Another update:

Obviously I was able to post from my site, which I did previously. However, I have some other stuff to put on here from before/after then.

 As far as my Spanish level, I had my language proficiency interview last week, and my Spanish has improved since we got to Ecuador and had our first interview. So now I’ve moved up to intermedio-alto (one level up from where I was). Also, I found it a lot easier to improve my Spanish when I was at my site, since there’s basically no one to speak English to. I was speaking solely Spanish for 3 days, and by the end I was definitely a lot more confident in my Spanish. Of course now that we’ve returned back from our sites, we are speaking a lot of English, so it’s regressed a bit more. We also switched our language facilitators after our site visits. We have a new facilitator who is from the costa region and seems like a lot of fun. In the process, one of our La Chimba group members was switched out because her Spanish level improved, which sucks (that she switched out of our group, not that her Spanish improved). We only have a few more weeks of language training before we head to Quito to swear in as VOLUNTEERS - yikes! Time is flying by sooo fast!
 We’ve been working with members of La Chimba (sort of, mostly just my siblings and a couple of their friends) on a mural in the Centro de Acopio. They just tiled the floor in the building and also wanted to paint murals depicting history and life in La Chimba. My mom, the president of the community, organized this event but they didn’t have a lot of turnout, so it has turned out to be a project between us PC trainees and a few youth in the community. We have been using the design of my dad, who had a pretty strong vision for the mural. I would love to post a picture of it on here when its finished, but if I cant, keep an eye out in my facebook pictures because I will be putting pics on there. We have painted 2 days and are planning 1 more for the 2nd weekend in august
 Rob and Joanna keep checking to be sure that I update my blog for you all in their family, and say hello from them as well! So if you’re still reading my blog, hey from Rob and Joanna!
 Well I’m heading out to my tech trip this coming weekend with about 10 other volunteers in my program and 5 facilitators. We’re going to several locations in Guayas/Santa Elena over about a week to work with current volunteers on their projects and to get some practice working in the field. So I will get to trade in the frigid weather here for beachy weather, and on occasion, an actual beach to hang out on. I also think the group is going to be pretty fun, so I am really looking forward to this trip.
 July 30th was the start of the big fiesta in La Chimba. I was really sick that day and slept the whole day except about 2 hrs around lunchtime, so when 7 came around I was a little sick still but also stir-crazy, so I decided to head out to the fiesta with the rest of the gringas. So I got dressed in the traditional clothes of the sierra and went out with my family. After arriving at the party location, my mom and Peyton’s sister put us in the back of a camioneta (truck) and we drove down the hill to the centro de acopio, so we figured the party had been moved. In reality, we just went down there to walk up with the rest of the party in the parade, which was mostly just cold and strange. When we got back up to the cancha (stadium) where the fiesta was, the rest of the gringas were there. Peyton and Alice pansied out of dressing in the traditional clothes because “it was too cold” but Lindsay and Leslie dressed up. So we met up with everyone and joined in on the traditional circle dance for awhile. There was a drunk old man who kept talking to us and Lindsay got to practice her “No me toces!” which scared him off. Then we hung out for awhile until the dance competition started… the three of us who were dressed in the traditional clothes joined one of the groups and danced in front of everyone (in a circle of course), which was terribly funny to all of the Ecuadorians. They kept announcing over the speakers “bienvienidos a La Chimba y nuestra bonita pais a nuestros companeros extraneros” aka “welcome to La Chimba and our beautiful country to our foreign companions” while we were dancing, and we were offered bastante (excessive) drinks of chicha (a drink very popular in the sierra which has a definite interesting flavor) or wine or shots of liquors. Afterwards, we watched a couple more dances and tried this hot tea with a slight bit of alcohol (which was great because it was warm). After each group danced they turned on some disco-like music and we went into the center of the group with some of our friends and danced. The Ecuadorians thought it was hilarious because they aren‘t used to american-style dancing, but it was a lot of fun. I’m pretty sure that they all thought we were drunk but in fact we had only tried a little of the chicha and that light tea. They turned off the music to apparently begin round 2 of the circle dances. We watched some of the dances and they kept turning on 5-10 seconds of disco-like music between groups - we were pretty sure just to see the gringas dance for a minute, because they would turn it off and laugh at us, and not so subtly. It was a lot of fun though and personally I’m over being worried that they will think we are weird or whatever. They could see we were having fun, even if it is a different type of dancing and fun than they have. Then we realized that every group was going to dance 3 times which would take a really long time, so we decided to head home. Overall the night was a lot of fun.
 So July 31st the festivities continued. We went into the nearby town to deal with some paperwork then we returned to the town near here for coffee, which turned into a 2 hr long coffee/lunch/cards/games good time with PC people. Afterwards, we returned to our community to have our language group while learning about the cultural aspects of the fiesta here. Another group was in our town already asking cultural questions to the people of our town, so we got to hang out with them a little bit too. We went to the cancha (stadium) to watch the volleyball game. A few people (including Rob, for the family of Rob/Joanna) ended up making up a team and playing against an Ecuadorian team, which we unfortunately lost. Rob was a giant and managed to get some great blocks and spikes in since he could jump above the net. It was a great effort and everyone had a lot of fun. One thing to explain about Ecuadorian volleyball though is that they use a soccer ball instead of a volley ball. If you don’t understand how much that hurts, go find a soccer ball and hit it around with your arms for awhile. Peyton’s arms were already bruised up pretty bad right after the game. Anyway, after the volleyball, we went to watch the toros (bulls). They had something like 8 bulls in this little enclosed field and a group of young men were in there playing with them with red cloths. It wasn’t very interesting, apparently because the actual bull fighting event isn’t until tomorrow. But we hung out there for awhile until we decided to head back to my house to make Smores :) we built a fire outside (with a lot of help from my host mom) and had smores with my 2 youngest siblings. It was fun and Lindsay shared a secret (which I highly recommend you all try!) - put peanut butter on the smores or even just on cooked marshmallows. It was soo yummy!
 I can no longer say that I’m avoided the sickness. This past Wednesday I had some diarrhea in the morning, but felt better, so I just went into classes. I was feeling pretty sick by the time I got home on Wednesday and that night I had several diarrhea issues plus a fever, so I decided to go to bed early. That night I had some trouble sleeping, with a really disturbing realistic dream/possibly hallucination so when I woke up on Thursday and had more diarrhea and felt like I was going to throw up I checked my temperature and still had a fever. Since I hadn’t slept well and still felt sick, I ended up calling the nurse who reminded me to take the rehydration salts and call back if my fever rose. So I basically called in sick to my language class and went back to sleep and slept until 11:30 when I got up and decided to eat something. I also decided to call into my afternoon tech session because there was just no way I was going in. The tiendas had been out of bread so we didn’t have bread in my house, and nothing else really sounded okay to eat, so I walked to the store, which was an incredibly slow and painful walk at that point. I bought some oriental noodles, chicken bouillon, and bread (they had gotten their supply in). I came home and made that, ate a little, of course used the bathroom again, checked my temperature (still had a fever) then went back to sleep. I slept until 5 or so, when I got up and showered, then slept until 7. At 7 I got up and dressed for the fiesta, etc (see above). I was worried I wouldn’t be able to sleep that night after sleeping the WHOLE day (except for an hr and a half at lunch), but after the fiesta I came home and passed out. I slept the whole night until my alarm woke me up in the morning, which was really surprising. Friday morning I felt better but still not quite up to par. My stomach basically just hurt all day, until after all of the marshmallows in the evening, which had me in the bathroom again for another 2 times. After rechecking my temperature, I discovered I didn’t have a fever, but was still really excited to get to sleep in on Saturday. Definitely drank rehydration salts though to help with the diarrhea, which will hopefully be over soon.. Saturday I was definitely still sick so the doctor sent me to get some antibiotics, which will hopefully help!
 Obviously my birthday was Sunday the 26th, which was very strange to not be celebrating at home in the states. When I first woke up it was really sad because all I could think of was how I wanted to be at home celebrating with my family, but my friends here really helped make it a great day. I slept in (until 8!!) then got up and hand washed my laundry in the cold for 2 hours (boo, but it had to be done..). My little siblings were so cute, they gave me big hugs and told me happy birthday when they first saw me. There are always soccer games on Sundays, so Peyton texted me to see if I was going to come up to the cancha to watch the games. So after the laundry was hanging to dry, I decided my birthday present was to make myself shower (since it had been a few days). The water was pretty cold, but it did refresh me a little bit. So afterwards, I headed to the cancha and hung out with Peyton. The referee who had befriended us and talks to us at every soccer Sunday came over and chatted with us for a good long time. He was doing the awkward no personal space that is common in Latin American countries, but he is very interesting to talk to. Then Lindsay got to the cancha and hung out with us for awhile. She had a backpack full of alcohol/mixers, which really reminded me of college. For my birthday she had bought wine and all of the ingredients for making kahlua (vodka, coffee, vanilla, sugar), which we planned to make later that night. We headed back to my house and made a quick spaghetti for lunch (perfect lunch for me!). Leslie and Alice came over at that point, and Alice brought the cake we had made the night before (when I stayed out until 11pm - unheard of, the LATEST I’d be out at that point). We then headed down to the town close to our community to get café pasado (real, not instant coffee) at a new restaurant that had opened. We had our coffee then met up with some other people, one of whom had a birthday a few days before mine. So we had a delicious set of snacks - chocolate covered strawberries, cake, and homemade kahlua. We hung out there for a few minutes before headed back to our community. My family had gone to a nearby town for a fiesta, which I didn’t go to because I had made plans already (but I felt really bad because they apparently had planned this as a celebration for my birthday, but in normal Ecuadorian fashion had not told me). They were home when I got here, and they made me feel better by telling me that I didn’t miss anything and I just would have been bored (clearly trying to make me feel better, but at least they tried). We had dinner, then basically they went to bed and I hung out and waited for mom and dad to call from the states. Overall, it was a different birthday than I’m used to but I really enjoyed myself thanks to my friends and host family here. I felt really blessed to have made such good friends here that could cheer me up on a day that would have been otherwise very hard to be away from home.


Ok I know this was a scattered update, so hopefully I can get a better one done next time!