Heading home!

Well, I'm just clearing up the final paperwork to free me up. I'm heading home to the United States for a week. I've been in Ecuador for seven months, and it will be good to get back, even if it is a short time. Not to mention even if I'm leaving at ´1 AM. YUCCCHH!!!

I´ll be in Los Angeles for a day, then a few days in Palm Springs, CA. Then either to Arizona to see some family or back to LA.

One week later I'll be back in Ecuador to teach English to the Air traffic Controllers of Guayaquil. So goodbye, Quito! Goodbye, Guayaquil! I'll be back real soon!

Bus Tragedy in the Andes

Buses are crazy here in Latin America, especially in the Andes Mountains. There the roads are not well maintained, are full of blind curves and switchbacks, and the buses sometimes are barely hung together with bailing wire and a prayer, although they scream through the roads at sometimes astonishing speeds.

There are lots of tragedies that come from this. A few months ago a bus plunged down a mountainside and killed 11 people and injured many more.

But this last week has taken the bus mortality to a horrific level. Buses are often the most convenient, and cheapest way, for groups to travel together. And in this case a whole family hired a bus for a family outing into the mountains not far from Quito. This was family reunion type of thing, with grandparents and uncles and in-laws and nieces. Fifty members of the family were on the bus, plus a driver and an attendant.

The bus was going too fast on bald tires and it roared through a curve and plunged down a ravine. Forty-seven people were killed. Only five children lived long enough to get to the hospital in Quito.

Many things are cheap down here. And sometimes it can be amusing to the Western eye the rickety nature of so much of this land. But public transportation, while convenient and cheap compared to any First World standard, is a dangerous, iffy proposition for those who live down here.

Street Children of Ecuador

Headline in this morning’s paper in Guayaquil are that 750,000 children here in Ecuador work in the streets. This is a staggering number, especially when you consider that there are only about twelve million Ecuadorians.

And you see them everywhere. Ten-year-old boys shine shoes. Six-year-old girls stand in intersections selling gum or sweets. They sell pirated CD’s and DVD’s and sunglasses. If they are lucky, they get a job at a supermercado (supermarket) bagging groceries. But others are “street artists” who paint their bodies in metallic paint and do cartwheels in busy intersections for a few coins from the drivers.

These children are from extremely poor families. The average wage in Ecuador is only about $5-6 a day for most manual labor jobs, and most jobs are manual labor. Working six days a week that becomes only about $135-170 a month. In modern Ecuador that is not enough for a family to live on. So Dad works, mom works, and as soon as they can the kids work too.

The trouble is, the parents can’t get better jobs because they don’t have the education. Their kids must work, and go to the miserable public schools where education is fragile, at best. Then the kids go out to work long hours hawking items on the street. They never get a good education so they are restricted to the same jobs their parents get. Which means their children will be working on the streets.

We have a neighborhood handyman, Juan Carlos. Juan Carlos is a smiling man in his mid-twenties. He has a wife and a child and lives with his parents, a not uncommon arrangement. He is illiterate and works for $120 a month doing maintenance on several of the homes on our block. He’s diligent, but has very limited skills. We pay him some to do odd jobs when we need it, and he’s thrilled at the money. Every dollar he makes is a godsend to him and his small family.

It’s caused by a broken education system and an economic system that makes it impossible for poor people to break out of the cycle they are in. Politicians in the States talk about the cycle of poverty. But it’s different in the USA. There, if someone is born in poverty she will have a greater chance to get into drugs, to not graduate high school, to become a welfare mom, to have limited opportunities.

But in the US she does have a chance to make it. If she wants to break that cycle, she can with hard work.

In Ecuador it is impossible, literally impossible to break that cycle. They don’t have limited opportunities, they have no opportunities. And it will stay that way, unless the education and economic systems change radically.

Not this election it won’t.

Mid Course Stress-out

This is going to be a long, hard week. I’m nearing mid-point in this class cycle so I’ll be doing some reviews and a special project for my Air Traffic Control students. It’s Sunday and I’m trying to come up with a good project for the English class. The one I did for the last cycle at this point didn’t go as well as I’d like, so I’m trying to come up with some alternatives.

I’ll also be teaching an extra day this week. I have some business issues back in the States so I have to return for a week the first week of October. After a lot of talk between the officials with the Departmento de Aviacion Civil (DAC) here in Guayaquil, and Justin in Quito, we’ve decided to give the students a week’s break from classes while I’m gone. We’ll make up the missing days by doing some Friday classes. The first extra class will be this week. So now I get to adjust my class plan to take in the change of dates.

I am looking forward for a week in the States. I haven’t stepped on US soil since March. It’ll be good to speak English again outside the classroom!

Ceviche, Oswaldo and Ecuador

We spent a nice time today with Oswaldo. Oswaldo is a kind gentleman in his forties and a typical everyday Equadorian man.

Oswaldo is a technician who works on the communications of the Guayaquil Airport. This is the position of a well-trained technician. In the US he’d be making $40-50,000 a year. Here in Ecuador he’s paid $380 a month and supplements his income by driving a taxi. That’s how we met him. My wife wanted to find a reliable guy to drive us around when we needed the service.

His wife is in her sixth year of medical school. They have one boy. They live in Sueces 3, a middle-class neighborhood in the North of Guayaquil not far from the airport. The streets are in poor shape and dirty. They live in a one story structure. The masonry is cracked, but it’s comfortable and clean.

We were there because we’d helped Oswaldo out on a business problem he had. He asked us over so he could properly thank us. Dinner was Ceviche de Manabi and Ceviche de Camarones. Cevishe is a cold dish, a soup really, with seafood, lime onions and a variety of spices. The Ceviche de Manabi is made with fish. The fish is not cooked, but is cured in lime juice for 24 hours. The Ceviche de Camerones is made with shrimp, and the shrimp is cooked.

In the hot climate of Guayaquil the cold ceviche was delicious and refreshing. Oswaldo’s family was a joy. We spent a relaxing three hours talking and practicing my atrocious Spanish.

Here I sit in Guayaquil, Ecuador

Here I sit on a fine, bright, hot Friday afternoon, here in Guayaquil, Ecuador. I feel almost guilty… well just a little. One of the great things of this position is that I work hard when it is time to work, but the rest of the time, most of the time, is mine.

Take yesterday (Thursday). Since we are running split classes so all of the Air Traffic Controllers can make it, I have one intensive class from 10-12, and another from 4-6. At the moment, I have the lowest level class of all the three groups going through our English program. It is the smallest group, only 11 students, which is good, because these are the guys that need the most help. But right now, three of their number are away on special assignments, so now I only have eight students.

So Thursday is test day, everybody knows this because I let them know well in advance when a test is coming. Then I found out one of my students will be gone. Unfortunately, he had a death in his family and he’s taking a week off. That’s cool. Family is much more important than English classes.

Then seven students show up for the morning class. I do my review, go over problems and questions, give the test and away they go.

So, that means there would be no students for my afternoon class. But I still get paid for it. You gotta love it.

Latin American Politics

Elections are in the air! With the national Ecuadorian elections coming in just four weeks the politicians are outdoing themselves. I already mentioned in a n earlier post… A Long Line of Women, about an aid program for women with children that has massive lines snaking around the old air terminal to apply for a $35 benefit. It turns out that this is a pre-election largesse that is being sponsored by the local Alcalde (Mayor) of Guayaquil. This is a $350,000 US program, basically to buy votes from the poorest people. It will probably work, too.

Other political machinations are less beneficial. In what at first glance seems more bluster than substance, a number of the Presidential Candidates are playing a game of one-upmanship about the Ecuadorian National Debt.

Some back ground: The country owes 18 billion dollars in bonds, and the Federal government of Ecuador pays the highest interest on bonds in Latin America. This is partly due to Ecuador defaulting on all of its bonds in 1999. The resulting financial crisis caused over 1000% annual inflation and a desperate measure to abandon the currency at the time, the Sucre, and Ecuador began using the US Dollar as its currency.

Well, the “dollarization” of the Ecuador economy worked to stabilize the economy, but the Ecuadorian government’s penchant for buying votes with pricey government programs hasn’t stopped. In the past, when it promised more than it could spend the government would just print more Sucres. But now it can’t print US Dollars so it is in a bind. This last year the government of Ecuador’s Ignacio Palacio has promised hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to a wide range of special interest groups. To cover this spending, the government first passed a law requiring a 50% tax on oil revenues from the petroleum companies operating in Ecuador, then trumped up a dispute with Occidental Petroleum and seized the profitable oil fields operated by the US company.

That high-handed approach has shaken foreign investment in general and the oil industry in particular. This is bad because oil exports is the Ecuadorian government’s primary source of hard cash.

So now we get to the politics. The last two weeks the various presidential candidates have been saying they will default on the current Ecuador Debt, stop making payments on these loans, so they can use the money from debt payments to spend on special programs “for the people of Ecuador.” It has gotten so bad that investors have completely run for the exits. Ecuador’s Bonds have plummeted. They probably can’t sell new bonds even if they wanted to.

So whoever the next president will be will have built up a massive expectation for gargantuan spending programs. But where will the money come from? Oil production is dropping because oil companies refuse to put more investment into Ecuador because of the shaky investment climate. The President can’t print money because the economy is based on the US Dollar. He won’t be able to borrow money except at truly ruinous rates.

Ecuador has averaged a new President every 15 months for the last eight years, because they keep getting thrown out of office. Whoever is elected may only have 12 months to keep everyone happy AND keep the economic axe from falling.

News at eleven.

Plane Crash in Guayaquil, Ecuador

Teaching here in the Departmento de Aviacion Civil gives us a unique, radar-side view of air traffic here in Latin America. Last night, a plane crashed here and it gives you a unique perspective.

The story goes that a student pilot in a Cessna 150 was doing some training maneuvers. She did some touch-and-goes… a maneuver where you come in as if to land, but when your wheels touch you hit the throttle and take off again. It’s good practice for inexperienced pilots to work on their landings.

Well any way, she’d been flying for four hours. Four hours. Now, for those with aviation experience lower your eyebrows. I’ll explain to the non-aviation experienced folk out there that four hours is a desperately long time for a small Cessna 150 to be flying… especially if you are doing something as fuel guzzling as touch-and-goes.

Well, sure enough, she comes in on her final approach, has just been turned over to the Guayaquil Control Tower for final landing, when she disappears from radar screens. No radio transmission, no hint of problems. She’s just gone.

Well the Tower Controller is alert and immediately reacts, and in seconds planes are being diverted and rescue crews alerted. It soon is discovered that her engine stalled on final approach… no fuel… and she nose-dived down into the Guayas River. She did have enough time and control to make it a relatively easy landing and shortly she is fished out of the muddy water by rescue crews.

Yeah team!

Several of the controllers on duty were our students and they spent a lot of time flipping back and forth speaking English and Spanish to a wide range of pilots and emergency agencies and they seemingly did it flawlessly. It looks like our English classes down here are helping out. It makes you feel good to know you are making a difference to people.

Mango Rain!

Our massive mango trees in back have been loaded with green mangos since we moved into our place, here in Guayaquil. Plus there have been thousands more of the blossoms that are slowly developing fruit.

We’ve had “Mango Rain” every night. The big branches have been dropping a few mangos every night. They started by dropping little green mangos the size of peanuts or even smaller. Gradually they’ve been getting bigger and lighter. Now they range from golf ball to baseball size. Some are still very green, but now a few are a little yellowish in color.

The last few days we’ve cut a few open. For many, the flesh is still pale green and acidic. But a few are now bright orange. These have a robust flavor, with the mildest hint of tartness. So refreshing! And looking up into the towering branches above us, we’re looking forwards to several months of mangos.

Fresh mangos, mango juice, mango salsa… anyone know any good mango recipes?

We may have to go into the mango business here.

A Long Line of Women

The last several days we’ve witnessed something that had us puzzled. On our way from our home to the Departmento de Aviacion Civil to conduct our English classes, we pass the old Simon Bolivar Airport here in Guayaquil. It is the passenger terminal that has been replaced by the new Juaquin Olmedo Airport about a kilometer farther down the Avenida de las Americas.

The last several days we’ve seen an impossibly long line of Ecuadorians, seemingly mostly, if not all, women. Each day there were hundreds, probably thousands of people stretched in an impressively long line from one end of the terminal all across the front of the massive building. They stood there patiently in this slow-moving line, even in the over 80 degree heat and near 100% humidity. There had been talk that the old airport would become a new conference center for Guayaquil. Chris broached a theory that it might be people applying for jobs.

Yesterday I mentioned this to a few of my students. No, not jobs, they said. The Ministry of Health had a program for medical care for poor women with children. They were in line to apply for a special $35 benefit they could get.

Standing in that long, slow-moving line for a $35 a month benefit?

Yes, and very happy to do it.

Third World Economics 101.

Politics in Ecuador

In Guayaquil, it seems that politics can be just as robust as they are in Quito.

Recently the city trumpeted their latest innovation in modernizing Guayaquil: The opening of a motorized tram to be known as the Metrovia. In actuality it is merely an oversized, articulated diesel bus that has a special lane just for it and emergency vehicles. Thus it can go very quickly, especially during Guayaquil Centro’s heavy traffic times. The final part is that you only get on the Metrovia at certain stations. You pay at the entrance so you merely get on or off at will, without the conductor or driver collecting money.

In Quito there are three very similar lines. The Ecovia and Metrobus lines are exactly like the Guayaquil Metrovia. The Trolleybus is the same concept but it is electrically powered. They offer fast transportation at a reasonable price ($0.25) and they are very crowded and well accepted.

Guayaquil, is a different story. First, the city closed five bus lines that would compete with the Metrovia. Several neighborhoods, especially some poor neighborhoods, no longer have direct service to the Centro. Instead of having a bus within 1-2 blocks they can hail, they now have to walk 6-10 blocks to get to a Metrovia station.

Then, within the first week of the Metrovia operating there was a tragic accident. A pedestrian, crossing the street, was trying to beat traffic. He dashed to the Metrovia lane and leaped over the low divider, but caught his foot and tumbled flat into the Metrovia Lane, just as a bus came along. He was crushed and killed.

Of course, it wasn’t the Metrovia’s fault, or the bus driver, but that doesn’t matter in politics, does it? The death of the young man became a cause celebre and there have been a series of violent protests, including throwing Molotov cocktails, and the cashiers at the Metrovia Stations being assaulted and threatened. Several people have been injured and a police officer was badly burned when he was hit with a fiery bomb.

All this for a disagreement on bus lines.

More news at eleven.

Water Time

The water service in Guayaquil is not always the most reliable. There are often stretches of time when the city pumps are down, for one reason or another. When this happens you just have to make do.

We are one of the fortunates to have a cistern. This is a massive blue tank on the side coupled with a compression pump. We keep about 1000 liters in it for emergencies.

So this morning I wake up and find that there is no water. In fact, the bathrooms where household members have done their late night business have empty tanks and smelly/full bowls. So I head out and switch over from Guayaquil service to cistern. It is nice to have, since thousands in this city do not have cisterns, and when something like this happens they need to find another way.

The down side to this is the compression pump kicks on every 5-10 seconds when water is flowing through it. This is a high, shrieking electric motor kind of racket that would be horrible if it was at night. It definitely gave everybody in the house a resounding wake up call.

Jefe on the Premises

Justin, our Director of English in Quito, flew in for a couple days to check how things are doing in here in Guayaquil. We had a good time. Justin is a fascinating man. He also has a fascinating accent.

He was born in Iowa, heart of the American mid-west. He studied at several prestigious acting programs in New York and London, with the hope of becoming a stage actor. That never worked out, so he got a job doing the European “Live Statue” For those who’ve never seen these, people come to fairs and special events, dressed in a wide range of fanciful “Statues” They stand on a pedestal, posing, staying absolutely still. People drop money and sometimes pay extra to have a phot with “The Statue.”

Justin was an elf. If you ever meet him you’ll know why he chose that persona for himself. He merely needed a set of Spock ears to look the part!

So he ended living in Barcelona for a couple years, being a statue, and began teaching English. Then he took up a job in Ecuador. He no longer acts or plays a statue, but he’s progressed to be the Director where he works.

His accent is part Iowa, part classical/Shakespeare English and one part American ex-patriot. He calls it his Mid-Atlantic Accent and it is probably true. He’s probably got the same accent still used by the ghosts of the Titanic.

Back Home

Well, after a long bus ride back to Cartegena we had dinner at the Decameron there. Then to the airport to pick up our charter. It is WAAAAAY late, though, so we don´t take off until after eleven at night and don´t reach Quito until after one. We bed down at a local hotel overnight so we can catch a rescheduled connection from Quito to Guayaquil in the morning.

We´re home now. Tired. Happy. We have a couple days to recover from our trip and get ready for anouther round of classes with thye Guayaquil Air Traffic Controllers. Lisa starts it off, Friday Morning, with a 7:30 a.m. class. My first one doesn´t start until 10:00 a.m. The trip was a great brek, but we´re raring to go back to work!

Colombia Trip Part 5 - Santa Marta

After Cartegena we were tired and grumpy, and the van ride to Santa Marta was supposed to be 3 ½ hours long and ended up being 4 ½ long. Lisa was close to screaming in frustration. But we arrived at the Decameron Galeon, outside Santa Marta and it made the trip all better.

Unlike the Cartegena, where the hotel is buried right in a touristy area, the Decameron in Santa Marta is out by itself. It’s remoteness works in keeping the hard core Colombian street vendors away. Here the beach is clean and private. It is a great getaway if you want to spend some time partying along a Carribean beach. Now THIS is the life.

Even the rooms were a big difference. In Cartegena we had a pretty plain hotel room. In Santa Marta it was a spacious suite with a private deck with a lovely view of ocean, beach and lush tropical foliage. If we could have made our entire getaway in Santa Marta, it would have been great! Santa is a wonderful place and we enjoyed the room, the beach, the entertainment and the extremely friendly staff. Plus, it costs less than Cartegena.

Most of the activities are down on the beach here, including the evening entertainment shows. One thing to know is that Santa Marta mostly caters to a Latin American tourist dollar, one reason why it is cheaper. We’re the only gringo’s there, but our Spanish was more than enough to get us taken care of. Most people at the resort were from Panama, Venzuela, Ecuador and other South American nations.

There are four major restaurants at the Decameron Galeon. One is the Rancho Parrillada (Steakhouse) which is great. There is also a lovely Italian place, MamaMia’s. Then there is a massive ship in the center of the complex. It is made of concrete but finished and painted so at first it looks like a wooden Galleon (thus the name, Decameron Galeon). It actually houses two restaurants. Inside the “gundeck” is an “international” restaurant that’s pretty good. On the top “deck” is an open-aired “Japanese” restaurant. Actually the Japanese place just serves a set meal of generic oriental food. It’s okay, but the Italian and Steakhouse are the much better choices.

It is also an all-inclusive place, so there is all the food and drinks all the time. Just ask, and it’s handed over with a smile!

The lone downside to Santa Marta is the remoteness. Santa Marta is all about the beach and the beach alone. Unlike Cartegena, there aren’t all of the city sights and historical attractions to see. This wasn’t a problem for us, because we’d done the tours in Cartegena. In 20/20 hind site, the best thing would have been to spend one night in Cartegena and the additional day in Santa Marta.

Also, there was no Internet service. And that pretty much drove me crazy. All my surfing was done in the water! Wow!

Colombia Trip Part 4 - Day Two Cartegena

The next day is the worst of the trip. We start by going to the beach. This is a dirty beach that have flocks of street vendors. The hotel has a number of shade tents for the guests. We find one and settle in. A vendor, wearing a semi-official looking smock comes by and asks if we want a leg massage. Sure, why not!

Big mistake.

Suddenly we have a cluster of women about us, starting to give Lisa and I leg massages. They insist we need pedicures, manucures, full body massages and much, much more. They saw us coming! One lady insists Lisa should have beads in her hair. No thank you, says Lisa. How about I put one in so you can see what it looks like? Okay, just one.

So I have one slapping some kind of lotion on my legs and rubbing it in… some of the rubs getting high up my legs and into some unprofessional parts! Another is trying to strip my shirt off. Two more are going at Lisa’s legs with a fifth sticking foil and cheap beads in a ridiculous display on Lisa’s head. What happened to just one bead?

I fork over money, too much money, because they grab it and disappear in a flash. Lisa is irate with me because I paid them way too much. I didn’t care because they were gone. We left soon after, disappointed at the bad experience.

Then we hop on a bus for a LOOONG bus ride to our next destination. I felt Cartegena was nice to visit, but I don’t want to go there again. It is way too commercialized, overflowing with obnoxious street vendors. The city itself seems to be full of lovely places, but there is no way the locals let you enjoy it. They are just too focused on wringing every ounce of money out of the tourist. It’s a pity. If the locals were better I’d love to go to Cartegena again and again.

Colombia Trip Part 3 - Day One Cartegena

We stayed at the Decameron Cartegena. This is a nice-enough three star place. It is an all-inclusive place and it’s good. All the food: meals, drinks, snacks, even alcohol, are included. No worry about keeping money or signing stuff. They just put a plastic wristband on you and you have the run of the facilities. Our particular package also had a couple tours added in. One was a city tour that gave us the sights of Cartegena. Very nice, and the guide, Pepito, was a wonderful guy. We saw some great views, crawled around an ancient Spanish fort, and did some nice shopping. Lisa was happy with an emerald ring she bought at a mercado. It was a nice time.

The evening “tour” was not as good. It started as a coach ride to old town Cartegena in an old-style, one-horse carriage. Might have been nice enough, but not the way the hotel handled it. First one of their people grabbed a coach just at random off the street in front of the hotel. The other carriage driver’s were arguing with each other over which one should have gotten the job from the hotel. It was a mess, but finally we headed off.

The route we took was nothing special, just heading down a road in a rickety horse-drawn carriage. And we didn’t know where we were going! We go through the old stone archways into the old walled city of Cartegena and end up in a plaza.

The driver says, here we are! Where’s here? Dinner at the restaurant on the corner. Okay, but it’s not open for an hour. No problem, just look around! How do we get back? A bus picks you up at seven! Where do we meet the bus? I don’t know!

And the buggy driver sends his horse clopping off.

Well, we finally get into the restaurant. The food is okay, but nothing special. Then we hang around for two hours waiting for the bus and getting hustled by the street vendors.

One particular problem with traveling to Cartegena is the incredibly aggressive street vendors. They run in packs at every plaza, beach, hotel entrance and attraction. There is no quiet walking in this city as every few feet some obnoxious person is thrusting something into your face. If you sit down it is even worse, as you get a constant stream of people thrusting the same worthless trinkets in your face.

Finally, after two hours of assault by the street vendors a Decameron security guard comes through announcing the bus is here. It’s after 8pm. We finally head off.

It could have been so much better if the tour people had given us even a little bit of information.

Colombia Part 2 - Quito to Cartegena

Our next hop was a charter on Tame Air to Cartegena. We finally arrived a few minutes before 10:00pm and we disgorged down the ramp onto the tarmac. My glasses fogged up from the heat and humidity. The Ecuadorians in our midst were wilting, those from the Sierras… Quito, Ibarra and Riobamba and the like, were dying. Those from Guayaquil or the rest of the coast, like Lisa and I, think it’s a bit warm but okay.

Now we are starting to get cranky because we have a couple hundred people to go through Colombian customs and immigration but they only have two sleepy clerks on duty. It takes forever! After a long day of traveling we are getting cranky. Not a way to start your vacation.

Finally though, we get through and onto the bus to the hotel.

Colombia Part I - Guayaquil to Quito

Well, our first 8-week iteration is over and we had our one-week break until the next set starts. That means: Teachers go away!

Lisa and I took advantage of an all-inclusive getaway package with Decameron Resorts and headed north to Colombia. What a trip! It had good times but some awfully irritating points, too!

It started off with the normal ills of international transportation. Our initial flight was a normal Sunday hop from Guayaquil, where we live, to Quito. This little 40-minute flight was reasonably uneventful, thank God! With the volcano erupting in Ecuador the past few months the various ash clouds have raised havoc with airways. This day was no problem and away we jetted.

Then we land and meet Travis and we run out to spend a few hours with the Smith’s. Linda and Travis are fellow expats, although they are Canadians, not United Staters like us. Still, norteamericanos, right? We’d met when we shared the same hostel in Quito, and kept in touch ever since. We had a layover from 10:00am to 5:00 p.m. so we hopped over to their beautiful apartment in Quito. Linda was under the weather, so we didn’t do too much… just talked, and had some delicious burgers. Linda mixed them (not bad for a vegetarian!) and Travis grilled them. Then we watched Star Wars III. We had a great time catching up!

Then, back to the airport to muddle through the security procedures for an international flight. There was a big to do when they discovered Lisa’s hypodermics and insulin. We got passed from security official to security official until finally they decided these two middle-aged and overweight estadianses weren’t a threat. Good thing they tell us to arrive early. We needed the time.
Like anything else, with the state of airline security these days, I don’t begrudge them taking the time checking us out. It is a pain, but if it saves keeping one terrorist off a plane I’ll put up with it.