I hope everything is going well for you back in the states! Everything is very interesting here, I’m adjusting to the food, culture, language, and altitude. I’m in a very small community in the Andes mountains. I have running water (but I can’t drink it because it’s not “treated water“ aka agua potable), sometimes warm showers (warm being just a little warmer than frigid), and live in the coldest training community where the least amount of clothes I wear is 2 layers and as a rule I can always see my breath. Not exactly what I expected when I found out I was in Ecuador lol. I do really like it here despite the cold. My host family is really awesome. Though they can never replace my real family, I feel very lucky to be living with such an wonderful family. I think they are enjoying my Spanish learning. The most recent funny mistake was asking my host dad how his vieja (old) was - which was supposed to be viaje (trip). Also, they love when I teach them English words, especially puppy, which sounds very similar to Papi (what they call the dad). So when the girl asks if she can give the leftovers to the dog, she says puppy, and everyone laughs because it sounds like she is giving the leftovers to the dad. Those are some of the innocent mistakes I have made. Thankfully the accidental mistakes that turn out to be sexual have been in our language group instead of my family, like saying introducir instead of presentar. Look it up if you want to know. I feel like everything we say in Spanish can be sexual because our facilitator is always correcting us and having to explain the difference lol Guess I’ll learn them as I go, and it’s better to make those mistakes with PC staff then people in the community!

I know it’s been awhile since I updated soo, here’s an update of what’s been going on:
-Health stuff: I’ve had a few sunburns (pretty hard to avoid when pretty much living on the Ecuador) but they have been manageable. I am in the habit of putting on sunscreen first thing every morning though - yay! I haven’t been very sick, just a little normal traveller’s adjustment from the food and water. This morning I woke up with “La gripa” or something like that. At least that’s what my host mom said I have. It’s basically a cold - runny nose, drainage, sore throat, etc. My whole body is also aching but I believe that’s because of soccer yesterday. No fever, no related GI problems = no problems lol

-We have a lot of meetings/trainings during the week. I also have had my first interview with the program managers and have my second LPI (language proficiency interview) next week, so hopefully my Spanish will have improved by then (I think it has for sure) I also know what to expect with the interview which will make it much easier. I felt okay about the first interview (in Quito) but was really nervous when they started recording the interview. I still managed to place in the intermediate-medium language group, which is actually within the acceptable range for being nominated to be a volunteer. But I really need to continually improve on this score, so I’ll find out how I’m doing next week.

-Back to general stuff we do during the week: We’ve learned a crazy amount of medical and safety/security information, plus community entry techniques and other technical information related to my program. The safety and security info has been pretty hard to hear for a lot of us, but I think they’re just trying to make us super-aware of possibilities. I can definitely say they have trained us well - when I’m in the cities or using public transit I am on the verge of paranoid all of the time. Better than not paying attention I guess.
-We also have smaller language and culture training with our language facilitator when we’re not in meetings as an omnibus. My group meets in the centre de acopio of my community. It consists of me and the other 4 trainees in my community, who are around the same language level and I think we all have the same learning style (we did learning style tests in Quito). I like our group a lot but we switch facilitators in a couple weeks, so we will have a different teaching style. One thing we have all started to think about is what will happen in 7 weeks when we head to different sites all over the country. We’re going to try to keep in touch, but I think it is really hard. It’s so hard to imagine not seeing everyone in our omnibus every day or two, and the current PCVs say it is a big shock to the system. We’ll have to see when we get there I guess

-Last weekend we went on our “cultural trip”. Mine was to a afro-Ecuadorian community called Mascarilla. We left early Friday and returned Saturday evening. It was really interesting - we watched a video on their heritage and culture, made masques, ate traditional food, stayed with families in their community, and best of all watched their traditional dances “La bomba“. We also went on several short german walks, aka 3 hrs., one to the river through the jungle. We saw a bunch of different plants/trees, like bananas, lemons, oranges, sugar cane, avacado trees, etc. That part was really neat, and I got to eat an orange off the tree - soo delicious! It is a much hotter climate and because there is a river nearby, there were mosquitos EVERYWHERE. It was like walking into a swarm of gnats, but they were mosquitos. And they seemed to like the bug spray that PC gave us. I came back with only 10 or so bites on my legs, and I was really lucky compared to most people. The community also has an organic farming program and creates organic fertilizer to sell. They have row after row of decompost rows (?), huge piles of compost that they lay with other soil into the rows, and they turn the soil every weekend. It apparently takes 6 months for the soil to be ready to bag and sell. It was really interesting and I thought of mom and her compost bins :) The most awesome part of the trip with the dance Friday night. We were able to watch some traditional bomba dancing (I have several videos of it) with 6 young girls and a woman balancing half-full bottles of wine on their heads. The woman not only danced with it on her head, she laid down and did one-armed pushups while balancing the bottle. AMAZING! After the dance we also watched the local kids play soccer, and some PCTs and staff played against the kids. The kids won, of course lol. I bought a really pretty masque in Mascarilla that is a moon and a sun joining, with faces on both. It’s really pretty and is hanging over my bed here at my host house.

-Thursday we had our first presentation in Spanish to community members. I did a skit with a couple other people about good communication within families and friends, and I think it went pretty well. We had practiced the skit in front of staff and PCTs Tuesday, so we sort of knew what we were doing. I still was a little nervous speaking Spanish in front of native speakers, but I think that’s why we are doing so much practice right now. Soon we wont have a whole group of gringos, we will be on our own. Scary lol. I believe we have another presentation in the upcoming week. So we will probably be practicing those on Wednesday. We also had a puppet show last Tuesday in front of PCTs and staff about good communication addressing some issues with drinking. I prefer using puppets because you can read off a script :)

-Friday we celebrated the 4th of July with current PCVs and staff in the town near here. We had a soccer tournament, traditional American cookout food, volleyball, basketball, and a mareina competition. First was the mareina competition (basically beauty queen competition, based on team spirit, clothes, and answers to questions about how to be a good volunteer). One of the girls from my community was our nominee and she dressed up in the traditional clothes of our town. She didn’t win but I would say our clothes were definitely the best and most traditional, so we should have won! :) Then we had a soccer tournament by communities. I played goalie for the first time in my life-scary! We played the first game and did really well but no one managed to score, so it came down to penalty kicks, which of course sucks for the goalie. I blocked the first 2 shots but the 3rd got past me, and my team wasn’t able to get any goals in, so we lost tragically. But it was still a lot of fun, and it freed us up to play volleyball/basketball or watch soccer. Then we ate lunch. It was so nice to have traditional american cookout food (hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, potato salad, fruit salad, tea, soda, roasted veggies, cake) AND not be afraid that the food would make you sick! After lunch they finished the soccer tournament, I played volleyball, then a group of us headed out to go to the store in the big city. After some yummy ice cream, we headed home totally exhausted. It was such a fun day, I wish we could do that instead of meetings every day!

-today I woke up and had breakfast with my host family. They were a little concerned because I slept until 8 lol. After breakfast I spent 3 hours doing laundry (yes, by hand with soap and water). This is my 3rd time doing laundry, but this time I did the pile of clothes that has been sitting, so I currently have no dirty clothes :) so maybe I wont have to do laundry this week! I also organized my room so I have somewhere to put clean clothes. I was going to go to hang out in another community to celebrate the 4th by watching movies, but don’t want to spread my germs to the other PCTs if I can help it. So, now I’m updating this, then I’m going to sweep my room and spend time with the family. Tomorrow we are heading into town to buy groceries, primarily rice and potatoes I think. Good thing I walk 20 minutes up and down hills to and from the bus everyday or the carbs here would kill me! We are also planning to start a community soccer club in our town because when we were out practicing for our soccer tournament we had 4 kids join, so it seems pretty easy to get people together to play soccer. Sounds like a good way to start a youth group in our town. And that way we have some more exercise as well :)

I uploaded a few photos to facebook, so check them out if you are on there. Otherwise I’ll continue to try to upload them here when I have time to figure out how.

And time has been FLYING by. I can’t believe that we find out our sites in less than 2 weeks! Hopefully I will get to update by then!

OH, SOMEONE PLEASE POST SOME NEWS ON HERE! I feel so out of touch with the world. I’ve found out through other PCTs what’s happening in the Bachelor, that Michael Jackson died, and that there was an overthrow of the government in Honduras (any recent news on that?), and that’s the entirety of my news knowledge. So pleaaaase, what is happening outside of Ecuador???? Thanks in advance :) Hasta luego!