Souvenir Photo Studio, by Al Bourassa: Thursday January 19, 2017 Politics/Herederos

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Thursday January 19, 2017

Wow! 3 day of sunshine, in a row, in January… We are blessed!

Still no serious buyers for Toxic. If anyone is thinking of getting a super reliable scooter, now is the time to hold up your hand...

A delayed Spanish class today with Teo at Instituto Cuenca. While I am certainly not the ideal keener student, I sure enjoy the classes and Teo's knowledge and explanations to all my pithy questions. Contact http://insticuenca.wixsite.com/spanishschool

Cristina is still ministering to the (baby?) bird and has transformed the one bedroom into a makeshift aviary. She insists that she has to make sure that the bird can eat on its own before releasing it. I would have thought that eating comes naturally.. She wanted a video of her and the bird so I took this with the Lumix which has great video capabilities: https://youtu.be/opIjlN-9r_g

Then a nap was needed before venturing out to a candidates debate for Assembly members for our Province of Azuay. I now have a poster for one candidate in my upstairs windows, Lourdes Cuesta, along with leading Presidential hopeful Guillermo Lasso, owner of the Banco de Guayaquil. The debate was at the Chamber of Commerce and I was interested to see if Teo's opinion of the candidates was on the mark. Teo is a shrewd political observer and I respect his views.

I arrived just before the official starting time, which, in Ecuador, is always a 1/2 hour before anything actually gets started, and easily got a seat right in the front row. That makes it easier to take a few photos... Then, candidate Lourdes Cuesta sat 2 seats from me.. Again, I was the only white face in the crowd.

Nobody could explain to me why only 4 men were involved in the debate, when they said there were 5 candidates, and obviously the 5th was sitting right next to me... The four men all had impressive qualifications of political experience. 3 managed to speak off-the-cuff, without notes, while the 4th had a lot of notes and seemed to correct a lot of the statements of the others. The one in the blue jeans, Esteban Bernal, stuck out in my mind because he seemed to have a lot of ready figures to back his statements, was also on the Guillermo Lasso team, and could finish his statements within the required time. I don't know if I heard him right, but the one negative was that he seemed to want the Government to abandon the IESS medical system to manage on their own, which they are supposed to do. IESS, where I just had the opportunity to involuntarily test their system, definitely needs a ruthless overseer to eliminate waste and corruption, but needs the safety net of the Government for a while longer to be certain that it does not collapse.

The debate was incredibly orderly, the candidates did understand when they were cut off at the specified time, there were no personal attacks, and the crowd was really quite polite to all. Impressive! Maybe I expected few hot Latin tempers to erupt?

I slipped out just before 8pm to join the Herederos for the Thursday night ride at the Puente Roto (Broken Bridge). A good group of riders were on hand tonight including the dealer for AXXO bikes. I was also offered a new Honda bike alarm for $30, installed for $40, and I am tempted to seek that peace-of-mind, but I hate alarms...

I also popped in to see Michael W. at the Louisiana Pub next door (He's from Torquay, Saskatchewan) and he had another Canadian guest from his stomping grounds in the Yukon.

I was feeling pretty good so I was going to attempt to stay with the ride tonight. However I get really tired of the stop'n'go riding involved in the weekly ritual of riding along Remigio Crespo to show off. The riding there is slow because of the ever-present traffic and we always get separated at the lights. My shoulders started to ache, so I quit halfway along there and headed home. My body recovers better when I listen to its signals..... I am doing my best to avoid drugs.

I hope you enjoy the photos. That was the day's excitement. Cheers, Al

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