Just wanted to send a quick update saying that everyone was completely fine during the events of last Thursday. There was an unsuccessful coup of President Correa, and all of the police force went on strike because of a bill or law that Correa was trying to pass. When this happened, people were rioting in Guayaquil and blocking the bridges, meaning that getting from Guayaquil to Duran and vice versa was near impossible. A lot of the volunteers work in Guayaquil, and so Wellington (one of our guards and friends) went around picking people up from worksites and bringing everyone back to the AJS house. The Mundo teachers did not go into work, and although I work in Duran and probably would have been picked up from my site as well, I was home sick and was already hooked up to a bring-home-your-own IV in AJS (this is actually hilarious now looking back...wasn´t so funny when I was still sick). All of the volunteers were safe and our guards did an amazing job of keeping us as informed as we could be. To be perfectly honest, our neighborhoods didn´t seem any different than any other day, besides for the fact that less people were out and about. We didn´t feel unsafe, but our guards still asked us to stay within the neighborhoods and to only go out when we needed to. Everything has calmed down now, and we´re all doing great.
Paz, Amor, y Ecuador <3
Going to see Joey tomorrow! Miss you!
ReplyDelete