Day 2? I mean ... week 4????

My fourth week in Ecuador is in full swing. I have no idea how it got here. I LITERALLY just stepped off the plane. What happened???? Here's what happened - I have been traveling around by bus every weekend.
The first weekend I was here we went to Cuenca, in the mountains. It was very beautiful, and even chilly. What a nice climate change from hot humid dusty Guayaquil. There is a river running through the city, and when we went down to see it there was an Indian women doing her laundry in it. The contrast was so strange, because there was a busy highway with a huge Banco Pichincha in the background, and then this Indian lady wearing her son's batman t-shirt, barefoot, scrubbing away at her family's pants in the river.

Second weekend we went to Montanita. The pictures speak for themselves. It's a beach town, lots of tourists, all young people. Tons of alcohol, a good amount of drugs, surfers, hippies. We went swimming in the dark - it was one girl's first time swimming in the ocean! A couple of random moments:
- At the club/party we were at I wandered over to talk to two guys who were sitting by the pool (high). Immediately upon discovering that I was from the U.S. (they were Norwegian) they started yelling at me about Obama. Like this guy stood up, kind of teetering, and was like "blah blah blah OBAMA YOU AMERICANS blah blah blah IT'S AL YOUR FAULT" and I was like ummmm this conversation is over and walked away.
- long walk on a deserted beach with the sounds of the town partying in the distance
-everybody out on the street at 2 am
-four gay guys (one had a long scarf wrapped around his head like a turban, with the ends dangling all the way down his back) dancing - James, the british guy with us, didn't know they were gay and was dancing with them until someone told him.
- our street bartender named Eugenio who made me an AMAZING strawberry mojito and it was only $2.50.

Third weekend - this past weekend - I went to Quito. Two things: the altitude is really high, so I felt a little lightheaded, and the weather changes literally every 5 minutes. You have to dress in layers and then spend all day taking them off and putting them back on again. We went on the teleferico, which is this cable car thing that takes you up to this really high point where you can see (a good portion of) the city. Quito is huge, it is narrow and very long. Very very long. I was shocked. It was freezing up there on that mountain, but the view was spectacular.
We also took an hour bus ride to Otovalo, which is also very touristy because there is a huge artisan market there. I bought some things. Here's how it works - they name a price. You name a lower price. They name something in the middle. You walk away. They run after you, drop the price down to less than half of what they said before, wrap up the item, and try to give it to you as if you've already bought it. Tricky tricky little artisans.
I did buy a little painting from one of the artists. He was really nice - one of those people that give you a good feeling inside. His wife was there with him, and their little baby. She was really sweet too. I wonder if that is their entire income - his paintings that he sells in the art market.

There is so much I want to say.
I eat a lot of rice, so I'm trying extra hard to go running and work out.
Coffee here is really good. You take milk, heat it up, and then put in a couple spoons of Nescafe, which is basically instant coffee. So good. My favorite. I panic if I don't have it in the morning.

Ecuadorians gossip a lot. Faster than facebook, as one girl put it. It's true, so true. People talk so much here. You can't keep anything a secret. And you never know what's true and what's not.

My day Monday - Friday: Alarm goes off at 7, I wake up at 7:30. Rush to throw on some combination of scrubs/jeans/t-shirt. Drink my nescafe. Search for 25 cents. Wait for the bus. It takes like fifty million hours for the freaking 131 rt 1 bus to come. One time I got on the bus and there was puke all over one of the seats. Sometimes I ride the short bus and I hit my head without fail. Oh! and people come on the buses trying to sell little things like candies or bracelets. The way they do it is to give it to you, and then come back around to get money for it. The first time this happened I thought they were giving away promotional items, so I took like the five little candies the guy put in my hand, thinking I'd ask Raul later if it was okay to eat them ... when the guy came back around looking for money I had to dig them out of my purse to give them back. The mom in front of me apparently felt bad for me and tried to give me one of the candies she bought for her kids.

Anyway, that's the bus. So I arrive at the Center, after being spewed out of a basically still moving bus onto the side of the road, usually into a pile of trash (which isn't hard because the roads are built out of piles of trash). Sometimes I buy an energy drink from Anita, who gets upset if I don't have exact change.

On a side tangent, not a single restaurant, bar, store, street vendor or guy selling stuff on the bus has change. But the ATM only gives you $20s and $10 and maybe a $5 or two. People get so annoyed if you pay for something that's a dollar with a fiver.

Well - here I am! In Guayaquil. Both of my flights were pretty uneventful. I used the bathroom when I got to the airport, and I went in the stall to pee, and then looked around for toilet paper but there was none. At first I thought "oh how silly of me I didn't check to see if it was out," but then I looked around some more and there was never any tp there in the first place. I mean, that's perfectly logical, to not put tp in a bathroom stall. Of course, I just forgot to grab some from the communal tp dispenser on the wall next to the sink on my way in. Naturally that's where it would be.

I walked out into the main airport and experienced my first feeling of slight panic. There were crowds of people in the airport and I didn't know any of them or who I was looking for or what I would do if I couldn't find them. But that only lasted for a couple minutes, because there was this little Ecuadorian woman holding a paper with my name on it. I met Patti (the mom), Ernesto (the dad), and their son Raul. They are very nice and welcoming and patient with my lack of Spanish.

There are two other students living in the house as well, Karina and Natasha. Natasha took me out to walk around our neighborhood in Guayaquil for a little bit. The buses are positively frightening, but that is how I am going to have to get around. They kept on telling me what to do if I got lost and what to tell the cab driver and all I could think was, I hope to God I never get lost. Apparently we are on the bad side of town? I don't know if it's the bad side or if it's just not the wealthy side.

Camilo just told me that I'm going to need scrubs for my job, and let me tell you, that literally made my day. I'm working at an orphanage, or center/clinic, for malnourished children. I'm going to be working with the nurses there. I was really glad to hear that, because I thought I was going to be at an orphanage doing the whole "play with the children and make them feel loved before you leave them to go back to America and Starbucks" thing. I would much prefer to do something a little more concrete. And really, "helping the nurses" could also mean "play with the children." But I was worried that my job wouldn't be as health related as I wanted - or really needed - it to be.

I begin on Tuesday. Today I am going on a city tour with Raul. Monday I am doing an orientation with Camilo. I am taking this whole thing one day at a time, because I am freaking out on the inside.