Site Assignment!!!

Finally on Friday we found out where we will spend the next 2 years. I will be living in Cebadas, in the province of Chimborazo. It is in the sierra, in fact Chimborazo is the tallest mountain in Ecuador at over 20,000 feet. The elevation of my town is about 9200 and the average temperature is between 45 and 60 degrees F. (I converted this for you all but I’m gonna have to start thinking in meters and celcius!) My counterpart is the doctor who works in the clinic in Cebadas, Dr. Geovanny Silvas. I will staying with a family, but I don’t know much about them except that they have at least 1 daughter because I talked to her on the phone when I called to remind them I’m coming. On Tuesday we will leave to visit our sites for about a week before coming back to the Cayambe area to finish training.
When the doctor wrote a proposal to the Peace Corps, he had to list some possible projects ideas, here is what he asked for:
1. Health promotion
2. Prevention of maternal death
3. Strengthening traditional medicine
4. Projects with medicinal plants in indigenous communities
5. Medicinal gardens
6. Create brochures about signs of danger for pregnancy, tuberculosis, hygiene practices and family planning
7. Promote cultural events (festivals of folkloric dancing, artisan fairs)
8. Work with a group of traditional midwives to strengthen maternal and infant health
9. Work with students to build a trail, promote ecological protection in Sangay National Park
The last one doesn’t really have to do with health obviously, but I think it will be pretty cool! I have about a 6-7 hour bus ride total to get to Riobamba, the nearest city, and the doctor will pick me up there and take me to my house. It says that I have my own little apartment with a bedroom and bathroom. I’ll write more and post pictures when I come back on Saturday!
Also this weekend, I went on a little hike to some waterfalls nearby and it was probably the coolest thing I have done so far in Ecuador. The trail was so steep and slippery and muddy that we were using roots and trees to pull ourselves up basically. We only saw 2 waterfalls, but we heard from various people that there were 7 or 10 or 12, no one really knows I guess, so we just kept going and eventually got to the top of this ridge where we walked a little ways down the path. One friend was waiting for us down at the bottom so we couldn’t take the trail on the ridge home since we had to go back and get her, so we had to go down the steep muddy trail too. We thought it would pretty much be impossible, but it was so much fun! I was facing backwards most of the time, just swinging from vine to vine like George of the Jungle style. I was really sweaty and muddy when we finally finished, but it was so fun!