Question: What is a normal day like as a
Peace Corps Volunteer? What is the daily routine of a natural resource
conservation volunteer in rural coastal Ecuador? Answer: There isn’t one. No day is typical and at this point I have no
routine whatsoever. I understand that this is to be expected for the first
several months of service, so I guess I am right on schedule. The most
consistent part of my day is waking up to the rooster around 5:30am, then going
back to sleep for 1-1.5 hours until I’m reawakened by the construction work
going on next door. (My host brother, one
of the construction workers, tells me the house they are building will be done
in 3 months or so. JOY.)
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| Aboard one of the bigger ships in the reserve |
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| Checking out the fishermen's catch |
After I get up, I shower (if there is
water.. if not, bucket bath it is!), eat a little breakfast, and start the
day. I might wander over to the office
of the Junta Parroquial, which is the
local government and my counterpart office.
If there isn’t a meeting or something, I might hang out for awhile and
watch Chinese novelas dubbed over in
Spanish with the receptionist (yep, they don’t have internet but they do have
DirecTV in the office. Now I know EXACTLY where I can go to watch the Olympics
this summer!). Or I might head over to the Marine Reserve office and hang out
with the parkguards. I’ve been out on
patrol with them to bust people for fishing inside the reserve, and also spent
one afternoon teaching them a little English for kicks. This week I started going to the colegio (high school) to help the
English teacher there teach some of her classes. In Ecuador, it is not a prerequisite for
English teachers to actually be able to speak English, so I said I would help the
teacher out with her pronunciation and grammar and whatnot. I figure I can do that for awhile until my
Spanish is good enough to actually be able to teach some environmental
education (by the way, according to this Ecua-language standard, I would be
qualified to teach Spanish to English speakers.. Scary). In the evenings, if it’s not raining, I might walk
on the beach if the tide is low enough, or wander down to the cancha to watch a soccer game until the
mosquitoes drive me indoors. Otherwise,
I hang out, study Spanish, and catch up with other volunteers on the
phone. On Sundays, I play cards with my
host mom and our neighbor. At least once
a week, I go to Atacames (one hour away) to check my email, check my real mail,
go to the bank, buy groceries and saldo
(phone credit), and see my fellow Esmeraldas volunteers. Well, at least the ones that aren’t sick with
amoebas or stuck in their sites with no transportation..
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| Out in the lancha with parkguards, coastguards, and the Ministry of Environment |
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| The colegio kids (8th, 9th, 10th grade) lining up after recreo |
Not that I have something to do all day,
every day. As one volunteer put it, a
love for reading (and alone time) is pretty much a requirement for all
PCVs. I have read 14 books since I got
to Ecuador just over 4 months ago, and half of those have been from the last 6
weeks. I must say that after many years
of stress, school, and an overloaded schedule, it is pretty nice to be able to
relax in the hammock and read/nap, or watch a movie in the middle of the
afternoon. And as previously mentioned,
things tend to take a long time here. A
“short” meeting might last 3-4 hours, laundry takes all day to dry outside in
the humidity (but thank God we have a washing machine!), and waiting for
transportation to run an errand might take several hours more than the errand
itself. If I accomplish 1-2 things each
day, I consider the day a success. So
much different from life in the States, where I was cramming as much as I could
into each day, and still not having enough time. Benjamin Franklin said, “Why put off until
tomorrow that which you can do today?”- a worthy motto in fast-paced US
culture. In Ecuador, my philosophy is
“If I do X,Y, and Z today, will I have anything left to do tomorrow?? Maybe I
should save something for later..”
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| View from the colegio of the patio, escuela, and ocean beyond |
I have almost 100 unread books on my
Kindle, so I think I’m set for a few more “nothing” days.
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