Tech Trip:
So we went on our tech trip to Santa Elena this past week, which was sooo fun!
 Sunday/Monday: We left Quito on the night bus Sunday night and arrived in Guayaquil on Monday morning. The bus ride was pretty miserable as I couldn’t sleep well and was still sick with stomach problems (but thankfully I finished my antibiotics on Monday night so I was feeling much better). In Guayaquil and had breakfast with a few volunteers from that area, one of whom I had met on my site visit. It was neat getting to talk to them, as they were from different programs and at different stages of their 2 years. Then we headed to the town on the beach, where we checked into our hotel, ate a delicious fresh seafood lunch, then headed to the beach to relax a little. We hung out there for awhile and enjoyed the sun, then we returned to the hotel and had meetings to get ready for our charlas (presentations) that we would be giving throughout the week on our tech trip. Afterwards, we headed out to dinner. The group I was with ended up just walking around for awhile until we found a little local hole in the wall place, where they were grilling seafood, chicken, and every type of plantain imaginable out on a hibachi-style grill. They also served us superman-style Club beer, which was a plus for them. During the dinner three old men playing guitars came in and serenaded us for some money, which was fun. By the end of the night we felt like real locals haha. Then we headed to a cute bar across the street from the beach and had girly drinks. I had a pina colada, which ended up not being so good. But it was the atmosphere that we were going for, which was very touristy-beachy. They also had cirque de soleil playing on a giant screen which was interesting to watch. Afterwards we headed back and slept since we were still really groggy from the night before.
 Tuesday: We got up on Tuesday and had to start working a little - boo! We headed to a school in La Libertad where one of our groups gave their charla to kids in the school. Then we went to lunch and afterwards we headed to the local mall for a little while to kill time. In the afternoon we went to a local organization to check it out and give another charla to a group of women. When we left, one of the volunteers was distracted talking to someone and of course, this is the one time no one counted that we had everyone. So a few minutes after our chaotic departure, she called one of us and we had to go back and get her, so then we had a joke that we had to check for her anytime we left somewhere. Once we had everyone, we headed to a local health clinic to see the work they were doing there. We then returned to the hotel and headed out for dinner. We went to another local dive with the same kind of hibachi style food (yummy) then headed back to the hotel to socialize and relax with a few drinks. We ended up staying up really late, but it was definitely a good time.
 Wednesday: We got up on Wednesday morning a little chuchaqui :) and packed up to move to the next town. We stopped by the bus terminal to buy our tickets back to Quito, then took a bus to Palmar, another beach town. I got a nice nap on that bus since I was pretty tired from the night before. We got to the town and had a meeting with an organization there, then went for a walk on the beach. It was really pretty and interesting as there were a lot of fisherman working on the beach. Then we had an amazing ceviche lunch in a cute bamboo hut and hung out a little longer before taking the bus to another beach town. We checked into our hostal there (which was totally cute with hammocks outside and was a block from the beach) then headed with a current volunteer to get ice cream. The ice cream trip turned into a very long trip to check out a local community. This community is involved in a lot of agricultural micro enterprise projects, which was really interesting to see. They make a lot of purses and hats and jewelry out of various plants, and I helped support them by buying a pair of cool greenish blue dangly earrings (which I’m super excited about obviously, because everyone on the coast wears earrings, it‘s basically a requirement). We also went on a short German walk (!!) through the campo and saw a lot of pretty plants and interesting stuff. We returned back to the town via a crazy camioneta ride with a disagreement with the camioneta driver, but we made it safely. Then we literally had dinner in a cabana on the beach. It was an awesome fish and rice and plantain dinner, and the man who owned the place was so nice and friendly. Afterwards, we returned back to the hostal for bed.
 Thursday/Friday: Thursday morning we got to sleep in pretty late, then we headed to another local beach town to meet with an international organization there. This organization was so incredibly organized and very similar in structure and goals to the Peace Corps - very impressive. So we met with them for a little while, then we headed out to the beach for a break. Some people helped the locals pull their boat up the beach using huge logs as rollers and a rope to pull, then we walked around and looked in the tide pools. We meet up with some fishermen who had captured octopuses, so we played with that for awhile, then we also found a bunch of fish, sea urchins, and even one sea star in the tide pools. After awhile we headed back into the office to chat with the people of the organization until lunch. They served us lunch in their little outdoor restaurant, which was awesome. We had shrimp soup and rice and a delicious shrimp in a rich cream sauce (probably my favorite thing I ate the whole trip), and we shared octopus ceviche (yes, the octopus we had held hours before). I wasn’t a fan of the octopus because it was really chewy, but I did eat a couple bites of it. After lunch they took us to a cake place that is famous for their desserts. I had a piece of cheesecake, then we decided to split another piece between a few of us - it was soo delicious and rich. Afterwards, we headed back to the office and we hung out for awhile, watched surfers out in the ocean, and looked hopefully for whales (we didn‘t see any). Then a group of young adults that have an oyster micro enterprise business came and talked to us about their group. It was really interesting hearing about how their group functions and their purpose, etc. Then their youth group arrived and one of our groups did a charla with them. After saying our goodbyes, we headed back to our hostal. It was just about sunset, so we headed to the beach to watch the sun set. It was amazingly beautiful (see pictures on facebook). Then we headed down to the same cabana for dinner. We had yummy fish, beans, rice, and plantains for dinner - I don’t think I could ever get tired of the food on the coast! ok, so my group was scheduled to present our charla on Friday morning at a high school to a class of 10-30 kids for an hour or so. But at dinner we caught word that we were actually presenting to the entire senior class of 60-70 in 40 minutes. So our plans for our charla were basically obsolete, and we had only a few hours to prepare a new charla. After dinner we headed back to the hostal and started over on our preparations. (continuted below about the charla)
 Friday: Originally we were going to do a charla about goals where the kids pretend it’s 10 years in the future and are being interviewed about their life. This would have been nearly impossible with 70 kids, so we switched to doing teamwork/communications stuff. We basically picked 4 activities that are common in the U.S. at leadership camps (like human knot, putting themselves in order without speaking, etc) and talked about communication, trust, and teamwork, which ended up working out pretty perfect because we were outside and the kids were able to move around a lot. I think they really enjoyed themselves and actually hadn’t done these types of activities before, which was really cool. So as stressful as it was trying to redo the charla the night before, I think it went really well. After the charla, we returned to the hostal and had some meetings/did some paperwork, then we basically had free time until lunch. So we packed up and headed to the beach for a few hours. I had forgotten my bathing suit so I swam in shorts and a tank top, then laid out for a awhile. It was very nice and relaxing, and the beach was beautiful. The water was a little rough but it was nice getting to swim in the ocean. Then we walked up to different cabanas for lunch. I ate a yummy shrimp soup, fish with a fried rice, and a grilled platano maduro (yellow plantain). It was the perfect last meal on the beach :) We headed back to the hostal, showered, and packed up. We hopped on the bus and I realized I’d left my sunglasses at the hostal which sucked, but at least they were cheap haha. We had a few hours to kill before our bus so we went to the mall and had dinner. I had KFC (a twister with fries and a soda) which was delicious. It’s amazing how much better things taste when they aren’t easily accessible. We headed to the bus station, where we still had about 2 hrs, so I joined a few people for a beer across the street while we waited. It was very chill and great to relax before getting on the 12 hour night bus. The bus wasn’t too bad, and I was able to sleep for a majority of the time (not well since it was really uncomfortable), but it wasn’t bad. It was definitely a shock when I arrived in the sierra (mountains) on Saturday morning in my t shirt and capris - my first priority was getting on some warmer clothes! Overall, our tech trip was a blast and we pretty much avoided any problems/drama. It was really neat getting to know people that I haven’t spent a lot of time with before, and of course being on beautiful beaches eating awesome seafood certainly helped make it one of the best weeks in Ecuador yet :)

Lastly, a very interesting thing happened in my training community this past Sunday. President Correa (Ecuador), President Evo Morales (Bolivia), and woman writer Rigoberta Menchú (Guatemala), among other politicians and rights leaders were here inaugurating the opening of a cultural center honoring a local indigenous rights activist, Tránsito Amaguaña. Hugo Chavez (president of Venezuela) was also supposed to be attending but for some reason he didn’t make it. I highly recommend looking up some information on Tránsito Amaguaña - she was an amazing woman that transformed the rights of the indigenous population not only in Ecuador but throughout South America, think Mother Teresa of South America. She just died earlier this year at the age of 100, and I am honestly sad that I was not here sooner and could have met her. They just completed the cultural center honoring her and her work, which opened today in my town, and they are hoping to make it a major cultural stop in this area. But anyway, back to the event Sunday. Now, my town is about 500 people and is very small, so when I heard that these important people were coming I was sure it was a joke. But no, it was the truth. I was no more than 30 feet away from them in an open crowd watching them speak and taking pictures. It was crazy to me. Also, the security was way different than it would be if this was happening in the states. They flew into the town in 2 helicopters and landed on the football field that was covered with maybe 20 armored guards (which we watched from my roof), drove to the centro de acopio in a parade of impressive looking cars (which drove by us as we walked), then the leaders just walked into the crowd with only a few guards on each side of them. Yes there were certainly a lot of heavily armed military and police throughout the event, but it didn’t appear that the presidents were wearing armored clothing or anything. Also, there was no security check for people to pass through, you just walked into the event and could have been carrying whatever you wanted. It was shocking to me because in the states you would go through metal detectors, show ID, get patted down, etc. and here you just walked in like “whatever”. Granted, it was a very peaceful event honoring an esteemed woman, but still, we were shocked. At the event they did a lot of interesting ceremonies and each of the guests gave a speech, and there was traditional dance and dress. My host mom also gave a speech because she is the president of the community, and she did a great job. I took a lot of videos of the speeches in addition to photos of everything that was happening. Overall it was really interesting and I would love to share it with you all but unfortunately I will never have the time to upload everything on the internet - the internet is just too slow here. I will be putting a few pictures on facebook though, so keep an eye out for that.


Okay, there’s the update for now! I probably wont be updating before I get to my site next week. We have our swearing-in next week - only one more week until we are officially PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS!!! I am so excited :) Next time you hear from me I will be finished with training and will be a PCV!