Ines, Noticias and Korea

Dear Chris Kwon,

Nothing much has happened to me in the past two days. The blackouts have changed from 9-11 am to 4-6pm. It's not really all that bad. I went to FUDIS again for my service learning project. The woman who is in charge of us, Ines, is bitter about something. She made us come up with a million things to do while we volunteer there. I stole most of my ideas from the activities they do in my grandma's nursing home. Ines told us we have to bring our own materials for whatever we want to do. I reluctantly volunteered to help clean the rooms and she told me I have to bring a gallon of sanitizing liquid to clean the rooms. My OWN cleaning supplies? Ines gave us another tour (we fortunately made it out by noon this time) and we met some of the patients. They were so sweet. It was very refreshing to know that some people were nice at FUDIS. The patients seemed really stoked to partake in the activities we suggested. I think they are starved for company. I suggested we talk about what's going on in the world. A patient said he wanted to know where in the wold Obama is. Haha. I'm excited to hang out with them tomorrow, even if it is at 8 in the morning. Plus, Ines won't be there.

I went to school and Shaunte, a girl in my group, had some good news. Her host mom has a travel agent who found a great deal for the galapagos over Carnaval. Carnaval is a huge two day holiday here. I don't know much about it, but people throw water balloons at everyone. If I were to go to the galapagos, I would miss Carnaval, BUT I would get to play with huge turtles and I would actually be able to post some pictures on this blog.

Dinner has been somewhat uneventful for the past two nights. We have been watching the news at 7:45. Today, one of my teachers told us about how the news here is becoming super regulated, because the president has communistic ways of ruling. Antonio always has his opinions. I try to understand the news, but it's hard. There was a long profile on Haiti today. I understood that. I only hope that Paul Farmer wasn't in Port Au Prince.

For the past few nights, I kept hearing about Corea (how you say "Korea" here) on the news. I was wondering why Korea had such a big role in the news and the government. Chris Kwon, do you know? Turns out, the president of Ecuador's name is Correa. So similar! I feel totally uncultured here.

Strange thing of the day:

A truck comes around each morning and honks it's horn. I was so confused by this constant obnoxious honking. As it turns out, this truck has a bunch of gas tanks in the back. Everyone here uses gas to heat their water. The truck honks, and the women of the house run outside and stop the truck. An employee of the truck then switches out the gas tank. You don't call the gas company when you're out, the gas company just drives around in an unmarked truck and hopes it can sell and replace some gas. ¡Que extaño!

I have midterms on Friday and then, I promise, I will have more interesting things to write about. Hasta Luego.