This past week was an adventure to say the least. It started off by spending the night in the training center so I could get a super early start the next morning for my travels. Well, we left at 5:30 in the morning but turns out my bus didn’t leave until 8 am so I spent some time just chilling in the Quito bus terminal (which is actually a lot like an airport). I arrived in Guayaquil around 4:30 and our group of 4 ACDI/VOCA folks met up with a volunteer that used to live near my site, but now is working with ACDI/VOCA in the Guayaquil office. We took a bus to Milagro and then met with Julio (my ACDI/VOCA support guy) who took us in his truck to all of our sites. I was the last stop, so it was cool to meet everyone else’s family and see all of their towns. I got to my town around 10 that night and was exhausted after the super long day, and was definitely not ready for my super loud and fast talking Costal family. I didn’t really say much, they showed me my room, and I passed out under my mosquito net.
I awoke the next morning bright and early (prob 430 am) to the most loud and obnoxious rooster ever (this rooster is literally the size of a small/medium dog…I do not want to cross paths with it). I tried to go back to sleep but my host mom started making breakfast. The walls of our house are only about 6-7 ft tall and the rest is open air until the metal roof, so I can hear everything that goes on inside the house, and whenever one light is on, the whole house is lit up. When I finally mustered up the courage to leave my room and attempt to speak Costal Spanish (everybody sounds like they are speaking with marbles in their mouths) with my family, I was greeted with a huge plate full of rice and chicken for breakfast at 7 am. I chatted with my family a little and learned all about the large family. The dad, Pepito, works out in the fields growing corn and cacao. The mom, Leonor, is quite eccentric. I have 16 and 9 year old sisters (Angie and Lizbeth), and 13-year-old brother, Vito. Another sister, Patricia (30) lives down the street with her two kids (both older than Lizbeth). They also have a son and daughter living in Quito, a son in Germany, and another son in Switzerland. It’s really hard to keep all the names straight when they are talking about them. In addition to the people in the family, there is a super cute dog (Dana), some pigs and piglets, and chickens. Leonor told me I’ll be killing chickens pretty regularly. Patricia is building a house behind mine so we went and checked out the beginning of construction in the morning. Basically men cut some rebar and wire, tie the rebar and wire together to form columns, put the columns in some holes, and pour concrete on the outside of the columns, not on the inside…interesting. In the holes we found a super cool neon green iguana and some bright frogs. At one point during the morning an old lady neighbor walks by us dragging a string tied around the neck of a four-foot long extremely poisonous snake. Apparently there are a lot of poisonous snakes in the area, Pepito can’t bend one of his pointer fingers because he got bit and had to get the anti-venom shot (He also got bit on the ankle and has a slight limp).
The rest of the day I just walked around the tiny, tiny town. There are two little stores that only sell dry goods, there is an Evangelical church, a half-built Catholic church (they are slowing raising money by hosting bingo-bailes every now and then), a large soccer field, a small black-top soccer field, an old rusted park, a small elementary school, and a small community meeting house. There is also a hostel in the town, don’t ask me why, with a public pool. There is a fairly large river (Chimbo) that runs parallel to my town/road. The scenery is super pretty because I am at the foot of the Andes so I can see the foothills in the distance, but still have a ton of tropical plants. To get fresh food everybody goes into the two bigger towns that are about 5 km away, Cumandá and Bucay. The two towns are separated by the river; the river also separates the provinces Chimborazo and Guayas. Some fresh food comes to us though, as the President of the town owns a dairy farm and drives around selling milk every morning. Also, a large man on a little motorcycle drives around selling fish and shrimp from the cooler strapped to the back of his bike (Keep in mind that I am at least 3 hours from the sea).
Later that night my counterpart, Jefferson, showed up at my house and he basically told me that he didn’t want the responsibility of being my counterpart; and asked why I even needed one since I was only going to be teaching English. I was quite taken aback and didn’t really know how to respond so I just told him I’d talk to him later. The next day I went into the bigger towns to explore with Angie. In the afternoon we walked around my family’s land and picked some limes to make a mojito-like drink, which everyone including the 9-year-old drank. On Sunday morning, after yet another breakfast of rice, the president of the community called inviting me to lunch. I accepted thinking that this would be a good way to get in with the town since my counterpart was being a jerk. Before lunch I went into Bucay to the Sunday market. There were tons and tons of fresh fruits, fresh veggies, freshly butchered hanging meat, live chickens, and all kinds of other stuff. After exploring the market I made my way over to the President’s (Bolivar) house. He doesn’t actually live in Buenos Aires but in Cumandá, which was my first clue to many shady politics/gossip in my little town. Lunch was a little intimidating as I was sat at the head of a table of about ten other people. It turned out to be pretty low key and he just asked me about where I was from, how I liked Ecuador, etc. Everything was going fine until he asked about my degree and found out my interest in water. At this point he comes up with a long list of pricey water things that he wants me to accomplish in my two years. He also says he wants bleachers for the soccer field. As my Spanish is still not the best and I didn’t want to be rude to the Pres I just smiled and said yes if I can find the money I’ll be happy to help with all those things. Later that night, Jefferson showed up at my house and asked what I did that day. I told him I had had lunch with the Pres and that I was invited to the town meeting on Tuesday. He immediately freaked out and asked why I went to lunch with him and that I shouldn’t have been invited to that meeting because it was exclusively for the Community Council. He then went on to say that since he’s my counterpart now he has to go to the meeting and that he is in an awkward position because he wasn’t invited. I’m pretty annoyed with him at this point so I just shrug and say whoops, sorry, I’m going to the meeting anyways. He then tells me that there is a cacao meeting the next afternoon where a guy is going to come and give a charla about organic fertilizer.
So on Monday I awake after having a crazy-pill dream about killing the stupid rooster outside my window, and read in the hammock for most of the morning. Jefferson comes and gets me around 1 to go to the cacao meeting. The meeting was held at his organization’s (APROCAI) building. The building is new and they will use it to dry the cacao and hopefully in the future to make value added products, like chocolate. They also have a really nice little nursery with cacao grafts. Before the meeting they had what they call a minga, basically where people gather together to help accomplish a task. This minga was to clear brush from behind the building so they could construct a drying area. Jefferson would not let me participate and told me to sit and wait for them to be done…frustrating. The meeting was interesting but super long. An Ecuadorian dude came in and talked all about the different macro/microorganisms you need in soil and how his products help with that, and he talked about organic pesticides and other stuff like that. It was super interesting because I’ll be giving charlas like that in the future so it was nice to see how an Ecuadorian does it (Mine will definitely be more organized and you’ll be able to make my fertilizers not buy them). After the meeting Jefferson pulled me aside and sat me down and said we had to talk. I was expecting another pointless, frustrating conversation. But I think he had called and talked with PC so he was much calmer and more accepting to the fact that he was my counterpart in this conversation. He was also more accepting to the fact that I was there for agriculture and not for English classes. He basically asked what I could feasibly do as a volunteer and how much money I could get because he said he needed to introduce me at the town meeting and wanted to make sure the community council got the right impression from the get go. It was nice to know that he was on my side now. When I got back from the meeting some ACDI/VOCA guys were hanging out on my front porch waiting to chat with me. They basically just wanted to know how everything was going and to give me some materials. That night Leonor asked me if I wanted to go listen to the ‘cult.’ She was referring to the Evangelical church. She said that the priest talked about a lot of world issues and not just religion and that they liked to go just to listen. So we went down to the church, got there a little late, got singled out and asked where I was from. The priest then gave me a copy of the New Testament, and then proceeded to give a sermon and said Amen after every other sentence, and people did the whole reach out/hands up gig. It was definitely a pretty radical service. On the walk home a large feed truck came barreling down the road and knocked down some electrical wires right in front of us. There were lots of sparks but everybody was fine.
On Tuesday afternoon, Angie and Lizbeth came into my room asking if I wanted to go to the pool. There was still time before the town meeting so I agreed and went with them. Most people here swim in shorts and a t-shirt so I did this but then my family realized I had a bathing suit on underneath so they forced me to strip down so that not only was I the only one in a bathing suit at the pool but I also was the only pale, pasty white one. After swimming for a while I turn to Leonor and tell her I have to leave for the meeting. At this point everybody looks at each other with the look of ‘oh no, she remembered.’ I ask why they don’t want me to go and they just keep telling me it’s not a big deal and that I don’t need to go. Well I insist that I should go because I told the Pres and my counterpart that I was going. So then my family turns it around saying, ‘Oh ok so you DO want to go.’ I am so confused but keep insisting and finally Leonor gives in. At the meeting there were two municipal government guys, one for trash pick-up and one for a farm census dealing with taxes. Currently the town has no trash pick-up everybody either burns their trash or just throws it where ever they please. Someone in the town took the initiative to call up the municipality and say hey, bring us some trash cans and drive a truck through our town every week to pick up our trash. So that’s promising. After the two government guys gave their talks, the Pres and my counterpart introduced me. Bolivar then proceeded to talk about all the large money projects he wanted to accomplish and we came up with an initial work plan, and that was pretty much the meeting. Afterwards, Jefferson pulls me aside introduces me to another man, Manuel (my co-counterpart), and says that we need to re-do the work plan and write down feasible projects. After we do this he tells me that I have to hide it and can’t show my family. I’m confused and ask why and he says that Leonor and Bolivar are in cahoots with each other and if she sees it she’ll tell Bolivar. This makes no sense to me as she has been complaining about him all week and she didn’t want me to come to the meeting. Jefferson then went on to say that I need to remain neutral, but that I need to call him before I accept any invitation anywhere (e.g. lunch with the Pres). I’m not sure how I’m supposed to remain neutral when I have to ok everything through him? And apparently now I can’t tell my host-family anything? Within a couple of days at site I’m already wrapped up in small town drama. The next two years will be interesting.
The next morning I awoke to a breakfast of fried shrimp at 6:30 am, I got on a bus in Bucay, drove through Riobamba, and back to Quito. A group of us met up that afternoon and exchanged all of our crazy stories/experiences; quite entertaining. The next day we had to present our site and work plan to the PC trainers; it was cool to hear about everybody’s site and what they’ll be doing. Since being back we’ve had more classes, celebrated some birthdays, made some compost (12 people piled in the back of a pickup truck full of organic waste from the Sunday market), and enjoyed the fresh vegetables that my Tumbaco family actually cooks with.
Random Thoughts:
· I ate rice or some type of fried starch at every meal during my site visit. I told Sylvia this and she told me that I’m going to get really fat. She also said that she’ll only give me vegetables for the rest of my time in Tumbaco so I can lose weight before I gain it back.
· Sylvia bleaches my socks because she thinks they need to be super white. The only problem is that half my socks were grey, but apparently she didn’t notice. So she shows me my now white socks with grey stains and is really perplexed about why the ‘stains’ won’t come out. I tried to explain to her that the socks were originally grey but she just wouldn’t believe me, so I gave up and just acted perplexed about the stains as well.
· Most of my family in Buenos Aires doesn’t like to eat vegetables. I tried to convince them that they need to and that they’re healthy for you. Angie’s response was, well I’m skinny already so it doesn’t matter. I tried to explain that one day all the fried dough, cheese, and rice was going to catch up with her, but I think it just got lost in translation.
· I really enjoy the fact that I can walk around in my town and just pick tangerines, bananas, zapote, papaya, or other fruit to eat.
· One night Angie points up to a group of lights in the Andes and says, ‘I’ve never been there but I know that people live up there because I can see the lights.’ It was one of those cool moments that give you Goosebumps.
· I basically have to hitch-hike my way into town. Any car that comes down the street will stop and let people get in the backseat or into the bed of the pickup truck and take them to town for 50¢. To get back to BA I have to wait on a corner in Cumandá until a car someone recognizes drives along…I sat for a little over an hour one day waiting.
· Everyone walks around with machetes.
· People don’t wear all that much clothing here. Most of the time Pepito walks around barefoot in just jeans. The lady who owns the store across the street will sell goods in her towel. A neighbor walked outside one day in his whitie-tighties and a soccer jersey to buy shrimp from the motorcycle man. Leonor ‘gardens’ in her skimpy nightgown with no bra.
· We have mice in the house, which means mice poop in the shower regularly. Also, my family just stomps them to death to deal with the problem.
· I was instructed to only walk in the middle of the street at night because the snakes will come out of the brush and bite my ankles.
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