longest trip of my life..

After traveling for more than 36 hours i am finally in ECUADOR!!! Due to bad weather in Atlanta, I missed my connection on Sunday afternoon and had to spend the night in a hotel, change airlines and ended up arriving in Quito 26 hours later than expected... safe and sound but without any luggage!

The first night I was here all of the AYUDA volunteers stayed in a hotel together, and we have spent most of the past 2 days doing diabetes education and training - learning things like symptoms of high and low blood sugar, which insulins do what, how to mix insulins, how to inject insulin (we all got to inject ourselves with saline!!) etc. etc. We are working with a team of ecuadorian med students, nutritionists and other youth to create an integrated team of counselors and medical professionals at the camp. All of the people are really nice and everyone is young.. even everyone in charge is in thier 20s. Its pretty cool to see.. here we are a big group of youth but able to put on this camp and make a difference in these kid´s lives.

2 nights ago we moved in with homestay families. my family is really nice. they have 2 daughters who live in the house with us, one is 10 and the other 22. the daughters are pretty quiet, but the parents talk alllll the time and are really funny. the father talks to me about everything from the changing climate around the world to politics to the geography of ecuador. At breakfast this morning i learned that we all weigh 2 kilos less by the ecuator because there is less pressure from the earth`s rotation. who knew? the house is nicer than i expected. its a whole house, fairly small but with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and while its still a little dingy, its pretty nice. there is a big dog who lives with us called sacci. its gigantic and really fuzzy but completely silent. if it´s supposed to be a guard dog its doing a terrible job!

anyway, besides that there is not too much to say. i haven´t seen too much of the city yet since we have spent lots of time in the foundation training, but there is plenty of time. i am still trying to orient myself around Quito so I can feel comfortable getting around and not get totally lost and also figure out the bus system etc. so yeah, thats all for now. keep in touch everyone!!!!!

ap