I´m a Peace Corps Volunteer!!

23 de Agosto 2009
Hola! So I have now moved to my new site as a PCV(Peace Corps Volunteer)! I am going to be living here for the next 2 years, wow! also, my address has changed, so here is the new one (it’s a P.O. Box in the nearest big city):


Casilla 09-11-11805
Guayaquil, Guayas
Ecuador
South America

Also, be warned that this is a really long post, sorry :)
So last time I wrote I was still living in La Chimba and had returned from our tech trip to the beach. We only had a few weeks of training left at that point, which flew by very quickly. We had meeting after meeting but thankfully toward the end we starting having some fun times, and the attitude kinda changed a bit, even with the staff. We had an accidental fiesta at my house one night during our last week of training, where we had a drink at 2 with lunch, intended to return to classes in the afternoon, but one thing turned into another and we ended up having a fun fiesta. We also were permitted to have a congrats/goodbye party one night, but I ended up just staying for about an hour because I planned to make dinner for my family. I did have an amazing margarita though :) As far as actual training, the last week was pretty much passing tests and getting final information about what was going to happen in Quito and in our sites. We had tests for safety and security, and a medical test, plus our final language proficiency interviews (LPI). Obviously I passed all the tests, because if I had failed I wouldn’t have been able to swear in as a volunteer. As far as the LPI, I was very nervous because I felt like I hadn’t spoken Spanish in 3 weeks, with spending so much time with fellow Americans on our tech trip and in La Chimba. Also, I found out I was interviewing with one of the facilitators that made me really nervous – he has very stoic unemotional eyes and isn’t very interactive in the interviews. He is the one I interviewed with the first time, which I pretty much had nightmares from haha. Lastly, it was really awkward because the only place to have the interview was in an SUV. So here I am in a car with a man that makes me nervous, tape recorder recording my broken Spanish, knowing this interview is extremely important, and hoping that my Spanish level doesn’t drop. Well, though it was awkward, I ended up going up a level, so I ended on advanced-low, which I am extremely happy with. I was a little surprised as I wasn’t sure my Spanish had actually improved, but whether it was an improvement or they just like promoting people to give them confidence, I don’t care :) after we had completed all of the required competencies, the training sessions were more fun. Everyone adapted the attitude that we had basically made it and just had to sit through a few more meetings. It was definitely a bittersweet time though, as we all knew we would soon be moving to our sites and away from our host families and each other.
The last few days with my family were hard. I tried to spend as much time as possible with the kids, playing soccer or volleyball or whatever. I also wanted to spend time with La Chimba Chicas though, so it was a tough balance. We also completed the mural the Friday before we left. The whole time since we had started people we asking “where is the condor?” because the condor is very important in ecuador. Well, that was the last thing we did, so we went the Friday before we left and I painted it. I thought looked great, then my mom came in and said “great, but it should be black” and I had painted it brown because the 7 year old said to make it brown. I pretty much just shrugged it off because there was no time to change it, and I don’t think it was that big of a deal. It was just a bitter/funny moment though, that I finally did the condor and it wasn’t how they liked it. That was the comment we got, amidst the beautiful sunset, the gorgeous mountains – all that really mattered was the condor. We all got a good laugh out of it though :)
One thing that was really cool was that Peace Corps sponsored a Family Appreciation Day the day before we left for Quito. At first I didn’t think my family was coming, because my dad had a meeting with the mayor (he recently was appointed as a member of the board, a consejo is I think what it’s called). My mom also said she had to walk the cows to a nearby town and wasn’t sure if she’d be back in time, and then she had to go to 2 weddings that day as well. The 12 year old sister had tae kwon do on Saturdays, so I knew she couldn’t come either. And without an escort, the 2 younger kids couldn’t come. So basically I was a little disappointed because I figured my family wouldn’t be there, especially because I had volunteered to sing a song with a group in honor of our families. But that morning my host mom said she would be coming with the two younger kids, so I was happy. When they arrived at the celebration, they had my host dad with them too, which was really neat. I asked him about his meeting and he said he had called the mayor and told him he needed to come to my event to spend time with me before I left, which was so nice! I was really excited to have them all there, and I wish the 12 year old had been able to make it as well. So the day began late, per Ecuadorian standards. We had decorated the training facility with banners and balloons, and had prepared enough food for 250 people. It started with our training staff saying a few words, then a group of trainees did a traditional Sierra dance, which was choreographed and looked really good in the traditional dress. Then we sang our song and the facilitators sang another. Then it was time for lunch – it was an amazing lunch. Peace corps provided us with funds to buy/make food, so we had an enormous amount. We had bought 2 full roasted pigs and each community made a side dish. We had made guacamole and other groups made: deviled eggs, salsa, a lentil salad, walnut and grape salad, 7 layer salad, potatoes, cake, cookies and more stuff I cant think off. But basically it was delicious. It was so funny because we had more than enough food, as many families didn’t attend, but the tradition of people taking home fundas (to go plates/bags) held firm, and most families left with enough food for dinner as well. After we socialized a bit we stayed to clean up while the families left. I got a great picture with my family (minus the 12 year old), which I printed out for them in the larger town and gave them as a gift. Also we had drawn pictures of a memory we had with our families to give to them. I drew all of us making s’mores the day I had cooked for them, and it turned out pretty well. The seemed to like it, even though it wasn’t my best artistic work ever. Well after the appreciation day we had our goodbye/congrats party at a bar in cayambe, so I got back a little late. I had planned to cook dinner and assumed the family would be awake as it was still early for dinner, but they had gone to bed because they were tired. Since I had bought the stuff to cook, I decided to cook anyway, and the 3 kids got up and ate with me. It was a lot of fun but also sad because I would be leaving very early the next day. I still hadn’t packed, so after they went to bed I stayed up really late and packed everything up. I’m not even going to get into it, but it was so incredibly stressful – I couldn’t fit everything in my bags since I had an additional 4 shirts and a sweatshirt plus the thousand heavy manuals Peace Corps had given us.. with all of the other emotions of leaving I almost cried. Finally, I made a bag of things to leave with my family there and just called it a day. So I went to bed at 130 or so and slept poorly until 5, when my parents got up to milk the cows. I had decided to get up and get ready, and if I had time I would go back to sleep until I had to leave. So I got up and told them goodbye, which was very rushed as they had to leave for the cows. I got myself ready and the 2 girls got up at 6 to make my breakfast. It was a yummy breakfast – one of the best I’d had in awhile – with juice, coffee, and the leftover rice and salchichas (hot dogs) from my cooking the night before. They were so cute though, making the juice and coffee without sugar like I like it (though the juice was bitter without sugar, but I didn’t want to hurt their feelings so I just drank it). Then I had to tell them bye :( I gave them the picture I had printed of me and them, and I had written a note on the back for them to remember me by. The two younger kids were the hardest to say goodbye to – the girl latched on to me when I hugged her and I almost started crying, but I managed to hold it together. Then I went into the bedroom where the boy was still sleeping to tell him bye. It was so adorable, he jump up out of bed in his spiderman costume that he had slept in with a huge grin on his face, and I started cracking up. I wish I had a picture, he was soo cute. Then when I told him bye he latched on too and wouldn’t let me go and my eyes teared up. Finally I was able to get my bags and go, without letting any tears fall. I didn’t want to make it harder for them, because I know it was really difficult for the kids already. So I walked down to the street when the bus stops, somehow carrying my bags – it was very difficult because they were heavy and bulky and I hadn’t slept very much at all. Once the bus came and we all had loaded up, I dozed for the hour ride to cayambe, where we met up with everyone to take buses to quito. I slept soo well in the bus to quito, I did the drooling thing and everything haha.
Quito (Aug 16-19)
So the next part is about Quito, where we had our final days as trainees before swearing in as volunteers. We got there on Sunday, dropped our bags off, then headed to a cultural trip to the Middle of the World. First we stopped and had lunch near the middle of the earth with all of our staff, including the country director and the training staff. It was an amazing lunch, I think we counted 5 courses, and I got pictures of all of the courses too. Just to put it in comparison, it cost $13 and a normal lunch here is $1.50 or $2. $13 is a lot of money, but thankfully peace corps picked up the tab :) it was our congratulations lunch I believe. After lunch we went on a walk to the museum at the middle of the earth. After a few minutes in that museum, we found out we went to the wrong one and had prepurchased tickets to the other, so we left and went to the other one. I had my first experience really haggling outside of the museum. I had lost my sunglasses on the tech trip, and it was a really sunny day, so I stopped at a lady selling sunglasses to check the price. She told me $12 so I started walking again. But one of the training staff stopped me and took me back to her, then he asked what I would pay, so I said under $5 was fair. He then basically haggled the price for me down to $4, which was an interesting experience. I learned you have to use the Ecuadorian whiny voice and keep saying things like “no sea malita señora”, “por favor señora” etc. It was really interesting, and I got a pair of nice sunglasses and still was ripped off, but less of a rippoff than I would have gotten on my own. The second museum was more touristy and had a museum where you could go up and stand above the equator and see out over the mountains. Then we walked around though the shops and I bought a little changepurse for 50 cents and a pair of cute brown earrings for $1. I got a couple pics on the equator, which I’ll try to get on facebook soon. After the museums we headed back to the hostal, then I went to the local mall to a grocery store. I also caved and had a cheeseburger from mcdonalds – just as good here as in the states, but tastes better because it is something from the states! Then we took a cab back to the hostal, had dinner, and hung out and drank wine until bed. The next morning we had to be up and head to the peace corps office. There we basically had meetings all day but we got to go out to the mall for lunch, and I had mcdonalds big mac – again, better here than in the states! After lunch, more meetings. Then at the hostal we watched Idiocracy, which I had gotten from my stored bag – I forgot how much I loved this movie! After the movie I headed to bed early.
The next morning we had a practice emergency action plan (EAP) activation, where we used the hostal as if we were in our sites and had to consolidate and evacuate. It was pretty stressful for me because I was named as our cluster ECC (emergency cluster coordinator) so I was basically in charge of getting a group of 15 people to evacuation safely. And of course they provided us with lots of twists – in our group we had 2 people break their legs, a couple people go missing along the way, people’s cell phones broke, the planes couldn’t fit everyone, etc. It was really stressful to try to talk to the staff on the phone while sitting in a room with 15 talking people, but I think it will be impossible to forget what happens in the EAP because of my role in this ‘game’. Hopefully we won’t have to activate the EAP in real life though! I think we all learned a lot and though it was pretty rushed and definitely different from real life it was good practice. After the EAP Game we headed into the office for more meetings. That day we had lunch at the office, then had a self-defense course with some U.S. marines – definitely the highlight of our day! They taught us some escape moves in case someone grabs us from behind or whatever – basically how to react quickly, injure/surprise them to give us time to get away. It was fun and the punching/kicking exercises were a nice stress reliever :) after the day at the office we headed back to the hostal. This was Tuesday, and there is a papa johns on the same block as the hostal, and the papa johns had 2 for 1 Tuesdays. Soo a group of us went to papa johns for dinner that night. It was AMAZING, you have no idea how much you miss certain American foods when you live in another country, especially a country with drastically different foods. Anyway, we devoured our pizza then we headed back to the hostal, where a party was beginning. Since it was our last night together as a group we had decided to have a little fiesta to celebrate. It was pretty relaxed, people just sitting around chatting and drinking. They also opened up the room with the pool table for us to use, which was cool. Also, Joanna got out her steamer and steamed everyone’s dresses for swearing in :) She also helped me iron my dress, because I am not nearly as competent in this category as she is. It was funny, she came in and I was ironing, and she said something like “oh Jessica.. I’ll help you.. I’ll just do it for you” and laughed. How was I supposed to know I should add water to make it steam for that kind of fabric :P And she did a much better job much more quickly than I could have, so that was awesome. After that I drank a little wine and socialized with everyone. I headed to bed about 12:30, exhausted, but the party was still raving downstairs. The next day we had to be up and ready pretty early to go to the ambassador’s residence for swearing in. It was a really beautiful palace, of course with a ton of security. The ambassador really likes birds and there were hummingbirds and other pretty birds everywhere, in addition to the marvelous flowers surrounding the house. We got there and took some pictures, then we started the ceremony. It was a lot like a graduation ceremony, with 2 people in our group giving speeches, the ambassador and the country director speaking, etc. We all even got to get pictures receiving our “diplomas” with the ambassador and the director. They also had a traditional Ecuadorian ballet perform for us, which was neat. Then we had a breakfast with bagels (!), and socialized for awhile until it was time to leave. I got a lot of pictures at the ceremony and with friends, but my camera died towards the end :( After the swearing in ceremony, and we were officially volunteers (!!), we headed back to the hostal to pack up our stuff. We took all of our bags to the PC Office, retrieved our bags we had left in Quito for training, and repacked. I spent a long time repacking all of my bags, trying to make it all fit and not be too heavy to carry. People started leaving right after the ceremony and some people weren’t leaving until the next day. I wasn’t scheduled to leave until that night, taking an overnight bus, so I hung out at the office all day, repacked, played on the internet, played with the random assortment of volunteers’ puppies that were at the office, etc. For dinner we headed to the nearby mall and had sushi, which was delicious! I had half of a thai roll, and half of a californiaish roll, plus a nice fruity girl drink. Expensive, but it was our celebration of swearing in as volunteers, and our last bit of time together. After dinner, we returned to the office, got our bags, and went to the bus terminal. The taxi driver was really nice and we had a nice chat on the way to the office, even though he ripped us off on the taxi fare – things you just gotta get used to in Ecuador. We bought the last 6 tickets for the last bus to Guayaquil, yikes! (apparently we should have reserved them, though PC said we would be fine..) It was funny, as we were hanging out in the bus terminal I was drinking a cup of coke, and this lady walked by me and knocked the coke out of my hand, spraying coke everywhere on our bags. She said something like “oh that’s too bad, your coke fell” then looked at me helplessly, so I just shooed her away and cleaned it up, but we remarked how it’s so strange that here it’s like “oh too bad that fell”, not “oh no I’m sorry I knocked that out of your hand” – it’s all the accidental se’s fault! (for those of you who know some Spanish) Anyway, not a big deal, just an interesting cultural point. So we didn’t have seats by each other on the bus, which was a bummer, but lucky for us when we got on, the seat numbers were all goofy, like 40 and 41 were after 34 and 35, which was then followed by 36 and 37. So we just took seats next to each other and played the dumb American card/asked people if they wouldn’t mind if we sat together, and we ended up getting to sit together. This takes a lot of stress out of the night buses, since you don’t have to worry about the person next to you being creepy or robbing you or anything. I had taken a sleeping/motion sickness pill before getting on the bus, so it took about 10 minutes until I was passed out cold. I slept pretty well on this bus, though it got a little hot until I opened a window, and of course the seats aren’t very comfortable.. and this bus driver drove like a madman through the mountains – the times I woke up from the jerking around I honestly wasn’t sure we would make it there without crashing. But thankfully we arrived in Guayaquil safe and sound, a little groggy, but actually more rested than I had been after a night bus. Me and 2 other people who had to catch other buses hung out in the terminal and had breakfast. Then they left to catch their buses and I waited around for my new host brother to pick me up. He got there earlier than I expected, and I had just gone to the bathroom (which is incredibly difficult to do with a backpack and 2 rolling suitcases and no one to watch the bags. The bags didn’t fit into the stall so I had to kind of keep my hand out of the stall holding my bags so they didn’t get stolen, meanwhile squatting over the seat – you don’t sit on the seats here – while my brother was at the same time calling me. Very stressful, but I made it). Then we made a couple of stops in Guayaquil before heading to my house.
My Site (Aug 20 and on)
After we got to my house I went to my room to relax for a few minutes before lunch, laid down with the intention of just sending a few texts, but in actuality I passed out for 2 and a half hours – oops. It was an amazing nap though! When I got up we ate and hung out at the house. I also got to talk to my family and the Coopers, who were vacationing in Florida, which was really nice. It’s been awhile since I’ve talked to them, so I was happy to hear how things were going etc. I went to bed pretty early that night, catching up on sleep from the night bus.
The next day was Friday, and I didn’t plan to start work until Monday. My office wanted me to come into Guayaquil Friday morning for an all-staff meeting, but thankfully my counterpart was in Quito for the weekend, so I didn’t have an escort, and got out of having to come into Guayaquil. I was happy to take a few days to relax, unpack, etc. So Friday I slept in a little, then went for a run in the late morning – super hot, but at least there wasn’t much sun at the time. Afterwards, I came back to the house and chilled here, discovered that there are several tv channels in English. After showering and eating lunch, I headed out to walk around the town to get to know it a little. I went to the store in town and the free market, buying a few things for my room. The rest of Friday I pretty much hung out at the house, relaxing and reading a lot.
Saturday we got up really early to go to Guayaquil, because my mom has class and the rest of the family goes to spend time with the grandma. The house of my host grandma is crazy with dogs – she has 5 or 6 Chihuahuas that live inside (and don’t like me very much, as their little barks and bites show) and a wiener dog and 2 large dogs that live outside. I’ve taken a liking to the little wienerdog, and he seems to like me too. He keeps the Chihuahuas away from me somewhat. Also, pretty much the whole extended family was at her house, as they all live within the same area. So there were like 6 kids running around, the grandma, 2 aunts, 2 teenage boys, and the 9 dogs. It was a little chaotic, but by the end of the day I had adjusted. Also, my 2 younger host brothers live there with their grandma because one is in high school in Guayaquil and one is working there. Later in the morning, my 19 year old host brother and his cousin escorted me to a supermarket and to the center of Guayaquil, which has a walkway along the river and is really pretty. I found a (slightly expensive) hanging closet organizer at the supermarket, which made me happier than it ever would have in the states – I am still pretty happy about it, it makes putting my stuff in my room much easier. We walked a little through the center of Guayaquil then stood by the river and talked. It was a pretty cool day and I enjoyed getting out a little. Then we returned to the grandmas house, had lunch, then I took a nice siesta – she has a fan in her room, which made me decide I would like to buy one – heavenly when it’s steaming hot all the time! We were at the grandma’s through dinner, then we drove back home and went to bed.
Sunday was pretty bland – I went for a run in the morning, against the advice of my host mom (because the sun was too strong) – but I only go for about 20 mins near our house, and I take a frozen water (which melts before I get back), so it’s not unsafe or anything, it is just unusual for Ecuadorians. After I cooled off from the run, which takes about an hour or so, my mom got home and I helped make lunch – ceviche mixto. It was ceviche with shrimp and mussels, tomato, onion, green peppers, and chifles (plantain chips) to scoop with. It was delicious, but it took a really long time to make. I learned a lot, and she was excited to get to teach me. Also, we talked about how she wants to get into the habit of running in the mornings again, so we planned to run at 5 every day (or so..) before she goes to work. She seems pretty happy about this, and is excited to run then come make breakfast together. It’s good for me to, as long as I can get myself up at 5, because I have someone to run with and it’s still cool at 5am. After lunch I went with my host brother to meet some of the youth involved in the leaders group I will be working with. We basically drove around for a couple of hours meeting people, and someone suggested we go to the circus that is in town. So we headed back to the house, ate dinner (we had coviche, which I tried on my site visit. Its plantain, fish, onion, and peanut butter all mixed up and baked – sooo delicious, one of my favorite foods here), watched the Barcelona soccer game (because my brother loves Barcelona, and we apparently will be going to a game in Guayaquil sometime in the future), then headed to the circus. We met up with my counterpart as well to go, but none of my brother’s other friends ended up coming. It was a really entertaining circus. It was low budget – admission was $2 – and they didn’t have any animals or anything, but it lasted for 3 hrs and they had some really talented people. They had magicians, comedians, tight-rope walkers, jugglers, acrobats that jumped through knife-filled rings, high flying acrobats, etc. and the most interesting (and simultaneously awkward) part was these 4 very heavy women who danced in very revealing spandex outfits, like, thongs. Not only were they barely covered, they were dancing like strippers, in this family-friendly circus. Very bizarre to me because I wouldn’t want my kids to see this, but I guess that’s just another cultural difference. Anyway, they danced like 4 times and every time they came out we cracked up because what else could you do? Also, all of the acrobats performed without harnesses, which I guess is normal for low-budget small circuses, but it made me really nervous. Every time they would do some crazy stunt 35 feet up, I would freak out a little bit. At the same time, it made everything they did more impressive though. Anyway, we got out of the circus really late, but when we were walking home we stopped at the fiesta that was going on in the street to watch. They taught me to dance the traditional dance of the coast, which is kinda like salsa. And of course the locals really enjoyed watching me try to learn, since I basically have 2 left feet. People actually stopped dancing and just stared at us, but that’s something that happened a lot in the sierra too :) We just hung out in the street for a little bit then headed home as it was almost 1 already. I had a lot of fun, and it was nice to get out a little instead of just being here at the house all of the time.
Today I got up a little late but I don’t seem to have plans. I was supposed to have a meeting but of course that may or may not happen. Also, this week is very stressful for my organization because it is being evaluated by the organization that provides them funding, so I’m prepared to just take it slow this week and probably not have much to do. Which is okay, I know I will be busy enough soon.
I’ve already tried to adapt a little to the customs of the coast – I painted my nails and toenails (it’s basically forbidden to wear open toed shoes if your toenails aren’t painted), am wearing dangly earrings (another plus for women to do), and also pretty much always have to wear makeup (even though everyone sweats most of it off pretty quickly haha). Either way, I think with the guidance of my host mom, I might be able to fit in a little better soon :) And hopefully with the running and healthier diet I can lose some of this training weight!
Hope all is well back at home, thanks for reading through this incredibly long post. I suspect I will be able to post more often and probably wont have as much to say next time since this post covers a lot of events, so yah, less next time, promise :) miss and love you all!