<p>He is fine. The situation blew over quickly and he was back to his standard routine in no time. About the only advice we could offer was “move away from the windows.”</p>
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</p>
<p>UT84321</p>
<p>Sounds like a labor dispute.</p>
<p>:eek: The POLICE are protesting? :eek: and you could hear the shots as he was talking to you?</p>
<p>{fainting away on the floor}</p>
<p>Yes, the police went on strike over pay. The bank across from the University was immediately robbed. The Gringo students were told they could not leave campus. My son lives 3 bus rides away from campus, and there was not a clear sense that they would be safe from robbery on the way to the homes of their host families. </p>
<p>But he made it home, and that evening there was a gun battle around the hospital where Correa had been taken. (He had been hit by a tear gas canister thrown by the police.) So the shooting was between police and army, and the hospital was within 1 km of my son’s host home. Two cops, one soldier, and a university student died.</p>
<p>My wife was on googlephone with him during the gun battle.</p>
<p>I don’t recall this chapter in “Parenting for Dummies.”</p>
<p>My Dad (born in 1912) would relate the time in the very early 1930s when he and a faternity brother drove a Model T from SMU to Acapulco and, in several smaller Mexican towns, the town people waived them “around” the revolutionary gun battles.</p>
<p>Well, my rising college senior son got mugged the other night in the USA walking to his apartment near campus. The applicable “Parenting for Dummies” section’s wisdom is “you can only do what you can do.” Which is usually not very much in these types of situations.</p>
<p>I suggest you get him a “I survived the Quito clash of <strong><em>[date]</em></strong>_” T-shirt made. On the back, have the slogan “Parental Advice: Move Away from the Windows!” It will be a great momento for him to show his kids and you and your wife sound like you didn’t add to his stress at the time it was going down. Congrats on that!</p>
<p>UT- so what is his FB status? Someday that will make a great story, right now, yikes, a bit stress-inducing</p>
<p>Saw news reports of students rioting today in London over tuition increases. Any feedback from your kids? Mine has this week off and is traveling in Italy, so I don’t know if she even knows about it.</p>
<p>^
My D was in the UK at this time last year, and even then the students were saying that if the Conservatives got in, this very thing (tuition hikes followed by student unrest) would happen. Two of those she dormed with have told her they may have to quit, another doesn’t know what he is going to do. British families have never had to save for college, so the money just isn’t there for many.</p>
<p>Hope your D is having a great time.</p>
<p>Since this thread just popped to the top again, I’ll post my happy news on this thread, too. I received unexpected text message from DD in Turkey almost two weeks ago to say that there was a (suicide) bomber, but she was fine… He blew himself and others up in the area she travels through twice a day. Sigh. I am telling myself that statistically, she is in a safe place… those poor familes…</p>
<p>And ** gasp*** UT, that sounds like really scary phone call! :eek: Glad your son was okay in the Ecuador battles!</p>
<p>It could go in the thread for “calls you don’t want to get.” But a country–or even a city–is a huge place. Just because we see unsettling news reports, it doesn’t follow that our precious Janey/Johnny was in harms way. Just keep telling yourself that.</p>
<p>FYI- the protests started and ended at my D’s school. I asked her if she went. She replied, after what you spent on my undergrad compared to the cost of my grad school ( a lot less per year), I had nothing to complain about. I asked if she went to watch, she said she did. The violence was no where around the school. She went down to watch it begin then went back upstairs to study at the library.</p>