Salchichas overcome!

Since my last post I have rebounded a bit mentally. Yesterday, I along with a few other of my classmates were pretty sick from something we all ate. I ended up being the lucky one without parasites in my stomach. Nonetheless, I was pretty sick last night. On the bright side I got to miss two classes which I definitely enjoyed. I feel much better today after getting some good rest and pastillas from the doc.

In other news, I am uploading pictures as we speak! Check out http://picasaweb.google.com/cstingley/ . I just put up some pics of my trip to Cajas and and putting some more up of my neighborhood, house and favorite family member Suca. I will have more coming later.

As everyone has been telling me, my time in Ecuador is going surprisingly fast. I only have a little over a week left before I head to Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo. Cuenca is a cool little city and wish I knew it better, but I am really excited to head to Santiago. After all, I chose to go on this program primarily for Santiago. Cuenca was just a bonus. This weekend will be the last weekend here in Cuenca and my family has planned to take me to their other home in the country, about an hour drive from my house. That is about all I know about it. It is pretty interesting because, sadly, this is about as in depth as our conversations get. Conversations with locals are the most frustrating instances that I encounter here. There are so many times I want to ask people what they think about so many different aspects of life. Whether is be simple political stances, religion, or the image of los Estados Unidos and what they think of my country and the rest of the world. We talk about these things in class but it is difficult to get what I am thinking across. Sometimes I can feel soo powerful about a topic and be so verbally powerless. I am sorry to cut this short but I am being forced to go eat chocolate cake! bummer

Hope all is well!

http://picasaweb.google.com/cstingley/