The last few days I have passed in Quito. I am feeling super homesick, missing the ones I love and love to be with.

Especially because after living in this city for like more than 6 months, its just kind of.. overbearing yet easily manageable. Being 2 miles high in the Andean mountains makes for pretty scenery – when I can actually look up. Most of the time im trying to avoid hitting other things/people or being hit by cars/bikes/people. The sidewalks are a skateboarders nightmare. The sun is harsh, and with the altitude, one tires quickly when walking.

The constant contradictions of Quito and Ecuador moreover no longer fascinate me as make me resilient in that I don’t belong here… but I belong working in the poor communities in my own countries. I very much hate gringo landia, the part of the city that I am in now… which is sort of midtown.

The landscape is a sprawling 25 mile city with the rich mansion gated communities in the far north, nice malls with every thing American and with plenty of little shops and pockets of poverty in the middle, and continuing to the old city center where from here on out it just gets worse and worse.

Though Gringolandia… with its overpriced shops, non stop nightclubs and drinking would at first seem like a great time. But all the shady people and shit going on (I went out for 30 mins tonight and was approached to buy a prostitute once and cocaine twice).. I have a feeling some of my frat brothers would call this “living the life” – because its all cheap too. Last night some drunkards crashed onto the sidewalk nearby and hit some people. Yeah, the life…

Though what does seem to fascinate me.. or at least give me a sense of time and passage as if when I left there was a pause and I am back and it is all the same. The same burger flippers at my favorite burger stand. The same dudes working the internet/telefone booth place I frequented, the same KFC Ecuadorian style all over… the same elder man selling Ecuadorian flags calling out “Eccc-uuaaa-dooor” in a trite, very unique sort of way.

And yet all I am is missing home, wanting to find a job, learn music, go dancing, feel the rays of my California and prepare myself for many other important things in life.

Atleast while I’m feeling like a tourist, I got some hella cool gifts for brothers, lovers, mamas and myself. I like the arts ad crafts market here in Quito.

As for the reason I am here: a project with the Shuar Health Project.. I feel alienated and out of the communication loop. We’ll see how the next 10 days go… tomorrow morning I take a 7-8 hour bus ride to Puyo and then to the MUSAP homebase in the middle of nowhere Amazonia… at least life there is more tranquil and I am surrounded by beauty in both sound and sight.

And one good bit of news: at least I don’t have diarrhea anymore. O_o