Margaret in Ecuador!

Hi guys!

At the suggestion of some friends, I'm gonna try to update this blog while I'm in Ecuador...
For those of you that don't know, I'm doing a one month Emergency Medicine rotation in Riobamba, Ecuador through an NGO called Cachamsi (cachamsi.com if you want to check it out). I'm super excited!

Today is my first day in Ecuador and I just arrived in Quito, the capital. Unfortunately my road here was a tad bumpy. Had a series of plane delays which led to me getting here late at night. Since I was warned multiple times about fake taxi cabs and had to listen to this English teacher sitting across from me talk about how she was kidnapped last time she came through Quito, I was a bit apprehensive...

Luckily I befriended an Ecuadorian man, Luis, and his 18mo old daughter on the plane and he let me use his phone to call my hostel to let them know I'd be late (and I got a friend to email them too. Thanks, friend!) and then when his family came to pick him and his daughter up, they insisted on taking me to my hostel even though it was 30 minutes out of their way. So I squeezed into a car with 5 other people and a bunch of luggage and made it to the hostel...People are so nice! Though they definitely made fun of me on the drive over, because I kept trying to read the signs on the side of the road, and apparently some of the words I was saying sounded like cuss words...whoops!

Things seemed to be going well except I found out that Bank of America suspended my debit card, I'm not really sure why, and when I called them using skype, they wanted me to go into a Bank of America branch to fix it. When I explained that I was abroad, they were less than helpful. Oh well, I'm sure it'll all get sorted out, eventually!

Anyhow, time to catch some sleep. I'm taking a car from Quito to Riobamba tomorrow (4 hour ride) and I get to meet my host family! (Yes, I have a host family! I opted for a homestay.)

Hope you all are well!
Margaret