Arrival in Quito

Written May 24th, 2008

I´m so excited to be writing you from Ecuador. Yesterday was a long day,
beginning at 2 am and not ending until midnight, but I´m feeling well rested
now and enjoying getting to know my host family.
The first two legs of my trip went without incident. I traveled with two
other girls from the program, which was very reassuring. One of our
layovers was in Panama City, where we had 5 hours to wait. We briefly
considered leaving the airport to see the city, but in the end decided that
we didn´t want to risk having trouble with reentry. It was a good
opportunity to play some games and get to know each other. I had a very
long, interesting conversation about religious views with Monika, one of the
girls on my program.

The flight to Quito also appeared to be quiet until we nearly reached the
Quito airport. I enjoyed seeing a different patch of the sky from a window
so close to the stars. When we were nearly ready to land in Quito, suddenly
the plane started climbing again, and very shortly we learned that the
weather was too bad to land in Quito. We changed course to the other
airport in Ecuador, Guayaquil, and landed to refuel. After waiting a bit,
we were informed that the weather had improved and flew back to the Quito
airport, where we waited through the customs line and finally met our host
families around midnight.

My host mom, Sol (it means ¨Sun¨in Spanish), met me and took me to the
house, where I got to meet her husband Toño and their eight-year-old son
Mateo, who had decided to wait up for me. I have a room and bathroom all to
myself, so I may arrive home a little spoiled! I slept well last night, and
this morning met the girls, Pau (3) and Dani (5). They´re both very cute,
and Pau kept smiling at me during breakfast. She loves Winnie the Pooh, and
the whole family enjoys Disney. They seem very friendly and I think I will
be very happy here.

I´m sure there´s more that I could include. I´ll try to write again within
a few days with my first impressions of the city itself. For now, here´s my
address, and feel free to write if you have any questions or want to share
what you´ve been up to this summer.

Megan Sutton
Manuel Guzmán N39163 y Hugo Moncayo
El Batán, Quito, Ecuador

Saludos,
Megan