"¿Usted sabe que la película es en Español, no cierto?"—"You know the movie's in Spanish, right?"

#1 Gringa Moment so far: I went to see La Misma Luna with some classmates this past week. When my friend Katie (who's blonde) and I went up to buy the tickets, the lady asked, in Spanish, "You know the movie's in Spanish, right?" She was definitely surprised that these crazy gringas still wanted to go see the movie. Good times.

But in all seriousness about being a gringa down here, I have to admit it's a bit weird to be a student studying abroad and living with a host family. On the one hand, I am very keenly aware that I am a foreigner. On the other, I live here—Ecuador is my home until April. I'm not just here to go to gringolandia and party all the time. I'm here, learning about the history and culture of this incredible country, and doing my best to contribute positively to the community and my family here. So it seems to me like that should be worth something, right?

So there's this weird dynamic when I'm out with my friends, because we are turistas but also we're trying to become casi-ecuatorianos. For instance, we went out to dinner on Friday night to celebrate my friend Sophie's birthday and we all at one point laughed about how we almost wanted to point out other gringos and say "mira-¡gringos!" but we refrained from being hypocrites in that sense.

This past weekend was a whole lot of schoolwork and no travel for all of us. We had three final essays (all in Spanish, like everything is) due, one for each professor. I love my program because our topics were the following:

1. Can capitalism develop a social/cultural system that is truly equitable?
2. How has the notion of western modernity shaped the identity of the mestizo population in Ecuador?
3. How can Ecuador, as a peripheral country producing mainly secondary products, minimize the impact of the economic downturn that is taking place in the U.S.?

It was definitely interesting to review my notes and write the essays (not so fun writing them, but when is it?). Ecuador has a short history (it only became the Republic of Ecuador in 1830). It has never truly been independent, nor anywhere even close to independent. From its inception as a colony of Spain, its economy has been based in resource extraction. Its history is one of dependence—on global markets for secondary goods (cacao, bananas, poor-quality oil, and now flowers) and on purchased inputs and loans. With the fallout of revenue from those markets has always followed political and social disruption, and increased external debt. So the story goes like this: they form new governments and new dependences and the Ecuadorian people basically can't eat proper diets because the land is used to grow things for export instead of food for the people who actually live here. Oh, and education gets very little money because up until 2003, 48% of the budget was destined for paying off external debt.

Anyway, what's interesting is that basically the Ecuadorian people are fed up and are doing something about it. The current president, Rafael Correa, won in January '07 on a platform of being a man of the people and promising a new constitution to be up for a vote 28 Sept, 2008. Now we've got this new constitution and it's incredible to see how important this is for some people. I haven't gotten the chance to read through my copy completely, but I plan on doing so before the vote this Sunday. Most people in Quito are "por el sí," whereas in Guayaquil, the export capital of the country, is pretty much all "por el no."

I want to read through my copy before I write about the constitution, but I can just put it out there that it is certainly an interesting effort at change. Coming from a country that has had ONE Constitution, it's a bit odd to realize that for Latin America, especially considering its experience with neoliberalism, a new constitution is a very much valid method of change.

Anyway, just some thoughts as the week before the vote begins! I hope I'm feeling better by Sunday, because I really want to go with my family to see the voting...cold, cold, go away...

¡Que les vaya bien!