the huge contrast between economic levels

james asked me about this so here goes...

my house is super nice. i'm obviously staying with a pretty wealthy family. my host parents also have four grown/married kids with even nicer condos/flats/houses. i was actually shocked at how fancy they were; they looked just like an expensive home in the US. My family has also has two cars, and a maid who does most of the cooking, cleaning and laundry, as do many Ecuadorian families (30% i believe). This being said, the divide between the rich and poor is HUGE. here i am, having this very comfortable experience in a house where my living accomodations aren't that different from the US (you can only take a shower if no one else is or if no one is doing laundry or washing dishes, but that's no big deal) and at the same time, i walk past these kids who are probably 11 who have water bottles and car windshield-wiper things like they have a gas stations. they walk around next to stoplights, asking if people want to have their windshield washed. there are also lots of people who sell things in this manner: cds, food, random cell phone cases, and all sorts of stuff that i feel like no one would buy, and even if they did, there's no way you can make a profit substantial enough to live on because the stuff is so cheap anyway. I believe the government has technically outlawed this type of sale, but that doesn't stop anyone from doing it. I've even seen people buy fruit/veggies a couple times, but normally people just say no. The salespeople are used to this, though; they aren't pushy.
There are also many many little booths, for lack of a better word, which sell similar food items on the side of the street. a lot of these seem to be run by indiginous people, but not all. they have the exact same products and i can't imagine how any of them make a significant profit either. i haven't photographed any of these yet because it's extremely awkward for me to take pictures around the citiy; i'm already a tall, clearly white girl and i don't enjoy making my self look more like a tourist. not that there's much i can do to look like i fit in anyway haha