Things About Ecuador

Hello!

I've been wanting to write a few things about Ecuador, I'm trying to organize them in my head... meh I spent too much time writing the president this week...

ALRIGHT! Things about Ecuador:

A Man's Bus is His Ferrari
People drive crazy down here, Lindsay can testify of that.  I've gotten used to it in general but I still haven't gotten used to the buses. Sure, we use them almost everyday, along with TricyMotos and Taxis.  But the bus drivers are completely out of their minds, they drive through the neighborhoods and highways like they're a sports car.  Sometimes I question if we can make some of the turns we make.  This week I got to experience LINE #8, the single most loco bus line in the city.  The drivers go through neighborhoods both with dirt roads and concrete.  they take sharp turns and make sharp stops.  The feeling is like the Night bus in Harry Potter, except without the magic... which actually makes it more scary because that means physics apply.  The driver and the Conductor were even yelling strange things and making taunts to the road like the head dude thing did on the Night bus. "OLD LADY OLD LADY! STOP.  GOGOGOGO!"

Local Bike Gang
The Local Bike gang just so happens to be the National Traffic Police.  As far as I've noticed they don't have and traffic rules here aside from "don't hit anyone" and "stay in the flow of traffic".  Pedestrians are of little importance.  We witnessed a guy get hit by a taxi last Friday, it wasn't that great of an experience.  The taxi got away with little questioning because the driver had the right of way while the guy was in the cross walk.
Anyways!  The Police here basically ride on their motorcycles in packs of ten with their lights blazing through the neighborhoods.  I've never seen them do much more than that...

Missionary Tan
I have what I call the missionary tan.  Which is basically a tan line up high on the neck because we wear collared shirts every day and a blunt white line on the wrist because of our watches.  It isn't the most attractive tan- but hey! my arms look great granted I'm wearing my watch!

Fiesta!
Buena Fe is celebrating it's anniversary this month.  Which means concerts and parades all the time.  Which is awesome because we live in the central and we have a deck that over looks the street.  We have some of the best seats in town! I have pictures, I promise I'll send some next week!

People here are good at being gutsy
on the note of the buses and everything else I've noticed something, people are really good at being gutsy here.  When I see people ride down dirt roads with propane tanks on the back of their motorcycles without straps and only balance to hold it down I am less and less shocked. Turns out these people know what their doing and they usually don't get hurt doing things that in our eyes are definitely are not safe. It's a marvel, and sometimes I wonder if we can learn from them.  Is it bad to be nuts? and if not, are we just too stupid to be nuts too? Food for thought!
Personally, I like the way things are back in the states. Less chaos.

Anyways, I'm overtime, again.  A bad habit that I picked up from my new companion, trying to stop.  I also blame myself a little because I wrote the mission president for a little too long. Sorry! \
Talk to you next week!

~Camero