Tales of a Travelling Englishman (Ecuador - Part 3)

After the escapades of previous weeks, recent shenanigans have been on a much lower scale. The highlight was somehow managing to secure a lecturing job working at Ecuador’s’ Military University, located in the nearby town of Latacunga.

I was going to get paid a tiny little sum of money for this extra work, until they found out I was only on a voluntary visa. Instead, this has actually worked to my benefit, being given free transport and accommodation to more or less any place I want to visit in Ecuador, including the Galapagos Islands and the Amazon. Not bad for only 5 hours work a week! Plus it seems teaching at the University has the added bonus of increasing social interactions, having already had many offers of drinking sessions and even free salsa lessons, although I very much doubted the so called innocent motives behind the girl that offered these!

If the University had seen me in action during my first day of lessons, I think they might have been questioning their own judgment, as it would be fair to say that I didn’t really get off to the best of starts. The first lesson saw the teacher introduce me to the students and then leave the classroom, leaving me in front of 30 students not having a clue what to do. Luckily I had a moment of inspiration and decided to let the students inside the mind of a sometimes drunken English menace, elaborating many of my alcohol induced antics to them as they all sat open mouthed, listening intently. Upon telling them the story about my one experience of drinking alcohol in Ecuador, and the consequences that followed, virtually the whole class nodded approvingly, even the teacher, who up until that point had had a rather concerned look on his face. It seems drunkenness is the best way to bond with people in Ecuador!!

The second lesson faired even worse. Again without any planning I walked in to a classroom of 30 students and was asked by the teacher to describe 25 random words to the students before me. As I scrolled my eyes through the interesting selection of vocabulary, a few caught my eye. Such ones included ‘shoot-up’, ‘pull into’ and ‘smash against’. Not knowing the context of any of these words proved to be a small problem. I explained to the students that ‘shoot-up’ was what you do when snorting cocaine. ‘Pull into’ I described as the thing you do when you’re a little horny and want to kiss the girl sitting besides you. Finally, ‘smash against’ I used the example of football hooligans going on a violent rampage when heads smash against lamp-posts. Although the students seemed thoroughly happy with my definitions of such typical English words, the teacher was less impressed, as he later informed me all of the words were in relation to riding a rollercoaster. If only I had of known!

Luckily the last lesson was my saving grace, and allowed me to see the full promise of being a university teacher. The lesson was again a conversation lesson, but the first four questions saw me asked ‘are you single?’, ‘do you have a girlfriend?’, ‘what is your cell-phone number?’ and ‘you have beautiful eyes’, which theoretically isn’t a question, but it did my morale no-end of good! I can see it being an interesting affair teaching here!

Probably most amusing though is that being a military university, for some reason we are given a military escort to and from our home every day, complete with armed guard dressed in full army attire. I mean, I don’t think it is really that dangerous for us to travel, nor am I really that important to deserve this but I’m still taking it though. Anything for free!

Teaching overall has been a much easier affair recently. This has been thanks to both a virus outbreak that saw the number of children and teachers reduced by 75% and also an erupting volcano. Tungurahua has been letting off more mushroom clouds of smoke and ash on a daily basis, which the children, for some reason have found far more interesting than listening to anything I have to teach about!

Also learnt at school this week were a couple of very disturbing facts about the students. Firstly, some children always refuse to clap during any of my music lessons. Not amused by this I decided to take stern action and order them to do so. It was only after they let out a grimace upon doing so that I knew the reason why. It seems clapping in this part of the world makes children’s hands split open, and by the end of the clapping exercise, a number of children’s hands were covered in blood and bleeding profusely. Not a pretty sight at all!

The other fact that startled me was the shocking revelation of exactly how much the young children know about sex, some as young as 5 and 6 years old. Obviously living in a one room house, the parent’s can’t control their burning desires in front of their children’s eyes. This possibly could explain why during one recreational period a fellow teacher found two students, pants around ankles, riding each other! Opening children’s eyes to the joys of sex at such an early age is certainly a recipe for disaster, although it seems normal here for girls of 14 to give birth. One of the children at school had a grandmother aged only 28 when they were born. Such a story would cause outcry back in England, but here it is just seems part of the daily culture!

Another strange cultural difference is the ideology of stealing. In this culture it’s perfectly acceptable for people to steal from people who are richer than themselves. Luckily people here, seeing the way I’m dressed must realise money is something I’m severely lacking as nothing of mine so far has mysteriously disappeared. Even though they say it’s part of the culture here in the Sierra of Ecuador, I certainly won’t be showing any remorse to would be thieves!

A fellow colleague was also saying this week of their not so legal entry in to England a few years back and also how easy it is to claim asylum and refugee status when coming to England. Although I already knew this from reading the newspapers, it’s always shocking to here such information first hand. Apparently all you have to do when arriving in England is to claim you are a refugee, and then for the two years it takes to find out if you really are a refugee, you get to live in free accommodation, watch free TV, eat free food, and get free English lessons, plus a number of other benefits. Although this colleague has a reputation for telling the odd jackanory from time to time, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was the truth!

Other than that mentioned so far, I also had the pleasure of a day trip high into the Andean Mountains to Laguna Quilotoa, a lake situated inside an extinct volcanic crater, deemed to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the whole of Ecuador. I was certainly convinced! Even elections passed without incident, which was a little disappointing as I was hoping there would be some juicy mass-riots to write about, but sadly not!

Well that’s all for this week! Hopefully next time there will be a few more funny incidences to write about!

In a week that saw the unfortunate demise of an innocent dog under the wheels of our car, plus many more numerous dead people on the front pages of the newspapers, who seem to have a sadistic pleasure in showing off dead bodies, the best piece of news I experienced was finding out that the university I am working for is paying for an all-expenses holiday to the Galapagos Islands for my girlfriend and I. Not only this but as well as also getting free transport and travel throughout Ecuador, if we continue working at the University next semester after Christmas, we will also get beach and jungle holidays as well. Not bad, considering we would have got $10 per hour for teaching, and we only normally work 3 hours each a week.

I wish I could say that the whole week was blessed with good news like this, but sadly I would be telling a jackanory. At the start of the week I realized that my body was receiving nasty little bites from creatures of the night, and I couldn’t put my finger on the reason why. One trip to the doctor confirmed my worst fears, that I had caught flees off the children. Not the nicest thing to have in the world, that’s for sure. After last week with the food poisoning epidemic, this week it’s flees that everybody is having the pleasure of dealing with. I’m glad I wasn’t alone in catching them!

Another annoying lesson to be learnt was finding out that my return flights, both to America and England cannot be changed and I will have to buy brand spanking new tickets that will seriously eat in to my budget. Apparently it seems common knowledge to everybody, apart from myself that airline tickets are only valid for a maximum of a year, which certainly would have been highly useful when buying my tickets! To be honest though, I’m not that bothered as it would have cost more to buy one-way tickets than return tickets.

Teaching has been very much on the easy side this week, thanks to being demoted from teacher to teaching assistant at school, which I was surprised has many benefits and makes life much simpler. Not only do I now have no lesson plans to write but I also get to participate in plentiful colouring activities with the children. It’s nice to know my education and qualifications are being put to good use!

Luckily for morale, the same cannot be said for my teaching assistant role at the Military University where it seems I have had the opposite luck, being promoted to the role of full teacher, as the teachers I should be working with always have some excuse to why they can’t teach the lesson. The last lesson saw the teacher not attending due to having to judge a beauty queen pageant for the upcoming Halloween party. I really can’t fault excuses like that though as I know which option I would choose, even if it does leave me alone in front of 30 gawping students totally unprepared!

This happened in one of my classes this week, as I was banking on the teacher helping me through a class discussion talking about the topical subject of Aids in Africa. As to be expected though my teacher had a more pressing issue to contend with and left me to teach the class myself. Only 15 minutes in to the lesson I had already gone through all the material I had, and with no sign of the returning teacher, it left me with 45 minutes worth of time to fill. It’s at moments like this when for someone reason I find the most random topics to talk about and by the end of the lesson I had covered African topics such as prostitution, female circumcision and mob justice. Luckily the class seemed to find these topics far more interesting than the original lesson plan and questions were flying in from even the shyest of students asking how much a prostitute costs and the detailed process of circumcising the female gender. As there was nothing else to talk about I happily obliged with all the gory details, leaving most of the girls tightly holding their crotches for the remainder of the lesson. What a great way to bond with your students! Strangely though, this was easily my most successful lesson taught in Ecuador so far!

I did wonder why the class thought I would have all the price-lists for prostitutes in Africa, and then I remembered an incident earlier in the week with the same class, when seeing if anyone would be interested in showing me the delights of a local nightclub. It seems the meaning of ‘nightclub’ in Ecuador is completely different to that of England as upon asking the class this question, I was met with a variety of strange and disgusted looks (especially off the young females!) and a lot of giggling. I later learnt that while ‘nightclub’ in England means a place where you can drink, dance and be merry, ‘nightclub’ in Ecuador basically means ‘brothel’. I soon rectified my mistake regarding this important matter. The class didn’t seem too bothered anyway, as by the end of the lesson I had been offered more numerous free salsa lessons by my eager students. If all goes to plan I will be taking some of them up on their kind offers this weekend!

There were more embarrassing moments to come. Due to being ill, my girlfriend was prescribed antibiotics in the form of injections. Although untrained, incompetent and totally inadequate for such a highly skilled, delicate and important task, the injecting duty fell upon my very own shoulders. Carrying out such injections in a home environment wouldn’t be a problem at all, but having to do so in the only toilet of a restaurant we were eating in did give me a bad case of sweaty hands. It didn’t help matters when I realized the door couldn’t be locked.

I don’t know what really happened after my girlfriend and I had entered the toilet cubicle, but in the space of a minute a virtually empty restaurant had become the most vibrant, bustling restaurant in the whole of the city. Realizing that someone could open the door at any second, I made my first mistake, pressing too hard on the tiny glass bottle containing the mixture of anti-biotic drugs, shattering the top of the bottle and sending shards of glass deep in to four of my fingers. With blood dripping down my arms and on to the floor it was at this moment a young girl innocently opened the unlockable toilet door only to be confronted by myself covered in blood. Obviously shocked she ran away without saying a word.

I managed to get myself cleaned and composed, and was just about to carry out my first ever injection when the young girl returned with her mother, who thrust open the toilet door to see what horrific scenes her young daughter had been exposed to. I think this time was more of a shock for the young girl, as instead of being confronted by a guy with bloody hands, this time she was confronted with a guy holding a very large needle, his girlfriend leaning over the toilet with the pale flesh of her ass on show for all to see.

I always thought it was normal for restaurants to keep their toilets well away from the dining areas for sanitary and health reasons, but this was not the case for this Ecuadorian restaurant. Unfortunately for both myself and my girlfriend as the irate mother pulled open the toilet door, our antics were broadcast to the now full, busy restaurant. The mother, somewhat disgusted looked on, as did the rest of the now silent restaurant at what I’m sure they thought were totally disgraceful antics. After seeing the needle and my bloody fingers she retreated to complain to the manager, leaving me to accomplish my first injection in peace. I have to say even though completely innocent, the walk out of the restaurant, wasn’t a pleasant one with the majority of the customers eye-balling us all the way to the door. Shame really, as I would have loved to eat there again!

I’m hoping next week will contain less embarrassing moments, but with a Halloween party, and a bigger better Mama Negra Fiesta, containing more free alcohol planned I can see there might be one or two more stories to be told!

I have always known both my strengths and weaknesses, and this week saw my strengths totally undermined by one of my biggest weaknesses, my dancing.

November 2nd in Ecuador saw one of the biggest annual celebrations as whole country stopped work to celebrate the 'Day of the Dead'. I was informed that this day of celebration is practiced throughout the world, which surprised me slightly as I have never heard of this before in my life. Now, normally celebrating the lives of those loved ones that are no longer walking the Earth with us would involve a trip to the cemetery, where I presume a few prayers would be said and flowers placed upon the grave before returning back home to enjoy a nice relaxing afternoon. How mistaken was I! In Ecuador, especially the Central Sierra region where I live, they take this celebration of the dead to a completely different level. Not content with flowers and prayers they turn all cemeteries in to one big party, surrounding the graves with tables, chairs, food, music and most importantly alcohol. They sit here for the entire day, leaving at dusk. At which time most partakers in the celebrations are unable to walk due to their copious amounts of alcohol consumption.

For the entire day they also leave an empty seat, food and alcohol out for where their beloved deceased can sit if they fancy joining the party. It is the day of the dead after all! One of my students told me he had spent the day feasting with his 2 year old brother in the cemetery, who died recently. It's a very strange sight to see and also to hear people talking about. Some would say novel. Personally I think it's an intriguing way to celebrate a person's life and show them they are still remembered.

One part of the celebrations that I did find a little strange though was the night before the 'day of the dead' celebrations, where families leave plates of food and drink out for the spirits of the dead to come and eat and drink, very similarly to that of Western families at Christmas with Santa Claus. Now I understand parents eating a few mince pies to trick their children in to thinking old St. Nick is still alive and kicking, but to do this to a boy who has just lost his younger brother is slightly different. As this is a tradition I know very little about I will keep anymore opinions I may have on the subject to myself!

Anyway, going back to what I was originally talking about, I am happy to say my poor dancing techniques have led to more embarrassing moments. The University in Latacunga I am working at, to celebrate the 'day of the dead' held a party at Skyway, a local nightclub. As part of University tradition the most beautiful girl and boy were crowned, although unlike normal beauty contests, when crowned they were given the special names of, when translated in to English, ‘Miss Blackcurrant Juice’ and ‘Mr. Baby Bread’, both of which are a local delicacy in this part of Ecuador!

After being crowned most beautiful girl at University, Miss Blackcurrant Juice was asked to choose a man to have the first dance with. As 400 pairs of eyes looked on, Miss Blackcurrant Juice looked up to choose the 'lucky' guy. Through a combination of being her teacher, being the first person she saw, shaking my head violently upon making eye contact with her, and basically for comedy value, she decided I should be the chosen one.

Up until that moment, they had been playing the soppiest love songs, but by the time I made the ten steps to the dance floor, the music had changed to a beautiful salsa mix. Before I knew it Miss Blackcurrant Juice was throwing her arms everywhere, with feet moving at ridiculous speeds, all in the name of salsa. At this moment I would like to say I matched her move for move with my salsa skills, wooing the adoring crowd in the process. As to be expected though this was never going to be the case with my swaying head, and stagnant arms, not to mention my robotic leg movements, all of which proved to be my downfall. By the end of the longest five minutes of my life, I swear every one of the 400 strong crowd had lost a litre of bodily fluids through tears of laughter alone.

I suppose looking on the bright side, it didn't stop a few more brave ladies proposing to dance with the token Gringo, although the offers weren't as forthcoming as they were for my girlfriend. It really does amaze me how everyone here are exceptional dancers (not only in salsa), although if anyone was to dance like they do here at any club in England outside of London, they would be getting many strange homophobic looks.

By the end of the night and after finally learning the easiest salsa move of all (after three hours of practice!), I had the pleasure of retiring to the cheapest hotel in town, Residencia Amazonas, which not only had a worrying strong smell of human faces floating around the room but I later learnt doubled as a local brothel. Luckily there weren't any strange noises to be heard in the night, and I quickly fell asleep to the soothing sounds of Zoolander, my first TV action since arriving in Ecuador.

Other than celebrations of the deceased, I also had the pleasure of frequenting the largest and most important indigenous market in Ecuador, situated in the small Andean town of Saquisili. Upon arriving, the town was a mass of people due to a rally by Dale Correa, one of the two presidential candidates. I have to say, I felt a little sorry for him though as it seemed more people were interested in getting their weekly supply of oranges and sheep heads than listening to the possible future pledges of their country.

While not listening to political rallies, I decided to again try sampling the ‘delightful’ taste of guinea pig for the first time in Ecuador, where I was able to choose from the vast array of roasted ones on offer, their heads twisted and distorted through what I can only imagine to have been a horrible and painful end to their existence. Even the protruding front two teeth didn’t put me off from carving into its tiny charcoaled body. I wouldn’t say I will ever become addicted to this delicacy, but if anyone likes the taste of rabbit, then I can highly recommend tasting the joys of guinea pig.

This weekend I have another Mama Negra fiesta in Latacunga to participate in. I think I will be far more reserved and behaved than the last one I went to, as I have been warned that the festival is highly dangerous for visiting Gringo’s with thieves, robbers and con-men arriving from all over the country to relieve unsuspecting tourists of all their valuables. I’m sure I will be able to keep myself out of trouble!

Of all my weeks in Ecuador so far I think the last rated as one of the best and busiest so far. Finally, after 3 months of living here I have actually decided to go and visit some more of the country.

To start the week there was the infamous Mama Negra Fiesta, a crazy drunken street party in the nearby town of Latacunga, of which there are two each year. The last one in September I also frequented, and this was where I made such a drunken impression on people that I doubt most of them will forget this Gringo in a long, long time. Due to past exploits I had decided to take it easy this time around. As to be expected, this plan flew straight out of the window as soon as the fiesta started.

Basically like the previous Mama Negra, this parade is all about costumed people parading through town for three hours carrying out the odd traditional dance and offering a cocktail of free liquors to anyone that's interested. As I was situated at the start of the parade this meant that the free alcohol was available in abundant quantities. It didn't help matters that I was with a local friend and his entire family, who I can only presume are alcoholics in denial and being the token Gringo led to copious amounts of free alcohol coming my way.

Three hours later as the last dance troupe past by, with the hot Equator sun beating down, I realised I was well on my way to drunkenness. Even so, even with my trademark bloodshot eyes it didn't seem to put off members of the local radio station interviewing me and another group of people wanted my picture for some Ecuadorian magazine. I can't really see how a picture of my reddened face and cheeky smile can increase publicity and sales. By the end of the night after retiring to my friends family home, and after more free alcohol I found myself in the arms of an old age pensioner who I am positive had made it her last dying wish to dance with me, without having her brittle feet crushed by my lack of coordination. As to be expected, she failed in her plight. All in all it wasn't a bad day; free alcohol and food and not having to spend a penny to enjoy myself. I wish all days could be like this!

Sadly though street parties full of free alcohol do have one or two negative side effects. Examples include copious amounts of vomiting and the odd act of violence. One such act of violence was carried out by the mother of one of my school children, who decided in her drunken state to strangle to death an aunt of another student. This made for a rather interesting and tense atmosphere in school the past week. I have no idea what the reasons were though surrounding this act of murder.

As well as partaking in drunken festivities I also had the luxury of spending a weekend in the spa town of Baños, situated on the slopes of Tungurahua Volcano. In the past 4 months the town has been extensively damaged from eruptions, the last of which saw the whole town evacuated in the early hours of the morning to burning molten lava falling from the sky. The damage can still be seen on the inward journey to Baños where the flow of lava left a trail of death and destruction.

I was actually surprised at how quickly Baños had been restored and rebuilt after recent eruptions and even more surprised by the number of Gringo's. They almost outnumbered the locals, which meant there were few chances of any cultural experiences. It was nice to finally have a relaxing weekend eating good food, swimming in thermal baths heated by the nearby Tunguruhua Volcano, seeing numerous cascading waterfalls, riding the longest cable-car in Ecuador (which was nothing more than a flimsy wooden basket on a tiny rope!), and finishing the weekend in a quiet side-street bar listening to The Pixies back catalogue. I'd like to see the locals try and dance salsa to that! Well, actually, they did dance salsa to it. Very well indeed to. It mad me sick!

So, other than enjoying parties full of free alcohol and basking in beautiful weather on the slopes of Ecuador's most volatile and dangerous volcano, it was another fun week of teaching, especially at the University. I knew I was in for a torrid week when I entered my first class to a barrage of laughter concerning my atrocious attempts of salsa during the 'Day of the Dead' party the previous week. If this wasn't bad enough I also found out that Miss Blackcurrant Juice is only 14 years old. Strange really that the students found mocking my dancing more amusing than the fact I shared a dance with a minor. I shouldn't be surprised though considering the number of 14 year olds around here that already have babies. It even seems normal for men in their twenties to be dating girls of such a young age. Quite disturbing that such girls lose their innocence and childhood, which can never be retrieved.

Things didn't get much better during the lesson as half way through the chewing gum I was chomping on decided to go all limp and soft on me, turning into a substance more like glue than anything else. I decided to soldier on with the teaching until disaster struck, with the gum sticking firmly to my bottom lip. Several seconds later as all thirty students hung on every word, my mouth had become a complete mess, resembling that of a dead mummy, with numerous strands of white gum stretching from lip to lip. As I tried to wipe them away, they quickly stuck to my hands as well. Seeing the mess I was in and the high levels of giggling that was coming from the majority of the students, my fellow teacher stepped in to take control of the lesson excusing me to go and clean myself up. Not the best way of making a good impression on your students. I don't think I’ll be chewing gum in lessons for a while!

Other highlights included teaching a lesson about abortion, where I somehow managed to get on to the subject of sex education at school and how in England we use bananas to practice the use of condoms. As I was finishing my explanation my fellow teacher casually asked "why don't you just use a dildo?" Of course a student had to ask "what's a dildo?" As my fellow teacher fell silent, it fell upon my shoulders to try and explain what a dildo is and its main purpose in life. There were many embarrassed faces by the end of my explanation, although I definitely think they all know what the word dildo means now! Another situation saw me having to explain the phrase 'pick somebody up'. Like usual, I had no idea in what context this was to be used in. I should have known though that it was not going to be 'going to a nightclub and getting a random girl (or boy) to have a one night stand with you'. My teacher looked quite disgusted with my definition as he quickly remarked it can also be used when a parent meets their children at school to take them home.

I must say after the past week I’m quite happy to have a week’s holiday from teaching, which I hope will be less energetic than the last couple. Saying this though, with the amount of travelling I already have planned on dodgy public transport I doubt this will happen.

I apologise for the tediousness of this entry but no matter how hard I try, nothing of interest or amusement seems to be happening to me. Ecuadorian presidential elections have been and gone with no trouble at all. I was hoping to see a few mass street brawls like when I was in Kenya (minus the large quantity of machetes!) but alas it wasn't to be. I have heard some of the radical ideas that Dale Correa, the new president elect plans to enforce and with many inhabitants describing him as a communist dictator, the next few months could be an interesting time.

I was warned not to travel due to elections, after copious amounts of violence in previous years, but as it was my girlfriend’s birthday, I had already planned a whole week of travel as a birthday surprise for her. Being the old romantic that I am, instead of choosing the more obvious destinations such as the numerous tranquil, untouched beaches that dot the Ecuador shoreline, the Galapagos Islands or even the Amazon jungle, I decided to treat my girlfriend to the luxuries of a trip deep in to the Andean mountains to a ridiculously tiny village by the name of Chugchilan, containing a grand total of just 15 homes. As you can see my girlfriend is such a lucky girl!

Basically all there is to do in Chugchilan is ride horses and walk, taking in some of the rather impressive scenery on offer. As horseback riding is something my girlfriend is particularly fond of, I thought this would be an ideal birthday gift. After looking at the different horse treks on offer, I decided to choose the longest and most expensive (it's not often you hear the word I and expensive together in the same sentence!) horseback ride, a nice 6 hour trek through local homesteads to visit a cheese factory (it was closed), pre-Incan ruins (a muddy circular trench, nothing more) and some primary cloud forest (too many clouds to see any forest). As you can imagine we were so excited at the prospect of this. To make the trek even better our guide decided to make our horses gallop for the majority of the journey. Now, as I have only ever ridden a horse once before, in Costa Rica, where my horse tried to throw me several times before running out in front of a speeding bus, I was not altogether too happy with my first taste of galloping action. For the first couple of hours my genital region took a beating like never before, until finally the guide, obviously feeling a little sympathetic for me, gave me a crash course of how to ride a moving horse. It did help slightly, but by the end of the 6 hours, and after riding the last hour in torrential rain I couldn't even walk and my entire inside legs were red raw. I can't see me riding a horse again for the foreseeable future.

Partaking in a beautiful 4 hour hike the next day wasn't the best of ideas either, neither was leaving on the 4am bus, the latest daily bus out of Chugchilan with a bad bout of food poisoning. I really don't think the locals rated waking up to see the only road out of town littered with sick bags, which will have no doubt been ravaged open by the scavenging dogs of the area.

After a romantic trip in to the mountains, I had time to redeem myself with even more romantic trips. First off was a trip to the city of Riobamba and a ride on one of the most famous train rides in the world, aptly named 'The Devil's Nose.' This is billed as one of the biggest attractions in Ecuador, but to be honest it wasn't really worth wasting a whole weekend on. I'm sure some rail enthusiasts would have a little accident in their pants at the prospect of riding this, but for me, sitting for 3 hours on a train roof, in the freezing cold and pouring rain, getting soaked to the bone, being surrounded by tourists taking photos every five seconds isn't my idea of a life changing experience. My girlfriend and I also took a trip to Otavalo, where the countries largest tourist market takes place. The idea here was to buy even more birthday presents (and Christmas presents!) for my adorable girlfriend but by the end of the trip all I had to show for my efforts was a vast array of traditional musical instruments for myself. Like I have already said, my girlfriend is one lucky female!

After returning back to teaching, last weekend was spent in the capital Quito, celebrating the cities independence. After getting the chance to watch numerous bullfights live on TV, it was also the perfect opportunity to get myself involved in some of Quito's varied and popular nightlife. As a true Englishman abroad though, I spent most of my time in 'traditional' English and Irish pubs. I had a small dream of catching some of the Ashes cricket and maybe even starting some 'Barmy Army' chants amongst my fellow English counterparts. Sadly it wasn't to be, as the English pub was more traditional than I ever could imagined. It was like taking a step back to rural England as the pub was without a TV and came complete with an old smoky atmosphere, a roaring fire and even a senile old English man, drunk and stooped over his pint at the bar. I must say I was a tad disappointed at not getting any sporting action, so I retreated for some comfort food at the Mexican restaurant next door where I was welcomed through the door with the 1996 smash hit ' Three Lions' by Baddiel and Skinner. It was at this moment I got my first bout of homesickness.

Teaching, for some reason has been much easier since my week’s vacation. I have impressed myself by teaching the majority of the older children the phrases 'In the mixer' and 'Come on lads' in reference to the football sessions I have been coaching. It amused me anyway! I also had the pleasure of having a class discussion on homosexuality at University; minutes after my fellow teacher of the class had confessed to me his sexual tendencies. This made the contents of the lesson a little awkward to teach.

News also worthy of a mention was the disappearance of a 10 year old schoolboy, who was kidnapped on his way home from school in the nearby town of Latacunga. Sadly he turned up a few days ago dead, with both his eyes cut out, no doubt to be used in the black market organ trade. It seems this is a fairly common occurrence in this region. A couple of weeks before I arrived in Ecuador, in the same city of Latacunga two other boys were abducted. Like the more recent time, they too turned up with both their eyes missing, but were alive and each holding $5,000. It's amazing what children will give when offered enough money to buy a lifetimes supply of chocolate and candy.

I suppose the only other highlight was chasing after a bus to retrieve my $0.50, which the bus conductor tried to short change me, and almost getting in to a fight with him in the process. All it took after jumping on to the moving bus was a little bit of grappling and two shouts of 'Policia', and a fifty cent piece was soon shoved in to my open palm. I have also been informed that at the end of December I will be part of one big happy family, with a married couple and their two young children moving in to the volunteer house where I am living. After teaching screaming children all day long, the last thing I want to do is face them all evening as well. I will see what happens when they arrive. At least I have a full time job on offer at the University (plus a decent wage!) if I ever want it. I have decided to prolong my travels at the end of my time in Ecuador as well with a couple more road trips in America, first from Miami to my old home of Kentucky, and then from Kentucky to New York before flying back to Old Blighty a few weeks later.

That's all for now. The next couple of weeks are full of Christmas parties so I’m hoping there will be a few more shenanigans worth a mention.