D-Day (It´s going to be Okay...Just Hang In There)

July 16 2009, Thursday

So it finally came...D-day (the “It’s going to be Okay…Just Hang In There” is from the card I got from my mommy today). But before I get to the exciting news of where my site is and how the day went, I first must update you all on the events of yesterday. Yesterday, in Cayambe (the “big” city within our training area), there was a riot in the main park. I’m not really 100% sure what happened since I was not there but I will tell you the most that I know.

Basically, a joven, or what is rumored to be possibly up to three “young people”, got into a Camineta truck (this is basically a glorified taxi driver which is really something like a Ford truck where everyone piles into the back to make it up the mountain) and the driver got robbed and murdered. The Camineta driver was from Cayambe and the murderer is not from around this area, I believe it’s possibly someone from the Coastal Area. The police managed to find the one youth (16-21 years old) and took him to jail. However, in this area there is actually a clause in their constitution which says that they can have community justice essentially (this is an area with strong indigenous roots). Therefore, there were people in the community who wanted to lynch, murder, and burn the murderer and therefore a riot followed yesterday at around 5pm in the central park of Cayambe. No one was really sure though where the murder had been taken since the police kept trying to through people off. Some of the PCTs where in Cayambe though and there was tear-gas that the police set off in the park to break up the mob. No PCTs got hurt although one or two did get exposed to some of the tear-gas which I guess is used often in Latin America from what I have been told because it is a really effective way to break up mobs. The rest of the PCTs that were in Cayambe at the time were all in building or stores and stayed there until our Duty Officer came in his car to pick them up from right outside of the building. Sad story now though is that our main big city that is close by, Cayambe, was off limits again today unless you live there.

So that’s the exciting riot story to start off this blog. But onto the super cool stuff for the day; the site selection. We got to training at 8am this morning where they prolonged the suspense until about 9:45 when they finally starting to tell us our sites. It was actually really neat as they had taped off the different regions on the floor in a map of Ecuador (even with Peligroso/dangerous signs for the Columbian boarder area). They then reached into a bag with all of our names in it, and read off our city and we ran through a little human tunnel out to the other side with the map and regions and we were then taken to our area. I think my name got called about ¾ of the way through so that most of the people where already standing on the map on the other side at the site spot. And the drum roll please!!!! My site is El Retiro – El Oro region (El Oro literally translates to the Gold). Now the funny thing is that I was actually the first of the three people in my region to get called. I am in the southern part of Ecuador in the Coast region. I have two other people from my Omnibus living in the region with one; one girl and one boy; and I do know that there are other PCVs currently down in that region, but I have no idea how many of whom as of right now.

I really would love to spend like the next page telling you information about my site…but the truth is I really don’t know much! Like I mentioned, it is on the coast and I do have to take malaria medicine for my full service (right now this is Doxycycline which I have to take daily), I think I will have a bug net to sleep under as well, and that it is going to be HOT. So like a 180 from where I am currently living as I believe the one lady told us that it is around 90 degrees F there and it is not 8,000 to 10,000 feet of altitude like where I am currently living! The bigger city that is by me is Machala (I believe it even has an airport…not international, but it is an airport) and it is about an hour to an hour and a half bus ride from my neighborhood of El Retiro or about 1,000 people. I also believe that my site has internet as well and all the basic amenities. Oh yeah, and that the main exports are bananas and shrimp.

I am working with the Instituto de la Ninez y Familia (INFA) and I will list below the aspects that have been given for me for my job (these always change once you actually are working at your site keep in mind):
• Plan and implement educational activities with the families and the community.
• Organize recreational activities with children and adolescents focused in aspects of life skills.
• Conduct workshops about bettering the quality of life for families.
• Help to start community banks and small enterprise businesses.
• Organize activities related to preventing the exploitation of children as workers and the promotion of children’s rights.
• Help to strengthen the after-school tutoring program.

I think that for the moment that is just about all of the real information that I have. We leave to go on our site visits this weekend, I leave Saturday and travel overnight (a 13-15 hour trip all in all) and get to my site for Sunday. I then leave my site Wednesday to travel overnight and get back home for Thursday. So I have about three days really in my site to explore and try to get a feel for things.

All in all, today was a really emotionally packed and exciting day. I can’t wait to learn more about my site and my nerves and emotions are jumping up and down all over the place. It’s almost like you don’t know which way is up anymore as there are a million and one thoughts that run through your head with questions and curiosity. One other thing I guess I should mention is that we lost a member of our Omnibus today as she decided to go home (we went from 45 down to 44), or as they have acronyms for everything around here, she ETed. This is sad, but also kind of expected as statistics show that one out of ten PCTs does not complete training.

Once I have had my site visit and my dad has researched my site on the web (I’m counting on you dad!) I will be sure to post up more information. As for right now though, it is REALLY late (this is 10:30 for me now) and I’ve got to finishing reading a little more information and then head to bed. Oh yeah, one other little neat thing is that the PC took our aspiration statement that we wrote back during the application process for the PC and used some of our words in a letter back to us. Remember your words: “I feel like it is apart of my responsibility to give back to people who do not feel that hope in life that I have been given. Life is too short and precious to waste it by only experience what you know.” Wow am I ever good!