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
Enjoy the pics and as usual click a few times to enlarge. Once the large picture size loads, click "Slideshow" on the right-hand side of the screen to see the images at full-screen size.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Peace Corps??
More like Posh Corps! They say every Peace Corps experience is different, and my case is certainly not an exception. I came to Ecuador expecting to live in a bamboo hut in the jungle and carry my water from the river each morning, and now I’m living in what seems like Beverly Hills. The “barrio” I’m living in (called Zamora Huayco) is pretty high-end and instead of the broken glass on top of the walls like in Cayambe, many of the folks here have electric fences! My host mom’s house is pretty nice, complete with marble and parquet floors, a gas water heater, great shower pressure, washing machine, etc. (Other volunteers reading this, please don’t kill me! :) ) Some of the other houses in the neighborhood are ridiculous as far as Ecuadorian standards go (check out the pictures). The climate here is beautiful too. We’re at about 6900 feet above sea level and the weather has been about 75 degrees and sunny virtually everyday. There are two rivers that run through the city, a bunch of parks, a supermarket, movie theater, several really nice squares, and to top it off they even sell my favorite cookies and cream ice cream at several scoop shops around the city (a cone is 80 cents!). The city is surrounded by lush green mountains, and there was even an article in a local magazine today titled, “Loja casi un paraíso,” (Loja, Almost a Paradise). As far as Ecuadorian cities go, this place is definitely nice. All in all, I can’t say I’m having too tough of a time living here!
The organization I’m working with (www.natureandculture.org) has kept me busy over the past two weeks or so, and some of the projects they’re involved with are pretty interesting. Unlike national parks in the States where the mindset is to keep people and development activities out, my organization is trying to preserve both the amazing natural resources found in the region and the culture of the numerous indigenous peoples that live within the reserves through sustainable small business activities. The thought is that if the people living in and around these areas can sustain themselves through environmentally friendly, yet profitable, practices they’ll be more prone to protect and defend these areas while preserving their own centuries old cultures at the same time.
One of the first events I went to was a meeting at the Banco del Estado. This bank invests in many of the activities of the local governments in the region, and my organization was giving some presentations stressing the importance of investing in land preservation for watershed protection, erosion control, etc. The next day, we went to a huge event within the El Carmen watershed, which was attended by the mayor, close to 1000 school kids and university students, and a slew of other important folks. Nature and Culture Int’l (NCI), using money primarily from donors in the States, purchased all the land that encompasses this watershed to ensure that it’s preserved in its natural state hence helping to protect the city’s water supply. At this event, NCI was signing the land over to the city to manage and protect, since NCI likes to empower local people and governments. It was quite the event (complete with marching band), and was followed by a huge tree-planting campaign by the school kids. Unfortunately, the tree planting ended pretty abruptly when some kids knocked over a giant wasp nest and the thousands of swarming wasps sent the kids screaming and running down the road! The other big event these past two weeks was a trip down to Zapotillo in the southwest corner of the country. The scenery along the way was amazing, and it was super neat how much the climate and vegetation changed as we headed from 6900 feet down to about 500 feet in Zapotillo. This area is super hot, and for a good part of the year pretty dry. The notable feature here is something called a Tumbesian Dry Forest that extends from southern Ecuador into northern Peru. There are only four of these types of forests in the world, and NCI has purchased large areas to protect. Many of the trees here actually lose their leaves during the hot, dry summer to preserve water, and some, like the extremely weird looking Ceiba tree, have green, photosynthetic bark. NCI will be helping to strengthen local capacity and manage the use of natural resources to benefit about 30 rural communities. Some of the projects currently underway are the commercialization of the fruits of the Palo Santo tree (whose essence is now being used in a new perfume - "Amor America"), and the production of a bunch of goat’s milk products, like cheese and yogurt. (There are probably more goats than people in this region!)
There are two other volunteers working with NCI in Zapotillo from my group (Levi and Mandy) so it was good to see them. Zapotillo is a pretty small town (about 1500 people), so it was a big change from Loja! The city is located on the banks of a river, and on the other side of the river is Peru. There’s a bunch of illegal smuggling that goes on between countries here, especially when it comes to gas. The Ecuadorian government highly subsidizes gas here and the cost of a gallon is fixed at $1.48 for regular. On the other side of the river, however, Peruvians are paying $5 to $6 for a gallon. You can see why the Peruvians are always trying to sneak gas across the border from Ecuador to sell at home! Besides gas smuggling, they have some really good ceviche (fish “cooked” in lime juice and cilantro) in Zapotillo, and it was also nice to just sit and sip some coconut milk from coconuts freshly opened with a machete. Levi and Mandy ended up coming back to Loja with me (Levi and I got to ride in the back of the pickup truck with a beer for the 5 hour trip back, which was pretty nice) since there are no ATMs in Zapotillo and they needed $. They also have to travel all the way to Loja to pick up their mail!
Other than work, the weekends have been a blast spending time with the other volunteers and their Ecuadorian friends. Last weekend, a few of us headed down to Vilcabamba for a few hours (40 min south of Loja), which is the massage and facial capital of Ecuador. The place is very tranquilo, as the locals would say, with some awesome scenery. A 75-minute full body massage can be had for $18! We also went to a salsa/reggaeton club in Loja to dance and sip some Espiritu Lojana, a really strong, hot, yellow, spiced drink made with sugar cane liquor (I think). It’s pretty gross, but it’s only a dollar so people drink it! And to finish off the past weekend, we went to a U2 cover band concert (how Ecuadorian!).
Enjoy the pics below and as usual click a few times to enlarge...
The organization I’m working with (www.natureandculture.org) has kept me busy over the past two weeks or so, and some of the projects they’re involved with are pretty interesting. Unlike national parks in the States where the mindset is to keep people and development activities out, my organization is trying to preserve both the amazing natural resources found in the region and the culture of the numerous indigenous peoples that live within the reserves through sustainable small business activities. The thought is that if the people living in and around these areas can sustain themselves through environmentally friendly, yet profitable, practices they’ll be more prone to protect and defend these areas while preserving their own centuries old cultures at the same time.
One of the first events I went to was a meeting at the Banco del Estado. This bank invests in many of the activities of the local governments in the region, and my organization was giving some presentations stressing the importance of investing in land preservation for watershed protection, erosion control, etc. The next day, we went to a huge event within the El Carmen watershed, which was attended by the mayor, close to 1000 school kids and university students, and a slew of other important folks. Nature and Culture Int’l (NCI), using money primarily from donors in the States, purchased all the land that encompasses this watershed to ensure that it’s preserved in its natural state hence helping to protect the city’s water supply. At this event, NCI was signing the land over to the city to manage and protect, since NCI likes to empower local people and governments. It was quite the event (complete with marching band), and was followed by a huge tree-planting campaign by the school kids. Unfortunately, the tree planting ended pretty abruptly when some kids knocked over a giant wasp nest and the thousands of swarming wasps sent the kids screaming and running down the road! The other big event these past two weeks was a trip down to Zapotillo in the southwest corner of the country. The scenery along the way was amazing, and it was super neat how much the climate and vegetation changed as we headed from 6900 feet down to about 500 feet in Zapotillo. This area is super hot, and for a good part of the year pretty dry. The notable feature here is something called a Tumbesian Dry Forest that extends from southern Ecuador into northern Peru. There are only four of these types of forests in the world, and NCI has purchased large areas to protect. Many of the trees here actually lose their leaves during the hot, dry summer to preserve water, and some, like the extremely weird looking Ceiba tree, have green, photosynthetic bark. NCI will be helping to strengthen local capacity and manage the use of natural resources to benefit about 30 rural communities. Some of the projects currently underway are the commercialization of the fruits of the Palo Santo tree (whose essence is now being used in a new perfume - "Amor America"), and the production of a bunch of goat’s milk products, like cheese and yogurt. (There are probably more goats than people in this region!)
There are two other volunteers working with NCI in Zapotillo from my group (Levi and Mandy) so it was good to see them. Zapotillo is a pretty small town (about 1500 people), so it was a big change from Loja! The city is located on the banks of a river, and on the other side of the river is Peru. There’s a bunch of illegal smuggling that goes on between countries here, especially when it comes to gas. The Ecuadorian government highly subsidizes gas here and the cost of a gallon is fixed at $1.48 for regular. On the other side of the river, however, Peruvians are paying $5 to $6 for a gallon. You can see why the Peruvians are always trying to sneak gas across the border from Ecuador to sell at home! Besides gas smuggling, they have some really good ceviche (fish “cooked” in lime juice and cilantro) in Zapotillo, and it was also nice to just sit and sip some coconut milk from coconuts freshly opened with a machete. Levi and Mandy ended up coming back to Loja with me (Levi and I got to ride in the back of the pickup truck with a beer for the 5 hour trip back, which was pretty nice) since there are no ATMs in Zapotillo and they needed $. They also have to travel all the way to Loja to pick up their mail!
Other than work, the weekends have been a blast spending time with the other volunteers and their Ecuadorian friends. Last weekend, a few of us headed down to Vilcabamba for a few hours (40 min south of Loja), which is the massage and facial capital of Ecuador. The place is very tranquilo, as the locals would say, with some awesome scenery. A 75-minute full body massage can be had for $18! We also went to a salsa/reggaeton club in Loja to dance and sip some Espiritu Lojana, a really strong, hot, yellow, spiced drink made with sugar cane liquor (I think). It’s pretty gross, but it’s only a dollar so people drink it! And to finish off the past weekend, we went to a U2 cover band concert (how Ecuadorian!).
Enjoy the pics below and as usual click a few times to enlarge...
Thursday, April 24, 2008
I'm in!
Hi all,
It’s been a while since I last posted, so I thought it was time to throw something up here. The last two weeks or so were pretty action packed so I won’t bore you with all the details! I’m finally in Loja and I’m now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!
We all said goodbye to our host families on the 14th after a family appreciation day party the day before. Everyone was a bit emotional but I’m going to try to visit sometime in the next couple of months. After leaving Cayambe (and happily escaping the incessant cold and rain) we all headed to Quito for some final presentations, including the much-talked-about Breaks and Escapes class with some US Marines where we learned some techniques for getting out of hairy situations! On the 17th we all headed to the US Embassy / Ambassador’s Residence for our swear-in ceremony. The house was super nice and the weather was awesome. We had a clear view of the 19,000 ft Cayambe volcano from the backyard. After some speeches, we all took the PC oath and finally became Volunteers after the 10 weeks of training. After swear-in, it was a non-stop party until about 2AM. We started with a party bus that drove around Quito for 2 hours. About half of us were on the roof with a band that played the same song over and over again the whole time. The roof was “interesting” as well since we had to duck 10 or 20 times to avoid being decapitated/electrocuted by wires that ran across the street! The bus also decided to go through a tunnel where we literally had to squat down to avoid hitting our heads! After the bus, we rented out a place and had an all-night party that a whole bunch of current volunteers came to as well.
The next day was kind of sad as people slowly left for their sites and the size of the group dwindled one by one. Luckily the Peace Corps gave us all cell phones so it’ll be a little easier to keep in touch. Andy, Katie and I took a 13.5 hour night bus from Quito to Loja which was insanely long but luckily I slept for most of it. The 4 hour stretch between Cuenca and Loja though was a mess with tons of potholes and landslides so that part was definitely not comfortable! When I arrived at the bus station, I met my new host mom (Ruth) who I can only describe as a little Italian mother (even though she’s Ecuadorian). She loves to sing in the kitchen and I have no idea what she’s saying half the time. The place I’m in now is pretty different than the place I lived at in Cayambe since it’s just me and her without 3 kids running around and throwing couch cushions at me all night. :) It’s kind of a nice change to have some time to myself, but it’s definitely not as fun. The neighborhood I’m in is super nice and looks like a high-end neighborhood in the States, so this is definitely not what I expected PC to be like! I’ll be living with Ruth for 3 months and then I’ll find a place of my own (at that point I expect all of you to come visit!). I haven’t been able to take many pictures here yet, but in my next post I’ll try to post as many as I can.
On Monday I headed to the office of Nature and Culture International (my counterpart here) to see what it’s all about. It’s definitely a well put together organization (with offices in several countries and even one in San Diego), which is definitely not what I expected PC to be like! For the first few hours I waited for my new “boss” to show up and then he finally asked me to come into the conference room. The whole company (about 30 people) was in there and I was asked to give a presentation about Peace Corps, my background, etc. in Spanish. Whoa! Not fun! The past few days here I’ve just been reading some literature and trying to get a better feel for the place. I’ll probably be working in the area of Communication (website stuff, outreach, press releases in English that can be released in the US to try to get more donors, etc.) and Environmental Education (school programs, eco-clubs, program development, etc.). There’s also a UNESCO Biosphere reserve here (Podocarpus – El Condor) that they’d like me to help promote as well. We’ll see how things pan out since everything is still pretty new.
Last night I met some of the PC volunteers that live in and around Loja. It’s a pretty fun group so I think the next two years will be a good time!
That’s it for now… more about Loja and the job in the next post. My new contact info is below so feel free to send goodies / call anytime :)!
Jason Kreiselman
Cuerpo de Paz
Casilla 11-01-211
Loja, Loja
Ecuador
Cell (from the States): 011-593-9-795-6226
Enjoy the pics (click a few times to enlarge)
It’s been a while since I last posted, so I thought it was time to throw something up here. The last two weeks or so were pretty action packed so I won’t bore you with all the details! I’m finally in Loja and I’m now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!
We all said goodbye to our host families on the 14th after a family appreciation day party the day before. Everyone was a bit emotional but I’m going to try to visit sometime in the next couple of months. After leaving Cayambe (and happily escaping the incessant cold and rain) we all headed to Quito for some final presentations, including the much-talked-about Breaks and Escapes class with some US Marines where we learned some techniques for getting out of hairy situations! On the 17th we all headed to the US Embassy / Ambassador’s Residence for our swear-in ceremony. The house was super nice and the weather was awesome. We had a clear view of the 19,000 ft Cayambe volcano from the backyard. After some speeches, we all took the PC oath and finally became Volunteers after the 10 weeks of training. After swear-in, it was a non-stop party until about 2AM. We started with a party bus that drove around Quito for 2 hours. About half of us were on the roof with a band that played the same song over and over again the whole time. The roof was “interesting” as well since we had to duck 10 or 20 times to avoid being decapitated/electrocuted by wires that ran across the street! The bus also decided to go through a tunnel where we literally had to squat down to avoid hitting our heads! After the bus, we rented out a place and had an all-night party that a whole bunch of current volunteers came to as well.
The next day was kind of sad as people slowly left for their sites and the size of the group dwindled one by one. Luckily the Peace Corps gave us all cell phones so it’ll be a little easier to keep in touch. Andy, Katie and I took a 13.5 hour night bus from Quito to Loja which was insanely long but luckily I slept for most of it. The 4 hour stretch between Cuenca and Loja though was a mess with tons of potholes and landslides so that part was definitely not comfortable! When I arrived at the bus station, I met my new host mom (Ruth) who I can only describe as a little Italian mother (even though she’s Ecuadorian). She loves to sing in the kitchen and I have no idea what she’s saying half the time. The place I’m in now is pretty different than the place I lived at in Cayambe since it’s just me and her without 3 kids running around and throwing couch cushions at me all night. :) It’s kind of a nice change to have some time to myself, but it’s definitely not as fun. The neighborhood I’m in is super nice and looks like a high-end neighborhood in the States, so this is definitely not what I expected PC to be like! I’ll be living with Ruth for 3 months and then I’ll find a place of my own (at that point I expect all of you to come visit!). I haven’t been able to take many pictures here yet, but in my next post I’ll try to post as many as I can.
On Monday I headed to the office of Nature and Culture International (my counterpart here) to see what it’s all about. It’s definitely a well put together organization (with offices in several countries and even one in San Diego), which is definitely not what I expected PC to be like! For the first few hours I waited for my new “boss” to show up and then he finally asked me to come into the conference room. The whole company (about 30 people) was in there and I was asked to give a presentation about Peace Corps, my background, etc. in Spanish. Whoa! Not fun! The past few days here I’ve just been reading some literature and trying to get a better feel for the place. I’ll probably be working in the area of Communication (website stuff, outreach, press releases in English that can be released in the US to try to get more donors, etc.) and Environmental Education (school programs, eco-clubs, program development, etc.). There’s also a UNESCO Biosphere reserve here (Podocarpus – El Condor) that they’d like me to help promote as well. We’ll see how things pan out since everything is still pretty new.
Last night I met some of the PC volunteers that live in and around Loja. It’s a pretty fun group so I think the next two years will be a good time!
That’s it for now… more about Loja and the job in the next post. My new contact info is below so feel free to send goodies / call anytime :)!
Jason Kreiselman
Cuerpo de Paz
Casilla 11-01-211
Loja, Loja
Ecuador
Cell (from the States): 011-593-9-795-6226
Enjoy the pics (click a few times to enlarge)
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Bussing Around Ecuador
Hello!
So... the past two weeks involved a lot of time on buses (over 40 hours total!), but the travel time was well worth it, and I was able to see some other incredible areas of the country. Two Fridays ago was Good Friday so we all had the day off from training. Everyone in Ecuador makes a dish called Fanesca for Good Friday/Easter so most of the day was spent making this chunky soup. It contains 12 different types of grains/beans (all of which must be peeled individually = super time-consuming), some type of broth, milk, pieces of hard boiled egg, and optionally pieces of salt cod, which my family luckily left out of the mix. The Fanesca is served with an enormous mound of pura de papa (mashed potatoes) and a few cut up vegetables. Arroz con leche (rice with milk) is served for dessert, which is basically like a drinkable, hot, rice pudding with clove and star anise flavoring (and a ton of sugar). It doesn’t sound like much food for a holiday feast, but after ingesting the bowl of fiber followed by the lead weight of potatoes (and the seconds that are usually forced upon you), you’re lucky if you can get out of the chair.
Our first Fanesca meal was lunch on Good Friday. Then, at the last minute, my family decided that we were all going to Quito for dinner with other members of the family, and that we’d be sleeping over. Since all the trainees were leaving for Puerto Quito on Saturday at 2PM, I was a little leery that we’d be back in time on Saturday for me to pack and get to the bus in time. They assured me, however, that it wouldn’t be a problem. When we got there, a ton of family members (like 40 – 50) were playing “Coco” in the street. I think it’s similar to Baci in that everyone has a metal ball and you try to hit other people’s metal balls that are lying in the street. Every time you hit someone’s ball, they’re out of the game. The basic goal is for your ball to be the last ball in the street. It was 5 cents to enter the game, and whoever wins gets all the money in the pot. I lost 4 times in a row. :) The family was really into the game and kept yelling, “Matale, Matale!” (Kill him, kill him!). Once it got dark, we all headed inside to have another meal of Fanesca, mashed potatoes and arroz con leche. It’s very common for extended families to live together here, and all 50 family members had small apartments in the complex. I’m not sure if they all always eat together, but tonight everyone piled in the grandparents place for dinner. Four guys were watching the Passion of Christ on TV, there were three groups of people playing Rummy and the plethora of kids were running around like mad. And this was just my host mother’s side of the family (she has 8 sisters)... crazy! That night I bunked up in the grandparent’s bedroom. I was in one bed, they were in another about 2 feet away from my bed, and the entire perimeter of the room was covered with Virgin Mary and Jesus statues. The sleeping arrangement was a little weird, but the 4 hours of Rummy tired me out so I slept pretty well. In the morning, we had breakfast (twice – once at the grandparent´s apt and again at what I think was one of the brother-in-law’s apts downstairs). I thought it might be a good idea to start heading back to Cayambe, but instead I was handed a pair of really short shorts and an Argentinean soccer jersey – It was time for futbol. The trip back to Cayambe is about 1.5 hours without traffic and it was already 10:00, so I was a bit concerned. We played for about an hour trying to avoid the two pigs that were sifting through a pile of garbage next to the right goal post, and then we finally ended up leaving Quito at 11:00. On the way out, however, my host father asked if we could stop at his mother’s house at the opposite end of Quito just to say hello. Oy! I reluctantly agreed, and long story short we ended up arriving in Cayambe at 1:30PM. I packed in about a minute and a half and then my host father rushed me back to the training center to catch the bus with 5 minutes to spare!
The bus ride to Puerto Quito took about 5 hours and we dropped quite a bit in elevation as we headed down the western slope of the Andes. The vegetation changed dramatically, and the scenery was much more lush and tropical. The place we stayed at for the week was really nice. It had a bar, two pools, a bunch of hammocks, soccer, volleyball, a river, etc. We had the weekend off, which was great, and a couple of us headed into the town of Puerto Quito and had some really good shrimp ceviche. The climate here is totally different that in the mountains, and it was about 85 degrees everyday and super humid. The training activities during the week were pretty good and included a conflict resolution workshop, a value-added products workshop (i.e. instead of selling raw fruit, turn it into jelly and sell it for 4 times the price), how to best work with NGO’s, how to build irrigation systems and terraced farming areas, a trip to a cacao processing plant, a visit to a small town where a Peace Corps volunteer had started a jewelry workshop with the women, and a trip to a cloud forest reserve called Macchikapuna. The jewelry workshop was located in a super small town where the school kids collect local seeds and then the women transform the seeds into necklaces, earrings, bracelets, etc. It was a neat little operation. At the cloud forest reserve we got super lucky and spotted a spectacled bear in one of the trees. This is the only type of bear in South America (it has white rings around its eyes, hence the name), and the guides at the park said they only see them once or twice a year. At the end of the week, we had a big party and a talent show which was hysterical. I imitated one of the trainers in a fake dating game skit where we poked fun at all the quirky characteristics of the trainers.
At the end of the week, after a lot of pool/river time, the trainees split up into groups, and I went with the three other IT trainees down to a small 1500 person town in the southeast of the country called San Juan Bosco. Since the total trip is about 20 hours from Puerto Quito, we broke it up into two legs and spent the night in the city of Cuenca, which is really nice and historic. On the Quito to Cuenca leg we hit a big landslide at about 5AM and ended up having to wait 3 hours for some guys with shovels to clear a path. It was pretty crazy and buses were sliding all over the place. A bunch of guys were trying to push the buses in the right direction, and the whole scene was somewhat comical. After a nice night in Cuenca we started on a 6 hour bus journey to San Juan Bosco on a super narrow dirt road with a cliff on one side and no guard rail. The town was really nice, and I think the people there receive quite a bit of money from family members that are living in the States. The climate was perfect here and was much less humid than in Puerto Quito. In this town, we spent the week working with the IT guy from the Peace Corps office and two locals named Angel and Carlos that set the town up with Internet via a radio signal. It was pretty interesting to see how different things are in such a small town. We spent some time checking out problems with a cable drop in the municipio (county offices), checked out the computer lab in the school, attempted to use a Linux box to place bandwidth limits on each computer in the municipio, etc. We also piled in a Toyota 4Runner one day and headed an additional hour into the jungle on an extremely bumpy dirt road with several stream crossings to a 150 person town called Pananza. It took two attempts to get there since in the morning there was a landslide that blocked the whole road. Finally, when we arrived in the afternoon the people there thought we were miners wanting to dig on their land and it took a bit of work to convince them that we were only there to help network four of their computers that Angel had sold to them a month or two prior. On the second to last day, the mayor invited us to have lunch at his house. His wife served rabbit, which we were all a bit leery of but it was actually really good. I lucked out and got what I think was the rabbit ass since it was a lot more tender than the legs that everyone else got! Finally on the last day, after tinkering with some computers, we headed out to the local river to go “fishing” with Angel. Fishing here entailed throwing a piece of dynamite in the water and then harvesting the dead fish that float down stream after the explosion! Unfortunately we only caught two fish that were about 3 inches long, so the fishing experience wasn’t too fruitful. Instead we ended up grilling up some T-bone steaks next to the river along with some plantains, potatoes, yucca, and veggies – all of which were really good. The steaks were huge and were 10 for $18 – not bad!
Finally after an action packed week, we headed back to Cayambe on yet another 20 hour bus ride where we sat through 3 painfully bad Antonio Banderas movies. My host family was excited to see me and said the two-year old was saying my name the whole time I was gone. We had some potted chicken and potatoes for dinner and that was the end of the two week adventure.
I’ll be here in Cayambe for another week, and then I’m in Quito for one week before I finally swear in as a volunteer. By then, I’ll hopefully be ready for another super long bus ride to Loja!
Hope you enjoy the pictures below (click to enlarge - you may have to click a few times).
So... the past two weeks involved a lot of time on buses (over 40 hours total!), but the travel time was well worth it, and I was able to see some other incredible areas of the country. Two Fridays ago was Good Friday so we all had the day off from training. Everyone in Ecuador makes a dish called Fanesca for Good Friday/Easter so most of the day was spent making this chunky soup. It contains 12 different types of grains/beans (all of which must be peeled individually = super time-consuming), some type of broth, milk, pieces of hard boiled egg, and optionally pieces of salt cod, which my family luckily left out of the mix. The Fanesca is served with an enormous mound of pura de papa (mashed potatoes) and a few cut up vegetables. Arroz con leche (rice with milk) is served for dessert, which is basically like a drinkable, hot, rice pudding with clove and star anise flavoring (and a ton of sugar). It doesn’t sound like much food for a holiday feast, but after ingesting the bowl of fiber followed by the lead weight of potatoes (and the seconds that are usually forced upon you), you’re lucky if you can get out of the chair.
Our first Fanesca meal was lunch on Good Friday. Then, at the last minute, my family decided that we were all going to Quito for dinner with other members of the family, and that we’d be sleeping over. Since all the trainees were leaving for Puerto Quito on Saturday at 2PM, I was a little leery that we’d be back in time on Saturday for me to pack and get to the bus in time. They assured me, however, that it wouldn’t be a problem. When we got there, a ton of family members (like 40 – 50) were playing “Coco” in the street. I think it’s similar to Baci in that everyone has a metal ball and you try to hit other people’s metal balls that are lying in the street. Every time you hit someone’s ball, they’re out of the game. The basic goal is for your ball to be the last ball in the street. It was 5 cents to enter the game, and whoever wins gets all the money in the pot. I lost 4 times in a row. :) The family was really into the game and kept yelling, “Matale, Matale!” (Kill him, kill him!). Once it got dark, we all headed inside to have another meal of Fanesca, mashed potatoes and arroz con leche. It’s very common for extended families to live together here, and all 50 family members had small apartments in the complex. I’m not sure if they all always eat together, but tonight everyone piled in the grandparents place for dinner. Four guys were watching the Passion of Christ on TV, there were three groups of people playing Rummy and the plethora of kids were running around like mad. And this was just my host mother’s side of the family (she has 8 sisters)... crazy! That night I bunked up in the grandparent’s bedroom. I was in one bed, they were in another about 2 feet away from my bed, and the entire perimeter of the room was covered with Virgin Mary and Jesus statues. The sleeping arrangement was a little weird, but the 4 hours of Rummy tired me out so I slept pretty well. In the morning, we had breakfast (twice – once at the grandparent´s apt and again at what I think was one of the brother-in-law’s apts downstairs). I thought it might be a good idea to start heading back to Cayambe, but instead I was handed a pair of really short shorts and an Argentinean soccer jersey – It was time for futbol. The trip back to Cayambe is about 1.5 hours without traffic and it was already 10:00, so I was a bit concerned. We played for about an hour trying to avoid the two pigs that were sifting through a pile of garbage next to the right goal post, and then we finally ended up leaving Quito at 11:00. On the way out, however, my host father asked if we could stop at his mother’s house at the opposite end of Quito just to say hello. Oy! I reluctantly agreed, and long story short we ended up arriving in Cayambe at 1:30PM. I packed in about a minute and a half and then my host father rushed me back to the training center to catch the bus with 5 minutes to spare!
The bus ride to Puerto Quito took about 5 hours and we dropped quite a bit in elevation as we headed down the western slope of the Andes. The vegetation changed dramatically, and the scenery was much more lush and tropical. The place we stayed at for the week was really nice. It had a bar, two pools, a bunch of hammocks, soccer, volleyball, a river, etc. We had the weekend off, which was great, and a couple of us headed into the town of Puerto Quito and had some really good shrimp ceviche. The climate here is totally different that in the mountains, and it was about 85 degrees everyday and super humid. The training activities during the week were pretty good and included a conflict resolution workshop, a value-added products workshop (i.e. instead of selling raw fruit, turn it into jelly and sell it for 4 times the price), how to best work with NGO’s, how to build irrigation systems and terraced farming areas, a trip to a cacao processing plant, a visit to a small town where a Peace Corps volunteer had started a jewelry workshop with the women, and a trip to a cloud forest reserve called Macchikapuna. The jewelry workshop was located in a super small town where the school kids collect local seeds and then the women transform the seeds into necklaces, earrings, bracelets, etc. It was a neat little operation. At the cloud forest reserve we got super lucky and spotted a spectacled bear in one of the trees. This is the only type of bear in South America (it has white rings around its eyes, hence the name), and the guides at the park said they only see them once or twice a year. At the end of the week, we had a big party and a talent show which was hysterical. I imitated one of the trainers in a fake dating game skit where we poked fun at all the quirky characteristics of the trainers.
At the end of the week, after a lot of pool/river time, the trainees split up into groups, and I went with the three other IT trainees down to a small 1500 person town in the southeast of the country called San Juan Bosco. Since the total trip is about 20 hours from Puerto Quito, we broke it up into two legs and spent the night in the city of Cuenca, which is really nice and historic. On the Quito to Cuenca leg we hit a big landslide at about 5AM and ended up having to wait 3 hours for some guys with shovels to clear a path. It was pretty crazy and buses were sliding all over the place. A bunch of guys were trying to push the buses in the right direction, and the whole scene was somewhat comical. After a nice night in Cuenca we started on a 6 hour bus journey to San Juan Bosco on a super narrow dirt road with a cliff on one side and no guard rail. The town was really nice, and I think the people there receive quite a bit of money from family members that are living in the States. The climate was perfect here and was much less humid than in Puerto Quito. In this town, we spent the week working with the IT guy from the Peace Corps office and two locals named Angel and Carlos that set the town up with Internet via a radio signal. It was pretty interesting to see how different things are in such a small town. We spent some time checking out problems with a cable drop in the municipio (county offices), checked out the computer lab in the school, attempted to use a Linux box to place bandwidth limits on each computer in the municipio, etc. We also piled in a Toyota 4Runner one day and headed an additional hour into the jungle on an extremely bumpy dirt road with several stream crossings to a 150 person town called Pananza. It took two attempts to get there since in the morning there was a landslide that blocked the whole road. Finally, when we arrived in the afternoon the people there thought we were miners wanting to dig on their land and it took a bit of work to convince them that we were only there to help network four of their computers that Angel had sold to them a month or two prior. On the second to last day, the mayor invited us to have lunch at his house. His wife served rabbit, which we were all a bit leery of but it was actually really good. I lucked out and got what I think was the rabbit ass since it was a lot more tender than the legs that everyone else got! Finally on the last day, after tinkering with some computers, we headed out to the local river to go “fishing” with Angel. Fishing here entailed throwing a piece of dynamite in the water and then harvesting the dead fish that float down stream after the explosion! Unfortunately we only caught two fish that were about 3 inches long, so the fishing experience wasn’t too fruitful. Instead we ended up grilling up some T-bone steaks next to the river along with some plantains, potatoes, yucca, and veggies – all of which were really good. The steaks were huge and were 10 for $18 – not bad!
Finally after an action packed week, we headed back to Cayambe on yet another 20 hour bus ride where we sat through 3 painfully bad Antonio Banderas movies. My host family was excited to see me and said the two-year old was saying my name the whole time I was gone. We had some potted chicken and potatoes for dinner and that was the end of the two week adventure.
I’ll be here in Cayambe for another week, and then I’m in Quito for one week before I finally swear in as a volunteer. By then, I’ll hopefully be ready for another super long bus ride to Loja!
Hope you enjoy the pictures below (click to enlarge - you may have to click a few times).
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