Nieve y Algodon

Four months…wow sorry it has been a very long time.  I promise that from now on I will keep this blog more up to date.  So last time I wrote was my parent´s visit, since then a lot has happened.  First and foremost, it has been rainy season.  This means lot of things.  It means that it pours almost every night and sometimes all day.  It means there are tons of random swimming holes, creeks, springs, and waterfalls that weren’t there during the dry season.  It means flooding.  And it means no running water.  So the kids were on vacations from the beginning of February through the start of April.  Thus, I went swimming with the kids almost on a daily basis in numerous different spots.  There are a ton of super cool spots to swim.  My favorite is a waterfall that is in the middle of dense jungle vegetation.  You have to hike back through quite a few different farms and then follow a stream in the forest until you can hear the waterfall…it is super pretty.  So with all the rain people are still working in the fields and harvesting random crops.  My phone actually broke by harvesting cacao in the middle of a downpour…whoops.  The rain has caused some flooding.  The grounds around the hostel in Buenos Aires got flooded and so did the entire lot of cacao that I planted with Pepito….bummer.  It took out Bucay´s intake structure for their tubed water (this is the water that we steal before it gets to the treatment plant).  Thus, I was completely without water for about a week.  I had to go to neighbor´s houses to ask for water to bathe with because they have hookups to Cumanda´s water.  After a week I got fed up with no water, so I tapped into the Cumanda water distribution network.  The hose just happened to run right by my house so I made a little connection and then duct taped all the random plastic hose pieces I could find around my house to get the water from the connection into my wash tank.  It doesn’t look pretty, but I can now fill up my wash tank to have water for the house.  This means still no running water but definitely better than no water whatsoever.  It has been about 2 months now like this, but the rainy season is supposed to be over soon so maybe I´ll get some running water again.

In the middle of March two of my friends from home, Eric and Rudy came to visit me for a week.  I went up to Quito to meet them at the airport and from there we headed to the Amazon and the city of Tena.  I took them out to the eco-tourism place with the monkeys on the beach where I had been before.  We actually spent the night at Kamak Maki in the middle of the forest.  We hung out with Lucas (the monkey that peed on me the visit before) and he caused quite a bit of mischief.  The boys had brought me some candy bars from the states, and Lucas decided to steal my last Snickers bar, pound it on the ground a bunch of times, eat a little bit, and then wipe his dirty little chocolate hands on my pants…that little jerk, but so darn adorable.  We went for a hike in the jungle and went to see a really pretty waterfall and then we went tubing down the Napo River.  We stayed in Tena that night and then went to check out the caves of Jumandy the next day.  After the jungle we headed down to my site.  We got to my house at night and were greeted by a pile of bat poop on the floor, cockroaches on the walls of the kitchen, and a baby tarantula in the kitchen sink.  Both of the ‘outdoorsy’ boys were immediately disgusted, freaked out, and I think genuinely scared that they had to sleep in my house for the next couple of nights.  It was pretty hilarious.  Over the next couple days we just trekked around Buenos Aires and Cumanda.  We visited the best swimming holes, ate lots of fruit, swung on some Tarzan vines, and just hung out with members of the community.  The last day a friend of mine took us about an hour outside of Cumanda where we repelled down a cliff off the dirt road to get to a super pretty waterfall.  The next day we went up to Riobamba to walk around and show them a little bit of the sierra.  And after that we went back up to Quito to see them off on the plane back to the states.  All in all it was a great visit with them and as usual Buenos Aires enjoyed seeing some more Gringos in town.

Ok, so workwise.  I am finally a real engineer here!  It just fell into my lap, but I am now working for the water company of Cumanda.  This is actually the same company that I am currently stealing my water from.  So I work there three mornings a week and I am their only technical person, which is awesome.  Basically that means I am in charge of any and all things AutoCAD, all the calculations, and checking of other calculations.  So the main project for the company is potable water and sewage system for all of Cumanda.  Most of the plans for this are already done, so I am just looking them over and doing other random sketches and calculations for that.  So that part is kind of cool, but the best thing is that all the little communities in the county of Cumanda who don’t have water, or who need help fixing their water supply can come into the office to ask for technical help.  Well, since I happen to be the only technical person that means me!  I get to go out and help all the little communities.  I have only been at the company for about a month, but I already have a project to help improve and update a system in a community of only 16 families.  So I am super content in that regard.  As far as other work in Buenos Aires goes…there isn’t all that much.  I started a big wormbed with the Escuela de Campo so we have some worms and some humus.  I have cooking classes every Friday (they just want to learn basic ‘American’ food, pizza, hamburgers, tacos, cookies, breads, etc.) and I am starting up English and recycling again at the school.  But really Buenos Aires doesn’t have all that much interest in me, so better that I focus my energy on the other little towns that actually want help with water.

Other than that, I have just been hanging around until I go home to visit!  I leave May 30th and I cannot wait.  It has been over year and it is time to get back for a little bit.  I will have pictures to post at some point in the future but no promises on that.  But I do promise to write more often…so stay tuned.  

Random Thoughts:
•    On Palm Sunday, I passed a catholic church on the way to the market.  The priest was outside blessing people with holy water.  The water was held in an empty vegetable lard tub and he was flicking the water with a paint brush.
•    Lycra (spandex) leggings in every neon color you can imagine are the hot fashion item here.  A woman wearing Lycra with wedge heels is what all the men want.
•    I put on black Lycra capris to go running one day.  Never again.  There were numerous comments about my beautiful ‘yuccas’ (my large thighs that remind them of the white tuber that they eat) and my curves.
•    I bought two bunnies on Easter.  One died a couple weeks later, so I bought two more.  I now have three bunnies.  I think I might be crazy.
•    I ate lots of Fanesca for Easter…a soup that has just about every grain, starch, bean, and vegetable that you can imagine in it.
•    I got super sick one week with strep throat…turns out they don´t sell Penicillin in Ecuador so I had to make due with a weaker alternative drug, that didn´t work.  A woman in town told me a home remedy and after a few days of gargling a mixture of chamomile, potato, lemon, and dragon´s blood I was all better.
•    During rainy season all the venomous snakes want to come into my dry house.  An old lady in town killed two large ´X´ snakes (I don´t know the English name but here they called them X snakes because the pattern on their back is like X´s) in front of my house, I half killed a coral snake in the hinge of my bathroom door, a man passed by my house dragging along a 5 foot long ´X´ snake to extract the lard, I found a dead ´X´ snake while swimming in the creek, and I almost killed a baby snake while walking to the store one day.  Oh and I saw a long neon green snake eating a tree frog in the banana trees behind my house one day…that was actually pretty cool.
•    I had my mid-service conference at the end of April…one year in site!  It was great to see everyone and learn some new stuff in the conference.  We also had our one year medical check-up; complete with stool samples…no parasites for me. 
•    It is the beginning on orange season….yes!
•    My cat gave me ringworm on my face.

It´s All About the Points

I celebrated Christmas Eve with my neighbors and some of their relatives.  We cooked a large meal and all just hung out and enjoyed each other’s company.  On Christmas Day, BA had a celebration for the kids.  They played games, brought in some clowns to paint faces and dance, had a creepy little kid pageant, and gifted toys and candies to all the kids in town.  It was fun to see how excited the kids were to run up and accept their new toy.  I left the celebration a little bit early to go to the airport in Guayaquil to meet my parents.  Their plane got in with no problems and it was GREAT to see them.  That night we got a shuttle to Guayaquil and stayed the night in a hotel with AC and hot water…glorious. 

The next morning we headed back to the airport to rent our car when my dad realized that he had left his super cool tourist hat (with a flap in back to prevent neck burn) in the hotel.  Well of course we couldn’t leave such a treasure behind, so we got in the car, stalled and sputtered our way out of the airport parking lot (just working out the stick shift kinks) and weaved our way through the busy streets of Guayaquil back to the hotel.  My parents stayed in the car double parked in front of the hotel while I ran in to get the hat that was supposed to be waiting at the desk for me.  Well, I got inside and the lady at the desk told me that they had not found the hat but that I could go upstairs and double check if I wanted to.  Thus, I was escorted upstairs and waited for a while for the head housekeeper lady to show up and let me in the room.  As she let me in, she told me that she had torn apart the room looking and had not found anything.  Well, I walked in, reached up on the shelf in the closet where my dad said that he had left the hat, and lo and behold found it.  Turns out that Ecuadorians are quite short and the shelves in the closets are quite high.  As I walked out of the elevator, my mom was walking into the lobby to tell me that my dad had just received a ticket for double parking and that I had to go talk with the police officer since he couldn’t speak a word of English.  I got outside, my dad had already driven off to ´go around the block´ and the officer was the next intersection down.  I chased down the cop, broke out my best whiny Ecuadorian voice, and asked what the problem was.  Turns out he just wanted my dad to move the car and had not given him a ticket, alas the language barrier.  So I went back to the hotel where my mom was waiting, gave her the scoop, and we waited for my dad to come around the block.  Well, we waited and waited and walked around looking for him parked somewhere and waited some more, and finally after about a half hour I made my way back into the lobby to beg to use their phone to call my cellphone which I had left in the car.  The hotel workers were quite amused that the crazy white girl was back again and when I said that I had lost my father, they were more than willing to let me use the phone.  My dad answered gruffly, telling me that there was no just driving around the block in Guayaquil and that he would be there in a few minutes.  We waited some more and then finally saw him coming and hopped in the car.  And that was how the trip in Ecuador began.  After that little snafu, we decided that my dad had lost quite a few points for forgetting his hat and thus the game of points during the trip began.  I of course had won quite a few points since I found the hat and made sure my dad didn’t get a ticket.  We also decided our roles for the trip, my dad: the driver, my mom: the tour director, and me: the translator.

We left Guayaquil and headed out to the good ole BA.  Because of the little holdup in Guayaquil we arrived a lot later than I had told my neighbors so they were quite worried but had a nice big meal waiting for us.  It was my parent’s first Ecuadorian meal and they liked it, but couldn´t finish because it was so much food.  After, we walked around and saw all the different plants and fruits that are growing right by my house, chatted, and hung out with people at my house.  The next morning my mom and I made lasagna to share with my neighbors and then we went into Bucay and Cumanda to show my parents around.  We got back just as the lunch was ready to come out of the oven and enjoyed delicious lasagna with my neighbors and another volunteer who came by to visit.  (The Ecuadorian men chose to eat it accompanied with rice.)  After, I took my parents around to meet my old host family (they were on their best behavior) and my friend Monica.  Everyone was super nice to my parents, but it was difficult to keep translating back and forth.  On our way back to the house we went through the park and I told the kids to follow because my parents had brought candy.  Within a few minutes, my house was surrounded by children waiting for candy; it was like trick-or-treat on Halloween.  Then, the family that lives one street over from my house showed up with a sloth hanging on a large branch.  Apparently Wilmur, the husband, had found the sloth out in the farm where he was working and had brought it home with him.  It was not a happy camper but I did end up touching it.  I asked them where they were going to let it go, and they informed me, only half-jokingly, that he was going to be dinner (I never did get a straight answer when I got back, if they had eaten it or not).

The following morning, Wednesday, we packed up our stuff, said goodbye to the BA, and headed off to Cuenca.  They were doing some road construction so the trip wasn´t as quick as it should have been, but it was still fairly painless.  We arrived in Cuenca just in time for lunch and parked where the guidebook told us there was a good restaurant…turns out the place had moved and the guidebook was out of date.  We wandered around for a while trying to find another place to eat and stumbled upon a place that another volunteer had recommended.  It was probably the best meal that I have had since being in Ecuador.  After lunch, we checked into the hotel, and then walked around Cuenca taking lots of pictures.  In the process there were a few incidents and forgotten items that called for some major point deductions.

The next morning we decided that we had seen enough of Cuenca and got back in the car to head to Riobamba.  We didn´t have a hotel booked so we wandered around Riobamba for a little bit deciding if we should stay or not when we found a travel/adventure guide that suggested a hotel and a lake that we should visit in the morning.  The hotel ended up being super nice.  We walked around Riobamba that night and saw their ´fabulous´ Christmas lights display.  They managed to turn a beautiful square with fountain and church into the most cheesy, commercialized light display ever, there was a blow-up doll nativity scene, a handful of Pooh Bears, Barneys, Mickeys and Minnies, some Smurfs, and a few Santas scattered throughout the square underneath strings and strings of neon flashing Christmas lights. 

On Friday morning we left Riobamba and got on the road to see Quilotoa Lake.  We were told that the lake was located off the highway a little bit but shouldn’t take more than an hour to get there.  Well that was a completely false statement.  Most of the way the road was narrow and gravel, curving up and down through mountains and valleys, and took a little under two hours.  It was super pretty scenery the whole way but we just wanted to get there already.  We finally got to the park, got out of the car, climbed down a path cut through rocks, and emerged in the middle of a crater.  It was gorgeous.  The lake had blue green water and was in the middle of absolutely nowhere and really was just a large hole where a crater had crashed millions of years ago.  I hiked a little further down the trail to get a little closer and on the way back realized that we were at a very high altitude.  We ate a nice lunch, and got back in the car to head up to Otavalo.  This drive took forever because we were in the middle of rush hour in Ecuador, which means a bunch of large, heavy trucks that go really slow and are hard to pass.  But we finally made it to Otavalo and the cute little hacienda where we were staying for the night.  We had a late dinner and then crashed.

We got up the next morning and explored the hacienda property; they had some gardens, some llamas, and a couple peacocks.  After, we drove up to Cotacachi, famous for its leather goods, and bought some fun leather stuff.  Next was the market in Otavalo.  It stretched for block after block and had tons of textiles, paintings, hats, and food.  We wandered around for a while and when we had had our fill we got back on the road to head to Quito.  On our way we kept getting stopped by boys or men dressed as women, blocking the roads with rope or dancing in the street and on the car, and asking for money.  We assumed it was something to do with New Year´s Eve (which was that night) but didn´t find out what until later in the trip.  (Turns out they were acting as the Old Year´s Widows who were asking for donations since the Old Year was gone.)  Thus, our drive in the middle of Old Town in Quito was quite stressful as we tried to find a parking garage and maneuver the one-way streets and steep hills, all the while trying to not run over the men in drag dancing all over our car.  After we got the car situation taken care of, we walked around beautiful old town for a while and then got in a taxi to head out to the newer part of town where there was a huge street party.  There were thousands and thousands of people walking up  and down blocks and blocks of this one street, there were food vendors, concerts, and floats/dolls (representing the Old Year) that were going to be burned at midnight.  After an hour or so we decided to head back to old town, and had a difficult time finding a cab back, as they didn’t want to drive through all the traffic and the men in drag.  Finally we got a nice guy to take us back and we stopped for dinner in a fancy hotel.  After the best salad ever, we headed back to our hotel to watch the New Year arrive from the balcony.  There was a family on the street below us that had made a bunch of old year dolls and were burning them, dancing, and drinking; it was fun to watch. 

On New Year´s Day first thing in the morning we changed hotels…the first one apparently had lumpy beds (I guess that doesn´t fly with the old folks), and checked into this super fancy little bed and breakfast type place.  We booked a cheaper room that had a narrow staircase, but when we got there they had apparently taken pity on us and we were upgraded to the fancy suite…awesome.  After, we walked around Quito and used the guide book to see all the sites.  We saw lots of churches, statues, old parks, and buildings.  We even decided to tour Ecuador’s equivalent to the White House.  It was nice inside but there were a ton of display cases showing all the random gifts that President Correa had been gifted by the various countries that kind of detracted from the fancy rooms.  We even got our picture taken and printed out for us as a complimentary ´hey you visited the palace´ remembrance.  We spent all day walking around and then decided to take a late afternoon rest in our little hotel and were then greeted by the other two couples that were staying there, after a long, mandatory conversation, I decided that I don´t like being a tourist.

The next day was Monday, and we left Quito and headed to the coast.  The first part of the trip was a breeze, the road had just been redone; it was four-lanes and quite an engineering feat as it wound its way down and out of the mountains.  Once we were out of the mountains and on the coast, we came to a fork in the road.  There was a sign pointing down a pothole covered road to our destination and a sign pointing down a brand new road to a town quite north and out of the way.  We chose the pothole road to our destination….wrong choice.  It was about 30-40 km through some hills of pure potholes and took almost 2 hours to make it through.  Once we got out of the worst of it, we stopped at a gas station to get some snacks for lunch (as our tour director was not pulling her weight by packing up some nice sandwiches to eat when the going got tough) and the attendant told me that we should have taken the other road.  Apparently even though it is out of the way a lot further north, it is still a lot quicker...so that explained why all the random people we saw in the little villages along the way looked at us like crazy aliens.  Right at dusk we finally made it to the beach and the little town of Puerto Lopez.  We had a nice seafood dinner, and then went to bed.

In the morning we went out to find a tour to take us to Isla de Plata.  We got lucky with a tour guide that actually worked for the Park Service of the island.  We took an hour boat ride out to the island and arrived in more or less a desert.  We began by hiking up a hill and a bunch of stairs to get to the main part of the island where all the paths break off.  We decided to take the trail to see the blue-footed boobies and the magnificent frigate birds.  We saw tons and tons of teenage and baby boobies and quite a few adult boobies too.  We heard the mating calls, the male boobies make a croaking sound, and the female boobies make more of a whistle.  We saw a bunch of single male boobies hanging out on a ledge that we dubbed the singles bar.  And we saw tons of frigate birds in nests that were learning to fly.  It was super cool to watch them try and take off, then soar around for a little bit, before heading back to the nest.  After a couple hours on the island, we headed back to the boat, ate some lunch, and then drove around to a cove to snorkel.  I had never really snorkeled before and it was awesome.  We saw angel fish, clown fish, tiger fish, some bigger fish that I don´t know the name of, and a ton of random smaller fish.  And there was lots of different colored coral.  It was super cool and they finally had to call me out of the water so that they could leave.  We took the boat ride back to the main land, showered, and then stuffed ourselves full of more seafood. 

In the morning, we made the trip back to Guayaquil.  Along the way we stopped for some delicious mangos (as it is mango season right now) and made it back around noon to turn the car in.  Then we got a shuttle back to the same hotel where we had had the hat snafu (I think they remembered me).  After, we walked around Guayaquil a little bit, and saw the iguana park.  It was packed with iguanas and pigeons, kind of a disgusting combination.  It was also home to the only wild squirrel that I have seen in Ecuador.  The Ecuadorians were not at all impressed by the iguanas but could not get enough of the squirrel…pretty entertaining.  For dinner we took a taxi out to a nice Italian restaurant and got our pictures taken because dad had ordered their famous seafood pasta…he even got a bib put on him. 

The next morning we just hung out in the hotel with American TV and WIFI…awesome.  We got a shuttle to the airport at noon, checked my parents bags, and then they walked me over to catch a bus to the terminal to head back to my site.  It was hard to say goodbye but it was a super fun trip and so great to see them.  Like everyone in my site kept saying over and over, hopefully they will come back and visit again!

Here are some pictures from BA around Christmas-time: https://picasaweb.google.com/100931733724063278429/Holidays?authkey=Gv1sRgCKKs-eiXusWfWw

And here are a ton of pictures from my parent´s visit: https://picasaweb.google.com/100931733724063278429/MomAndDadSVisit?authkey=Gv1sRgCMiKgdaH7OHOnwE

La Jungla

Some photos....https://picasaweb.google.com/100931733724063278429/December232011?authkey=Gv1sRgCPz9vd_sqNnxlAE

Engreído

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!

Un Relajo

November 2 was All Saint's Day here in Ecuador.  On this day everybody goes out to the cemeteries to pay their respects by cleaning gravesites/tombs or repainting them, lighting candles, and placing flowers.  My old host family invited me to go with them to the graves of Vito’s parents, and Leonor’s father and brother.  It was super interesting to see the hordes of people in the cemeteries and all the flowers and candles.  The cemeteries are similar to the ones in the south of the US; most of the gravesites are tombs above ground.  Or there are walls with holes, where they put the casket and then cover the mouth of the hole with bricks and cement.  Another tradition is that they drink Colada Morada and eat bread shaped like dolls.  The drink is a mixture of purple corn flour, herbs, fruits, and water…and it actually quite tasty.  About a week before the holiday, people were bringing Colada Morada and kept bringing it until the holiday was over…awesome.  All the kids had the week off for the holiday, so I had lots of people to hang out with and play in the river with.

APROCAI is continuing to buy and sell cacao in baba and the association is making some money off of it while at the same time the farmers are making more money with us rather than selling to an intermediary.  I have been helping with the weighing of the cacao, the receipts, and all the money stuff.  Slowly but surely they are getting themselves more organized and are learning to use the computer to do the computations for the money.  The first couple of times that we bought and sold the cacao were an absolute mess, everybody yelling at everybody.  But since then we have gotten a system worked out that keeps getting better and better.  The president of the organization is an old guy that does not like to listen to suggestions, however, so he is getting in the way of true organization and is also complicating the money situation.  But we are in the process of opening a checking account at a bank so that we can just write checks rather than pay the people in cash…this will solve a lot of problems.  We have been harvesting and selling every week and have weeks with $11,000 and $17,000 to divvy up between the socios.  The average person selling cacao is making about $500+ a week which is huge for them here, as the average family makes $240 a month.  The problem with this though, is that the harvests only occur a handful of times a year, so the people need to learn to save and use their money wisely….that is the next charla.  I am also working on plans for a wall enclosure of the whole facility at APROCAI. 

Random Thoughts:

• It is hotter now, so I have been going to the river more frequently to swim.  I really am surprised I haven’t gotten sick yet, as there are normally chicken parts that float past my legs.  If I am lucky a whole chicken will float by and engulf me in feathers.  Once there were a bunch of vultures crowded around a sack stuck on a rock; the little kids investigated and informed me it was a dead dog (People don’t bury their pets here, they just put them in a sack and throw them in the river).   Although I haven’t had any severe intestinal issues caused by the river, I do have some spots on my shoulders that may or may not be a skin fungus.

• I had to take my cat to the vet one day to get some shots.  So I put Milly in a box, cut a few holes, ducktaped him in, and decided that was how I would transport him to the vet (a man in a pet store with a metal table, some syringes, and some vials).  As I was waiting on the side of the road for a truck to take me into town, Milly escaped through one of the holes and started to run away.  Once I got ahold of him again, my friend Monica (who happened to be watching be chase the cat down) gave me a sack to throw him in instead.  Well, within a few minutes he chewed/clawed his way through the sack and was loose again.  Frustrated, I took him back to the house to repair the box and tape him in really well.  Of course, this is the exact moment that I ran out of ducktape.  The only other tape I had was medical tape and electrical tape, so I used almost a roll of medical tape to secure the cat in the box and left the house once again.  As I am passing through the park, before I even got out to the road, the cat had escaped again.  At this point I am furious at the stupid cat.  I am trying to shove the cat into the box again, yelling at it in English, and making a spectacle out of myself in the middle of the park.  I finally get the cat into the box and then shove the box into the sack and the cat is secure for the time being.  After waiting for about half an hour, a taxi finally passes by to take me into town.  The car was full so I had to put the cat into the trunk.  The whole ride I can hear the box clunking around in the trunk and am worried that the cat is going to get knocked out and die.  We arrive in town (the busy, middle part of town, with lots of people) and I open the trunk and realize that the cat got loose once again.  Well now I have a sack with a large box shoved into it and a loose cat.  I quickly threw the cat head first into the sack, but since the box was in the way there wasn’t that much room for the cat.  Thus, I ending up walking through Cumanda with an oddly shaped sack with a cat tail sticking out the top.  Once I got to the vet, I told him the story and he told me he would come out to BA the next time the cat needed shots…phew.

• There is a bird that likes to fling itself at my window every morning at 6 am.  I have put up coverings so that it doesn’t see its reflection in the window anymore, but for some reason it still likes to hurl itself at the window.

• I saw an iguana run across the water in the river one day…coolest thing ever.

•  I went to a funeral of a neighbor’s brother one day.  There was a procession behind the hearse from the church to the cemetery down the busiest street in town.  We had some very angry bus drivers stuck behind us. 

•  One of the guys in town comes over to my house with veggie scraps to feed my worms in my wormbed.

• It is mango season…mmmmm.
• A lot of the older men are missing fingers because of dynamite fishing accidents.

Aquí Vacilando

It is getting harder and harder to write these blogs because my life is pretty unexciting now.  I am actually quite happy here and really feel a part of the community so my day to day life is not really out of the ordinary.  I went to a cacao farm on the cost a couple weeks ago to learn about national cacao (the variety of cacao that has the better taste and aroma) rather than the genetically altered variety we have here in BA.  It was interesting to see because the national cacao normally doesn’t produce as well as the altered variety but at this farm they really had their act together and the trees were perfect and producing lots.  It was cool to see, but I don’t think that I will be able to convince anyone to switch over to national.  I have been working with the cacao organization in my town.  They are starting to buy and sell cacao so I am helping with the bookkeeping, money, and business side of things.  Although they aren’t profitable yet it is good that they are willing to learn how to properly manage the organization to avoid problems and/or corruption in the future. 

I am still working with the gardens, but I really am not doing that much.  Jefferson is being controlling again and I can’t start my classes until people are less busy he says.  But there are a few gardens where the people really got into it and are producing some pretty awesome veggies.

I started a recycle club with the kids.  So far we have made some super cool wallets out of juice boxes and chip bags.  And we set up an irrigation system with plastic bottles.  The kids in the club have been showing people around town the things they have made, thus lots more people have been showing up to my house asking how to make things.  And I have seen kids around town picking up and saving trash to make more stuff.  It is just a little project but the kids are actually into to it.  I keep hinting that they should make more and more to try and sell, we shall see if they get into that or not.

I met with the muni again about working on the sewage project.  I sent in an oficio for the workspace and did all the official stuff they asked of me but they are still being difficult.  I feel as though they haven’t even started the study like they said and are trying to buy time so that they can catch up to the point that they claimed they were at.  We shall see if anything comes of that, but I am not holding my breath.

Other than that, I have been tubing with the kids in the river on the weekends, helping harvest cacao and corn, and I went to visit another volunteer in her site for her birthday last week.  Sorry that wasn’t the most exciting post, but here are some pictures! https://picasaweb.google.com/100931733724063278429/October182011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKuJncfI3svHiQE&feat=directlink

Random Thoughts:

·         BA seemed to be the beginning of lots more fiestas because since our fiestas there has been a number of them in the neighboring communities.  Thus, I have gone to more bullfights and more moto races.

·         I pay about $5 a month for electricity and $1 for water.

·         Bucay has a huge veggie, fruit, and meat market on Sundays and I have my certain people that I go to each week to buy my food.  My veggie lady brings me special zucchinis every two weeks because nobody else has them.  Next week I am bringing her zucchini bread.

·         My cat basically lives with the neighbors now. 

·         The guy that harvests snake venom got my number and won’t stop calling me.

·         New neighbors moved in a couple of weeks ago.  The 50ish year old dad ran with me one day and ran me into the ground.  I guess he used to run for hours and hours every day.

·         My host-mom broke my Kindle with her butt implants.

·         I see a new type of bird in my yard every day.

·         The drunk has shown up at the house a few more times asking for beer money.  I have remained strong and told him no.

·         It has gotten quite a bit colder here.  I actually wear pants and a long sleeve shirt in the mornings.

·         My neighbors joke that they are going to grill my cat for Christmas dinner.