Some interesting observations of Ecuadorian life:

Some interesting observations of Ecuadorian life:
• They play indoor here, not fútbol. This is like indoor soccer except on cement covered with sand and dust. Some people only wear converse-like shoes and no one wears shin guards. The game may be delayed for a number of reasons, including a truck driving through the middle of the field, or a dog or an elderly couple walking right through the middle of the game.
• I made pizza for my family with home-made sauce and they loved it! (So did I!) The next day we ate spaghetti with the extra sauce, but my sister put ketchup on it also, and my brother ate it with lime juice. We all ate with spoons because we don’t even have any forks in the house. The oven had never been used for anything but storage before I used it, so I guess there is no need for forks if you just eat soup for every meal.
• Monday we drove for about an hour and a half one way to go to a community to do some pap smears, but when we got there there were no women there. They hadn’t called and said they were coming, but apparently that was because there is no cell phone signal there. They told me to play with the kids for a while and give them a charla while they looked for some women, so I talked to them a little bit, but then we just ended up running in circles and they loved it. Overall, it was a pretty big waste of time, but this community was in a different province so it was in the transitional zone between the sierra and the oriente – almost rainforest area – so it was cool to see a new ecosystem I guess, and be warmer for a little bit, and I saw lots of pretty waterfalls.
• My brother thinks that if you take a shower every day you will get cancer and your hair will fall out. (they have lots of weird explanations for why people get sick here so I wasn’t really surprised when he said this.) I told him that my parents shower every day, and he asked how old they were. He said that they don´t have cancer because showering every day is only good for old people.
I should carry my laptop all the time to write about the weird things that I see every day because now I can’t really even think of other interesting observations even though I know I see them all the time. Maybe these things are just becoming normal to me. I am really starting to enjoy myself lately; when I walk around I always see people that I know, or at least recognize, and I am never bored, which was one of my biggest concerns moving out to the campo. I have really bonded with my siblings too, we always have fun together and joke around, and my dad has started making fun of me sometimes when I try to speak Kichwa or something so that makes me feel at home like it was my uncles making fun of me!
My work stuff is picking up too – the other day I wrote a formal business letter to the president of the midwives asking for her to set a date for a meeting where I can introduce myself and meet all of them. I also met some teenagers who have a group mainly working with children’s rights to fight against child abuse and neglect and prevent things such as teenage pregnancy and child labor and I am going to their meeting on Saturday. I’m bringing banana bread which I have already made like 3 times for various people. Everyone wants me to teach them how to cook American food, and I actually just found out today there is a oven/stove in the clinic so I might start doing cooking classes on Sunday afternoons when everyone comes down from the communities.
On a sadder note, this morning someone informed us at the clinic that last night someone gave birth to a baby and left it under a tree with the placenta still attached. The baby was still alive and was taken to the hospital, but we went with the doctor to see and the placenta was just sitting there and we don´t know who the mother was so tomorrow we´ll probably try to do some investigation.
That’s all for now! Love you all!