Fun with cars

Today was our second day of orientation at IES, again a lot of talking but this time with pizza for lunch instead of awesome Ecuadorian food. Oh well. At least they were conscientious enough to not order it from Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Domino's, or any of the numerous other American imports.

On the way to the IES Center, I sat in the front of the bus and therefore got to observe our driver crossing himself before pulling out into traffic. The small collection of Virgin Mary idols in the windshield also testified to the putting-your-life-on-the-line nature of Ecuadorian driving.  Our host father had warned us about this yesterday when I tried to sit in the back of his van with my co-hosted IES friend and discovered that only one of the seatbelts in the back was functional. He promised that he was a very safe driver and wouldn't get into any accidents, then retracted the statement a little bit by admitting that everyone in Ecuador drives like a maniac. And then he whipped the van into the middle of oncoming traffic, where it stalled for a second because we were on a hill...

We were likewise warned about the dangers of crossing streets today at orientation. Since size is the sole determinant of who has the right of way in Ecuador, pedestrians yield the right of way to everything else on the streets, meaning that crossing one involves a lot of strategic running for your life. We practiced today by walking a few blocks to the mall near the IES Center so that we could get cell phones. Our big gringo group attracted a lot of attention.

Naturally, my host sister and I didn't have enough cash on hand to pay for phones, and the cell phone store in the mall doesn't take credit cards, so we're going to go out later with our host family to get them.

The other interesting thing we've learned is that our university, the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, is considered one of the top ten schools in Ecuador. Why? Because it has the most professors with PhDs, of course! Here, you only have to have a master's degree to teach, so having a faculty of doctors is a big selling point. Not only that, but almost all of them got their doctorate in the States, because a US degree carries even more weight here!