And You Thought USA Politics Were Crazy...

The other day in literature class, we managed to go on a complete tangent and talk about the ex-Ecuadorian President Abdalá Bucarám.  President of the Republic for a short six months (1996-1997), this man is quite possibly one of the craziest people in all of Ecuador. After becoming the mayor of one of Ecuador's cities, he was found guilty of corruption (he stole a bunch of money from the government), and was promptly exiled to Panama. After 8 years abroad, he announced that he would return to Ecuador and run for president, and he told everyone that he would be giving his "big news speech" in the stadium at 10 in the morning. At that time, he was helicoptered in and jumped into the stadium via parachute to kick off his campaign. And they all elected him.

During his campaign, he refused to live in the Ecuadorian Presidential Palace:

Presidential Palace in el centro historico

And bought out two floors of Hotel Colon, which is two blocks away from my house. Why did he move? Because he wanted to live close to a soccer field. But get this, he and his family lived on one floor, his mistress on the floor below them... awkward.

The self-titled "loco" or crazy man, he was even found dancing at inappropriate times and no one really liked him once they realized what an idiot he was. So, the ENTIRE country took to the streets and protested, and as he was on his way out, Abdalá took even more governmental money and expensive presidential artifacts. He now lives in Panama, again.

But wait, it gets better. After he left, Ecuador had a total of THREE MORE PRESIDENTS IN 48 HOURS. First, the Vice President, Rosalía Arteaga became President.

Yay for a woman president! But within hours, the head of the Supreme Court judged that to be unconstitutional and took over for himself. Then, the military was not happy, so they kicked that poor guy out and put their own president into the office. August of 1998 was when Jamil Mahuad was officially elected and the political process was seemingly back to normal.

And now everyone is really upset with Rafael Correa and no one knows why he isn't being impeached as well. Well done, Ecuador. Well done.

Colombia-Ecuador Relations

This is a quick post with no pictures. Sorry.

Today we went to the immigration office to get a government-official ID stating that we are students here for a semester. It was really interesting, for me at least, to notice how many Colombian people were trying to obtain some sort of visa or citizenship in Ecuador in order to escape the drug conflicts, etc. happening in Colombia. Because so many Colombians are fleeing the country and crossing the boarder into Ecuador, the immigration office has been seeing an exponential increase in Colombian immigrants. There is also a huge refugee concentration in some parts of the city. It's no wonder that this is happening, I had just never really thought about it before today. I mean, we hear in the US that Colombia is one of the main sources for drugs like cocaine, but they never really talk about how the drug cartels are affecting the people living in Colombia. I don't really know where I'm going with this, I just wanted to throw it out there.

Anyways, food for thought.

We are off to Baños this weekend, so I should have tons of pictures later!