Galera Wildlife

When I first received my Peace Corps invitation in the mail and read the country assignment, I tried to recall anything I knew or had heard about Ecuador.  That took about 2.5 seconds.. “Well, it’s located in South America, so I’m pretty sure they speak Spanish.. and they have lot of plants and animals and stuff.”  Well, after doing a little Google searching and guide book reading, I learned that “lots of plants and animals and stuff” could be more eloquently stated as “biodiversity hotspot”.  For a country of its size, Ecuador has a ridiculous number of plant, animal, bird, and fish species; due in large part to its wide range of habitats in the coastal, highland, and jungle regions (and the Galapagos, of course!).  So of course I immediately envisioned myself in a Fern Gully-esque landscape, surrounded by monkeys and diving with hammerhead sharks and befriending a colony of blue-footed boobys.  Turns out, like so many other things I had envisioned about life in Ecuador, this wasn’t so accurate.  Of course, these things do exist, but not in Galera.  So I’m dedicating a blog to educate people who, like myself, have over-romanticized the wildlife.  **Note to those who do not love ALL of God’s creatures.. stop reading after the chickens.

What we do have (in great abundance) are street dogs and roosters.  Our dog, Lukey (sp??), is actually pretty awesome.  He has mastered how to jump in the front window when the door is closed, and loves to escort the family (now including me) around town.  He has on several occasions walked me up the hill to the bus stop, and that hill is no joke! I think he likes me because I save him plenty of scraps and distribute them into his bowl (made of half a coconut) outside after every meal.  Apparently there used to be a cat also, but Lukey never let it eat so it moved across town.  I’m fine with this arrangement, as long as we don’t have mice.  We also have a ton of chickens/roosters, including a bunch of baby chicks (one likes to ride on mama-hen’s back.. so cute!) and ducks, but I’m not sure which actually belong to the family since everybody’s chickens tend to wander around town.  Nobody is concerned about losing them, so I will not concern myself either.

Those are the more “domesticated” pets.  There is a fleet of about 10-15 spiders living in the bathroom, but I can never keep track of them all.  Mostly because I don’t want to think about it.  They are of the daddy-long-leg-type, some more long-legged than others, but they tend to hang out in the corners so we just peacefully coexist.  There are, of course, mosquitoes.  These are some super-sneaky little bastards, and they especially love my feet! I get new bites every day it seems, but I never see them coming! My feet currently look like a mine field of bumps and scabs, but hey- at least it’s not my face.  One of my favorite insect stories involves a rather large beetle, who flew in the upstairs window while I was reading one evening in the hammock.  He was headed for my door, so I declared battle with this hand-sized bugger and eventually got him away from my room.  He then took up residence under the couch for minimum of several hours, for all I know he might still be there.  Just one of the reasons I only sit in the hammock.  And then there are the ants.. The cursed ants!  These guys are super determined.  They really like my toothbrush, I guess because it has the sweet scent of minty toothpaste lingering on it?? They have found it multiple times, no matter where I put it.  It is currently in a ziplock bag, with a cover on the head, in the front pocket of my backpack, suspended from a clothespin on a line in my room.  And they still found it.  They also chew through plastic.. They got through 2 layers of ziplock bags and into my closed jar of peanut butter.  What a delight to open it up and find several sticky carcasses on the lid!  Apparently they also like the sticky-sweetness of tape.  The volunteer who is leaving soon showed me where ants had eaten through a map she had taped to the wall to get to the tape.  And obviously, Ecuador doesn’t sell ant traps (care package anyone??).

Moving through the animal kingdom.. There are plenty of frogs around here, which I don’t mind too much, except for the one that startled me in the bathroom one morning.  I should say we startled each other.. He was so surprised he tried to hop away, but just ended up hopping repeatedly into the trash can which was what caught me off guard.  This is the same day that a scarier looking spider what also spotted in the bathroom.. I kept an eye on him the entire time I was in the shower.

I’ve struck a deal with the lizards, I think.  I leave my light on for awhile each night and there was a lizard who would come and feast on the bugs that are attracted to the light.  In exchange, I asked that he not poop on my anymore.  I probably should have asked him in Spanish, but I think we understand each other.  Last night, there were two lizards by the light, and tonight I’ve seen four.  He must be spreading the word to his lizard friends.  I hope they can share!  Lastly, there are the birds. Galera, along with most of the beaches with lots of fishies around here, have tons of these nasty black buzzards.  These guys are dumb.  They are continually crash landing on our roof, which is made of tin.  Fine by me, unless I’m trying to sleep (stick some earplugs in that care package too!!).  A few days ago, this really pretty black and yellow bird flew in my window (we don’t have screens, can you tell??) and hung out in the living room for awhile.  Maybe it heard about the beetle in the couch..

Well, those are the animals that live in the house.  At least the ones that I’ve experienced.  I’ve heard there are also bats, so looking forward to meeting some of those at some point… I like to tell some of my friends who are living a more “posh-corps” lifestyle about some of my wildlife interactions to get a good cringe.  Hopefully this won't deter any visitors!!

Two hours for a watermelon?!

An anecdote about Ecuatime:

My first day at site, my host mom asked me if I wanted to go to Galerita with her, which is a town just a few miles down the “Corredor Tourística”.  It was Holy Thursday (Semana Santa is a BIG deal here, just FY) and she needed to get some watermelon.  I thought Sure, why not? I have nothing to do today, except lie in the hammock and read my Kindle, so if I get an invitation “para comprar sandía”, I’m gonna do it.  The invitation happened at 11am, we left the house around 11:20.  Stopped at a neighbor’s house to pick up another watermelon-buyer, then stopped in front of the church so my host mom could introduce me to a few people.  Walked up the huge hill that is the only way in and out of Galera, and reached the bus stop at about 11:50.  Waited for a half an hour, finally caught the ranchera headed south (a ranchera is an open-sided truck with rows of covered benches behind the cab of a pickup, and is the most common mode of transportation around here). The ride to Galerita was about 10 minutes, we disembarked in front of the tienda and we were told “No hay” sandía. (This has a fun little Ecua hand gesture to go with it, and can be used for all kinds of things.  Ecuador is a country where “no hay” happens a lot.. No hay bus, no hay water to shower, no hay espacio en taxi, no hay change for your $5 bill.. the list goes on and on.) Just when we thought we would have to return empty handed, the neighbor across the road yells that he has some watermelon he will sell us.  He doesn’t own a store or anything, he just has some extra watermelon we can take off his hands for a small price.  So we bought all 4 watermelons, sliced one open with a machete and ate it on the side of the road, then sat down to wait for the ranchera going to opposite direction.  We waited about half an hour and it didn’t come.  I killed a little time by wandering up and down the road trying to get enough cell signal to send a text message.  Luckily, two guys transporting water in a little motorcycle/truck thing (I know, Ecuador has all kinds of great hybrid transportation) offered us a ride for the same price as the ranchera- $0.25- so we piled in this little truck bed on the back of this motorcycle with our watermelons and rode back to Galera, although thankfully they dropped us down the hill at the cancha (cement soccer field), so we didn’t have to carry the watermelons too far.

Total time spent buying watermelons: 2 minutes. Probably less.

Total travel time: 2 hours.

Time it would have taken in the US to get in my car, drive to Trader Joe’s, park, buy watermelons, and drive home (even on a weekend!): 20 minutes.

Just to post this blog, I will travel to an internet café in Atacames, 45 minutes away by ranchera and bus, not including waiting time.  Moral of this story: Things just take longer here. You can’t plan to go more than 1-2 places per day- and did I mention the rancheras stop running around 5?

(Also, the next time you complain about your 4G iPhone functioning at mere 3G speed, think of me, standing in the upstairs corner of my wood and cement house, praying for cell signal on my 90’s style Nokia phone.)

I miss ice!!

Now that I have been in Ecuador almost 3 months, I am beginning to forget what it was like to do things a certain way in the US.  In an effort not to forget anything else, I am making a list of cultural “Adjustments and Observations” (most of which now seem like second nature to me) that I will likely add to in the next two years:

           1.  Throwing toilet paper in the trash and not the toilet; and now, at my house on the coast, “flushing” the toilet with a bucket of water.  I will put into this category carrying TP with you everywhere, because most public restrooms don’t have it, and if they do, they will charge you $0.15.

      2.  A “hot” shower is out of the question.  In Tumbaco, the “hot” water produced by the electric showerhead was luke-warm at best, steam was an unreasonable request.  On the coast, cold water is completely welcome, and taking bucket baths from the rainwater reservoir is really not that bad (and also conserves a ton of water!).

       3.  Personal space doesn’t exist between family members, friends, or strangers.  And now that I’m integrating, I really couldn’t care less if I stand on someone’s foot for an entire 30 minute bus ride, and oddly enough, my footrest doesn’t care either.

           4.  Dogs are for security, not for dressing up in baby clothes and sleeping in your bed with you.  My dog in Tumbaco never left our roof.  They aren’t necessarily abused, but they certainly aren’t treated like family, and you don’t see people walking dogs on leashes. Ever.

           5.  Littering. There is a total out of sight, out of mind mentality when it comes to trash.

       6.  Ecuadorians take an ironic pride in appearance.  Stacy and Clinton of “What Not to Wear” would surely cringe at the entire country, with their ill-fitting and non-matching clothing, yet people are very judgmental about wearing sweats out of the house, not putting on makeup, or having wrinkly clothes.

       7.  Rice. All the time, for every meal.

        8.  You can’t drink the tap water.  This wasn’t much of an adjustment for me, because in California I didn’t want to drink the tap water, but here you couldn’t do it anyways.  I do brush my teeth with tap water though.. good for my immune system, right?? I’ll let you know when I get a parasite.

       9.  Prices are negotiable almost everywhere. It’s why they don’t put price tag stickers on things.  Also, so they can give gringos the “Gringo Tax” and overcharge for everything.  It’s the same reason why taxis don’t have meters in them, and you have to pre-establish a price before getting in.

      10.  Roosters in Ecuador don’t know what time it is.  They cock-a-doodle-doo at all hours- 11pm, 2 am, 6 am, noon... And even if you don’t have a rooster, it’s guaranteed that at least three of your neighbors do.

       11.  Complete lack of/disregard for safety regulations.  What’s a carseat? That basket on the front of my motorcycle, you mean? Yeah that’s good for kids and watermelons alike.. (this is a mild example, by the way..) 

          12.  Wearing shoes in the house. I’m a big fan of a barefoot lifestyle myself, but even Ecuadorians know how dirty their floors are and insist that you wear shoes.

           13.  It’s harder to break a $20 bill in Ecuador than it is to break a $100 bill in the US.

           14.  Ecuador is a cash country; cards are VERY rarely accepted.  Which is a huge pain in the ass (see #13).  I have an Ecua bank account now, but my ATM card does not function as a debit card. That’s not really a thing here.

       15. I MISS ICE! and cold drinks in general. and Diet Coke. Sigh.. at least this country makes some killer smoothies.

I’m a volunteer!

First of all, I realize that I have not blogged in an extremely long time, so I apologize! Miraculously, today, my computer allowed me to open up Microsoft Word for the first time since.. well, whenever my last blog was.  

First, I want to give some major shout outs to my Aunt Bobbie, sister Stefanie, and friend Meg for sending me care packages! I am now well-stocked with card games and orbit gum, as well as a Sudoku book which got me through some of the more boring training sessions, so a big THANKS to all of you!!

A lot has happened (has it been almost two months??!), and while I will not go into all of the painful details, here is a quick recap of the rest of my life as a Peace Corps Trainee:

  1.  I went on a tech trip with half of the NRC trainees to the coastal province of Esmeraldas.  While there, we met with coop of cacao farmers, actually ate cacao in its pre-chocolate stage (so delicious!!), terraced a hillside and built ponds to combat erosion, went on a jungle hike to a secluded beach and an awesome waterfall, ate tasty seafood, learned to play the Ecua-card game Cuarenta (which means “40”, for my more linguistically challenged friends), gave charlas, or classes, to a few dozen school kids, cleaned up a beach, visited a marine reserve, stayed at probably the worst hotel I’ve ever been to, and spent some loooonnnggg hours on the bus.. But Esmeraldas has some of the best scenery in Ecuador, so probably in the entire world, which I tried to keep in mind as I shed pounds of sweat in the sweltering heat.

    

          2.  I spent Carnaval weekend in Ambato (Province of Tungurahua), which is known for its Carnaval celebration. Along with 9 friends from training, I took advantage of the only 2 days we had off from training during the 11 weeks and headed a few hours south to the music, dancing, partying, parades, and libations that is Carnaval.  And the foam. How can I forget the foam?? In most places in Ecuador, people throw eggs and flour and water balloons at one another during Carnaval-which is technically only 2 days, but Ecuadorians like to party, so the festivities usually last a week or more. In Ambato, the throwing of water and eggs has been outlawed, but what IS legal is foam.  There are dozens of street vendors walking around selling large cans of espuma for a few dollars each, and it’s in one’s best interest to load up for self-defense.  The merciless foaming of gringos during Carnaval is a favorite Ecua-pastime, and traveling in a group of 10 definitely made us targets! It’s all in good fun, although I would rate getting sprayed in the eyes only slightly more fun than getting a cavity filled.  While in Ambato, we also celebrated 1 month in Ecuador with a slice of chocolate cake, a tradition to be continued on the 19^th of every month.

A mild foaming of my friends, Sarah and Jhonny

      3.  I found out my site!! In a site-reveal ceremony, the training staff called out the names of each trainee with the name and province of their site.  They made a huge map of Ecuador on the soccer field behind the center, and I was ecstatic to hear “Danielle Garcia: Galera, provincia de Esmeraldas”, and my language facilitator, Ruth, took my arm and gave me a paper Esmeraldas flag and an Ecuador bracelet (which I have worn ever since), and ran me up to the top left corner of the map.  There, I waited to see which other volunteers would be in my “cluster” and where all of my friends would end up.  It’s an unspoken rule of Peace Corps that your best friend from training will likely be an 18 hour bus ride away from you for the next two years, but I ended up with some awesome people in my cluster so I’m pretty happy all things considered.  Afterwards, we received packets with info about our sites, host families, what jobs we might be doing, and logistics about going to visit a few days later.

      4.  I visited my site!  Galera is about 8-12 hours from Quito (depending on frequency of transportation), and is located at 0°, 49’ N- so just a hair above the Equator.  Galera is a fishing town of about 1200 people, there is running water sometimes (like when it rains), there is no internet, no regular bus service, no grocery store except for a few tiendas where you can buy very basic stuff, and someone in the neighborhood is usually blasting r&b or reggatone. As I was writing this sentence, a gecko pooped on me from the rafters of my room.  I can’t make this stuff up.  I’ll let him live, but only because he eats mosquitoes, which are public enemy #1.  Along with the geckos, I am armed with Mefloquin, DEET, a toldo (mosquito net), and Vitamin B1.  A few adjustments, but I think I’ll do just fine here.

View from my window of the town and the soccer/basketball cancha

My bed, complete with toldo for protection from mosquitoes

      5.  Training continued.  My fellow trainees were great, but sitting through 8 hours a day of seemingly endless sessions about medical, safety and security, language and culture, technical training, and Peace Corps policies is worse than being in school again.  It wasn’t all unbearable- we did hands on technical training like visiting a tree nursery, starting gardens behind the center (my radishes really thrived!!), made art from recycled materials, learned to tie-dye, and hosted a Community Action Day with local schools (my task: seven 20-min sessions of Climate Change Jeopardy with 8-12 year olds). I think our language facilitators knew we were getting restless by Week 9, so they started making up Spanish scavenger hunts and “language and culture bingo” and letting us watch movies.  We also had a mañana deportiva, which was a day-long soccer tournament, and a host family appreciation day to honor our families in Tumbaco.  One night, the staff let us use the center for a bonfire/pizza/movie night.

Our manana deportiva team, "the Puff"

Peace Corps logo we painted at the center

6.         

     6.  A few other highlights: Getting out and doing stuff.  One reason I haven’t been blogging was that I was out doing fun stuff on the weekends, as opposed to spending all of Saturday afternoon in an internet café.  But now I have more interesting things to blog about! I got to know other volunteers’ families, visited La Mitad del Mundo (the monument at the Equator) and straddled both hemispheres, went to Quito a few times for good food, drinks, and a slightly more historical (and touristy) experience, visited the town of Papallacta which has some great hot springs that flow directly into several large pools, and went to the nearby town of Cumbaya.  Cumbaya (aka “Cum-biami) has earned a reputation as a place to go for the Americanized version of Ecua-everything.  They have McDonalds, an iStore, great shwarma, a Scottish pub with happy hour specials (and green beer on St. Patty’s Day!), sushi, and anything else you could imagine.  Not that it helped with the integration process, but like Tom Haverford says, sometimes you just need to treat yo’self!

Straddling the Equator at La Mitad del Mundo (O is for Oeste, Western hemisphere!)

With some friends in the Quito historical district

7.     

          7.  Last but certainly not least, I became a volunteer.  On April 4^th, 2012, I was sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer after 11 weeks of training.  About an hour later, I departed from my cushy life in Tumbaco with my two suitcases (and a newly acquired water filtration system) for my home for the next two years. 

On the day of the swearing in ceremony

My "cluster"- volunteers headed to the province of Esmeraldas

So, that is the superquick version of what has gone on the past several weeks, to be later supplemented with hilarious anecdotes of cultural misunderstandings and awkward situations.  I am also proud to report that I have not yet been the victim of pickpocketing or kidnapping, and so far my stomach has not violently objected to any of the new foods I have been eating.  All in all, everything is good here in El Ecuador.