Saturday, October 2, 2010

crazy times

I guess you´re really not a peace corps volunteer until the country you´re working in has an attempted presidential assassination attempt, right? I mean, that should be one of the requisites besides learning a new language, awkward conversations with drunk people, planned projects that don´t go according to plans and being asked to translate ¨Billy Jean¨ or other Michael Jackson songs to Spanish. I don´t want to brag…but I´m pretty good on the latter subject. Anyways, here is the story about this presidential assassination attempt. Apparently, President Correa and the fellow assemblymen want to lower the wages of the national police force and lets just say that the lovely men and woman of the national police force are not too pleased with these turn of events. For the last couple of days, in every major city there have been marches and protests by the police force and their allies. The other day I happened to be Guaranda when one of these lovely marches passed and I have to give it to the people of Ecuador, they know how to protest and march with the best of them. }
Well yesterday (sept 30th) they was a giant protest and rally in Quito, the nation´s capital and home of President Correa. He gave an impassioned speech (on a side note, latin American presidents really know how to make emotional speeches, nearly screaming at the crowd of people below them) about peace and tranquility but I don´t think it mattered. As he was trying to get through the mob to make another speech, somebody decided to drop tear gas around the group of people that happened to include the president. The president, obviously not wearing a gas mask, sustained some respiratory injuries and was immediately rushed to the nearby hospital. Not deterred, he continued to talk to the media while recuperating in the hospital, take that national police force! The ironic thing about the whole situation is that the people who protect Correa on a daily basis where the people who were trying to take him out, unbelievable. I don´t understand it, you´re unhappy with your wages and decide to make a pre-emptive strike on your country´s leader? Lets face it, judging by what I have seen from the National Police Force, I´m not sure that they should be asking for MORE wages, just sayin´.
It does not stop there, in Guayaquil, with the police protesting and making their opinions known, many people decided to start vandalizing buildings and stealing items from local supermarkets, mom and pop stores, even mcdonalds! I guess stealing stuff makes you want to have a big mac or quarter pounder with cheese. Businesses, public transportation, schools and airports were shut down on that Thursday (30th) for fear of more unsavory activity. Suffice to say, I am not allowed to go anywhere (especially the major cities like Quito or Guayaquil) until everything calms down. Luckily…the news is saying things are getting back to normal (at least in Guayaquil) slowly and surely, we´ll see. In other news, things in San Lorenzo couldn´t be more calmer, all the kids are excited because they have the day off (writing this on a Friday) and don´t have to go to school…you know, the whole ¨get the day off because the president was almost assassinated!¨ day, we never got those days in the states. Good times…but not really.