Week Three

I've been here for 3 weeks! Wow. I'm finally getting used the training schedule which feels fantastic because I thought it would never happen. It felt like I'd be in a perpetual state of exhaustion and confusion and emotional instability forever. I'm delighted to be proven wrong!

To be sure, I haven't mastered the art of keeping a good attitude during PC training, but I've stopped keeping a list of the crazy and/or frustrating things that happen and I'm trying my darndest to go with the flow. Since I last wrote, several exciting things have happened that have made training rather delightful:

1. Huertos = Gardens! One of the three main goals of the PC Community Health program in Ecuador is Food Security and Nutrition. (The other two goals are Hygiene/Water Sanitation and Sexual/Reprodutive Health.) We're focusing on small home plots and tire planters so people can grow a few extra veggies to add nutrition and variety to their diets... and maybe even sell any extra bounty for profit. Ecuadorian staples are white rice, white bread and potatoes (a small mountain of each for both lunch and dinner) none of which are particularly nutritious, so at my site I'll be trying to convince people to add more vegetables and whole grains to their meals.

We planted a small test garden of spinach, lettuce, carrots, radishes, beets, cilantro and camomile. It was fantastic! I really enjoy digging and planting and hoeing around in the garden :) Fingers crossed, we should be able to harvest the radishes and lettuce before we take off for our sites in mid-August. Yum!

2. Cultural trip to Zuleta! A tiny indigenous community in the Imababura province near Cayambe, Zuleta has stunning views of the now extinct Volcan Cayambe, lovely hand-embroidered goods, and a rich tradition. (Fun fact: At 5790m, Mount Cayambe is Ecuador's 3rd highest peak and is the highest point in the world through with the equator passes directly.) It was an action packed 2 days with lots of hiking, plowing, planting, making bread, eating, dancing, and saying "I could live here for 2 years." Nice little vacation to break up the monotony of training. I posted a few pictures on my Flickr, if you're interested!

3. Cooking demonstrations! I suppose I'm really just enthusiastic about anything relating to food. As part of Community Health's Food Security and Nutrition goal, we've had 3 cooking demonstrations featuring typical dishes from the three main areas of Ecuador: the Coast, the Sierra, and the Orient/Jungle.  I've enjoyed these demonstrations immensely, and not only because we get to eat at the end. In the past, I've done small cooking classes with adults and I really loved them. And also I love cooking, so... yeah. Love.

Anyway, it's important for me to know how to cook Ecuadorian food because how will I ever convince anyone to make changes to their diet if they don't taste some of the delicious options? Obviously, we want to maintain the cultural importance of food, so we're not forcing people to only drink soy milk and eat tofu. The cooking demonstrations with show people how to add more veggies to their menestra (traditional lentil dish) or how to use different spices/techniques to liven up their chicken without keeping on the skin and using a bucket of salt.

Next week, we've got our first technical trip, and we're going to Santo Domingo, Pedro Vicente and Puerto Quito, which are all about 4 hours west of Quito. We'll be visiting a few schools and giving nutrition and hygiene talks to kids and teens, and a "Corazon Feliz" (Happy Heart) talk to a group of adults one evening. All in Spanish! Yikes. Public speaking in a foreign language is what Peace Corps is all about. I kind of feel bad for our first groups because surely our "charlas" (talks) will be a little rough around the edges. However, our Community Health trainer has assured us that these will probably be the hardest charlas we'll ever have to do since we know nothing about the community and they don't know us at all. When we get to our sites, we'll be doing lots of surveys and talking to people about their wants and needs before we inundate them with boring charlas about carbohydrates or whatever, so we'll know our audience! Which is muy importante.

Things are going well! I can't wait to see more of Ecuador and get down to business.

Longest Week Ever

Hello from Ecuador! Specifically Tumbaco! I made it safe and sound after many many hours of traveling by plane and bus with 61 other Trainees. Yep, we´ve got a big group!

I settled into my host family´s house last Saturday, and things are going well. I´m definitely having to adjust to living with a big family after having lived on my own for many years, but I´m slowly getting there. Slooooowwlllyyy.

Tomorrow will complete our first full week of training, which has been absolutely exhausting. I get up at 6am everyday, leave my house by 7am, and walk for 45 minutes or so to the Peace Corps "compound". There is a bus that takes about half the time, but it´s always really full and crazy and the walk is pretty nice in the morning. It gives me time to wake up a bit.

Sessions start at 8am (more or less on time) and we go until 12:30 when we get an hour for lunch. So far the topics of our sessions have included safety & security, culture, medical stuff, and many sessions with our technical training groups (I´m in Community Health) and Spanish groups (somehow I made it into the advanced group... no one is more surprised than me). We wrap up around 5pm and then I either take the bus back into town or walk, getting home around 6pm. Dinner is at 7:30-8ish and I hang out with my host family for a bit before and after to work on my Spanish and get to know them. Everyone goes their own way by 9:30 and then I´ll take a bucket shower (since the shower only has ice cold water) and read or write until bed! So exciting, huh?

Anyway, things are going pretty well, theres just a lot of information and a lot of people to meet and a lot of Spanish to learn. Needless to say, it´s overwhelming at times! Today they had some current PCV´s talk to us about service and whatnot and everyone said that training sucks and you just have to get through it. Alright! Almost one week down, 10 more to go.

Tomorrow night my host mom invited me to a "despedida de mujeres", otherwise known as a bachelorette party. No men allowed! I have no idea what to expect, although they alluded to drinking and dancing, which sounds fabulous right now. I´ll report back, unless it´s too scandalous to report.

I haven´t been out and about too much, so I don´t know Tumbaco very well, but what I´ve seen is pretty cool. They have a park in the center of town, much like the Mexican zocalo but they just call it el parque. We also found a Mexican themed pizzeria and bar, which I am very happy about. On Saturday we´ll be getting cell phones so staying in touch with other volunteers should be much easier, fingers crossed.

Alright, maybe this is boring, I really can´t tell right now. One last thing: if anyone is interested in sending me a letter or something in the mail, email me and I´ll send you the address! I don´t want to post it on here, but I´ll be happy to give you the details. And you will make me happy by sending me something :)

#1 What it's all about

#1 What it's all about, a photo by chelopate on Flickr.

Here's the first photo in my Ecuadorian-Peace Corpsian Project 365! I'll be attempting to take a picture a day for the next year. This one was taken at the Penn campus, just a few blocks from the hotel the Peace Corps put us up at. Today was humid as hell, but a walk was in order after 7 hours of icebreakers, paperwork, and policy reviewing with my group of 62 trainees.