Letter from Usman (our exchange student in Ecuador)

 The weather here is really strange, it can go from 25 degrees celsius sunny to about 8-9 degrees pouring at any time and back again, so a lot of times I dress for every occasion. The food here is different in many ways, they have a different cuisine for nearly every city you visit and I have had a handful of different fruits that I didn´t even know existed.

My family is great! The parents are super nice and we live in a nice and really safe neighbourhood. They have a younger son who is a semi proffessional soccer player, and he is great to be around with for company! Everyone here is really nice and I´ve been lucky to make lots of friends quickly in the neighbourhood and at school!

My school is called Angel Polibo Chaves, it is quite small (smaller than Aldershot surprisingly) because it´s a private billingual school. My classes are surprisingly hard, consisting of History of Ecuador, Literature, Psychology, Sociology, Enviromental Studies, Political Science, Civics, World Issues, English and Gym. I have a duty to actually do my homework because if I don´t then I will be kicked out school, which can be difficult but it´s bearable at the moment.

I had my first official Rotary meeting yesterday. In our club there is an American boy, and four other girls from USA, Germany and Belgium (all whom are really nice and very goodlooking!) Our Rotary club is a lot smaller, and things are done in a much different manner, plus they are a lot more serious and stern then Burlington Central (which isn´t really the best thing)!

So far I have travelled around the Andes Mountains, to many different cities and I have been to Quito a lot. I have had the oppurtunity to climb a volcano which was really fun but challenging! I´ve met some great people too and look forward to meeting more. The spanish has been going well, I knew a bit at first when I came here but I´ve built on that. Hope to be fluent in a month or so.. I also have a Spanish camp for a week starting this Sunday, the 18th at a beach resort which should be really exciting! So far everything has been great!

Haha, glad to know Drew is enjoying university! And yep, I´ve met Katri a few times, I talked to her too and I will make sure to stay in touch with her throughout the year! How are you? How is the rest of your family? And how is Burlington? Yep, I think going to that presentation was a good decision, hopefully you will find a future exchange student from Aldershot again this year! Hope all is well. And Chao, hablamos mas tarde!

PS I will probably upload and send some pictures later but for now, this is just a small picture of the view from my bedroom, on the right, there are two Volcanoes!

Warm Regards,

Usman