Impressions of American Girls

9.2.10

Today we ran again, got a little farther than the days before, and after had breakfast at Adriana’s house and we talked about some cultural things, like how I say I don’t know a lot. I've said it a lot all my life! But, I will admit it's more frequent here because sometimes I just don’t understand what’s going on and I’m embarrassed, or I really don’t know, or I don’t know how to say NO. They told me it’s better to say NO with somewhat of a reason, and if you don’t want to give a reason for not going somewhere or accepting an invitation, you can say you have another commitment.

We were also talking about Ecuadorians views of American girls, and both Alba and Adriana told me that in Canoa (a tourist beachy town about an hour away) there are always a lot of girls who are drunk and hanging out with terrible and ugly men, and ruin the reputation of American girls. Basically they get the impression that American girls are into drugs and are promiscuous. I explained that it's difficult to generalize the whole culture based on what they've seen on a few occasions, but I understand what they were saying. However, it also confuses me because in Salinas alone there are a lot of girls who are young, single moms, and not married. Ecuadorian parents become very upset if their daughters have a boyfriend and have relations before they’re married or “rejuntadas”, like in a committed relationship.