Censo

It comes every 10 years, the Ecuadorian national census (censo).
It is much more involved than the US census, from the questions that are asked to the method of data collection.

Here's how it works here...
They send 700,000 high school students out to all of the neighborhoods in the country with pencils, erasers, and census booklets. If the students are sent to a "safe" neighborhood their only protection is the teacher who accompanies a group of 5 or so students. The teacher waits outside while the students enter the homes that they were assigned (Note: According to my in laws, the last time did a census here 3 students were murdered). If they are sent to the "dangerous" neighborhoods there is a police officer or military personnel stationed every block. The students are not provided food, beverages, or bathroom facilities by the government and it is obligatory that they do this (i.e. they are not paid). I think we, as residents of Ecuador, should speak out against this.

They enter the home and ask many questions of the head of the household, including conditions of the home, where we get the water from our home, to do we have a phone and internet.. Then they continue on to ask each individual family member a series of questions that ranged from "do you work, and if so how many hours?" to "where were you born?" to "do you have insurance?", etc. Being that we are a 6 person household this took our poor interviewer 45 minutes. They have to hand write all of the answers on a form that has to be manually reviewed and compiled.

We can leave the house at 5 if we'd like to, so until then we're relaxing and watching movies.