Kissed by a man (Not what you think)

I have to apologize in advance for the sloppiness of this post. I didn´t have time to write it out before going to the Internet Café, so it is a little rougher than normal...

So, things picked up a bit this week. I had classes as usual, but on Wednesday had a visitor. The US Ambassador to Ecuador, Linda Jewell, came to see the Community bank that I help out at. I knew about the visit a couple of weeks ago, but I didn´t want to post it because I wasn´t sure that it would happen, and I wanted to give the blog a bigger sense of importance by not declaring the future plans of an important US official. I mean, there are so many people who read the blog, I didn´t want to be seen as a source of a security leak. Anyway, the visit was pretty short. She came with a bunch of body guards and some other Embassy staff. I made a Power Point presentation on the basic functions and history of the bank that was given by the bank president. After that the Ambassador and the ladies exchanged gifts and took pictures. Pretty basic, but a big deal for La Libertad. I think everything went well.

I finally know a little more info on the results of last week´s election. So, the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, is not a fan of the US. He was elected last year on a socialist/anti-America platform. He is buddy buddy with Hugo Chavez as well. The thing that was hampering him is that his party has no representation in the congress. Congress is run by more conservative and business friendly parties. So they had the election to select members for the assembly that will write the new constitution. Out of the 150 parties that were on the ballot, Correa´s party, "Lista 35", ended up winning 71 of the 130 assembly seats. They basically will be able to write the new constitution on their own. The only thing holding them back from giving Correa total power (which is what I think he wants) is that there will be another election to ratify the new constitution. The way that people voted last week though, I wouldn´t be surprised if whatever constitution they come up with will get the people´s OK.

Also this week I had computer classes with some women from the bank. I talked about it last week and 10 women singed up for classes on Tuesday and Thursday. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, only one lady showed up. We went over a couple of things, but it pretty much was a waste of time. The good thing was that while I was waiting, I watched a DVD of a Cardinals game that I got from Andy B. on one of the bank´s computers. Cardinals won! (Side note: Way to go Cubs. $400 million sure did a lot for ya!)

I was in Quito on Friday to pick up the shirts (53 of them) that I ordered for my training group. They turned out well and the trip gave me an opportunity to go to the nice grocery store. My impulse purchase for this trip was a can of Old El Paso refried beans.

Last night I went to a wedding and then a reception in my town afterwords. It was a good time (the food was great and I lucked out and got served a chicken breast) and we stayed out ´til 3:00AM. One funny thing was that I was talking to a guy who helps out at the High School. He was pretty drunk and kept telling me how nice I was for helping at the high school too. He shook my hand and said that we were great friends, and then he kissed the back of my hand. I asked why he did that and he said that it meant that were were like brothers. I explained that a man kissing another man´s hand in the US meant something else. He was surprised and for the rest of the night when he saw me he would shake my hand, kiss it, and then wave his index finger and say, "No gay, no gay!".

Ecuadorian News... Found out this week that another member of my training group is engaged to an Ecuadorian. This time it is a guy, so I feel even worse for my integration skills.

I also found out that the "Niña Santa" that I went to see and wrote about a while ago is now being banned by the Ecuadorian government. Apparently a few weeks ago there was a big mass like the one I saw and during the ceremony there was a rush to touch the niña and four people were trampled to death. When I went, I stayed far away from the stage, but still pretty scary. I don´t know what is going to happen because a lot of people are pissed that they can´t get cured now. I´ll keep you posted.