A Change of Pace

So I've finally gotten myself situated both at the hospital in Riobamba and at home in Punin. I can use internet at the hospital, however it's holidays Monday through Wednesday next week, so no internet until Thursday. I should have plenty of media to post then though. Tomorrow I'm going out with my host family to plant crops on some land outside of Punin. I don't know what I'm going to do the rest of the time. Plenty of emotions and thoughts going on here, and considering I haven't really had a chance to talk to anybody here about it, I figure this blog's a pretty good place. So, cons and pros:

CONS
-Somehow flies keep getting in my room, and the kitchen, and the buses, and the hospital cafeteria
-The bathroom is a latrine outside, and the door doesn't shut its always slightly ajar
-I think I'm going to ask my family for more blankets not because I get cold at night but because my bed is so hard
-I'm getting hives from something, hopefully just the adjustment
-It's an hour long commute by two buses each way (as some of you may know I hate buses, and that's no different here)

PROS
-If I ask my family for more blankets, they will give me more blankets
-If I ask my family for anything, they will probably provide
-I have 5 siblings, 1 cousin, 2 parents, and they're all awesome to talk to
-I have a television in my room, which gets one channel clearly, but that happens to be the channel that my favorite TV novella/soap opera is on
-Punin is tranquil

I'm sure this list will expand as time goes on, especially by next Thursday. Talk to you all again then!

Now for something completely different

Tomorrow I´m heading out to Riobamba for my internship in the Alternative Andian Hospital of Chimborazo, although I´ll be living in a small rural town 30 minutes out called Punin. Here´s the wikipedia article about Riobamba: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riobamba. I don´t know too much about Punin, my visit there some weeks back was very brief. I don´t even know if I´ll have access to the internet so I might have to resort to using internet cafes. In any case, I hope to put media up by the end of the week. Also, from this point onwards, I don´t think I´m going to be able to recieve packages. If you already sent something that´s on its way, a CIMAS staff member should bring it to me when they come to visit in November. Right, well I think that´s it.

Mount Pichincha

So Pichincha is actually a 15000 feet volcano in the West of Quito. I ventured up to its top with fellow student Rheanne Zimmerman, and it should be noted that we took a ski lift up part of the way. It still was a 2 hour hike and climb though. I uploaded a few pictures, and here's a video:

Back in Quito

Well I'm back in Quito now, the beach was fun, although a bit cloudy.
but at least that kept people off the beach. Beside, when the sun did come out it felt like we were being cooked. I think it was good for probably being the last trip before my internship, which is just two weeks away!

Vacation time

So I just got done turning in not one, not two, but three papers this week, so it´s time for a vacation. I´m heading to the balmy beaches of Atacames on the pacific coast.

I want it to look like this:

Although it will probably look like this:

But a beach is a beach. Better bring the sunblock. I´ll be back Monday!

So that resolved itself pretty quickly

Somebody commented that my use of the term ¨military state¨wasnt exactly accurate, I don´t reallly know who but they´re right. Alot of the police apparently went right back to work the day after, so everything´s basically back to normal. There´s a lot of military patrolling the center of Quito where the presidential palace is but that´s about it.

In other news, the last time I tried to use internet on my laptop here, it took a lot of work to get the internet back working on my host family´s computer. As such, I don´t think I´ll be using internet on my computer anymore, so as far as skype goes I´ll see about getting it on my host family´s computer. Speaking of communication, I finally got a cellphone this weekend! I don´t really know how international calling works yet, but I know it works so I´ll keep you all posted!

The Lowdown

So it seems that some of you have heard about the state of affairs in Ecuador right now, the good news is that I wasn't in Quito when this happened. I was watching the news coverage from the city of Otavalo about 2.5 hours north, suffice it to say the 2-day field trip was extended an extra day. However, now I'm back in Quito, and everything seems normal as usual on the surface, except that a lot of shops are closed, people are advised to stay inside since there's NO police force (side note: I think it speaks volumes that still people are going through everyday life just fine, although I suppose it has only been one day), and Ecuador is now a military state until some undetermined time.

In the meantime, I'm gonna upload some photos and video from my trip.