21 de Octubre 2009
Back for another update!

Work has been alright, pretty much the same – some days I’m busy and productive and some days I sit around and don’t do much. I appreciate the flexibility but it’s hard not to feel useless sometimes. Tuesday we had a mtg with our new coordinator for my program, the boss from the office in Guayaquil, and the 3 promoters who work in the homes. We met at my host family’s house here at 9:30 – so realistically it started at 10:30. It was really nice to get to meet with the boss from the office again and this time I had an agenda and felt important running the meeting haha! I also am doing a few small side projects, like preparing pamphlets with information for the families we work with. The boss liked that idea a lot and I felt the rare moment of usefulness. I also did a brief training in the community assessment interviews that I have delegated to the promoters to do (go me, I will have 135 completed interviews in 2 weeks!). The reason I’m having them do them is because they know the families better than me and therefore are more likely to receive truthful answers. Also, not that it’s a determining factor, I am happy to have less work for me. I will still go around to houses and do interviews at random, and also go to the leaders of the community, health centers, schools, etc. so it’s not like I’m taking all the work off my back. Oh, and I will have the nice job of putting the data in the computer and analyzing all of it. But either way, it will sure be a help for them to do so many interviews! And since my organization is really interested in the results and applying them to their programs, they are fully backing me :) I’m not sure how useful the results really are for me, but for the organization at least it’s a set of statistics they can go off of. And for me, it’s a project to focus on, to keep busy, to feel useful.

At the meeting was also our new coordinator for the project in my site. She seems very nice. She is a psychologist (soo excited about that point – maybe I’ll lose the job of curing the kids of all of their psychological problems, which would take a LOT of pressure off of me!) who lives in Guayaquil (not so excited about that point – I’m not sure how often she will actually be in my town since it is 1.5 hrs away..). She technically would be my new counterpart, but I had talked with the boss at the office in Guayaquil (I went to the office last Friday for a meeting) and expressed my concerns (she isn’t from my town, doesn’t have contacts in my town, won’t be in my town much, I won’t be in a lot of contact with her since she isn’t here, etc. – all related to location) so I’m deciding on a new counterpart right now. To be honest, it will just be on paper. I big part of the meeting was finding which of the promoters can help with the jobs my counterpart would have – making contacts, helping with the interviews, looking for an apartment, etc. – and instead of having 1 counterpart, the job is now divided amongst the 3 promoters. I put my host brother as my counterpart on paper (technically haven’t emailed the form in yet actually…) because he is someone who I see regularly, most likely to know where I am, has a lot of contacts, and is associated with a different project of the same organization (a project that I’m also working with). So yah, I’m feeling a lot more independent and free with this change, though a lot more responsibility of my job rests on me since we don’t have an office to go to every day.

Also, I had made a coffee cake for the meeting so I could feel like a good host. I was a little worried they wouldn’t like it because it wasn’t like Ecuadorian cake – aka it was moist and delicious – but they loved it. I was so relieved! The lady from the office even asked me to email her the recipe (which I had a fun time trying to translate last night! She’ll be lucky if she can replicate since it’s in broken Spanish and I don’t really cook strictly from recipes…). The cake itself was decent but what really made it was the icing, which was a total accident! I actually was trying to make fudge for my host family (I felt bad making cake for the mtg but nothing for the fam) but it never solidified. I think it’s because I used panela (unrefined sugar, bought in block form) instead of regular sugar. I also added some ground peanuts. And margarine because I don’t know where to buy real butter (I think the butter issue is what killed it). Either way, I ended up with a super sugary, delicious, thick panela syrup with peanut flavor, so I poured some over the cake to top it off. My host mom said she was more interested in learning to make the topping than the cake! Since the fudge didn’t work I made them a cake last night, which was gone this morning. I’m starting to think they may actually like my cooking :)

Speaking of cooking, I know you won’t believe it but I ate not one but two crabs tonight for dinner. And not canned crab but real live watched-them-die crabs. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little sick eating it because I kept thinking of them being alive, but at least they killed them before they put them in the water so I didn’t have to listen to them scream (some people say it’s just steam I swear they scream). The flavor was okay, and it was a lot of work for not a lot of food (they had pretty skinny legs), but I did it. The plan tonight for dinner was that my host mom was gonna pick up some choclo (corn) on the way back from Guayaquil, but then she walked it with a huge smile on her face carrying a string of crabs and my stomach dropped. They were all sooo excited about the crabs and I broke the news that I don’t eat crab. My host mom argued with me for a minute about it and said I would love them, but I feigned ignorance (works well with my host fam). She said I could eat a tortilla that they had brought for breakfast but I could tell she was disappointed. I got to my room and decided that no, I was going to try the crab. One of the things of being in Peace Corps is that I can convince myself to eat almost anything, and not only that but I have a responsibility to give every food I encounter here a chance. Soo I came back to the kitchen and told her I didn’t know if I would like it but I would give it a try. Plus it was starting to smell yummy (really just the seasoned water but at least it was making me a little hungry). This cheered her up and I helped make the salad. When we sat down to eat I just stared at my plate for a minute then finally asked for help. They laughed that I had no idea how to eat crab, then got the cooking stone (a rock they use to grind and mash things) and handed it to me. The first try splattered shell, meat, and some liquid all over the place and my host mom decided she would have to show me, explaining “carefully, slowly” several times. After this I was set loose on the poor crustacean legs. My first 2 tries I pulled the meat out without having to crack it, so I proudly thought “wow I’m really good at this” but turns out it was just beginners luck! I used the rock a lot, while my family just cracked the shell with their teeth (that’s not something I could stomach doing though, maybe next time…) So I had gotten into it when I got the body. I took the rock and gave it a good whack, then my host mom intervened and showed me how to open it without the rock. And boy, was I sad I opened that thing. I’m okay with the white leg meat, but there was something brown and gooey and absolutely unappetizing. She told me to pour the salad inside and mix it up and drink it. I expressed my concern for this part and then told them I would be happy to share the body – it wasn’t the part I preferred. So my host mom gladly took it off my hands and I considered if I wanted another or should just eat the tortilla. After walking around the kitchen for a minute they said if I just wanted to eat the legs that was fine, and I decided I actually kind of liked the flavor, though it was still a lot of work, but why not – I’m in the Peace Corps! So I grabbed a smaller guy, passed the body off to the host dad, and got to work. It was actually pretty good, and I think poco a poco I can get used to the idea of eating those cute little crustaceans – though I would still prefer not to see them alive before I eat them! I took a picture of them alive and almost took one while I was eating but my hands were really messy so I decided not to. I told my host family that my family in the states wouldn’t believe I ate crab so they might have to vouch for me!




The other pic is of my FAVORITE food here! it's called corviche, and heres (mas o menos) how you make it. Grind up green plantain, mix with gound peanuts, take a piece of fish and pat corn breading around it so it's encased, then put the fish/corn breading inside the platano/peanut, then put this whole thing back in the husk and fry it. serve with ahi salsa - que rico! we dont eat it every often but mm its good. and cheap - i just found out the lady sells them for 30 cents each. she cooks and sells them out of her house. oh and theres another version made with yellow plaintain (which is really sweet) and something else sweet gooey and delicious inside. tastes kinda like banana mixed with funnel cake. :)

I’d like to point out that my life doesn’t actually revolve around cooking, but I have received a lot of feedback that you all like reading about food experiences, which is why a lot of my blog is centered around food!


So last Friday I was in Guayaquil for a mtg at my organization and decided I wanted to do something that night. Seeing as how my options in my town are pretty limited I texted a friend that lives in a nearby town to see what she was up to. I’d been wanting to see her town and I felt spontaneous so after my never-ending meeting I hopped a bus to go see her. Now when I say spontaneous, I mean I decided to go spend the night somewhere with nothing – no clothes, shower supplies (important in the heat here!), meds, toothbrush – nothing. So I ran to the store and bought some wine and Doritos, the essentials! The town she lives in is smaller than my town (but unlike my town somehow they have the kind of ice cream you scoop, not just buy from a cooler) and it is divided by a river. And to cross the river you have to walk across a bridge made of cane. I was a little nervous at first – it creaks and moves and shakes and there are holes – but I figured she hadn’t fallen in for her 2 months so I would be ok. Anyway it was fun, we watched Twilight (Sarah I thought of you when I saw awkward Jasper!), ate Doritos, and drank wine Friday night, then Saturday we went across the cane bridge to the town. It was neat getting to see another person’s site and just do something spontaneous – it felt so liberating! Of course, I had to get approval and everything from Peace Corps so it wasn’t totally spontaneous but still more than my normal life. Also, it was nice seeing what it’s like to have a smaller town. It’s not by any means as small as La Chimba was but it has a very different atmosphere than my town. She also isn’t the first volunteer in her site, which changes the atmosphere a lot, and also causes people to constantly refer to the previous volunteer. We waited all morning to see a parade with horses but kept receiving “ya mismo” responses (can mean anything from 10 minutes to 10 hours) and when I left at 3 it still hadn’t happened… On Saturday I went with her to check out apartments. She found the coolest apartment, I am soo jealous! It is huge, fully furnished, safe – perfect! I have hope that if she can find something so cool in her town, surely in my larger town there will be something neat too!

On Tuesday I talked to the promoters and my former counterpart about needing to find an apartment to get approved next month when I have my visit from my program training specialist. I still don’t know when I’m actually going to move out of my host family’s house (I’m really torn whether I want to have my own place, live with them longer, etc.) but I need to have 2 options that meet Peace Corps standards for the visit. So anyway, they’ve been telling me about apartments they’ve seen that are for rent, but it looks like price range may be difficult for me. One of the promoters showed me an apartment then I found out its $100/month, and my maximum is $70/month. I told her that and she said that almost all of the apartments in my town go for $100/month, so I’m feeling like I won’t be able to find anything very nice. She called me this afternoon and showed me a set of apartments that go for $70, so hopefully I can get the owner to show me the apartment soon. It doesn’t look that nice from the outside and it’s first floor (I wanted 2nd), but thanks to one way windows (pretty cool for security!) I couldn’t see anything about the inside. Anyway, I’ve heard of about 4 apartments so far, but I haven’t seen them and expect several are out of my price range. I should be able to find lots of options though since my town is so big, so I’m crossing my fingers!

Okay final bit of news. I called the PC doctor on Saturday night because he was about to go off duty for a couple weeks (there is a different doc but they don’t know anything about me or my medical history) and firmly requested again that I be allowed to get the Dengue Fever test. He told me “yes of course!” (as if I hadn’t requested before) and said to go Monday. Not only did I have permission, he said I didn’t have to go to Guayaquil since there is a lab in my town. So Monday I went to this lab and they drew the blood, I paid my $12, they laughed at me a lot (hopefully because I'm a gringa and said something stupid… I was a little nervous they were just gonna take my blood and not test it - $12 from the dumb gringa for no work!), and told me to come back Tuesday in the afternoon. So I went and finally received proof that I had dengue. I was really relieved and a little bitter. Relieved because if it wasn’t dengue, I wouldn’t have known I had and probably would never know. Bitter because I couldn’t just get the blood test without having to fight for it. Either way, I just wanna say – I was right. I DID have dengue. Every doctor I dealt with was wrong and I was right. And a $12 blood test proves it. So there. I sound like a 5 year old, but it’s been a long 5 weeks from being sick to finally having an answer. Anyway, now that I know, I would like to keep from getting it again. I’ve been wearing the cancer-causing mosquito repellent pretty much constantly, and I'm still getting bites but the number is definitely decreasing. I’m also going after the mosquitoes I see with a passion, smacking, squishing, slapping them whenever I get the chance. And occasionally resorting to spraying my room when I’m severely outnumbered – that kills them all quickly but then I inhale cancer all night. I wish mosquitoes didn’t exist. They don’t have a purpose and they suck, literally.


Alrighty it’s late so I'm gonna get to bed so I can get up early in the morning! Peace :)