At the middle of the world

Estoy en la mitad del mundo, or the middle of the world. I´m currently in a town that boasts this title, and a short walk away is the monument celebrating this unique fact (of course, the monument is something like 200 yards away from the actual equator line - close enough, right?)

Anyway, not promising long posts. I´m actually at this internet cafe while I´m waiting for the little Ecuadoran boys to finish their soccer game on the church plaza because (as far as we can tell), we have next game. So in the next few hours I can probably expect to get schooled by a bunch of eight year olds.

I haven´t seen much of Quito yet - I arrived late Saturday night and then waited around all the next day for the rest of my group to arrive. Now we´re in this cute little town just outside of the city for a relaxing orientation in a cute little hostel/hotel. It consists mostly of sitting in a room and listening to English lectures about all of the things that are going to go wrong on this trip - for instance, today I learned that 1. I WILL get dihiaria and want to die at some point; and 2. I have been coming onto every single man I´ve seen on the street by smiling at them. Good first day.

I did get to go to a public health clinic in town, where we talked to a nurse and learned that all medical services and perscriptions in Ecuador are free. Just as I thought that leaving the US would make me less angry about the health care debate. This little town of 23,000 people has something like 4 doctors, several nurses, an obgyn, and a psychologist, among other things. Women can even get birth control for free - think about that the next time you hear about the lack of ¨family planning¨in Latin American countries.

OK, that´s it. Off to go play some soccer in Chaco´s (gross) and eat the....5th meal of the day. Love!