Finally!

I'm finally posting some pictures of our apartment. There are some rooms that I have not even touched, so they still look pretty boring. But I started to add some nice touches like paint and pictures. I'm still lacking some homey touches because home stuff here is quite expensive. I'm waiting on getting things from the states (= Enjoy....

Front door and looking into the living room before I painted

I painted! The best part was getting rid of the blue doorframe

Inside the living room and my pictures that I bought outside the city

(watercolors of mountains/volcanoes in Ecuador) and I got them framed!

Dining room view from the kitchen Dining room again...I painted it too

Looking down the hallway at the front door

(which I didn't paint...still blue) The other end of the hallway (I painted) and looking into our bedroom which I have done nothing to yet.

Guest bedroom which I haven't touched!

It needs some love, I just haven't had time! Trying to get rid of some of the ugliness by painting walls in the guest bathroom.

The girls from the dorm and I made peanut butter cookies! Lijun loved the oven mitt (=

View from the kitchen

View of school from apartment Other view from apartment

My favorite! Jugo de Mora (berry juice)!! I haven't made it from scratch yet...this is the frozen pulp blended with water and a little sugar....yum (=

Activating the Strike Plan

As I walked into the library during my planning period, I noticed a couple teachers looking at a television. “That's weird...I wonder what's going on” I thought to myself as I walked by. It was weird, but the first thing I thought of when I saw that image was September 11^th. I saw the same image shortly before we were told of the events of that day: teachers standing around a television looking worried.

While I heard a couple comments about protests...I didn't really think much of it. As we made our way into the chapel, an announcement was made by our secondary principal that, after lunch, we should review the strike evacuation plan with our 6^th period class. But as chapel went on and students were being pulled to leave, it was evident that something was going to happen sooner than we thought. Again our principal made an announcement to the staff and students that we should go to our 6^th period class and the students would be dismissed as their parents came.

While it didn't necessarily feel chaotic, I had to remind myself that I was the adult and I had to keep it together. I felt clueless as to what was going on, but I made my way up to my classroom and assured some students on my way that everything was ok. For the next 30 minutes...or maybe even longer, announcements were made that dismissed students and parents were coming into the classroom to pick up their kids. My students asked if they could take out their cellphones (not allowed during the school day) and while inititally I said no...I figured that if this truly is a “crisis,” I didn't want my students not to have communication with family.

Eventually the campus became quiet and everyone had gone home. We found out that school was canceled on Friday and while I was happy for a day off, I still felt anxious about everything going on.

Later that evening, before I went to bed, one of the dorm students turned on the news to watch some live footage of what was going on with the president. He was supposedely being held in a hospital and the military was moving in to try and remove (“rescue”) him. Basically there was gun firing going on between the military and the police (that's what appeared to be happening). The filming of these events was interesting because the camera man was obviously trying to stay out of the cross-fire. So for periods you would just see the sky or the screen was bouncing back and forth because he was moving around. As we watched, a vehicle left surrounded by guards...the president was in the car. The firing increased and we watched one of the men get hit and tumble down. It was shocking and of course, left me a bit unsettled. This was not happening too far from where we were.

I was thankful to fall asleep easily and it wasn't too long after we woke up that we heard that things settled down and life was back to normal. We did go out today to eat with friends and grocery shop...everything seemed to be running as usual. I guess we'll continue to see how things go throughout the weekend.

Ecuador is a wonderful country but has had unfortunate instability with presidents. I don't know much about this president, but I'm hopeful that things will be peaceful and that things can be resolved.

This is what we watched live

This