crazzzzzy

I have had a pretty crazy day! The country of Ecuador is in a state of emergency right now and I am locked in my house for an indefinite amount of time. This morning the police and part of the military went on strike against the government because yesterday the government passed a bill that got rid of their bonuses and made it harder to get promoted. So the entire country broke out in riots. Currently the president (Correa) is trapped in a hospital 20 min away from my house. He went there earlier today because he got gassed at a riot. The police force surrounded the hospital so he couldn't leave. Then the military that is on the presidents side showed up and began open fire with the police force. Since there is no police, the country is in chaos. There are riots everywhere and robbers have taken to the cities. There were so many bank robberies in Quito that they closed all of the banks. They also closed the airports, the schools, and the malls. Earlier today, robbers were going into the universities and stealing from the students. Peru and Colombia closed the boarders and rioters have set the entrances to the highways on fire so no one can enter or leave the capital.

I was at the school that I volunteer at when all of this began. They wanted to close the school early but they were afraid that the kids parents wouldn't be home and they didn't want to send the kids home to empty houses. So they made us wait until 2 even though almost 90% of the kids had been picked up by their parents earlier. Then they made all the teachers take the school buses home because public transportation was way too dangerous because of the riots and robbers. I live 5 minutes away the school but it took 45 min to get to my house because traffic was crazy because no one was following the rules because there were no police to enforce them. When i got home, the head of IES (my abroad program) was sitting in my living room with my host mom. They have emergency procedures where they call everyones cell phone but since I got my phone stolen a few days ago, I have a new number that I forgot to tell them. So they were very worried because they couldn't reach me.

My host mom bought a ton of groceries (we don't usually keep much food in our house) and she bought candles because she said they might cut our power. Since she didn't have work this afternoon, she baked really good cakes!

When I was skyping with my parents tonight, the head IES office in the U.S. called to tell them that even though the airports are closed, there are ways for emergency political evacuation. I really hope they don't have to do that because I don't want to leave!! Then I will never get to go to the Galapagos!

I really hope all this ends soon because I am very bored in my house and it hasn't even been 1 day yet!

Here's a NYtimes article about everything that is happening:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/world/americas/01ecuador.html?ref=americas