Still alive!

Yes, the rumors are true...no hijackings, no robberies, no assaults, and no pickpocketing since my last post! sweeeeeet

This may be because I have followed the advice of my sweet dear grandma and am now travelling around ecuador carrying two elephant guns. It´s a little awkward getting on the buses, but other than that it should work pretty well for the remainder of my trip.

To answer some questions I´ve gotten: (this keyboard has a colon!!!) I am still completely fine, no nightmares or nervous breakdowns, and I only cry when I´m not eating. This episode has changed some aspects of our trip however, and I will document them now:

1) I got to go to the American Embassy! We were escorted by armed guards and taken to the back conference room. They´re in the process of moving, so there was crap everywhere, but we met with the consulate advisor and the US Army liason (lets be honest, I´m completely making these titles up), and they took our story and then sent us on our way.

2) Jon is now no longer going to be teaching in Machala, he has his reasons for that and I can´t blame him for them, but that means that there will only be two Americans in Machala now.

3) Instead of the usual activities of dancing and going out and making friends and all that, I will be sticking to a strict regimen of meditating, and taking self defense classes, including tai chi, judo, karate, and UFC training.

HA

Our teaching practicum began yesterday, and I´ll be teaching a class by myself starting next tuesday for three days. Till then I´ll be observing other volunteers and probably playing sudoku on my phone (new cell phone, same number!) while acting as if my qualitative comments on the teaching styles of my volunteers require serious mathematic calculations on my phone´s calculator.

Interesting thing in class, and I SWEAR I am not making this up, it was confirmed by my teaching partners, but one of our female students has been making eyes at me, which is a ridiculous and somewhat disgusting saying, in both of the classes we´ve taught/observed so far. Apparently I am far more attractive in Ecuador than in the US, because I do not remember a single occurrence of...being made eyes at?...back home...

Other than this, things are pretty uneventful, been hanging out, taking classes, having great food and great beer (Pilsener is the name of the beer here....not the brand...the name....and it´s pretty damn good...but only in moderation, and I never operate heavy machinery after imbibing) Maybe for my next entry I´ll write some about the people I´ve been hanging out with the most, mainly because Brittany wants to see her name in my blog...

THATS WHAT SHE SAID

BRYCE