Coast trip

We are in a bus. We are driving along the coast of Ecuador. As I write I am beginning to become more aware of how bad my English has become. We only have another two days of this trip with our organization, which is too bad, because so far everything has been great. We have been swimming, boogie boarding, body surfing, and in general just having a good time. Lots of the other kids here are very cool, and we all have a lot of fun together. Unfortunately several kids have gotten sick (perhaps from food), but things are still cool. We started the trip in Quito, where we all arrived around 7 p.m. We went out to eat at a burger place I knew called "The G Spot". Its certainly a very gross name, but it seems to be one of the local hang out spots. Taavi and I also got to talk to a Mountaineer in his shop in Quito, and he showed us pictures of his ascents of most of the peeks in Ecuador, it was quite impressive. He also had all sorts of fancy equipment for very cheap rental, including for example German crampons for just 2 dollars a day.
That first night we left Qutio for the beach at 11 p.m. The bus ride was fairly uneventful, and when we woke up the next mourning we were already near our hotel in Manta. The hotel was nice, and we all had allot of fun there. Unfortunately I got very badly sun burnt the very first day despite many heavy layers of sunscreen.
In our second hotel we all had mosquito nets in our rooms, which at first seemed sort of cool and exotic, but by now I would have much rather had a room sin mosquitoes.
Most of the time we have spent on this trip when not at the beach swimming, has probably been in our bus. The bus gets hot, and we all just sort of lie around doing nothing, although I do like writing. As I say this by the way, I notice that only my English has gotten worse, but also my typing is slower. Nora, are you reading this? Well, she seemed like she might have been reading this over my shoulder as I wrote, which made me write differently for some reason.
One thing that I have found especially strange about this trip is that more than ever in my life I have no real idea where I am. It is a weird feeling to be going around doing things while at the same time only sort of having a notion of where the hell I am. Aside from this being weird though, it's also sort of fun, and it kind of reminds me of being a little kid.
At some point now we will be driving into Guayaquil, which is the biggest city in Ecuador, and is thus massive. At some point tomorrow we will be driving into Qutio, the Capital of Ecuador. At some point the day after that, we will be driving back to Ibarra. Unfortunately I think about this stuff enough that it is hard for me to enjoy this trip very much.
I am sort of having troubles with my family. My mom especially seems to sort of dislike me, and further more not want to do things with me. She also rarely lets me go into Ibarra to see my friends, and instead wants me to hang out in San Antonio and make new friends there. This is especially frustrating because there is nothing to do in San Antonio, and furthermore no one to do it with. As it turns out I actually do have a few friends from San Antonio, but they all hang out in Ibarra.
My mom sort of seemed to act strange ever since her daughter and son in law had visited, at which time I was sleeping in my grandparents house. Everything seemed to especially boil over and get started on one particular day, when I was sick after my second ascent of Imbabura. I had gotten a minor case of pneumonia, but was never told, and so when I took a shower and got my hair wet, my mom completely freaked out and started yelling at me. The weird thing was despite how worried she seemed to be about my wet hair, she still said that I should be going to school. I thought it was kind of unreasonable of her to think I was to sick to take a shower, but yet still able to go to school, so I skipped school and took it easy that day. When I went to my house I figured I'd lie down on the couch and read some, but once I did that my mom said I had to go back to my grandmothers and rest there. At that point it felt as though she had officially kicked me out of the family, and since then I have not felt comfortable around her. We've had talks about it, but she always takes everything to the offensive, and seeing as her Spanish is obviously much better than mine, she always only adds things to the long list she has of things I'm doing wrong, rather than trying to figure out how to help our relationship. Things might be nearing the point where I consider trying to get a new family.
I am still climbing. I want to climb much more, but I have a lot of things that I have to get settled with my organization first, and that can be a big hassle. One of the things that keeps haunting me is the fact that what I'm really supposed to be doing here is learning about the family life and culture of this country, and I feel as though I am failing that. It's true that it can be pretty hard when both my parents work all day, and it is also really annoying that we never really travel anywhere, but despite all this it is still actually my responsibility to adapt to this and hopefully like it even. I have a feeling that if I am not able to do these things by the end of the year however, I might try to go of program for two weeks before leaving to just travel and climb, as although it's not supposed to be, that is what I really want to do here.
School has also started to become a slight problem for me here. This is do to the fact that we are supposed to have a grade average of at least 15 out of 20, and 5 is less than 15. If I am unable to get that 15 this semester, it is possible that I could be considered for early return, and that is something I absolutely don't want. As of late though I have been doing I think a bit better in school lately, and hopefully I will be able to ask some of my teachers to do something different from the regular course so that I might have a better chance of getting a grade.
Well, this may have been a somewhat selfish blog (sort of a long complain, which although was very nice for me to get of my shoulders, may just turn out to be boring for you), and if it is I'm sorry.
I miss you all very much, as long as I know you that is.
Ciao.

Colombia

Just a short while ago a portion of armed forces from Colombia chased some sort of a criminal over the boarder, and thus entered Ecuador with armed forces without asking permission. The whole thing has really gotten kind of out of hand, and Venezuela has already declared itself on Ecuador's side. This is all a little personal, as the Colombian border is just about a 4 hour drive from my house.
All this happened very quickly, and I hadn't even heard about it until a little while ago. I doubt anything to serious will happen, and everyone here still goes on with everything they do just as before, but it´s still a little scary.

Imbabura

I haven't been writing, I think because there has been so much else to do.
This weekend I climbed the Volcano Imbabura with Taavi, my exchange student Friend from Estonia. The climb was pretty crazy, and the accent alone took us about 7 hours. Imbabura is not really that big when compared with other mountains in Ecuador, but it is still taller than any mountain in the continental US, and summiting was very tiresome. The last 100 meters or so is a scramble up mud and rotten rock, and some parts are steep, about 80 degrees. Just those last few hundred feet made the climb the most exhausting, and we rested at the summit (which is over 15,000 feet) for about half an hour.
It was a really cool experience, but unfortunately there wasn't a view at the top, as the mountain is almost always covered by clouds.

6ix before 7even.

School is the hardest part of all this. In great contrast to the leisure and calm of the rest of this experience, my school work is exceedingly difficult. Not only is it just a lot of work, but it is emotionally draining. At school, I am completely different from everyone else, and in Ibarra that seems to be hardly acceptable. When I smile, the world smiles with me... But when I laugh, the world laughs at me. Just last Friday after getting only two hours of sleep the previous night, I had a soccer game. We tied 2 to 2, but afterwards my shirt was super dirty, and my math teacher made fun of me for it. After I made the excuse that I played soccer in it, he started ridiculing my pants, saying they were like mechanics pants. I try to think though that he is making fun somewhat out of respect. The day before that in math class the teacher made some sort of a code, where we would pick a number from 1-60, and then show the teacher only corresponding letters to our number, after which he would tell us what number we had picked. Once this started, I quickly started to graph all of the numbers and their corresponding letters. I soon found one exception to his code, as 1 and 5 both had the same code of letters. So I went up in front of the class and said my combination, to which he answered 5. I looked at him and said "or 1!" He smiled, and all the class started clapping.
So maybe, my math teacher thinks we can kid each other now. I certainly hope that is the case, and not simply that he is mad at me for exposing a mistake of his in his code.
I really was tired that day too, because the night before I had talked with and played music on the piano with and ate pizza with and did not (because we are not allowed to) drink wine with three wonderful musicians who I had met at a concert. They played Cuban jazz sort of music, and there was a girl who was a beautiful singer, a wonderful violinist, and a remarkable guitarist. I talked to them after the concert, and we went out to pizza together with a few other of their friends. We talked until about 11, and then it was discovered that I wrote classical music, and played a tiny bit of piano. The violinist got super excited, and whisked me off to his house, where he had a wonderful piano. We played and talked until 2. Despite how tired I was the next day, i was happy.

Fiths

In school day before yesterday I got a 19/20 on my English test. Despite how happy I was with the score, all my friends seemed entirely unimpressed, to the point that they laughed at me. I told them that English is very difficult, and they said "yes, but it´s your language! I would get a 20 in Spanish!" "Yes", I replied, "but what would you get in English!?" Nobody was amused.
Kennith (the other American exchange student) and I are finding the environment very stressful. When one of Kennith´s friend´s phones went off in class, he started coughing uncontrollably to try to cover the noise from the teacher. When the teacher asked him sarcastically what was wrong, he put a dumb look on his face and responded "no entiendo" (I don´t understand). Kennith of course speaks Spanish quite well, and the teachers response was "well do you understand leave class?"
When Kennith and I have these situations in which we are sent out of class, or not allowed in because we are wearing the wrong uniform, we usually sit outside and read. I have been reading "one hundred years of solitude", which I so far love very much. It helps me get my mind off the problems I experience, as does writing blog entries.

And for four...

Writing is nice. You don´t have to be good either. As I sit in my room writing this, Struggling to form a bond with my family, and being tested by some strange stomach problem, I find that when I write, I know I will someday share what I have written with all those people I love, and it is almost as though I am talking to those people now. I would love to here them talk back to me, but it is nice at least to be able to feel as though I am being heard. I being Simon.
Yesterday I went with a close friend of mine named Taavi (an Estonian exchange student) to a cafe to talk about how we were both doing so far. I had a banana split, and last night it had me back. Over the last month or so I have been out of the house far to much, and now that I´m sick I am beginning to realize just how important it is that I bond with my family, or more so that I have a family.
This Saturday I will switch families. My new family has no kids, and they live in a small village outside of Ibarra, but despite this, I will have a family.
I am disappointed and frustrated with myself, and just sad that I failed to fully connect with my family. It makes me feel kind of cold and guilty, but it´s nice to know at least I feel cold and guilty. I found out today that my good friends from Portoviejo, Anna and Nathaniel, won´t be visiting this weekend. It is certainly annoying, as I was looking far forward to seeing them again, but it´s not the end of the world.
Perhaps partly because of this news, and other basically solemn news, Ive been on somewhat of a Beethoven binge over the last few days. This is quite painful, seeing as the only piece I have of Beethoven on my ipod is Ave Maria, which I know upside own by now. My host family has already moved my (or really they're) keyboard out of my room, so I can´t play any music either. I know though that I will be able to write much more music again once I witch families.

Third being three.

I imagine my school to be the most unjustly authoritative force I have ever come into conflict with. I being Simon. Our inspector, Washington, enjoys nothing more it seems, than humiliating as much of us as he can, as much as he can. He does this to me with unfathomable ease, as I can hardly understand a word anyone in my school says. He made me get my hair cut during school, and thus miss my P.E class, only to later critique my absence in the class. One day he caught me with my elbows on my desk, and told me to "go wash your face to stay awake". The thing he does though whose motive I find most hidden, is tell all the teachers, and representatives, and every other person with the slightest control over my immediate destiny, that I am lazy, and without wit, and always sleeping, and always complaining. He knows first hand how little of the language I know, and he knows I am thus obviously incapable of completing, or even knowing about most of my work. So what can he possibly be expecting of me?
I have decided that the most effective form of retaliation will be to do everything he asks, and exceed in all my classes, thus making him look dense as cement for so much as mentioning my name within the same monologue of "academic concern". Once Ive finished my exchange year here, I will write him a letter of gratitude for his constructive criticism, and the support it has given me. He won´t ever have any other song stuck in his head, or any other taste on his tongue.