2/14/12
-While it's only Tuesday I'm done with classes for the week!
-Wed-Fri I'll be traveling with my program to several more towns north of Quito to learn about internship opportunities involving working with kids.
-Then on Friday night I'll be setting off for 4 days of VACATION for Carnaval (Ecuadorian Marti Grasi)
-A group from my program has rented a bus and a house on the Beach
-I hear it snowed in the Midwest recently... so sad I'm missing out haha
O And on Sunday I attended a festival just outside of Quito and there I tried a bit of guinea pig. While it tasted a good, the presentation left a lot to be desired as it is cooked whole, with eyes and all other organs still intact. There is no way to pretend you don't know what you're eating haha. But now I can say I've tried it and the festival was also a grand adventure. There were lots of cool indigenous costumes on display, an Adanean rock band and lots and lots of people spraying each other with... I guess you'd call it canned soap foam (like silly string sort of). Me and a couple friends were essentially the only foreigner there and apparently that made us great targets for kids and adults with cans of foam. It was a lot of fun, though I sent the rest of the day slaving over an evil group essay, which was no fun at all.
Television
As I've mentioned before there are two TVs in my house here in Quito, one in my host mom's room and one in my sisters'. The difference in their programming choices are interesting to say the least. The girls like to watch comedies and game shows. There is a show solely devoted, from what I can gather, about all the various violent crime in Quito and Guayquil (the largest city in Ecuador). It's sort of like cops... I think. Every week night "Combate", the highest rated show in Ecuador, has two teams of young adults competing in strange competitions that range from, athletic type things like racing through a ropes course to being artistic in dance competitions. I recently learned the competitors occasionally are at risk to be voted off, but they don't seem to be competing for money or a grand prize from what I can tell. The main sitcom that I've seen here is called "Happy Couple" and it's sort of like King of Queens, in that it revolves around the life on one couple and their group of friends. I really appreciate their use of odd cover of famous American songs including the theme song to The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (guess someone forgot to properly copy right that one) and "Staying Alive"
My host-mom watches much more serious soap operas. The main one is called "The One She Cannot Love" and it takes places on a ranch owned by an evil wheelchair bound cowboy (who ALWAYS wears black- if you needed help knowing he was the villain), there are also several love triangles involving cowboys and servants, evil scheming aunts and recently the lead actress discovered she had a long lost rich father only to have him die within days of meeting her. Needless to say, while it's not exactly addicting it is VERY dramatic and entertaining. The amounts of broadcast time that the government purchases here is also rather surprising. I learn something new about the political goings on of Ecuador almost everyday thanks, to the government's 5- 10 minute newsbreaks. While the information needs to be taken with a grain of salt, as it's an election year here, the current administration has no friends in the mass media and several of our professors have suggested that the two factions are currently at war.
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