So many things to learn about this country! Let's see...

• Abortion is illegal, and birth control is frowned upon...yet prostitution is legal, since the church can recognize the economic benefits of it. If your cultural norms and moral code are going to be based on religious beliefs, so be it, I won't interfere if it's not my culture. But some consistency would be nice. Also, there are no laws protecting women who are sexually assaulted. Wut.
• Even though the Catholic church has condemned homosexuality, civil unions are legal here. So that's exciting. But adds to confusion about what they base their laws off of if some things are dictated by religion and some aren't.
• Corporal punishment is allowed in schools. So teachers hit indigenous students a lot.
• On September 30th last year President Correa was giving a speech to a bunch of police officers that were angry that he cut their benefits. One shouted something threatening to him so he was all, ''If you want to kill me, go ahead'', so someone threw tear gas at him and his guards got him out of the building, but it was hard since he had just had knee surgery. Anyhow, so he eventually got taken to...the Police hospital (perhaps by choice) and the police all took to the streets and Correa allegedly was barred from leaving the hospital. So there was no police service cause they may or may not have been busy kidnapping the president (though the verdict's out on that one) and the military took over and schools were closed and people were afraid to leave their houses for a week. Also, in the past 20 years they've had nine presidents, some of which have only been in power for months, because the people keep uprising and then the presidents have to leave on a plane while still being pursued by angry mobs.

So, yeah, gorgeous country and I'm for the most part loving my time here, but it's definitely not without its problems.