So as many of you have probably already guessed...they don't really celebrate Thanksgiving down here in Eucador. It is what one would call a U.S. holiday.
Therefore, I am going to run away from my site and area for the night and following morning to Guayquil to visit other PCVs there and have a somewhat of a Thanksgiving meal. I say somewhat because we are not having Turkey, it will be chicken instead because that is MUCH cheaper down here and in all honestly, I am not really sure what else there will be...but we will find out! The PC budget definately keeps you down to earth and cheap, with everything.
My bus leaves though here in about an hour so I better get going as I want to grab some snacks before I get on the three hour bus ride. That really is not that bad though, I have been on much worse! And I plan on getting back tomorrow in time for a class at Noon which makes these next twenty-four hours some busy ones. Thanks for all of the Thanksgiving Day wishes too :)
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
My PCV Life
November 5th, Thursday
Oh where to start where to start. I am splitting this blog up into two parts by the way. One with my life and one with my work because I have so much to get caught up on! My PCV life is what I guess I would have to call a typical one. I have my up and down moments, days, and sometimes even hours. However, it is a little comical at times because you do realize that it is all about the little things that will change your attitude. Sometimes all you might need is to go out and buy a Magnum Ice Cream Bar and your whole attitude and outlook will change for the day. And you get to skip out on the rice for dinner. Other times, you might simply need to rant and rave to another PCV in English about your day and how none of the kids would listen to you. Or it could be just as simple as having a good conversation with a local woman where you finally feel like you understand the majority of the conversation and she understood you. Either way, it is full of ups and downs which constantly change. So here are some of the highlights from this past month.
First we can start with my love; the cat. It is certainly not the Ecuadorean creepy men here and never will be…stupid machismo. My host family has a cat and she has just had three kittens. Now the kittens are still in hiding, but the mother cat still loves me, so I have gotten to see the little kittens and even touch them one night. It is a slow process…but I will get my cat yet!
My little host nephew has the chickenpox, poor boy. However, the parents were afraid to tell me at first because they didn’t know if I had had the chickenpox or not. So they didn’t want me to know because the nephew, who is six, has to be at my host family’s house quite a lot. Once they found out that I had had the chickenpox though, they then quickly asked what they should do to help the boy out. So I pulled out my “Where There is no Doctor” book which basically just said to bathe everyday in warm water with soap and to cut his nails. So then the mom was saying to the dad that they were going to go home and do that right away. It was kind of comical.
I also go running every day, more or less, in this little cement mini-soccer field type area. They play “soccer” here, but it is called Indoor because it is played on a smaller field with a smaller ball and smaller goals. It is kind of interesting really and very popular for everyone to play. So this area, the mini cancha, is where I go running every day in many, many, many circles. However, it does have a bit of a cage around it and of course everyone stops to stare at the Gringa running in circles everyday. In light of this, I have a much better understanding of how a caged animal feels being gawked at everyday and I have to say that I feel some pity for them.
Cold showers – I am never going to get used to this but I do have to admit that I take a shower in about three minutes flat now with what I have named the jump in jump out method. There really is an art form to this just so you know. You start by splashing some water of your face and then you brave it and stick your chest in. You wash all of that down and then move on to your arms. But you only put one arm in at a time while washing. From there you go to the waist and legs just having your lower part in the shower while washing. Lastly you have the hardest part; your back and hair. Here you really just have to take a deep breath and jump on in…cold showers…
My skin tone is official red and white now. Which has made it more fun for the kids to play with as they can push on my red arms, which will then turn to white for a minute and then back to red. They think that it is a chalk type board at times and a new type of toy to play with. My stomach, which gets no sun, is still pasty white and quite the contrast to my now red arms. However, I do wear my watch everyday…so there is a lovely “tan line” there which means I don’t think I can ever go out without my watch from now on.
I love my Dad – I mean, I love my Mom too, of course. But my father figured out a way to send me my current TV shows on a DVD so that I can watch them down here. Every single time I get a new disk and put it in an instant smile comes across my face as I see my lovely shows of Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, One Tree Hill, Desperate Housewives, and Brothers and Sisters. And I get to escape for a couple of hours from whatever I am facing that day down here. Just thinking about them now makes me happy. Oh I really am such a simple person!
I love my Mom – Wouldn’t be right if I just had a paragraph saying I love my Dad! I really do though. All of the mail that I get from home is great. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and letters. And SKYPE is amazing and great. I get to talk with my parents about once a week where we get to see each other and talk. And yes Dad…Mom and I could talk for longer so drop it! It is great though.
Bugs = Horrible. I guess they could be worse, but I had some type of bug that decided to live in my bed with me for a while so I have a lot of bites all around my legs which are just now starting to go down about a week later. I think I have taken care of that problem though for the most part as I washed all of my bedding and sprayed some RAID in my room. I think it was/is some type of ant. Who knows? All I know is that I am definitely not a fan of bugs and I actually take joy in killing them now.
Halloween we really didn’t do much. It isn’t much of a holiday here. So we just got together with a small group of PVCs and had dinner and watched some movies. I am not that big on Halloween anyways, so I was alright with it. But it definitely was nice hearing about all of the fall activities back in the States. The banana trees down here, are still showing the same strong green which they will forever. I think for Thanksgiving though we are thinking about going up to Guayaquil where the U.S. Embassy has a free meal for any American Citizens. We will have to wait and see. Oh yeah…and Christmas…you think we start decorating early in the States? The Ecuadoreans have already started to put up lights and decorations. I even saw one fake Christmas tree through a window one day.
And last but not least, we had a video camera come to my little town of El Retiro. And the people that came with the video camera were white and tall so everyone just assumed that they were my family…of course. In reality, they were all from France and there were here doing a TV program that is similar to Amazing Race back in the States. There were ten teams of two, and they are traveling all around South America doing tours in each country. However, these teams don’t have any money and cannot accept any money. They have to ask the local people for food, a place to sleep, and travel for free (or someone on a bus can pay for them if they are going to same way). They start everyday at a certain time and get to travel as far as they can towards their “check point”, which for this portion was Guayaquil, and every day they have a pager which goes off and tells them that they have to stop traveling for that day and go and talk with the local people trying to find food and a place to sleep for the night. And this couple, in their 70’s but you would never have guessed it, got stopped in El Retiro.
Since I am obviously not from Ecuador, they stopped and talked with me on my walk back from the Junta with my kids after our Aventura de la Vida. However, since I don’t speak French and they don’t speak English, we both had to try and communicate in Spanish. The woman spoke Spanish really well and the man didn’t really speak it. All in all, it made for a very interesting day. And my host family feed them both lunch and dinner for free. I also had to call the PC so that they can inform the US Embassy here that I have been tapped talking about the Peace Corps…got to love politics!
So I think that would be the highlights of my life right now. I am sure that there are more but they come and go so often that I forget most of them! It is really hard to explain the life of a PCV. Every experience is so unique and different to the next and yet there is this common thread that we all share. The common thread of having daily contradictions in our lives that make you feel bipolar at times and wonder why you are here and why you can’t leave at the same time. The fact that you find yourself counting down the time you have left and then you can’t decide if that amount is too short or too long. The fact that I know that when I leave here I will feel joy to be returning back to my family and my culture and yet at the same time sadness to be leaving the people and culture that I have learned so much about and probably will never see again.
Oh where to start where to start. I am splitting this blog up into two parts by the way. One with my life and one with my work because I have so much to get caught up on! My PCV life is what I guess I would have to call a typical one. I have my up and down moments, days, and sometimes even hours. However, it is a little comical at times because you do realize that it is all about the little things that will change your attitude. Sometimes all you might need is to go out and buy a Magnum Ice Cream Bar and your whole attitude and outlook will change for the day. And you get to skip out on the rice for dinner. Other times, you might simply need to rant and rave to another PCV in English about your day and how none of the kids would listen to you. Or it could be just as simple as having a good conversation with a local woman where you finally feel like you understand the majority of the conversation and she understood you. Either way, it is full of ups and downs which constantly change. So here are some of the highlights from this past month.
First we can start with my love; the cat. It is certainly not the Ecuadorean creepy men here and never will be…stupid machismo. My host family has a cat and she has just had three kittens. Now the kittens are still in hiding, but the mother cat still loves me, so I have gotten to see the little kittens and even touch them one night. It is a slow process…but I will get my cat yet!
My little host nephew has the chickenpox, poor boy. However, the parents were afraid to tell me at first because they didn’t know if I had had the chickenpox or not. So they didn’t want me to know because the nephew, who is six, has to be at my host family’s house quite a lot. Once they found out that I had had the chickenpox though, they then quickly asked what they should do to help the boy out. So I pulled out my “Where There is no Doctor” book which basically just said to bathe everyday in warm water with soap and to cut his nails. So then the mom was saying to the dad that they were going to go home and do that right away. It was kind of comical.
I also go running every day, more or less, in this little cement mini-soccer field type area. They play “soccer” here, but it is called Indoor because it is played on a smaller field with a smaller ball and smaller goals. It is kind of interesting really and very popular for everyone to play. So this area, the mini cancha, is where I go running every day in many, many, many circles. However, it does have a bit of a cage around it and of course everyone stops to stare at the Gringa running in circles everyday. In light of this, I have a much better understanding of how a caged animal feels being gawked at everyday and I have to say that I feel some pity for them.
Cold showers – I am never going to get used to this but I do have to admit that I take a shower in about three minutes flat now with what I have named the jump in jump out method. There really is an art form to this just so you know. You start by splashing some water of your face and then you brave it and stick your chest in. You wash all of that down and then move on to your arms. But you only put one arm in at a time while washing. From there you go to the waist and legs just having your lower part in the shower while washing. Lastly you have the hardest part; your back and hair. Here you really just have to take a deep breath and jump on in…cold showers…
My skin tone is official red and white now. Which has made it more fun for the kids to play with as they can push on my red arms, which will then turn to white for a minute and then back to red. They think that it is a chalk type board at times and a new type of toy to play with. My stomach, which gets no sun, is still pasty white and quite the contrast to my now red arms. However, I do wear my watch everyday…so there is a lovely “tan line” there which means I don’t think I can ever go out without my watch from now on.
I love my Dad – I mean, I love my Mom too, of course. But my father figured out a way to send me my current TV shows on a DVD so that I can watch them down here. Every single time I get a new disk and put it in an instant smile comes across my face as I see my lovely shows of Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, One Tree Hill, Desperate Housewives, and Brothers and Sisters. And I get to escape for a couple of hours from whatever I am facing that day down here. Just thinking about them now makes me happy. Oh I really am such a simple person!
I love my Mom – Wouldn’t be right if I just had a paragraph saying I love my Dad! I really do though. All of the mail that I get from home is great. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and letters. And SKYPE is amazing and great. I get to talk with my parents about once a week where we get to see each other and talk. And yes Dad…Mom and I could talk for longer so drop it! It is great though.
Bugs = Horrible. I guess they could be worse, but I had some type of bug that decided to live in my bed with me for a while so I have a lot of bites all around my legs which are just now starting to go down about a week later. I think I have taken care of that problem though for the most part as I washed all of my bedding and sprayed some RAID in my room. I think it was/is some type of ant. Who knows? All I know is that I am definitely not a fan of bugs and I actually take joy in killing them now.
Halloween we really didn’t do much. It isn’t much of a holiday here. So we just got together with a small group of PVCs and had dinner and watched some movies. I am not that big on Halloween anyways, so I was alright with it. But it definitely was nice hearing about all of the fall activities back in the States. The banana trees down here, are still showing the same strong green which they will forever. I think for Thanksgiving though we are thinking about going up to Guayaquil where the U.S. Embassy has a free meal for any American Citizens. We will have to wait and see. Oh yeah…and Christmas…you think we start decorating early in the States? The Ecuadoreans have already started to put up lights and decorations. I even saw one fake Christmas tree through a window one day.
And last but not least, we had a video camera come to my little town of El Retiro. And the people that came with the video camera were white and tall so everyone just assumed that they were my family…of course. In reality, they were all from France and there were here doing a TV program that is similar to Amazing Race back in the States. There were ten teams of two, and they are traveling all around South America doing tours in each country. However, these teams don’t have any money and cannot accept any money. They have to ask the local people for food, a place to sleep, and travel for free (or someone on a bus can pay for them if they are going to same way). They start everyday at a certain time and get to travel as far as they can towards their “check point”, which for this portion was Guayaquil, and every day they have a pager which goes off and tells them that they have to stop traveling for that day and go and talk with the local people trying to find food and a place to sleep for the night. And this couple, in their 70’s but you would never have guessed it, got stopped in El Retiro.
Since I am obviously not from Ecuador, they stopped and talked with me on my walk back from the Junta with my kids after our Aventura de la Vida. However, since I don’t speak French and they don’t speak English, we both had to try and communicate in Spanish. The woman spoke Spanish really well and the man didn’t really speak it. All in all, it made for a very interesting day. And my host family feed them both lunch and dinner for free. I also had to call the PC so that they can inform the US Embassy here that I have been tapped talking about the Peace Corps…got to love politics!
So I think that would be the highlights of my life right now. I am sure that there are more but they come and go so often that I forget most of them! It is really hard to explain the life of a PCV. Every experience is so unique and different to the next and yet there is this common thread that we all share. The common thread of having daily contradictions in our lives that make you feel bipolar at times and wonder why you are here and why you can’t leave at the same time. The fact that you find yourself counting down the time you have left and then you can’t decide if that amount is too short or too long. The fact that I know that when I leave here I will feel joy to be returning back to my family and my culture and yet at the same time sadness to be leaving the people and culture that I have learned so much about and probably will never see again.
My Work So Far
November 5th, Thursday
So it has definitely been a while since I have gotten around to writing a blog post. It is kind of funny because it seems like not a lot has happened and yet at the same time when I sit down to think about it a lot comes to mind. So I figure that I will actually write two blogs today, one about my job down here in Ecuador and one about the my life.
My job is still really vague and always will be. Basically my objective is to work with youth and family to help improve their lives in whatever way I figure out I can. I am set up with a counterpart person…but he is not being the best of help which from what I hear is pretty common. A lot of the counterpart people here in Ecuador think that a PCV is someone who will do their job for them, which isn’t the case at all. So anyways, I still work with him but I am also starting some of my own projects. We will just have to wait and see how that all pans out.
With my counterpart and the INFA organization we currently have two after school help programs; one on Tuesday for language and one on Thursday for math. The first week we had one kid show up. So I started just telling other kids about it (as well as bringing a soccer ball to play around with after which helped) and now we have about ten kids that come with about five to ten kids hanging around to play ball afterwards. It is not the best program as the kids really just want to play for the most part, but there are always a few of them that do really listen to the language or math which makes it a good program. It also gives the kids something to do after school as we usually start at around 2:30pm, have the help season for about an hour, and then play until about 5pm.
Along with the help classes, my counterpart and I also hold a season every Wednesday called “Aventura de la Vida” for the INFA kids that starts at about 2:30 and lasts for about an hour, sometimes a little longer. This class teaches different life skills such as self-confidence, what are your dreams, alcohol is bad, tobacco is bad, and so on. We also take frequent trips to the Rio, which is about a 30 minute walk from my town, and we always seem to have more kids show up for that. It is a hard balance to get the kids to show up and yet at the same time have it be a productive charla. I mean, they are just kids after all that really just want to play for the most part.
Other than that, my counterpart has charlas here and there occasionally which sometimes happen and other times don’t. The INFA organization is a really good organization that Ecuador has for the youth and family of Ecuador. However, it is what I would call a typical Ecuadorean Organization as well.
I have started teaching at the local school three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to the equivalent of 8th, 7th, and 9th grade respectfully. There are about 20 students in each class give or take. They love having the American Senorita come in and teach especially as my classes are not the normal type. However, they are difficult at times to try and get calmed back down, especially because Spanish is so not my native language. I do think though that I am getting through to some of them with my classes, which tend to be about self-esteem, self-confidence, values, goals, and so on. As I have been told by a couple of the other volunteers down here, I am brave for taking on this age group…which at times I would definitely agree. But I really do think that this age group is among some of the kids that need to hear this message the most. So I will just keep trucking along bringing my screaming voice to class with me.
I am also going to start teaching at a school in a community about 30 minutes away from where I live in the middle of the banana fields out in the middle of nowhere really. To get there I have to take the bus first for about 15 minutes and then someone comes to the bus stop and picks me up where we drive out through the banana fields and rice patties to get to Buena Esperanza, the town where I will teach every Tuesday. This school only has kids 5 to 12 years old, so it is a little younger than what I teach at the other school. The kids are split into four class rooms there, so I will teach one hour at a time four times on Tuesday mornings. It will be among the same types of themes as what I teach to the kids at the other school, but with more drawing and play time for the younger kids. I start that next week though…so cross your fingers for me!
And lastly, I am hoping that I will be able to work with a NGO from the U.S. called Soluciones Comunitarias. It is really interesting actually what this group does. It was started by a couple of RPCVs from Honduras and an RPCV from Ecuador hopped onboard as well. They started in Honduras with their organization and are now moving down into Ecuador as well as other South American Countries. Since they have such strong ties with the PC, they tend to start there with current volunteers. They basically help small rural areas make small businesses so that the towns’ people become dependent on themselves. The organization supplies the products, such as water purifiers, solar lights, good quality glasses, and so on to the town’s people which they can then sell for a profit. The NGO also teaches business classes to the local people which will help them along their way. All in all, I think it is really interesting and I hope that it works out. The RPCV from Ecuador said that they could help me start my community bank here as well. They are planning their first visit to El Retiro in January. So hopefully that will go well and we will go from there.
As you can see, it is a lot of random stuff here and there. I don’t really have a schedule and I probably never will. I don’t have an office and probably never really will. Most of my classes go in one ear and out the other of the kids. Time goes by slow and yet at the same time fast. The experience itself is unlike any other with the constant ups and downs, which at times even you can’t explain. There was an article in the Peace Corps Times this last issue called “Sometimes you are Left with More Questions than Answers” which I think sums it up best at times:
“How do you tell friends you gave up a nice job and will return jobless, an older woman in a deepening recession, yet have no regrets? How do you tell colleagues you trudge long miles to isolated mountain schools, see crowded classrooms with kids sitting on paint cans, yet learn more than you teach? How do you explain you live among poverty and see beauty; live among HIV and see elegance; live where time is slow yet have rich, full days? How do you tell future employers you failed, yet treasure this failure more than all the successes on your resume?
As one of my PCV friends told me here when she left, they tell you at the beginning that it is really just about all of the relationships that you make along the way that really matter. But you never really realize how true that is until you are leaving at the end.
So it has definitely been a while since I have gotten around to writing a blog post. It is kind of funny because it seems like not a lot has happened and yet at the same time when I sit down to think about it a lot comes to mind. So I figure that I will actually write two blogs today, one about my job down here in Ecuador and one about the my life.
My job is still really vague and always will be. Basically my objective is to work with youth and family to help improve their lives in whatever way I figure out I can. I am set up with a counterpart person…but he is not being the best of help which from what I hear is pretty common. A lot of the counterpart people here in Ecuador think that a PCV is someone who will do their job for them, which isn’t the case at all. So anyways, I still work with him but I am also starting some of my own projects. We will just have to wait and see how that all pans out.
With my counterpart and the INFA organization we currently have two after school help programs; one on Tuesday for language and one on Thursday for math. The first week we had one kid show up. So I started just telling other kids about it (as well as bringing a soccer ball to play around with after which helped) and now we have about ten kids that come with about five to ten kids hanging around to play ball afterwards. It is not the best program as the kids really just want to play for the most part, but there are always a few of them that do really listen to the language or math which makes it a good program. It also gives the kids something to do after school as we usually start at around 2:30pm, have the help season for about an hour, and then play until about 5pm.
Along with the help classes, my counterpart and I also hold a season every Wednesday called “Aventura de la Vida” for the INFA kids that starts at about 2:30 and lasts for about an hour, sometimes a little longer. This class teaches different life skills such as self-confidence, what are your dreams, alcohol is bad, tobacco is bad, and so on. We also take frequent trips to the Rio, which is about a 30 minute walk from my town, and we always seem to have more kids show up for that. It is a hard balance to get the kids to show up and yet at the same time have it be a productive charla. I mean, they are just kids after all that really just want to play for the most part.
Other than that, my counterpart has charlas here and there occasionally which sometimes happen and other times don’t. The INFA organization is a really good organization that Ecuador has for the youth and family of Ecuador. However, it is what I would call a typical Ecuadorean Organization as well.
I have started teaching at the local school three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to the equivalent of 8th, 7th, and 9th grade respectfully. There are about 20 students in each class give or take. They love having the American Senorita come in and teach especially as my classes are not the normal type. However, they are difficult at times to try and get calmed back down, especially because Spanish is so not my native language. I do think though that I am getting through to some of them with my classes, which tend to be about self-esteem, self-confidence, values, goals, and so on. As I have been told by a couple of the other volunteers down here, I am brave for taking on this age group…which at times I would definitely agree. But I really do think that this age group is among some of the kids that need to hear this message the most. So I will just keep trucking along bringing my screaming voice to class with me.
I am also going to start teaching at a school in a community about 30 minutes away from where I live in the middle of the banana fields out in the middle of nowhere really. To get there I have to take the bus first for about 15 minutes and then someone comes to the bus stop and picks me up where we drive out through the banana fields and rice patties to get to Buena Esperanza, the town where I will teach every Tuesday. This school only has kids 5 to 12 years old, so it is a little younger than what I teach at the other school. The kids are split into four class rooms there, so I will teach one hour at a time four times on Tuesday mornings. It will be among the same types of themes as what I teach to the kids at the other school, but with more drawing and play time for the younger kids. I start that next week though…so cross your fingers for me!
And lastly, I am hoping that I will be able to work with a NGO from the U.S. called Soluciones Comunitarias. It is really interesting actually what this group does. It was started by a couple of RPCVs from Honduras and an RPCV from Ecuador hopped onboard as well. They started in Honduras with their organization and are now moving down into Ecuador as well as other South American Countries. Since they have such strong ties with the PC, they tend to start there with current volunteers. They basically help small rural areas make small businesses so that the towns’ people become dependent on themselves. The organization supplies the products, such as water purifiers, solar lights, good quality glasses, and so on to the town’s people which they can then sell for a profit. The NGO also teaches business classes to the local people which will help them along their way. All in all, I think it is really interesting and I hope that it works out. The RPCV from Ecuador said that they could help me start my community bank here as well. They are planning their first visit to El Retiro in January. So hopefully that will go well and we will go from there.
As you can see, it is a lot of random stuff here and there. I don’t really have a schedule and I probably never will. I don’t have an office and probably never really will. Most of my classes go in one ear and out the other of the kids. Time goes by slow and yet at the same time fast. The experience itself is unlike any other with the constant ups and downs, which at times even you can’t explain. There was an article in the Peace Corps Times this last issue called “Sometimes you are Left with More Questions than Answers” which I think sums it up best at times:
“How do you tell friends you gave up a nice job and will return jobless, an older woman in a deepening recession, yet have no regrets? How do you tell colleagues you trudge long miles to isolated mountain schools, see crowded classrooms with kids sitting on paint cans, yet learn more than you teach? How do you explain you live among poverty and see beauty; live among HIV and see elegance; live where time is slow yet have rich, full days? How do you tell future employers you failed, yet treasure this failure more than all the successes on your resume?
As one of my PCV friends told me here when she left, they tell you at the beginning that it is really just about all of the relationships that you make along the way that really matter. But you never really realize how true that is until you are leaving at the end.
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