Day 2 – The Toilet Flushed Backwards!

I have actually never noticed which way toilets flush in America and have quite frankly never really cared. Today however, I did care, because I wanted to see how the good old pots flushed down here. They do indeed flush the opposite direction (counterclockwise I think). More on bathrooms and things of that nature, public urination is actually acceptable. When riding in another awesome no seat belt wearing crazy cab ride, I saw a man peeing on the side of the road. I asked my friend and he said this is totally acceptable. I’m starting to like this place more and more. Don’t get me wrong, it was a public but very respectful teetee. The gentleman was faced away from traffic and aimed into the grass (thank you sir). Following the cab ride though, my liking of the countries facilities policies was lessened when I had to pay a lady 10 cents to use the restroom. Good thing I only had to go number 1 because number 2 would have cost me double.

Enough with this potty talk and on to the real adventures of Cato. Today I sat on a public bus for over 5 hours riding from Quito to Shell. It wasn’t that bad at all really. I slept on and off and was here before I knew it. Upon arrival to Shell, we walked up to Tandy and Dwight’s house. They have a great home and currently I am occupying their basement where I will live for at least the next month. It is very spacious and other than not having a TV (which I like) all else is very similar to a house in the US. There are of course several small things I have to do differently but all in all I am very blessed and feel comfortably at home. The only problem is that I don’t know any young people yet so my extroverted self is going to have to spend a few nights by myself. It will be good though. I plan on going to bed early and waking up early to have a devotion and maybe even get a workout here or there. IDK yet but I will keep you posted.

For food today, we walked to a little grocery store where I bought two dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, juice, fresh fruit, ham, and something else I cannot remember at the moment. Then, we went out to eat at this little restaurant. For $3.50 I got two boneless skinless chicken breasts on top of a very hearty helping of rice, a generous portion of black beans, homemade French fries and fried yuku or yoku or something like that (basically an Ecuadorian potato), along with a small salad and water bottle. I was very content.

My favorite thing about this town so far is that you can walk everywhere. Everything is within walking distance kinda like Wilmore but there is so much more stuff here. I can’t wait until tomorrow when I can explore more. My favorite part of the trip however has been the kids or kid in this case. The Martins are the couple I am staying with and they have a three year old boy named Jonathan. He is very cute and fun to hang out with. Within 10 minutes of my arrival, I was sitting on the floor reading him David and Goliath and within 30 minutes, I was giving him a ride on my shoulders as we walked through the city to get dinner. I love kids and can’t wait to meet a lot more tomorrow.

I am so blessed to be here and I can see God’s hand in the beauty of the mountains, kids, animals, architecture and everything else here. It is actually really cool being a minority here and only seeing like one out of 1000 white people. It gives me a new perspective on people in general and how meaningless color is. I already don’t assign value or meaning to color but it is just cool to get another perspective. God loves everybody and I don’t think he sees color. I cannot wait to learn all the lessons God has for me here. Lastly, Tandy and Dwight are awesome and I really appreciate them letting me into their home or basement. They are great hosts.