| CASILLA 12-01-214
BABAHOYO-LOS RIOS Ecuador |
SANTA DOMINGO
Recently we took a week long tech trip that lasted through the week of 6/27/2011. On our trip we practiced giving health charlas in various locations and practiced doing encuestas as well. We travelled to Santo Domingo, which I wasn’t a huge fan of since it was extremely humid, and it was the first time I had ever seen an entire city covered in moss and mold. The air was thick with black suet. It reminded me of many places I had visited in the past in Central America since it was an explosion of sensory information. Hundreds of people in the streets, tons of tiendas selling the same things, and each had their own boombox playing some reggaeton/salsa mix. It was a lot to take in. However, it was extremely interesting. We ate in a local market which was awesome, although I was a bit worried about eating the fish…I gave it a shot. It was delicious even though I had no idea what it was/or if the water was clean to make it. I didn’t get diarrhea so I guess it was. There was a great avena/ naranjilla bebida that was delicious, I didn’t know that it was avena/naranjilla until I asked, and in great fashion the lady serving us asked if I liked it and wanted another cup free of charge. I gladly accepted.
Puerto Quito Maldonado
This was our next stop on our tech trip to give some more charlas, and meet up with a volunteer who was finishing up her two years there. It was a pretty amazing site. It was gorgeous and had all the basic amenities. Through our time there the town had a festival. We met the mayor in the town as well as checked out an aerobics class that one of the volunteers was hosting every night 5 days a week. It was awesome to see that was one of her secondary projects. The experience really stuck home the variability among sites here in Ecuador.
Puerto Quito
The end of the week we spent in a finca outside of the small town of Puerto Quito. It was a beautiful set of land, where they had pigs, cows, bunnies, ginni pigs and just about every fruit and vegetable you could think out. There we learned how to harvest Bananas, milk cows, and majority of the processes that go into maintaining a finca. We also learned of the many the issues that fincas face in Ecuador. However, the finca were we staying at did a good job of not becoming a part of the monocrop craze, which apparently is a huge problem here. Many fincas mono crop and if a plague comes that targets that specific crop they lose their main, if not only, source of income.
Bottle Dancing
Our first cultural trip was of the weekend of June 18th, we headed to a small town in the north known as Mascarilla. The towns name has origins in Kichwa, and the carilla means strong, so then the name of the town means more strong in reference to the men of the Afro-ecuatorian community. We travelled about 4 hours north of Quito and stay in the community for a the weekend. The weather was extremely hot, but refreshingly not as humid as I would have anticipated. During the day, after of the community members taught us about the history of Afro-Ecuadorians in Ecuador, specifically how their ancestors were Slaves who were on their way to a coastal city, when their ship crashed in a storm and only 4 survived and from these four ancestors came majority of the population of the Afro-Ecuadorians. We then participated in some traditions of the community, such as mask making and various dances. There was one dance that was particularly cool, as they like my host family, put a bottle half filled with water on top of their heads and started dancing, while in the same instance balancing the bottle. Our host even was able to do some push ups with the bottle on her head. Talk about impressive. That night after finding our host families for the night, we played soccer in their little indoor cement court. It was incredible how good the kids were. Their level of skills was insane. The other volunteers and I found ourselves playing futbol against the 14 year olds in the community. They were incredible. It was interesting to note as well that the traditional sickness known as Mal de ojo is believed here as well. It reminded me of the lectures that I had in Guatemala. It also really drove hope the importance and impact of these traditional enfermedades and their cures are to small communities. I know that balancing the traditions of my future community and my perspectives will be a challenge, but also an interesting chance to learn more about such a critical portion of the lives of my community members.
Tested our abilities to go out into communities and interview people about health issues in their communities. Done in Puembo. I found the experience very interesting since we had to develop our own questions that would develop a broad understanding of the community issues.
n’t surprised to learn that those kids were all in a league for teenagers aspiring to become professionals. The experience was also really cool since Marcelo’s team played against the number ranked team. All of which seemed like they must have been 19 years old. Marcelo informed me that since majority of those players are from the coast its not uncommon that they don’t know how old they actually are. After the game Marcelo and I stopped off at the second largest Mall in Ecuador known as San Luis. It was gigantic, bigger than any mall I have seen in NY, and maybe King of Prussia is bigger. Oh yea for my soccer buddies, they fields the kids played on were incredible.
It was awesome to meet our new families for the first time. My little host brother Toni and my Host brother Carmen came to meet me at our family announcing. It was a little interesting the way it went because it felt a bit like the draft where the our coordinator would call out our name and then the family. Some of th
e reactions and ways that us gringos first interacted with family was pretty hilarious. All in good fun though. I was definitely nervious to meet the family I would be spending the next 11 weeks with. So Carmen, Toni and I hopped into a family friend’s car and they took me to my new home. Sitting in the back right seat, I smiled and waved eagerly to all we passed by. When we arrived at my new family’s home, I was shocked to see how well off they were considering my experience in Guatemala was a bit rougher. However, it was a pleasant shock, all though I know the experience will not be very realistic to my future site.
Above my Host brother Toni and I enjoying a market bfest
We then went to the KFC in the comerical centro to get lunch, yea I know I was expecting a bit of traditional food, but I was honored to go to KFC since it is pretty expensive here. In the centro, I met my older host brother Matteo who was really cool and worked that the Movistar outlet there. Later we headed to meet up with Marcelo my new host father. The family is super nice and very accommodating. The first weekend we spent our time traveling around Tumbaco, checking out the square and all there is. I also spent considerable time sharing stories and pictures of family member. Carmen showed me all her pictures of Toni from when he was kid until now, he is 7 years old. The next day we went to meet Marcelo’s mother, Maria, She was very kind and It was great to her here life story and that she had hosted volunteers in the past. It was cool to feel a part of and experience the history of Peace Corps through my abuela’s eyes. It was interesting to learn that my family also lived in Madrid for close to 14 years and just recently had returned to Ecuador. My experience with my host family has been awesome, most definitely an adjustment, however it has been very comfortable.
Toni testing his photo skills with my Host mom CarmenSo far I’ve taken a lot of time to just hang out with the family. Although we have long days I find it enjoyable to chat with them at the end of the day. I have found many things that Matteo and I connect over in terms of a love of soccer and reggae for one. We spent one night just watching some hip hop , rap and reggae videos of his favorite songs and we found many similarities between our music tastes. Music crosses all boundaries.
Toni Likes the music at the market
The second weekend my family held a large birthday/ celebration party for a few people. We all headed over to where my host grandmother lives, and there we took part hours of merry making. There were many traditions such as salsa dancing and dancing with a bottle filled with water and trying not to drop the bottle. It was awesome cultural jamz.
Marcelo n some market noms
So where to begin, Its incredible that I have been here for a month already. Time really has passed by very quickly. I found something enjoyable to accomplish or do almost every day, but for now I will try to update you on the current events starting from staging up to half way through training.
Staging:
Staging was really exciting because it was finally the opportunity to chat with a bunch of the other volunteers that I would be spending the next 11 weeks with in Tumbaco. The day of staging I said my final good byes to ginger, and the puppies at home. Then my parents drove me to the staging in Philadelphia. We said our final good byes, then they sent me off with the other volunteers, although I knew dad wanted to come down, and chat up a storm with everyone that he could. I knew as they were going I was going to miss them very much since I had spent the last few months relaxing at home with them. It was really nice to have that time to spend with my parents and I felt very lucky to have had the opportunity to be a home at least for a little while. To me, family is extremely important and I know without my family I wouldn’t have the 
strength to pursue such a different path through life. And I think my time at home showed that to me. I am grateful and proud to have their support throughout everything I pursue.
Left- All the PCTs sleep deprived in the JFK
I think the excitement in Staging was also the fact that I was surrounded by likeminded yet different individuals, all with exciting and different stories. That was definitely something I missed about being at home, and out of college. I have found I really do enjoy meeting new people. The day was full of icebreakers and things of that nature. Then we headed off in the middle of the night to JFK airport for our flights to Ecuador. I wasn’t able to get much sleep before the flight so I was pretty exhausted, but I think the adrenaline kept me going. Our flight went from JFK to Miami and from Miami to Quito. It was interesting since I was seated next to another volunteer named Brian from South Carolina, who we nicknamed the Urban Cowboy. He pointed out to me as he was getting emotional that we may not see the great land or touch the soil of the US in a long while. It was interesting to see how emotional he was since it was his first time out of the country. It was a inspiring display of patriotism.
The day after our arrival we had many things to do including Spanish exams. I found out there are 62 people in our omnibus, a pretty large omnibus. The programs are Health, Youth and Families, and TEFL. 
Left-- Tumbaco near the training center, its that beautiful
Right--Another photo from the walk home
