Site Visit to Cumanda!

Well I am happy to report that I survived my site visit and have decided with a full and excited heart to return back in a month! My visit went really well and I enjoyed every aspect of it…well almost every aspect besides the fact that it was way hotter than I had expected.

 

I arrived to my site around 5 pm on Sunday after 10.5 hours on the bus (I was told it would only take 7) and was met by my counter part, the person who I will be working with and for and who is most responsible for my well-being. His name is Joseph and I still have yet to figure out how to properly say Joseph with a Spanish accent. But nonetheless he is a very caring and passionate man and I am excited to be able to help out the cooperative that he is president of. After meeting my counter part and another associate of the coop (Robert), they dropped me off at my house. Once again I don’t have an ordinary 2 parents, 2 kids type of family but this is an ideal family. Melita, who owns the house, also has a store in the front of her house and she has everything you could ever imagine and the store is always busy. There is a couple that have a 6 year old daughter that rent out a room from Melita and then Melita has another women who comes and helps in the store/house everyday and she brings her two sons. Everyone is so busy that I don’t feel out of place and they really just absorbed me and even let me work in the store!! Its so nice to finally have kids to play with and to give me hugs!!

 

Monday I had breakfast with my two counterparts and then went with Robert to visit a few of the farms that were processing bananas and then also to see where the new coop factory is going to be built. We met up with Joseph and his family for lunch and I had fresh shrimp with rice! For the afternoon we went and visited another banana farm and the owner’s three daughters came with us. After the farm, they convinced Robert that I needed to come and play in the park with them. I was a little unsure of how it would be perceived that I am coming to help expand this company and here I am giggling and playing with three girls in the park. But whatever, perceptions don’t matter, I had fun. Monday night was awesome because there had been a huge rainstorm during the afternoon and I guess when you live in the tropical coast and it rains, all the creatures that belong outside like to come inside. I came home to shower and I had a lovely, larger than a cockroach type insect on the wall behind my toilet. I was not happy. After about 5 minutes of freaking out trying to decide what to do with it, I ended up showering with the curtain open so that I could keep an eye on him. My shower was a cold shower but I don’t think that there will ever be a moment in my next two years that I will want a warm shower at this site. But anyways after my shower, my cockroach friend was obedient and didn’t move, I reached for my towel to find that I had frightened a little salamander from his home and he went scurrying across the floor which set me into another panic attack. I threw on my clothes in about 30 seconds and jumped underneath my mosquito net where I remained for the rest of the night.

 

Tuesday we talked business with my counterparts and they gave me their business plan and their goals and aspirations that they have for me. It was really hard to understand and comprehend and I know that I missed at least 50% of the information due to lack of Spanish. This makes me really nervous because its understandable that I don’t know Spanish well but I feel like that once I move in May, it will be expected that I know everything and that is merely impossible. In the afternoon we went and visited a small town that is 30 minutes on a paved road and 45 min on a dirt road uphill. We were literally in a cloud. It was incredible. Oh yes and the highlights of my day were BBQ-ed Tilapia and Ceviche and popcorn for dinner. I forgot, the absolute BEST part of my family is that they are the quite possibly the only vegetarian family that lives in Ecuador. The first night, Melita told me that I would have to forgive her for not having any table knifes in the house because she doesn’t believe in eating meat or anything that requires a knife! It made me so happy!

 

Wednesday Robert took me to his farm and we worked helping process the fruit and we walked around his farm, showing me all the aspects of banana farming. I learned how to prune trees, how to tell how old they are and also how to plant them. It was an interesting day, I learned a lot. It took a lot longer than I wanted it to though because I had a lot of other research/questions for ‘people of the community’. I had a few hours in the afternoon to myself to talk with my family and to visit my future apartment/house. After the first three months, I will live on my own in a house that Melita owns. Its half tree house half miniature store. My area of the house is split into two rooms, front and back. The back is completely wooden, on stilts and looks over a garden two stories down. The room is very old, has a sink and thus will be my kitchen and the walls are warped enough that I can see into the other renters room. The second, front room faces the street and is completely cement and tiled and has two garage doors that open to the street.  My bathroom is also in this room and is maybe, just maybe, 4 feet by 4 feet and houses my sink, toilet and shower. But at least its inside and closed off so I shouldn’t have to worry about interesting creatures disturbing me anymore. After visiting my house, I met up with my counterparts again for a last question/answer session. Now that I am home, I realize that I have a lot more questions for my counterparts and really wished that I had thought of them earlier but its hard when everything is so new and shocking and in another language.

 

Thursday morning I hoped on a bus around 6 and thankfully one of my friends waited for me because he lives halfway in between my site and Cayambe so I got to share half of the 11 bus ride with him. the best and worst part about the buses here are that vendors get on with food, drinks and treats quite frequently so you never have to get off. However, along with the food vendors, you get pesky little kids who put candy in your lap and repeatedly say all the swear words in English that they know until you are about ready to scream. 

 

It felt good to return to Cayambe and it really did feel like coming home. I really missed my mom and our routines while I was gone so I was happy to be home and even though I can’t speak Spanish much better, she has repeatedly complimented me on how well I can speak now. I like to think that she means to say she missed me too.

 

Yesterday we had classes with the whole group in the other town and we had a great dance party for about the first 20 minutes and they had brought us Dunkin’ Donuts all the way from Quito.  Almost everyone’s site visits went really well and we each gave a quick presentation on our sites and projects so it was fun to listen and hear about everyone’s experience. Unfortunately, I think that one girl is going home because within the first day of arriving to her site, the mayor of the town told her that one, they didn’t need a volunteer and two, especially not a female. I am so thankful that my counterparts expressed as much need for me as they did.

 

Today is Saturday and we have Spanish class for half the day. I’m sad because my whole family just loaded up into the back of a pickup truck/taxi for a day trip and I can’t go cuz I have class. Lame. But this morning I did go on my first Ecuadorian run and I last 16 minutes before almost dying from my lungs, heart and throat burning. It feels awesome to be out of shape.

 

Anyways that’s about it for me. I think I’m going to venture out and experience my first Ecuadorian mass tomorrow for Palm Sunday. I’m sad because we’ll be traveling on Easter Sunday and that is by far my favorite church service ever. I guess I’ll get over it. I hope all is well with everyone and I hope I didn’t bore you with my stories. Invitations are open for guests starting in August; you can sleep in the hammock that I’ll have in my tree house/kitchen but you are responsible for bringing your own mosquito net. Ciao!