hey y'all,
sorry this has been so long in coming. but here it is. so there.
just after sending that last check in ecuador thingy i got mugged. i figured out that my bus wasn't running so i decided to catch another one that was conveniently situated on the other side of la Parque Carolina. three guys vs me. no knives or guns, gracias a dios. they made off with all my electronic things but i managed to beg with them in spanish to leave me my backpack, schoolbooks, and the clothes i had been carrying from being away for the weekend. oh and the clothes on me. it would have been a drag to have my shoes stolen (as is pretty typical) because they don't sell shoe sizes above like 9 here (mine are 12-13). i was physically unhurt but pretty shaken, and i still tense up at odd times walking around the city. perhaps the worst part was that the following thursday, i was walking with Laura (she goes to Wesleyan, is on our program, is awesome) got robbed right outside of la Mariscal aka Gringolandia by two black guys with a butter knife. but believe me, when a knife of any kind is pointed at your chest in the dark, you can only really see long and shiny and a strong arm behind it. they only got ten bucks off each of us before one of the guardias came strolling up and scared them away. probably the universe telling me that these things happen.
the weekend before last we went to Mindo which is in this tropical, jungly, mountainous area. its gorgeous and was wonderful for soothing the anxious, "i've just been robbed... twice" soul. we ate churrasco which is a local specialty of two fried eggs, beef, rice, and avocado, cucumber and tomato. mix it all together and of course a healthy helping of Aji (i'm honestly thinking of setting up an importation business for Aji its the most amazing hot sauce ever). it was really good. we also hiked to a couple of the million waterfalls around, jumped off of a 36 ft high waterfall (WHAT a rush!), hung out at a reggae bar, and kicked it with the local hippie jewelry makers from all over the world (Carrie kept saying "i wanna go to the hippie plaza!"). its one of the first places in the world that i've actually fallen in love with. we're going back again for my birthday weekend.
i found a capoeira class last week that meets in the evenings, which is making it even harder for me to see my host family ever which sucks, but its a lot of fun and i'm making a lot of local friends through it, not to mention kickass exercise. Laura taking the classes too. our mestre is Marco who is 22, which i just found out from Laura, but he looks like he's in his late 20s, maybe 30. its weird, but his story checks out. its so great to finally be playing capoeira again! (stupid rugby shoulder)
we went to the beach this last weekend, just north of the touristy beachbum town of Atacames, called Tonsupa. we stayed in a house owned by Dane's host family and packed 8 of us in two rented cars. we went a little nuts at the grocery store so we barely fit into the tiny tiny cars they gave us. yknow those tiny cars they have in ireland to fit between the hedged wall and the oncoming mack truck? that small. the whole weekend was really relaxed. the house was only a 5 minute walk from the beach and we met up with another part of our group that was staying in a hostel in atacames. the water was really really warm (almost 80 degrees) but compared to the beating sunshine out of it, it felt wonderfully cool.
we ended grammar classes for spanish last week, and this week started studying Indigenous Cultures of Ecuador, basically an anthropology class all in spanish for 3 hours every morning. we went back to the Museo Del Ecuador today for a look at colonial up until today art. its a really interesting class and i'm grateful to be learning stuff, but we dont get much spanish practice, so we have to rely on our own devices for local practice. the teacher is from the University of San Francisco de Quito, which is where the other Pitzer program is. she's very nice but refuses to have people disagree with her ever, so we get to argue semantics with her in spanish which is fun.
thats all for now. hope you all are doing great. if you write me i swear i'll write you back, i'd love to hear stories from the homefront, whatever they entail.
smiles
Ben
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