It’s the end of October and I have less than 7 weeks left in the Peace Corps… wow. I can remember getting to Ecuador and while it seems like such a short time ago, but I also feel that it was so long ago because of how much I have changed and adapted since then. So here I am trying to start processing that I’m leaving in a relatively short time. Right now it seems hard to imagine leaving my life here – my work, friends, my host family, and even my house with all the plantain and mango trees I have planted. Of course I’m excited for many things, including seeing long-lost friends and family, hot water, considerably fewer bugs, having my own means of transportation, etc. but it will definitely be a big adjustment. I am planning to take Dali with me now though, so at least I won’t have to deal with leaving her behind. I still have mixed emotions about it, as I think it will be an adjustment for her as she’s never been in weather cooler than 70 degrees and we’ll be arriving in December. And I know she will miss my host family and their dogs. But I also think that she will be happier with me, and if I leave her she will be sad at least for a long time. Plus I worry about her getting hit by a car and not getting the type of care she’s accustomed to (I pamper her a lot). So I don’t know what’s best for her, or if it’s responsible of me to take her with me when I don’t know what I’ll be doing a year from now or where I’ll be (hopefully in grad school somewhere!) …
Well to catch you up on what I’ve been up to since I last posted… I’ve been back in Ecuador since the end of August and have been doing better medically. My stomach has either adjusted more or I’m being more careful (I do think twice about buying just anything off the street now, though I refuse to give up some of my favorite foods) but I haven’t really had stomach problems. I did however cut my hand last week and had to get stitches. I was making dinner for my host brother Joao, as a “thank you” for always helping me and being a good friend, and I made spicy enchiladas. Well, since the host parents were gone that day, the host sister came over too, but she doesn’t like spicy food so I decided to heat up some lasagna for her that I had frozen. The lasagna wasn’t very good because it was dry and lacking sauce, but I had a container of frozen sauce too, so I was just going to add some sauce to make it better. I heated some up and we ate, then Najabi wanted more, so I went to get more lasagna and more sauce out. The way I got the sauce out was using my kitchen knife to scrape it out, like putting the point in the center and twisting it. Well, I had just sharpened my knife that day and the knife slipped and cut through the sauce, the side of the container, and into my palm. I know, pretty stupid and avoidable, and no, I was not drinking (though I had made a Gin and Tonic for me and Joao so he could try it)… It was pretty deep and bleeding a lot, and I ran to the kitchen and washed it off and let the blood drip down the sink. I called for Joao and he came in and told me I was definitely going to need stitches (I was just staring at it at the time) and I told him to bring me my medical kit and cell phone. I used an antiseptic wash to clean it, and then put gauze on it and called the Peace Corps doctor. She told me to go to the ER at the health center in my site, and Joao and I hopped in a moto-taxi and went. There they looked at it, cleaned it, and stitched it up. I almost passed out when they were injecting the anesthetic, as they stick the needle in the wound then poke around inside in about 8 directions injecting the anesthetic. I started sweating profusely, felt nauseous, then very dizzy, and thought it was a reaction to the anesthetic so then panicked more, but I told them I didn’t feel good and they had me lay down and after a few minutes it passed. They put me on a vigorous antibiotic regimen and I had a lot of nausea from the antibiotics for the week I was on them, and they likely killed off whatever natural antibiotics my stomach had regrown, but I’m off them now! Yesterday I went to Guayaquil because the Peace Corps doctor was there doing checkups and stuff, and she took out the stitches. I once again felt sick/dizzy/etc. but it wasn’t as bad as the first time and I didn’t have to lie down. She had a bit of a hard time getting them out because the scissors were big, so my hand is really sore today again. The cut is still pretty open, but dad said not to worry about the scarring and that the important stuff underneath is probably healed. But still I’m trying to immobilize it and have had it wrapped with an ace bandage since last night. So another week and hopefully I’ll be as good as new :) and I’m definitely going to be careful with my knife, and not try to cut through frozen stuff anymore!
I have spent most of my time in the last month and a half studying for the GREs. I had the psychology one the 15th in Quito, so I did all of my medical evaluations then. I got a clean bill of health – no cavities, no parasites, etc. The psychology GRE took me a little by surprise, which is bad considering I did 6 practice tests in preparation. I did a practice test the day before the exam and did pretty well and got a score I would certainly be satisfied with. Then the real test had more lengthy and complex questions and I don’t feel very confident in my score. But I was glad it was over and was completely exhausted. Then the 22nd I had the Revised General GRE test. I’ve focused more on the Psychology GRE than the General one, as the Psychology one clearly requires more specific and detailed knowledge, but spent the last weeks splitting time equally between the two materials. And the night before the exam I stayed at a friend’s house in Guayaquil, who was also taking the test, so we spent the whole day reviewing math and cramming the “top GRE words” list. I feel like the test went okay, except I did very poorly on the writing part. The paper test is more difficult for the writing section because you can’t go back and add things or change order, and also I am much quicker at typing than hand-writing. But I do prefer the paper version of the math and verbal sections, so I guess that balances it out. Anyway, I felt good about the math, ok about the verbal, and bad about the writing. I’ll find out when I get my score in 6 weeks! At least it’s over :)
As far as work goes, I’ve been doing less than usual. The new volunteer has started taking over several of the programs, and I’ve been doing some side projects outside of the high school. I finally found use for all of the children’s books I brought from the states – I started a literacy program in a very small elementary school about 35 minutes outside of my town. A friend is a teacher there, and since I only have a few books I wanted to go to a small school (all of the schools in my town are pretty big). I also have the environmental educational club up and running and they are planning a big event in the colegio to raise awareness and educate their peers. We are going to do a recycling competition between all of the classes and the winner will get their classroom repainted with an environmental mural. They also want to do a used clothing drive to donate to a small town for Christmas. First is the competition, then in December we’ll do the other project. Before I leave I still want to do an Ecuador map in the colegio too, but I’m hoping that will be done in the next few weeks. We’re also planning a big event for World AIDS Day with the health center. I went today and talked to a friend that works there, and she introduced me to the chair of the committee that’s planning the event (or, will be planning the event ya mismo!). We talked about the event and I’m going to participate with the kids from the colegio again this year. We’ll be part of the parade and have an informative stand in the open house in the park, and I’ll probably get the students to dress up like clowns or something fun again. I hope I can get the same youth as last year to participate again – I had a great time with it last year! Then on Friday Dec 2 we’re going to do another event in the high school since the students can’t attend the public event on Thursday. We’re going to have music and little skits and an informational booth. The Centro de salud is going to have several informational booths and also a clinic to do the rapid HIV tests for those that want to. I’m not sure how it will go over with the students, but I’m hoping it will be well received. We’re also going to do an HIV awareness mural either before or the day of the event in the colegio. Then after World AIDS day on Dec 1, I’ll only have another week before I head to Quito to sign my paperwork. After I do my Close of Service I’ll be returning to my site to get Dali, my bags, etc. and flying out of Guayaquil on the 18th. Hard to believe it! I’m excited that I’ll be here for World AIDS Day, as that’s been one of my favorite events over the last 2 years.
Okay, I’m gonna get off here because my hand is really hurting now. And I should do some work stuff or grad school stuff :) I’ll try to write again soon about how the final projects are going and what I’m doing to finish things up here.

So it’s been a really long time since I wrote, and a lot has happened since then. In june I went home for one of my best friends (from college) wedding. I ended up getting stuck in Chicago overnight, but really was only a 8 hr delay and by the time I got to the hotel (an hr from the airport!) and slept 3 hrs I was headed back. I got to Cincy on one of the early morning business flights, completely exhausted but happy to be home. First we went to get breakfast, and then did the dress fitting, then I picked up another one of my best college friends and sorority sisters from the airport, who flew in from Maine for the wedding. She came a few days early to hang out with me :) When we got back to the house it was naptime, then I set about getting my life organized. Luckily I was able to take 2 weeks of home vacation instead of 1 (since I extended my service an extra 4 months). On Friday, the day before the wedding, we drove up to northern Ohio (roadtrip!) stopping by Wittenberg on the way. There I had Mike & Rosy’s (the restaurant I worked at in college) and met up with a couple college friends that are now working at Witt. From Witt to Norwalk it was all country roads but it was great getting to catch up with Natty on the drive. Two years since we’ve seen each other and so much has changed, but when we are together it’s like old times. When we finally got to the hotel, we dropped our stuff off and met up with another sorority sister who had arrived as well, and we all headed to the reception hall to help decorate and hang out. Then we went to bed to rest up for the big day! Since my hair was really short and I was trying to save money (Peace Corps volunteer = broke) I didn’t get my hair and nails done with the other bridesmaids but instead just met up with them to get dressed. Kelsey looked so beautiful in her dress! When the time finally came we loaded up and headed to the wedding, which was by a lake on a college campus. It was so funny we were trying to hide the bride running around outside ducking behind walls until we found a “safe” place to wait for the wedding to start. When the moment came we all walked to the lake and it was soo beautiful. Since I hadn’t been there the day before for the rehearsal the order got a little messed up up front, but it was okay because everyone was looking at Kelsey and Jack, the bride and groom. It was so picturesque and a beautiful sunny, clear skies day for the wedding. It was over pretty fast and we stuck around for pictures, then we headed to the reception. It was very casual and fun, and I couldn’t believe they were finally married (they had been together since high school and I had never known them when they were single). I was so happy I was able to come home for the wedding and be part of their special day. And it was so exciting to get to see so many people from college! Who knows when the next time we’ll all be together will be – who’s getting married next? Haha

The next day we all pretty much just got up and headed home. Natty and I met up with another sorority sister in Cincy that night for pizza, so they could see each other before she flew out the next morning. I had a dull headache that evening but figured it was from not sleeping much the night before. The next morning I dropped her at the airport then went home and went back to sleep. When I woke up I had a terrible headache and later that night, a fever developed. So I figured I’d picked up something at the wedding, and just rested. Well that whole week the fever and headache continued, and I spent most of the week in bed or laying around the house resting. I was still trying to get ready to leave the next Tuesday, so I did some errands and visiting in that time, but the headache at times was so strong that I couldn’t stand up. On Thursday my dad called a doctor friend and he agreed to see me, so I called the Peace Corps Office of Medical Services and got permission to go see him. They did a flu test which came back negative, but the doc said based on the symptoms it probably was the flu (since the tests are only about 70% accurate) and that they couldn’t give me Tamiflu at that point so I’d just have to wait it out. They offered to do more complete testing but I decided to wait and see if I got better. On Saturday I was worse and decided to get some testing done, so PC office approved and they sent in for a full workup (Malaria, Dengue, flu, blood panels, various stool tests, etc.) and I got that done Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon the doc called and said I was positive for giardia, a protozoa in stool, so I did the treatment for that. Then Sunday he called again and said I was positive for Epstein-Barr virus, aka mononucleosis, which is likely what had been causing the fever, headache, etc. So I checked with Peace Corps and they decided to put me on Medical Hold, which basically means that I’m in the states until further notice (maximum of 45 days) without terminating me status as a Volunteer and without having to use more vacation days. Later that week the doc called again to say I was also positive for E. Coli, and put me on antibiotics for that. Though I originally didn’t present with swollen tonsils or sore throat, by Thursday I hadn’t slept in 2 days, could no longer swallow without excruciating pain, and my tonsils were so swollen and puss-covered it was unbearable to even talk, so I was writing to communicate. Unfortunately I still had to take antibiotics for the E.Coli treatment. But since I wasn’t able to eat anything but small quantities of broth and ice, both of which were painful, the antibiotics were making me very nauseated. So it was a nasty cycle, and by Friday morning I was dehydrated and felt like I couldn’t take the pain and nausea anymore. So we got an appointment with another doctor in the same practice (the other was on vacation) and went to see her. After checking me over, she decided to admit me to the hospital, so we headed over and checked in. They ran the IV for rehydrating and to give me the antibiotics, steroids, and pain meds. I was pretty miserable for the first day but the pain meds helped and allowed me to sleep, which helped my mental health at least. At home I felt bad calling for my mom in the middle of the night for ice or pain meds but at the hospital that’s what the nurses were there for so I didn’t feel guilty. The steroids helped the swelling and not having to take the antibiotics orally made me feel better, and little by little I got better. Once I was doing a little better, a few friends came to visit, as well as a couple of people from church and of course my parents, and I was lucky to have my best friend from high school working nights (she’s a RN) on the floor below mine so I got to see her lots! Then finally 4 days in the hospital (and on July 4th!) the doctor decided to send me home to finish the recovery. I spent a few days in bed recovering, sleeping pretty much 14-16 hrs a day. That was the most tired I have been I think, but then by that weekend I was feeling a little better and got back to sleeping more like 10 hrs. Mom went to Germany for a couple days, though she wanted to stay I made her go :) Then when she got back, I was there a few more days before I got the medical clearance and came back to Ecuador June 21st.

After I got back to site, I ate something bad and was sick with a 104 fever and diarrhea 4 days after arriving in Ecuador. I was worried about my spleen and/or the mono coming back in full force so I called the Peace Corps doctors and had tests done. They put me on antibiotics and the fever and stomach issues went away pretty much right after I started the antibiotics. The next Monday I went to Quito to help the trainees do a World Map project in the training center in tumbaco. We nearly finished the world map the first day (Tuesday) and I was going to be there until Thursday evening, so we used the leftover supplies to do the first Ecuador map, and one of the trainees had an idea for a mural that we started as well. It was a lot of fun getting to paint for 3 days, getting to know the trainees and see staff. On the last day, Thursday, the trainees had a lunch for their host families, and I ate the food there. Turns out they don’t quite know how to prepare foods yet, and by the time I got back to Quito (I was staying in a hotel overnight) I was feeling really sick and had a lot of diarrhea. I tried eating a little, but after eating nd drinking a Sprite I threw up. Then I threw up again, and when I wasn’t throwing up I had diarrhea. The problem with being sick was that I was flying out at 7am to get back to Guayaquil, then had to take a bus to my site, and had a big event Friday that I needed to be feeling ok for. So I got a couple hrs of sleep, ate some pepto, and went to the airport. It was dangerous – I had to go to the bathroom about every 15 mins even though I hadn’t eaten or drunken anything since about 4pm the night before. But I just went to the bathroom a lot, got to Guayaquil, and used the bathroom then got on a bus, hoping I could make it back to my site. Thankfully at that point I had virtually nothing left in me and made it to my site without having to get off the bus.

Friday we had a big youth concert that I’ve been planning with a youth group for the last 4 months, so I went to sleep for 2 hours then got up and had to get to work. I just drank Pedialyte and thankfully it seemed that the food poisoning had all been cleared out so I made it through the event without problems. The event was really fun, and though of course not everything worked out to plan, we had a great turnout and the bands that performed did really well. We had a break-dance/hip-hip group and a theater from Guayaquil, a dance group from Pedro Carbo, a folkloric music group, and a fairly well-known Christian group from Pedro Carbo (my host brother Jair’s group). We also had invited 3 other groups but they didn’t end up performing, but it worked out just fine in the end. I was very happy with the event, especially considering I hadn’t been here to do anything for the last 2 months haha.

Though I had just been home, I ended up going home last Friday for my grandpa’s funeral. He had been sick and doing very poorly for the last few weeks, and passed away August 17th in the morning. It was very hard for me to be here while it was all happening back home, especially when my parents called to tell me that he wasn’t going to recover and likely would be passing within a couple days. I wrote him a letter the day before he died, and thanks to my parents was able to go home for the funeral. The visitation, church service and burial were all packed with friends, family, and loved ones. His sisters all came, some from as far as California, Chicago, and Florida. And though Kevin had just gotten to Texas (for grad school in Austin) he also flew home. Ryan and Jenn and Ang all drove up too, so it was great getting to be all together again. And I know having everyone together made it easier. But these things are never easy, and I know it would have been much harder if I couldn’t have gone home. Grandpa was a great, loving, strong man and he will be missed by all.


Now I’m back in my site again, and have to get work “restarted”. The new volunteer who is replacing me is here now, so after 2 years as the only American, that will be an adjustment for me. And since I’ve basically been gone since June I’m going to have to restart all of my work – boo! Dali was very happy to see me again, and after giving her a bath today I got some pictures of her. She’s so cute :) Ok well I’m gonna sign off – hasta luego!

So it’s been an embarrassingly long time since I posted anything on here.. Sorry. To be fair, I checked on here a few times and no one had commented about my absence, so I figured maybe no one was reading it anyway. Also, I’ve been journaling by hand every couple days, so that makes me feel like I don’t want to post on here… But alas, I’m back to talk about what I’ve been up to the last… 3 months :)
Soooo since February, I had a stressful time off work, in which I was bored, thinking about home, and getting increasingly frustrated with things here. But since I started back to work in April I’ve been feeling pretty good.
So, catch you up on work really quick. I’m doing 2 afterschool English courses, one with the kids from last year and one with new kids. The new kids are in their last year or 2 of high school (so juniors/seniors) and this year they’re from a very diverse range of classes. I have kids from all of the specialties (chemistry, mechanics, accounting, social sciences, etc.) and they were selected based on their interest in learning English (hopefully making the class more stable as far as week to week attendance). Then my Tuesday students are the same from last year, which I combined into 1 class since we only had 18ish that consistently showed last year (plus the seniors who graduated already). And I’ve allowed about 5 of them to bring friends to join the class. They seem like a pretty good group. They did fairly well on the pre-test (an English exam that will be re-administered at the end of the year), so I guess they learned something last year haha.
And in the colegio we’re doing another set of Cuanto Sabes de VIH y SIDA, the HIV education program. This year two of the previous participants (who entered the course as problem youth) are helping us run the course as youth educators since two of last year’s youth educators didn’t have time for the program this year.
Also on Saturday mornings I’m working with the group of “problem” youth from last year, who participated in Cuanto Sabes. We’re doing a youth group, and I selected each of them to help me plan activities for one meeting, and themes for each meeting, such as “leadership” “teamwork” “sexual education” “family planning” “communication” etc. I think we’re going to go to the town’s pool one day too, as that was their request. I guess I’ll find a way to work that into our curriculum :) And since there’s only about 10 of them in the group, they’re supposed to invite one other participant to come to our meeting on Saturday, so we’ll see how that goes! I’m looking forward to working with them – they’re a really fun group.
Other than that, I’m trying to get a couple more programs running in the colegio. One is a escuela para padres (school for parents) in which I’d do workshops with groups of parents to help improve communication with their youth, or educate them on various themes. I’m hoping to have that up and going in June. The psychologists also asked me to help them work with “problem” students during classtime, so I’m not sure what exactly I’m gonna do with that. After seeing the progress and positive change in the youth I worked with last year, they apparently think I can fix any problematic student ha. Also, after doing a big event for Earth Day (see below), one of the teachers presented a project idea to me about doing an environmental education program. After discussing it, I think we’re going to train youth on environmental education and use them as peer educators within the school. And if that goes well, we are planning to expand the program to the other schools in town. In addition to workshops, we’re gonna paint murals and make materials for future workshops. So funding of course is always a question, but after talking to my program manager last week, it looks like that won’t be much of an issue :) So in the next couple days I need to sit down with the teacher and we can start making real plans and apply for the funding.
So the Earth Day event in April was something I thought of on a whim, then wrote it up and went to the high school to talk to them about it. Then of course everything fell into place, more or less ha. It was all art-related, with different activities. First, we went around and announced that we were having a school wide art competition and that the 5 winning designs would be used in a mural, matted and hung in the rectors office, and the winners would receive a secret surprise (yes, it was a secret even to me until the week of the event ha!). So the Wednesday before Earth Day I had to prime the wall so we could do the mural Thursday, then went to collect the designs and we ended up with 264, which was a huge surprise. Granted, there are nearly 2000 students, so statistically it wasn’t a huge percentage, but I was just hoping for 100! That night I stayed up until 3am going through the designs and finally selected the 5 winners. Then I and created a unified design incorporating the 5 designs. The next day was the planned assembly, where we would talk about the meaning behind Earth Day, explain what Global Youth Service Day is, and present the 5 winning designs. Buuut as is my luck, it rained the whole night and whole morning. So we postponed that. But by 10 the sun was up so we started doing the mural. I and the art teacher drew the design on the wall and started getting kids out of her class in small groups to paint. We painted all the way through 5pm that day, and some of the kids wanted to come back the next day, so we headed back Friday morning at 8am to start again (the school was on holiday that day for something). After another full day, we had more or less finished. The only thing left was doing some outlining and touching up the details (which I decided I was just gonna do myself to ensure good results…). I planned on going in on Saturday or Sunday, but after working the whole morning Saturday in the Cuanto Sabes and youth group programs, decided to rest and instead went in Monday. Finally, it was clear skies in the morning so we had the assembly and presented the winners. It was cool because the winners ended up being from different grades, so we had a diverse group. We gave them certificates and took photos with their matted designs, and planned when to have the pizza party (what I had finally decided would be the prize!). Finally, Thursday we had the pizza party. I made another huuuuuge pizza – enough for 20-25 people (had it cooked in a bakery), a big pan of brownies, soft drinks, chips, etc. We invited the English department (since they’d helped me with so much), the teachers and psychologists that were involved in the planning, the secretaries, and the rector of the colegio. And finally, after nearly 2 weeks of nothing but doing the project, the Earth Day event was over :) I still have to paint on the protective varnish though – oops :) I really enjoyed the event and seeing so many youth involved in the design and painting process, and received a lot of requests from the students for another art competition/mural painting. I told them “ya mismo” ha
Last week I was in Quito for our Close of Service conference, where Peace Corps starts to prepare us for closing our service, finishing projects, telling people goodbye, as well as the possibility very difficult transition back to the states. Back to the high cost of living, back to not having jobs, back to the real life. Most of us will undergo “reverse” culture shock trying to readjust to what used to be our normal lives. It was interesting thinking through all of it and trying to mentally prepare ourselves. However, for me and several of my fellow 102ers (102 was our training group number, so I refer to ourselves as 102ers), that transition will be delayed. I received official news last week that I received my request for an extension of service, meaning I will be staying in Ecuador until December 21, 2011! I will be using that extra time to continue my work with the schools and transition the new volunteer that will be arriving to replace me in August. I see is almost as a second opportunity to do everything I’ve thought about, or wanted to do during my time in Ecuador. For example, I haven’t really done a lot with environmental education and this project idea fell into my lap in April, but that wouldn’t have been a possibility with my extension. It will also make my time back home a little shorter before grad school (hopefully going August 2012). So my new plan is this: get home in December, spend about a month at home getting reacclimated, then start traveling. I want to go see my brother and sister-in-law in Tennessee, spend some time with my sister in Lexington, visit old college friends anywhere from Maine to Baltimore, and spend a month or so in Texas visiting my brother who is moving out there for grad school. And that’s just in the U.S…. I realized recently that my dream to go to India may never happen if I don’t do it before I go to grad school. Sooo, I’m thinking India in April of 2012. Anyone want to join me??? I’m hoping to find some sort of short-term work (volunteer or whatever) so I have some structure, but still able to travel around the country and see the culture, eat the food, who know whatever else. And another volunteer will be in Bangladesh next year, so I may head there to visit her too. I know what you’re thinking. 1, I haven’t even gotten back to the states yet why am I planning to leave already! And 2, isn’t Ecuador enough as far as adventure and exotic life. Well, number one, I’ll likely be spending the rest of my life back in the states. And number two, my answer is that I don’t want to put off this dream and I guess I’m trying to check this off my bucket list. And I figure if I go to grad school, I’m either gonna get funding (crossing my fingers for that one!) or will be tens of thousands of dollars in debt, which I’ll spend the next 5-10 years paying off… so why not go blow my money traveling to Asia and just go MORE into debt when I go to grad school, because let’s be honest, what’s another few thousand dollars of debt to pay back… anyway, I guess my mind can change any moment, but I really feel like this is what I want to do. Ask me in a year and we’ll see ha. Oh, also at the conference we did another oral language proficiency test (like the same we did during training) and I received Advanced High level of Spanish, which I’m very happy with :)
During our trip to Quito we also got to attend the event for the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps (and 49 years in Ecuador). It was a very classy event, and I was glad I brought back my little black cocktail dress when I went home for Christmas! And the highlight of the event for me was that 2 weeks before the event I received a call from the PTO at the office asking me to speak at the event! They wanted me to talk about Ecuadorian youth and touch on some of my experiences working in my site. It was a great honor to be selected, and honestly a huge surprise to me. I told her that had she asked me 2 years ago my answer would have been “definitely not” but after 2 years working and growing in Ecuador, I was happy to do it. And after she had my interest she said “oh, it’s in Spanish in front of approximately 270 guests” – YIKES! But I knew I’d be upset with myself if I turned it down, so I wrote the speech, sent it in, had it edited, etc, and “practiced” (yeah, I only read through it maybe 10 times…). I was really nervous once we got to the event and couldn’t really focus on what everyone before me was saying (I was at the end of the event), but finally it was my turn. I was so nervous I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to walk up to the podium. When I got up there I was shaking but I put my speech in front of me, grabbed ahold of the podium with both hands, and started. I apparently spoke really fast at the beginning, but at some point I looked at my fellow 102ers, and just relaxed. And once I reached the part where I talked about a funny experience working with the “problem” youth in the Cuanto Sabes program, I stopped reading the speech and started telling the story. I’m not sure how Peace Corps felt about me going off of the written speech, but I jumped back in a couple of times to throw in the phrases they had made better from my original speech. And then I finished. It was over before I knew it, and I walked away happy with how it had gone. I’m completely satisfied with it and so glad I put myself out there and accepted the invitation. Then of course we had free wine, so I celebrated :) My host brother Joao also was invited to the event and came up for the evening, so we walked around greeting people and presenting him to the Peace Corps staff. I also was interviewed by a radio program, but she just asked more personal questions (what’s your favorite thing about Ecuador, what brought you here, what foods do you like, what work do you love doing, do you have an Ecuadorian boyfriend, do you want one, etc). Overall the event was really really nice (sushi for appetizer!) and it was so nice that Peace Corps invited my group to attend as part of our Close of Service Conference.
Alright, I’m gonna sign out, but I’ll try to keep this stuff updated more frequently… and if not I’ll be back to the states in June for a week so maybe then!

So lately I’ve had a lot of downtime from work since we’re still in vacations from school, but I guess in 2 weeks we will start doing the planning for the entire next school year so I’ll be doing some prep in the next few weeks. I want to literally plan out what I’m going to be doing in ever session for each program that I’m going to be doing. I’m also starting planning to do another concert this year like we did for Global Youth Service Days last year. We’re looking at doing it in August for International Youth Day instead of Global Youth Service Days since the concert was rained out last time. And in August we would be safe from the rain… Since the youth group that planned the concert last time is no longer together, I’ve approached a group of youth that are currently in the process of getting started up in Pedro Carbo. The couple people I’ve talked to seem to be excited, and the best part is that they have done several fundraising events and have had a lot of success, which will be essential to having a concert without external funding sources. I’m also going help them with some project ideas they have, including doing some youth development workshops and leadership activities. Plus they’ve had a lot of trouble making contacts in the colegio (high school) that I work with so I think I can help some with that. We’re trying to get things planned really early so that we can have a successful event in the end.

Speaking of our event for Global Youth Service Days, we’ve been getting some late results from our concert etc. I got a call from my program manager a few weeks ago that the agency Youth Service America, who founded GYSD, included us in their “toolkit” for planning the event in 2011, as an example for a successful event. We’re in the following document:
http://tools.ysa.org/downloads/gysd/toolkits/introduction.pdf
on page eight of the “Introduction” document if you wanna check it out :) It’s just a short description but it’s pretty awesome that we got international recognition for the event! Also, we had a page and a half description of the event on the Peace Corps Ecuador annual report, which is sent to all volunteers and their Ecuadorian counterparts. Finally, the office of press relations from the embassy came and interviewed me, my host brother (who coordinated the youth group and did most of the planning for the concert), and one of the youth promoters I work with in the HIV/AIDS prevention program in the high school. We have a possibility of being selected to be part of the Peace Corps 50th anniversary/49th anniversary in Ecuador video that Peace Corps Ecuador is putting together and will be showing at a celebration in August. I hope we get selected :) All of this was great for not only my town but for the youth that were involved, and I was pleasantly surprised for the sudden spotlight since it has been almost a year since the event. It also has lit a fire under my butt to get something planned for GYSD (something INDOOR) and also doing another concert here in my site.

The other side project that has occupied a lot of my time for the last few months is a supplemental manual in spanish that I was writing to accompany the World Map Project. The idea is that volunteers can either use the ready-to-use activities in the manual or give the manual directly to the receiving school/agency, with the hope that the maps will be more frequently used and create a sustainable project. Well, after sitting on the idea since September, I started working on it 3 or 4 times a week starting in January, and fiiinally got it finished last week. It turned out to be 64 pages, and though a lot of the content is maps or pictures, I also edited all of the photos and maps so that was a big consumer of my time. I was so glad to have it done! Now I’m just waiting on my program manager to edit it (definitely check my Spanish!) and get it back to me. She seems happy with it from what I’ve heard so far, so I’m hoping it will work well in practice with other volunteers!

Well I don’t have a whole lot more going on. I recently went to a friend’s site near here to visit with her and some other volunteers, and that was a really fun overnight trip! And on Friday I’m going to meet with my program manager to discuss some things and decided to stay with my friend in the city for the night and hang out. I’m taking advantage of having a light work-load and travelling a little. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be able to travel for Carnaval this year since I have Dali. I don’t think my host family will be staying here in my site so they won’t be able to watch her, so I think I’ll be staying home with her. I’m pretty bummed about that since Carnaval was so much fun last year, but what can I do :)

I’ve been taking Dali to jog pretty much every day, for a short distance but I’m feeling healthier and happier. I saw an unflattering picture of myself and decided I want to lose some weight and get back into better shape – I’ve been slacking for too many months! And the exercise keeps Dali sane and me from killing her haha. Plus I gotta get fit for Kelsey’s wedding in June :)

Hope you are all doing well, and I’ll hopefully be updating again soon with more interesting content! hehe

Long Due Update #3: Christmas in Kentucky

Ok I’m going to do several updates as different blog posts to keep the length down, so read back to the previous posts if you want to know what I’ve been doing for the last 3 months :)

Well in December I got to take my first trip back to the U.S. for 3 weeks for Christmas, so I was pretty excited the weeks leading up to my visit. Since I had just gotten my puppy, I was also feeling some mixed emotions as I didn’t really want to leave her. But I knew she would be my motivation to return after 3 weeks :)
So I was set to fly out the 8th of Dec in the morning and arrive at home around 11:30pm the same day. Since I had to leave Guayaquil pretty early in the morning I planned to stay in a hotel in Guayaquil. I also found out another volunteer would be leaving on the same flight to Miami so I invited her to stay at the hotel too. And a couple of Guayaquil volunteers also joined us since the hotel is so nice :) Well my host family decided they would drive me to Guayaquil on the 7th so we set out with the host parents, the host sister, the host dog (Max) and my puppy Dali. The plan was to leave Dali at the host grandmas house in Guayaquil but turns out those dogs didn’t like Dali, so we ended up taking her in the car to go to the hotel. But we took a detour because my host family wanted to buy a few things for my family, so we went to the artisanal market. And I found out Dali gets carsick, as she vomited all over the towel I had brought for her. So when we got to the hotel I felt even worse because not only was I telling my puppy goodbye for 3 weeks, but she was feeling really crappy from the car ride. But alas I told her and my host family goodbye for now anyway. That evening we went to a mall and hung out with my host brother for awhile before heading to the hotel and getting to bed.
The next day we headed for the airport in time for our flight, but I was having some stomach trouble so I spent much of the airport time in the bathroom haha. Our flight was late but finally we boarded and took off. 4 hours and some intense turbulence later, we landed in Miami on US soil. It was pretty surreal! We had arrived in Miami about 45 minutes late, and my connection was pretty tight, but I thought I could still make it. Of course we had to go through customs still though, and for some reason our baggage got caught up and didn’t come out for almost an hour, so I assumed I wasn’t making my connection. I ran through customs and talke to the lady in charge but she told me my flight was closed so I would have to reschedule. I was pretty upset, as were many other passengers, but I got into the rebooking line trying not to cry that I might not get home until the next day. To my luck, the lady said there was a direct flight to Cincinnati (I was supposed to go through Chicago) that would get me in 30 minutes later than my original flight :) So I found a pay phone (did you know it costs $1.00 to make a 5 minute phone call on a pay phone?? WOW) and called my mom to tell her about the flight change. After several hours in Miami, I finally boarded to Cincinnati, and though the flight was a little late taking off, arrived around midnight. I was so happy to see my parents waiting for me at the airport! We said our hellos and hugged then loaded up the car and headed home.
It was so nice to be home, and sooo comfortable. I was impressed by having climate control, hot water, good ethnic foods, toilets you can throw the TP in, a comfy bed, carpet in the house, etc. etc. etc. There are too many things to name really. Then there was seeing my friends, family, pets, etc. I’m just going to give a rundown of more or less what I did, because since the people who read my blog are from the U.S., and I saw a lot of you, I don’t feel like writing too much hehe
I hung out with my best friend from high school before anyone else, and we went to Panera for lunch (yumm!) then out to target, where I promptly bought all of the Glee CDs hehe. It was great to see her and amazing to see how much she’s grown up since I left :) Then the first weekend back was my roommate from college’s wedding, and even though we were expecting a huge snow storm, one of my BFFs from college decided to come to Cincinnati anyway. She got to my house the night before the wedding so we got to talk and catch up. Saturday we went and got skyline (actually Gold Star because the Skyline had closed) and drove to the wedding, where we got to see other friends from college. The wedding was pretty and it was great seeing people I hadn’t seen in years! Then we checked into the hotel and got ready for the reception, which thankfully a shuttle was taking us to and from. The reception was really pretty and I was soooo excited to have GOOD beer available. I enjoyed several different types of beer with the company of my old friends and it was overall a great night. Plus my old roomie looked amazing! After the reception we went back to the hotel and hung out at the hotel bar before heading to bed. The next day we all went our separate ways
During my trip home I had a few doctors appointments, went to the school that we have a pen pal program with and talked to them about Ecuador/Peace Corps, went out to eat with my family, and visited with friends and family a lot. Plus for Christmas Eve I was able to see the extended family and have Christmas morning with my family at my parents house. There were lots of dogs there this year, which was pretty intense but fun/funny. Dali would have fit right in! Christmas is definitely my favorite holiday and I really enjoyed being home. I got everything I wanted for Christmas this year :)
I haven’t written a blog post that does justice to my trip back home, but I think I’m done writing for today. All you really need to know is that I had a great time seeing friends and family, and will be excited to go back when I finish my service. I miss everyone a lot but am glad I was able to see people. :) And for now, I'm back in Ecuador, but have great memories of home to look back on for the next months as I finish my Peace Corps service.

Long Due Update #2: World AIDS Day

Ok I’m going to do several updates as different blog posts to keep the length down, so read back to the previous posts if you want to know what I’ve been doing for the last 3 months :)

So my big final event before heading back to the states in December for Christmas was organizing World AIDS Day within the high school that I work with. The Cuanto Sabes youth HIV education program lasted through the end of November, with the graduation celebration the first weekend of December. Sidetrack for a moment: The program was such a great experience for me. The youth that taught their peers about HIV/AIDS demonstrated a great change throughout the duration of the program, from being very timid the first day to pulling of pretty complicated activities with confidence by the end. And the “indisciplined” youth that participated in the program were nightmares at the beginning but by the end they were so great. In reality we only planned to have 6 sessions but the last week they argued with me, claiming I told them we would have one more week. I was so impressed by their desire to continue (giving up their Saturdays by the way) that I agreed we could meet one more week. We ended up using that week to have a graduation celebration. I know these kids usually don’t get the opportunity to show their talents and be reinforced for good positive behaviors, so I decided to make a really big deal out of it. I made invitations and told the kids they had to invite their parents, and could invite friends or other relatives if they wanted. With the youth promoters, we planned who would bring what refreshments, and I promised them I’d make American style sweets, like chocolate chip cookies and brownies. The day of the event came and some of the kids showed up alone, but many brought a friend, a boyfriend/girlfriend, a parents, or a sibling. We played musical chairs then the teacher that helped organize the program said a few words. I also noticed the principal was there that day so I asked him if he would say a few words. Finally, I told the kids and parents how proud I was of the accomplishments the group had achieved, and gave each of them certificates for completing the program. The youth told me they want to do a program with me again the next year, which I intend to do. Finally we took a group picture and sent them home. Overall I feel like I learned a lot about these kids and how youth here think, and think I was able to reach and teach them through the duration of the program. I would say it has been one of my best experiences thusfar in Peace Corps.
(Photo of the Cuanto Sabes Graduation group)



For World AIDS Day (Dec 1) myself and my Cuanto Sabes group participated in the community-wide events, from the parade to the open house in the park. During our Cuanto Sabes program when we were talking about goals and the future, one of the boys mentioned that he was a professional clown for a couple years with his father, who is also a clown. He talked about decided to go back to school instead of pursuing clowning long-term, but that he liked entertaining people and making them laugh. So when I was thinking about what we should do for World AIDS Day, I realized I had some great talent available. I selected 8 of the youth who had regularly attended and participated in the Cuanto Sabes program and asked them to help out for World AIDS Day. With the high school I coordinated our participation and got permission for the youth to miss class that day. As far as our participation, I asked 4 of the boys to dress up as clowns, so we could present our message in a more fun way. During the parade they were hilarious! They were doing all sorts of clown stuff, from making human pyramids to doing the clown motorcycle skit, etc. I made a roulette board for community members to play a game and receive one of 3 prizes: condom, candy, or toy. I also had balloons to make balloon animals, and taught all of the youth how to make giraffes, dogs, and a couple other easy animals (which I myself learned how to make the night before via internet – thank you youtube!). So the clowns ran around being goofy, handing out balloon animals to the kids, and getting the adults and youth to play the World AIDS Day roulette.
The parade ended in the central park, where we were going to have an open house with other organizations from the community, including the maternity clinic, health center, etc. I had asked the health center for condoms to give away at our stand, so we had about 400 condoms to give to community member. I had asked the youth promoters to come and help by doing condom demonstrations and talk about the important topics like transmission of HIV. So they were doing a great job with that. And the clowns surprised me by also doing some condom demonstrations (correctly!) with some of their friends and other youth they knew. They did an excellent job! And 2 of the youth promoters even went on stage and demonstrated how to use a condom in front of the entire crowd – I couldn’t believe that these were the same youth who could barely speak in front of their peers the first day of the workshops! At the end of the event we were out of everything – condoms, candy, toys, and balloon animals. The balloon animals were a huge hit, as most people had never seen anything like it before.
The end results of World AIDS Day were that the youth demonstrated to their peers that being informed and preventative can save your life, which is ultimately the most effective way of youth education; that these “indisciplined” youth got to have an opportunity to shine and gain self-confidence in a positive manner; the high school saw that these kids aren’t lost causes, that they had a great amount of potential even though they require some extra effort; and I saw that even though I had worked with these youth for 6 weeks, I was still underestimating them and their abilities. It was an amazing, albeit stressful for me, day. And so that each and every one of the youth remembers that day and the potential they have, I printed copies of our group photo for each of them.

Photos of the World AIDS Day Activities

Long Due Update #1: My Puppy!

Ok I’m going to do several updates as different blog posts to keep the length down, so read back to the previous posts if you want to know what I’ve been doing for the last 3 months :)

Well it’s been a looong time since I updated my blog (sorry!) but I’m getting to it now finally :) So the last time I update was… November, right after I got my puppy. Yikes! Weelll my puppy is much bigger now than when I first got her. We went to a *real* vet about 5 weeks ago and had her checked over, and she’s in good health, and today we have to go get another round of puppy vaccines, and I’m excited to see how much she weighs now. She weighed 15.7 pounds before and I’m betting she’s around 20 now. I got her better dog food (Pedigree) since the last vet visit and she loves it, plus it supposedly is much healthier for her, so she’s gotten bigger without getting fatter. She’s definitely bigger than max now, has lots of energy and is very happy.
Last weekend we went to Puerto Lopez, a nearby beach, with another volunteer, and I decided to take Dali to see what she thought of the beach. She loooooved it! The getting there part was pretty difficult and she vomited (again!) in my host family’s car, but did okay in the buses. Once we got to the beach she was just so relaxed and happy! She really enjoys digging in sand now (there’s some sand outside my house and she’s always making holes), so she loved having so much sand to play with. And at one point I took her on a little jog along the beach and made her run into the water a little. She was surprised and she doesn’t like getting wet, but in the end she was running into the water by herself some :) There weren’t a lot of dogs so I let her run free some, and the dogs she did encounter were very playful. She also played some fetch and just enjoyed lying round and exploring. After awhile I decided to get into the water all the way to swim some, and she came to the water’s edge with me. She started to follow me but didn’t want to get too wet so she would run in and when the waves came in she ran back out. But she started getting very distressed as I went further out and decided to follow me, so she started jumping high above the waves and following me in. Then a big wave came and knocked her down, rolling her over, so I ran over and picked her up – she was pretty panicked haha. But that didn’t keep her away from the water, so I think she really did enjoy it :) The next day she again got in the water and ran along the surf, just so happy and free. It was hard taking her away from the beach since I could tell how happy she was there!
Since we’ve been back she’s back to her normal self – a lot of attention seeking behaviors, lots of barking, etc. but we’ve had several “playdates” with a neighbor dog that have kept her entertained. There’s a puppy about 3 months older than her that lives a few houses down, and previously said puppy was always tied up in the front of their house, but now the owners decided it’s big enough to run on its own, so they’ve let it loose. It always wanted to play with Dali before and I usually stopped to pet it, so one day it came to my house and I decided to let it into the yard to play with Dali. At first Dali wasn’t happy with another dog coming into her territory but it didn’t take long for her to be excited and play. The puppy stayed for about 3 hours that day, they chased and wrestled until they were both exhausted. Then it came back a couple days later and only stayed a short time (they were getting on my nerves). Dali is the dominant one, even though the older puppy is significantly bigger than her, and the other puppy is afraid of her. So when Dali got too aggressive in their playing, the other puppy would run and get under my legs, no matter if I was cooking or working or whatever, so I got annoyed and decided I’d had enough for the day. But it’s a sweet puppy and Dali loves having another dog to play with since Max doesn’t play at all.
Here’s a newer picture of my baby for you all to see how much bigger she is!

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