Disasters and dishappenings

Dear diary,

Considering how little happening here right now it’s actually happening quite a lot. There have been some minor adventurous happenings here the last week. I’m not talking about the project (it wouldn’t really be sorted under the category adventurous).

First of all, I went to see the now almost legendary 2-0 win against Argentina. It was truly amazing, we were one hour late and got there two hours before the game and the stadium was practically full. Even people who had tickets couldn’t get in! We warmed up with some cold beer in the strong sunshine. Then we watched Ecuador crush Argentina in with a brilliant second half. Both beautiful goals shot in the goal closest to us allowing us to see it nearby. I even got one of these goals on video as well (again)!

The day after we went out on a train ride. The type of train where you sit on the roof enjoying the view from there. It was really cool but felt a bit unsafe but, hey!, all the Ecuadorians were doing it so it can’t be that bad! Well, we enjoyed the ride and went on a small hike to see a volcano. It was too cloudy to see it though so we just enjoyed the hike. On the way back it was raining a bit so we decided to stay inside the train and it turned out to be a pretty good idea. Halfway through the trip our cart derailed! It became very bumpy, I bounced half a meter in my seat! It was actually the second derailing this trip. Obviously it happens quite frequently because they were rather swift in getting the train back on track again. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if I would have been on the roof!

It has been some nature catastrophes here these weeks as well. Well, not really catastrophes…maybe minor natural dysfunctions would be more correct. One of the volcanoes around Quito (there are three I think) erupted and threw out ashes. I believe the same day was very foggy, maybe it was because of the ashes. I would like to think of it as that. The day before yesterday we had an earthquake as well. I was sound asleep and didn’t even wake up. I was really sad that I missed it. First missing the tornadoes in Kansas and now this! I’m keeping my fingers crossed for another one (I am so going to get that back at me!).

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night of voices arguing on the street outside of our apartment. A little bit later we heard two gunshots (?) and more angry voices. A couple of minutes later it was silent. I wanted to look out and see what was happening but Vannesa strictly ordered me not to. Probably a good idea. Curiosity killed the cat as you all now. Hmmm…I just realized I should have sent out Harry to look.

Last weekend I had to escape all the terror going on in Quito. I went with two of my room mates (Linda from Switzerland and May-Anita from Norway) to a small little cute town called Mindo. It’s up in a cloud-forest, pretty much like the one I was living in in Costa Rica. We went river rafting with old tractor tire tubes (bilringar). It was more cold than fun actually. Then we biked for an hour up the mountain (upward slope ALL the way) to visit a waterfall. They had arranged a little swimming retreat there with a stone water slide ending two meters above the water and a jump zone around the waterfall. You could climb down half the waterfall and jump from a rock there at 6 meters or you could jump straight into the whirlpool from a board 12 meters above. That is the point-of-jumping-for-real-men-with-hair-on-their-chest. It was truly awesome and I screamed like a tiny-little-baby-girl-with-pacifier all the way down. Then my room mates did the same to my big surprise. After that we realized the last bus was about to leave in less than an hour. I can’t say that I complained when we had to bike downhill a dirt track as fast as possible. Adrenaline as well!

Yet another catastrophe that occurred the other day was the loss of internet in our office. This happens very often but it is normally back on its feet within a day. The problem this time, and this is very Ecuador in my opinion, is that the server is in another building. This building is at this moment occupied by students who wants to change something in their curriculum. They are occupying the building until their demands go through. Until then, they won’t let anyone in. Not even the computer guys that needs to fix the always-crashing server. Thus, internet is not working.

The only thing that would be more Ecuador would be if I would need an important paper in order to use internet on my computer. And a bunch of keys together with that. They have Important Papers and keys for everything. Just to enter my office for an example, I need to use four different keys. Everyone looks the same and they all have the same property, they barely fit the lock so you have to jerk the key in the lock for a minute in order to open the door. If I want to enter the school on a Saturday (which I normally don’t) I need a…you guessed it, an important paper.

This all seem like near-death…sorry, near-kind-of-sort-of-almost-close-to-death-experiences but the worst of them all is still to come. Tam-da-tam-da-daaaam. The project. It is really killing me. Slowly. We are hardly making any progress at all and I come home from work every day frustrated and feeling stupid. I am starting to get serious feelings of homesickness and I am planning to murder the stupid diode lasers in a dark alley since they won’t behave.

Kram

Christoffer

ps. Today I went to the school and guess what? OUR students were striking as well and taken control of our building. It took a while and some important people before I could get in…