Mom's Blog (with some Lesley comments)

A blog entry by my Mom with some of my comments placed in with italics:

May 25, 2010

Yes, as Lesley so succinctly put it in her last, short blog entry, her parents went to Ecuador to visit her after her absence of 11 months. One of her final brainstorms during our visit was that we write the blog entry this time instead of her. I really think it was just a stroke of luck that she thought of suggesting this as a parting assignment for her parents. As if visiting Ecuador wasn’t enough for us to do!! Anyway, whatever her motive, we have risen to the challenge and have decided that each of us will write about our experiences and thoughts. I will go first and John’s impressions will follow shortly in another entry.

What can you say about seeing your daughter for the first time in such a long time? We arrived late in the evening in Quito and were so glad to see Lesley in the throng of people outside of immigration waiting for us. She stood out with her height and pale color and was a sight for sore eyes. After traveling almost 5 hours from Atlanta it is amazing to know the time is the same in Ecuador as in Nashville. We didn’t have to contend with jet lag at all. She quickly led us out of the airport and we were approached by taxi drivers hoping these three foreigners needed a lift somewhere. The first amazing thing that happened was Lesley talking like a native and making sure she negotiated the rate and the safety with the cabbie (The real rate being $4, the taxi wanting to charge me $6 and me settling on $5 only to have my father give the cabbie $7 as he tipped which they don’t do here…love you dad…and so did the cabbie!). I think it surprised him she could speak Spanish so well! All the way to the hotel she continued to converse with him without a hitch (I was trying to prove to the cabbie that he could not just rob us…). I just sat back in amazement in the back seat so very grateful she knew what to do and how to handle the situation. Don’t ever go to Ecuador without someone who speaks conversational Spanish at a minimum. You are an obvious physical target and simply have to have someone who understands what is being said!

The altitude in Quito smacks you right in the face the minute you arrive. It is much higher than Denver and takes a while to get used to for sure. We spent the next week there seeing the sites around the city including several spots claiming to be the exact site of the equator, Old Town, the Peace Corps headquarters, one of the major shopping centers in Quito and, of course, going to Papa John’s so Lesley could have some pizza (which mom ended up enjoying just about as much as I did!). We saw one MacDonald’s as well as a couple of Burger Kings (adult males were actually wearing the crowns they give you) and lots and lots of KFC places. The Ecuadorians certainly love their chicken and KFC is making the most of it (but no biscuits or Mac-n-cheese…just rice and beans). We went to the Super Maxi (like a Meijer’s or Super Wal-Mart) and compared prices looking at some very different fruits and vegetables. A couple of bottles of wine were purchased too just to double check for comparison reasons! We traveled up the gondola one day and saw the city down in the valley below. The Andes Mountains ring the city with planes coming out of the sky and landing right in the middle of it all. They are building a new airport that was suppose to already be completed, but taking into account Ecuadorian timing (la hora Ecuatoriana), it might get done in another couple of years. We could just see some of the snow covered peaks of a couple of the volcanoes that are still active. I think one of them showered Quito with a thin covering of ash in the early 2000s.

We traveled out of the city twice on bus trips further north into the country where Lesley had her first couple of months of training. Our first trip was to Otavalo where there is an artisan market. It is even higher elevation there and the trip took about 2 hours. There was an indigenous uprising during this time (some sort of issue with who controls the water supply, i.e. the indigenous or the current government) and the trip back took about 3 hours because the main road was blocked as part of the protest and the police were rerouting everyone through a town with very small streets. You can’t describe the ability of the bus drivers to negotiate the terrain! They did show Air Force One in Spanish during the trip! We learned several days later that another group had tried to make the trip the day after we did and they were unsuccessful due to the conflict. We consider ourselves lucky to have made it to see the area. It is surprisingly stark and looks a lot like the arid southwest of the US without all of the colors you see in New Mexico. We had some very good trout for lunch there (they get it from their streams and it is on a lot of menus).

We headed north again on another day and went to Cayambe (the Peace Corps training site where Lesley spent two months) and on up to the actual village where Lesley stayed with a family for her first two months. We meet her host Mom and the sister who lives there too. It was really nice to see and experience the actual places where Lesley had been. Let me tell you that pictures don’t begin to truly represent the experience. You have to be there to actually get a sense of what they went through during training. This part of the north was quite different from the other being greener and plusher with lots of flowers growing throughout the region for export throughout the world (busiest times of the year being Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day…go figure). This is the area (according to the book) that is known for its bread and bakeries so we tried some of the fare. We had to select our items while the flies were sniffing them too……..I wouldn’t go there just to sample the breads!

Next we flew to the Machala area where Lesley is assigned. Two to three hour bus trips are tolerable, but it takes 12 hours to get from Quito to Machala and I wasn’t about to do one of those trips (always best to do overnight if possible…a little fyi just in case you need to know some day). So we acted like the rich Americans they took us to be and flew down to the south very close to the Peruvian border. Lesley made the trip with us and is now spoiled with flying, but will take the bus in the future because the PCV is poor and she would rather spend her few dollars on Magnum ice cream bars than plane tickets (sadly…I agree. Ten dollars compared to ninety for the flight adds up)! What a difference a one hour makes in the topography and the climate of a country. We could see the banana fields and the multiple shrimp farms on our approach to the area. And as we deplaned the humidity hit you smack in the face. Quito was sunny, dry, mountainous and quite comfortable (all though Lesley kept complaining of it being cold…only for part of the time…!) and Machala was humid, hot (33 degrees Centigrade upon arrival (91 F) and very flat.

The next day we went to see Lesley’s place where we stored our valuables until our departure. She feels very safe in her barrio and I am grateful. Most of the stores, businesses, hotels, etc in Machala have armed guards; even some of the buses do too, so it is reassuring to know that she feels OK. Again pictures cannot describe the extent of the experience. It is hot, dirty (my feet have never been so dirty each night after walking during the day…baby wipes work wonders for this right next to my bed) with lots of loud music, buses and noise, noise, noise. Her barrio is much quieter except for the drunken men and the rooster! Ask her about the rock she threw at him once (I missed…but there is always next time)!

We had one more bus trip to Cuenca for a couple of days which is back in the Sierra with altitude issues again (which we forgot about until we started to drink wine the first night up there…wine and altitude equals a fun outcome), but nicer weather for sure. It reminded us of a city in Europe and we saw more gringos there than any place else. We even talked to one couple from Florida and another from Las Vegas who were either retiring there or thinking of doing that because of the low cost of living. Not my choice for sure, but different strokes for different folks. We stayed at a very nice bed and breakfast place which I would highly recommend if you ever visit!

We spent the last couple of days back in El Oro. We meet two other PCVs down at the Peru border and had a meal with them. Lesley gets together with them a couple of times a month for support, wine and food. They appreciated the parents buying the meal and actually spending time coming to see where they are and what their environment is like. The country director actually closed one of the sites while we were there and one of the PCVs will be relocated due to the harshness of the area……….just goes to illustrate the actual realities of the PCVs in El Oro. We also treated a couple more PCVs that live closer to Machala to pizza (they really miss pizza) and got to meet them. Chrissy is the person who saved Lesley from fainting at the internet café during her dengue fever experience and took her to the clinic for safe keeping. It was great to be able to meet them all and spend a little bit of time with them trying to make their experience a bit more tolerable for one evening.

All in all it was a great trip. It was wonderful to see Lesley and to spend so much time with her. She enjoyed the air conditioning, sleeping with a sheet and the hot showers she had while she stayed with us at the hotels (and microwave popcorn…oh how I have missed you microwave popcorn…). We bought her a larger fan (it would have been the first thing on my list the first day I arrived), a couple of chairs (she actually has a place to sit down now other than her bed…I have my hammock too!-just plastic ones, but they will do), several bottles of wine for future consumption and stocked her up with some of the more expensive items from the local grocery that she is too poor to buy like sauce mixes for her beloved pasta dishes. We met lots of the kids at the school along with several of the teachers, the school principle and the superintendent too. They all love her and told us it was an honor to have her as part of their school in El Retiro. Lesley might post a couple of the pictures we took of all the children swarming us at the school yard (already on facebook). We ate at her host parents’ restaurant and met several members of the family where she spent several months. I agree with her though that it is much better to have a place of her own.

I could go on and on, but I want to send this to Lesley so she can get it posted. I am sure she will eventually add her own thoughts and impressions of our visit (already am cause I am that good). So much happened in such a short time there are lots of experiences that could be shared. Let’s just end this by saying I don’t think either of us got any diseases from the trip (although we are still taking the malaria drugs for another 4 weeks to make sure) and Ecuador and the Ecuadorian people are beautiful and gracious, but I wouldn’t exactly call this a vacation destination for any of our friends or for a return trip for us either! I am glad I went though, to experience just a small bit of what Lesley is living for these two years. I only have love and admiration for her and her efforts. She is a stronger, braver woman than I was at her age. We love you sweetie!!!!!!!!! (What can I say mom…I kind of like you guys too and am glad that you came).

Parents Visit

So I know that I am in need of a blog post...and I really do intend to do one here in about two weeks to update everyone on my life. For now though the update is pretty simple. My parents are here visting me!!! We are spending one week up in the Quito area and then a second week down where I live in the Machala area. Anyways, I will be sure to post a better blog once they have left with all of the details and fun stuff. For now, I am just enjoying my parents visit :)