Well, seeing as I have some very nasty comments about my recent lack of communication, I suppose I should explain myself. You see, sometimes the pressure of writing, and all that it entails, that is, the pressure to create overwhelms writers. I, having enjoyed such a terrific reception at such a young age, have succumbed to pacifying world of drugs, alcohol, and promiscuous sex. Obviously, I am not alone in my response to fame; many other writers deal with it exactly the same way. However, after reading the comments from Marisa and Kelly, I have decided to return to the straight and narrow, to revive my considerable talent, and to come out with a tell-all memoir at the age of 23. In stores soon.
Just kidding, I´ve just been too busy living my life to write about it. Things here have reached the point where many things that would have inspired me to write are simply normal, part of my everyday routine. I do have a few stories though, I guess. If you´re asking.
So, after my cousin Molly left, I went to Peru for spring break. After a very long, very arduous journey, we found ourselves in Lima. We had missed our flight from Lima to Cuzco by 2 hours owing to the fact that there were no buses from a town in Ecuador to Lima because it was Holy Friday. We had walked across the Ecuador/Peruvian border (actually about 6 times back and forth because the customs people on each side kept telling us to get forms from the other side). Anyways, so Lima is very nice and we decided to travel a little outside of it to go to a town called Huacachina. We went sandboarding in the desert (which is like snowboarding only on sand), took boat tours, winery tours, and drank as much pisco as possible. It was wonderful.
Also, for those of you who don´t know, after we came back from Peru, we went to a soccer game in Quito. All was well, but these skinhead type people specifically came and sat next to us and kept asking us for our beer. I know this seems weird, but drinking is truly a social activity in Ecuador in that it is not uncommon for someone to ask you for a sip of your drink. Near the end of the game, one of my friends finally said no, and the skinhead guy said that since she was in his country it was his beer. She told him to fuck off. He was mad. He then came to ask me and I said sure, we´re in your country so it´s yours, and the next time I see an ecuadorian in my country I´ll be sure to ask them for whatever they have in their hands at the time, car keys, a child, you know, whatever they got. He didn´t like that. Then his skinhead girlfriend, who was drunk as shit off our beer, came over and started screaming at me. I decided it wasn´t worth it and gave her the rest of my beer, which she threw on me. So then I threw my cigarette at her shoe. And then she slapped me in the face and called me a pale face opressor bitch (in english). So that was nice.
On a related note, Ecuador won its first world cup game the other day, and it also happened to be my friend´s birthday, so we went out. Luckily we picked a restaurant that was high above the street because a riot broke out in the street below and we had beautiful viewing seats. Some drunk guy got kicked out of a bar into a crowd of people and then the bouncer of the club took a baseball bat to him. So that pissed people off and they started throwing every available piece of glass at this bar. It was insane. We´re talking hundreds and hundreds of bottles. Then the bouncer got a gun and fired it in the air. After that didn´t deter people, they closed the iron gates of the bar and waited. After about 10 minutes, the riot police showed up and threw tear gas and started beating the hell out of everyone they could catch and firing their pistols in the air. It was sort of scary. Apparently you don´t mess with Ecuadorians and football.
All in all, those are my only good stories of late. I´ve been spending as much time with the center people as possible because I´ve only got 6 weeks left. I can´t believe it´s almost over, and I´m not going to write about that right now because I don´t want to think about it. Anyways, I hope you all are well, I´m doing just fine, and I can´t wait to see you all. Be well and I´ll write again soon, I promise.

Alright, finally I have something somewhat interesting (I think) to write about. I have a visitor! My lovely cousin Molly is here from Milwaukee visiting me. She brought me cookies and a carton of Parliament Lights, I am a happy girl. She´s just gotten in last night, and I, being the great responsible cousin that I am, immediately took her to a bar. I realize that her mother will be reading this, but please, don´t worry I had my eyes on her like a hawk, made sure I bought her drinks, etc, etc. In fact, I was accused by some of my friends of being "exactly like a mother" or "obsessively overprotective". But all´s well that ends well, I believe she had a headache this morning just the same.
We met some of my fellow volunteers and also some of our friends we´ve made here in Quito. It´s a great group, fun to go out with and great to talk to. One of the group is an Austrian here studying Anthropology, another is a Colombian here studying Architecture, there was an Ecuadorian who just got his Ph.D in Applied Mathematics (a surprisingly interesting fellow), and an Irishman who appeared to have studied alcohol consumption rather meticulously. So, after the bar, two of our friends were having a little party at their apartment, which we like to go to because we know the people, it´s clean, and it´s in a nice neighborhood where we can easily catch a cab home. All was well until the Colombian decided to profess his love for me. Now, don´t get me wrong, he´s certainly a catch, good looking, funny, interesting, smart, good on paper, blah blah blah, but I have other fish to fry. So, in the past, I´ve sort of shuffled off his advances as nicely as I could. I really enjoy talking to him, he has a very interesting life; his father is an anti-narcotraficante in Colombia so his family is spread throughout the world in order to escape the death threats they all recieve regularly. Anyways, so as he was launching into one of his last ditch drunken efforts to get me to go out with him, as he was in the middle of telling me that he was a South American I could trust, that he was interested in my mind and not my body (a line frequently tossed out in desperation by many males, regardless of nationality), he recieved a telephone call. He seemed very upset by this phone call, and when he hung up he grudgingly told me that his ex-girlfriend was on her way up to the roof where a few of us had been talking. First of all, this ex-girlfriend had been described to me on numerous occasions as LIVING IN SWITZERLAND. But no matter, I thought perhaps there was more information than I knew. When she showed up, I could tell from her icy demeanor that not only had she not just flown in but also that she was not in fact his ex-girlfriend, but his current girlfriend. I have never seen this person before, I have never been lead to believe that she exists in any real physical proximity to him, and even as she was on her way up to the roof this Colombian yahoo was telling me how she, in her deluded state, thought that they were still together, even though he kept explaining to her that they were not. Well, I suppose I can understand such confusion on her part because as it turns out SHE LIVES WITH HIM. I felt terrible! If I were her, I would have wanted to slap me until I was dead. Luckily, I have an excellent sense of self-preservation and I high-tailed it out of there. Now, it appears that I have experienced the worst of all dating traumas: I have been cuckolded by someone who I wasn´t even interested in. I have no idea how I let such a thing happen. I guess I missed the subtle way he would shut his bedroom door whenever we came over, or how at 3 am, he suddenly got an urge for people to go on the roof. I bet this is the time she comes home from work. My question is this: how does one justify this sort of behavior? This guy, up until last night, seemed like a perfectly nice, respectful, intelligent person to be around. The occasional profession of love is to be expected, I am after all ridiculously attractive, but I never let this get in the way of our friendship. And perhaps there is more than I know, but I mean I have talked to this guy quite a bit, I want to know how you simply forget to mention that your girlfriend lives in your bed. I would think that a live-in girlfriend would be a hard thing to miss, so I can´t believe he forgot. Also, how does one accidentally confuse Switzerland and Ecuador? No, I think this boy decided that he wanted more than one girlfriend, the greedy bastard, and I just happened to come in for it.
My poor dear cousin Molly. Well, actually, poor me, because she laughed at me the entire way home for it, and all of today as I´ve related this story to those that weren´t there. One thing´s for sure, if you come to Ecuador, I´ll be sure to make every night a night to remember. I think it was probably a very good lesson for her to learn, without having to learn it herself. The lesson: do not, under any circumstances, begin to think for a moment that men in this country actually want to know you, respect you or be honest with you. If they were, their girlfriends and wives would have a fit.

ok hi, yes i know i have completely stopped blogging, i´m sorry, etc. Anyways, this isn´t the real blog, that will be done later this week, but I just wanted people to know that I´m fine, I´m not at all dead or even in danger of being so, so no worries. I have recieved some information that the protests here are being painted as violent, which I have not seen them to be. Also, I am in Quito and the protests are in the country, so I´m not at all in danger, just wanted to reiterate that. Ok, keep reading, I will have something for you this week, I promise.

I realize that I have lapsed in my updates of late, but I´ve been busy, blah blah blah. Plus, aside from my one loyal friend, marisa, no one has been reading. Or perhaps you have been reading, it´s just that my writing is so uninspiring, there is nothing to say. Whatever the case, here´s a little nugget that can safely go flying off unnoticed into the blogosphere. Well, two nuggets, actually.
I have two stories of odd things that have happened to me recently. I´m not sure what they mean yet, so I don´t think I´ll make any tidy yet incomplete conclusions. First, I should warn you, if you happen to care about me, these stories may make you fear for my safety. No worries please, all is fine.

1. As my friends and I were stumbling out of a bar one weekend, we were confronted by a uniformed police officer who asked to see our identification cards. Now, any foreigner worth her salt would never bring something so difficult to obtain to a bar, where it might be stolen or lost. It took me 3 hours to get this little piece of laminated paper, and I certainly don´t want to go through this again. Therefore, I generally leave it at home. Unfortunately, I was out that night with one of my blond friends. Blond people are human gold in this culture, especially if you are a blond woman. Obviously, this police officer wanted to talk to our blond friend. She had her I.D. with her and even after he saw it he detained her. Since we failed to produce our papers, the officer identified us as undocumented foreigners. He told us he would have to bring us to jail and then migration to have our legal status verified. Now, just the week before this, I had watched our morning bus driver pay a cop $20 to forget about the red light he had just ran, nearly killing us all. Therefore, I offered the police officer money. Far from being offended by my blatant attempt at bribery, he was in fact offended by the amount. I offered him $5, but he only accepted 20´s. This, as it appears, really chapped my ass. I said, "Sir, in order to talk to our blond friend here, you don´t have to arrest us, you only have to say ´hello´ ". Again, he was not offended by this comment, but insisted that he really intended to arrest us. This is where my gloves came off and I said, "Then take me to jail, take me right now. No, really, I want to go, I´m illegal and I am breaking the law which you care so much about so take me to jail then. First, however, let me write down your name and badge number. Then, before we go, can we go talk to your supervisor, who I know is over there smoking cigarettes with the other officers?" I held out my wrists so he could put hand cuffs on them, at which he laughed. He brought me to his supervisor, I explained that I was here volunteering with the poor people, that we could to my house where my I.D. card was, or that if they really thought it was necessary then they could haul me to the hoose gow. After ten minutes of my holding out my wrists and saying "take me to jail you degenerates i´ll have you for everything you and your country is worth", they decided they´d bit off more than they could chew and let us go. Maybe I just snapped that night, but living in a country where as a white woman you are basically seen as a sex slave or dirt, I guess I just couldn´t handle it. I knew that police officer wasn´t bringing me to jail, no matter what. He would have taken me in his car, with his buddies, and good god knows what would have happened. So, although the stink I caused seems petty, childish, immature, arrogant, what have you, I´m glad I refused to surrender my dignity to this person. One could certainly argue that the scene I caused implies a loss of dignity on some level, but I am confident that it was child´s play compared to the humiliation I would have been subjected to had the officer thought I would go without a fight.

2. Strangely, or not so strangely, enough, last weekend, at the same bar where the incident with the police happened, I walked outside to smoke a cigarette. I sat down on a stoop, and prepared to cool off from all the dancing and revelry that had been taking place inside. To my left and right there were benches, all occupied. On my right, there were a series of couples making out. On my left, there was a group of boys my age dressed all in black leather. Their heads were shaved. They wore big combat boots. In my country, these would be the skinheads. I thought, no, it can´t be, someone must have told them, they must know better. When they started marching around giving each other the "hile hitler" salute, I realized that indeed, no, they did not know better. I couldn´t help myself, and since this little Hitler parade was most certainly for my consideration, I said, "You know, I don´t know if you guys realize this, it may have been overlooked, but by Hitler´s standards, you guys are dead." I meant it as a friendly little ice breaker, something to break the discomfort of sitting alone with maker outers on one side and ecuadorian neo-nazis on the other. Well, maybe not a friendly ice breaker, but a funny one at least. They did not think this was funny. One of them yelled, "Go home you yankee bitch!" I pondered this and said, "Well, I could, but that still won´t solve this Hitler problem. Say what you will, but being a ´Yankee bitch´ probably puts me in a better place in Hitler´s book than it does you guys, and you´re the ones running around saluting a dead man who would have exterminated you if given half the chance...." I went on thoughtfully. About half way through my little speech, I saw one of them, the little one of course, start running toward me with his hand raised in a fist. The others caught him, thankfully, but as they dragged him inside the bar the ones with free hands walked past me and whispered "latin power" in my ear. Now, it´s obvious that somewhere these guys got their movements crossed, but it´s interesting how they, in the course of a 5 minute conversation with a stranger, they managed to identify themselves with two seemingly opposed hate movements. I guess all cats look the same in the dark.

Sorry to have posted the last one twice, I wasn´t sure it was posted at all and then I had to do the thing, and you know how it is.

I´m back in the center after a lovely, decadent two week vacation. We are lucky to have a group from the St. Thomas Vision program here visiting and volunteering for a few weeks. This is a group that comes down here every year and 3 years ago, I was a member of the group. Having them here has reminded me of my own first steps into this country. My shadow (the girl whose job it is to follow me around) was talking today about how she feels like she´s a million miles from home, like she´s been here for months even though it´s been 5 days, that when she first arrived and saw what this is she wanted to get on the plane and go back home. I, very compassionately, laughed at her, not only because what she was saying is so cute and innocent in itself, but because I remember feeling the exact same thing. Up until I had this conversation, I kind of had this memory in my head of my first trip down here as a serious turning point in my life. And, in the long run, it was. A lot changed for me here, but I don´t think I knew that as it was happening. I think I assigned that distinction to that experience in hindsight, in analysis, perhaps even in an excuse to avoid grad school by coming back.
Anyone who knows me knows I have a flair for the dramatic, for the story of things. This is one reason I write. Somehow it´s ten times more acceptable to be dramatic in print; when you´re dramatic in person people tell you to calm down, have a drink, stop talking so loud and gesturing so wildly etc, etc. And I love to tell stories. I love to see the stories happening, even if they end up only being "based on true events". Still, it makes me wonder exactly what effect my flair for drama will have on my memories, and thus my contact with reality. Will I, if my memories continue to be reinvented through my own analysis of them, eventually become one of those raving lunatics who talk about the good old days when gas was really cheap, I was good chums with the president, and I regularly saved invalids from burning buildings? I certainly hope not.
Still, I can almost feel myself becoming that as the events are happening. I kid you not, sometimes I pause in the middle of things and say "This will be a moment I remember for the rest of my life". Now, first of all, I think that´s a little ambitious. Who can remember all this stuff? At the end of my life I will feel blessed to remember my teeth. Second, I think that by making this grand realization, I begin the process of analyzing and romanticizing even before the event I will romanticize is over. An example (and I will freely admit that much of this particular entry was made to build up to this example). This past week, I was in the small Ecuadorian hippy beach town of Montañita. It´s on the coast, which means it is very warm, beautiful, you know, your basic tropical paradise. It was heavenly. As I was laying one day in the hammock on the porch of my cabaña, I noticed a very tall, skinny black man walking by. He seemed dynamic, gesturing all around his head with his large, long hands. At this moment, I realized it was Dave Chappelle, the American comedian. Now, we had enjoyed a few margaritas the evening before, and there wasn´t anyone around to confirm my realization, so I talked myself out of it. Luckily, later that night at dinner, we ran into him and this american couple he was tagging along with. I didn´t say anything to him, I just became silent and from what people tell me my eyes were bugging out and my face went scarlet red. Obviously concerned that something was going to pop out of me, like my liver or something, he came over and introduced himself. This is not romanticizing at all--my hands were shaking and I had to stop myself from blurting out any number of his jokes. Instead I squeaked out "I´m a huge fan!" in complete geek fashion. But he ended up hanging out with us for a long time. We built a bonfire on the beach with Dave Chappelle.
Now, hanging out with Dave Chappelle was cool, I mean he´s a pretty funny guy, but the greater question that arose out of this was, how in the world will I ever tell this story? I was pondering this question as he was sitting next to me. I said to myself, this is something I will always remember. I swore I would, so I could tell it to other people. And yet, all I can really say is that we hung out and it was fun and he´s a nice guy. I can´t remember hardly any of the jokes he told. I know I laughed a whole lot. There has got to be a better story here, I know there was! But, alas, I am left with only one mildly cool fact to relate: I met someone famous.
Therefore, in the version I´m going publish for real, Dave Chappelle and I are actually best friends. He loves me! He told me all his secrets of comedy and I told him all mine about being a 22 year old volunteer. Although he´s married and faithful to his wife, he did mention to me that I was the first girl he´s met since his wife that he considered leaving her for. Also, he sent me flowers the next day to say what a funny and inspiring person I am and how nice I looked in the glow of the campfire. Also, he´s called me three times since I met him and he donated $20,000 to the center I work for. Also, he bought me a house in the states just because I´m so nice. Also, when he calls, he doesn´t say "hello", he just says "I´m Rick James, bitch!".
I know the last paragraph isn´t true, and I´m if anyone read it out of context, they would know as well. Still though, it would be a way better story. Way better. I guess I´m just a girl who will always twist reality a little bit, just tweak it if I can, so it stands out as a better memory, a better experience. Until life presents me with a continuous string of unbeatable stories, I guess I´ll just have to make my own both on paper and in my life; I hope desperately to have humdinger of a whopper of a razzle-banger of a tale to tell when I die.

Hello to anyone who´s still reading this blog! Thanks for checking it and I´m sorry I haven´t had anything new or interesting to say in awhile. Hopefully today should be different.
This past month has flown by so fast that I feel like I don´t even know where to begin. We spent most of the weekends this month helping out with preparations for Christmas in the center, which after all the work we put into it, was a bit anti-climactic. I guess I expected the events to be on par with the academy awards after all the things we did in preparation, but that was a silly expectation anyways. I have to admit that this year didn´t feel quite like Christmas for me. It was the first time in my life that I haven´t been with my entire extended family on Christmas Eve opening presents and singing Christmas Carols. But, like Santa Claus, my family arrived in Quito on Dec. 24 at Midnight. And it was a gift to have them here. They got to meet some of my kids, which was great for me (and also for my kids because it´s always difficult for them to imagine that people can live so far away from me and still love me). We traveled to Baños, which is a town about 5 hours away from Quito. We stayed in the Andes mountains at this beautiful resort. We laughed. We fought. We went rafting down the Pastazo River. All in all, it felt great to have people around me who love me for who I am. I have rarely experienced what it feels like to simply want someone around just for the sake of their companionship and I feel blessed to feel that for my family.
Truthfully, it can be difficult to be here sometimes. I am surrounded by a community of people, some of which I enjoy immensely and others not so much. I am in a giant city that pulses with people and noise whether I like it or not. I have the love and support of all my friends and family at home. Yet, sometimes at night I am as lonely as I have ever been. It´s strange how I feel less lonely when I´m actually alone. I really don´t understand why this is, but it is. Perhaps this is my Holden Caulfield stage or something, although it´s still so strange that this would happen now, of all times. To remedy this lonliness, I like to take a cab into the center of Quito on Sundays. I have an international lunch (meaning not Ecuadorian food) which includes a glass of white wine, reading a book, and smoking as many cigarettes as I feel compelled to smoke. I usually see a movie afterwards (in English). I have no idea why this makes me less lonely, since no one goes with me or even really knows I do this here, but it does. Perhaps it´s because when I am around people to whom I have nothing interesting to say but feel obligated to talk to nonetheless, I guess it makes me lonely. It seems that other people are so good at bellowing inconsequential nothings at one another whereas I only feel like I´m good at it after a full night´s rest, a good meal, a nice glass of wine, and plenty of time to prepare. So this is what I do on Sundays, when I can, so that I can make it through the rest of the week. I wonder if anyone else ever has this problem?
That said, it was phenomenal to have my family visit me. I can be around them, say nothing, and they don´t bug me about it. I can just be with them. I can´t express how grateful I am just for that.

Hello to anyone who´s still reading this blog! Thanks for checking it and I´m sorry I haven´t had anything new or interesting to say in awhile. Hopefully today should be different.
This past month has flown by so fast that I feel like I don´t even know where to begin. We spent most of the weekends this month helping out with preparations for Christmas in the center, which after all the work we put into it, was a bit anti-climactic. I guess I expected the events to be on par with the academy awards after all the things we did in preparation, but that was a silly expectation anyways. I have to admit that this year didn´t feel quite like Christmas for me. It was the first time in my life that I haven´t been with my entire extended family on Christmas Eve opening presents and singing Christmas Carols. But, like Santa Claus, my family arrived in Quito on Dec. 24 at Midnight. And it was a gift to have them here. They got to meet some of my kids, which was great for me (and also for my kids because it´s always difficult for them to imagine that people can live so far away from me and still love me). We traveled to Baños, which is a town about 5 hours away from Quito. We stayed in the Andes mountains at this beautiful resort. We laughed. We fought. We went rafting down the Pastazo River. All in all, it felt great to have people around me who love me for who I am. I have rarely experienced what it feels like to simply want someone around just for the sake of their companionship and I feel blessed to feel that for my family.
Truthfully, it can be difficult to be here sometimes. I am surrounded by a community of people, some of which I enjoy immensely and others not so much. I am in a giant city that pulses with people and noise whether I like it or not. I have the love and support of all my friends and family at home. Yet, sometimes at night I am as lonely as I have ever been. It´s strange how I feel less lonely when I´m actually alone. I really don´t understand why this is, but it is. Perhaps this is my Holden Caulfield stage or something, although it´s still so strange that this would happen now, of all times. To remedy this lonliness, I like to take a cab into the center of Quito on Sundays. I have an international lunch (meaning not Ecuadorian food) which includes a glass of white wine, reading a book, and smoking as many cigarettes as I feel compelled to smoke. I usually see a movie afterwards (in English). I have no idea why this makes me less lonely, since no one goes with me or even really knows I do this here, but it does. Perhaps it´s because when I am around people to whom I have nothing interesting to say but feel obligated to talk to nonetheless, I guess it makes me lonely. It seems that other people are so good at bellowing inconsequential nothings at one another whereas I only feel like I´m good at it after a full night´s rest, a good meal, a nice glass of wine, and plenty of time to prepare. So this is what I do on Sundays, when I can, so that I can make it through the rest of the week. I wonder if anyone else ever has this problem?
That said, it was phenomenal to have my family visit me. I can be around them, say nothing, and they don´t bug me about it. I can just be with them. I can´t express how grateful I am just for that.

And now, a revelation of an epiphany. I have never really considered how I learn. I don´t remember a time when I could not read. I don´t remember what it´s like to look at letters and not have them automatically form into words. I do remember a time when I could not add or subtract, because I still have to think about it everytime I do it. Still, I know that even my feeble math abilities are advanced enough to call myself educated. I have no idea what it would be like to be 22 and completely illiterate.
Every night, I teach a group of three women who fall into this category to which I cannot relate. These women are mothers many times over, married and pregnant before any other idea had occurred to them. I can´t say I blame them. If I were poor and uneducated I would probably marry an older man and have his babies as well. We´re all just looking to leave a mark on the world, and children are a legacy that can be left even if one lacks every other oppurtunity. Further, these women should now be applauded for coming to the center, for putting just a little blind hope in the possibility that they could learn, though all their lives they´ve been told they cannot. When their parents couldn´t afford school, or hadn´t gone to school themselves, they told these women that they didn´t need school, that it wouldn´t do them any good, that "intelligence" just doesn´t run in their family and so better to get married instead. These women are 30 years old and look 50.
But still they come. Believe me, one of the most difficult things I deal with here is the presumption I feel teaching women older than I in age and experience how to read, subtract, and add. We are also supposed to teach them about Ecuador, i.e. what the colors on the flag mean, the national anthem. I don´t know these things offhand, so I go to the internet, read it, and teach it to them. It makes me ashamed to know that I can read and then teach them something about their own country. They´ve lived here all their lives, I´ve been here 3 months, and here I am teaching them about their own home.
The presumption is not only mine. The adult education program is overseen by a man named Freddy. This is a man who obviously has some teaching experience, though he has never mentioned of what sort, and I believe that his previous career was as a voice-over announcer of Spanish television commercials. Perhaps he dabbled in radio. Whatever the case, the man comes in to take attendance and booms "¿Buenas noches, como estan todos?" just about every night. At this, the women who might have been previously lively, funny, interested, and on their way to self-confidence literally turn down their eyes and cower. He, also a man younger than all of them, proceeds to make sure they´ve been attending, and often puts them on the spot, making them solve math problems or read words. I have grown to despise this man and I´m pretty sure he despises me right back. When he comes in and checks up on us, he always asks me what I´ve been doing. He asks the women questions more as a test of my teaching abilities than of their learning capacities. He´s already decided they´re stupid, just as the moment he met me he decided I was stupid, and just as he has decided that every woman on the earth is stupid. I wrote in my last blog about the cultural differences which I didn´t know how to judge; well, I figured one out: I will not and do not ever accept any man deciding himself more intelligent than I because of his sex. I may accept that men may be more apt to certain types of intelligence than women, but I hold the vice versa true as well. Therefore, this man who not only demeans me but demeans women who have been demeaned their entire life has become my enemy. I thought I was presumptuous, but this guy is ridiculous. I sat in on a class he gave in which he called on the only 2 men in a classroom of 15 students for one hour. I also listened to him in this very same class say that Ecuador and South America are referred to as "poor" and America and North America as "rich". This, of course, made my students again feel wonderful about themselves, and gave them the impetus towards total and complete self-confidence in my presence. Who is this guy kidding? They know where we´re from.
Anyhow, though it is awkward, frustrating, and at times painful, the adult education classes provide me with perhaps my greatest sources of hope. These women want to learn so badly that they are willing to put aside their own fears, their own low self-esteem, to believe in (in their mind) the tiny possibility that they can learn. This is an unbelievable expression of strength. I could never have taught them that, but I hope to teach them to see it living within. And they´re getting better at keeping their heads high. With everything they learn, they get just a little more confident. It´s subtle, but it´s there. On a recent night, Freddy came into the class to take attendance in his usual cocksure manner. He asked the first two ladies if they had attended the night before. They answered a meek "yes". When he asked the third lady, she looked him in the eye and said "I´ve been here every night and if you don´t believe me you can go suck it!" Now that is living proof that an education is priceless.