10/3

Elections for twenty assembly people were held last weekend. There were well over 200 people on the ballot, each with a tiny headshot next to their name. I saw a copy of the ballot and it´s a bit confusing. Encouragingly, there were information booths set up around town to inform people of how they can vote. Every citizen has to vote, or they´re fined, like $16, if I remember correctly. That would be a lot of money to an indigenous person. The camp of people the president was endorsing ended up winning about 60% of the votes, followed by the group of people that were just first on the huge list. These assembly positions are really important because President Correa is creating a new constitution for the people and these are the representatives that will be writing the new document.

I had convinced Sean that the Warhol exhibit is the cat´s pajamas, so we went on Saturday. He seemed to like it. We also walked around two cathedrals, one of which I pretty much got kicked out of for taking pictures. It was the Cathedral of St. Augustine and there were some really cool pieces of artwork in it. We also spent an hour at a really great national museum. We could´ve stayed all evening, but they were closing. I can´t wait to go back. The museum is sponsored by a huge bank here. They have a noteworthy collection of gold artifacts and the museum was formed to ensure the people that the bank wouldn´t destroy their culture by melting these artifacts into currency. The museum grew from there to include really great clay and stone pieces which they keep on their anthropology floor. There is also a floor of amazing religious artwork from Ecuador. They seem to be more gruesome in their representations than I am used to. It´s really fantastic stuff. I think I´m going to go back this weekend as Sean´s on his next school outing, to check out the Republican art collection and the Contemporary art.

On Sunday, Sean and I had a huge lunch at a great place in Mitad Del Mundo. Sean also bought himself a new voice recorder. He calls it his second memory and he carries it around like a safety blanket. After he lost his other voice recorder in a cab, he´s been mentioning how much he wants another one, oh maybe every 2 hours or so. Needless to say, I´m happy for him.

The kids at school finally got their class periods structured. No more ¨perma-art class¨ as Sean called it. I´m scheduled to teach English, with the other class assistant, to the second graders every Tuesday and Thursday for about 45 minutes each day. Yesterday we worked on colors. The ages of the kids ranges from 5 to 11, and none of them can read or write. So, it´s a little weird to pick what to teach this group. The ¨Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes¨song is a big hit. If anyone else has any ideas, especially of kids songs, let me know.