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.
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