16-17 September. So, what have we been up to the last couple of days? Yesterday was mostly spent in a bus travelling from Riobamba to Guayaquil, where we are now. The scenery for the first couple of hours was fantastic - high peaks plummeting to little valleys with streams running through, local people farming their land, dogs and pigs and cows sharing the fields and running on to the road when they felt like it. Today we went into Guayaquil city and explored. It´s not as historical as Quito, it has a much more modern feel, helped a great deal ... read more