Smells like Teen Spirit

Bright and early Saturday morning, before either of us usually gets up during the week, Krysta and I made our way into Quito to support one of our community's teens, Christian. His school, Colegio La Salle, is in a beautiful part of Quito, right across from the Basilica in the heart of the historical city. As we walked up to the school and into the main gates we could hear the crowd roaring and the principal trying to restore order to announce the school "teams." In Ecuador high school students choose concentrations, similar to college majors, and each of these concentrations made their own team equipped with uniforms, a mascot and cheerleaders. The teams ranged from Real Madrid to LIGA even to the New York Yankees (represent!).

As each team was announced, they paraded around the courtyard with homemade banners and lots of energy. After the parade, a couple of the seniors did a lap with a light torch, Olympics-style, to the tune of Eye of the Tiger. There was a homecoming queen-esque competition for the girls, all of whom were dressed in their best dresses and heels, looking older than me (although let's be honest, it isn't all that hard). All and all, it was great to spend some time with Christian outside of the teen center, witness so much school spirit, and be offered chevichochos at 9a.m. about six different times by a guy wearing an "I spent a night in Paris, ask me about it" shirt.

View of Colegio La Salle from a tower in the Basilica

Other exciting weekend highlights include:

• Spending some quality time with Seth who's been visiting Quito/Guayaquil for the past couple weeks = coaxing him into cooking for us and playing a couple rousing rounds of catchphrase in the dark during one of our blackouts.

• Two epic scoreless soccer games from both the girls and guys soccer leagues.

• Watching Sarah creep around the house/apartment/library/soccer fields with the video camera gathering footage for the Manna Reunion in Nicaragua next week (don't fret readers, you get to see the video too!)

Even though the power will be out tomorrow night, my dedicated central American correspondent Sarah will be at MPI Nica headquarters giving you some awesome information about our kitchen-building & cooking class project!

Cheers,
Jackie