Random Photos!

So these are a couple of photos that I've got. Adam and Claudio chillin' on top of my roof. The mountain that is close to my house and Kaeti another exchange student from the US during the gift exchange in Crepes and Waffles... how cliche but great waffles!

Christmas Eve Thoughts

Warning! This post will consist of a series of rambles that I will continue until I'm tired.

Lets see, I've been sad this week... just becuase Christmas here thus far has beed a kind of let down. But I'm happy right now becuase this sadness was never bad, it was just a thoughtful profound feeling that got me thinking this week. I feel weird that the only presents under the christmas tree are mine to my family and that my mom told me that we would do the gift giving on the 28th.
I'm amazed at how thankful I am right now. I felt like something was wrong in my life after my birthday passed, I just had a weird feeling that life was passing me by and that there was something missing in my choices. I've passed this and have matured a lot in these last weeks. I had been creating walls that were closing in my perspective, I was pushing myself in some areas where I shuld have been taking it slow and setting myself up in situations that weren't healthy for anyone around me.
I have changed, my life here has become so different. Image the person that I was before i left and wipe it out of your memory, I'm not sure how to describe what went down since I've been here but I'm not the same at all. It has all been responses to my new situation and none of it was on purpose. Living in a new family, city, sitting in busses all day, etc. I actually was calculating it one day in the bus. If I'm here for 300 days I will have spent more than 20 days in a bus. This a rough estimate cansidering weekends and vacations... but I'm always on a bus. Up to three hours a day, and then some days I'll get home and my parents will invite me to do some errand, which is of course in car and bus and my day is just being lost. I am still the same in many respects, but perspectives have changed, the soul remains the same as everything else around it is creating a dance of the stimulouses that we recieve from outside. I have become a piece of clay that can be molded day in and day out but I will never change from being clay. This expirience has taught me so much, I just want to fly... in a literal and abstract sense... I havve learned so much here, and I have so many ideas, many that I had before I came to ecuador, but they have become obscured or morphed. Right now I just want to breathe in the enery of the universe and become the best being that I can be, to do this I must work on opening up my soul and eliminating my prejudices and my ideas that have no positive meaning in my life and neither in the lives of those who I'm interacting with. I feel like school and much of the life in the city has begun to close many of my earlier receptors to life, and at the same time has opened new doors that I thought could never be opened.
Today I recieved a call from the president of my rotract club to see I'f I wanted to go and give bags of candy to poor kids in a population in The Valley of Chillos, about a half hour from my house. I jumped on it because I was just talking to my sister about how I needed to do something today. She went with my mom to work at my moms shop in a shopping center in a poor part of quito, she is there now, her cellular was stolen today too, I don't know the details becuase my cell phone broke today too. I met up wit my clubs president who coincedentially actually went to SOU for a year two years ago. So I actually have some one to talk with about the CO-OP, and all of the other cool places in Ashland. We met up with two other guys from Roteract. We drove into this little village where all the women were dressed tradionally and all the houses were concrete rectangles and the community building doubles as a school. We walked into the place to find the kids practicing a presentation for their holiday program. We were t obe a part of the program, in the building were about 25 kids and their mothers. We started off by giving a christams message. I talked about family and how important it is especially duringg christmas. After we talked the kids did a couple of dances and games, we handed out the bags of candy and a couple was there with more bags of candies to give out to the kids. Some kids were overjoyed, these were probably the only presents that they would be getting for christmas. At this time of year there are kids out in the streets that ask for money or christmas gifts. We played a couple of games and did the Tomato dance, which is a dance between two people with a tomato pressed between them on their foreheads. The last team with the tomato wins, it was pretty funny. I actually didn't play because I was too tall. But I cheered on the teams. This expireince really put everything in perspective, how much I appreciate what I have in the states and all that goes with it. I love my life!
We are all in search of fufilment and I am finding what is most rewarding in my life these are the things I will follow, my dreams will carry me on when I'm down becuase I have recieved my answer. My path is a good one, there are some tall mountains and strong rivers but I must keep on walking this path, for on this path I will become the best that I can be... a human being in the fullest sense.
We can all rise to a level of conscience that will eliminate the problems in the world, it all starts with the individual, when the individual has reached ones potential and is ready, one will pass the level of life in the individual sense and begin to see the world as a huge interconected being. We are all one, part of what has put us here is in all of us. We are a part of the one and at the same time are the one. We are beginning to move into a whole new level of thought on planet earth.... I lost my train of thought becuase my sister came home sad about her cell phone, but in my philosophical state I talked her through it and told her just look at where she is in life and how much of difference the cell phone will make. So it is all good.
So, I think that I have lost the flow that i had so I'm going to change and keep on going... wee... I'm sure you are having fun reading this. I did a secret santa with my class and with some rotary exchange students! I gave a shirt to a kid in my class and got a cool ecuadorian shirt. And with the rotary kids I got a shirt too! I'm stoked to have gotten things that I'll be wearing when I get back!
Life is good, I think that there is hope in the world and that we are growing as a planet of real dilinquents... after all that we have done we can still fix it. I want to wish everyone a merry, jolly and thoughtful christmas. Lets spend this time with family and be thankful to all that we have and thoughtful of those who don't! I will do my part and we can make an agreement to all work together. I love you! and am so grateful that you are reading my blog!!! YOU ROCK!
La Paz es el Camino y el amor la Manera!

We're in!

So my team made it into the tournament. We were in a bracket of 7 teams and the tournament will be between the top two teams from each bracket. So in total there were 84 teams in Quito. This tournament is between 24 teams. If we had lost our game we wouldn't have had any more games this year. We actually tied the game. Which meant that in the next game a school had to win, so that the team that they were playing against wouldn't get the right amount of points.
We really had bad luck in the game, we ended up tying because of two fouls in the goal box, two PK's which they finished, so it was bad, bad luck. The thing that I didn't write about was how crazy my team is.
After the game on tuesday, one of the players on the team fought with a kid on the other team, he beat him up pretty good, when the team left the parking lot in a car they threw water bottles at us. This kid who fought before picked up one of the water bottles and went running after them, they stopped at a red light and began to get out of the car. About 7 kids from our team went running after Carlos... the kid who is ready to fight at an instant. There were probably about 8 kids on their side. We were lined up on the street, the two teams facing off. I grabbed Carlos and told him to chill out and started walking away with him cussing his head off at the other team.
We ended up not fighting but this is one huge difference between Ecaudor and the states, at least in Ashland, our first reaction isn't always to fight. Teenagers here have embodied the flight or fight syndrom perfectly... I have seen tons of fights here. My team mates wil fight others on my team over stupid things, it is really wild. There is actually some kids who go to the nearest park after school and fight. No one here can believe that I've never fought. For example one kid told me that he has fought 30 times this year! This is an extreme example but the teenage boys are ready to fight anyone and everyone.

Stuff

So I actually thought that there wasn't a mail service here... but there is... so late in coming here is my address for the good ol' snail mail.

Av. Ilalo, Calle Rio Paztasa y Rio Corrientes, Conjunto La Viña, Casa #6
Quito- San Rafael, Valle de los Chillos
Ecuador

So, I know that it works, my brother has been sending my family stuff from Germay, so I have Confidance in the mail system. So ya... sorry about not getting this out sooner but better late than never (you wouldn't believe how many times I hear this expression from my sister...)
So... I'm still doing a good job being lazy. But, whats new, I got a whopping 40% on my last math test. I have a boilogy quiz on carbohidrates and lipids. Oh, I'm going to learn how to do blood tests. In ecuador they are really big on the poop, pee, and blood tests. There is actually a Clinical Laboratory in my school. So I had to collect smaples of everything and had it all tested. So in biology we are going to learn how to take blood and then run it through a bunch of machines to sample it... and then later maybe with poop and pee! weee, anyways we practiced last week with oranges and syringes that we bought in a drug store (can you even buy syringes?), I'm a little scared actually, but it is becuase I'm going to have to be taking the blood from my sister... were partners... and, well, this is a little sticky... I'm afraid of the concequences.
I have a soccer game tomorrow, we are in the tournament, we won our last game and we had just enough points to enter the tournament. So here we go, I'm stoked, I played well but I don't have goal painted on my forehead like my coach says that I need. I just am always looking for passes first, I missed a great opportunity for a goal.
I was practicing Capoeira on friday with my teacher, his brother and another crazy kid named pancho, who is insane... well all of them are. They throw down the flips ike nothing and are frustrated at times becase their backflip 360°'s aren't perfect and stuff like that... anyways I just was working on backflips... I have some real confidance problems, with reason, the bother of my teacher practically killed me. The short of it is that I fell prety good on my head. I did such a good job of taking care of my body... but whatever, I'm a walking wreck.
My house is all decorated! We have a fiber optic tree... seriously. I bought a tie with my sister for my dad and I'm still short presents for the rest of my family. My mom is in another one of the houses in our apartment, the 9 days before christmas all of the neighbors are meeting in different houses to do a celebration for the birth of Jesus.
Ok there was a nice short update, big thanks to all those who are reading and especially commenting! thanks everyone!

Mi Cumpleaños!

My birthday was good. I was woken up in the morning with a knock on my door. Quickly there after my whole family streamed into the room with a cake and began singing happy birthday. My first reaction was to hide under my sheats... I like a little time to wake up, especially since it was 5:30... Here in ecuador they always sing happy birthday in English and then in Spanish. So two candles were lit, a 1 and a 7. I blew them out with a little difficulty since my sister was sitting on me. I was told to bite the cake so I did, it was a long role like thing, chocolate and vanilla with fruit in the middle. Later after everyone had left my room I checked my cell phone to find a text message from a friend of mine, she had woken up at 12 in the morning and sent it to me.
At school, I recieved a lot of happy birthdays. The only thing that was really wild was the great ecuadorian tradition of getting hit with your belt... 17 times. Now I've never expirienced this before... and I don't really want to ever again. But during the second break I took off my belt and freinds and non-friends beat the crap out of me. My sister hit me first, then was Adam and Polo. After these three it was a line of people. I was hugging a tree as people wailed on me. The first five were fine, my pain tolerance was fine. But number 13 was a kid that I know from playing soccer at the break. He had a wide belt on, he took it off stepped back and hit me. I practically fell over and cried, it hurt soooo bad. I almost couldn't go on, I felt like I was on fire. At one point a kid was about to hit me, and I was like, "who are you?" he introduced himself and hit me. This tradition is quite weird but definatly something to expireince. Moving hurt for the rest of the day. And the General Inspector came and tried to break up the beating but it continued all the same.
After school Adam and I went to La Mariscal, the turist district where all of the discos and English Speaking people are. We went into an English book store, which felt like one of the funky used book stores that can be found in Ashland! After that we went to eat, Shawarmas, a really good middle eastern food that is hot meat with a flat pita like bread and with some really good sauces... yumm. I met my dad at his work and we drove back to my house.
We left to go out and eat lasagna which I have really missed since I've been here. We first went to the mall to see about switching a new pair of jeans that my family gave me for my birthday. We couln't find another pair that worked out so I'm gonna use these, we also bought two new shirts, a longsleeved pink dress shirt and a short sleeved dress shirt. We left the mall to find a huge stage in the park next to it. There was a band up there playing Pink Floyd. We went closer to check it out and on the other side of the stage they were sending mini hot air baloons with flashing sparks. They sent out 17, and then there was a long pause. It seemed pretty cool, after a few minutes another 20 or so were sent up. We left to go and eat. The place that we went to was empty, just us. We all got different lasagnas, they were little personal lasagnas baked in clay platters. The pasta wasn't all that great but, all in all, it was good!
That was my day, a good adventure. But I really did miss my friends and family. It just didn't feel the same without everyone that has always been a part of my life.

Soccer

So tommorow I have a soccer game, if we lose we will be out of the running, period, tommorow will be our last chance. My teams record is bad, we have lost 2 or 3 times and tied once. Our problem is really stamina, we just don't play strong the whole game. I hope that we win and am excited, I really don't want to lose, not really for me but for my friends and coach. The last game he walked away after the game and didn't say anything to the team, he was pissed. I'll continue this post tomorrow with the results.

So we Won!!!! 2-1 finally, we recieved a very tense pep talk before the game from the coach and a kid who is on the teams dad. I am glad that my dad was never this serious about winning. Anyways, I didn't play which was a bummer... but I was chearing and screaming with the other 11 players on the sideline. The rules here only permit 4 substitutions, so it is definatly difficult to play. Claudio didn't play either. The score was 0-0 after the first half, but we scored once, they returned it, to tie it up. And in the last five minutes one of our players had a perfect shot which put us in the lead and finally... to win a game! So we will keep on going! we can't lose another game or we will be out of the championship, the pressure is on and I think that the team is finally ready to win.
I want to share a funny story, I have never seen anything like this in a soccer game at this level. One of our players took a player on the other team out. As he was on the ground clutching his leg another player on my team expertly pegged him with the ball... It really was comical, the kid falls, he's down for 3 seconds and gets hit with a soccer ball. The ref gave him a yellow and play went on, right after their free kick the wistle was blown again, and another yellow was diched out... to the same player. I didn't see it but when I asked what he did he just said "I punched him," so I'm not quite sure what he did, but his attitude was well whatever. It was jsut a little weird.

Quitenos know how to Party! part 1

So these last week was fiestas de Quito, celebrating the founding of Quito, it was from the 28 of November till 6 of December. It was wild, imagine a city that is all united for one cause, a huge party to shake the planet. I went to two bull fights on monday and thursday. And went out three nights this last weekend. The first things to note are the flags, for the week there were the flags of Ecuador and Quito flying everywhere. There are tons of songs... I of course picked up the songs that have to do with the youth. The whole week was really fun.
The first thing I can remember was watching the bike race down the Panecillo. There were many competitions for the festival, the bike race I only caught on TV but it was crazy! The Panecillo is a little mountain in the south of Quito, I actually went there on my first night. There is a big statue of the Virgin on top. It actually has a nativity scene on top right now, there ia a giant lighted nativity scene for christmas. It was lit up for the first time on the 28, I was in the car and actaully watched as the lights went on. There was also a lighted sign that said, ¡Viva Quito!. At the same time the smiling face off Jupiter, Venus and the cresent moon was But it is really steep, and cobblestoned. On Tv it looked so gnarly... flyinging from street to street and crazy scetchy landings like staircases... it was wild, again I was thinking of you Ben, and when you saw downhill biking in Viseu.
So the first weekend was uneventful, but on monday I went to Los Toros, the bullfight. The fair here is the best in the Americas. There were some of the best matodors in the world. I want everyone to know my reasons for going, I've never seen a bullfight and it is a deeply ingrained part of the culture here. Anyways so I skipped school on monday and met Adam at the plaza at about 9:30. We couldn't buy tickets and had to go to the scalpers. THey were everywere, and we couldn't find any tickets for cheaper than $25. Well we didn't really have an idea what we were doing so we bought our tickets and waited to enter, they would let people in at 10, we also learned that the bullfight wouldn't start until 12 so we had plenty of time to kill. We entered at 10 and walked around as preperations were being made for the after party, there were many... wow I cannot remember the word, just in spanish, if you know spanish carpas but I'm stumped... anyways Im talking about big outdoor tarps, and I can't remember the name. Anyways there was one for Brahma, a beer company, one for Wine, a healthcare company, and lots of booths selling spanish style sandwhiches, I was very tempted to buy a sandwhich with real jamón but I bought a cheaper sandwhich to bring into the plaza. Adam and I cruzed around watching people make the corn empanadas, sandwhiches and packaging wine and beer so that it can be easly brought into the plaza. We were recomended to enter early, so we did, we learned a couple of things as we entered. The first was that the doors have names, Sol, Sombra, sun and shadow, have no real meaning. The place is a round ring and the bullfight starts at 12, I'm about 25 from the Equator so as you can imagine the sun was directly over head. The other thing was the error in our intelligence, in our hurry to buy tickets we bought tickets completely seperate from each other... Well whatever we thought we'll work it out. As we sat down to take in the scenery I caught sight of Lorenz, he is another Rotary exchange student from Germany, he is easy to spot... as easy as Adam, he's a redhead, anyways he is really cool, we shared a class during my two week crash course in spanish that didn't teach me anything. He was with a friend from school. They had bought the tickets the week before hand and got them for 4 days. We talked as I was admiring the bullring. After the toros del pueblo, what I went to in August in Sangolquí. That was the place where the ring was breaking on us... anyways it was a circle about 50 meters across with two white painted rings in the dirt about 10 and 12 meters into the ring. The structure was concrete and we were seated quite far away from the ring, but the elevation gain made a good view. We waited as the ring filled up, our group of four creeped around and sat where there was space, slowly but surely people would come up, stick their tickets in our faces and tell us that we would have to move. But we found a spot for the beginning of the fights. There would be 3 matadors and 6 bulls, we would see every matador fight with two bulls.

Ok, Soy Vago

I really haven't posted anything interesting lately and it is long over due. I am just going to point everyone in the direction of Adam's blog, he does a good job of cronicaling stuff, which I don't so. Everyone should read the post labeled Pululagua and the one about the bull fights because I may never get to it...
Two weeks ago I went to a river called Morinuco with my family. There is a waterfall that is relatively famous. And it is close to my house. It is passed Sangolquí, which is a city in the same valley but a little farther away from Quito. We made a couple of wrong turns but finally got to the Morinuco cabañas which is a hostal of sorts for visitors. We parked our car and started walking down to the river. We passed the lodge which has soccer, and vollyball fields. We continued down the trail, stopping to look at the river below. There was a turn off to a smaller waterfall whcih we bypassed to the entrance to the second, it was a big wall with three paintings, each had a name above it: Big Adventure, Medium Adventure and Small Adventure... So we paid a couple of bukcs and entered the place. There were some benches, another soccer field and a wooden play structure, bathrooms and a restaurant.There was a guide who explained to us the adventures we could embark on. There was the Small adventure whci would take about 30 minutes, the medium about an hour and the big adventure 2 hours. There was a map and the guide explained all of the places we could go to. All had some name like Eden, Little Cotopaxi, Girls Waterfall's and odd things like that. We were wtold that there were high levels of energy in two places, the waterfall, which is 50 meters and pyramid rock. Anywasy, the guide made the place seem like it was full of magic and new things to be discovered... but with all of the labels I wasn't so sure.
We began walking down the trail towards the river, the first place that we came to was a rock that extended out into the water, there was a tiny little rope swing and not much else... this was the place called Eden. We continued walking along the river to another spot that had another name like the last and was non-descript. There were some people following us so we continued along rapidly. The third place that I can remember was the sport fishing pond... sport fishing is where there is a tiny pond full of trout and you can pay to catch one. Passed that was little cotopaxi... which was a tiny rock painted with white to make it look like a mountain on the other side of the river...
This river was really cool, I was thinking of my Dad and Ben the whole time. There are some crazy repids. Falls, chutes, closing holes... I definatly noted rapids at class 3 or 4. The water was funneled in between rocks and made some really wild rapids. The rapid at Little Cotopaxi was about a 50 foot rapid which fell about 25 feet in the same space, with the river about half the width. At the end was a drop and a closing hole. On the other side of the river was a sign that said only good swimmers should swim there.
Continuing on we passed two guys fishing for trout with minimal equipment, a stick, wooden leader hook and line. We saw a series of small waterfalls which were named Girls Waterfalls, they seemed to be springs that were running down the canyon walls. The pyramid rock was a real let down. It was a rock in the middle of the river shaped like a pyramid, but some one dumped white paint over it so it wouldn't be missed and painted letters for the four directions. We then crossed the threshold to the big adventure, there was a sign making sure that we wouldn't forget. But really... before that we had to cross the river as it widened out. When the water is low you wouldn`t have to do this but we did. We got there at the same time as a family that had drunk to much, a couple of the men and women were drunk... it was really stupid. My family crossed without incident. I walked the rest of the way without my shoes. We caght sight of the falls about ten minutes later. It was huge, the wet wind could be felt really far away. The day was overcast and was like 60º F. So I definatly felt the cold. My sister told me that we could walk around the other side of the waterfall, so I stripped to my shorts and hat...
If anyone remembers the hat I always wore, it is still the same. My mom made it for my brother and I started wering it... hopefully he doesn't mind. But it has some real value for me. I'm always fighting with the inspectors at my school over the use of my hat. Anyways, I never wash it, it gets wet, smells bad and is good again. So I wore it to wash it with a mixture of energy and water power. Just walking towards the falls was amazing. The bottom of the water fall wasn't very deep. So this attributed to the cray water works. I was soaked before I got within 50 meters. There are rivers of water forming from the water that is collecting on the rocks. At about 25 meters I crossed over the ock barrier and the winds were crazy, at this point I couldn't walk and look at the falls. There weren't any more plants, wate wind and rock. I took of my hat because it wasbeing blown off of my head. I put my hand in front of my face, the water collected on the other side and the wind blew the droplets into my face... I stood behind the falls and my sister was off to one side. The power of the waterfall was amazing. I was completely drenched. We returned to my mom and dad where it turned out that my sister hadn't brought any jacket. So my dad gave her his. I shared my last mojo bar with my sister and we walked back. When we returned to the gate we bought choclo, which is corn on the cob but with another specie of corn. It was a really fun adventure to share with my family. We got back to the house tired and happy. The waterfall had blown away the bad energy!