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All right so here is the super long update of what I have been up to the past couple of months…

I left site for a long weekend and went to Tena in the Amazon for Thanksgiving.  I left early Thursday morning and got there late afternoon, just in time to check into the hostel and then head out to Thanksgiving dinner.  We ended up having dinner at a TexMex restaurant owned by a German, where the majority of the dishes were Italian and I ordered pizza…so much for actual Thanksgiving food.  It was super nice though because we had a group of about twelve volunteers and we gave toasts and enjoyed each other’s company.  After dinner we went to a karaoke bar and belted out some classic American tunes, annoying many Ecuadorians in the process…whoops.

The next morning a Tena PCV took us to a town where he is working on tourism with a Kichwa community.  We went to the sandy shores of the Tena River and were greeted by a troop of capuchin monkeys hanging in the trees.  Earlier, we had a made a stop to the market where I bought two mangoes.  As soon as I stepped foot on the beach, the most aggressive, angry looking monkey proceeded to climb up my leg to try and steal my mangoes…I was terrified.  Somehow he got distracted though and I quickly ran away and hid my mangoes.  After, we steered clear of that guy, and proceeded to feed the nice looking monkeys ciruelas (little plums).  They were too scared to come down on the ground to get the ciruelas so they would hang by their tails and reach as far as their little bodies would allow to very gently pluck the fruit from our hands.  Afterwards, we boarded a canoe equipped with a motor for a trip down river to the community´s museum/park.  We took a tour through a medicinal garden where our guide told us about the cultural uses for each plant.  We then made our way inside a hut where we saw the traditional dress of the Kichwa and our guide sang to us using a stick and a turtle shell as instruments.  After a few more handicrafts, our guide showed us the different types of traps used to catch an array of jungle animals; they were terrifyingly precise.  After the hut we were led through a zoo of sorts.  They had two ocelots, some macaws and parrots, an awful looking turtle, a boar, a caiman, and a capybara.  The ocelots were super cute and in a not very secure cage, so I walked right up and gave them a little pet.  The boar and capybara were surprisingly friendly as well.  As we were leaving the site, we ran into the community monkey…Lucas.  He immediately saw my mangoes, climbed up my leg, ripped one out of the bag, and began to eat.  Of course this was my opportune moment to bond with a monkey, so I sat down next to him and ate my other mango.  After, we were instantly friends and he began to climb all over me, he even checked my hair for bugs.  As the photo shoot and bonding time with Lucas was coming to an end, I realized that he was getting ready to poop on my shoulder right where he was perched.  I was able to ninja out of poop on the shoulder, but in the process I got peed on.  Thus, I had to ride back to Tena on the bus with monkey pee on my shoulder.  I was later told, however, that monkeys pee on things when they fall in love…that´s right, a monkey fell in love with me in the Amazon.  That night we went to one of the fanciest restaurants in Tena where were told we could order steak and eat it in the presence of a sloth that moseyed around the restaurant.  Well, the sloth never showed up, but I had a delicious meal of filet mignon, chicken Cesar salad, baked potato, and steamed vegetables for the price of $7.25…awesome.

The next day we took a bus about a half hour out of town to visit Jumandy´s caves.  We met up with a guide, were handed headlamps, and entered the caves.  We trekked through the darkness, climbing over rocks, squeezing through small passageways, and emerged in a large cave with the sound of rushing water.  Our guide told us that we were going swimming.  I started wading into the water, when all of a sudden it dropped off and I was in a super deep pool, inside a cave, in the Amazon jungle…too cool.  We got to the other side where there was a waterfall, and some rock ledges to jump off.  We definitely had a lot of trust in the guide, because we all blindly jumped off the rock ledges into what we were told was a deep enough pool.  After, we climbed through some more tunnels and emerged in the mud room and were told to take off our shoes, strip down to our bathing suits, and get in the mud.  The guide then covered us in mud from head to toe in the mineral rich mud that supposedly can cure cancer and other such illnesses.  After we were all covered head to toe, we entered another room to roll around in some more mud.  To get into this room, we had to wade through waist deep mud and then slid through a canyon type place by supporting our body weight with our feet and back against opposite sides of the wall…quite difficult and definitely a little dangerous when you are slick with mud.  After we rolled around in the mud, sin vergüenza, we left as much of it as we could in the room and made our way out to another set of waterfalls.  Under each jet of water, there were deep holes in the rock formed over thousands of years.  There was one that was just wide enough for a person and you could actually propel yourself down through the tunnel of water by hand-walking down the rock.  I eventually reached the bottom (probably about 8 or 9 feet) and shot myself up out of the tunnel and out of breath…definitely a little claustrophobic but definitely exhilarating.  We walked a little further and were greeted with a downpour of water that I thought was another waterfall, but we had actually reached the outside of the cave and had to run back to the park in the rain.  All in all it was a great time.  After the caves we went into the nearby town to eat lunch.  We had a traditional lunch of maitos, chontocuros, and guayusa tea.  The maito is a leaf that they steam local river fish in, the chontocuros are the grub of a large beetle that are fried and served in a maito leaf, and the guayusa is a native leaf with lots of caffeine and super tasty to make tea.  The fish was perfectly steamed and extremely tasty and the grubs were kind of chewy but had a bacon flavor so they weren’t too bad.  After lunch we headed back into Tena, walked around for a bit and rested, then ate some pizza for dinner, and finished the night by sharing a bottle of rum in the park along the river.  The trip was a success and a great way to spend the Thanksgiving weekend.

I left Tena on Sunday to head into Quito for a workshop on ´Food Security´ and ´Food Sovereignty´.  PC Ecuador had to cut a program because of funding stuff, so now Agriculture is a part Health under the term Food Security.  The workshop was interesting because I learned a lot about the nutritional needs here in Ecuador and it will be easy to fit classes in with the garden project.  Although I will still be doing all the same things in site, I now have a new buzz word for development work as my title.  After the workshop a group of us went to another volunteer´s site for a night and broke out a jumble of instruments and had a nice little Christmas sing-a-long.

I was back in site for a week, and had some meetings.  I wrote up a money report for APROCAI because too many different people have all the money right now and nobody knows exactly how much the corporation should have.  Thus, there have been some issues with APROCAI lately in the money department, but hopefully it will all be solved soon…we shall see.  Other cacao news is that we are starting up the Escuela de Campo again and trying to get certified so that the socios can get a better price for their cacao.  I brought back some more seeds from Quito, so after the rainy season I am hoping to start the garden project up again, but this time more organized with planting and fertilizing charlas, a seed bank, and nutrition talks.

My closest volunteer is finishing up her service and going back to the states in January, so she came out to BA for a day and my neighbors and I cooked up some cuy (guinea pig).  We killed three big guys, marinated them, and then skewered them up and roasted them over the fire.  The meat is actually quite good…chicken meets pork.  The volunteer was having some back problems so after lunch my neighbors called over the old lady that lives behind me and apparently knows a lot about massage.  This little old lady was rolling on the ground tugging and pushing and cracking and massaging all kinds of limbs and muscles and bones; it was pretty funny to watch.  She apparently knew what she was doing, though, because the volunteer felt better afterwards. 

I was only back in site for a week before I headed off to Quito again for another workshop.  This one was about starting Eco-Clubs in site.  It was super interesting and I am excited to hang out with my jovenes more and teach them cool stuff about their country.  I also got some more recycled art ideas.  After the workshop, I went into the PC office for a going-away party for our Ag Program Manager.  He worked with PC for 20 years and is now retiring.  There was lots of good food and music.  I got back to site late Friday night and went to an APROCAI party Saturday morning where our partner university came and presented some stuff.  And old man Lopez broke out his guitar and harmonica and played us some tunes.  We have also started the charlas for the certification process.  It took two hours to explain to the socios how to fill out a personal facts sheet and a farm register. 

Pictures of my adventures will be up soon...

Random Thoughts:

·          My neighbors are feeding me non-stop to fatten me up for when my parents come.

·         I was helping organize and fold clothes for a Christmas donation drive, when we decided that would be a great time to dress Milly up in all the baby clothes.

·         A lady that lives down the street from me just used all her cacao money to buy a laptop and an internet connection; she also has satellite TV (illegally programed).  It is like Mini-America inside her house.

·         People hang sacks on tree branches on the side of the road with snakes in them for the snake venom guy to come pick up.

·         I am not allowed to run on the main road on Sunday mornings or afternoons because there are apparently a lot of drunk drivers from the night before that continue drinking all day on Sunday.

·         I didn’t have running water for about 5 days, so I started drinking water out of my wash tank that is coated in algae and slime.  Still haven’t gotten sick…stomach of steel.

·         Women wear platform heels (I am talking at least 4 inches) to go to the market on Sundays.

·         I saw a dog licking the carcass of a cow one day as it hung out in the sun waiting to be chopped up and sold piece by piece.

·         I don’t buy or cook meat here…I only eat it when people make it for me because then I don’t have to know exactly how long it sat out or what has licked it.

·         On the bus to Quito one morning, a younger man hobbled on with a cane and plopped down in the seat next to me.  On the curves through the mountains he kept slumping into me as if he didn’t have control of his upper body.  I allowed this, as I thought he was handicapped.  Even when he leaned up against me and fell asleep I didn’t protest because I thought he couldn’t control it.  About two hours later he got off the bus and proceeded to lift heavy crates from under the bus and walk without his cane…I felt so used.

·         Pepito came tapping on my bedroom window at 5 AM one morning to wake me up and ask me to go pick mangos with him…sadly I was headed out of town that same day.

·         My neighbor’s dog had puppies…they are so little and super cute.

·         Buenos Aires played in the indor championship game in Bucay.  We ended up losing, but it was super fun to cheer them on and show some BA pride.

·         My parents will be here in less than a week to visit for Christmas!