Quick Update

July 29th 2009, Wednesday

Training is going along like I think it does at this point. All of the lectures are talks are getting repetitive a bit, but I can definitely see how they are all necessary. Training really is different than what the real PC life is going to be like. At the same point though, it is completely necessary no matter how much at times you really wish you didn’t have to go through it all. And either way, we only have three more weeks left which is really like one more week because this one is half over and one of the weeks is a technical trip.

My technical trip is to the Guayas and the Santa Elena provinces (these are along the coast about in the middle of the western side of Ecuador). We start off our trip Sunday afternoon, the 44 current trainees all get split up into four different groups and locations depending on what technical skills you are going to be needing for your site, and we are going to Guayaquil first. Well technically Quito first because that is where all of the buses leave from.

We leave Sunday on an overnight bus to Guayaquil. We then are going to be doing loads of different things until Friday including traveling to a couple other sites…the only one I remember though is La Libertad off of the top of my head. We head to La Libertad that Monday so we are really just in Guayaquil as a pit-stop. Long story short though, we are then travel a little on the coast line there in Santa Elena while doing technical skills practice with charlas and talking with current PCs and seeing what they are doing at their sites (so I am really on the coast line for my trip starting at La Libertad going North). My groups’ main focus is business and joven a joven which is youth to youth (sex education and things along that line). The other youth and family trip is going to the Esmeraldas…and I don’t remember where the two health trips are going for sure…one is Riobamba though. Long story short, I’m going on a technical trip next week and I will blog about it once I get back and have time.

The rest of training is really going to go by quickly. We all go to Quito on August 16th, Sunday, and say goodbye to our host families here. That is going to be really weird to say goodbye to my “family” that I have been living with for the past two months…but I guess that’s a part of life for you! We then have closing CBT activities in Quito and we swear into the Peace Corps and become an official volunteer on August 19th at the Ambassador’s residence. We then leave for our sites and should be at our sites August 20th for the next two years.

It is all pretty exciting and overwhelming at the same time. The CBT (country based training) is really very different than what we are going to be actually doing at our site and that is exciting and scary at the same time. However, once we all get to our sites things will calm down a lot as well and being away from all of the Gringos (Americans) will definitely help the Spanish come quicker as well as the ability to integrate into your community. The first 90 days at site you cannot use any vacation days and your main job is to get to know your community and asses it. Since I am the first PCV at my site, I am sure that this will take me the first 90 days to accomplish as well as build relationships and trust within the community. It’s pretty excited in a lot of ways and at the same time I am sure it is going to be VERY hard and frustrating for the first few months.

On an exciting note, I have figure out SKYPE and it works wonders. For those of you who don’t know about SKYPE, Google it! It is basically a free download on any computer which allows you to call any other computer for free anywhere in the country. This means, that I can talk to any of you for “free” (I have the internet café fees…but they are really small…completely free for you though) if you have SKYPE on your computer, a microphone to talk with (you can get headsets pretty cheap in the States I do believe), and an internet connection. It really works well and I would love to chat with you all anytime. My user name for SKYPE is lesley.parker1986 I do believe…99% sure…you can also check using my email of lparker2008@yahoo.com. I also learned how to purchase credit on SKYPE so that I can call a landline or a cell phone…but this cost a lot so I am only going to use this method to call people to tell them that I am on SKYPE and that they should get to a computer if they can to talk to me. I think you get the idea…but if you have any questions, let me know. Because I would definitely love to talk to people back home…especially when I have more down time when I get to my site after August.

So those are my updates for now…there was more that I wanted to post up, but I have forgotten now, oh well! It must be the fact that my bed is calling my name and that’s all I can think about. Sweet Dreams all!