well, just a quick update, i just found out my site and my job for the next two years!!
i added a map to my blog and i´ll be in the province of Chimborazo but my city, Cumanda is on the very western edge and on the border of Bolivar and Canar.
Cumanda is a town of 5800 people and is considered a part of the coastal region even though i am right on the edge of being in the sierra. I am so excited for my project because i will be working a local co-op of banana and plantain farmers who have recently started exporting baby bananas. in my ´job description´my main focuses are to explore market opportunities for dried fruits, help define and improve the structure and technical skills of the organization, develop organic fertizilers and to teach about family businesses and how to start up businesses.
I am so excited. i tried googling the town and theres a little information and some photos if you´d like to look yourself but otherwise i´ll try and take a lot of photos on sunday :) i can´t beleive i am going to have to go on my own and meet my counterpart that i´ll be working with and my family that i´ll be living with. i asked for extra tutoring on saturday to help me prepare!
hope all is well!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
burritos
So i just got done making burritos for my family with two of my other friends and it was a success! my family loved everything and wrote down all the reciepes for guacamole, pico de gallo, refried beans and even how to roll a burrito. i am on cloud 9 right now because i feel like i have shared something of myself with my family. it was also super nice because my two friends are awesome at helping me with my spanish so they really encouraged me to talk more than usual and always included me. ahh after a week of struggling with my language, this has been a great way to end the week. delicious food and conversation :)
on friday for my spanish class, we went to the fire station to ask the firemen just some basic questions but it ended up turning into a two hour session of learning first aid and cpr. it was all the same material that i´ve learned before except in spanish so it was great to pick up all the new ternminology and how to deal in an emergency. however the scary part is when one of the firemen told us that in el campo (countryside, where i´ll most likely be) there are no emergency services and the only thing you can do is be uber cautious. it really was a majority of the session on how to prevent accidents from happening, which i thought was really interesting, and good to know. i took a few notes.
thursday was my first ¨i hate ecuador¨ day. which they warned us ahead of time that we will have many and to be prepared. so i´m glad that i was somewhat prepared for understanding my emotions of just wanting to be angry for no apparent reason but on the other hand its almost as if being prepared for the emotions prevented me from actually dealing with them. its an interesting concept i´ve been tossing around en mi cabeza :)
que mas...it has started raining like crazy here. it defiantly rains everyday, and when it rains it usually pours. we have lightening-thunder (well as of last week) 2-3 a week. its fun :) but i do miss the rain a little bit but i guess on the other hand, its nice coming home without my nose, ears, scalp, neck and-or hands being sunburnt every day.
welp i think thats about all for this week. oh! on tuesday (3 days for me) i find out where my site for the following 2 years is going to be!! i am super excited and equally nervous. next sunday, each volunteer goes on their own to visit their sites and meet with the community that they will be working with. SOO nervous for this merely because of my spanish but hey, ive got a whole nother week to improve. wish me luck :) ciao!
on friday for my spanish class, we went to the fire station to ask the firemen just some basic questions but it ended up turning into a two hour session of learning first aid and cpr. it was all the same material that i´ve learned before except in spanish so it was great to pick up all the new ternminology and how to deal in an emergency. however the scary part is when one of the firemen told us that in el campo (countryside, where i´ll most likely be) there are no emergency services and the only thing you can do is be uber cautious. it really was a majority of the session on how to prevent accidents from happening, which i thought was really interesting, and good to know. i took a few notes.
thursday was my first ¨i hate ecuador¨ day. which they warned us ahead of time that we will have many and to be prepared. so i´m glad that i was somewhat prepared for understanding my emotions of just wanting to be angry for no apparent reason but on the other hand its almost as if being prepared for the emotions prevented me from actually dealing with them. its an interesting concept i´ve been tossing around en mi cabeza :)
que mas...it has started raining like crazy here. it defiantly rains everyday, and when it rains it usually pours. we have lightening-thunder (well as of last week) 2-3 a week. its fun :) but i do miss the rain a little bit but i guess on the other hand, its nice coming home without my nose, ears, scalp, neck and-or hands being sunburnt every day.
welp i think thats about all for this week. oh! on tuesday (3 days for me) i find out where my site for the following 2 years is going to be!! i am super excited and equally nervous. next sunday, each volunteer goes on their own to visit their sites and meet with the community that they will be working with. SOO nervous for this merely because of my spanish but hey, ive got a whole nother week to improve. wish me luck :) ciao!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
week 2- poco a poco
I can’t believe how fast this week flew by. I spent the entire week consoling myself that its only been the first week, your language will pick up soon, just have patience. But now it’s officially become two weeks and I’m getting frustrated by how little has changed. Poco a poco, little by little things are improving but I guess my expectations were a lot higher.
This past week the four of us in my small group started our garden! We planted beets, carrots, onions, a seed unknown, celery and about 3 different types of lettuce. At the end of training, not only are we required to speak Spanish but also show the ability to grow an organic garden. It was fun to actually have a physical project to work on and feels good to have a responsibility/physical element to care for.
Also this week we were working on a project for our advisors and had to present it to them Friday am. The project is a tool used to get to know your community and to be able to assess their needs/wants in order to create projects that are beneficial. The project required us to draw a map of our neighborhood, the daily schedule of an average family, a calendar of the year to show time frames, weather changes, holidays etc, and then finally an a graph of where the community needs improvement, what they want and what is most important to them. Gathering all the information was fun and a struggle in itself but yet very interesting and made me excited for when the time comes that I will need to create my own.
By time Friday morning came around, we were not fully prepared and we had a rough start but I think that by the end, we did pretty well given our groups ability to speak Spanish. Ha when I introduced myself, I mentioned that I lived with the Arroyo family, which is a hard name for me to pronounce because I rolling my r’s are a difficult feat and it took me 4 tries to get it right. After that I figured I didn’t have much else to loose and was able to relax.
Yesterday we went to Otavalo, which is about an hour from Cayambe and is famous for its huge market. Which was very overwhelming, full of everything from trinkets, jewelry, every type of alpaca product you could imagine, to fresh meats, vegetables and an animal market. It was fun but made me feel like a huge tourist. The best part of the day, actually there’s two, the first was riding in the back of a pick-up truck/taxi as it started to downpour. And the second was eating Caldo de Patas (soup with the foot of a pig) for lunch. You just kinda eat around the bone of the foot and the consistency is not quite meat and but a few steps about fat. I told my mom that I didn’t think it had much flavor and she said that she’ll cook it for me and that when she cooks it, it is always full of flavor. Awesome. Can’t wait.
Last night, one of my friends let me borrow Vicky Christina Barcelona (she bought it for $1), which I really enjoyed. And at 3 am, I awoke to my sister and her husband tapping on my window because they forgot their keys. We then spent the next five minutes yelling in Spanish in between the door, my sister trying to tell me how to unlock the door, me trying to tell her I cant see and my drunk brother-in-law continually asking me in English “how many keys you have”. Looking back the entirety of the conversation is really funny but soo frustrating at the time.
This morning my mom and I went to the Sunday market and bought lots of fresh veggies, fruits and meats. Afterwards, I took my clothes to the laundry mat. Ha I give up on doing them by hand.
Plans for the day: mom and I are going out to lunch, homework, go visit and give our garden some love, pick up my laundry and wash my shoes…what a day!
This past week the four of us in my small group started our garden! We planted beets, carrots, onions, a seed unknown, celery and about 3 different types of lettuce. At the end of training, not only are we required to speak Spanish but also show the ability to grow an organic garden. It was fun to actually have a physical project to work on and feels good to have a responsibility/physical element to care for.
Also this week we were working on a project for our advisors and had to present it to them Friday am. The project is a tool used to get to know your community and to be able to assess their needs/wants in order to create projects that are beneficial. The project required us to draw a map of our neighborhood, the daily schedule of an average family, a calendar of the year to show time frames, weather changes, holidays etc, and then finally an a graph of where the community needs improvement, what they want and what is most important to them. Gathering all the information was fun and a struggle in itself but yet very interesting and made me excited for when the time comes that I will need to create my own.
By time Friday morning came around, we were not fully prepared and we had a rough start but I think that by the end, we did pretty well given our groups ability to speak Spanish. Ha when I introduced myself, I mentioned that I lived with the Arroyo family, which is a hard name for me to pronounce because I rolling my r’s are a difficult feat and it took me 4 tries to get it right. After that I figured I didn’t have much else to loose and was able to relax.
Yesterday we went to Otavalo, which is about an hour from Cayambe and is famous for its huge market. Which was very overwhelming, full of everything from trinkets, jewelry, every type of alpaca product you could imagine, to fresh meats, vegetables and an animal market. It was fun but made me feel like a huge tourist. The best part of the day, actually there’s two, the first was riding in the back of a pick-up truck/taxi as it started to downpour. And the second was eating Caldo de Patas (soup with the foot of a pig) for lunch. You just kinda eat around the bone of the foot and the consistency is not quite meat and but a few steps about fat. I told my mom that I didn’t think it had much flavor and she said that she’ll cook it for me and that when she cooks it, it is always full of flavor. Awesome. Can’t wait.
Last night, one of my friends let me borrow Vicky Christina Barcelona (she bought it for $1), which I really enjoyed. And at 3 am, I awoke to my sister and her husband tapping on my window because they forgot their keys. We then spent the next five minutes yelling in Spanish in between the door, my sister trying to tell me how to unlock the door, me trying to tell her I cant see and my drunk brother-in-law continually asking me in English “how many keys you have”. Looking back the entirety of the conversation is really funny but soo frustrating at the time.
This morning my mom and I went to the Sunday market and bought lots of fresh veggies, fruits and meats. Afterwards, I took my clothes to the laundry mat. Ha I give up on doing them by hand.
Plans for the day: mom and I are going out to lunch, homework, go visit and give our garden some love, pick up my laundry and wash my shoes…what a day!
Sunday, March 8, 2009
my weekend
so a quick recap of my official first weekend here...and i apologize now for the spelling and grammar mistakes...
on friday as a group we went to one of the homestays of our volunteers who live on an all organic farm. it was our first day of actual hands on training and it was pretty interesting. we learned how to make seed boxes for our begining plants, how to compost, the use of worms, how to transplant plants, how to graft and many other things. it was really interesting. the farm consists of fruits, vegetables, chickens, guinea pigs, ducks, pigs and cows. and they´re actually in the processing of building a restuarant on their property which they will use solely their own products. it was an awesome visit and really inspiring to get an insight at to what our future goals are.
Saturday was a great day. my mom taught me how to wash my clothes on a stone table. i wish now that i would have just taken them to the laundry mat because i did not know how much work it was! ha but it was actually really fun and really good experience for my mom and i because she just watched me and laughed. but really, it took me a good two hours just to wash my clothes. i´m going to be a lot more careful about getting my clothes dirty this time around. anyways after washing clothes, my sister (she´s 45) had just purchased a bus to transport workers from town to the flower factories so we admired and hung out in the bus for a little bit. once the excitement of the bus died down, i helped my mom chop vegetables for our lunch, which was the first time shes let me help in the kitchen. ha i am making big progress with her :) one of my friends who lives in another community, Ana, came over and had lunch with us which was really nice becasue she is in the advanced spanish group so it made communicating with my mom a lot easier.
after lunch, ana and i headed over to another friends house where a bunch of other volunteers were meeting up to get together. i think there was about 20 of us that showed up for our afternoon fiesta since all of us have a 7 pm curfew. I ended up staying the night in ana´s community which was about an hour bus ride from cayambe and it was a lot of fun being at her house because her town consists of about 20 houses, one store and a main street. when we got there, we helped make empanadas for dinner. her mom kept calling ours ugly because you fold the edges somewhat similar to a pie crust and we could not get the technic down. but we ate all the ugly ones too so it was okay in the end.
the reason why i wanted to spend the night at ana´s house is because her family has 14 cows and they milk them twice a day. so this morning ana and i got up around 5 and went with her mom, sister and cousin to milk the cows. i got about three squirts out of my cow before her cousin took over and told me to go to sit by the buckets. i´m guessing i need a little more practce. after milking the cows and more empanadas for breakfast, we took a short nap before walking 45 min to another community to meet up with more volunteers for a hike. we hiked up this gorgeous hill that looked over all the little communities in the area. and of course i forgot my camera. sorry.
after the hike, we had lunch at one of our volunteers family´s restuarant and then walked to another larger community where they were hosting a health fair and also a fair for international women´s day. but of course, the fair ended at 2 and we got there at 2:30 so we didn´t get to see much. so i just hoped on a bus to return to cayambe and everyone else that i was with walked home. on friday when we were working in the farm, my arms and head got really burnt. so today i wore sunscreen, a hat and long sleeve shirt but now that i watch my fingers typing, i notice that the backs of my hands are toasty red. this sun is a jerk.
but anways, i was walking home from the bus station and decided to stop by and send a quick update but i am for once looking forward to the cold shower that i have waiting for me at home!!
on friday as a group we went to one of the homestays of our volunteers who live on an all organic farm. it was our first day of actual hands on training and it was pretty interesting. we learned how to make seed boxes for our begining plants, how to compost, the use of worms, how to transplant plants, how to graft and many other things. it was really interesting. the farm consists of fruits, vegetables, chickens, guinea pigs, ducks, pigs and cows. and they´re actually in the processing of building a restuarant on their property which they will use solely their own products. it was an awesome visit and really inspiring to get an insight at to what our future goals are.
Saturday was a great day. my mom taught me how to wash my clothes on a stone table. i wish now that i would have just taken them to the laundry mat because i did not know how much work it was! ha but it was actually really fun and really good experience for my mom and i because she just watched me and laughed. but really, it took me a good two hours just to wash my clothes. i´m going to be a lot more careful about getting my clothes dirty this time around. anyways after washing clothes, my sister (she´s 45) had just purchased a bus to transport workers from town to the flower factories so we admired and hung out in the bus for a little bit. once the excitement of the bus died down, i helped my mom chop vegetables for our lunch, which was the first time shes let me help in the kitchen. ha i am making big progress with her :) one of my friends who lives in another community, Ana, came over and had lunch with us which was really nice becasue she is in the advanced spanish group so it made communicating with my mom a lot easier.
after lunch, ana and i headed over to another friends house where a bunch of other volunteers were meeting up to get together. i think there was about 20 of us that showed up for our afternoon fiesta since all of us have a 7 pm curfew. I ended up staying the night in ana´s community which was about an hour bus ride from cayambe and it was a lot of fun being at her house because her town consists of about 20 houses, one store and a main street. when we got there, we helped make empanadas for dinner. her mom kept calling ours ugly because you fold the edges somewhat similar to a pie crust and we could not get the technic down. but we ate all the ugly ones too so it was okay in the end.
the reason why i wanted to spend the night at ana´s house is because her family has 14 cows and they milk them twice a day. so this morning ana and i got up around 5 and went with her mom, sister and cousin to milk the cows. i got about three squirts out of my cow before her cousin took over and told me to go to sit by the buckets. i´m guessing i need a little more practce. after milking the cows and more empanadas for breakfast, we took a short nap before walking 45 min to another community to meet up with more volunteers for a hike. we hiked up this gorgeous hill that looked over all the little communities in the area. and of course i forgot my camera. sorry.
after the hike, we had lunch at one of our volunteers family´s restuarant and then walked to another larger community where they were hosting a health fair and also a fair for international women´s day. but of course, the fair ended at 2 and we got there at 2:30 so we didn´t get to see much. so i just hoped on a bus to return to cayambe and everyone else that i was with walked home. on friday when we were working in the farm, my arms and head got really burnt. so today i wore sunscreen, a hat and long sleeve shirt but now that i watch my fingers typing, i notice that the backs of my hands are toasty red. this sun is a jerk.
but anways, i was walking home from the bus station and decided to stop by and send a quick update but i am for once looking forward to the cold shower that i have waiting for me at home!!
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Cervecas por favor
3/04
Today I finished my third day of classes. Our schedule is M,W,F we have language classes all day with our small groups and then T,Th we meet with everyone and do ‘technical’ training and a little bit of language. So tomorrow will be our second day of technical skill training and I’m hoping to actually learn something this time. Tuesday was just a day of reviewing and preparing us for what we’re about to learn. It was a long day. The best parts of T, Th is I get to see everyone rather than just the 3 others in my group and we get to ride a bus to the next city and its always full of little kids on their way to school. I love talking with the kids because it’s appropriate to ask them the questions that I actually know. Like, how old are you? Do you have a dog? What are you doing today? I’ve found that most of my questions are either insulting or annoying to adults…but the town that we travel to is about 2 miles away from my house and so we’re able to walk home on the dirt roads which is nice after a day of sitting.
Today my small language group went to the tourist building to visit the Cayambe museum and my professor introduced and encouraged me to a talk to a group of local highschoolers. They all proceeded to laugh at my pronunciation and repeated everything that I said to them in Spanish back to me in English. It was like the repeat game 10x worse.
I’m still waiting for my mom to stop feeding me. In the mornings, everyone else in the house has a glass of juice and warm milk for breakfast, which I would be fine with. But for me, she always has a roll, large quantities of cheese, an egg, fruit, milk and juice. That’s a lot compared to what everyone else in the house eats.
I did meet another person who lives in my house this morning at breakfast. From my interpretation, she is 26, a niece of my mom and only lives with us Monday-Fridays and is in Quito with her family on the weekends. But seriously, I don’t understand the dimensions of my house and who lives here and who doesn’t. I guess I fit in pretty well cuz I’m not quite sure anyone understands why I am living here as well J
family life
3/1
I don’t think I can eat anything more. All that I do here is eat. I woke up (after having a terrifying dream that my family and a huge group of strangers were playing a pick up game softball in our front lawn while mt hood was erupting in the background. I started freaking out and told dad we should pack up and leave when he replied “I stood here and watched st helen’s erupt and I’m going to do the same with mt hood.”), meandered into the kitchen and sat down to a wonderful breakfast prepared by my mom.
Later, one of my mom’s sons, Fabian, came over after church with his wife and daughter. It was fun to meet them and I think their daughter might become my new best friend. At least we are able to understand one another.
One of the other volunteers who is placed in my community, Mitch, stopped by and so I should him around my house and introduced him to my family and we went for a walk to his house. We ended up running into another volunteer and her family on their way home from mass, so they invited us over for a bit, which turned into a long time. I’m pretty sure that my mom was preparing a big lunch for me and her family and that I had plans to walk around town with Maria but I honestly felt like I was kidnapped. But it was nice because the volunteer’s family (Abbie’s) that Mitch and I went to has two teenagers who are so much easier to talk to. I played Nintendo gamecube with their 13-year-old son. He taught me how to swear. Very vital to my success in Ecuador.
After numerous times of asking Abbie’s family if my family knew where I was, or if I needed to go home, they finally took me home. But my mom was excited because I came home just in time to meet her cousin from Quito. Sometimes I feel like I’m a new car or something that everyone needs to see. But my mom is so cute, she’s always like “meet my new daughter, my gringa!” ha and my new name has become “Mandita”.
But anyways, back to the eating all day, I had a huge lunch (Ecuadorian lasagne with rice and cake!) at like 2, then came home and my mom made me a sample lunch for tomorrow so we shared half a sandwich, then we went to the bakery and she got sweet bread for me just to try, and then we came home and had dinner. Its also difficult because I can’t quite tell the difference between when she asks “do you like to eat this?” or “would you like to eat this?” and since I have a complex where I like to eat everything, I always respond “SI!” (Actually, that’s just my natural response to everything anyone says to me). So low and behold, I end up eating entirely waay too much. But I’m happy, so its doesn’t matter to me J
Monday, March 2, 2009
Arrival In Ecuador!!!
2/24 Arrival in Ecuador!!
We left bright and early from the hotel this morning simply so we could stand in line at the airport for 1.5 hours and then upon finally getting checked in, so that we could spend another 2 hours waiting to board our flight. What a great use of time.
Flight from DC to Miami was nice and short. We had a quick change of plans in Miami, just enough time to grab a Cuban sandwich and then to board our plane to QUITO! It was light out for most of the trip so I was able to see the Caribbean, Jamaica and other islands and we got to fly over the Amazon and Colombia which was a lot of fun to see.
Upon arrival in the airport, they rushed us through customs and shoved us on buses to take us to our hostel. We were happily surprised by all of the current volunteers cheering for us once we got to the hostel and they handed us each a rose with a note on it. My note said “Cuy…its whats for dinner!” (Cuy is guinea pig). They gave us chicken and rice, a ‘bland’ meal to help make the transition a bit smoother.
Breakfast tomorrow is at 7 and then we board a bus at 8 to take us to the Peace Corps office for what they call ‘a day packed full of awesomeness’ so I better get my sleep in order to be rested enough for the day.
PS our hostel brings back memories of summer camp as I write this from the top of my bunk bed on wool blanket. I love Ecuador.
2/27 Last night in Quito
So the past two days have been filled with introductions, interviews, meetings and a whole lot of other fun stuff to prepare us for our upcoming adventure. Thursday morning we all had to get shots, be interviewed in Spanish and fill out about 32 papers. I think the four shots that I received simultaneously were the best part. My interview might have gone a little bit better if only my facilitator spoke German…
For dinner on Wednesday night, we ate chicken and rice. Thursday breakfast was a spot of scrambled eggs and two pieces of white toast. Lunch: chicken and rice. Dinner: chicken and rice!!! However, we do get delicious fresh squeezed juice with each meal.
Today (Friday) we started the day with the usual eggs and toast and then went to the peace corps headquarters (about 15 min from our hostal and is where all of our meetings have been held) for some more morning meetings. For lunch we got to take a field trip to el mittad del mundo! Which is the middle of the earth aka equator if you will. It was really interesting and they had a lot of different scientific experiments to show the different gravitational pulls when you cross the line. And we actually got to eat an “ethnic” lunch out at some huge, tourist attraction restaurant. But I have no complaints because they didn’t serve us chicken and rice. Our meal started out with a giant fruit bar where you could sample all of their native fruits (wish I could remember what they were called) but one really popular fruit that we’ve eaten a lot is tomate de arbol (tree tomatoes) and they are smaller and a bit sweeter. We had juice out of them the other day. Anyways, fruit bar was followed my empanadas, potato soup, a main dish of pork, an odd type of pasta, fried sweet plantain and a potato pancake. It was a really good meal.
Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. We are all being placed into the home stays that we will have for the rest of training. They drop us off after lunch and I am then supposed to spend the next 36 hours with them, speaking the Spanish that I don’t know, until our first day of class on Monday morning. Ohh boy I sure am excited to see what conversation I can strike up…uhh mi nombre es Amanda..?
I’ll be sure to keep you updated, that is if I survive :/
2/28/09
Well, what a day! Today has actually been a really good day, much to my surprise or expectations. This morning we got up and had a two hour bus ride from Quito to Cayambe, which was an incredibly gorgeous drive. After arriving, we broke into our small groups; we’re all placed in groups in different communities based on our speaking abilities. I am lucky and am actually staying in the city province of Cayambe, where as everyone else’s groups are placed in small villages. So anyways, our language facilitator walked us to our individual home stays and dropped us off. I was first on the list and verrrry nervous. HOWEVER my mom and family is awesome. My “mom” is actually the grandma and I live with her, her daughter and her granddaughter and husband. Today I had lunch with my mom and the granddaughter (Maria) and then Maria went to work (they own a café/bar) and I just hung out with my mom all day. I am glad that she is patient because she just talks up a wall and I just nod my head and say “si”. But in my defense, I swear that she is not speaking Spanish because I can understand majority of what Maria says to me.
Anyways, my mom and I sat and looked at photos, walked to the café, did a little shopping, showed me her garden, met one of her best friends, and had dinner together. She is very kind and I already know that I am soo blessed to have been placed in her care.
I have my own room, bathroom and TV. However, it is in the front of the house and right across the street is a billiards room and about 8 karaoke bars. Dance party all night long for this kid. WOW, I’m watching TV and Obama’s speech about bringing America back just came on. A few days late but I guess better than never.
Oh yes, and one of the best parts of the house is they have a little wiener dog named Chocolate who loves me. He’s been crying the past 30 minutes that I’ve gone to my room. Poor baby.
We left bright and early from the hotel this morning simply so we could stand in line at the airport for 1.5 hours and then upon finally getting checked in, so that we could spend another 2 hours waiting to board our flight. What a great use of time.
Flight from DC to Miami was nice and short. We had a quick change of plans in Miami, just enough time to grab a Cuban sandwich and then to board our plane to QUITO! It was light out for most of the trip so I was able to see the Caribbean, Jamaica and other islands and we got to fly over the Amazon and Colombia which was a lot of fun to see.
Upon arrival in the airport, they rushed us through customs and shoved us on buses to take us to our hostel. We were happily surprised by all of the current volunteers cheering for us once we got to the hostel and they handed us each a rose with a note on it. My note said “Cuy…its whats for dinner!” (Cuy is guinea pig). They gave us chicken and rice, a ‘bland’ meal to help make the transition a bit smoother.
Breakfast tomorrow is at 7 and then we board a bus at 8 to take us to the Peace Corps office for what they call ‘a day packed full of awesomeness’ so I better get my sleep in order to be rested enough for the day.
PS our hostel brings back memories of summer camp as I write this from the top of my bunk bed on wool blanket. I love Ecuador.
2/27 Last night in Quito
So the past two days have been filled with introductions, interviews, meetings and a whole lot of other fun stuff to prepare us for our upcoming adventure. Thursday morning we all had to get shots, be interviewed in Spanish and fill out about 32 papers. I think the four shots that I received simultaneously were the best part. My interview might have gone a little bit better if only my facilitator spoke German…
For dinner on Wednesday night, we ate chicken and rice. Thursday breakfast was a spot of scrambled eggs and two pieces of white toast. Lunch: chicken and rice. Dinner: chicken and rice!!! However, we do get delicious fresh squeezed juice with each meal.
Today (Friday) we started the day with the usual eggs and toast and then went to the peace corps headquarters (about 15 min from our hostal and is where all of our meetings have been held) for some more morning meetings. For lunch we got to take a field trip to el mittad del mundo! Which is the middle of the earth aka equator if you will. It was really interesting and they had a lot of different scientific experiments to show the different gravitational pulls when you cross the line. And we actually got to eat an “ethnic” lunch out at some huge, tourist attraction restaurant. But I have no complaints because they didn’t serve us chicken and rice. Our meal started out with a giant fruit bar where you could sample all of their native fruits (wish I could remember what they were called) but one really popular fruit that we’ve eaten a lot is tomate de arbol (tree tomatoes) and they are smaller and a bit sweeter. We had juice out of them the other day. Anyways, fruit bar was followed my empanadas, potato soup, a main dish of pork, an odd type of pasta, fried sweet plantain and a potato pancake. It was a really good meal.
Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. We are all being placed into the home stays that we will have for the rest of training. They drop us off after lunch and I am then supposed to spend the next 36 hours with them, speaking the Spanish that I don’t know, until our first day of class on Monday morning. Ohh boy I sure am excited to see what conversation I can strike up…uhh mi nombre es Amanda..?
I’ll be sure to keep you updated, that is if I survive :/
2/28/09
Well, what a day! Today has actually been a really good day, much to my surprise or expectations. This morning we got up and had a two hour bus ride from Quito to Cayambe, which was an incredibly gorgeous drive. After arriving, we broke into our small groups; we’re all placed in groups in different communities based on our speaking abilities. I am lucky and am actually staying in the city province of Cayambe, where as everyone else’s groups are placed in small villages. So anyways, our language facilitator walked us to our individual home stays and dropped us off. I was first on the list and verrrry nervous. HOWEVER my mom and family is awesome. My “mom” is actually the grandma and I live with her, her daughter and her granddaughter and husband. Today I had lunch with my mom and the granddaughter (Maria) and then Maria went to work (they own a café/bar) and I just hung out with my mom all day. I am glad that she is patient because she just talks up a wall and I just nod my head and say “si”. But in my defense, I swear that she is not speaking Spanish because I can understand majority of what Maria says to me.
Anyways, my mom and I sat and looked at photos, walked to the café, did a little shopping, showed me her garden, met one of her best friends, and had dinner together. She is very kind and I already know that I am soo blessed to have been placed in her care.
I have my own room, bathroom and TV. However, it is in the front of the house and right across the street is a billiards room and about 8 karaoke bars. Dance party all night long for this kid. WOW, I’m watching TV and Obama’s speech about bringing America back just came on. A few days late but I guess better than never.
Oh yes, and one of the best parts of the house is they have a little wiener dog named Chocolate who loves me. He’s been crying the past 30 minutes that I’ve gone to my room. Poor baby.
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