i'm melting!

Hello all! I have not written in a couple of days. And it has been a weird couple of days. Exciting, but in a boring kind of way.
I didn’t have school last Thursday, and then I didn’t go on Friday because I never bought the right kind of shoes, and all that was really happening was this presentation thing for the flag of Ecuador. Friday night I went out for pizza with two other girls to celebrate my friend’s 16th birthday! It was fun, but BY FAR the weirdest part was that we were allowed to walk BY OURSELVES AT NIGHT. I hadn’t walked anywhere before that, let alone by myself when it was dark. It was really weird, and I learned that living here has made me paranoid. Wahoo.
Yesterday afternoon, I went running with three other exchange students, and then afterwards, two of us went to my host aunt’s house for dinner. And it was a strange dinner. It was almost entirely made out of plantains and bananas. There were fried green plantains, baked green plantains, these round things made out of ripe plantains and cheese, and bananas cooked in this sweet orangey sauce. The only thing that we ate that didn’t have a plantain or a banana in it was the hard boiled eggs. Everything was really good, it was just kind of weird.
On Monday and Tuesday, I went to school again. I’ve been feeling really discouraged at school. The oldest kids there are only 16- the other exchange student and I were by far the two oldest students- and it was really hard for me to make friends that I actually wanted to spend time with outside of school. Anyway, on Tuesday, about 20 minutes into my first class, I started BAWLING. I threw all of my stuff into my backpack and just got up and left. I feel kind of bad about that now, because we were in English class, and the teacher there is really nice, but I couldn’t have stayed. Anyway, I went and sat in a corner and cried for a while, and then I called my host mom. There has been a pretty intense strike at the university that the high school is inside of, so she told me that when I called her crying, she was really scared that I was crying because the protesters were attacking the high school- making fires and throwing rocks there too! Eventually, one of the secretaries who works in the school and who is a former student of my host mom came and found me and brought me to the office. I sat down and she gave me some water and waited with me until my host dad came to pick me up. When he came, he took me to the school that my host mom works at. It is quite different from the other school I was going to- it is a lot bigger, and it is also a public girls school, whereas the other one was a private, coed one. She knew that I hadn’t been enjoying school at all, so she asked me if I would like to go to her school for a couple of weeks. So that’s what I will be doing next week! Overall, my morning was terrible, but at least something good came out of it. I am excited to start at the new school- I am hopeful that it will be better. After we left school, we went with one of my host mom’s friends to the grocery store. I think my host mom was feeling sorry for me- we ended up buying a ton of weird fruits and some peanut butter too. :) So far I’ve tried one of the fruits- it’s yellow and kind of spiky and it’s sort of like a kiwi inside. It’s kind of weird- I’ll take a picture next time I eat one. It was quite tasty though!
Yesterday I started feeling a bit sick- my throat was bothering me and my ears felt stuffed up. When I woke up this morning, I felt TERRIBLE. I ended up not going to school again today! I slept late, ate oranges and peanut butter and crackers for breakfast, and then went to the school that my host mom works at, because there is a doctor there! I don’t really know what she decided is wrong with me, but she gave me a whole bunch of medicines to take. I started taking them today at lunch, so hopefully I will start to feel better soon.
This afternoon, I decided to take a nap, since that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re sick, and I was tired. Which would have been great, except it was SO HOT. And naps are not enjoyable when you are sweating. I finally fell asleep, and then woke up when the sun went down. It has been SO HOT here for the past couple of days. And it’s not even the hot season yet! I do not know what I am going to do when it gets hotter and more humid here. Possibly melt.
LOVE, Kirsty