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!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
first week in site
Sorry I haven’t written on here in a while; actually as I sit at my laptop in my room I can’t remember the last post I wrote. Training ended up well – I was glad it was over so I didn’t have to listen to Power Point presentations every day, but also nervous to move all alone to my site and not have anyone to speak English to, and all the other responsibilities of course. During training I was sooo excited to just get to my site and start working and stuff, but now I’m here (and granted it’s only been 3 and a half days as I write this) and I feel overwhelmed. Malnutrition is a huge problem, but me just giving “charlas” to the mothers in the communities probably won’t help this. They grow all this nutritious food like quinoa, corn, lots of other veggies native to this area, but then they sell them to get money to buy rice, potatoes, and noodles. The clinic actually does cooking classes as well, I’m hoping to attend one on Monday, so I don’t know how I can make an impact in this area. Maternal health is also a huge issue, mostly related to the nutrition aspect as well, but also due to the fact that many of the mothers are very young and now no longer attending school. There’s a ton of other problems that I feel like I should try to address with my projects, but I just feel really overwhelmed and I don’t even know where to start. Peace Corps has given us an “assignment” to do a community diagnostic analysis using surveys to get a better grasp on the current situation in the community, so this should help me decide what I actually want to do for the rest of the time that I’m here. However, this is also challenging for me because I don’t know how I want to define my community exactly. I live in the main little town of this area and there are 28 smaller villages surrounding it. If I can I would love to give the surveys in all of the communities because that is where the poverty is stronger than here in the central town, but I don’t know if that is too ambitious. Peace Corps recommends having local coworkers or other community members to help with this, but everyone who works in the clinic is already very busy and they won’t have time to go to all the communities with me.
Enough with my preoccupations, now I’ll just write some about my first few days in my site. I arrived in the afternoon with my 2 huge suitcases which was actually easier than I had anticipated, but after a long bus ride which included me sitting in the front seat puking, I just wanted to sleep. I ate dinner with my family later, and went to bed. Friday, I went to the clinic in the morning just to observe to daily functions. The doctor who is in charge, and who is my counterpart, doesn’t work on Fridays, but there was one nurse and one doctor. Usually there is also a dentist, but she wasn’t there that day. Earlier in the morning, before 12 or so, was when most of the patients came in. Many people came to have rotten teeth pulled, but we had to turn them away and tell them to come back in a week, the next day the dentist will be in the office. A lot of the other patients were little babies brought in by their mothers, some with colds or diarrhea. There were some women who came to get birth control pills, a few people with sore throats, a man with an infected burn from a motorcycle exhaust, and a man who had stitches on his foot from some injury last week and I got to help take them out! After a while, things slowed down and I had more time to just sit and talk to the nurse and doctor since there were no patients. I went home for lunch that my sister had cooked for us. I watched a movie with my brother in the afternoon, and in the evening sat in the cabinas with my sister – this is our families business, they sell cell phones and minutes, and have some phone booths. I actually cooked dinner for the family because I was hungry and everyone was gone except for my sister who had to stay in the cabinas, but this was a kind of difficult because there was no running water all day, and actually now it’s still not working. Cooking could have gone better, my family here doesn’t eat as many veggies as my family in Paquiestancia, so there wasn’t much in the kitchen for me to work with. Also, I’ve gotten kind of used to having the garden outside if we need some herbs or any veggies really, but I made do with what I had and they said they liked it. This morning I unpacked my bags finally – I’m living in a bedroom of the house because my little apartment isn’t done yet and might not be for about a month, so I just rearranged the stuff in my bags and put them under my bed. Because of the construction on my room there has been no running water to our house since Friday afternoon.
Sunday I went to the subcentro again; Sunday is the market day here and there are tons of people from all around the communities, so they open the clinic to let the people come in while they’re already in town. There is supposed to be a shaman on Sundays too, but he wasn’t there this week. There were a ton of patients that came in, and the only people working were the doctor, the obstetrician, a nurse who spent all day giving vaccines to kids, and another nurse who is also the pharmacist. That left me to check in patients, meaning I had to search for their clinical history in the semi-unorganized office, then weigh and measure them and take blood pressures. I didn’t expect to be given so many responsibilities on the first day I was helping out, but it was interesting to get to see who all came in. I didn’t really introduce myself to anyone – no one really asked where I was from or anything and I didn’t want to just start talking about myself while they were telling me their problems, but hopefully next week I’ll personally meet some more people here.
One more thing quickly, Sunday also there were a ton of men playing volleyball out in the plaza. Here pretty much only men play, but girls will play just with their friends or siblings or whatever, but on Sunday everyone is watching the men playing. They play 3 vs 3, and the net is probably 2 feet higher than it is in the US. They were really serious about it, I’m not exactly sure how it works but I saw money being exchanged after the matches. Its been pretty cold here the last few days, but they were still out there, some without shirts on even!
I put up new pictures on Facebook too:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2384509&id=19227721&l=a303982b64
Enough with my preoccupations, now I’ll just write some about my first few days in my site. I arrived in the afternoon with my 2 huge suitcases which was actually easier than I had anticipated, but after a long bus ride which included me sitting in the front seat puking, I just wanted to sleep. I ate dinner with my family later, and went to bed. Friday, I went to the clinic in the morning just to observe to daily functions. The doctor who is in charge, and who is my counterpart, doesn’t work on Fridays, but there was one nurse and one doctor. Usually there is also a dentist, but she wasn’t there that day. Earlier in the morning, before 12 or so, was when most of the patients came in. Many people came to have rotten teeth pulled, but we had to turn them away and tell them to come back in a week, the next day the dentist will be in the office. A lot of the other patients were little babies brought in by their mothers, some with colds or diarrhea. There were some women who came to get birth control pills, a few people with sore throats, a man with an infected burn from a motorcycle exhaust, and a man who had stitches on his foot from some injury last week and I got to help take them out! After a while, things slowed down and I had more time to just sit and talk to the nurse and doctor since there were no patients. I went home for lunch that my sister had cooked for us. I watched a movie with my brother in the afternoon, and in the evening sat in the cabinas with my sister – this is our families business, they sell cell phones and minutes, and have some phone booths. I actually cooked dinner for the family because I was hungry and everyone was gone except for my sister who had to stay in the cabinas, but this was a kind of difficult because there was no running water all day, and actually now it’s still not working. Cooking could have gone better, my family here doesn’t eat as many veggies as my family in Paquiestancia, so there wasn’t much in the kitchen for me to work with. Also, I’ve gotten kind of used to having the garden outside if we need some herbs or any veggies really, but I made do with what I had and they said they liked it. This morning I unpacked my bags finally – I’m living in a bedroom of the house because my little apartment isn’t done yet and might not be for about a month, so I just rearranged the stuff in my bags and put them under my bed. Because of the construction on my room there has been no running water to our house since Friday afternoon.
Sunday I went to the subcentro again; Sunday is the market day here and there are tons of people from all around the communities, so they open the clinic to let the people come in while they’re already in town. There is supposed to be a shaman on Sundays too, but he wasn’t there this week. There were a ton of patients that came in, and the only people working were the doctor, the obstetrician, a nurse who spent all day giving vaccines to kids, and another nurse who is also the pharmacist. That left me to check in patients, meaning I had to search for their clinical history in the semi-unorganized office, then weigh and measure them and take blood pressures. I didn’t expect to be given so many responsibilities on the first day I was helping out, but it was interesting to get to see who all came in. I didn’t really introduce myself to anyone – no one really asked where I was from or anything and I didn’t want to just start talking about myself while they were telling me their problems, but hopefully next week I’ll personally meet some more people here.
One more thing quickly, Sunday also there were a ton of men playing volleyball out in the plaza. Here pretty much only men play, but girls will play just with their friends or siblings or whatever, but on Sunday everyone is watching the men playing. They play 3 vs 3, and the net is probably 2 feet higher than it is in the US. They were really serious about it, I’m not exactly sure how it works but I saw money being exchanged after the matches. Its been pretty cold here the last few days, but they were still out there, some without shirts on even!
I put up new pictures on Facebook too:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2384509&id=19227721&l=a303982b64
Monday, August 9, 2010
Tech trip
We just got back Saturday from a week long tech trip. I was in a group with 11 other volunteers and 3 Peace Corps volunteers. were gone for a week, staying in hotels in the cities of Latacunga, Ambato, and Riobamba. During the day we would go out to visit sites of other volunteers to see what projects they’re working on.
I feel like this is a really boring summary, so I’m just gonna tell a funny story instead.
We were in a bus station looking for the bathrooms and went up to a man and asked where the bathrooms. He told us to take a taxi up to a different bus stop so we were really confused. Then we realized there is a touristy town with some hot springs called Baños and he thought we were looking for the bus that goes there. Its annoying that everyone just thinks we’re tourists here, when really we’ve already been here a few months and we know when they’re ripping us off.
For my last week here I am going to make mexican food one night and also lasagna another night. I can’t believe this is already the last week of training, and I’m excited to move to my site, but also obviously kind of scared to be there working all by myself pretty much.
My life here feels normal to me now, and I will be leaving in about 2 weeks to go to my site, but if you have ideas of something I should write about just let me know! I am willing to answer any questions, and we can make it an interactive blog!
I feel like this is a really boring summary, so I’m just gonna tell a funny story instead.
We were in a bus station looking for the bathrooms and went up to a man and asked where the bathrooms. He told us to take a taxi up to a different bus stop so we were really confused. Then we realized there is a touristy town with some hot springs called Baños and he thought we were looking for the bus that goes there. Its annoying that everyone just thinks we’re tourists here, when really we’ve already been here a few months and we know when they’re ripping us off.
For my last week here I am going to make mexican food one night and also lasagna another night. I can’t believe this is already the last week of training, and I’m excited to move to my site, but also obviously kind of scared to be there working all by myself pretty much.
My life here feels normal to me now, and I will be leaving in about 2 weeks to go to my site, but if you have ideas of something I should write about just let me know! I am willing to answer any questions, and we can make it an interactive blog!
Monday, July 26, 2010
Cebadas
Here´s a little summary of my site after my visit for 4 days!
The people speak Kichwa and Spanish, I know the older generation prefers to speak Kichwa and I probably speak better Spanish then they do. The kids don’t learn it in schools, just in their homes. I learned a few words last week – Imanalla = Hola, como estas – and had plenty of offers from people to teach me Kichwa if I teach them English. The people here I can tell are more conservative, the personalities match the general indigenous “stereotype.” For example, when I ask my parents a question, my dad always answers even if it was directed to my mom. That’s ok with me though because my mom is really hard for me to understand most of the time when she is speaking. My grandma is interesting I guess – I don’t think my family really told anyone that I was going to be coming before I just showed up so everytime my grandma sees me she says “What a miracle” (this is the same one who doesn’t speak Spanish very well). Then she and my mother will talk about me for a while in Kichwa, I only realize because every once in a while there will be a spanish word thrown in like “Estados unidos” or “dos años”. I do know she cares about me already though because the other day I cut my finger while husking corn so she chewed up some clover leaves, ripped a piece off of her sweater, and made me a little bandage, telling me that it will heal really fast now. My sister is 17 and is about to start attending the university in Riobamba to study nutrition and public health, so when she comes home from school on the weekends hopefully she can help me with some projects. I have a little brother that is 12 and then my dad. Even just during the last week I had lots of conversations with my dad about the importance of sustainable projects, and I know he’s going to be a great resource.
I will be working in/with the Subcentro de Salud in Cebadas most of the time. The doctor has been working there for about 15 years and has tons of ideas on how to improve the community. He is also in a music group with my padre and is very interested in the local indigenous culture. Some of his ideas are pretty “out there” like having a cultural fair and inviting all my friends from Colorado to generate income for the community. I don’t think this is really sustainable, but when I return I’m gonna talk to him more about things that I would like to do.
Our subcentro is really cool because it’s the only one in the country with a practicing shaman as well. Sundays are the market days so the town is packed and apparently there’s also a health fair or else there’s just lots of people coming to the doctor too. This is also the day the shaman is there, and after seeing the nurse to tell her the main problem, get weighed, get blood pressure taken etc, the patients can choose if they want to see the shaman or the doctor. I didn’t get to see the shaman at all, but the doctor told me I should plan on being there every Sunday because they will always need more help since its so busy. We also have a dentist who pretty much pulls teeth from every patient who comes in – the bad quality of the water causes dental problems, along with the lack of general oral hygiene. There is one doctor and one nurse who travel to the communities Monday through Thursday to do home visits or just set up somewhere in the community. I know the other doctor travels some too to the communities, we went one day while I was there to a nursery to give out vitamin A and weigh all the kids.
The county of Cebadas is the 3rd poorest in the country, but there are already lots of other organizations there working, including World Vision, some other organization for development, PLAN Internacional, and there’s a group of indigenous organizations, but I’m not sure what they do. When I go back I just want to learn more about what they’re all already doing, if they work together at all, etc.
The people speak Kichwa and Spanish, I know the older generation prefers to speak Kichwa and I probably speak better Spanish then they do. The kids don’t learn it in schools, just in their homes. I learned a few words last week – Imanalla = Hola, como estas – and had plenty of offers from people to teach me Kichwa if I teach them English. The people here I can tell are more conservative, the personalities match the general indigenous “stereotype.” For example, when I ask my parents a question, my dad always answers even if it was directed to my mom. That’s ok with me though because my mom is really hard for me to understand most of the time when she is speaking. My grandma is interesting I guess – I don’t think my family really told anyone that I was going to be coming before I just showed up so everytime my grandma sees me she says “What a miracle” (this is the same one who doesn’t speak Spanish very well). Then she and my mother will talk about me for a while in Kichwa, I only realize because every once in a while there will be a spanish word thrown in like “Estados unidos” or “dos años”. I do know she cares about me already though because the other day I cut my finger while husking corn so she chewed up some clover leaves, ripped a piece off of her sweater, and made me a little bandage, telling me that it will heal really fast now. My sister is 17 and is about to start attending the university in Riobamba to study nutrition and public health, so when she comes home from school on the weekends hopefully she can help me with some projects. I have a little brother that is 12 and then my dad. Even just during the last week I had lots of conversations with my dad about the importance of sustainable projects, and I know he’s going to be a great resource.
I will be working in/with the Subcentro de Salud in Cebadas most of the time. The doctor has been working there for about 15 years and has tons of ideas on how to improve the community. He is also in a music group with my padre and is very interested in the local indigenous culture. Some of his ideas are pretty “out there” like having a cultural fair and inviting all my friends from Colorado to generate income for the community. I don’t think this is really sustainable, but when I return I’m gonna talk to him more about things that I would like to do.
Our subcentro is really cool because it’s the only one in the country with a practicing shaman as well. Sundays are the market days so the town is packed and apparently there’s also a health fair or else there’s just lots of people coming to the doctor too. This is also the day the shaman is there, and after seeing the nurse to tell her the main problem, get weighed, get blood pressure taken etc, the patients can choose if they want to see the shaman or the doctor. I didn’t get to see the shaman at all, but the doctor told me I should plan on being there every Sunday because they will always need more help since its so busy. We also have a dentist who pretty much pulls teeth from every patient who comes in – the bad quality of the water causes dental problems, along with the lack of general oral hygiene. There is one doctor and one nurse who travel to the communities Monday through Thursday to do home visits or just set up somewhere in the community. I know the other doctor travels some too to the communities, we went one day while I was there to a nursery to give out vitamin A and weigh all the kids.
The county of Cebadas is the 3rd poorest in the country, but there are already lots of other organizations there working, including World Vision, some other organization for development, PLAN Internacional, and there’s a group of indigenous organizations, but I’m not sure what they do. When I go back I just want to learn more about what they’re all already doing, if they work together at all, etc.
Monday, July 19, 2010
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!
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!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
training...
I wrote a blog post a while ago, but my flash drive broke so I couldn’t post it. Now I have a new one, I’ll just highlight a few events since last time I posted on my blog. I have more pictures to post as well, but I haven´t found an internet cafe that is fast enough and has Flash, so I´ll get to it soon enough!
- I have now washed my clothes twice on a rock. I haven’t washed any jeans and I only wash half of my other clothes at a time because if it rains I never know how many days it will take for them to dry. They are a little stretched out since there’s no dryer, but they actually feel really clean.
- I made pizza from scratch for my family, with one of their favorite toppings – hot dogs. These are even nastier than regular hot dogs because they are bright pink and don’t look like meat at all, but they liked it. I also made peanut butter cookies and PB and J sandwiches. I am planning on making hamburgers with sweet potato fries sometime this week or next week.
- We are still in fiesta season – I went to a “bull fight” in Tabacundo (really just whoever is brave enough and has a red jacket or something jumps in the ring and yells at the bull to chase them). Then afterwards there was a parade of dancing and singing down the street – there’s a few people with big water bottles of unidentified liquor walking around sharing shots with everyone, and somehow I became that lady which was better because I was giving it out and not drinking as much myself and I got to meet a lot of local people.
- Last Friday we went on a cultural trip with about 20 other volunteers, my group went to Salinas de Ibarra. It is a community of 90% afroecuatorianos who are descendents from slaves brought by the Spanish. In the past their main source of income was salt mining from the salty dirt, but now they grow sugar cane and are trying to promote tourism. We rode back to a city to catch a bus in the back of a truck and got stopped by the police once, but we saw some condors flying and it was way better than a crowded bus ride!
- This Friday we had a soccer tournament between all the different language groups. There was also a beauty contest so each group had to have a queen. Luckily, another girl in my group wanted to do it so I didn’t have to, but the whole day was pretty fun because everyone went all out. We had uniforms made – our group had the design of Argentina with a condor printed on the front and Paquiestancia. It only cost $11 for the whole uniform including printing on the shirt, and shorts and socks!
- Tonight my family was making fun of me for being tall and calling me an Amazon woman. Its weird being tall here, I am just about the same height as my dad.
- We find out our sites this Friday and next week we have a site visit! Time feels like its moving so fast!
I feel like my English is getting worse as my Spanish is improving, so I apologize for grammar errors but its hard to switch my brain back and forth so often!
- I have now washed my clothes twice on a rock. I haven’t washed any jeans and I only wash half of my other clothes at a time because if it rains I never know how many days it will take for them to dry. They are a little stretched out since there’s no dryer, but they actually feel really clean.
- I made pizza from scratch for my family, with one of their favorite toppings – hot dogs. These are even nastier than regular hot dogs because they are bright pink and don’t look like meat at all, but they liked it. I also made peanut butter cookies and PB and J sandwiches. I am planning on making hamburgers with sweet potato fries sometime this week or next week.
- We are still in fiesta season – I went to a “bull fight” in Tabacundo (really just whoever is brave enough and has a red jacket or something jumps in the ring and yells at the bull to chase them). Then afterwards there was a parade of dancing and singing down the street – there’s a few people with big water bottles of unidentified liquor walking around sharing shots with everyone, and somehow I became that lady which was better because I was giving it out and not drinking as much myself and I got to meet a lot of local people.
- Last Friday we went on a cultural trip with about 20 other volunteers, my group went to Salinas de Ibarra. It is a community of 90% afroecuatorianos who are descendents from slaves brought by the Spanish. In the past their main source of income was salt mining from the salty dirt, but now they grow sugar cane and are trying to promote tourism. We rode back to a city to catch a bus in the back of a truck and got stopped by the police once, but we saw some condors flying and it was way better than a crowded bus ride!
- This Friday we had a soccer tournament between all the different language groups. There was also a beauty contest so each group had to have a queen. Luckily, another girl in my group wanted to do it so I didn’t have to, but the whole day was pretty fun because everyone went all out. We had uniforms made – our group had the design of Argentina with a condor printed on the front and Paquiestancia. It only cost $11 for the whole uniform including printing on the shirt, and shorts and socks!
- Tonight my family was making fun of me for being tall and calling me an Amazon woman. Its weird being tall here, I am just about the same height as my dad.
- We find out our sites this Friday and next week we have a site visit! Time feels like its moving so fast!
I feel like my English is getting worse as my Spanish is improving, so I apologize for grammar errors but its hard to switch my brain back and forth so often!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
We are now done with the first official week of CBT (community based training). We’ve had sessions on Safety and Security and Health which were surprising – they make it seem like you WILL get robbed and you WILL get amoebas, both of which are very likely, but hopefully with our training we will know what to look out for and how to avoid certain dangerous situations. We also had a little more language and technical training, but the first week I think moves a little slower than the others; they finally gave us a schedule for training and told us about the tests and interviews that we had to pass in order to officially become a volunteer. It was a little overwhelming, but I’m sure that if we just take it one day at a time we will get everything done. We have some homework to do a community analysis and then present it to the other groups next week in a creative way so tomorrow we have to talk to the president of the community and interview people on the streets to find out more information about the town and get their opinion on certain topics.
The other day my little sister Rubi got kicked in the face by a horse. She was riding her bike and it scared the horse. She apparently lost consciousness and her brother who got kicked in the shoulder brought her back to the house. She had a popsicle thing on it to keep down swelling, but then the mom put some herb on it that is supposed to help with swelling, so we’ll see what it looks like tomorrow. I am really interested in the traditional medicine and apparently the current minister of health is trying to promote collaboration of traditional and western medicine so it is possible that my placement could be in this area.
Yesterday I helped my mom and sisters make “humitas” which are basically tamales. We took the corn off the cob and ground it ourselves so everything was from scratch. We cooked them over a fire because my mom thinks its faster, and she also wanted to warm up the cuyes (guinea pigs) so we put a fire in the little room where they live. I gave them some chocolate chips as a gift because they are really expensive here ($10/bag) so we made some sweet ones and put the chocolate chips in them. The salty ones had cheese ad onion.
Today we went to Cayame like we do every Sunday, but this weekend there are fiestas in Cayambe so I got to see part of a parade. They are for Dia de San Pedro and to celebrate the end of the harvest so its kind of a combination of catholic and indigenous beliefs. People dress up in traditional clothing, do traditional dances, and I’m not really sure what else. It all lasts for a while; I think it started on Thursday and then on Tuesday people from the communities surrounding Cayambe will dance/walk down into town, then on either Thursday or Friday the party is here in Paquiestancia and apparently there will be a castle built out of fireworks that will be lit. I’m excited to take pictures of that!
I put some pictures up on my Facebook page, you can go to http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2369300&id=19227721&l=556e35d7f4 to see them!
The other day my little sister Rubi got kicked in the face by a horse. She was riding her bike and it scared the horse. She apparently lost consciousness and her brother who got kicked in the shoulder brought her back to the house. She had a popsicle thing on it to keep down swelling, but then the mom put some herb on it that is supposed to help with swelling, so we’ll see what it looks like tomorrow. I am really interested in the traditional medicine and apparently the current minister of health is trying to promote collaboration of traditional and western medicine so it is possible that my placement could be in this area.
Yesterday I helped my mom and sisters make “humitas” which are basically tamales. We took the corn off the cob and ground it ourselves so everything was from scratch. We cooked them over a fire because my mom thinks its faster, and she also wanted to warm up the cuyes (guinea pigs) so we put a fire in the little room where they live. I gave them some chocolate chips as a gift because they are really expensive here ($10/bag) so we made some sweet ones and put the chocolate chips in them. The salty ones had cheese ad onion.
Today we went to Cayame like we do every Sunday, but this weekend there are fiestas in Cayambe so I got to see part of a parade. They are for Dia de San Pedro and to celebrate the end of the harvest so its kind of a combination of catholic and indigenous beliefs. People dress up in traditional clothing, do traditional dances, and I’m not really sure what else. It all lasts for a while; I think it started on Thursday and then on Tuesday people from the communities surrounding Cayambe will dance/walk down into town, then on either Thursday or Friday the party is here in Paquiestancia and apparently there will be a castle built out of fireworks that will be lit. I’m excited to take pictures of that!
I put some pictures up on my Facebook page, you can go to http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2369300&id=19227721&l=556e35d7f4 to see them!
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