We get this e-magazine written by other PC volunteers here in Ecuador, and one of the articles in this last issue was about blogging. My compañera was commenting on the fact that we just post about big events, like how recently I have written about when I had visitors in my site, new projects I’m trying to work on, or the festivities of Carnaval. What really makes Peace Corps though is just the experience of living in a different country. So many times every day I find myself thinking “how did I get here?” because every day is so different from the day before and just so random. This blog post will be dedicated to those moments from my everyday life.
There was another concert last weekend in Cebadas for the end of Carnaval. I wanted to just see what it was like, and also it was so loud I probably wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyways, so I found Elvia, my little 10 year old buddy, and made her go with me. Her dad is a bus driver, and he had parked the bus in the plaza and we went and were sitting on top of the bus. Down in the plaza everyone wanted to dance with me, mostly the old drunk men, so I enjoyed it a lot more sitting on the bus. Elvia left me to go do something, and didn’t come back for a long time so I was just sitting up there by myself. I think some people noticed me and probably thought I was crazy for sitting on top of a bus by myself watching a concert. It got kind of cold so I went and walked around for a little and stood with my host mom before going to bed. I wish I had more friends here that could have gone to the concert with me; with Cebadas being so small pretty much everyone knows who I am, but we’re not really “friends.” Most people my age already have multiple children, or else they don’t live in Cebadas anymore, so I haven’t met people I could just call over to hang out, or go watch a concert with.
Bus rides. Something I had to get used to here. Since I was 16 I’ve had my own car and I remember going to get my license with my mom on my 16th birthday. Here that is completely different. In my little town of Cebadas, I would guess that maybe 15 families have personal cars, and most are trucks that the neighbors borrow all the time. They don’t really need cars though because there are busses that go almost anywhere at almost every hour of the day. Between Cebadas and Riobamba there are busses from 5:30 AM to 8:30 PM and it only costs $1 for the one hour trip. I have kind of lost my tendency for motion sickness taking that bus trip maybe once or twice a week, and every once in a while the 4 hour trip to the terminal in the south end of Quito. Bus rides are always an interesting experience…once I got on the bus and all the seats were full, or people had their backpacks saving seats for friends or family. This little old lady asked me if I was going to Cebadas, and when I said yes she scooted over and let me share her seat with her while we chatted on the way home. She still had her shopping bag on the seat too and so I just had a half a seat squished right up to my new friend. It was so hot with so many people on the bus and no one likes to open windows, so I took off my sweatshirt and was still really hot. As we got closer to Cebadas, people had gotten off so there were more empty seats, so I went and sat in a different seat and opened the window all the way to stick my head out for a minute. As I was sitting there enjoying the wind in my face, someone from behind me reached over my seat and shut my window. Not cool. Another time on the 6:30 PM bus going to Cebadas (which is always really busy) I got there right as it was leaving so of course I didn’t get a seat. I was standing up towards the front behind some bare footed old ladies who were sitting on the floor, leaning over them because there were so many people I couldn’t even move my feet from where they were wedged between other people’s feet and I couldn’t stand up straight.
The other day I was walking back to my house with these two high school sisters I have befriended and their mom and aunt. They were going to a funeral and I was just going home for the afternoon, but when we got to the funeral which was actually at my next door neighbor’s house I told them bye, but they made me come with them. It wasn’t actually the funeral service, but the part where the family of the person who died has to give everyone food. We were sitting on the roof of my neighbor’s house with probably about 100 other people (not kidding) and they came and served us potato soup, rice with veggies, and finally came around later giving out juice to everyone in the same 5 cups so you had to drink fast and then give the cup back. This was about 2:30 in the afternoon, and I had just recently eaten lunch, but it is rude to refuse food here, and especially at a funeral, so I ate as much as I could. I sat there with Rosa and Celia, the high schoolers, and their mom and two other women from Cebadas that I have seen around and I say hi to all the time, but haven’t actually had a conversation with. When I first arrived one of them said “the gringa came?” in Kichwa, but I understood that so then it was kinda awkward. We started talking and they asked me all the usual questions like how did you come here, how long are you staying, how old are you, are you married, what if you marry an Ecuadorian will you still go back in two years, what are your parents names, what are their jobs, how old are they, how many siblings do you have…the same conversation I have with every new person I meet pretty much. Then they were speaking to each other in Kichwa about my hair and asked me if it was natural and said how pretty it is. I said that if they would go to the US people would say the same thing about them, it’s just because I’m so different looking. They asked if I put some cream or something on my skin to make it white, and I explained that I was born like this, but I do have to put on sunscreen multiple times a day so the sun doesn’t burn me. They had never seen sunscreen in their lives, even though you can buy it at any pharmacy in Riobamba.
The last few weeks the little group of kids who come to cook with me has expanded to include some new members. The other day there were 9 kids there from 8 to 18 years old and we made pretzels. It was fun because each person could make their own in the shape of letters or stars or hearts or whatever. We have one big cookie sheet in the kitchen, but it was missing, so we baked the pretzels on the lids of some big pots we have. They kind of stuck, but after scraping them off I thought they were pretty good, just missing rock salt and cheese sauce. I have become more resourceful here, probably rubbing off from the Ecuadorians. They just don’t have lots of things, but they can do pretty much anything with the stuff they do have.
I was sitting on the corner waiting for the bus, because even though I have been here 7 months now I still haven’t figured out the schedule. It was later in the afternoon and the gate to the school was locked but I noticed some sheep inside. It’s not so uncommon for people to take their animals to public places to graze so I wasn’t even surprised to see them; not until I sat there for a minute did I realize that was kinda weird. Across the street there was a turkey shut inside the gate of the kindergarten. I had never seen that before, only a few people have turkeys.
Now to write about some more big events… on March 21, we celebrated the Andean New Year and Pawkar Raymi. The Department of Intercultural Health organized it all, inviting lots of people, school kids, and the general public. It was in a place called Tulabug, a hill that is considered a sacred place for the Andean culture, that is about 45 minutes away from Cebadas. They hired a bus to bring people from Cebadas, and I was in charge of finding people to fill it. They wanted to invite all the high school kids, so I gave invitations to the directors of the 6 high schools in the area and told them they could each send 4 students and 1 teacher. That way there would still be space to bring 8 midwives. Well as things happen in Ecuador, the director of only 3 schools got back to me, and I was only able to find 4 midwives. Monday morning we were waiting for the bus at 7:45 AM because it was supposed to leave at 8 for the event that was supposed to start at 8:30. Only students from 2 schools were there, and one midwife. Rachel and Ambrocio, the high schooler doing an internship at the Subcentro also were there hanging out. The bus wasn’t there anyways, so we just sat there doing absolutely nothing. Called the driver a few times and he said he would be there soon. Finally about 9:30 the bus shows up and we are on our way. My host dad also came in the bus with us because he is part of the band that was going to play. He directed the bus driver there because he didn’t even know where we were going, and we ended up out on some country roads, otherwise we would have gone to Riobamba and back up. The last few days it has been raining in the afternoons, and we had a little bad luck on one of the dirt roads and got stuck in the mud. Some random women who had gotten on the bus went to the neighbor’s house and asked to borrow a hoe. Everyone had gotten out of the bus and some people were helping throw dirt in the mud to dry it up, along with branches and rocks. Somebody threw a big rock in a puddle and splashed everyone with mud. One of the high school girls took charge along with my host dad telling the poor driver what to do, and eventually we got out. We slipped and slided our way the rest of the way there, with another small detour to push another car out of the ditch. I think next year the organizers should make sure the roads are in better conditions before sending thousands of people up a big hill in large busses and old trucks. We finally got there around 11, and just our luck – the event was just starting! Perfect timing! There were a few music groups playing, but of course the doctor booked his group to play for the majority of the time. The officials spoke a little, welcoming everyone to the event. Later my buddy Espiritu, the shaman, started the ritual thanking the sun and the moon, making everyone repeat after him some Kichwa words that I didn’t really understand, then he makes everyone face each of the 4 directions with their hands raised while he talks in Kichwa and sometimes Spanish. After the ritual, there was more music and a few dance groups doing traditional dancing. There was typical food for everyone to eat, and afterwards there was a lunch as well. We didn’t end up going to the lunch because it started to rain and with the road conditions we wanted to get out before they got worse. We arrived back to Cebadas around 3 after an interesting and exciting day.
Right after getting back I got on the 4 o’clock bus back to Riobamba to pick up the first shipment of toothbrushes. Some students from Cornell got here on Sunday and brought about half of the donations. I decided I am giving 700 to the health promoter who works at World Vision Cebadas. She recently bought 1000 toothbrushes and toothpastes, but there are about 1700 school kids so I told her I could give her the rest. I haven’t decided what to do with the others; I will probably donate some to MedLife and also to the dentist who works in the Subcentro. Thanks again everyone for your help with this, and finally it’s getting started, so look for pictures soon!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Carnaval!
I am sitting here in my room on a rainy afternoon with pink and black powder in my hair and wet clothes on the floor, curled up under the covers. I just ate like 5 pieces of delicious Ecuadorian chocolate; I may have developed an addiction. I am burning some coffee-scented incense that I picked up at a store in Riobamba that sells the most flavors of incense I have ever seen in my life.
Well now that you have a mental picture of my life at this moment, you may be asking why do I have pink and black powder in my hair? Carnaval has arrived here in Ecuador. Since last Monday kids have been throwing water balloons at each other, and sometimes at me, and on Friday the real dirty stuff started when people bought aerosol cans of spray foam and little bags of colorful powder. The foam works great to spray really far, but at $2 a can it’s pretty expensive and doesn’t last long (but yet people still buy it instead of giving fruit and veggies to their kids…). The powder works best when the person’s face is already wet and then you go throw it right in their face. I have been doing my fair share of participating as well in the carnaval activities. Thursday I went to the house of my host cousins who live a little more out in the country on the main highway. That is the big market day in the nearby town of Guamote, so in the afternoon there were lots of pick-up trucks coming back with tons of people sitting in the back, so we just sat and waited for them and then threw buckets of water at them as they passed by. We also ended up throwing water on each other, so then we laid down in the middle of the highway to warm up from the asphalt. Luckily it has been sunny this week, so it’s not that bad when you get wet and it actually kind of feels good. Friday there was a program in the plaza and groups of kids from all the schools in the area sang typical carnaval songs. Some boys dressed up like girls, and they all had on their best clothes even though they knew they were going to get dirty. I was just standing there with Rachel (another PCV) watching the performances when some kids started throwing water balloons at us, and from that moment on it was war. Rachel and I each bought a can of spray foam, but then in a few minutes we were left defenseless so we bought a bag of powder and some water balloons. We sat with some neighbor kids filling up some water balloons, and then a group of high school boys came walking around the corner – they were our enemies. I walked closer to them to throw our balloons, but then they stole the whole bag of balloons from me and threw them all at me instead. Rachel and I went up to her roof which overlooks one of the main streets in Cebadas and threw buckets of water on people walking past down below so we got them back, kindof. Later Friday afternoon I went back to the community where my host cousins and the grandparents live and watched them kill a pig. They stabbed it right in the heart because that is how it dies fastest. They laid it on some logs and used small branches to burn off the hair and toast it up a little bit, then washed it off and peeled off the skin to eat which they love (they always give me the biggest piece, but I don’t really like it as much as they do). Then we cut it down the middle to remove the organs, and hung up the pig on a rope from the roof of the house. I was helping the two aunts clean out the intestines, while an uncle and the grandpa were cutting off the fat to be melted down. Other family members were helping with other jobs preparing the food while the kids were running around spraying each other with foam. Later I helped make sausage, stuffing the intestines with a rice and cabbage mixture. Finally we ate some fried fat with corn, and a soup with the sausage, and meat from the heart, lungs, and liver and the extra intestines we didn’t use for sausage. We all split some big pieces of grilled meat which was the best part for me. The soup was actually probably one of the grossest things I have eaten here so far, but they served me first and we were sitting in the kitchen with about 15 people (and there’s only probably 10 bowls and spoons) so I had to eat it all because they were pretty much all just watching me. Pretty much all day all the adults were just speaking in Kichwa so I just sat there quietly not participating in the conversation, but it was still really nice that they shared their family tradition with me. I also really like hanging out with the kids, especially these twin girls who are 5 – they always comment on how white my skin is and tell me that my hair looks like doll’s hair. Saturday I went to Riobamba to meet up with my counterpart Dr. Silva who now works in the city, and we randomly were in a parade which he knew about before but didn’t tell me. There was a group of a few midwives, a truck decorated with medicinal plants and balloons that had speakers playing an announcement they had recorded about preventing maternal death, and then the employees from one of the health centers dressed in traditional outfits dancing. I was just wearing my regular clothes and was originally in charge of the camcorder. It was kind of pointless to record the whole parade because it was just the same thing over and over for a few miles, and because it started to get real messy when random people would just throw water or spray foam at me. Everyone always seems to want to get the gringa more than everyone else. But this time I was prepared with my own can of spray and would get everyone who sprayed me first. We also handed out some flyers encouraging people to give birth in the hospital, or at least to have a car ready to go and an emergency plan. Saturday night there was supposed to be stuff going on in Cebadas, but I was walking around about 9:30 and didn’t really see anything, but I think there was a beauty pageant that started later, but you had to pay to get in so I wasn’t really planning on going anyways. Sunday was the biggest day in Cebadas for carnaval activities. First starting around 10 there was a parade, with a band and different groups of people, mostly students, each doing a different typical dance behind a truck with speakers. I ate lunch with one of the nurses in the Subcentro, and hung out there for a little bit, but there weren’t many patients. I went walking around the plaza a little to say hi to people and came back to the Subcentro soaking wet and covered in foam and powder, then it started to rain and was really cold. I went to change my clothes and by then it had stopped raining and we went to watch “the bulls”. There was this little stadium made of wooden planks and tons of people sitting wherever they could find room, including on top of the busses parked nearby. A fair amount of men from the community were waiting inside the bull ring for when they let them out and they acted like matadors with their red wool ponchos. Most are young men, some in high school, but they’re pretty agile and its actually kind of fun to watch them. Some are drunk, and that number increases as the hours go on, but surprisingly not too many people get hurt. I have heard of people dying, but only one guy that I saw got seriously injured from the bull. There were a lot more injuries when 2 sets of the wooden bleachers collapsed with people on top of them and standing below too. An old man broke his arm and I splinted it because the doctor was just gonna leave it, and we called the ambulance for him. After that happened, people started leaving because I think they were afraid of standing on the bleachers. A while after the bulls were over everyone met up again in the plaza to wait for the musical performers who were coming. By this time there were a lot of drunk people, mostly middle aged and older men, and they just had a great time dancing to the music they were just playing on the speakers before the artists came out. I ended up dancing with my host dad’s brothers and the cousins and everybody – I was the only girl in our little group, but I had fun. This one cousin was opening beer bottles with his teeth which I thought was pretty impressive, then he poured it into cups to share with everyone. I left at 11 to go shower to get all the powder out of my hair, and went to bed, but at that point only one of the groups had sung so I think it went on at least till 2 in the morning.
As far as work goes, lately I’ve been just being a nurse pretty much, helping look for patient files, weighing and measuring kids, taking blood pressures – but the other day I talked to the doctor and now he understands that that’s not what I’m here to do. There is also a high school kid that just started an internship at the Subcentro so he does pretty much the same thing I do, but I can leave whenever I want to do other things and he has to stay as long as the doctor does till about 3 in the afternoon. So for my other activities, we had the second meeting of the youth group I’m helping run with World Vision – it was a workshop on leadership skills. They hired this man whose a lawyer to give the workshop, and I think it was kind of ineffective because he just talked to them pretty much, and when he did put them in smaller groups they hardly talked at all. Next time we’re going to do public speaking activities, and I hope that they will let me actually run it, with the help of the World Vision staff. I want to do some improv acting type of activities, and I will save them money because I’ll do it for free. I also am still trying to get organized all the stuff for the medicinal plants project. My counterpart has kind of taken over which is good, but at the same time not because it leaves me with nothing to do. Hopefully within the next month or so we will get all the plants to the community leaders or midwives and do some sort of workshop on the uses, and then it will my job to go around to all the communities seeing if they are actually using the plants or not. I have also been coordinating with other volunteer organizations, and for a week in February I went to another little community in Chimborazo with a group called Builders Beyond Borders. They are a group of high school students from Connecticut who were building some toilets and some other small construction projects around the school and community meeting room. I helped translate and did some of the construction work too, and spent lots of time just helping organize meals and helping figuring out other details too. There was another volunteer organization called New Horizons based out of Quito that provided the building materials (so BBB just had to provide the labor and their food and lodging). There was another American volunteer with New Horizons helping out that was actually from Colorado too so we helped each other stay sane that week that we were treated like slaves. It wasn’t actually that bad though and was interesting to get to see how other NGO’s work in the communities. Maybe I inspired some of the kids to join the Peace Corps someday, although they were talking about what food they missed the most and I had to remind them they had been here 6 days and I have been here 8 months, so I don’t know if most of them could make it. At least they got a glimpse of how people live in other countries. One of the things they were most surprised about was the lack of meat in the diet – they were always asking for more, and also the lack of showering, but when its cold out and you don’t have a hot shower you’re not gonna shower. Planning on meeting up with more Americans when the first group of MedLife volunteers comes at the end of March. The director came to Cebadas to meet with the director of the Subcentro to try to coordinate, and he kind of made it difficult for them, but we are going to bring vaccines to add to the services MedLife will offer. They have more volunteer groups coming from May to September during summer vacation for the college students, so hopefully in April they will meet again to plan better for the other brigades.
Although sometimes I feel like I am not really making an impact here and usually don’t have enough work to keep me busy, I really love it here and the whole situation really. I doubt there will be another period in my life when I can just do whatever I want pretty much every day, living in a beautiful mountain town with a really relaxed culture. I have been reading lots of books, watching movies I buy at stores in Riobamba for $1, and listening to some of the 17000 songs I have accumulated from other volunteers. I love having a (semi)real job during the week, and being able to be a tourist when I want to in a beautiful diverse country. I love it when little kids call me by my name even though I don’t recognize them at all, just because my town is so small that everyone knows who the gringa is. Although I wish I had more friends my age (there aren’t many here because they leave to go to college or get jobs), I love talking to little kids and old ladies who I walk past every day to go to work. When I had my birthday here last month it was weird to think about the fact that I’ll have another birthday here, but I have made it this far so I can’t see myself going home early – why would I want to get back to a stressful environment where I would also have nothing to do?
Well now that you have a mental picture of my life at this moment, you may be asking why do I have pink and black powder in my hair? Carnaval has arrived here in Ecuador. Since last Monday kids have been throwing water balloons at each other, and sometimes at me, and on Friday the real dirty stuff started when people bought aerosol cans of spray foam and little bags of colorful powder. The foam works great to spray really far, but at $2 a can it’s pretty expensive and doesn’t last long (but yet people still buy it instead of giving fruit and veggies to their kids…). The powder works best when the person’s face is already wet and then you go throw it right in their face. I have been doing my fair share of participating as well in the carnaval activities. Thursday I went to the house of my host cousins who live a little more out in the country on the main highway. That is the big market day in the nearby town of Guamote, so in the afternoon there were lots of pick-up trucks coming back with tons of people sitting in the back, so we just sat and waited for them and then threw buckets of water at them as they passed by. We also ended up throwing water on each other, so then we laid down in the middle of the highway to warm up from the asphalt. Luckily it has been sunny this week, so it’s not that bad when you get wet and it actually kind of feels good. Friday there was a program in the plaza and groups of kids from all the schools in the area sang typical carnaval songs. Some boys dressed up like girls, and they all had on their best clothes even though they knew they were going to get dirty. I was just standing there with Rachel (another PCV) watching the performances when some kids started throwing water balloons at us, and from that moment on it was war. Rachel and I each bought a can of spray foam, but then in a few minutes we were left defenseless so we bought a bag of powder and some water balloons. We sat with some neighbor kids filling up some water balloons, and then a group of high school boys came walking around the corner – they were our enemies. I walked closer to them to throw our balloons, but then they stole the whole bag of balloons from me and threw them all at me instead. Rachel and I went up to her roof which overlooks one of the main streets in Cebadas and threw buckets of water on people walking past down below so we got them back, kindof. Later Friday afternoon I went back to the community where my host cousins and the grandparents live and watched them kill a pig. They stabbed it right in the heart because that is how it dies fastest. They laid it on some logs and used small branches to burn off the hair and toast it up a little bit, then washed it off and peeled off the skin to eat which they love (they always give me the biggest piece, but I don’t really like it as much as they do). Then we cut it down the middle to remove the organs, and hung up the pig on a rope from the roof of the house. I was helping the two aunts clean out the intestines, while an uncle and the grandpa were cutting off the fat to be melted down. Other family members were helping with other jobs preparing the food while the kids were running around spraying each other with foam. Later I helped make sausage, stuffing the intestines with a rice and cabbage mixture. Finally we ate some fried fat with corn, and a soup with the sausage, and meat from the heart, lungs, and liver and the extra intestines we didn’t use for sausage. We all split some big pieces of grilled meat which was the best part for me. The soup was actually probably one of the grossest things I have eaten here so far, but they served me first and we were sitting in the kitchen with about 15 people (and there’s only probably 10 bowls and spoons) so I had to eat it all because they were pretty much all just watching me. Pretty much all day all the adults were just speaking in Kichwa so I just sat there quietly not participating in the conversation, but it was still really nice that they shared their family tradition with me. I also really like hanging out with the kids, especially these twin girls who are 5 – they always comment on how white my skin is and tell me that my hair looks like doll’s hair. Saturday I went to Riobamba to meet up with my counterpart Dr. Silva who now works in the city, and we randomly were in a parade which he knew about before but didn’t tell me. There was a group of a few midwives, a truck decorated with medicinal plants and balloons that had speakers playing an announcement they had recorded about preventing maternal death, and then the employees from one of the health centers dressed in traditional outfits dancing. I was just wearing my regular clothes and was originally in charge of the camcorder. It was kind of pointless to record the whole parade because it was just the same thing over and over for a few miles, and because it started to get real messy when random people would just throw water or spray foam at me. Everyone always seems to want to get the gringa more than everyone else. But this time I was prepared with my own can of spray and would get everyone who sprayed me first. We also handed out some flyers encouraging people to give birth in the hospital, or at least to have a car ready to go and an emergency plan. Saturday night there was supposed to be stuff going on in Cebadas, but I was walking around about 9:30 and didn’t really see anything, but I think there was a beauty pageant that started later, but you had to pay to get in so I wasn’t really planning on going anyways. Sunday was the biggest day in Cebadas for carnaval activities. First starting around 10 there was a parade, with a band and different groups of people, mostly students, each doing a different typical dance behind a truck with speakers. I ate lunch with one of the nurses in the Subcentro, and hung out there for a little bit, but there weren’t many patients. I went walking around the plaza a little to say hi to people and came back to the Subcentro soaking wet and covered in foam and powder, then it started to rain and was really cold. I went to change my clothes and by then it had stopped raining and we went to watch “the bulls”. There was this little stadium made of wooden planks and tons of people sitting wherever they could find room, including on top of the busses parked nearby. A fair amount of men from the community were waiting inside the bull ring for when they let them out and they acted like matadors with their red wool ponchos. Most are young men, some in high school, but they’re pretty agile and its actually kind of fun to watch them. Some are drunk, and that number increases as the hours go on, but surprisingly not too many people get hurt. I have heard of people dying, but only one guy that I saw got seriously injured from the bull. There were a lot more injuries when 2 sets of the wooden bleachers collapsed with people on top of them and standing below too. An old man broke his arm and I splinted it because the doctor was just gonna leave it, and we called the ambulance for him. After that happened, people started leaving because I think they were afraid of standing on the bleachers. A while after the bulls were over everyone met up again in the plaza to wait for the musical performers who were coming. By this time there were a lot of drunk people, mostly middle aged and older men, and they just had a great time dancing to the music they were just playing on the speakers before the artists came out. I ended up dancing with my host dad’s brothers and the cousins and everybody – I was the only girl in our little group, but I had fun. This one cousin was opening beer bottles with his teeth which I thought was pretty impressive, then he poured it into cups to share with everyone. I left at 11 to go shower to get all the powder out of my hair, and went to bed, but at that point only one of the groups had sung so I think it went on at least till 2 in the morning.
As far as work goes, lately I’ve been just being a nurse pretty much, helping look for patient files, weighing and measuring kids, taking blood pressures – but the other day I talked to the doctor and now he understands that that’s not what I’m here to do. There is also a high school kid that just started an internship at the Subcentro so he does pretty much the same thing I do, but I can leave whenever I want to do other things and he has to stay as long as the doctor does till about 3 in the afternoon. So for my other activities, we had the second meeting of the youth group I’m helping run with World Vision – it was a workshop on leadership skills. They hired this man whose a lawyer to give the workshop, and I think it was kind of ineffective because he just talked to them pretty much, and when he did put them in smaller groups they hardly talked at all. Next time we’re going to do public speaking activities, and I hope that they will let me actually run it, with the help of the World Vision staff. I want to do some improv acting type of activities, and I will save them money because I’ll do it for free. I also am still trying to get organized all the stuff for the medicinal plants project. My counterpart has kind of taken over which is good, but at the same time not because it leaves me with nothing to do. Hopefully within the next month or so we will get all the plants to the community leaders or midwives and do some sort of workshop on the uses, and then it will my job to go around to all the communities seeing if they are actually using the plants or not. I have also been coordinating with other volunteer organizations, and for a week in February I went to another little community in Chimborazo with a group called Builders Beyond Borders. They are a group of high school students from Connecticut who were building some toilets and some other small construction projects around the school and community meeting room. I helped translate and did some of the construction work too, and spent lots of time just helping organize meals and helping figuring out other details too. There was another volunteer organization called New Horizons based out of Quito that provided the building materials (so BBB just had to provide the labor and their food and lodging). There was another American volunteer with New Horizons helping out that was actually from Colorado too so we helped each other stay sane that week that we were treated like slaves. It wasn’t actually that bad though and was interesting to get to see how other NGO’s work in the communities. Maybe I inspired some of the kids to join the Peace Corps someday, although they were talking about what food they missed the most and I had to remind them they had been here 6 days and I have been here 8 months, so I don’t know if most of them could make it. At least they got a glimpse of how people live in other countries. One of the things they were most surprised about was the lack of meat in the diet – they were always asking for more, and also the lack of showering, but when its cold out and you don’t have a hot shower you’re not gonna shower. Planning on meeting up with more Americans when the first group of MedLife volunteers comes at the end of March. The director came to Cebadas to meet with the director of the Subcentro to try to coordinate, and he kind of made it difficult for them, but we are going to bring vaccines to add to the services MedLife will offer. They have more volunteer groups coming from May to September during summer vacation for the college students, so hopefully in April they will meet again to plan better for the other brigades.
Although sometimes I feel like I am not really making an impact here and usually don’t have enough work to keep me busy, I really love it here and the whole situation really. I doubt there will be another period in my life when I can just do whatever I want pretty much every day, living in a beautiful mountain town with a really relaxed culture. I have been reading lots of books, watching movies I buy at stores in Riobamba for $1, and listening to some of the 17000 songs I have accumulated from other volunteers. I love having a (semi)real job during the week, and being able to be a tourist when I want to in a beautiful diverse country. I love it when little kids call me by my name even though I don’t recognize them at all, just because my town is so small that everyone knows who the gringa is. Although I wish I had more friends my age (there aren’t many here because they leave to go to college or get jobs), I love talking to little kids and old ladies who I walk past every day to go to work. When I had my birthday here last month it was weird to think about the fact that I’ll have another birthday here, but I have made it this far so I can’t see myself going home early – why would I want to get back to a stressful environment where I would also have nothing to do?
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