Three Days!

For those of you that don't know much about my trip yet, I will take this opportunity to fill you in. I will be studying abroad in Ecuador for the entire spring semester. The program I have chosen is called the Minnesota Studies in International Development (MSID), and it was started by U of M faculty. This program is based in Quito, Ecuador. I chose this program because of its "learn by experience" philosophy and because of the internship component it offers. For the first half of the semester I will be taking Spanish and Latin-American culture classes at Fundación Cimas del Ecuador, which is a school that MSID has set up for us. During the second half of the semester, I will most likely move to a different part of Ecuador to participate in an internship in public health. I won’t know specifics about my internship until I get to Ecuador, so I will keep you updated on that. I am very excited to see how health care is organized in a developing country, and I hope that my experience there will help to prepare me for my own career in medicine.

My departure is rapidly approaching, and I only started packing last night. Monday is the big day! I will be leaving from Cedar Rapids on a 5:35am flight to Atlanta, and then after an 8.5 hour layover, I will be on my way to Quito. Right now I am feeling pretty excited, and a little nervous about Ecuador. I must admit, though, that I have no problem leaving behind this frigid weather. Yesterday when the temperature was -52 degrees Fahrenheit, I don't think Ecuador had ever looked better! I should mention that the weather in Quito, where I'll be for the first half of the semester, will be a consistent 65 degrees and rainy. I would love some sunshine down there, but I will take what I can get!

In other news, last Wednesday I received some information about my first host family! I will be living with a family consisting of a mother and two daughters. The mother's name is Bertha, and her daughters are Alejandra (19) and Rosibal (23). I am looking forward to living with girls that are my age. Hopefully they will be able to introduce me to some other people my age and I can see what young adults in Ecuador do in their free time.

I have Skype up and running on my computer now, so if you haven't added me yet, jump on it! My username is lindsey.meyer1110. My email is lindsey.e.meyer@gmail.com. Please feel free to email me at any time!