News, as of 4-9-07

Hello families of students heading to Ecuador! (We have got to come up with a better name for ourselves.) Here's all the news:

The sattelite phone has arrived, and the number will be sent home with students tomorrow, Wednesday, 4-11-07. (I don't want to post it here - even crank calls will cost $1.50 a minute). It has a voice mail feature, so that several times a day I will be able to see if anyone has called us. It only works outside, so you'll have to wait until morning if you call us at night, though I'll try to go check in every night before bed.

I'll also be sending home some copies of contact information for people we'll be seeing in Ecuador, the hotels where we'll be staying, our flight information, and some other odds and ends. I call it my "Big Book of Ecua-info", but you can feel free to call it anything you like.

I talked with Elena Carrera, a former colleague of mine at the Universidad Catolica in Quito, last night, and she has a number of suggestions for museums and daytrips around Quito - I've invited her to join us for supper Friday night. She said that she was happy to hear where we were planning to stay in Quito, as it's in the colonial center, which has been transformed in the last ten years and is becoming the most sought-after spot in the city for condominiums. She says there are cafes and live music there all the time, and that it's absolutely crawling with chapas (policemen).

Please get the "traveling with a minor" forms notarized before Thursday - this is an important step; as I know from personal experience, whether you get through customs in any given direction, or are even allowed on the plane, can depend on who's working the line that day. Thank you to Caitlin Nash for pointing out the added importance of having it notarized! We had the parents sign the version that was not to be notarized, but after talking with Caitlin and some others I think the notarized version is the way to go. (Sara's 18, so it isn't necessary for her.) Post offices, banks, colleges, and legal firms are great places to find notaries, but the Town Hall in Lenox has one as well. Sorry for the last-minute rush!

As you pack your clothes, keep in mind that day-to-day people in Quito are quite conservatively dressed. There's an excellent video on Youtube with this title:

Noticia Dia - Opinion Ciudadana a una Semana de Consulta

It has some shots of people walking down the street in the capital, and I've watched it probably 10 times without seeing anyone in shorts. (Not that I expected it to be different from one time to the next...) It's also a good video to watch because it has ordinary Quitenos talking about what they think regarding the vote coming up on the 15th. Have your kids translate!

On the subject of the possible homestay, I've had some good news from Melissa Knitter, my former student: she's lined up one family who would love to host, and has a number of others in mind, but hasn't been able to reach them because of the yearly Holy Week vacation exodus. I plan on calling her this evening to see if there's another family lined up. It would be probably for just one day toward the end of our time in Ecuador, but if a different timeline would make it possible, we're flexible enough to move it forward some. I'll let you know!

That's all for now, please try to make it to town hall to have the form notarized! Thank you,

Mr. Johnson