Well it has been a very busy few days.
Thursday I got to experience the lovely process of registering my Visa in Ecuador.  This allows me to receive an ID to carry while I am here and is also necessary just so the government is aware of my presence in the country. The building reminded me almost  exactly of the DMV in the United States, and the waiting process and inefficiency was about the same as well. Of course, it probably didnt help that there was a group of 25 of us that all came at once, many of which speak virtually no spanish at all!! We got quite a bunch of nasty looks from the disgruntled workers who I dont think appreciated the rush of business. One of the Canadian students didnt have the right paperwork to register his Visa. It was interesting, the government official kept giving off hints that with the certain amount of money he could let it slide... even though I kew it existed it was strange to see corruption like that face to face in a government building. Needless to say these workers are not permitted to handle money. They had to write us a payment notification for the $10 fee it costs to register a Visa, which we then had to bring across the street to the federal bank. The federal bank was surrounded by policemen. The bank worker proceeded to ask me if I spoke Spanish, wink at me, and tell me I was beautiful. I wanted to glare at him and tell him I didnt think it was professional, but I behaved and put on my best foreign diplomat smile and walked away. We then had to take our payment back to the first buliding and wait in line again.... Needless to say by the time all 25 of us were done it had taken almost four or five hours....
Later that day I had my first lessons in salsa dancing! The first half of the class felt a lot more like aerobics than a dance class but it was still a lot of fun! The second half of the class we partnered up and learned a few basic moves! My host Mom told me that they offer more classes down the road for $10 an hour if Im ever interested and have free time so I might look in to that!
Friday we had a cultural seminar (a.k.a. a very unnecessary and early meeting so that we could all meet up and complain about the monster cockraoches and who had ripped us off that week because they could tell we were foreign). 
The area where Im living is right outside of the city of Guayaquil, and is known as Sonborondon, although to the people of Guayaquil it is known as La Burbuja, which is Spanish for the Bubble. They call it that because it is one of the nicer areas, you can barely even tell you are living in a developing country. The actual town of Sonborondon is extremely different and is about 20 minutes down the highway. After having to crawl out of bed early to talk about my feelings at the cultural seminar... we took a field trip to the town of Sonborondon. We visited a local charity and a local potter demonstrated how to make clay pots. Both of these meetings were at least thirty minutes late to start since all of the townspeople run on what is known as Ecuadorian time.
The town was very poor, much more what I expected an Ecuadorian town to look like. They drove these motorized carts around for the most part instead of cars.

These are the rice fields that lined the road the entire way up to the village. I eat rice here twice a day almost everyday!!!

They had this chicken tied up to a broken down motorized cart outside of one of the townspeoples houses. The little girls were playing with it... I guess they were never taught not to play with their food.

since this is what the poor chicken was probably going to end up looking like later. I took this in the town market. The market is a huge covered area divided in to sections according to what is being sold. There were all types of dead animals hanging fron different racks... everything from rodent to cow parts to chickens and pigs... it was a quick and sharp reminder as to why I dont eat these things. haha. Especially with the abundance of flies that were whizzing aroud.

This side of the market was more my cup of tea! The variety of fruits and vegatables was amazing! Too bad I dont even know what they all are! But these are the lovely fruits that I get to drink for fresh juice every morning!

After touring the market we went to eat lunch at a local restaurant. I had rice (ofcourse), lentils, and two different kinds of fresh platanos. My plate also came with a huge piece of fried chicken which I cleverly bartered for extra platanos. The guy in the picture is one of the board members of the International club. His name is Christian, and he is one of the Ecuadorian students responsible for helping us get around during the first few weeks. He is also very nice when it comes to helping us with Spanish!

These are some local villagers that were hard at work making little boats. I didnt stay here too long though because it smelled absolutely horrendous. The odor of sweat, manure, and animals multiplies quickly in such hot and wet weather... After this we finally returned home and I got to take a quick nap before doing some homework and eating dinner which had so nicely been prepared for me and left in the fridge! Im getting so spoiled here!

It was on of the international girls birthday so her host family threw her a huge party at her house and invited us all over. It was a lot of fun! In the picture are two of my new friends from New York City who took it upon themselves to dress me up like a city girl for the night!

Today we had another excursion where they pulled me out of bed early again to travel lto Manglares Churute, which is a nature reserve of Mangrove trees.

If you look closely at the tree in the picture you can see a black howler monkey crawling along one of the branches. And boy were they loud! They sounded like someones stomach growling  if they were really really hungry. We also saw a bunch of cool birds and another type of monkey as well. The only bad part was that despite three layers of bug spray the mosquitos were eating us a live. Even my face was victim to a few bites. You could see them flying in swarms in front of you while you were walking.  

These are the mangrove trees. Their bottom roots play hosts to tiny crabs. They also have roots that hang down from the tree which serve to collect oxygen from the air since the bottom roots are often covered in water.

This is the group before heading out on a boat trip.

My friend Megan and I on the canoe. My new friend from Australia decided to jump in the back of the picture with that lovely facial expression.

This was the natural lake that we toured. Its an ecological reserve and is completely surrounded by different types of the mangrove trees.  

After the lake we went to a cocoa plantation where we learned about cocoa cultivation. You can see in the picture that the cocoa pods are pretty big. When you split them open theres a bunch of seeds which are surrounded by a sweet white fruit which is actually very good! By the way the girl in the picture is from Germany... I think Spanish is her fourth language now!! She came here straight from another study abroad in India!

This is our tour guide showing us how the beans are fermented, dried, roasted, and then pressed in to a cocoa paste. Although Ecuador is one of the leading exporter of cocoa beans, they focus almost entirely on growing the primary product and host very little to none of the actual production of chocolate. We did get to try a little of the pressed cocoa that had been mixed with sugar to make natural hot chocolate.

Anyway, that has been my last few days of adventure in Ecuador! I am running on lack of sleep and begining to look polka dotted from mosquito bites, but all is well and stifling hot here!