Preservativos

Hi all,

It’s been a while, so I thought I’d post something up here.

The past couple of weeks have been great, and I think my Spanish is slowly starting to get better. I was actually able to have a conversation about social security and US taxes with my counterpart in Spanish.

My work at Nature and Culture has been picking up a bit and I’ve written a couple of articles and press releases for them about everything from Ecuador’s first place science project winners, to the Podocarpus National Park, to a cherimoya (a type of fruit) project that the organization is working on. In the next few weeks, I’ll be starting to work with the environmental education department to help develop some new programs and help out the city’s Eco-clubs. Outside of NCI, I started working at an orphanage in the city with another volunteer, which has been a blast. So far, we’ve just played a bunch of games, but in the upcoming weeks I’m going to start doing some basic science projects with the kids (like mixing vinegar and baking soda to make volcanoes… Ooo!) The kids are super fun and it’s definitely a nice change from my work at NCI. My arm hair is a novelty for them and, like the kids in my family in Cayambe, they all love pulling on it!

In food news, I experimented with making some whole wheat English muffins from scratch, and they actually came out really good. Holly (another volunteer) and I made pizza the other night together which turned into a fiery experience… You have to light the ovens here with a match, so I did and let the oven preheat for about 20 min. When we opened the oven to put the pizza in, the inside was still ice cold. Apparently a breeze blew out the flame (the oven is outside) and the gas had been filling up the oven the whole time. We let the oven air out for a few minutes to let all the gas escape, and then I lit the match to light her up again. Well, apparently all the gas wasn’t gone and a huge fireball exploded out of the oven. Now I’m lacking arm hair on the first couple of inches on my right arm. At least the kids at the orphanage will have less hair to pull this week! :) Finally, in more food news, a bunch of volunteers met up in Vilcabamba at the Hosteria Izychaluma (highly recommended!) for dinner two weekends ago. I decided to splurge and get the bacon wrapped filet mignon. For $5.80, you can’t go wrong and it was super tasty!

Life in Loja is still going well, although the weather was a bit chillier the past couple of days. I went on a little hike this past weekend which was pretty nice. A 20-min walk from my house and you can be up in the mountains. I also met up with the “bike guy” in Loja who is pretty hardcore, and I think I’m going to buy a bike in the next couple of days. We also got talking about how there are lots of trails surrounding the city of Loja but there are no maps, brochures or signage anywhere. So, I’m thinking that another side project could be biking all the trails with a GPS and then creating some bike maps and brochures for the tourism office here. My counterpart here at NCI thinks it’s a good idea too and we might even make it into a book with all the plant and animal species you can pass along the way on each trail. Being able to go mountain biking for half the week will definitely be pretty cool!

The end of last week was an unexpected funeral for the father of one of my coworkers in Catamayo, about 40 min outside of Loja. It turned out to actually just be the wake, so we basically all just sat around for a couple of hours and chatted. I was talking with some coworkers, including the director of the organization, about how funerals are different in various cultures and religions. They asked me how Jewish funerals are different, and I said one of the differences is that Jews don’t get buried with preservatives (since I didn’t know the word for embalming fluid) or, “Los judíos no van al suelo con preservativos.” They all made the strangest face and then started laughing hysterically. I had no idea what was going on. Were they making fun of Jews? I don’t think I said anything funny. Well, it turns out that I should have said “preservantes”. Apparently, preservativos are condoms in Spanish… not very useful when you’re six feet under! My face turned a shade of red that upstaged any stop sign in the city of Loja and the laughter continued for another 5 minutes. And, of course, everyone else in the office now knows the story and continues to make fun of me. :)

PS: Check out the following link to help provide scholarships to young Ecuadorian women and combat sexual exploitation and human trafficking. Peace Corps Ecuador is selling raffle tickets for only $1.50 and the prizes are awesome!

http://kidsatartnyc.com/PC/GADTIPS.htm

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