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 19th of every month.
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| 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.
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| View from my window of the town and the soccer/basketball cancha |
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| 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.
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| Our manana deportiva team, "the Puff" |
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| Peace Corps logo we painted at the center |
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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!
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| Straddling the Equator at La Mitad del Mundo (O is for Oeste, Western hemisphere!) |
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| With some friends in the Quito historical district |
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7. Last but certainly not least, I became a volunteer. On April 4th, 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.
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| On the day of the swearing in ceremony |
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| 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.
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