Email 9.11.2008

Family and Friends –

I arrived in Quito late Sunday. Thanks to generosity of the Claremont, California Rotary Club, I will spend the next year in Ecuador as an Ambassadorial Scholar. My duties include making friends, participating in service projects, and studying alongside students from all over the world. Brutal, I know.

The truth is that I feel very blessed. It is a special opportunity to live in and explore a country as beautiful and complex as Ecuador. I am sad as well – to leave the home and the friends that I made in Santa Fe this past year. However, through participating in Rotary projects, studying International Relations at UASB (http://www.uasb.edu.ec/), hitting up bars and backpacking, I will discover a new community. Already I have joined a sea of yellow jerseys in cursing out a television during an Ecuador-Uruguay fútbol match and told a taxi cab driver I would pay him in pain (I pronounced dólar as dolor – not recommended.)

I plan on sending out email updates every month or so. While I imagine that internet access will limit my correspondence, updates from the people I care about (you!) will be an important connection to home. I have also set up a blog with Quito’s nickname – http://laluzdeamerica.blogspot.com/ – that I will update slightly more often. This way, rather than finding dozens of rambling reflections in your inboxes you can avoid work by checking out the updates and the photos that I post. I promise to try to keep my fingers out of the photos I take, but it is hard for me.

Un Abrazo Grande,

Jesse