And now, an Ecuadorian Update!

Hi all! It's me, your favorite Ecuadorian traveler (I hope). I've got a few pieces of news for everyone. First off, today (Sunday) I went to a soccer game with my two Ecuadorian brothers. This was a game between two competing teams from Quito. One is La Liga (the one we were cheering for), and the other was Deportivo de Quito, a team that hasn't won a championship in 40 years. The game was a lot of fun and it was a pretty important game to boot. Lots of people showed up. Liga recently won a the South American championship, it's the first time an Ecuadorian team has ever won it. Everyone is pretty excited about it, in fact my brothers got a picture taken next to the trophy. Today, unfortunately, many of the really good Liga players were recovering from various injuries and weren't playing. The players who were playing weren't playing very well and Liga ended up losing 0-2. That's too bad. Oh well, it was fun to watch anyway!

What else has been going on around here? Well as of 12 days ago (October 14^th), my host family has grown by 1. Yes, that's right, my host sister, Christina, had a baby! It's very exciting, and we're all very excited to see it whenever we can, though I don't know how her 4 year old daughter now feels about having to share the attention. Today was Christina's birthday, so we had a big lunch at my house and I got to take a picture of the baby. Here he is!

Tidbit: While walking down the streets of Quito, it's not uncommon to find someone sitting on the sidewalk with a cardboard box out in front of them, turned on it's side, and covered with a bunch of little goodies that you can buy, like gum, chocolate, lollipops, and of course cigarettes. In Quito (and all of Ecuador I presume) they do a much better job of advertising the dangers of smoking. What is there in the States? A little box in the corner of the cigarette pack that tells you that the surgeon general declares that smoking may do some damage? Well the packs of cigarettes here couldn't be any more obvious. Just have a look at these pictures I took of a box I found on the street (and yes, all brands have this warning):

(Translation: Smoking Causes Cancer and Smoking Kills)

From some of my smoking friends, I hear that you can buy a cigarette from these box people for a mere 20 cents, and that buying a ten-pack is like $1.50 or $1.80, although on the side of this box that I have it says the recommended price is 90 cents. Interesting, huh?