So I’m in Quito at the moment finishing up my medical midservice exams. Had both my physical and dental appointments today, which is basically everything. I could take a bus back tonight but decided to stay here and tomorrow morning go to visit my host family from La Chimba (assuming they’ll be around..). I planned to visit them during our real Midservice but with all the police issues and riots (see the post before), I didn’t get to see the family, so now’s the time! Tomorrow I’m gonna do that and head back on a night bus tomorrow night, so I can get back to my site as fast as possible because… of my new puppy :) Anyone who has facebook surely knows about my puppy, but those who haven’t seen her, here is a picture:





And here´s a link to my facebook album of her:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2058046&id=46900557&l=ba9271a0ce

She’s cute right??? That picture is from the second day I had her, and now I’ve had her for 12 days, so she’s put on some weight, shed all the fleas and ticks, and is playful and happy. Currently since I’m in Quito I haven’t seen her since yesterday at 6pm, and to be honest I miss her :( my host family is taking care of her while I’m gone, but I like having her around. She’s a good cuddler and so fun to wake up to when she’s so playful. She’s a bit bitey, and I have some cuts on my hand to prove it, but she really likes chewing on her toys when my hand isn’t available. The last week we didn’t have work (vacations) so I was home a lot with her. I taught her some tricks – she now knows sit and ven (come, in Spanish). I also taught her how to fetch (more or less. Sometimes she forgets the ball, or drops the ball on the way back to see me, etc) and am trying to get her used to the Frisbee I bought her so that when she’s bigger she can fetch a Frisbee. She has a lot of energy, so once I’m back from Quito I’m hoping she will like going jogging with me to burn some of that puppy excitement off. Currently, she will play for about 30 minutes, then pass out for an hr, then play again, then pass out again. She eats A LOT. I bought her 2.5kg (about 5.5 lbs and I think she’ll have eaten it all by the time I get home from Quito yikes!

Well, I got her from a community that I work in. One of the mothers I work with, her brother had a bunch of puppies, and they had gotten rid of all but 2. So I mentioned to her I wanted a puppy and she said “okay” and there it was :) I went to pick her up and chose the one I have (out of the remaining 2). She was really really scared to be taken from her mom, didn’t enjoy the mototaxi ride to my house, and was covered with fleas and ticks and lice. So I took her home and gave her a hot bath (which she didn’t’ like either), made her some chicken rice soup, and laid her on a heating pad to sleep. While she slept I picked off the fleas that had survived the bath, ew. She slept like a rock! At first she didn’t eat or drink, but little by little she did. She was really weak and afraid of me for the first couple days. Every time I would walk up to her she would cower and shake, but over time she got used to my presence. I bought her toys and a towel to sleep on, and treats and food, etc. I also took her to the vet, got her some anti-worms medicine, and twice a day vitamin solution (apparently she had anemia? I know..) Now she has put on weight, has a great deal of strength, and even more energy – a good healthy puppy! I’m working on training her and trying to socialize her with other dogs, but unfortunately there aren’t a lot of dogs around that will play or not try to kill her.. Most of the dogs are very aggressive and want to hurt her, and the other dogs like Max (my host family dog) or Dino (my neighbor’s dog) have no interest in playing and just stand there while Dali barks and bites at them. I wish they had a dog park in my town! :) Of course puppies are a pain in the butt sometimes, like when I need to work and she’s so playful, or that she occasionally has an accident in the house (she is more or less potty trained though poop outside woohoo!!), but for now I’m soo happy I have her she’s such a great companion and makes me so happy :)
That’s about all I’m gonna write this time. But I´ll be updating soon as I am travelling to visit my first host family in La Chimba on Wednesday! I´m sure I´ll have lots to update, but unfortunately no photos because I didn´t want to bring my camera to Quito :( 30 days until I’m home! Catch ya again soon!

Quick update:

Today I’m working at home, trying to do paperwork and respond to emails, get ready for the work week, write a little of the world map activities book, etc. Last week I had a lot planned with the colegio: Thurs 3 workshops with the Cuanto Sabes (HIV program) group in three elementary schools in the morning then English class in the afternoon, Friday global handwashing day in the morning then a meeting in one of the recintos (communities outside of my site) in the afternoon, Saturday the first session of the Cuanto Sabes program in the high school in the morning, Saturday afternoon a meeting in another recinto. But as it turned out I ended up with a great deal of free time because the colegio let out early Wednesday and the kids didn’t have class the rest of the week. The teachers had meetings, something like in-service trainings, so the colegio was closed. They also told me all of the schools in the canton (county) were going to be closed; hence we rescheduled the Cuanto Sabes in the elementary schools. Turns out that was totally false (only 3 schools didn’t have class!), but we had rescheduled so oh well. So I just had the recinto meetings to go to. Those went pretty well, the Friday meeting we dealt with some roadblocks (figuratively) but the community came up with some really creative solutions. The one Saturday was supposed to be with the entire community, the leaders, and the mayor of my site, buuut it turns out the leaders didn’t publicize it as they promised they would, so we had a small meeting. With that group of mothers we’re starting some income-generation projects, which I’m stoked about. For now I’m teaching them to make cookies/cakes/brownies and we’re going to sell them (there’s not really any providers but there is a market). I brought some brownies and chocolate chip cookies to the meeting Saturday, they decided they liked them and want to learn to make them, and then we sold the rest and made over $10 in profits.

This week will be another busy week. Today is my relaxed day, then tomorrow I’m going to the municipio at 9am with the president of one of the recintos to start the process of soliciting funding for the casa comunal they want in their community. Then I have English class in the afternoon. This week they’ll be getting their pen pal responses in each of my classes and write their responses, and also are doing progress tests on the material we’ve covered in class (the Tuesday class did it last week and while they didn’t learn everything we’ve covered, they did really good overall!). So Wednesday we’ll be doing the Cuanto Sabes in the elementary schools, 3 sessions in 3 schools, which will take up the whole morning. Then in the afternoon, English class. Thursday I’m going to the recinto to teach the women’s group to make cookies/brownies, talk about best practices in income-generation, see if they have any interest in other types of project (paper making, soap making, community banking), and teach a little about money. I’m really excited about this project! I’ve been thinking about doing income generation with these ladies for awhile, and now we have the initiative and purpose (raising money for construction of a casa comunal). Then Thursday afternoon I’ll be in English class, again :) Friday I’m planning on starting with the English class in my host dad’s school, if I can bear it haha. Then Saturday morning we have our Cuanto Sabes with the colegio. Plus I have a feeling another meeting with one of the three recintos will pop up somewhere during the week. Busy week!

I just found out one of my friends that lives near me will be leaving to move to a different site, since she’s had a lot of problems in Guayaquil. So yesterday I went and spent time with her since we don’t know when exactly she’ll be leaving. She also doesn’t know where she’s going, but the two options she’s been told are both far from Guayas (in Esmeraldas and Loja) but I think it will be good for her. She’s been robbed a lot and is facing a lot of stress because of it. But it's always sad to see friends move!

Alright, I’m gonna sign off here for now. :) Jessica

So I guess everyone wants a blog update since all the media coverage about the political turmoil in Ecuador. It’s only been a week but it seems longer… Well as some of you know, I was in Quito for our midservice conference, which lasted Monday-Wednesday then I had to stay until Friday night to get all of my medical checkups (after a year we get out yearly physicals). Well, Thursday I was going to be free, just waiting around til Friday, so me and a couple people from my training group decided to go to visit our first host families in La Chimba. But I had phone issues so I had to stop by the office, so I was waiting for the office to open at 9. I went down and sat with a couple vols for breakfast, and one of them got a call from another volunteer who had been told to stay in Quito, that something was going on with the police. Someone called their program manager to verify it and we were told that yes, they had activated the emergency action plan, and the stage we were at just meant stay where you are. Specifically we couldn’t leave Quito because the police were blocking roads, stopping buses, and even closed down the airports throughout the country. We knew there were “problems” but protests happen like every other week in Ecuador, so I personally was like “yahyah another one…”. But as I put my bag back in the hotel room I saw on the news some really violent police protesting, the president in the middle of a mob, etc. so figured “ok maybe this is a big deal…” I decided to get my phone checked out at the office, so I walked down there with another vol. When we got to the office we were informed that not only could we not leave Quito, but we couldn’t leave the Peace Corps office. Of course, what is our first thought – CRAP it’s almost lunch time, what will we eat?! After hanging out gossiping and looking up all of the dramatic headlines on the (free) internet at the office, there was an air of curiosity and a little worry. The interim country director called us into a meeting and explained the situation and that we were being kept there for our safety since outside the situation was a little risky. No police, lots of criminals = not a good situation. Once the criminals realized the police were not protecting the country, chaos broke out – looting, bank robberies, petty crimes turning violent. Which seems to be the point of the police protest. One news report presented a quote from a police officer that basically said “One hour without police – let’s see what happens”. Okay so the reason for the police protest isn’t totally clear to me, but basically they say the president was going to cut their benefits (some particular types of rewards and benefits), but the president said that’s not what he was doing, so who knows. But either way they protested. Anyway, back to the story… so we hung out in the office which was pretty cool because we were able to see the office at work in a crisis situation. I will say that I feel much more secure in Ecuador having seen how effective they are at their jobs in emergency situations, even when our country director was back in the states for a meeting (hence the “interim CD”). Every 15 minutes or so they pulled us into meetings to give us updates, and even found out that one pizza place was not only still delivering, but also had a “police riot special” haha. So we ordered pizza and sat around waiting for more news. At some point, the president declared a state of exception, which is the step under military law. Basically, since the police weren’t protecting the country, the president authorized the military to step in and regain control of the violence, looting, etc. Finally, they decided to send us to the hostel that was a couple blocks from the office so that we could wait in a more comfortable environment. So we packed up the pizza, big jugs of water, and some military ration kits (in case of emergency) and they drove us in peace corps vehicles to the hostel (can you say blue diplomatic license plates – nice) where we were confined to the premises. Once back at the hostel we ate pizza then realized there was a possibility of being in this hostel for several days without leaving. The nice things about the hostel: they had a restaurant, cable TV in every room, hot water, and an adorable golden retriever that guards the place. Plus the staff were SOOO great for the whole time, helping us with anything we needed, going out to buy food to make dinner for 40+ volunteers, and taking care of us like we were their children. So I was thinking, alright a few days here while everything calms down – score! I will admit, though we were never really close to being evacuated, the thought of being taken straight from Quito without being able to come back to my site was devastating. It is something we should always be ready for, because it often happens that way. And we talked about it in training, have inventory lists etc so our belongings could be picked up for us, and I’ve even talked to my host family about it a little, but it was really hard thinking about it actually happening. But thankfully, Peace Corps decided to get us home – a lot sooner than I thought!

Thursday night, still back in the hotel, we watched as the military leaders (who up to that point hadn’t taken sides) pledged their allegiance to the president and democracy, which basically ended the theory that it was a military coup. To explain: yes, the country was in chaos and the police became the “bad guys” for awhile, but at least to my knowledge, the military was not behind the unrest. There were some units that had joined sides with the police, which oddly I didn’t hear about until I talked to my family back in the states that night, but the big problem with the conflict was not the military, it was the lack of police presence that caused chaos. And sure, the police were mad at the president, so he was at risk, but I am surprised it was called an attempted coup – it never appeared to be.

Anyway, after dinner we could hear the gunfight at the hospital where the president was being held captive as the military moved in to rescue him. It was surreal. We were sitting and talking in the restaurant when the news started showing action, so we stopped and watched, then realized that the “pop pop” we heard outside was the same gunfire we were hearing on the TV. The staff at the hostel decided to close the restaurant and told us to go back into the main building because they were concerned about stray bullets (again, taking really great care of us). Then the guy got out a fake gun and stood guard at the gate of the hostel complex (fake gun wouldn’t do much but it made us all feel better). About 20 minutes later, we watched as the president showed up at his palace and made a speech, then afterwards all news coverage ended and soccer was dominating all channels. Weird right? It almost seemed like it hadn’t happened… so bizarre. Well, since we were on lockdown, the hostel staff had bought a bunch of beer, because really what else is there to do?? So we hung out, drank a little, and processed the incident. I stayed up hanging out with some friends, and when we got hungry we decided to try one of the military ready to eat meals (called MREs, can anyone explain to me why they’re not REMs…?). Well, it came with tootsie rolls, (score) some really weird tasting fake cheddar cheese sauce, really dry bread, and a not too bad minty cookies. They had issued each of us 3 emergency rations, and said obviously we could eat them but probably wouldn’t haha. Each of the meals contains like 3000 calories or something, insane! Anyway, we tried the MREs, not impressed, and then I went to bed, totally excited to sleep in and have another full day chilling at the hostel with everyone.
So imagine my surprise when at 7:30am we are woken up and told to pack up that they’ll be picking us up to take us to the office :( Still soccer on the TV, still seems like nothing happened like it was a bad dream, weird. When we got to the office they told us that the country was stabilized and they wanted us to get back to our sites since it would be safer to be out of Quito if anything else started up. In fact, the country was safe enough that we could even travel on night buses without problems, so me and most of the Guayas people decided to hang out in Quito until the night bus. We went out to lunch, went to a movie, and chilled at the office – again, like normal, like nothing had happened. It’s something I can’t comprehend – one day there’s total chaos then the next we go to a movie and everything is normal. Anyway, we headed back on the night bus and it went without incident. In Guayaquil I went to a friend’s house to wait until my host family was passing through with their car and could come pick me up (was a little worried about the buses to my site since they are a little sketchy normally). So I came back to my site and people would just say “No pasa nada” and dismiss the whole “chaos throughout the country” thing with a wave of the hand. Granted, I was very happy that “no pasa nada” and I was able to come back to my site. And I’m still happy to be back =)
Aside from the big incident that I figured needed to be explained, everything has been going pretty well. I am still having my after-school English courses in the high school, but I’m going to be losing one of my classes (the older kids end class at the end of October to do practicum) which kind of sucks. A couple funny things happened when I was gone for a week to Quito – 1. everyone in my site apparently noticed my absence (from my lady at the market to my neighbor to the lady with the local tienda – who knew people noticed??) and 2. Everyone discovered work for me during my absence. The director of the colegio asked me to help with a “gang” of problem students that are on the verge of expulsion, using my psychology knowledge and great charla skills (sarcasm on both of those). Under the conditions that I can also work with the parents and teachers, I’ve agreed to come to the colegio and work with them on leadership, values, etc. to try to make a difference, but am pretty lost on where to start with the kids. Sigh. That will be my tough assignment. The easy and even more dreaded one is that I’m going to be teaching English 2 hours a week in my host dad’s school to a group of forty 5th graders, who have had zero English at this point. I can’t say no obviously, but the only justification for the English classes I have now is that it’s more of a youth development program, where we do a lot of character building activities and basically mini-workshops disguised as English class. So I need to think of a way to work with these 5th graders that won’t drive me insane, but with their total lack of English knowledge I don’t have a lot to build on. I will have to do boring stuff like the alphabet and colors… Outside of the schools, I’m getting into the heart of my community development projects. I met with a big group in one of the recintos (tiny towns outside of my site but part of the county) and we’re meeting again this week with *hopefully* the entire community to work through some of the details. This week we’re meeting with the whole community in another recinto, which is a community of about 200 houses (huge compared to the other ones I’m working with). I also went to the really small recinto and they’ve pledged to raise $50 toward the construction of an escuela. The funding is a real problem – I am hoping the local government will support the project, or I’ll have to start looking for other funding which I don’t know if I want to do. People here think all money comes from foreigners and I don’t want to reinforce that. I’m afraid I’m in over my head with this, but I think I’ll pull it off... somehow. The big problem is that my organization has given me zero zero zero help and I thought we were in on this project together. That’s another issue, another time.
Our Cuanto Sabes de VIH y SIDA (the youth HIV/AIDS education program) training of trainers was finished a few weeks ago, and now we’re getting ready for the newly trained youth to replicate their knowledge with their classmates and peers. Thursday we’re going to three elementary schools to do three workshops back to back (hope it’s not too much for them on their first time!). It’s mainly for practice and for PR (public relations) for the colegio, because the real thing starts on Saturday. They’ll be starting their first of six workshops with groups of students from the colegio! Today we met to prepare but only 2 of the youth came, so it wasn’t exactly an effective preparation meeting. I’m keeping my need to plan and organize in check and trying to go with the flow more so I don’t stress them out – I’m sure they’ll do great. I’ll update when I have results from the charlas!
Alright well I’m gonna peace out (such a short entry I know!). Hope all’s well back home – miss you all! :)

Well it’s been quite awhile now since I've written again... but here I am! It’s gonna be an extremely very long post, and I am drinking a late-night energy drink so I can get this and lots of work done.. Also at the moment I am making chocolate chip cookies for my host dog’s birthday party tomorrow. Yes, it’s max’s birthday, and yes, I am baking for a dog’s birthday. More for my host sister Najabi though. A couple of days ago she informed me I had forgotten his made-up birthday, being September 1. After being accused of forgetting about my adorable max, I remembered vaguely talking to her about how they didn’t know when max’s real birthday was but we had decided to make it sometime in the next few months. Apparently we set a date, which I of course forgot because I didn’t write it my schedule. So I told her (and the dog) I was sorry for missing the birthday and explained it would be better to have the birthday party this weekend on Sunday, since everyone is so busy during the week. Sooo tomorrow (I’m writing this Saturday night) after lunch we will have cake in the form of a large chocolate chip cookie, I will have prepared some sort of meat-dish for max since he can’t have chocolate, I will give him his birthday gift (I started sewing a “supermax” cape for him when I was still living with my host family aka last October or something, but in the guilt for forgetting his birthday I came home and finished the cape. Not my best sewing but hey it’s for a dog...), and Najabi will have invited a few of her young friends over for the party. But it makes her happy so party on!

Speaking of birthdays, Sunday is also my dad’s birthday! I know you probably don’t like sharing your birthday, dad, but at least it’s with the cutest dog in South America – you know since you got to meet max! So anyway, I wish you a very happy birthday, and I’m sure by the time you’ve read this we will have talked on Skype =) Love you E&B!

Sunday is also our second to last Cuanto Sabes session (the HIV/AIDS training of trainers with colegio students). We’re in the final stages where we’re talking about how the students will do their replications with their peers, both in formal and informal situations. Tomorrow we’re practicing 3 basic points of the program: basic info about HIV/AIDS, self-esteem/values/decision making, and discrimination and how to reduce the stigma. We will also do the formal “post-test” where we measure what our kids have learned – I feel pretty confident in our kids! We started with a group of 25 from 5 colegios and 2 health promoters from the health center. We are going to finish with about 12 youth and 1 health promoter but I think we’ve really achieved quality of quantity. They surprised me when we played jeopardy last week, both with factual information and ability to control situations. What do I mean by control situations? Well, one of the big problems here is that IF people know what a condom is and how to use it, they still have trouble convincing their mate to actually use one. So we did some role-playing and the girl who picked “prevention for 300” totally surprised me. Not only did she have quick responses that we had provided them with, but she added her own flair and was really convincing. Hopefully the youth that aren’t to that point now will reach there when they’re doing the replications. My mind is spinning with ideas for this group of kids :) But anyway, with our training of trainers coming to an end I am finishing one of my big projects.

We’ve also come to the end of the second world map project with the colegio I work with. The actual drawing and painting was so fast, but then with my parents and Kevin visiting I took a couple weeks of leave from the colegio, so this week I’ve been tying up the rest of the project. This map is painted on a wall, but it the same size as the first one we did. The youth involved in the project also changed, as the Liceo de Lideres (the group of youth I was working with before) have dissolved as a youth group. So I took the project to my colegio and the director was excited. I decided to work with my English classes on it. But before I got them involved I used some of the youth that had helped with the first map to do the drawing – much easier than having new kids doing it… But I worked the map into our class time, with an hour of English class and an hour of painting for those who wanted to participate. Almost all of the students jumped at the chance to paint and kept asking when they would get to paint again. We finished all of the painting before my family got here, and then after they left I went back and did the outlining and labeling. This week in class we put the final touches on it (but will continue next week since only some of the kids came to class this week – 2 week break really threw them off). Each of the kids who helped on the map is putting his/her handprint around the map, and then we will be writing their name inside the hand, a creative form for signatures. I'm also starting to design an Ecuador map to do. It will be done with the same basic principles; I just have to develop it since there is no manual. This I’ll probably do in October since September will be cut short with our mid-service conference.

My English classes are going about the same. I’m still not thrilled to be teaching them, but I like the steadiness and I really like getting to know the kids. Plus the novelty of being a gringa still hasn’t worn off for them, so I’m still fun to be around apparently. We had our first movie day in August. Some may say it’s a waste of a class, and I agree somewhat, but just making sure they’re watching a movie in English (with Spanish subtitles) every once in a while seems like a good thing to me. Plus they love it. I made sugar and chocolate chip cookies last time – sharing our culture too! The next one is scheduled for the beginning of October right after I get back from midservice; that way I don’t have such a stressful week getting back.

So in other news. I found out about 6 weeks ago that I’m going to be a host aunt! My host brother’s girlfriend is a couple months pregnant now. Things with my host family have definitely changed a lot, but a month later things are starting to find a new rhythm and settle back into normalcy. I suppose she’ll be due sometime in April, so I’ll get to have a newborn to play with for a few months. Obviously it’s a pretty tough situation because they’re both very young, but apart from that – who doesn’t love a baby?!? I’m excited to have a baby to play with, and am crossing my finger to be a “madrina” aka godmother. I also promised Andy I’d “teach” English for its first few months. I’ll sing it some English lullabies and see if any of the language sticks haha. I’m also starting Monday (if I don’t forget like I did last week) to teach Najabi and Andy some English. Then they can teach the baby English – more sustainable haha

This is a good place to take a reading break – the next part will be very long…


So the part I’m sure some of you are more interested in: My parents and Kevin came to visit me in August! It was a great visit and flew by so quickly. My mom got here on the 11th, so in the evening I met up with my host brother Joao in Guayaquil to get her from the airport. Her flight came in at 10:25pm so we had some time to kill so we went to see a movie. I was so distracted throughout the movie I only vaguely remember the plot. But we went and got her from the airport after she finally made it through customs and everything. My heart leapt when I saw her walking out of the gate and was so great to hug her when she circled around to where we were waiting. Obviously she was very tired from traveling, but we got in the car and came back to my site. When we got to my house we stayed up for awhile talking and meanwhile I was pilfering all of the goodies she brought me from home :) but at some point we were both too tired so we went to bed. The next morning I had a community development/leadership workshop in one of the recintos and since she was awake and ready, she decided to go with me. It was so nice having her with me and seeing me work. Plus all of the women were stoked to meet her. After that we came back to my house and relaxed for about 2 minutes before going to my host family’s for lunch. My host mom is soo great – she prepared basically all of the lunches for when my family was here so they could try the best home-cooked typical foods! Then, after eating we had to run again – this time to the colegio, because I had English class. I had planned it so the movie days were that week so that we just got there and put on a movie. My mom talked to one of the English teachers some, and then after the movie was over we were finally free for the day. We went back to my house and relaxed a little, took a nap etc.

Over the next two days I took her around town, to the market, to the Tia (grocery store in my town!), etc. until the day arrived when we were to pick up Kevin and dad as well! My host mom made encembollado for my mom to try, so we filled up on that in the morning. Then instead of going straight to Guayaquil we hopped over to one of the touristy towns near here, called Nobol. Nobol is the site of the church “Narcisa de Jesus” which is based on the life of a girl that is held to esteem of a saint, due to her lifestyle and sacrifices for religion. Anyway, it’s a famous town that people from all over Ecuador come to be healed and to pray. We checked out the church and museum, then went and tried maduros con queso, which is the food the town is known for. We also had a humita which was also delicious. Afterwards we got on another bus and headed to Guayaquil. We went to one of the malls and did some shopping, buying pretty much every kind of exotic fruit available. Just like to note that we spent over an hour and a half in the SuperMaxi – I had to show off Ecuador’s huge grocery store! Then we went up to the food court and had some shrimp-stuffed patacones – mmm. Joao met up with us at that point and we hung out a little bit killing time until it was time to go to the airport. At the airport we waited for awhile until Kevin and dad came out! My dad texted me from customs to tell me they were in Ecuador :) We gathered them up and headed back to my site, another late arrival! Once back, I once again pilfered the luggage, and we sat around and chatted for awhile. Then once again when everyone’s eyes were closing we headed to bed.

In the morning I got up and did my Cuanto Sabes workshop, then came home from that to gather my family for lunch at the host family’s house. We had a ceviche FEAST. My host mom made sooo much ceviche we couldn’t finish it, and ended up eating ceviche for breakfast for the next two days haha. We also introduced my family to Club Verde with the ceviche – they approved but acknowledged that with lack of options here in Ecuador the beer situation was a little grim… educated at last haha. For the next two days we pretty much ate lunch and dinner with the host family and stayed until late in the evening playing Uno and the new game, Jenga. I also took them to the store, to the market, and to the colegio I work at so they could see it and check out the world map that was almost completed. The time in my site passed rapidly and suddenly it was time to go to Guayaquil to leave for Tena, in the Amazon region. Joao drove us to Guayaquil and we hung out there for the afternoon. To fill time, we decided to go bowling! It was my first time in Ecuador (and first time playing in over 2 years), and it was Joao’s actual first time playing. It was a lot of fun and a better use of time than a movie, as we all agreed in the end. After killing enough time, we went back to the terminal, ate dinner, and prepared for the 10 hour night bus ride. I tried to prepare my parents for the sharp curves after you enter the mountains, excessively loud bad movies playing, and possibility of theft. Turns out the bus company we selected was not so great, so we were on the exact opposite of “executive”. It was worse quality than the buses that I take from Guayaquil to my site, but with chairs that lay back more. But oh well, live and learn. We got on the bus and got settled, everyone with their neck pillows and earplugs. I took a trusty diphen, my constant night-bus companion, and passed out pretty quickly. After a couple of hours (around 10pm, that’s what happens when you leave at 7:30pm…) I woke and realized we were stopped and on a dirt road. Then I remember my friend saying that the road to Riobamba is pretty bad and under construction, but to be safe I stayed awake until we reached a paved, normal looking road. Then I slept intermittently until we got to Tena.

We were all very happy to reach solid ground.. There we went to the company’s office and after a couple hours hanging out there, we taken to the lodge outside of Tena. It was beautiful – perched on a cliff about 500 feet about a river, hammocks everywhere, and to top it off, a parrot named Manuko that talked! The first day we thought we would have a pretty easy start but alas that was not the case. We had just enough time to settle in then the guide came to get us for our first hike – to scale canyons. The hike was really interesting. The guides pointed out tons of plants and animals, everything from natural medicinal plants to the huge and dangerous conga ants. And we all even tasted the lemon ants which taste very strongly of lemons when you eat them. I had two servings of the ants haha! Once we reached the stream the guides gave us all natural clay facemasks from the riverbed – talk about spa treatment haha! Then we got to some caves and smelled putrid bat poop. At which point we were informed we would be climbing up into the caverns, wedging ourselves between the crevices and climbing up slowly that way. At this point one of the guides left and took my mom on a different route just walking since with her arm problem she wasn’t so sure about doing the climbing. I went up first and had a bit of a panic attack once I got up about 15 feet and reached a harder part. Fear of heights, exhaustion from having not slept much on the night bus, and having to trust these two guides that had minutes before thrown spiky balls at us that left stinging silicon in our hands – not for me. But alas I somehow kept going and reached the top, shaking like crazy. But the canyons didn’t end… we went through a series of canyons that were just plain disgusting, with bats flying overhead and us leaning and putting our hands in wet bat poop. Not my favorite part of the trip for sure… Buuut we finally made it, totally disgusting and tired. After a hike back to the cabins, we showered (they even had hot water!) and had lunch. Then we had a little time before the afternoon activity so we laid down in the hammocks. Needless to say, I’m a pretty serious napper. So when they came to get us to walk to the river for a swim, I along with the rest of the fam, was passed out so we passed on the afternoon activity and stayed in the hammocks. Then we had dinner, played some Phase 10, and went to bed.

Early the next morning we got up and loaded into a pickup truck (it wouldn’t be Ecuador without a ride in the back of a truck!) to go to an Amazonian Kichwa (or Quichua) village. They took us around and showed us more plants, including the hallucinogenic trumpet vine, yucca, cinnamon, and plantains. They dug me up a plantain tree sprout so I could bring it back to my site and plant it in my yard to have a plantain tree someday, then put it in a beautiful wrapping made from the plantain leaves – very professional looking! They also demonstrated achiote, which is a seed pod that Ecuadorians use the red powder out of for anything from painting faces (which is what they demonstrated) to food coloring. My face painting apparently meant something like “chieftress of the village”. Lastly, they made us crowns from palm and gave me the chieftress’s crown. Then we went into one of the houses and they showed us how to make chicha (a yucca based, fermented alcoholic drink that is extremely typical of Ecuador, from the coast to the mountains to the Amazon) and explained how the house was made etc. Then we bought jewelry that the village women had made, jumped back into the truck, and went back to the lodge.

After lunch and a short nap, we changed into swimming clothes and went down to the river where we went for a river tubing trip down the river. Towards the end of the trip, the river joins with another river, which comes from Cotopaxi in the mountains, aka it was very cold water. The guides tricked me, Kevin, and dad into jumping into the river at the joining point, which was extremely cold and had a decent current. But we all managed to get back into the rafts and finished the trip, where we were picked up in a truck and taken back to the lodge. After dinner we went to the bar and had a few beers. We played Phase 10 and taught our guide how to play. He decided it was too complicated so he taught us an Ecuadorian game, cuarenta. It was a lot of fun, but after a while we decided to go to bed to get ready for our big third day.

The third day we were picked up in a truck and taken to the other lodge that is owned by the same company. The lodge is more isolated and doesn’t even have electricity. But we were just there for a day excursion with another guide – we were going to the waterfalls! After a 3-4 hour hike with the company of a beautiful black dog, we reached the falls.

At this point, we had to decide if we were going to go up them or not, because once started you couldn’t turn around. We initially didn’t think my mom would go because of her arm but after seeing how it was set up she decided to go for it. We thought before that we would be basically pulling ourselves up a rope through the falls with sheer force, but the guide showed that we were climbing with mostly feet and just using the rope for safety and for a little help. So we all decided to do it, including the guide’s dog. It was so amusing when after we had all gotten up each step, he would go back down and carry/push the dog up the cliffs. There were a total of three waterfalls, with the first one the easiest. The first one we just went around, climbing small slanted rock faces and a small portion in the water. Too easy. Then we got to the second waterfall. (enter dramatic music). This one was going up through the water, and it had a pretty tough looking current. We got a little nervous, but the guide ran up and secured the rope for us then my mom went first. It was divided into 2 parts, a 15 ft climb through a little water then a 35ish foot climb through a heavy fall of water. We all got up to the first step and waited then once everyone was up the guide showed us exactly how to go up the next part. For example we should basically just walk using the rope as a safety if we started to fall, not leaning out or squatting and supporting ourselves on the rope. Again, mom went first. She looked nervous but made it to the top! Then I went, and found it wasn’t as hard as it looked. But it definitely got my heart pumping from the excitement! One everyone made it to the top of that we had a little piece left to go, then we waited while the guide went to bring the dog up :) At this point we were all soaked and our rubber boots were totally filled with water, so we didn’t bother trying to keep dry anymore. We reached the last waterfall, and it turned out we weren’t going up it, we just hung out in the pool below. We got a great photo with me, Kevin, mom, and dad under the falling water then had a snack to get our strength back up – it would be a long hike back. Then we climbed uphill to the top of the mountain ridge and walked along that until we reached the edge and we came down. He kept saying, it’s flat from here but alas it was generally never flat. And at the end of the ridge when we had to go down the mountain we were going down some very steep slopes, which seemed extra hard after the emotional and exhausting hike to/through the falls. But finally we made it to the lodge, a bit behind schedule.

We were so exhausted and were looking forward to a break after lunch, but surprise! After lunch he looked at us and asked “do you want 5 or 10 minutes before we head out for the next hike?”. We seriously considered calling off the afternoon activity to nap in the hammocks and give our blistering feet a break, but after about 15 minutes he came to find us and we decided to go for it. We packed up everything and hiked to the road entrance where we left all of the bags to go to the lagoon, the afternoon activity. The black dog came along again and had made best friends with Kevin, who had given into playing fetch/tug-of-war/attack every stick in site. We made pretty good time getting there, so we had awhile to hang out at the lagoon. It was beautiful! Buuuut it was very very cold. Like, when you get in, you can’t breathe cold. It was water coming down from the snow-capped mountains… And with the sun low in the sky it wasn’t looking good for us to take part in this activity. But our guide jumped in, and not much later Kevin decided to go for it as well. Mom and I sat on the rocks down at the water’s edge for quite awhile, with the intention of “easing in” (feet in, then legs in, etc). Meanwhile dad was just focusing on taking pictures… during this time Kevin got out of the water, so it wasn’t looking good for him getting back in. But then I decided to go for it, so I told Kevin if he got back in I would get in too. So I did. And I stopped breathing. It was so cold it hurt. It was literally like jumping into ice water. After a few minutes my body adjusted. And by that I mean I couldn’t feel my feet anymore, so Kevin and I headed to the source of the water to get a better look at the waterfall. Then we heard a shriek as dad and mom jumped in and came to join us. There was a little space in the rocks that looked like a baby pool. Not much warmer but we sat there for a minute before the guide told us it was time to go. So we did the logical thing and used the little current as a slide, slipping from the rock down into the big pool. When we got out we instantly warmed up some. I remember my dad saying that as cold as the water was, hypothermia is a serious possibility if you stay in the water too long. Tell that to the jovenes who were just having the time of their lives haha. One thing I actually liked about the lagoon is that I really think the coldness kept me from being sore from our morning hike. Because after everything we did that morning, I didn’t hurt the next day. In a way it also relaxed us once we were out of the water… We started the walk back and the guy who was picking us up to take us to the other lodge came to find us along the road since he was early (imagine that, in Ecuador!!).

When we got back to the lodge we showered and had dinner, then headed to the bar to chat, have a few beers, and play cuarenta with our guide. A huuuge group of Germans had arrived the night before, so we were joined by lots of beer drinking tourists. The lodge actually ran out of beer the night before by the way. We knew it would happen, but the guides seemed to think 4 habas was enough. Clearly don’t understand Germans haha. The last night was a lot of fun and Kevin and I hung out at the bar after mom and dad went to bed, playing cards with the guides. But it was clear our time was almost up, which meant their time in Ecuador was almost up… So when the guides went out for the night we headed to bed so we could enjoy the last day in Tena.

That morning we were to go to a cultural museum and wildlife refuge down the river, transported in motorized canoes. We were given a different guide as our guide started his vacation that day, so we headed out with a family of 3 Germans who had just arrived. The son is volunteering in a town in the mountains and like me, his family came to visit him. When we got to the place to get in the canoe, we got in and headed downriver. First stop: the culture museum. There we saw plant life, learned how to shoot a blow gun (which convinced me to buy one, albeit smaller than the one we tried that day. Yes, I have an Amazonian blow gun. its awesome.), and saw a museum on the history of the Amazonian Indians. Then we hopped back in the canoe and went further down to the wildlife reserve. It was pretty neat and we were able to see a lot of animals that we didn’t see in real life, as they have moved more into the forest away from humans for safety and tranquility. For example, we saw monkeys, all sorts of birds, rodents, cats, etc. (for a complete listing ask my mom, I’m sure she has a list of animals and everything). Then after buying my aforementioned blowgun, we got back into the canoe and headed upstream to the place we started. There we had lunch and headed back to the lodge in the pickup. I fell asleep in the back of the pickup – first time ever. Don’t ask how, I don’t know… so we got back, showered, packed up, and had a quick dinner before being taken in our very last pickup truck back to Tena, where we were scheduled to leave at 7:30pm.

This bus was much nicer that the other, and once we got in Guayaquil the general consensus was that everyone slept better. Once in Guayaquil we took a taxi to the hotel where Kevin and I slept for a few hours and my parents did all of our dirty laundry (yah!). When we all woke up, showered, and put on clean clothes we headed out to see the city! First stop: the Bahia for bootleg movies :) We spent awhile browsing there then Kevin and I bought some movies. Then we headed north where we passed by the iguana park, checked out the cathedral, and I showed them the post office before we headed to the Sweet ‘n Coffee for an afternoon perk-up. After some coffee, I showed them the Metro via (basically above-ground subway, and the public transportation I prefer when in the city) . It was a fairly full car, so they really got the experience haha. But we just rode it up 2 stops where we got off and walked until we found the artisanal market. There we bought all sorts of stuff and I got to practice my haggling skills :) I got some jewelry and a change purse. Kevin got a dominos set, earrings for a friend, and maybe something else? Mom and dad bought 2 hammocks. And dad got a panama hat. Then we continued north to the area called Las Peñas. It’s at the north end of the riverfront boardwalk and consists of 400+ stairs that go up to a lighthouse and a church on one of the only hills in Guayaquil. There you can see the expanse of the city and it’s just a pretty view. We went up, looked around, and then walked back down, totally sweaty and thirsty. So we walked down and headed to a restaurant for dinner. One of the other volunteers met up with us and we had a dinner at a restaurant with a nice view over the river. It was a nice relaxing dinner, but not the best food and myself and my mom were paying later…

Afterwards we called a cab and headed back to the hotel, stopping at a store to buy peanuts (they brought back like 6 bags of raw peanuts as gifts since fresh-toasted peanuts were one of their favorite things about Ecuador). While at said store, I got very sick and spent awhile in the mall bathroom before we checked out and headed back to the hotel. There I made use of the free internet while they packed, then we sat around and talked before going to bed. No one wanted to sleep as my mom and Kevin were leaving in the morning, but sheer exhaustion took away the option and we all slept like babies in the plush beds of the hotel. The next morning we all woke up and got ready, then took a cab to the airport. We hung around as much as we could until it was time for them to go through security :’(

After they had left, dad and I headed to the bus terminal where we bought tickets to Puerto Lopez, a beach town in Manabí. We boarded and headed out, arriving about 3.5 hours later in the little beach town. The first priority was lunch, as it was around 2 and we hadn’t eaten since 7am. So we walked along the beach and found a restaurant where I had shrimp in a yummy peanut sauce. We called around to the hotels and everyone was booked, but there was a hostel next to the restaurant so we checked it out and decided to stay there. After dropping our stuff off we headed out to find a whale-watching tour company. Everyone was basically saying the same thing, with the same cost, etc. but we found a place that seemed a lot more professional so we signed up with them to go whale-watching the next morning.

We walked along the beach for awhile, watching the fishing boats coming in and the ensuing attack of seagulls, fragatas, and other marine birds hoping to steal a fish or at least part of a fish. After the excitement of that wore off we walked to one of the beach-side cabanas and ordered a drink and hung out for awhile. Since we just had the Lonely Planet travel guide to go off of, we decided to check out a highly rated Colombian restaurant we had seen. When we got there we decided on the cazuela (fish, shrimp, other seafood, onions, peppers, tomato, garlic cooked in a sauce and served boiling in a cast iron bowl). Normally cazuela is made in a tomato based sauce, but apparently Colombia wins at cazuela. It was made in a super rich, creamy, cheesy sauce. Possibly one of the best foods I have ever tasted, and definitely one of the best I’ve found in Ecuador. We were stuffed and tired, so we took a stroll along the street and did some window shopping, making mental notes of things we might want to buy (a tagua necklace for me haha). We turned in pretty early and dreamt of whales, which we would hopefully see the next day.

The next morning we got up and grabbed a generic bread and egg breakfast then hung out at the shop until we had our group and got on the boat to go whale watching. We sat up in the very front with a young couple from Europe (she was from Germany, he was from Portugal, they met in Holland. Speak 7 languages between them. Typical Europeans haha). We headed toward the island, called Isla de la Plata, where we would land to see a variety of marine birds. When we were pretty close we came up on a group of humpback whales. See, the whales are from Antarctica and come north during June-September with the north-bound cold current to mate and give birth. Then after the season is over, they head back south until next year. We were one of 5 boats watching the whale that was jumping up some, and it was very exciting for me especially since it was my first time seeing a whale not in the zoo. After awhile we headed toward the island again. There we ran into another group, but we didn’t watch for as long as we did the first time. Once we got to the island we had muffins and bananas for a snack. One of the guides brought the sea turtles surrounding us to our attention by tossing some banana peel, which the turtles loved and swam up to us for.

Once we got on land the guides split us into 2 groups – the big group of Germans, and the mismatched group that included us, the European couple, and a couple from Spain. We decided to do the longer but flatter hike with the promise of seeing blue footed boobies, red footed boobies, fragatas, and some other marine bird. The first few feet we saw blue footed boobies off in the distance so we all stopped and took pictures. We had no idea how close we would actually get to them! The hike was interesting overall. There wasn’t a lot of plant life to see but we saw sooo many blue footed boobies. We literally were feet away from some of them, as they were walking and mating in the foot-path. We also saw them in every stage of the mating process from single to doing the ritual call callback procedure, to the mutual dancing, to tail up ready to mate, to nesting. We saw so many that after awhile it was like “oh just another blue footed boobie”… syke! It was pretty cool. We also got to see fragatas, which are the immense black birds with huge red pouches under their necks that inflate during the mating process. And finally, we saw three nesting red footed boobies at a distance. The trip was interesting to see the boobies and fragatas, as these do not live on the mainland of Ecuador. After the hike we were all pretty tired, but the guide seemed annoyed by our slowness hehe.

When we got back to the boat we were given box lunches and we went to the snorkeling location. It was pretty cool so only about 5 of us decided to snorkel. And the water took my breath away when I jumped in – chilly! We only snorkeled for around 15 minutes but we saw some big pretty fish, some trumpet fish, and white coral. I enjoyed getting back in the water with the mask and fins – reminded me of scuba diving! I spent plenty of time diving under the water and swimming through the schools of fish :) after the snorkeling we got back on the boat and headed back to the mainland.

The water had gotten really rough during the day and on the way back we were thrashed around by 6ft swells. The boat kept leaving the water completely and then slamming down really hard on the water. At first it was fun and we were laughing but after 45 minutes our butts hurt and it had lost its thrill. But once we were near shore we came right up on a group of 3 active whales. That is, all three of them were jumping out of the water! They were jumping one after another and spraying water like crazy. And we were soo close! I got a great video of them and some photos too. It seemed like the perfect end to the day, the whales telling us goodbye just as we reached land! We watched of awhile but it was almost dark and the whales stopped showing off so much, so we continued on.

We were all happy to get to land after the rough trip back. Dad and I showered and decided to go to dinner at the Colombian place again. Why settle for trying mediocre food when you know where the best food is? So we went back and once again got the cazuela. We once again left there stuffed, so we walked along the street again. This time we stopped at the tagua place and dad bought me a tagua whale necklace to remember our trip by :) Instead of going straight to bed, we decided to go to the cabanas on the beach and relax a bit. I had a pina colada and dad got a coconut batido (basically like a milkshake made with coconut). Once we had called it a night we headed to bed.

The next morning we decided to just head back to Guayaquil in the morning instead of hanging out there anymore, so we grabbed breakfast and hopped on a bus. I wanted to stop in my site for a few things, so we stopped here, unloaded photos from the cameras and I packed up all of my dirty laundry to take advantage of free laundry at the hotel! Once everything was done we hopped another bus and headed to Guayaquil, where we checked into the hotel and relaxed a bit. For dinner we went to a buffet restaurant that had been highly recommended, but it was eh okay. In fact, dad was pretty sick from it. Good thing my stomach is used to ecuafood… After packing and everything, we headed to bed, once again dreading morning when we would take another trip to the airport… in the morning we got ready and headed to the airport, where we waited as long as we could until it was time for him to go through security. I was suddenly alone again after 2 weeks of translating, constant accompaniment, and love. So I worked on getting everything I needed to do in the city done and head back to my site. I got my mail and did some shopping, then packed all of my clean clothes in my bag and went back to site.

Thankfully I had a short trip with some of my friends that weekend to help transition me from family & America to alone & Ecuador. Now, things are more of less back to normal. I’m getting back into work and trying to keep myself busy. I have enjoyed having alone time again, as that is what I’m used to, but it was so great to have Kevin and my parents here visiting me. I also was very happy that we had planned the trip as we did, so that I got to spend some time alone with both of my parents. And I am soo happy Kevin was able to come visit too. He got to see my site AND the Amazon – what a trip =) Now that I’m 13 months into my 24 months of service, Christmas doesn’t seem so far away. I will be happy to be reunited with America for sure! But until then, my Ecuador it is =)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051278&id=46900557&l=18347f5895
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051284&id=46900557&l=3783ef2076

Here are links to the two photo albums I have on facebook, which I have set to public so that you should be able to follow this link to see them. Lots of pictures but we did lots of stuff! Well, wrote for over 3 hours this time… Long post! Until another day…

“Anything to get more of this feeling
You take the high I’ll take the low
We’ll get there before you know
We ain't got no time to waste
We got too much life to taste”
“40 Dogs” by Bob Schneider

First, Happy Father’s Day to all of the fathers, uncles, and grandpas out there, but especially to my grandpa, uncle john and uncle time, and the best dad in the world =) Love you E&B.

Another big event recently happened as well. June 17th was the 1 year anniversary of omnibus 102 landing in Ecuador. It’s so weird thinking back to the process of packing, the night I spent crying and stressed right before leaving for Miami, the orientation in Miami and meeting my future trainees, arriving in Quito and not understanding 3 words the little Ecuadorians were saying to me, moving in with a random family an hour after meeting them, and the whole process of training and getting to know Ecuador and my fellow trainees. Things normalized a little during training, then after those 9 weeks ended, so ended that normalization. We were tossed to our propio sitios, alone, in a new and very different part of the country, lugging 3 bags through Guayaquil praying not to get robbed in this scary big city, then the process of learning the city and so far having good luck in said city (crosses fingers), getting to know my site, host family, and community members, and going through the ups and downs of daily life and work. But I’m still here. And I’m proud of myself and fellow 102ers for making it through 1 year. Congrats! And with the dawn of our 1 year anniversary, now enters a new group of trainees, so congrats and good luck to them as well!


So the thing is, I’ve really pissed off the weather gods somehow, maybe by constantly cursing the heat and random animals/bugs I’ve encountered in my time thusfar in Ecuador, or maybe because by simply joining up with Miley Cyrus’s foundation for the concert (seems more likely right?) but either way, it has almost been confirmed.
April 16, 2010 in the central park: Rain. Concert: Postponed until June, AFTER the rainy season “ends”.
End of April, all of May, first 2 weeks of June: No Rain. Rainy season has been declared “over”
June 18, 2010: As I prep the paint, brushes, snacks for the big mural starting at 8am the next morning what do I hear but splat splat splat on my roof. Well crap, someone is peeing on my roof again? “Haha! You think you’re PAINTING tomorrow” said the weather gods while unleashing a fury of rain, which then continued for 11 hrs. “That’ll show ya…”
June 19, 2010 9:00am big wall on the edge of town: Rain finally stopped and I see blue sky through the clouds! “Woohoo! Let’s paint!!” A couple hours later, the weather gods realized we hadn’t called off the mural. “Wait wait, you’re painting on a bamboo structure 15 feet off the ground? I give you more rain then! HAHA” The rest of the mural: postponed until…?
June 20, 2010 in the whole town: flooding downpours for 3 hours.
June 26, 2010 in the central park: Concert? What do you think?? Results TBA next time I have internet.

As far as work goes, I don’t have a “normal” work schedule, but I guess that means that non-normal is normal, so we’ll say for simplicity that work is normal (but remember that doesn’t really mean “normal”) uhh.. Well, I per usual have had a lot of changes in my work and life here. One of the biggest changes is that we’ve come to an understanding that the youth group “Liceo de Lideres” that I’ve been working with is dissolving. The youth involved have been with the group for 5 years and are all working, in the university in Guayaquil, and/or have wives/families at this point, as well as have lost interest in the group and doing activities. For a lot of my time here it has seemed like pulling teeth to get them to participate in the activities they choose and help plan, and I finally brought it up with a couple of them. They confirmed what I expected, which is that they just aren’t interested anymore and that there’s really no way to re-interest them at this point in their lives. Part of this revelation on my part was when I did a charla with a group of younger youth that are involved in another youth organization and some youth from the Liceo. I saw how active, participatory, and generally interested the younger kids were as opposed to the older ones, and started talking to my host brother about integrating some younger kids into the group. He agreed, and as they have been moving in, we’ve seen the older ones moving out. So So… we have a few activities that we’re finishing up as a “group” (the mural, the concert) then we will be proceeding working with them on an individual basis if they’re still interested. For example, a couple of them are interested in doing the HIV/AIDS education program that we are starting in 2 weeks, and I plan to invite some of the interested ones to help in other projects, but we will no longer be meeting and doing activities as a group. In some ways, this is pretty bad timing as we have a list of projects in place and/or coming up, but I’ve also established myself with other connections and been busy with work so it’s been a lot less stressful on me as far as worrying about keeping the group going. I do wish I had a chance to see the group in action a couple years ago – they’ve done some pretty impressive work and have built a good reputation in town.

As far as other work, as I mentioned I’ve been keeping busy. I’ve made contact with the biggest public colegio in town and started that afterschool English program I’ve been blogging about for the last few months. It isn’t exactly what I envisioned, it’s actually more like a class than a tutoring program. And by that I mean, it’s a class. Tuesdays and Wednesdays from last week until the end of the school year in December, I have class with 2 groups of 20 students that were selected based on low English knowledge/skills from the first 4 years of colegio (aka middle school and freshman year, 12-15 yrs old). We’ve only had one class per group so far, and they went pretty well, but I’m trying to learn quickly since I’ve never had training as a teacher. For example, Thursdays I have a group that is about 50% boys as opposed to the other class that’s about 30% boys. Guess what that means? Assigned seating on Thursday. The first class, the boys that know each other were talking, poking each other, giggling, etc. for the whole class. We’ll see how they like that when I put them on opposite sides of the room. Ha. Also, because it’s a mixed-level class (students from 4 different grades, and within that problem I have kids that know a lot and some that have never paid attention in a single English class), I’m going to have some challenges in normalizing the material so it’s not too hard but still interesting. So I have the 2 classes Tues and Thurs, and I’ve also decided to start an advanced class Wed afternoons for interested students in their last year of colegio to prep them for their college English classes. I’m thinking that class will be much easier and more relaxed. Though their English may not be much better, they’re older and a little more mature, right? I’m also offering a 30 min tutoring session after class with a couple of the students that have never paid attention in an English class as a way to get them up to speed with the group. It’s definitely been a lot of work, but I kinda like getting all prepared for class :) The class is very different from anything their used to here, as I’m doing it more like a liberal-arts college course. We have 4 built-in movie days (which you betcha will be movies with an educational theme!), music, a guest day (aka the week my mom visits in August, surprise mom!), two days of presentations (they’ll be responsible for researching and presenting with groups at the end of the term), and the last day is a fiesta where I’ll make some sort of American goodies to bring so we keep it within the “English class” theme. I also plan to integrate educational topics via mini charlas during class session once I feel the group has enough trust and friendship. Right now, most of the kids don’t really know each other as they’ve been selected from different classes and grades, so it’ll take awhile to develop trust within the group. I’m also having them doing a mandatory private journal at the end of each class so they have 5 mins set aside to reflect on what we’ve learned, what’s going on in life, etc. The idea is that they’ll learn a little about themselves and hopefully at the end of the term they can look back and see what they’re learned and how they’re changed during the course of the next 6 months. They think it’s pretty lame right now, and they may continue thinking that, but I’ll never know if I don’t try right?

Aside from the English classes, as I mentioned before, we’re finishing up the GYSD concert this weekend. Rain or shine, I don’t think we’ll be postponing it again. We’re also starting the Cuanto Sabe? HIV/AIDS youth education program on July 4th (happy birthday USA!) which will continue for 8 weeks. I’ll be pretty much on my own planning that as my host brother (who is running it with me) is gone all day every day except Thurs/Fri/Sat evenings and Sundays. But I’m not too stressed about the charlas themselves, so once we get the manual printed and all that stuff I’ll be golden. Also, as you may remember, we applied for the GetURGoodOn grant (for the concert and world map project) on a whim, and as a backup we went ahead and applied for a Peace Corps Partnership Program grant to do a world map project as well, but we got both. So now, after doing the one world map, we are committed to doing another before Aug 31. As I mentioned, the Liceo has all but disintegrated, leaving me with funds and no youth (first time a PC volunteer has had that problem I bet!). So now that I’ve made contact in the colegio, I’m hoping that we can paint it there with the students. Tomorrow morning I go to talk to the director of the colegio to see what he thinks about the whole idea, but I’m hoping they’ll be game. Otherwise, one of the other colegios or escuelas will surely want to, it’s just a matter of making new contacts to do so (less easy on me).

One final note. I was never very interested in futbol (“soccer” for you North Americans) but here it’s as much a part of life as water and rice. And right now we’re in the midst of the most exciting 31 days in South America – mundial. The mundial or World Cup is the reason for the power shortages in Ecuador. The games start at 6am and go until the afternoon, and when Brazil, Argentina, or Paraguay play, people feign dengue fever to get to stay home from work and school. My host family has 3 tvs in their house, and I kid you not, all three tvs run the soccer games. On a personal note, I’m rooting for the U.S. and Germany heart and soul. And if/when they’re out of the championship, I’ll be switching to a South American country – guess that makes me a follower. And don’t even get me started on the Emelec/Barcelona soccer teams rivalry… but who is #1 in Ecuador? That’s right. And if you don’t know, google it. =)

One of the most important yet nonvital things died today. My blender (second one in 6 months…) kicked the bucket today trying to make me a cream of spinach/green bean/cracked wheat soup. See yesterday I happened to make a mixed veggie soup, with broccoli, celery, onions, and garlic, which I then decided to blend. And it was rica! A little backstory: I was in Guayaquil the other day and the store had fruits and veggies 20% off so I bought tons of veggies (celery, peppers, onions, broccoli, cucumber, spinach, etc) because I haven’t been eating very healthily lately. Ok, so anyway today I decided to do the same thing, but I wanted to make it spinach based and I threw in some beans that are getting old. So what happened? I steamed the veggies and boiled the cracked wheat in milk, let it all sit a few hours, then put the spinach with a sufficient quantity of liquid into the blender. A few seconds in I knew it was having trouble but I gave it some encouragement and thought it would pull through. Nope. I stopped the blender after a few seconds to see what the problem was and when I tried to start it again, it made no noise, no movement, absolutely no effort to convert my veggies into a delicious creamy soup. So instead I have a milky soup with clumps of spinach, floating cracked wheat, and whole green beans (I was going to cut and blend them after the spinach but with the blender broken it just seemed useless so I'm eating them whole) Though the presentation is waaay off, the flavor turned out pretty good, so looks like soup for the my next 5 meals. Just gotta watch out for the whole garlic cloves I steamed thinking theyd be blended into a pulp…

My other culinary choice today is a fruit called Pitahaya, which is yellow and looks kinda spikey, almost like cactusfruit (I think it actually is a type of cactus fruit…). Inside is a clearish jell with little black seeds. The secret about this fruit is that it is a natural laxative. I had bought one when I was living in the sierra but didn’t know what it was and didn’t eat much because the host kids poked at it until it was really gross looking. And I tried one at carnival that another volunteer brought from the amazon region. It has a delious flavor but if you’re not careful you’ll be in the bathroom the next few days. Anyway, I found it when I bought all the veggies the other day so I bought one. I cant remember how much is too much, but it was soo good I ate half of it :/ and I guess I’ll find out. I haven’t had any parasites or stomach infections for awhile, so this will be a good cleansing haha
On a side note, I went back to the school today for the first time with my host mom. 3 minutes in I remembered why I hadn’t been back to the schools. Not only is it a Friday, but I also was unaware that she is teaching the very same class I had my first school experience with. This is the class where I nearly was stabbed with a pencil and a kid was depantsed when they were under my “control”. I’m happy to say moving from the 5th to 6th grade at least a few of the kids have matured… But today I went to help my host mom make abacas with the kids. I had prepared one out of recycled materials, using Styrofoam (from my TV purchase) as the base, sticks as the poles, and 2 liter caps with holes punched in them as the ball thingies. Well only a few of the kids had brought supplies, so I came back and got the mountain of Styrofoam I had in a box to use for crafting or whatever. I got back to the school and chopped them up into pieces for the kids who didn’t have any, making a huge mess of little Styrofoam pieces, which I then cleaned up. The crafting went pretty well but the atmosphere is just too much for me. I need to find some actual regular work, but if I’m going the school route I’m going to go to the high school. I also need to continue preparing the tutoring programs that I’ve planned… ya mismo haha

Continuing the story from the last post…

Okay so they make this extra long paint roller to apply the lacquer, and it is leaving some lines at the edge of the roller, so they decide to use a brush to smooth out the lines, but the problem is that with a 8 ft by 15 ft plane, how do you reach the middle parts without touching the board? Just fyi I highly recommend looking up the pictures (and soon to be a video posted as well) I have on facebook of this process because I cant do it justice describing it in words. So first they get my hammock hanging lines and try to tie Leo, one of the jovenes so that he can be supported to lean out over the boards to reach. But that doesn’t work, so theyre like oh here use a belt. Well I ended up giving them one of my cloth belts to use instead of the leather one one of the jovenes had. So he ties the belt around his waist and 2 of the other jovenes hold the belt while Leo leans over the map to reach the center. I’m sure you’re thinking that there are many many ways this could go wrong, I was too at the time. scenario 1: his feet (the pivot point) slip on my tile floor and he faceplants on the wet lacquer. Scenario 2: they can’t hold him and again, he faceplants on the wet lacquer. Scenario 3: the belt isn’t secure enough to hold his weight, he faceplants on the wet lacquer. Or scenario 4: it actually works. Well I was sitting there taking pictures the whole time, and laughing at them (it was one of the most amusing things I have seen here in Ecuador) and one time they were laughing and having a hard time holding him and I thought scenario 2 was a sure thing. His nose was about an inch from the map and he was flailing his arms, but one of the other jovenes stepped in and helped hoist him up. So it worked! But they were just having too much fun so they kept doing it again and again, which increased when another 8 jovenes showed up, this time just recreating for fun rather than function. Somehow though, they got the lacquer painted, albeit that they weren’t done until 1:30am Friday night, 8 hours before the event was to start! So I went to bed, slept terribly, and woke up with a headache from the smell of the lacquer in my house.

And wouldn’t you believe it, when I woke up at 7 Saturday morning we didn’t have power!! We hadn’t had a power outage in months and months, but of course. I figured it would only last an hour or so, so I just got dressed and decided to come home to shower later before the event actually started. So we started preparing for the event. First, we went to the park with the big tent (protection from the sun etc) and the jovenes set that up. Ok, and I kid you not, there were men in the park cutting down trees. They were taking huge branches off the trees, apparently cleaning up the park. It was unbelievable! We had filed a permit to use the park for the day, so we essentially had right of way, but they were like, yah we don’t care we have to trim the trees. But we stayed out of their way and just got covered with sawdust…

A couple other volunteers from Guayaquil came out for the event, so I met up with them in a park and they set up the booth from VIHDA, and organization based out of Guayaquil that works in HIV/AIDS prevention. I was really happy that they were able to come out to my site for the open house, plus it was good publicity for them since I live so close to the city and most people go to the city for testing and treatment. But so far, no other organizations had shown up – thank you hora ecuatoriana. And still no power. Then I came back to my house hoping to be able to shower (without power, I don’t have water) so we hung out here for a few minutes before heading back to the park. Still no power. Once at the park, we needed to go get the tshirts. One of the jovenes that works there had told me the night before that the shirts were all done, no worries we could come as early as 8am to pick them up. So one of the jovenes took me to the tshirt place, and wouldn’t you believe it, they only had 8 of 30 shirts done, with the event starting in half an hour. And it wasn’t just that the logos just needed to be painted on, but no they hadn’t even finished sewing a majority of the shirts. And still no power. So until the power came back, the sewing machines wouldn’t work. But we took the shirts that were ready and went back to the park. I was feeling a bit stressed at this point but having my fellow volunteers here really helped me keep cool. So back at the park, they had put up the 20 by 20 ft tent and several of the organizations had shown up, which was a huge relief. But there still wasn’t power, so the DJ hadn’t shown. Oh, and one of the TV stations from Guayaquil came out to shoot some coverage of the event for the news, so they were there and the press guy introduced me to the newscaster, at which point I introduced him to my host brother as the youth he was going to interview. I wasn’t planning on doing an interview as we’re generally discouraged from it and it made me nervous to be talking in Spanish in front of a camera. But anyway, I then went back to the tshirt place to see how things were going, and they had another 5 ready or something, but still no power. At this point it was maybe 11am and the event had started at 10am, so I was pretty upset with the tshirt people but played it cool. I think if I had let the shirt issue get to me I would have just lost it for the whole day so I just put a smile on my face and went back to the park. The open house was going great at that point. We had a good turnout from the community and each of the booths had information for the community. The groups that participated included: the health center with information on birth control and family planning (very good for the youth to learn about), the consejo cantonal de la ninez y adolescencia with information about children/youth rights, a group from the municipio (local government) that works with youth to develop public speaking and acting skills (there was a 15 yr old doing a beautiful monologue in front of about 100 people in the park), Movimiento Mi Cometa (the organization I work with) with information about their programs for families with children under age 5, Fundacion VIHDA with information on HIV/AIDS, and CAAM with information about agriculture/environmental education and an ecological park that they developed in a small town outside of my site. Then around 11:30 a woman came up to me and said her mom was looking for me for the refreshments. I had worked with an organization in my town to get them to donate a refreshment in exchange for helping them with some workshops with youth in the community, but I hadn’t seen anyone from that organization though they were supposed to be there. But I knew the woman who was preparing the refreshments, so me and one of the jovenes went to her house and picked up 100 hamburgers and 100 juices. She is such a sweet little lady, she had made 100 of everything and made an extra one free of charge specifically for me, which she insisted on watching me taste in front of her (she may have been trying to poison me haha). But we returned to the park with the food and it was like throwing candy at a parade – people were all over it and it was all distributed in minutes. The TV people were waiting for me when I got back though, saying “ok we’re ready to interview you now” so again I pushed one of the jovenes in front of them. They responded by saying “ok we will interview him on the event and how the community collaborated, and then we’ll interview you on the Peace Corps and what you’re doing here in Ecuador” Ok so I was super nervous now because I had tried to avoid him and trying any more would be considered seriously rude, so I had to give in. But the problem was that the volunteer leader for my program (a 3rd year volunteer that works in the office in Quito and travels around to help volunteers in their sites) was at the event taking photos and video footage, and as I said before Peace Corps is a little weird about volunteers talking to the media. So I was afraid of getting in trouble with PC as she was going to have pictures and video of me interviewing with a national TV station. But anyway, my host brother did his interview, then they asked me about my work etc. and I played it super safe, giving the standard response we were taught during training “Peace Corps is an organization that provides technical assistance in countries around the world. The mission of PC is to provide technical support in development, promote the culture and understanding of the US here in Ecuador, and promote the culture and understanding of Ecuador back in the US. PC Ecuador has 4 programs: agriculture, natural resources, community health, and youth and families and I am a volunteer of the youth and families program. I work in my site with jovenes and an organization called Mi Cometa doing community development blah blah blah” but I know I came across as really nervous. I was mostly nervous about getting in trouble with Peace Corps, then secondly about my Spanish. And I kept thinking, man I haven’t even gotten to shower today… Oh, and still no power. Around 12:30 the flow of people slowed down a bit so we decided to end and clean up the open house. At this point the power was back on (yay!!) but the tshirts were still not all finished. And the PCVL from the office wanted to interview me and my host brother about how the event was planned, etc. but I wanted to wait for my tshirt (I had a PC logo put on the sleeve and it looked really awesome). So we finally got the shirt and we did the interview, then phew it was time to relax briefly before getting ready for the concert that was starting at 6. However it was starting to cloud over and I predicted rain. Everyone told me I should just be positive, which I responded that I was just being realistic...

I came back to my house with one of the volunteers and we relaxed and ate brownies (good stress reliever) for awhile then needed to run to the store, so we went out. Well the jovenes had gone to the park to meet up with the DJ and do sound checks etc. And sure enough, it started pouring. I mean, pouring! It was one of the heaviest downpours I’ve ever seen. The streets instantly flooded, the mototaxis were splashing through 4 inch puddles, and we ran into the store to stay dry. Then I called my host brother to see what was happening at the park and he started explaining that there was a problem, so I said we would just come meet them at the park. By the time we got to the park, it was still raining but the downpour had stopped. But they explained that because the equipment and instruments got wet, they couldn’t be played for a couple of weeks. So unfortunately our backup of having the concert Sunday if it rained Saturday was also out the door. But there was nothing we could do at that point, so we packed up the equipment, cleaned up the park, and planned to reschedule for June when the rains are finally over. We had planned a little afterparty and someone suggested having a mini concert because the band still wanted to play. So I offered up my house (I have a garage door thing that would have worked to put the band inside and the door open with people out under the porch) but we ended up going to my host families house. They gathered up a couple of guitars and a drum set and an amp, and played a “mini concert” but at that point people were more interested in just having the party, so after a few songs they got out a stereo system and put away the instruments. I had prepared a huge pot of spaghetti sauce for the 15 person band that came from Guayaquil so they all came over and I made the noodles. They all ate the spaghetti and brownies, which ended up alllll over my floor haha. We went back to the party for awhile and it was really great getting to hang out with my jovenes – I had been stressed for several weeks and now I could relax and enjoy myself. Then me and the other vol came back to my house to use the bathroom but I sat down in the hammock and she sat in one of the chairs and we both knew it was over, no more party for us. We hung out for awhile then went to sleep. Apparently the party lasted until like 5am but I was so exhausted we were in bed by 12:30 :)

So the event didn’t go as planned, but I am really happy with it. A big part of the event was the collaboration between community organizations. Through the planning meetings we were able to make contacts in the community for collaboration on future projects and develop a network of organizations that work with youth in my site. And the concert is still going to happen, but we’re shooting for mid-june and it won’t be as big of an event because it won’t be happening with the other events for GYSD. We also had talked about painting a mural with the Consejo Cantonal de la Ninez y Adolescencia for GYSD but we ended up pushing that back for May 16th for lack of time April 24-25. But that will for sure still be happening next weekend.

I also worked with another organization to do a leadership workshop with community youth, including the Liceo de Lideres (youth group that I usually work with), some of the youth I tutor in English (their form of payment is to help me with projects/workshops when theyre available since I cant accept payment for the tutoring), and a group of high school students that have been selected as potential leaders. It was really great working with the high school aged kids. They have a very different attitude than the older youth and participate more actively, which was a nice change of pace. It was great getting to meet some of them and I am looking forward to working with them in the future. In addition to the leadership workshop last weekend, I'm collaborating with the same organization to plan another workshop with the same group in July. The cool thing about working with this organization is that they take care of the funding, the logistics (finding a location, providing refreshments, giving me supplies like markers and paper), and they have the means but not the methods to do the workshops. The woman I’ve been working with has so much work that she’s super excited to prepare the logistics and leave the workshops to me. She is required to do these workshops in the community, but I can tell she’s too busy to take interest in doing them personally, so theyre very excited to have me to take charge of that aspect. This is what counterpart organizations often are like so its not terribly unusual for most volunteers, but for me it’s such a refreshing change of pace – having an office etc. But I like the freedoms I have from my counterpart agency and have gotten used to the lack of structure, so for example changing to another counterpart agency that has an office and offers structure would not be my first choice at this point. Plus if I were to work with them they would definitely put me on paper-pushing duty. Much better to maintain the “outside contractor” sort of relationship.

Meanwhile life back home is continuing. The last friends I know in Kappa Delta (and at Wittenberg) will be graduating this year (congrats class of 2010!!) but it will be weird not knowing anyone in the house anymore. And my little brother just finished up his junior year, which seems totally unreal. My fellow 2008 grads, Wittenberg and NKU, are really getting into their grad programs and jobs, getting boyfriends, breaking up with boyfriends, and more shockingly, getting engaged/married like lightening. I just saw a couple pictures of cousins that will always be little kids in my mind, but in reality they’re entering middle school, high school, getting girlfriends/boyfriends, and even graduating from high school this year to start college next year, all of which I will be in Ecuador for. Family friends are getting married, having kids, changing jobs/houses, going to college/grad school. Next week my grandparents are moving from the house they’ve lived in for my whole life to a modern house in a subdivision. My siblings are all doing great things, working, studying and changing the world, one lab experiment/one bed at a time :) My parents have apparently planted a monstrous garden and are busy working and taking care of the insane dog, which I haven’t heard about in awhile, so I guess no news is good news haha. And meanwhile my life here continues. It blows my mind to think that May 17th I will have been in Ecuador for 11 months, in site for almost 9. I feel so comfortable with the friends I have made here and with the tranquilo life/workstyle I have developed, yet thinking about home and how life continues seems surreal. Every once in a while I have an eye opener when I find out someone close to me has made a big life change, marriage, job, school, etc. but otherwise its just easier to not think about it, to live life normally here. I have become comfortable here, not necessarily happy all of the time, but happy enough that I know this is where I belong right now. I have become very satisfied with my site and my work, and though it was tough when I first got here, I truly believe my programming staff put me in the perfect site for me. That’s not saying I don’t dislike aspects of my site (the heat, the bugs, some parts of the culture) but I feel integrated very well into my town. In fact, thinking of leaving Ecuador permanently is very difficult to think of. A lot of volunteers that I have talked to are at the same point as me right now. Many have even talked of extending for a 3rd year, which is something I too am neither considering nor ruling out at this point. Trying to make a decision when we aren’t even halfway through our 2 yrs is impossible, as so much can change in just weeks here. But looking at the number of people who extend statistically, the majority of us will at some point become tired of the culture, tired of the language, tired of the work, tired of the machismo, and ready to return to the states. So I wonder when that point comes, though I assume it is different for everyone. Only time will tell whether I hit that point sooner or later in my service, but it is an interesting concept to reflect about at this point in my service, and something I want to record for myself and you all. There is your deep reflection for the month, hope you enjoyed it :)

Alright, I think I’m all done writing, and I’m sure you are all done reading, so until another day, peace.

So I’m back to the blog after another hiatus, sorry about that :) I was really busy until the weekend of the 24th, then I spent some time just relaxing and getting my life back in order, such as cleaning my filthy house (which was covered in brownies after the dinner party on the 24th) and doing laundry (I had begun buying clothing because everything was dirty). But I’m back now, and though work hasn’t picked back up yet, I’m to the point where it’s time to do something, even though my laundry is once again reaching the top of the laundry hamper (which is actually a cardboard box with a plastic bag in it, but I’m roughing it right?) Now most volunteers would take care of these domestic things during their weekends, but as it turns out, I actually do most of my work on weekends. The jovenes have started back to classes in the universities, so they’re pretty much busy all week, leaving the weekends free. I’m they’re overjoyed by the fact that I take up some of their weekends with my work, but at least for now they participate. So during the week unless I make work for myself, I don’t really have anything that I have to do. Work could include going back to what I was doing, going with the women who work with kids under 5 yrs old in the homes, or I could go back to helping in the schools. The first option doesn’t interest me too much because I don’t feel like I was really helping with anything. It was a great way to meet 150+ families in the community, but as far as productivity, eh... So then there’s the school option. Well I’ve explained how the schools are here, crazy, loud, possibility of getting stabbed with pencils, etc. So in the end the school will be my work week, it’s just a matter of succumbing to my destiny, oh, and getting out of bed at 6am to be ready for school. My host mom has been pressuring me to come help her in her math classes. Side note, her school has changed its format this year, possibly because of the new principal that has taken over. Before, the kids would stay in the classroom and the teacher would rotate. Now, the teachers rotate with some of the classes (under 5th grade I think), and the 6th (which is what my host mom is teaching this year) and 7th have the same teacher in the same classroom all day every day. Actually, I might have that a little mixed up, but the idea is that they’ve changed their system, which can only be a good thing. So anyway, my host mom is back in the government mandated university refresher classes for teachers, and they’ve been doing math for the last couple months. One day I told her I like math and used to tutor in middle school (less relevant) and in college (more relevant) so she got really excited and now I’ve been helping her, and sometimes her colleagues, on their math lessons. I know it has to be really hard to go back and relearn algebra and trigonometry, etc. after not looking at it for a long time, but she is really doing a great job with it. What usually happens is that I read through the problems, get an idea of how to do it, then we work through it step by step. Afterwards, I have her explain it back to me, and we brainstorm ways to make it more concrete and simple for her 6th graders. Then she goes to the university class and usually they get together in groups of 4 and talk about their homework. At which point she explains to her colleagues how to do the problems, then sometimes they have to present the problem to the rest of their class. And sometimes her fellow teachers come to our study sessions to get extra help as well. So I feel really good about tutoring her because not only is she learning, but she is also teaching what she has learned to the other teachers, which then helps put the information into the students’ hands in a more efficient and accurate manner. I feel like it makes a bigger difference than just working with the students directly, and therefore is a better use of my time. Also, my host mom has been getting really great grades in her math class on the exams, which demonstrates that she is actually learning it well enough to replicate on the tests. She is always so excited to tell me how the test went. After the last one she came home and said “I did so good they’ll have to give me 11 out of 10!!” and was super excited. Now I don’t know what grade she actually received, but I would suspect it was pretty high. It’s not foolproof teaching math here though. I have heard that division is taught very differently here, but haven’t figured out how they teach it. What we usually do, is I explain to her how I know how to do it, what I learned in school in the US, then I explain what the goal is (for example dividing 5 by 10 to get ½) and she then does it in the techniques they use here. And sometimes she explains what she did to me, but usually as long as she gets what we’re doing and has her way of doing it, we drop it and move on. But anyway, she has been asking me to come help in her math class, to pull a couple of the struggling kids aside and work one on one with them, which again, I’ve been avoiding the schools, but I will be doing that a few days a week starting this week I think. I also want to get an afterschool tutoring program started on Fridays, but haven’t gotten the initiative to move forward with the plans.

So in preparation for the Global Youth Service Day event we had, I made cookies and brownies for the jovenes to sell to raise money (but we decided to just eat them instead). The jovenes had been asking and asking me to teach them to make chocolate chip cookies, so one day I told them if they wanted to learn to come over to my house because that’s what I was going to make that night. So we had 6 of the jovenes in my house ready to learn. I got out the recipe and walked them through it step by step, translating the directions. Things were going great until we got to “butter”. When I told them ½ a cup, they gasped and gave me dubious looks. Then one of them got out the measuring cup and measured it out, asking me if I was sure that was right. After he filled up to ½ a cup and mixed it into the eggs, etc. they were all grossed out and said they had no idea that’s what cookies are made out of (they ate them all that night though, so I guess they got over it!). The good part of this story though is that because of the cookie making, they decided that they want to learn to make HEALTHY foods so now I have a captive audience to teach about nutrition and cooking. Our first goal is learning to make salads, American style. I have ranch powder, so we’ll make ranch dressing, and make it with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, etc. I also want to teach them some variations on salads, such as making chicken breast for the salads, oil and vinegar dressing, and Mexican taco salads. Then I want to teach them some entrees from the US, and they all really want to learn to make pizza (which I just did the other day, but this time I made a deep dish pizza pie = amazing!!). Plus I know whatever I make they’ll eat, which is a plus :)

Speaking of kitcheny things, I spent an hour and a half defrosting my freezer Saturday night. I have a big 1 door fridge/freezer combo, and I don’t know if it’s because it’s so hot here or what, but the freezers in this country always fill with frost. I’d been ignoring it ignoring it but finally Saturday night it was so frosty that the big door couldn’t close, so I decided it was time to do something about it. I took everything out of the fridge/freezer and hacked away at the ice with a knife, then eventually just put a bucket in the fridge and turned the fan so it was blowing into the freezer (turned out to be just like air conditioning haha!!) and after 3 buckets of icy water and an hr later, it was defrosted. I can’t believe my freezer is so big! It had been so full of ice (literally at least 3 inches on all of the freezer walls) that I didn’t realize how big it was. And I read in our Buen Provecho cookbook that Peace Corps provides us with, that a trick to making defrosting much easier in the future is putting butter all over the coils. So after it was defrosted I buttered my hand and smeared it all over the freezer, inside and out. Hopefully that will help; I guess I’ll know in a few months when it’s all frosty again!

Okay so an update on what happened for Global Youth Service Day (April 24). As you know if you read the last blog, we received a grant from GetURGoodOn (a foundation established by Miley Cyrus) and Youth Service America to hold a weekend of events for GYSD. First we wanted to make an 8 by 15 foot portable world map to be used by the local schools in their educational programming. We started the map 3 weeks before the event which made me a little nervous. But the first day of working on it the jovenes drew the entire thing, grid and all, in 3.5 hours. I was thoroughly impressed, not only with the speediness, but also by the quality. Sure we lost a couple of island countries, but that’s sometime you just have to accept and paint later once the ocean is done. We were planning on starting painting the next day, but the jovenes were unenthusiastic, so we waited until the next weekend. We started painting and I realized it wasn’t going to go as fast as the drawing did, but they painted and painted for about 4 hrs, covering a great deal of 2 of the 3 plywood sheets. Then another day they started the next plywood, and after 4 days of painting, things were looking pretty good. Then the week of the event I started getting nervous. We still needed to finish painting, draw the outline and label the countries, have the wood joined together with hinges, and paint on the protective lacquer. So I did some painting etc by myself in the house, mostly rediscovering all of the islands we had lost in the south pacific and Caribbean. But often when I was painting a couple of the jovenes would come over and join me, so I was rarely alone. The Thursday before the event we took the wood to be joined at a carpentry shop, installing the hinges and cutting off an extra inch we had somehow acquired one of the boards... Then the day before the event we had a huge group of youth came over and we outlined and labeled everything. The night before the event, they started working with the lacquer, but it was a challenge because the brushes were leaving streaks and we were worried about the marker smearing with the oil based lacquer. But after several hours of discussing it, they finally devised a roller taped to a pole that they used to reach all parts of the board....

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Unfortunately I’m almost out of internet so I’m going to post what I have written, but I’m going to continue writing the rest of the story right now so as soon as I have internet again I promise it will be continued!! Love and miss you all!