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! :)