Colegio Militar Eloy Alfaro

While I was living in Ecuador, I went to a military school called El Colegio Militar "Eloy Alfaro" for one year. It was a very good and hard experience for me. I had to become fluent in Spanish as fast as I could because my superiors would get mad when I didn't understand their order. When brigadiers ordered me to do something; sometimes, I would just stand there staring at them because I hadn't understood what he had wanted me to do. It wasn't so good. =)

The school was an all-boys school and was really strict, especially about obeying the older cadets. I was put in the 3rd course (9th grade), and I had to obey all the cadets in 4th, 5th, and 6th course. One of the rules was that we greet all our superiors, and if you passed a cadet without greeting him you would be punished by running a few laps or doing some push-ups. As I often forgot, I was in pretty good shape by the end of the year.

The formal monday line up. Everyone had to wear la anilla on mondays...

yes, that's me

I was in the "B" class, and I had some pretty good companions. My best friend, Esteban, was in my class, and there was Sarzosa and Almendariz. Almendariz was a really cool guy who sat behind me in school and helped me when I didn't understand something. I sat next to him pretty late in the year, so I already knew most of my Spanish, but he still helped me sometimes. I helped him too with his English homework. We sat through tons of classes together and became good friends. Esteban was my best friend because we had known each other since I had arrived in Ecuador, and he had been in my church. He was one of the main reasons that I had enrolled in the military school. I had wanted to be in a school where I knew someone. I also wanted adventure, and boy did I get it!

I got in discussions with other cadets on all kinds of subjects, and many of them were about the U.S. Many guys thought that since I was from the U.S., I should be able to change the world. One guy claimed that we were abusing Iraq and that the people of Iraq wanted to be ruled by Saddam. He also claimed that Cuba was poor because of the U.S. All of this he thought I could somehow change, like I was the president or something.