Frostbite y Politics!

Qué tal todos! Welcome to the week where I almost got frostbite!

First, the weird food world of Ecuador: So last Thursday, my madre served me shrimp in a blood red soup with popcorn, another type of crunchy corn, onions, and fried banana chips (fried banana chips?) mixed in. Sounds weird, looked even weirder. However, it actually tasted pretty good – it’s called Cerviche, it’s from the coast. I ate shrimp and liked it!

On another note, mi madre also asked me if I had gotten a nose job the other day, hahaha, fun conversation.

Anyways, this weekend was our first trip for Rock Climbing class (Andinismo!) Certainly an experience: We climbed El Corazón, a huge mountain here. We hiked uphill in the rain the first day, slept in tents, and then rock climbed in snow, wind, and cold without ropes about halfway up until the professor decided conditions were too bad.

I know what you’re all going to say, that this is right up my alley, right? Well they didn’t really tell us what to bring, so we were wearing wet clothes all weekend in below-freezing temperatures. The climax of the trip was when I almost got frostbite at the top of the mountain on Sunday morning - my professor made me take off my shoes and socks and he stuck my feet inside of his coat to try to warm them up. Exciting, huh? Actually, in all honesty, at the time it was an incredibly painful experience (de-thawing your feet HURTS), but now I kind of wish I had a picture to commemorate it. Ehh, makes a good story.

So that was my exhilarating weekend! Next, a quick synopsis of the rest of my classes so it looks like I’m actually learning stuff here:

-Basic Weaving: Best class ever! Nothing like weaving pieces of yarn between pieces of string for an hour. I can now weave loops, stripes, waves, and pyramids.
-Teorías de Desarollo (Theories of Development): Currently discussing the positive side of child labor? I’m looking at issues from an entirely new perspective.
-Anthropología de la Religión: Hilarious because on any given day, I only understand about 70 percent of what’s going on. However, it’s interesting; we’re studying the origins of religion!
-Español Avanzado: Shoot me now.
-Volcanología: Our professor is a genius, we’re going on trips to study volcanoes the next two weekends, and I’m doing math again and it feels great!

Anyways, this is a REALLY big weekend here in Ecuador because they’re voting on the new constitution. The government is spending millions of dollars promoting the ‘Sí’ vote, and the polls say that it’s going to pass. If I was Ecuadorian and voting, I would vote no. In the words of my madre, it’s going to make Rafael Correa more like Fidel Castro. For instance, he’ll only have to be elected every 10 years.

However, in the last 10 years there have been 10 different presidents here, so you never know what will happen. I was talking to Blanca the other day and she was just flat-out shocked that we had had the same president for 8 years now. There’s been lost of demonstrations in the streets and there’s propaganda everywhere. Voting is obligatory here so I’m sure this weekend will be a zoo.

I’ll keep you posted on everything! Read about it! Hasta luego!

Lisa