Political Situation

Police riots, Military intervention (Reuters Images)

Saturday Update: Due to the political sensitivity of the situation, I removed my opinion from the description below. I want to play it safe as a blogger and I even double checked all the information with AP and Reuters news sources. (But feel free to contact me privately if you want to know more.) Overall things are starting to get better for the country, but here is a brief synopsis of what happened on Thursday.

Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, signed a new law that cut police benefits and it angered them. When he was speaking at the police barracks in Quito yesterday, he was roughed up and tear gassed and sent to the hospital. The police officers across the country then went on strike and rioted, shutting down the airports and blocking highways by burning garbage and tires in the streets. With no protection, there was looting and violence in the city and we were confined to campus for our safety. Anyway, with Correa at a hospital downtown, the police took over the building and held him captive for 12 hours. The military assembled to rescue the president later and it involved a violent street battle with the police. We all watched the dramatic rescue on live television, and the guy filming it was hiding on the streets with a handheld camera. Finally, a speeding SUV emerged from the building and brought the president to a town square full of supporters where he made a speech. Now Correa is a hero, the country is under martial law, and it is uncertain what will happen with the police. Anyway, here is a good article from the Associated Press. (Thank you Matt Drudge.)


Rescuing the president, Police barricade, Ecuadorian support (AP Images)

On the lighter side of things, I said I would blog about some more happenings, so here are a few more events that took place this last week:

Fruit Market: Our field trip this week was to a big fruit market where we studied certain fruits. Mine were the tuna (cactus pear) and the carambola (starfruit). It was really interesting to see so many different fruits and vegetables in one place, and I realized that there are so many tropical fruits that I’d never even heard of before. (Some are incredibly delicious while others have the foulest smell you can imagine.) I also found a new favorite word: la yapa, Quechua slang for a free gift of food. Serrano Spanish (spoken by people in the Andes) uses a lot of indigenous slang and the locals are surprised when they hear us gringos using it. Anyway, I found that when I made a purchase and asked for a yapa the vendors would laugh and hand me some extra fruit. Score!

I was even able to try a really spicy ají (pepper) that the vendors warned us about. They were surprised when I asked to sample it, but their reactions were worth it. I even bought a few to take back because few of us want to make some good hot sauce. Ecuadorian food tends to be bland, and apparently Peru is the country with the spicy food. It’s been interesting to learn the differences in South American food culture. For example, the Colombian students today went to a meat market and bought cow’s lungs, which are a delicacy for them back home. Earlier they were draining them on the clothing line (a funny site to see next to the wet clothes) and later they had a little gathering with fried lungs and intestines (delicious) along with plenty of salsa music.

The Basilica: Last week our field trip was to the Quito Basilica, which is the largest Gothic church in both North and South America. We were surprised when the caretaker invited our group down to the catacombs, and that was the first time our program has gone down there. Below the ground there were thousands of tombs in the walls and many of them were lavishly decorated. No creepy bones though. We were also allowed to go down to the tomb of Ecuador’s political leaders, which is extremely rare for tourists to visit. Afterward, we climbed all the way to the top of the towers with small stairways and sketchy ladders, and that was really cool. On the high parts, we had fun taking pictures of ourselves hanging off the side. Here are some pictures.




Also, here's an update on the dump: the kids have been a lot better. Coming back the second week I thought they weren’t going to like us, but they all ran up and gave us hugs. This is our volunteer service project that we are going to do every Tuesday. The last two weeks have been more structured and we have been organizing activities instead of just being thrown into chaos. It is a lot of fun, but it continues to be a teaching challenge.

Finally, a few of us decided to do a 10k race later this month. It’s part of the We Run Nike series that will take place in 16 cities around the world and have 142,000 runners. It’s in downtown Quito and it will be pretty sweet to run a 10k at almost 10k elevation. I’ve been starting to run more here (which has proved to be a challenge at high altitude), but it at least gives me something to do on campus. I hope the political situation gets better because I don’t want to be stuck here for too long. It’s one thing to not have class, but it’s another to not be able to travel. Anyway, hasta luego!