I wrote this blog entry a while ago, but it was saved on my flash drive and I lost it. It’s still an interesting topic, so I’m just gonna post it anyways.
Holy week is a bigger deal here than in the US, but in Riobamba this year it coincided with the annual independence celebration of the city, so there was stuff going on every day. I don’t actually live in Riobamba, but it is my closest city, so I made sure to attend some of the events. One of the most interesting was the bullfight. There were actually 2 nights of bullfighting, each with 3 matadors from various countries and 6 bulls which each weighed 500 kilos minimum. The matadors all had really interesting clothes – very intricate detailed jackets and capris with pink socks and a Princess Lea-esque hat. They didn’t come out till later though. When they first let the bull out, there were about 5 or 6 of the matadors helpers waving pink capes at the bull, and then running behind this protective wood thing. I think that was mostly to tire the bull out, and maybe to let these guys practice because they kind of seemed like matador apprentices. After a few minutes of this, 2 guys on horses came out with long spears. They make the bull ram the horse while the guy riding it stabs the bull in between the shoulder blades. Apparently in the past, the horse usually died too, but now they wear protective armour. This would make the bull start bleeding from his back, and you could tell he was getting weaker. Next two more helper guys came out with these long sticks covered in colorful crate paper with one pointed end. They did a little scorpion jump move and stabbed them into the bull’s back. Finally the matador came out and waved around his little cape, trying to make the bull charge him and stuff. After a while, he got out a sword which he used to stab the bull in the upper back to get right to the heart. Sometimes the bull just layed down and died, and sometimes this other guy with a smaller knife came out and stabbed the bull right in the brain and it died right away. The matador then walked around the ring with some helpers as people threw him flowers. Some people threw their hats or scarves and he threw it back to them, and some people threw flasks for him to take a drink of. During this, they brought out 2 horses hooked up to a little metal bar to pull the dead bull out of the ring. These particular horses did not want to pull the bull and some men ended up having to pull it off. One guy always grabbed the tail which was entertaining. Sometimes before they took the bull away though, a guy in a hat with a huge white feather would come out and cut the ears off. There were some judges and if they said the matador did a good job, he got to keep the ear as a trophy. One guy got to keep 2 ears he did such a good job. One of the other guys didn’t kill his bull – he stabbed it but not in the heart, I think just in the muscle because as the bull was running around the sword kind of came back out. They eventually sent the bull back where he came out of, and I don’t know what happened to him back there. Overall the whole culture surrounding the bullfighting was really interesting, and we had so many questions the whole time. For example – what do they do with the dead bull carcasses? What is the scoring system to decide if they get the ear or not? How does one train to be a matador? I guess we’ll never know. There is an upcoming election, and outlawing bullfighting is one of the ballot issues, so this might have been the last bull fight ever in Riobamba.
Another weekend that I spent out of my site was in the southern province of Loja in a town called Vilcabamba. I met some other volunteers there for a GAD meeting (Gender and Development). It is a little town that is known for its residents living over 100 years old, but now its kindof been taken over by hippies. There are also a number of retired gringos, and some Ecuadorians, but tons of Dreadlocked hippies from all over the world. It was pretty much the best place for people watching I have been ever. We had a productive meeting, but also just sat there for a few hours one afternoon talking to a random American guy we met and watching the people in the park.
Things in Cebadas are going well – pretty much done with the toothbrush project, and now I’ve been working a lot with my youth group project. We did an activity in our last meeting where they had to say if they could go to any country in the world where would they go? Some said either Peru, the US, or Spain, but mostly they said other places in Ecuador that they had never been to. It makes me want to take them on a trip so they can see Quito or somewhere else that is only actually a few hours away in car. They’re still not very talkative overall, but some really do participate. I picked who I think were the 6 most participative, and I want to send them to get more training on sex-ed and then they are going to teach the other kids, and I can help them. They seemed really excited when I explained this to them, so hopefully everything will work out. In a week or so some kids from Alausí who do that same thing are coming to Cebadas to talk to my kids about it. They are also sponsored by World Vision, where another volunteer works.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
everyday life
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!
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!
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?
Monday, January 24, 2011
Siga no mas 2011
I just came in from watching a parade from my roof – January 22 must be a holiday here but my family doesn’t really know what it is. Ecuadorians will find any excuse to have a parade though. I spent most of the evening patching up holes in my clothes. I heard another volunteer say once that Peace Corps is where clothes come to die, and I totally agree. My clothes are already worn out from wearing them so many times and washing them on a cement slab. Today I also went to a minga with my host sister. This is any time when the community needs to get something done so the leaders make all the members contribute. Some examples would be all the families of the kids at the school have to come on a Saturday and paint a few desks, or more like the one I went to today which was a construction project. In Cebadas they are building a new coliseum, apparently for musicians and maybe soccer games or bull fights; I’m not exactly sure. Anyways, they are doing it with a huge minga. Each family is assigned 3 Saturdays where they have to send at least one member of the family to help out, and if they don’t they are fined so it’s a pretty big deal and lots of people show up. It kind of reminded me of working at Habitat for Humanity because there were a few people who knew what they were doing, but other than that there were just lots of other people doing random jobs. However, the process and tools used were very different than what I have used for construction in the US. The building is brick and cement, and today we were laying the cement on a stair or seat of the bleachers I guess. First we put up some wood planks and leveled and secured them, then filled in the area with big rocks on the bottom and smaller rocks on top. We then carried 50 KG bags of cement and mixed it with sand, gravel and water with shovels and hoes. It was carried by wheelbarrow on top of the rocks on planks of wood, then we threw more rocks in it and put one more layer of cement on top that was smoothed out. It is going to take forever to finish the building at this pace with that technique, but it will never fall down filled with all those rocks. I definitely think I will be sore tomorrow from carrying rocks and mixing cement all day, but it was cool to see how the construction process and the mingas work, and they got to see that not all Americans are lazy – they actually said we were good workers and Ecuadorians were lazy. Its easier for us though with cement trucks and power tools.
Since I last wrote on my blog I have had some visitors come see me – my sister Shannon and my best friend Sarah got here on Christmas day to spend 3 weeks in Ecuador. I spent Christmas traveling to Quito to meet them at the airport, but my family didn’t really even do much here, and my host sister went with me because she had only been to Quito when she was really little. We stayed in Cebadas for a few days over New Years which was an interesting celebration. They make this big paper mache kind of dolls and burn them and the men dress up like women. There was a contest for the best doll and the best woman costume (although there was only 1) and the president of the community asked me to be a judge. We also spent a few days in the Subcentro where Shannon and Sarah were pretty disgusted with the lack of cleanliness and privacy. It made me realize that I’ve just gotten used to that now, which is maybe not a good thing, but they also gave me some good ideas on how we can improve. I wanted them to go to the communities with us and we were supposed to, but then stuff just came up like it always does and we didn’t ever get to go. Another day in my site we went to another little town outside of Riobamba that has some hot springs; it was actually New Year ’s Day so there were lots of people there and it was pretty gross. You could rent a swimming suit for 1 dollar and there was one lady who had hers on backwards and it was really awkward. We also had to check out the market in Guamote on Thursday. The time we spent outside of my site, we went to Cajas National Park near Cuenca but up in the mountains. It was pretty cold and rainy but we got to do a cool hike and then we spent the night in the refugio in our sleeping bags. Shannon and I went to Tena for a weekend while Sarah went back to Quito to visit people she used to work with. Tena is in the oriente/Amazon area, so it was pretty hot and humid there. There are some really pretty rivers in that area, but actually last April the whole town pretty much flooded. We went to a little zoo thing that was being repaired because it was ruined in the flood and some of the big snakes and crocodiles were swept away in the water! From there Shannon went with me to a Peace Corps conference that I had to go to (I will write about that later) but I’m glad she got to meet the other volunteers and see kind of what Peace Corps is actually like. We went to the equator (the real one and the fake tourist one) and took a quick trip to go visit my host family from training then spent one day in Quito before they left to go home.
After my vacation time with my visitors it was time to get back to work, which has been as interesting and random as always. In the beginning of January I went to a conference called “Project Design and Management” with my counterpart Dr. Silva. We finally sat down and talked and worked on planning a project on medicinal gardens of native plants. However, last week he got a promotion after 14 years in the Subcentro and is now the Provincial Director of Intercultural Health and will no longer be working in Cebadas on a day to day basis. I think this is a good thing because I think he will love his new job and he will be a great resource if I still do the medicinal plant project, it will just be more difficult without him being there every day. I still feel obligated to work in the Subcentro though, but lately they have all been busy with a new nation-wide project going door to door looking for pregnant women and children under one. In order to achieve zero malnutrition, they are going to pay the women a certain amount for each time they come in for a checkup. I am not totally supportive of this idea, because it leaves me in the Subcentro with one nurse having to tell everyone that there´s no doctor here who can help them. Also they aren´t even finding all the pregnant ladies because they leave to go to work or whatever and aren´t always in their houses, then they come to the Subcentro asking about it saying no one visited their house. It is important that they come in and take advantage of the free medical care, but I think they should do it because they understand why it is important not because someone is paying them, and also there should be doctors available to see the patients that they say have to come in. Last week I went to visit another volunteer near me about an hour and a half away in Alausí who is working with World Vision in her town. There is also an office in Cebadas, and so the Health Promoter who works there and I chose 5 teenagers to come with us and we went to a workshop the youth group in Alausí because we want to start something like that in Cebadas. The idea is that the kids come down from the communities (and these are the kids who study only on the weekends) for a workshop about some topic of sexual and reproductive health and then they have to go back to their community and repeat the workshop for all the other teenagers. The original group receives training on sex-ed topics obviously and also self esteem activities and tips on how to be a facilitator. In Cebadas we want to start this with the teenagers who don’t go to school at all because there are quite a few who just don’t continue after elementary school, and I think they are the ones who need this information the most because they just end up getting married and having kids. I hopefully will start working more with World Vision in Cebadas once we get this group set up. I have also been working on the toothbrush project still, but its been difficult figuring out how to get them down here, and now we might have to go through the embassy or something.
I have now been here for 5 months and 4 days in my site, which sometimes seems like a long time, but I am still enjoying pretty much every day of this experience. Working with a huge national organization has become increasingly frustrating, but it would also be difficult working with no community connections so I’m doing the best that I can. Overall though this experience has made me realize that I don´t know what I´m doing and neither do the people who are in charge, so I’ve been looking into grad programs in public health, and especially ones that have Peace Corps fellowship scholarship programs.
Also new pictures on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2456613&id=19227721&l=6cf6897deb
Since I last wrote on my blog I have had some visitors come see me – my sister Shannon and my best friend Sarah got here on Christmas day to spend 3 weeks in Ecuador. I spent Christmas traveling to Quito to meet them at the airport, but my family didn’t really even do much here, and my host sister went with me because she had only been to Quito when she was really little. We stayed in Cebadas for a few days over New Years which was an interesting celebration. They make this big paper mache kind of dolls and burn them and the men dress up like women. There was a contest for the best doll and the best woman costume (although there was only 1) and the president of the community asked me to be a judge. We also spent a few days in the Subcentro where Shannon and Sarah were pretty disgusted with the lack of cleanliness and privacy. It made me realize that I’ve just gotten used to that now, which is maybe not a good thing, but they also gave me some good ideas on how we can improve. I wanted them to go to the communities with us and we were supposed to, but then stuff just came up like it always does and we didn’t ever get to go. Another day in my site we went to another little town outside of Riobamba that has some hot springs; it was actually New Year ’s Day so there were lots of people there and it was pretty gross. You could rent a swimming suit for 1 dollar and there was one lady who had hers on backwards and it was really awkward. We also had to check out the market in Guamote on Thursday. The time we spent outside of my site, we went to Cajas National Park near Cuenca but up in the mountains. It was pretty cold and rainy but we got to do a cool hike and then we spent the night in the refugio in our sleeping bags. Shannon and I went to Tena for a weekend while Sarah went back to Quito to visit people she used to work with. Tena is in the oriente/Amazon area, so it was pretty hot and humid there. There are some really pretty rivers in that area, but actually last April the whole town pretty much flooded. We went to a little zoo thing that was being repaired because it was ruined in the flood and some of the big snakes and crocodiles were swept away in the water! From there Shannon went with me to a Peace Corps conference that I had to go to (I will write about that later) but I’m glad she got to meet the other volunteers and see kind of what Peace Corps is actually like. We went to the equator (the real one and the fake tourist one) and took a quick trip to go visit my host family from training then spent one day in Quito before they left to go home.
After my vacation time with my visitors it was time to get back to work, which has been as interesting and random as always. In the beginning of January I went to a conference called “Project Design and Management” with my counterpart Dr. Silva. We finally sat down and talked and worked on planning a project on medicinal gardens of native plants. However, last week he got a promotion after 14 years in the Subcentro and is now the Provincial Director of Intercultural Health and will no longer be working in Cebadas on a day to day basis. I think this is a good thing because I think he will love his new job and he will be a great resource if I still do the medicinal plant project, it will just be more difficult without him being there every day. I still feel obligated to work in the Subcentro though, but lately they have all been busy with a new nation-wide project going door to door looking for pregnant women and children under one. In order to achieve zero malnutrition, they are going to pay the women a certain amount for each time they come in for a checkup. I am not totally supportive of this idea, because it leaves me in the Subcentro with one nurse having to tell everyone that there´s no doctor here who can help them. Also they aren´t even finding all the pregnant ladies because they leave to go to work or whatever and aren´t always in their houses, then they come to the Subcentro asking about it saying no one visited their house. It is important that they come in and take advantage of the free medical care, but I think they should do it because they understand why it is important not because someone is paying them, and also there should be doctors available to see the patients that they say have to come in. Last week I went to visit another volunteer near me about an hour and a half away in Alausí who is working with World Vision in her town. There is also an office in Cebadas, and so the Health Promoter who works there and I chose 5 teenagers to come with us and we went to a workshop the youth group in Alausí because we want to start something like that in Cebadas. The idea is that the kids come down from the communities (and these are the kids who study only on the weekends) for a workshop about some topic of sexual and reproductive health and then they have to go back to their community and repeat the workshop for all the other teenagers. The original group receives training on sex-ed topics obviously and also self esteem activities and tips on how to be a facilitator. In Cebadas we want to start this with the teenagers who don’t go to school at all because there are quite a few who just don’t continue after elementary school, and I think they are the ones who need this information the most because they just end up getting married and having kids. I hopefully will start working more with World Vision in Cebadas once we get this group set up. I have also been working on the toothbrush project still, but its been difficult figuring out how to get them down here, and now we might have to go through the embassy or something.
I have now been here for 5 months and 4 days in my site, which sometimes seems like a long time, but I am still enjoying pretty much every day of this experience. Working with a huge national organization has become increasingly frustrating, but it would also be difficult working with no community connections so I’m doing the best that I can. Overall though this experience has made me realize that I don´t know what I´m doing and neither do the people who are in charge, so I’ve been looking into grad programs in public health, and especially ones that have Peace Corps fellowship scholarship programs.
Also new pictures on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2456613&id=19227721&l=6cf6897deb
Monday, December 20, 2010
Christmas time
Tis the season for company Christmas parties and other holiday traditions, and here in Cebadas that is one thing that is the same…and yet so different. Dec 15 we went to a community about an hour and a half outside of Cebadas with all the staff of the Subcentro and the shaman to do a ritual called Kapak Raymi (raymi means fiesta but I still don’t know what Kapak means). I am still not positive, but I think it has something to do with the winter solstice maybe; I think it is supposed to bring harmony. Anyways, I didn’t really understand the meaning behind it obviously, but it was pretty cool. There were about 5 local people from the community as well – the others were watching the bulls that they had for Christmas I guess (meaning drunk people trying to fight bulls, not like professional matadors) and probably no one from the subcentro told them we were coming anyways. There was a blanket set in the middle of everyone standing in a circle with fruits and medicinal plants and musical instruments and other stuff on it, and each person put an object on there as well – I put my cell phone to get blessed. Each person was given a stick of incense, and there was also a little bowl of burning wood setting next to the blanket. The shaman went through the whole process of recognizing each of the four directions, so we had to do that too and repeat what he was saying – in Kichwa. Then each person took a handful of sawdust or something and walked around the blanket putting it on the fire when they returned. Then we all walked in a circle around the blanket together while one woman, a midwife, handed out the fruit to everyone to eat. It was cool to get to see that, and the doctor actually gave everyone a DVD copy of what we filmed on that day for a little Christmas present. I’m not sure what the patients thought who came to the Subcentro that day just to find that it was closed because everyone was at the ritual, but honestly the people are kind of lazy and just unorganized and also really busy with lots of activities the public health ministry makes them do, so the people are kind of used to the Subcentro being closed. It was also cool to get to see the community where we did it because it is the farthest one and is where the trail starts to climb one of the nearby volcanoes, Sangay, however its about a 7 day hike to get there. There are some cool little cabins where tourists can stay before or after climbing, or just to spend a weekend or whatever. The only problem is that there’s not really regular transportation for normal people to just go there, and the road isn’t in the best of condition so if you don’t have a truck or if it rains hard no one would be able to get there.
Dec 16 we had a little get together in Riobamba at one of the nurses houses to eat a Christmas dinner with the staff. They bought a turkey that we ate with a prune sauce and there was rice and potatoes and salad, and I made sugar cookies and gingerbread with cream cheese frosting to bring for dessert. Everyone had to do a little toast and then we ate and sat around talking. The food was different, but it was kind of like a Christmas dinner in the US. I ended up spending the night at the nurses house because they said they were going to do it at like 2 in the afternoon and didn’t end up meeting until about 6 and the last bus leaves at 8 – I didn’t have anything with me, but I’ve kind of gotten used to just sleeping wherever even when I’m not prepared for it.
Dec 17 was the Christmas program at the hospital for all the Ministry of Public Health employees – about 118 were invited but not everyone showed up. I went in the same clothes I wore the day before since I had spent the night, and they were all dressed up, but they think I’m weird usually anyways just because I’m a gringa so they probably don’t expect me to wear nice clothes. This party was very different than a normal company Christmas party in the US. It took place at the hospital on a Friday, they just put a sign up that said they would only attend emergencies and everyone came in to the little auditorium/meeting room. This year the farmacy and dentistry personel were in charge of planning everything. It started at 9 with a mass – a pastor came in from a church I guess. It was only like the 3rd mass I’ve ever been to in my life, and the first one in Spanish! After that there was a parade with a group of doctors and nurses dressed in traditional clothes dancing around in the streets followed by people dressed like Mary and Joseph carrying a little doll and then all the rest of the employees walking all around town. Then we came back into the auditorium to eat mote (hominy-ish corn stuff) with potatoes and pork at about 11:30. Then they did a toast few door prizes and then started dancing. The dancing lasted for about 20 minutes, then they took a break to do more door prizes and hand out more drinks (whiskey mixed with sparkling water). This cycle of dancing and drinking and gift continued all afternoon. Everyone got a little bag of candy and animal crackers, and then they just kept dancing. Around 2:30 we ate again – rice with potatoes, chicken, beef, salad, pop, and blackberry mousse for dessert. Then more drinking and dancing…we left at 4, but we were supposed to stay till 4:30 because that is the normal work hours and the party just replaced a normal work day. I’m guessing it went until after 4:30 though because everyone seemed to be having a good time, and at this point they were pretty tipsy with a few drunk people falling down while they were dancing crazily.
I’m glad everyone here has been sharing their Christmas traditions with me, because without winter weather and seeing friends and family and having a break or finals it doesn’t really seem like Christmas. Some people have put up lights and in Riobamba there’s sales and stuff in the stores and they are all decorated, but it still just doesn’t seem right. I still don’t know what my plans are for Christmas Eve and Christmas – maybe do a white elephant with some other volunteers or see if my host family is doing anything (but I asked and they said they don’t really do anything special). Christmas day I have to go to the airport to get Shannon and Sarah, and everyone has told me that tons of people travel on Christmas so I should leave early because all the busses will be full. I’m excited to see them though, and for them to see where I live, and everyone here is excited to meet them too!
Dec 16 we had a little get together in Riobamba at one of the nurses houses to eat a Christmas dinner with the staff. They bought a turkey that we ate with a prune sauce and there was rice and potatoes and salad, and I made sugar cookies and gingerbread with cream cheese frosting to bring for dessert. Everyone had to do a little toast and then we ate and sat around talking. The food was different, but it was kind of like a Christmas dinner in the US. I ended up spending the night at the nurses house because they said they were going to do it at like 2 in the afternoon and didn’t end up meeting until about 6 and the last bus leaves at 8 – I didn’t have anything with me, but I’ve kind of gotten used to just sleeping wherever even when I’m not prepared for it.
Dec 17 was the Christmas program at the hospital for all the Ministry of Public Health employees – about 118 were invited but not everyone showed up. I went in the same clothes I wore the day before since I had spent the night, and they were all dressed up, but they think I’m weird usually anyways just because I’m a gringa so they probably don’t expect me to wear nice clothes. This party was very different than a normal company Christmas party in the US. It took place at the hospital on a Friday, they just put a sign up that said they would only attend emergencies and everyone came in to the little auditorium/meeting room. This year the farmacy and dentistry personel were in charge of planning everything. It started at 9 with a mass – a pastor came in from a church I guess. It was only like the 3rd mass I’ve ever been to in my life, and the first one in Spanish! After that there was a parade with a group of doctors and nurses dressed in traditional clothes dancing around in the streets followed by people dressed like Mary and Joseph carrying a little doll and then all the rest of the employees walking all around town. Then we came back into the auditorium to eat mote (hominy-ish corn stuff) with potatoes and pork at about 11:30. Then they did a toast few door prizes and then started dancing. The dancing lasted for about 20 minutes, then they took a break to do more door prizes and hand out more drinks (whiskey mixed with sparkling water). This cycle of dancing and drinking and gift continued all afternoon. Everyone got a little bag of candy and animal crackers, and then they just kept dancing. Around 2:30 we ate again – rice with potatoes, chicken, beef, salad, pop, and blackberry mousse for dessert. Then more drinking and dancing…we left at 4, but we were supposed to stay till 4:30 because that is the normal work hours and the party just replaced a normal work day. I’m guessing it went until after 4:30 though because everyone seemed to be having a good time, and at this point they were pretty tipsy with a few drunk people falling down while they were dancing crazily.
I’m glad everyone here has been sharing their Christmas traditions with me, because without winter weather and seeing friends and family and having a break or finals it doesn’t really seem like Christmas. Some people have put up lights and in Riobamba there’s sales and stuff in the stores and they are all decorated, but it still just doesn’t seem right. I still don’t know what my plans are for Christmas Eve and Christmas – maybe do a white elephant with some other volunteers or see if my host family is doing anything (but I asked and they said they don’t really do anything special). Christmas day I have to go to the airport to get Shannon and Sarah, and everyone has told me that tons of people travel on Christmas so I should leave early because all the busses will be full. I’m excited to see them though, and for them to see where I live, and everyone here is excited to meet them too!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Lack of coordination = FRUSTRATION
Today I was supposed to go to this community with the nutritionist from World Vision to help give a nutrition workshop, but then we just ended up talking about the fact that they aren't gonna work there because the government is already doing a nutrition program there. I feel like this is the story of my life in Ecuador for so many reasons.
First - we were planning on leaving at 9 to get there, but the nutritionist went and to go to talk to the doctor really quick, but he just wanted to talk for ever (instead of attending to his patients) so then we were late getting to the community. However, once we got there we just ended up waiting for like an hour and a half until we talked to the people. I know everything here runs on "Ecuadorian time", but a lot of times it feels like everyone is always so busy and in such a hurry just to sit around and wait. Another example of this is when you are getting on or off the bus, lots of times they don't even stop all the way for people to get on or off, but then the bus is always running late anyways.
Second - so many times people plan meetings or other activities, then just completely forget about it and make other plans. When we got there the parents were all in another meeting planning the activities for Christmas and almost left right when we got there to do the nutrition thing even though we told them a long time ago we were coming today. This has happened so many other times too, which was frustrating but now I've kind of gotten used to it. It just doesn't make sense how everyone says they want to work on this or that project, but then when we actually are gonna do it they don't show up.
Third - there were 3 organizations that were going to work in this same community all pretty much on the same topic, but they weren't coordinating at all and didn't realize until today that there are other communities where no one is working. Between the large number of programs run by the basically socialist government, and all the NGO's and other organizations here, you'd think there would be more progress than there has been, but with the lack of coordination it's just not gonna happen.
A while ago I remember someone asked me "why are the people there so poor?" I thought about it, and I couldn't really come up with an answer. However, now after situations like the one that happened today and after learning more about how things work here I think there are lots of different reasons why there is so much poverty here. First (and most basically), there are not many jobs that pay well (hence why so many people go to the cities or emigrate to other countries leaving their families behind) and also the land isn't as good as it used to be so they can't even depend on agriculture. Also though, I think all the bureaucracy in the different ministries of the government is a factor because they all have good objectives of helping the lower class, but there are just too many and they don't coordinate with each other like they should. Again with the NGO's and stuff too, the people have gotten used to having stuff given to them and a lot of times they don't even seem to care about improving their own quality of life because they think other people should do it for them. When they show up late to meetings or don't show up at all, that doesn't show me that they are actually interested in whatever type of assistance they were going to receive. I also think the poverty has a lot to do with the lack of education. You can set up as many meetings as you want to give out information on nutrition or whatever, but when the parents can't read and didn't go to school and can't really even understand new concepts like that, its hard to teach them new things. I think the people realize that, but they still don't put much importance on their own education. (For example - classes at the high school were cancelled today so the band could rehearse for the parade we are going to do for World AIDS Day later this week. It's important for them to practice, but I don't know why they can't do it after school so everyone doesn't have to miss out on classes. There have also been so many times where the teachers just don't show up so classes are cancelled, but usually no one seems to do anything about it.)
I've kind of just now gotten a hold of the reality here that as much as I want to change something, if the people don't want to change it they are not going to. I haven't lost motivation and I still hope to do something in these two years that means something to the people here, but it's not going to be as easy as I thought. Not that I was expecting it to be easy - otherwise it would have already happened and I wouldn't be here at all. I'm just starting to realize that there are so many people involved in development work, but the most important people are the ones "being developed" and how important it is that it all starts with them - but often they don't even know how to start which brings us back to where we started. Such a difficult cycle to break.
In happier news, it's been a rainy afternoon here today so I have just been sitting in my room in my new bean bag chair watching movies and drinking hot cocoa. It's been a good day overall.
First - we were planning on leaving at 9 to get there, but the nutritionist went and to go to talk to the doctor really quick, but he just wanted to talk for ever (instead of attending to his patients) so then we were late getting to the community. However, once we got there we just ended up waiting for like an hour and a half until we talked to the people. I know everything here runs on "Ecuadorian time", but a lot of times it feels like everyone is always so busy and in such a hurry just to sit around and wait. Another example of this is when you are getting on or off the bus, lots of times they don't even stop all the way for people to get on or off, but then the bus is always running late anyways.
Second - so many times people plan meetings or other activities, then just completely forget about it and make other plans. When we got there the parents were all in another meeting planning the activities for Christmas and almost left right when we got there to do the nutrition thing even though we told them a long time ago we were coming today. This has happened so many other times too, which was frustrating but now I've kind of gotten used to it. It just doesn't make sense how everyone says they want to work on this or that project, but then when we actually are gonna do it they don't show up.
Third - there were 3 organizations that were going to work in this same community all pretty much on the same topic, but they weren't coordinating at all and didn't realize until today that there are other communities where no one is working. Between the large number of programs run by the basically socialist government, and all the NGO's and other organizations here, you'd think there would be more progress than there has been, but with the lack of coordination it's just not gonna happen.
A while ago I remember someone asked me "why are the people there so poor?" I thought about it, and I couldn't really come up with an answer. However, now after situations like the one that happened today and after learning more about how things work here I think there are lots of different reasons why there is so much poverty here. First (and most basically), there are not many jobs that pay well (hence why so many people go to the cities or emigrate to other countries leaving their families behind) and also the land isn't as good as it used to be so they can't even depend on agriculture. Also though, I think all the bureaucracy in the different ministries of the government is a factor because they all have good objectives of helping the lower class, but there are just too many and they don't coordinate with each other like they should. Again with the NGO's and stuff too, the people have gotten used to having stuff given to them and a lot of times they don't even seem to care about improving their own quality of life because they think other people should do it for them. When they show up late to meetings or don't show up at all, that doesn't show me that they are actually interested in whatever type of assistance they were going to receive. I also think the poverty has a lot to do with the lack of education. You can set up as many meetings as you want to give out information on nutrition or whatever, but when the parents can't read and didn't go to school and can't really even understand new concepts like that, its hard to teach them new things. I think the people realize that, but they still don't put much importance on their own education. (For example - classes at the high school were cancelled today so the band could rehearse for the parade we are going to do for World AIDS Day later this week. It's important for them to practice, but I don't know why they can't do it after school so everyone doesn't have to miss out on classes. There have also been so many times where the teachers just don't show up so classes are cancelled, but usually no one seems to do anything about it.)
I've kind of just now gotten a hold of the reality here that as much as I want to change something, if the people don't want to change it they are not going to. I haven't lost motivation and I still hope to do something in these two years that means something to the people here, but it's not going to be as easy as I thought. Not that I was expecting it to be easy - otherwise it would have already happened and I wouldn't be here at all. I'm just starting to realize that there are so many people involved in development work, but the most important people are the ones "being developed" and how important it is that it all starts with them - but often they don't even know how to start which brings us back to where we started. Such a difficult cycle to break.
In happier news, it's been a rainy afternoon here today so I have just been sitting in my room in my new bean bag chair watching movies and drinking hot cocoa. It's been a good day overall.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Reconnect, etc
Quick note about the toothbrush stuff - we are going to have to go through customs with official forms and stuff, so I have set the date of Dec 31 to be the last day of collection because then we have to fill out a form with exactly how much stuff is being donated. If you would like to participate, again let me know by email at kknthomp@gmail.com and you can send anything in the mail to my parents: Scott and Karen Thompson, PO Box 4294, Estes Park, CO 80517. Make sure it´s not UPS because they won´t deliver to PO Boxes. You can send UPS to Scott Thompson at Coldwell Banker, 320 E Elkhorn Avenue, Estes Park, CO 80517
Last week we had a Peace Corps conference called Reconnect in the town of Cumbaya – how typical to meet with a bunch of hippies in Cumbaya right? Everyone had to do a presentation of the results of the surveys we all did. It was supposed to be practice for when we present it to our organizations, which I did on Tuesday when I came back. Anyways, we had the conference in a convent so we were kind of all trapped in there, but I thought it was actually pretty fun because we played some games in the evenings and it was raining all week so I didn’t really want to leave anyways – I would just have spent money unnecessarily. On Friday afternoon after the conference finished a bunch of volunteers went to see the new Harry Potter movie in Quito. We spent the night there and with 6 other volunteers I went on a little weekend trip to Mindo. The trip didn’t start off well because I got robbed on the bus on the way there. Someone cut my bag open and took all the money out of my wallet. It was the first incident that I ever had, and at least they didn’t take my phone or camera or any important documents. The rest of the trip was really fun though. Mindo is pretty much halfway to the coast, so it was hotter there and more green and humid. There are lots of touristy things, like zip lines, hiking to waterfalls, rafting, stuff like that. We just spent about one full day there before going back to our sites. I got back to Cebadas on Monday afternoon, then Tuesday got back to work. I helped with a demonstration on first aid for the 5th and 6th graders in a school in one of the communities – we did triage with the example that there was a bus accident. If there were injuries we treated them with stuff like pieces of cardboard and scarves because honestly a lot of emergency medicine is just learning how to use the equipment but if you can improvise you can do a lot. Tuesday afternoon I presented my Diagnostico Comunitario to the Subcentro staff – I made a pesto chicken casserole too. After eating I started the slide show but I said I wanted it to be more like a conversation and there was a lot of good dialogue that came out of it. We decided to prioritize nutrition as my main project – but I don’t really know where to start. They want to focus on teenagers because then they get pregnant and without good nutrition they will have malnourished kids with congenital problems. First I think we need to find the baseline data because in reality no one has correct data on the prevalence of malnutrition. I guess I will first start working on that and then hopefully we will think of some way to start the classes or whatever. I still feel like I haven’t really found my niche in the Subcentro or in the community in general but I think presenting my survey results helped me get started. I still want to coordinate with other organizations as well, including Rotary, World Vision, and the local government so that will fill up my time when I don’t have nutrition stuff to do. Also on Tuesday afternoon a woman gave birth in the traditional birthing room in the Subcentro! I got there just right after it happened, which sucked cuz I have never seen a live birth before. The couple and the grandma were there, and they decided just to spend the night in the Subcentro. Since everyone else lives in Riobamba they asked if I could help out, so I stayed there hanging out with them till like 8:30 then came back early in the morning just to make sure everything was ok. Wednesday I finally got to move into my new room! Right now I just have a bed and a table and everything else is on the floor, so this weekend and next week I’ll have to do some shopping for other furniture and stuff. It is weird to think that I will live in this room for more time than I ever lived in the same place during college – stuff like that makes it seem like time is going slowly, but other days it seems to pass by so fast. Today is Thanksgiving so I’m going to spend the night in Riobamba and have a potluck dinner with the other volunteers. That’s all for now!
Last week we had a Peace Corps conference called Reconnect in the town of Cumbaya – how typical to meet with a bunch of hippies in Cumbaya right? Everyone had to do a presentation of the results of the surveys we all did. It was supposed to be practice for when we present it to our organizations, which I did on Tuesday when I came back. Anyways, we had the conference in a convent so we were kind of all trapped in there, but I thought it was actually pretty fun because we played some games in the evenings and it was raining all week so I didn’t really want to leave anyways – I would just have spent money unnecessarily. On Friday afternoon after the conference finished a bunch of volunteers went to see the new Harry Potter movie in Quito. We spent the night there and with 6 other volunteers I went on a little weekend trip to Mindo. The trip didn’t start off well because I got robbed on the bus on the way there. Someone cut my bag open and took all the money out of my wallet. It was the first incident that I ever had, and at least they didn’t take my phone or camera or any important documents. The rest of the trip was really fun though. Mindo is pretty much halfway to the coast, so it was hotter there and more green and humid. There are lots of touristy things, like zip lines, hiking to waterfalls, rafting, stuff like that. We just spent about one full day there before going back to our sites. I got back to Cebadas on Monday afternoon, then Tuesday got back to work. I helped with a demonstration on first aid for the 5th and 6th graders in a school in one of the communities – we did triage with the example that there was a bus accident. If there were injuries we treated them with stuff like pieces of cardboard and scarves because honestly a lot of emergency medicine is just learning how to use the equipment but if you can improvise you can do a lot. Tuesday afternoon I presented my Diagnostico Comunitario to the Subcentro staff – I made a pesto chicken casserole too. After eating I started the slide show but I said I wanted it to be more like a conversation and there was a lot of good dialogue that came out of it. We decided to prioritize nutrition as my main project – but I don’t really know where to start. They want to focus on teenagers because then they get pregnant and without good nutrition they will have malnourished kids with congenital problems. First I think we need to find the baseline data because in reality no one has correct data on the prevalence of malnutrition. I guess I will first start working on that and then hopefully we will think of some way to start the classes or whatever. I still feel like I haven’t really found my niche in the Subcentro or in the community in general but I think presenting my survey results helped me get started. I still want to coordinate with other organizations as well, including Rotary, World Vision, and the local government so that will fill up my time when I don’t have nutrition stuff to do. Also on Tuesday afternoon a woman gave birth in the traditional birthing room in the Subcentro! I got there just right after it happened, which sucked cuz I have never seen a live birth before. The couple and the grandma were there, and they decided just to spend the night in the Subcentro. Since everyone else lives in Riobamba they asked if I could help out, so I stayed there hanging out with them till like 8:30 then came back early in the morning just to make sure everything was ok. Wednesday I finally got to move into my new room! Right now I just have a bed and a table and everything else is on the floor, so this weekend and next week I’ll have to do some shopping for other furniture and stuff. It is weird to think that I will live in this room for more time than I ever lived in the same place during college – stuff like that makes it seem like time is going slowly, but other days it seems to pass by so fast. Today is Thanksgiving so I’m going to spend the night in Riobamba and have a potluck dinner with the other volunteers. That’s all for now!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)