My pre-CIMAS Quito adventures were interrupted last Thursday when the police protested a new law affecting their pay by kidnapping the president. The protests started Thursday morning with fires in the streets and it was very hard to understand what was going on, because it looked surprisingly similar to the peaceful student protests, which occurred on Tuesday.
I continued my sightseeing adventures on Thursday morning in the Old Town, not knowing that this was to be the center of all of the protests of the day. I climbed up San Juan Hill to a park with amazing views of the Basilica Church and a neat bridge crossing a ravine. Shortly afterwards, as I was eating lunch in a plaza near Plaza Grande, a thief swiped my backpack from between my knees! Needless to say I was distressed and in shock for a while. Thankfully I only have to replace my old camera, hand sanitizer, and possibly the backpack. It just irks me that the items in the backpack were old and mean more to me than they will to anyone that they could be sold to. The thief isn’t going to make much money off this swipe!
A few minutes afterwards I entered a museum to see what I should do next. They told me reporting the incident to the police was pointless because they never do anything. On top of that, the museum was closing and I needed to leave immediately because there were potentially dangerous protests in the area. So I promptly walked back to my hotel. I arrived at 2 pm and was greeted by the receptionist telling me that I needed to pack up all of my items in 10 minutes and the CIMAS van was waiting outside for me. We weren’t scheduled to be picked up by CIMAS until 9:30 am the next day, so I had to pack as fast as possible in fewer bags than I came with! When I finally got into the CIMAS van, I immediately met 5 of my classmates! They turned out to be just as confused as me! The CIMAS staff greeted us warmly and some of the political situation was explained.
After a brief tour, our home stay families came to pick us up. I got to meet Gonzalo, Cumi and their daughters Tamara and Centhea that afternoon, a day early! They helped me move into my room, and showed me around their gorgeous house. We also chatted in Spanish for a long time and then ate a traditional Ecuadorean dinner cooked by Cumi. I instantly felt so much more safe and comfortable in their home! Also, at about 9 pm we got to watch the president give a speech on TV after the police rescued him. He is now back in office, and the police are working again too. However, the situation is still not completely resolved, and many residents here have different opinions on what actually happened. For a general overview, check out: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/10/01/ecuador.unrest/index.html?hpt=Sbin
Overall, Thursday was one of the craziest days of my life and I went from sad, alone, and robbed to feeling incredibly welcome at CIMAS and the Paredes house!
wow what timing that as soon as you got back to the hotel you'd be swept away by cimas within a matter of minutes. i'm so sorry about all your stolen stuff. ill rememebr your ginormous disposable battery charged cannon fondly. good times good times. that's scary. i've never been robbed before right before my eyes.
ReplyDeletethe article did a good job of explaining the chaos itself but didn't really go too deep into the history behind the relationship of the president to the people. i wonder if he's a little bit of a pawn for american interests or if he is truly a man of the ecuadorian people. i haven't done much research yet into ecuadorian history. though i did some reading the other day that suggested when some south american nations were banding together against u.s. banana giants that were ruining the land, paying terrible sums for the labor, buying off latin american officials, etc. ecuador was the only big banana producer that refused to sign the agreement and then from there on out ecuador became the number 1 banana producer. that was disappointing to hear the country didn't have the guts to stand up against foreign power and stand in solidarity with other banana producing countries.