¿¡Que estaba pensando?!

My my my. Two blog posts in 10 minutes. You are getting spoiled. This is a picture of a bridge. A bridge in the jungle. A bridge 150 feet over a river in the jungle. A bridge 150 feet over a river full of big sharp rocks in the jungle. A bridge 150 feet over a river full of big sharp rocks in the Jungle off of which I bungee jumped last saturday. Without seeing anyone go first to make sure it was safe. Call it faith. Or stupidity. I call it the most exhilarating thing I´ve ever done.

Un dia en la vida...

So I´m already slacking at being a good blogger. Here´s a little update about the hospital I´ve been working at. I was originally supposed to work at the Tierra Nueva hospital in the Southern part of the city (I´m in the North). The hospital was built by an Italian priest about 20 years ago and over the years has become overcrowded as the hospitals operations expanded. The organization is in the process of building a quite large and very nice new hospital even farther in the South. The first floor is finished, so the hospital just opened for business, even though work is still being done on the upper floors. After a few days they transfered me to the newer hospital, which is great, except that it turned my 60 minute commute into a much less attractive 90 minutes (which can be much longer, depending on how many times I get lost).

Here is a typical day:

6:00-Rise and Shine

6:15-Breakfast (I´m pretty sure that my host mom hates me for making her get up so early to cook me food, but hey, that´s what she´s getting paid for, right?)

6:30-Catch the bus. In Russia, all the buses are numbered. In Ecuador, I think they have a thing against Russia and decided to spite all the atheistic communists by naming their buses after Saints instead (mine is the San Pablo 2). It´s much more confusing when you are trying to travel to an obscure hospital 15 miles away in a ciy of 3 million, but at least they showed those Ruskies comrads who´s boss.

8:00-Arrive at the hospital. I´ve been spending each day working with a different kind of doctor and helping with examinations as much as possible. Although Ecuador is still considered a 3rd world country, all of the doctors seem as well (if not better) educated as Doctors in the US so I´ve been learning alot.

13:00-Head home for lunch. Because the hospital is only partly functioning, I only work mornings which has been nice and gives me time to study spanish and nap.

19:00-Dinner

23:00-Bedtime. I know, it´s just hard to for me to process going to bed before midnight as it is for you.

It´s hard to believe that it´s already been 3 weeks since I got here. I will see you all soon enough.

Adventuras con Fútbol

So soccer (to be called ¨football¨ from now on) is big here. Ecuador hadn´t accomplished much in the football world since the last dicator was ousted, but in the past few months they have been doing quite well. Well enough, in fact, that this past week Ecuador played Brazil for the championship in this year´s South American Cup. Here in Quito.

So of course I had to try to get tickets. But apparently getting tickets to one of the biggest football games in Ecuador´s history isn´t as easy as one would think. After lots of walking, a bus ride, and a small trip in a taxi, one of the other interns named Kaysha and I found ourselves in front of Quito´s football stadium. The only problem? The line to get tickets literally wound around the entire complex. We gave up after standing in line for a half hour (the line hadn´t moved). Afterwards we talked with our host mom who told us that sometimes people have to wait in line for 2 days to get tickets for the big games. Of course there are always scalpers selling tickets, but those go for as much as $100.

So that´s how I found myself in an Ecuadorian bar watching the game on a 15 inch tv surrounded by intoxicated football fans. Fans that were too lazy to stand in line for two days, but proactive enough to make it to the closest pub and down 5 beers before the game started. I suppose I should have been dissapointed. But I couldn´t have been happier. Brazil 0, Ecuador 3. Champions of South America.

En el mitad del mundo

So I´ve been here a couple of days. I have a few friends who keep travel blogs who seem to make every entry a 5-page journal of everything they did in the last 24 hours, including sneezing and using the bathroom. I usually fall asleep halfway through. So to keep you reading until the very end, here´s a short list of things I´ve learned since getting here.

-Ecuador may be the 2nd best country in the world (next to South Korea)

-Spanish is a heck of a lot easier than Russian

-If you arrive in a foreign country and no one is at the airport to meet you (like they should have been), panicking does not help

-The US needs more hostels

-Always carry an umbrella

-Living at 10,000 feet makes weather on the equator heavenly. It sucks to be all of you people in UT suffering in 100 degree heat

-Missing the 4th of July for 3 times in the past 4 years is kind of depressing

-Equadorian fruit is amazing

-I´m going to love it here

And for those of you who made it to the end, I have a little present. A picture of me next the Basilica in Quito. Enjoy it.

Estoy aqui :)

So I made it. More later.

Adios, Provo. Hola, Muerte.

So I’m going Ecuador. Quito, to be exact. To volunteer in a hospital. I’m not sure why. It might have something to do with me maybe wanting to be a doctor someday. Or it may have more to do with the fact that cutting open people in a foreign country (without having to get a medical license) seemed like a ton more fun that hanging around Provo for the summer.

A little about the country. Ecuador is home of the equator, jungles, beautiful women (Ecua-score, anyone?), and lots of malaria. Or so my parents tell me. They were very supportive of me going, up until they realized that Ecuador is actually outside of the US. Then, like the rest of you, they decided that I have a better chance of seeing a polar bear in South America than coming back alive. Feel free to vote on the most likely cause of death in the poll on the right. Other than that, I’m excited to get out, see the world a bit, and maybe accomplish some good in the process.

I'll be gone from July 2nd until August 31st. If you want to contact me, facebook is probably the best bet. And if you want to chat, my skype id is scottybared. I'll try to update the blog as soon as I get there, so check back. This should be fun.