GABRIELA AVILA
EQUADOR

It is 9:40 p.m. and I'm in San Francisco (Sau Paucho). I arrived yesterday to begin what I think will be one of the greatest trips of my life. I have come to give my friends from all over the world a report on my country, Ecuador.

At the same time, I will be learning about other countries, such as Kazakhstan, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Mexico and many, many other places. I look forward to hearing about these places and also how Ecuador is viewed in these countries.

I love seeing how different we are; we even smell different!  Even so, I can see we share a lot of the same concerns and values. I feel like hugging everyone!

Right now, I'm very thankful to my mother for teaching me English because I can communicate easily with my new friends. Still, I'd love to know Japanese, Russian, Indonesian--all of them!