So I just thought I would take a quick moment to share what I have seen thus far for Easter Sunday here in Ecuador...well more like one observation that I would like to make.
I don't think that most of them take part in a sunrise service...however, I do believe that most of them take part in a sunrise drink as the men in my town were already at the bar when I went out for my morning run at 8:30am. Leave it to the Ecuadoreans....
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Ecuador wanted to give me a birthday present as well…it was called Dengue Fever
4-3-10
So as my title rather gives the punch line away…these past few weeks, basically the month of March, I have spent with Dengue Fever from a mosquito bite in bed as well as some other health problems. However, before I jump ahead of myself to my Dengue Fever, I should speak a little about my second degree burns that I gave myself from the sun here in Ecuador.
As I mention in my last blog, I went to the beach and got sunburned really badly on my thighs which normally does not see any sunlight. So for that week I struggled around in skirts, watered down my thighs about three times a day with cold water, and tried my best to not irritate my thighs in any way…which can be really hard when you are trying to haul groceries on a bus and people are looking at you funny for not putting them on your lap. Not to mention trying to explain to kids that you cannot play ball with them because you can barely move as it is! All in all, it made for a really long week. Nonetheless, I still decided to trek it up to Quito for the 103 picnic and hang out with some other PCVs that following weekend.
Good old PC though at the time had restricted night travel as in no traveling after 7pm. This makes going up to Quito a two day trip for me because my bus from Machala to Quito is at least twelve hours and almost all of the buses don’t leave until the night time. Not to mention being on a bus all day really is not the most appealing…if it is a twelve hour or more bus trip, it is much better to do at night. So with all of this, I went up northward about five hours to one of my friend PCVs site in Bucay on Wednesday so that we could finish the traveling to Quito on Thursday of about eight more hours. Then we traveled an hour more to the training site of Cayambe for the picnic on Friday morning/afternoon.
However, on the Wednesday before I started traveling I realized that the area around my burned thighs was starting to turn purple like it was a bruise (I think we decided later that this was really one of the early signs of Dengue as I also thing that I got bite on my thigh). At the time, I figured it was just because the swelling from the burn was starting to go down as I only burnt the front part of my thighs really badly, but just to be safe I called the doctor and he said for me to stop in the office on Friday since I was going to be in town.
So I went in Friday morning and that is when he told me I had bad second degree burns on both my thighs and that it was worse than what he thought when I had talked to him. At this point, my thighs had started to blister and in all honesty they were at their worst point with pain and discomfort. You can ask anyone who saw them…they were really bad burns. The worst sunburn I have actually ever had in my life…which says a lot for this really white girl…and hopefully ever will have. So he gave me a load of Tylenol so that I could take that to the max for pain and he gave me a transparent lotion called Caladryl Clear. He also told me that if the pain got worse and the Tylenol did not cover it, to give him a call and he would help me out.
Thankfully, that Caladryl Clear worked miracles for the burns. At first putting it on stung really badly for about a half hour after I put it on. But once I realized how much the lotion was helping the burn heal, it was worth every second of that stinging process and I continued putting it on three times a day.
All in all with the burn story…I sure hope that I have learned my lesson. And if not, I still have some discoloring on my thighs to help remind me. Secondary burns from the sun in Ecuador should have taught me something…or at least the pain and discomfort from it should have! It probably took my legs about three weeks in total to heal from the burns. I also believe that I ended up peeling at least three layers of skin off. I am now left with some discoloring on my thighs but I think that will go away with time.
So you thought that this blog was going to be about Dengue…not second degree sunburns, right? Well that is the fun part for me in the month of March. I was just full of health issues! The picnic went over really well though and it was really nice to get to hang out with other PCVs and the new PCTs. The traveling with the sunburns was definitely…well…an experience…that is one way to put it at least. But I was really glad that I struggled through it and made it up for the picnic and the party bus that Friday night in Quito (they hired a Chiva which is basically a big pick-up type truck with a DJ, lights, and alcohol that drives around for a couple of hours while you dance and drink in the back…about 40 PCVs went). As night travel had then been lifted, I took the night bus home on Saturday and got home Sunday morning.
Onto the birthday gift from Ecuador which I later realized I probably already had even before my trip up to Quito. My birthday was that following Wednesday, March 17th, and I started to get chills and bathroom issues, to put it nicely, that Monday night when I got back from my Quito adventure. I was hoping that it was just something that I ate as I had my English camp to do and I was going to help out with an INFA camp that week from Tuesday until that Friday. So I figured I would hopefully sleep it off and get to work my camps…I was wrong.
Tuesday morning I woke up with a fever of 101 after a night of not really sleeping too much. I also discovered a rash on my butt and on my arm. However, I wanted to really try myself out first and see what I could do before I called the doctors. So I went to my INFA camp and I lasted about two hours before I had to tell them I couldn’t do it and needed to go home. At that point, I had a really bad head ache and body aches. I knew that it could be, and probably was, Dengue as two of my kids have had it this past month. Not to mention the providence where I live, El Oro, has the highest rate of Dengue in Ecuador and it is the rainy season at the moment which equals more mosquitoes. So I finally gave in and called the doctors to tell them that I thought I had Dengue.
The doctor wasn’t very impressed with my 101 degree fever (as dengue fever can get very high), so I took my temperature again and it had gone up to 103 by Tuesday midday. Giving in to the fact that it was Dengue…I then began a long process of many blood tests, fevers, chills, purple colored thighs, body aches and headaches like whoa, eye sensitivity, and rashes. Not to mention, the Dengue diet of not eating because of the loss of appetite.
I went into the Machala Clinic, which is about an hour long trip in total with two buses and a little walk, to get tested for Dengue that Tuesday afternoon. Sure enough, the test came back positive for Dengue just in time for my birthday on Wednesday. Needless to say, I spent my birthday in bed with a fever that varied from 101 to 103, severe body aches and headaches, purple colored thighs, no appetite, and only wanting to sleep in quiet. I have to say though, once you have a 103 degree fever, you can definitely tell when it drops down to 101 and be very thankful! It is like night and day and so much better. That is for sure.
I also had to go back in for blood tests Wednesday, Thursday, and that Friday as the doctor wanted to keep track of my platelet count as that is the part that is dangerous with Dengue (if they drop too low you can have internal bleeding and lots of problems). By that Friday I was exhausted from the fever, body aches, headaches, eye sensitivity, not eating, and all of the traveling each day. At that point, it was an effort everyday just to get myself to walk to the bathroom or brush my teeth without passing out. So needless to say, I was very happy when the doctors told me I could take Saturday off and just go in for tests on Sunday as my platelet count was low but staying pretty much the same. I spent the weekend sleeping and just being alive really.
My first week of Dengue…I really didn’t do much of anything but lay in my bed, be alive, and try to have silence as much as I could. Honestly, I didn’t even watch or want to watch a movie or anything. Needless to say, I missed all of my camps too sadly. And I even got Reeses Pieces, Peppermint Patties, and Lafty Taffy for my birthday that I couldn’t even eat or enjoy (those don’t exist down here)! I just wanted sleep and silence which is hard to get most of the time here in Ecuador.
By Sunday I was pretty much done and out. The extra day of rest with Saturday didn’t quite do it for me. After about a week of Dengue and not eating I was spent and could barley do anything without feeling like I was going to pass out. However, by the grace of God I made it into the Clinic to get my blood test; then I passed out. My blood test came back and my platelet count had dropped…I was not happy to say the least as I knew this just meant I was going to have more blood tests and probably pass out some more. I had some issues getting a hold of our PC doctor so I went into town to SKYPE my parents as I knew they were worried and I wanted to talk to them too as we had planned for that Sunday (I had told them that passed Tuesday I thought I had Dengue…so they were in the loop the whole time).
So I dragged my passing out butt to the Internet Café like an idiot to SKYPE my parents. I think I maybe talked to them for about a minute before I realized I was so weak that I couldn’t even keep my head up. Not to mention that I could only hold the test results up to the camera for about five seconds as well (mom understands that stuff…I don’t) before I had to put my arms down. So I sat at the computer for about twenty minutes with my head on the desk trying to decide what to do…I don’t think this was a lot of fun for my parents. As my mom said…all she could think of was that I was going to pass out on her in Ecuador and that she was going to be able to watch me and not be able to do anything about it. And as my father said…you can’t even keep your head up, you can’t make decisions right now, call for help.
Me being me though, it took about twenty minutes of this conversation for me to give in and call the PCV that lives in Machala for help…love you parents! She came to the Internet Café with one of our Ecuadorean friend who has a car and they took my back to the Clinic. My PCV friend also called our doctor for me and helped to better explain my condition and get everything set up at the Clinic (being PCVs our heath is our government’s responsibility, so we have our own Ecuadorean doctors here in country in Quito that we have to call for any health issues).
So on Sunday night I got admitted to the Machala Clinic. As far as Clinics go in a third world country, I would definitely say this was top of the line in that sense. Even by American standards, I would say it was pretty decent. However, the people that put my IV in could use some work. Their first attempt really messed up my wrist to the point where it is still black and blue today. In all honesty…that was the most intense pain I felt in the shortest period with the whole experience! They manage to get it in the second time though in a different spot thank God.
They were then going to send me home Monday afternoon…however my blood tests came back and my platelet count was even lower. So I spent Monday night at the Clinic as well. I had my own room though with some cable TV and air-conditioning…so you couldn’t complain too much. Not to mention, I started to eat some again on Sunday night when I forced some soup down and I managed to eat a little at each meal thereafter. I also had a couple of visitors as my friends slowly started to all learn that I was sick. This was when the fever, chills, body aches, eye sensitivity, purple thighs, and headaches all started to go away and the rashes started to come.
Now the main thing that was a pain in the butt with the rashes is that you can’t sleep much because just when you are about to go to sleep, you start to itch. Or if you are asleep, you will wake up because of the itchiness. Basically…itchy rashes stink to put it nicely and mine lasted for the following full week.
I went home Tuesday as my blood counts were going up and I got to spend Wednesday and Thursday resting in my bed, starting to eat again, and just build back up my strength. This would be the time period when I started to watch many films and TV series that you can buy very cheap down here in this kind of not so legal market. Friday I went in for my final blood test and my counts were way up and I was in the clear.
So that would bring me to this past week. Unfortunately and kind of fortunately this last week was supposed to be my week of rest before school starts next week as I ended up missing my two weeks of camps because of the Dengue. So it has been good to bring myself back up to full charge but on the same point I am ready for some work again as I think I have watched WAY too many films and TV series…one being the whole first season of Lost and probably at least ten movies and reruns of One Tree Hill and Grey’s Anatomy from my parents. I also started running again yesterday which will be really good for me and I still have yet to get myself a table and some chairs; maybe next week!
So in a nutshell…Dengue equals not fun. Chills, fever, severe body aches, severe headaches, purple thighs, eye sensitivity, loss of appetite, becoming extremely weak, passing out, eight blood tests on different days, a very bad IV attempt, a successful IV, and body rashes does not equal a fun two weeks. On the bright side though, they kind of all blur together now in my memory! I guess all of those symptoms together would do that to your memory though.
I also want to thank everyone for all of the birthday wishes and thoughts as well as all of the positive remarks and emails about my experience. They were all very much appreciated even if I was pretty sick at the time. Not to mention those Reeses Pieces, Peppermint Patties, and Lafty Taffy have all come in handy this past week and been fully enjoyed with some still left to enjoy.
I also managed to get an ingrown toenail this past month as well as an ingrown fingernail which I didn’t even know was possible! After my second degree burns and my Dengue experience I also had A LOT of laundry to do by hand which took me two separate days to complete all of for a couple of reasons…one being that there wasn’t enough room on the line for all of my clothes. Another reason is that the soap that I use to wash my clothes I realized doesn’t work too well with my skin when used a lot. So I got soap burns if you will on two of my fingers which took four days to heal up; then I got gloves. I also don’t think that I wore pants for the month of March…partially because of the heat and partially because I couldn’t with my burns. What can I say; this past month I have just had some issues!
School starts back up this Monday and I plan to start running everyday again to try and get myself into better shape and keep off the ten pounds that I lost with my Dengue diet. Dengue is really quite common here though, so I guess it was bound to happen to me at one point or another. The good news is that I now have immunity against the strain that I had…I think there are four strains in total. Most of the people in my community have had Dengue though; normally between the ages of ten and twelve or so. As the locals say, the first time you get it, well that stinks, the second time is even worse, and the third time you die (this is not always true...it is just what the locals say). But don’t worry; I strongly doubt I will get it again! And if I was to get Dengue again, I am pretty sure that the PC would move me to a site where there isn’t Dengue.
So that was the month of March for me…lots of time in my bed and many more once in a life time (hopefully I won’t experience Dengue or second degree burns again) experiences. I also had another first when I bought a new towel and a new sheet because all of mine smelled so bad and I was too weak to do the laundry…got through college without doing that, but not the PC experience! With April here it is a pretty relaxed month as we are just going to start up school again, the after-school help classes, and hopefully a community bank with the INFA mothers. My parents are also coming to visit me from May 8th to the 21st with some time in Quito and some time around my site which is something to definitely look forward to. Let’s just hope that I don’t get sick again!
So as my title rather gives the punch line away…these past few weeks, basically the month of March, I have spent with Dengue Fever from a mosquito bite in bed as well as some other health problems. However, before I jump ahead of myself to my Dengue Fever, I should speak a little about my second degree burns that I gave myself from the sun here in Ecuador.
As I mention in my last blog, I went to the beach and got sunburned really badly on my thighs which normally does not see any sunlight. So for that week I struggled around in skirts, watered down my thighs about three times a day with cold water, and tried my best to not irritate my thighs in any way…which can be really hard when you are trying to haul groceries on a bus and people are looking at you funny for not putting them on your lap. Not to mention trying to explain to kids that you cannot play ball with them because you can barely move as it is! All in all, it made for a really long week. Nonetheless, I still decided to trek it up to Quito for the 103 picnic and hang out with some other PCVs that following weekend.
Good old PC though at the time had restricted night travel as in no traveling after 7pm. This makes going up to Quito a two day trip for me because my bus from Machala to Quito is at least twelve hours and almost all of the buses don’t leave until the night time. Not to mention being on a bus all day really is not the most appealing…if it is a twelve hour or more bus trip, it is much better to do at night. So with all of this, I went up northward about five hours to one of my friend PCVs site in Bucay on Wednesday so that we could finish the traveling to Quito on Thursday of about eight more hours. Then we traveled an hour more to the training site of Cayambe for the picnic on Friday morning/afternoon.
However, on the Wednesday before I started traveling I realized that the area around my burned thighs was starting to turn purple like it was a bruise (I think we decided later that this was really one of the early signs of Dengue as I also thing that I got bite on my thigh). At the time, I figured it was just because the swelling from the burn was starting to go down as I only burnt the front part of my thighs really badly, but just to be safe I called the doctor and he said for me to stop in the office on Friday since I was going to be in town.
So I went in Friday morning and that is when he told me I had bad second degree burns on both my thighs and that it was worse than what he thought when I had talked to him. At this point, my thighs had started to blister and in all honesty they were at their worst point with pain and discomfort. You can ask anyone who saw them…they were really bad burns. The worst sunburn I have actually ever had in my life…which says a lot for this really white girl…and hopefully ever will have. So he gave me a load of Tylenol so that I could take that to the max for pain and he gave me a transparent lotion called Caladryl Clear. He also told me that if the pain got worse and the Tylenol did not cover it, to give him a call and he would help me out.
Thankfully, that Caladryl Clear worked miracles for the burns. At first putting it on stung really badly for about a half hour after I put it on. But once I realized how much the lotion was helping the burn heal, it was worth every second of that stinging process and I continued putting it on three times a day.
All in all with the burn story…I sure hope that I have learned my lesson. And if not, I still have some discoloring on my thighs to help remind me. Secondary burns from the sun in Ecuador should have taught me something…or at least the pain and discomfort from it should have! It probably took my legs about three weeks in total to heal from the burns. I also believe that I ended up peeling at least three layers of skin off. I am now left with some discoloring on my thighs but I think that will go away with time.
So you thought that this blog was going to be about Dengue…not second degree sunburns, right? Well that is the fun part for me in the month of March. I was just full of health issues! The picnic went over really well though and it was really nice to get to hang out with other PCVs and the new PCTs. The traveling with the sunburns was definitely…well…an experience…that is one way to put it at least. But I was really glad that I struggled through it and made it up for the picnic and the party bus that Friday night in Quito (they hired a Chiva which is basically a big pick-up type truck with a DJ, lights, and alcohol that drives around for a couple of hours while you dance and drink in the back…about 40 PCVs went). As night travel had then been lifted, I took the night bus home on Saturday and got home Sunday morning.
Onto the birthday gift from Ecuador which I later realized I probably already had even before my trip up to Quito. My birthday was that following Wednesday, March 17th, and I started to get chills and bathroom issues, to put it nicely, that Monday night when I got back from my Quito adventure. I was hoping that it was just something that I ate as I had my English camp to do and I was going to help out with an INFA camp that week from Tuesday until that Friday. So I figured I would hopefully sleep it off and get to work my camps…I was wrong.
Tuesday morning I woke up with a fever of 101 after a night of not really sleeping too much. I also discovered a rash on my butt and on my arm. However, I wanted to really try myself out first and see what I could do before I called the doctors. So I went to my INFA camp and I lasted about two hours before I had to tell them I couldn’t do it and needed to go home. At that point, I had a really bad head ache and body aches. I knew that it could be, and probably was, Dengue as two of my kids have had it this past month. Not to mention the providence where I live, El Oro, has the highest rate of Dengue in Ecuador and it is the rainy season at the moment which equals more mosquitoes. So I finally gave in and called the doctors to tell them that I thought I had Dengue.
The doctor wasn’t very impressed with my 101 degree fever (as dengue fever can get very high), so I took my temperature again and it had gone up to 103 by Tuesday midday. Giving in to the fact that it was Dengue…I then began a long process of many blood tests, fevers, chills, purple colored thighs, body aches and headaches like whoa, eye sensitivity, and rashes. Not to mention, the Dengue diet of not eating because of the loss of appetite.
I went into the Machala Clinic, which is about an hour long trip in total with two buses and a little walk, to get tested for Dengue that Tuesday afternoon. Sure enough, the test came back positive for Dengue just in time for my birthday on Wednesday. Needless to say, I spent my birthday in bed with a fever that varied from 101 to 103, severe body aches and headaches, purple colored thighs, no appetite, and only wanting to sleep in quiet. I have to say though, once you have a 103 degree fever, you can definitely tell when it drops down to 101 and be very thankful! It is like night and day and so much better. That is for sure.
I also had to go back in for blood tests Wednesday, Thursday, and that Friday as the doctor wanted to keep track of my platelet count as that is the part that is dangerous with Dengue (if they drop too low you can have internal bleeding and lots of problems). By that Friday I was exhausted from the fever, body aches, headaches, eye sensitivity, not eating, and all of the traveling each day. At that point, it was an effort everyday just to get myself to walk to the bathroom or brush my teeth without passing out. So needless to say, I was very happy when the doctors told me I could take Saturday off and just go in for tests on Sunday as my platelet count was low but staying pretty much the same. I spent the weekend sleeping and just being alive really.
My first week of Dengue…I really didn’t do much of anything but lay in my bed, be alive, and try to have silence as much as I could. Honestly, I didn’t even watch or want to watch a movie or anything. Needless to say, I missed all of my camps too sadly. And I even got Reeses Pieces, Peppermint Patties, and Lafty Taffy for my birthday that I couldn’t even eat or enjoy (those don’t exist down here)! I just wanted sleep and silence which is hard to get most of the time here in Ecuador.
By Sunday I was pretty much done and out. The extra day of rest with Saturday didn’t quite do it for me. After about a week of Dengue and not eating I was spent and could barley do anything without feeling like I was going to pass out. However, by the grace of God I made it into the Clinic to get my blood test; then I passed out. My blood test came back and my platelet count had dropped…I was not happy to say the least as I knew this just meant I was going to have more blood tests and probably pass out some more. I had some issues getting a hold of our PC doctor so I went into town to SKYPE my parents as I knew they were worried and I wanted to talk to them too as we had planned for that Sunday (I had told them that passed Tuesday I thought I had Dengue…so they were in the loop the whole time).
So I dragged my passing out butt to the Internet Café like an idiot to SKYPE my parents. I think I maybe talked to them for about a minute before I realized I was so weak that I couldn’t even keep my head up. Not to mention that I could only hold the test results up to the camera for about five seconds as well (mom understands that stuff…I don’t) before I had to put my arms down. So I sat at the computer for about twenty minutes with my head on the desk trying to decide what to do…I don’t think this was a lot of fun for my parents. As my mom said…all she could think of was that I was going to pass out on her in Ecuador and that she was going to be able to watch me and not be able to do anything about it. And as my father said…you can’t even keep your head up, you can’t make decisions right now, call for help.
Me being me though, it took about twenty minutes of this conversation for me to give in and call the PCV that lives in Machala for help…love you parents! She came to the Internet Café with one of our Ecuadorean friend who has a car and they took my back to the Clinic. My PCV friend also called our doctor for me and helped to better explain my condition and get everything set up at the Clinic (being PCVs our heath is our government’s responsibility, so we have our own Ecuadorean doctors here in country in Quito that we have to call for any health issues).
So on Sunday night I got admitted to the Machala Clinic. As far as Clinics go in a third world country, I would definitely say this was top of the line in that sense. Even by American standards, I would say it was pretty decent. However, the people that put my IV in could use some work. Their first attempt really messed up my wrist to the point where it is still black and blue today. In all honesty…that was the most intense pain I felt in the shortest period with the whole experience! They manage to get it in the second time though in a different spot thank God.
They were then going to send me home Monday afternoon…however my blood tests came back and my platelet count was even lower. So I spent Monday night at the Clinic as well. I had my own room though with some cable TV and air-conditioning…so you couldn’t complain too much. Not to mention, I started to eat some again on Sunday night when I forced some soup down and I managed to eat a little at each meal thereafter. I also had a couple of visitors as my friends slowly started to all learn that I was sick. This was when the fever, chills, body aches, eye sensitivity, purple thighs, and headaches all started to go away and the rashes started to come.
Now the main thing that was a pain in the butt with the rashes is that you can’t sleep much because just when you are about to go to sleep, you start to itch. Or if you are asleep, you will wake up because of the itchiness. Basically…itchy rashes stink to put it nicely and mine lasted for the following full week.
I went home Tuesday as my blood counts were going up and I got to spend Wednesday and Thursday resting in my bed, starting to eat again, and just build back up my strength. This would be the time period when I started to watch many films and TV series that you can buy very cheap down here in this kind of not so legal market. Friday I went in for my final blood test and my counts were way up and I was in the clear.
So that would bring me to this past week. Unfortunately and kind of fortunately this last week was supposed to be my week of rest before school starts next week as I ended up missing my two weeks of camps because of the Dengue. So it has been good to bring myself back up to full charge but on the same point I am ready for some work again as I think I have watched WAY too many films and TV series…one being the whole first season of Lost and probably at least ten movies and reruns of One Tree Hill and Grey’s Anatomy from my parents. I also started running again yesterday which will be really good for me and I still have yet to get myself a table and some chairs; maybe next week!
So in a nutshell…Dengue equals not fun. Chills, fever, severe body aches, severe headaches, purple thighs, eye sensitivity, loss of appetite, becoming extremely weak, passing out, eight blood tests on different days, a very bad IV attempt, a successful IV, and body rashes does not equal a fun two weeks. On the bright side though, they kind of all blur together now in my memory! I guess all of those symptoms together would do that to your memory though.
I also want to thank everyone for all of the birthday wishes and thoughts as well as all of the positive remarks and emails about my experience. They were all very much appreciated even if I was pretty sick at the time. Not to mention those Reeses Pieces, Peppermint Patties, and Lafty Taffy have all come in handy this past week and been fully enjoyed with some still left to enjoy.
I also managed to get an ingrown toenail this past month as well as an ingrown fingernail which I didn’t even know was possible! After my second degree burns and my Dengue experience I also had A LOT of laundry to do by hand which took me two separate days to complete all of for a couple of reasons…one being that there wasn’t enough room on the line for all of my clothes. Another reason is that the soap that I use to wash my clothes I realized doesn’t work too well with my skin when used a lot. So I got soap burns if you will on two of my fingers which took four days to heal up; then I got gloves. I also don’t think that I wore pants for the month of March…partially because of the heat and partially because I couldn’t with my burns. What can I say; this past month I have just had some issues!
School starts back up this Monday and I plan to start running everyday again to try and get myself into better shape and keep off the ten pounds that I lost with my Dengue diet. Dengue is really quite common here though, so I guess it was bound to happen to me at one point or another. The good news is that I now have immunity against the strain that I had…I think there are four strains in total. Most of the people in my community have had Dengue though; normally between the ages of ten and twelve or so. As the locals say, the first time you get it, well that stinks, the second time is even worse, and the third time you die (this is not always true...it is just what the locals say). But don’t worry; I strongly doubt I will get it again! And if I was to get Dengue again, I am pretty sure that the PC would move me to a site where there isn’t Dengue.
So that was the month of March for me…lots of time in my bed and many more once in a life time (hopefully I won’t experience Dengue or second degree burns again) experiences. I also had another first when I bought a new towel and a new sheet because all of mine smelled so bad and I was too weak to do the laundry…got through college without doing that, but not the PC experience! With April here it is a pretty relaxed month as we are just going to start up school again, the after-school help classes, and hopefully a community bank with the INFA mothers. My parents are also coming to visit me from May 8th to the 21st with some time in Quito and some time around my site which is something to definitely look forward to. Let’s just hope that I don’t get sick again!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Get Ready For Long One!
3-9-10
Holy Moly it is already March! That still seems really odd to me as I couldn’t even believe that Christmas was here as well as the New Year. Time here really is an odd thing; it seems to go slowly because you know how long of a time you are going to be here for and yet at the same time it is hard to believe how fast it goes by sometimes. But I can certainly say that this little girl has manage to keep herself busy these past couple of months which has helped the time go by faster as well.
Let’s see…I know that it has been ages since my last blog and I think when I left off I was still teaching at the school as the school year wound up. Everything with the classes went off fine and the school year ended the last week of January with exams. All in all, I felt that my classes where a good start and I definitely have ideas of what I am going to try and do with them next year. It is kind of funny really, because as Youth and Family volunteers, people usually either end up loving working with the schools or hating it. Most in all honesty that I know of hate it because it is a real challenge to keep in control a classroom of Ecuadorean kids who know that you are not grading them and also know that you do not fully know the language. For myself however, I have always proved to be an odd person, and I really enjoy it. It is definitely challenging with keeping the kids in control, but I think it is “vale la pena” as they say down here. Anyways, I am pretty sure that the school will ask me back again next year and I will be teaching in Colegio (7th, 8th, and 9th grade) once a week again. School starts up again the first week in April though, so I have some more time yet to figure all of that out.
So the “summer” months came…although they still call this season winter even though I am not really sure why because school is out and these are the hotter months…but anyways, the summer months have been some busy ones for me.
For starters, I now live in my own apartment! This took a lot more effort than I thought it would. I moved into my “studio apartment” the last week in January and first part of February right when school was ending. It took me a good week to purchase my bed, a cook top, gas tank, wardrobe, and all of the other random things that you need when you first move into your own place. Not to mention, one of the first things I wanted…and for my sanity needed…to do was paint the walls. Let me tell you…painting is not an easy thing much less when the weather is in the 90s with no air conditioning. It took me more or less three full days of painting to finish it all. I decided just to wear the same clothes everyday to make less laundry and man oh man did those ever smell by the end.
I also had to make many bus trips loaded up with things from Machala to El Retiro. For the larger items though, one of my Ecuadorean friends with a truck helped me haul them from Machala to El Retiro which was a great help. Once again though, I would have to say it was all vale la pena…but oh what a pain it certainly was! Pictures are up on Facebook as well now of my finished apartment. The one thing I am still lacking is a table and chairs but I am looking to go and get those sometime next week with the help of another PCV and another Ecuadorean friend as a birthday present from my parents :).
Once I finally got settled into my apartment I was off to a close by town, Pasaje, to help an American Organization called Ecuadent with one of their missions. They are an NGO based in Maryland and they do about two medical and dental missions to Ecuador each year. The founder of the organization was born in Ecuador and then moved to the States. They had contacted us and asked for help with translating as most of the doctors, nurses, and dentists do not speak Spanish. This experienced ended up being a once in a lifetime experience in itself and I am very happy that I was able to be a part of it. The medical mission was the first week and then the dental mission was supposed to come the following week. However, as most of you might remember, this time in February was when the snow was really bad back home. Because of the snow, the dental mission actually had to be canceled because the flights just did not work out. That was unfortunate, but the medical mission was amazing nonetheless.
We were able to perform 53 surgeries and 56 procedures over the week as three were done just with local anesthetic. Now for those of you that know me and my family, my mom is a nurse…and that did not get passed on to me. But man oh man did I ever learn a lot about it all that week and it was really interesting.
The first day was triage day where they evaluated everyone who came in. There were three plastic surgeons and one intern there and they were focusing on youth with cleft lips, cleft palates, burns/scare revisions, extra toes, extra fingers, and any other deformity that they thought they could help with. The first day I worked with Doctor Mike translating for him and this was his first mission as well…and I have to say I saw things that day that before then I had only seen in photos or poster signs…but seeing them right there with living people is a completely different ball game. I saw multiple scare burns from hot water, oil, and even chemicals. Not to mention the cleft lips and palates are unbelievable in themselves.
It was a very long day and a very hard day. But what made it hard was not the fact that it was long, but rather the fact that about 50% of the people that you saw you could not help for one reason or another. Some people had illnesses that the plastic surgeons could not operate on because the procedures took longer than a week or multiple surgeries to fix and others had illnesses that needed a specialist such as an orthopedic or neurological doctor to fix. This was really hard for us because the doctors would tell us they couldn’t help them and then it would be our job to explain it to the Ecuadoreans…that was hard because basically all of them could not afford to go and pay a specialist to fix their child’s problem. In other words, their children would have to continuing on living with these major disabilities.
However, after that day, we got to be the good news bringers for the most part. We had surgeries Monday to Thursday and the days were packed with backups and walk-ins for when people did not show up. Most days lasted about twelve hours. I ended up helping put in the IVs in and checking in the kids in the morning which was also an experience in itself. Kids don’t really like it when you tell them that this is going to sting like a bee…not to mention that I used to be one of those kids, so I kind of get it. We had one father who actually had to lie on his daughter, but all in all, we got them all in. And surprisingly for me, the nurses told me that in their opinion the Ecuadorean kids were easier than American kids…I guess that makes sense though as I am sure some of these Ecuadorean kids have been through a lot more than the American kids. We tended to be done checking everyone in and getting in the IVs by about eleven or noon and we would then go down to the PACU and surgery area…this is also where our lunch and the food was. The rest of the day I spent helping kids into surgery, getting their parents to the PACU after surgery, and checking in with the kids after their surgeries. Basically, I helped out where ever they needed a translator – There tended to be about three or four people translating every day.
In between all of this, we got to hang out with about 40 Americans and I think this is when I fully realized I am now socially awkward in both cultures. It took a little while to get used to being around Americans again! It also made me really realize how poor we are while we were fretting over a $1.50 drinking (because I can buy a full meal for that!) while the plastic surgeons had no problem buying us a couple. Not to mention the plastic surgeons make what we make in a year in a little less than a week.
Also, at the hospital we were able to stand in on a couple of surgeries…which would never be allowed in the States…but as one person said, the hospital we worked in here would be closed down in ten minutes if it was back in the states. But here, it will run for years yet to come. However, I decided not to watch a cleft lip or palate surgery…I opted to see a couple of scare revisions and a cyst removal from a girl that actually lives in my neighborhood. Really interesting.
I also experienced another big first for me in my life…I saw multiple people give birth…and it has affected me…for life. Ecuadoreans are good at getting pregnant and the hospital was in full function while we were there and the birth room was right by us. The first woman I saw gave birth to twins…and you try to just walk by and ignore it, but the door is wide open and the screaming you can hear everywhere! Not to mention they had a problem with the second twin that was born so they asked one of our baby doctors to help with the baby and I got called in as the translator…and I got to see it all whether I wanted to or not. I have to say…I had no idea that the placenta is basically the size of a second baby that comes out afterwards…I think my exact words might have been something along the lines of,” What the heck is that thing!”, as the placenta came out and went into the trash. All in all, it was the experience of a lifetime for sure and I know now that when I do have kids, I want drugs…lots and lots of drugs.
Although I was outside of my neighborhood for a good week working with the mission, some people in my town knew what I was doing because the mission was in the newspaper as well as on the TV News. And somehow or another, my picture was included in the newspaper article as well as on the TV program. Here is the link to the newspaper article if you care to read it translate:
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=es&tl=en&u=http://www.diariocorreo.com.ec/archivo/2010/02/08/hoy-inician-operaciones-gratuitas-a-ninos-pobres&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhiFidIVkP4VafdMqSgPRmWwP_16Aw
I probably could write at least another page about that mission and my experience. Instead though, I will just leave it as I feel very blessed and lucky to have been a part of it. I will forever remember my experiences from that week and the people that I met; both the Americans and the Ecuadoreans. The organization hopes to come back again around the same time next year and I hope that I can help them out once more. It really is amazing what people can do when they all come together to help one another.
So after that, I was beat and I got sick. Nothing really bad though thankfully, just a cold that didn’t want to leave. So I spent the following week after the mission mainly in bed trying to get better. I also got caught up on about three weeks of way overdue laundry…you have to remember this is all by hand…and things that I needed to do around and with my apartment. And of course, more PCV paperwork that was due…love the government paperwork!
Towards the end of February the easy way to describe what I did is to say one word; paint. We had two different projects that we did both that took a week respectfully. The first one was a fight against trash project where we tried to clean up some of the trash, which is everywhere in general, and put up signs and trash cans in the neighborhood. The signs the kids all painted and I painted the trash cans. All of this had messages like, don’t throw trash, or, take care of your neighborhood. Then on Friday we went out and put all of these signs up in the streets as well as the trash cans. This project proved to be very frustrating for me because I quickly realized that throwing trash on the ground or wherever for them is not only normal and accepted but a custom. To change this is going to take a very long time with many failures before having full success.
The second paint project was to draw and paint a map of the world. Sounds easy…but after putting at least 25 to 30 hours of physical labor into it, you will think differently. I can definitely say that I put blood, sweat, and tears into this project once it was all said and done. Mainly because the little kids of 6 to 10 just want to paint anything and everything and I was not having that by the end of the week on my nicely drawn map. All in all though, it turned out pretty well and I have heard a couple of people with positive responses on the map and the mural that we painted next to it. It was also really cool to see once the little kids realized, wow, Ecuador really is very, very tiny compared to the world. So once again, this project became a pain in my side and back…my whole body really…literally…but it was worth it in the end. I will put up some pictures of both the trash signs and the world map and mural on Facebook once I have the time as well so you all can see them.
I am also helping out with a summer camp that the school is putting on with kids ages 6 to 12 or so with English classes as well as another little project that I am going to have them do called “Mi Propio Album”. I have classes with them Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for about two hours doing this. Overall, the camp started towards the end of February and will end the last week of March…about a month and a half in total. The kids do really enjoy it though which makes it worth the while.
I also made another classic mistake that I like to make repeatedly for some reason…I went to the beach in Ecuador. You think that I would have learned by now that with the English influence and red head gene in my family that I shouldn’t try to sunbath. But I just couldn’t help myself! And now I am paying the price as my legs are completely fried and I can barely walk…not to mention I do not think I could put on pants right now even if you paid me. So with this being my third really bad burn in my eight months of living in Ecuador, I hope that I have learned so that this can be my last.
This week, I plan on heading up to Quito to a BBQ with the new kids of Agriculture and Natural Resources Omnibus 103…that is right…it is time for a new group of PCVs here in Ecuador! It is kind of funny, but as my one fellow PCV 102er here said, it is kind of like we are going to be sophomores now. I never really thought I would be back to being a freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior…but if you think about it; it really is kind of true here in PC Ecuador! And I have to admit, it feels good to know that you are moving along and up the ladder of Peace Corps getting out of that lovely freshman stage.
It is also a really surreal feeling at times too…I have been living in Ecuador now for eight months. Sometimes that still makes my head spin with all that I have done and all that I have learned. Not to mention that is the longest I have been out of the States for. The funny thing is I still have eighteen more to go with many more memories yet to make and milestones of the PCV experience to go through. It really is so true what they say about this experience; it is an experience that is one of a kind that will push you mentally, physically, and emotionally in ways that you never even thought of or thought would be possible. Not even to mention it will completely change the way you look at the world as everything in your daily life will change. I think the most surprising thing for me is how what you think you can handle and deal with changes along the way…some things are easier to handle then what you thought they would be while others are harder. Either way, you know deep down inside yourself if you will be determined enough, hardcore enough, weird enough, or in my case, stubborn enough to make it to the end.
Holy Moly it is already March! That still seems really odd to me as I couldn’t even believe that Christmas was here as well as the New Year. Time here really is an odd thing; it seems to go slowly because you know how long of a time you are going to be here for and yet at the same time it is hard to believe how fast it goes by sometimes. But I can certainly say that this little girl has manage to keep herself busy these past couple of months which has helped the time go by faster as well.
Let’s see…I know that it has been ages since my last blog and I think when I left off I was still teaching at the school as the school year wound up. Everything with the classes went off fine and the school year ended the last week of January with exams. All in all, I felt that my classes where a good start and I definitely have ideas of what I am going to try and do with them next year. It is kind of funny really, because as Youth and Family volunteers, people usually either end up loving working with the schools or hating it. Most in all honesty that I know of hate it because it is a real challenge to keep in control a classroom of Ecuadorean kids who know that you are not grading them and also know that you do not fully know the language. For myself however, I have always proved to be an odd person, and I really enjoy it. It is definitely challenging with keeping the kids in control, but I think it is “vale la pena” as they say down here. Anyways, I am pretty sure that the school will ask me back again next year and I will be teaching in Colegio (7th, 8th, and 9th grade) once a week again. School starts up again the first week in April though, so I have some more time yet to figure all of that out.
So the “summer” months came…although they still call this season winter even though I am not really sure why because school is out and these are the hotter months…but anyways, the summer months have been some busy ones for me.
For starters, I now live in my own apartment! This took a lot more effort than I thought it would. I moved into my “studio apartment” the last week in January and first part of February right when school was ending. It took me a good week to purchase my bed, a cook top, gas tank, wardrobe, and all of the other random things that you need when you first move into your own place. Not to mention, one of the first things I wanted…and for my sanity needed…to do was paint the walls. Let me tell you…painting is not an easy thing much less when the weather is in the 90s with no air conditioning. It took me more or less three full days of painting to finish it all. I decided just to wear the same clothes everyday to make less laundry and man oh man did those ever smell by the end.
I also had to make many bus trips loaded up with things from Machala to El Retiro. For the larger items though, one of my Ecuadorean friends with a truck helped me haul them from Machala to El Retiro which was a great help. Once again though, I would have to say it was all vale la pena…but oh what a pain it certainly was! Pictures are up on Facebook as well now of my finished apartment. The one thing I am still lacking is a table and chairs but I am looking to go and get those sometime next week with the help of another PCV and another Ecuadorean friend as a birthday present from my parents :).
Once I finally got settled into my apartment I was off to a close by town, Pasaje, to help an American Organization called Ecuadent with one of their missions. They are an NGO based in Maryland and they do about two medical and dental missions to Ecuador each year. The founder of the organization was born in Ecuador and then moved to the States. They had contacted us and asked for help with translating as most of the doctors, nurses, and dentists do not speak Spanish. This experienced ended up being a once in a lifetime experience in itself and I am very happy that I was able to be a part of it. The medical mission was the first week and then the dental mission was supposed to come the following week. However, as most of you might remember, this time in February was when the snow was really bad back home. Because of the snow, the dental mission actually had to be canceled because the flights just did not work out. That was unfortunate, but the medical mission was amazing nonetheless.
We were able to perform 53 surgeries and 56 procedures over the week as three were done just with local anesthetic. Now for those of you that know me and my family, my mom is a nurse…and that did not get passed on to me. But man oh man did I ever learn a lot about it all that week and it was really interesting.
The first day was triage day where they evaluated everyone who came in. There were three plastic surgeons and one intern there and they were focusing on youth with cleft lips, cleft palates, burns/scare revisions, extra toes, extra fingers, and any other deformity that they thought they could help with. The first day I worked with Doctor Mike translating for him and this was his first mission as well…and I have to say I saw things that day that before then I had only seen in photos or poster signs…but seeing them right there with living people is a completely different ball game. I saw multiple scare burns from hot water, oil, and even chemicals. Not to mention the cleft lips and palates are unbelievable in themselves.
It was a very long day and a very hard day. But what made it hard was not the fact that it was long, but rather the fact that about 50% of the people that you saw you could not help for one reason or another. Some people had illnesses that the plastic surgeons could not operate on because the procedures took longer than a week or multiple surgeries to fix and others had illnesses that needed a specialist such as an orthopedic or neurological doctor to fix. This was really hard for us because the doctors would tell us they couldn’t help them and then it would be our job to explain it to the Ecuadoreans…that was hard because basically all of them could not afford to go and pay a specialist to fix their child’s problem. In other words, their children would have to continuing on living with these major disabilities.
However, after that day, we got to be the good news bringers for the most part. We had surgeries Monday to Thursday and the days were packed with backups and walk-ins for when people did not show up. Most days lasted about twelve hours. I ended up helping put in the IVs in and checking in the kids in the morning which was also an experience in itself. Kids don’t really like it when you tell them that this is going to sting like a bee…not to mention that I used to be one of those kids, so I kind of get it. We had one father who actually had to lie on his daughter, but all in all, we got them all in. And surprisingly for me, the nurses told me that in their opinion the Ecuadorean kids were easier than American kids…I guess that makes sense though as I am sure some of these Ecuadorean kids have been through a lot more than the American kids. We tended to be done checking everyone in and getting in the IVs by about eleven or noon and we would then go down to the PACU and surgery area…this is also where our lunch and the food was. The rest of the day I spent helping kids into surgery, getting their parents to the PACU after surgery, and checking in with the kids after their surgeries. Basically, I helped out where ever they needed a translator – There tended to be about three or four people translating every day.
In between all of this, we got to hang out with about 40 Americans and I think this is when I fully realized I am now socially awkward in both cultures. It took a little while to get used to being around Americans again! It also made me really realize how poor we are while we were fretting over a $1.50 drinking (because I can buy a full meal for that!) while the plastic surgeons had no problem buying us a couple. Not to mention the plastic surgeons make what we make in a year in a little less than a week.
Also, at the hospital we were able to stand in on a couple of surgeries…which would never be allowed in the States…but as one person said, the hospital we worked in here would be closed down in ten minutes if it was back in the states. But here, it will run for years yet to come. However, I decided not to watch a cleft lip or palate surgery…I opted to see a couple of scare revisions and a cyst removal from a girl that actually lives in my neighborhood. Really interesting.
I also experienced another big first for me in my life…I saw multiple people give birth…and it has affected me…for life. Ecuadoreans are good at getting pregnant and the hospital was in full function while we were there and the birth room was right by us. The first woman I saw gave birth to twins…and you try to just walk by and ignore it, but the door is wide open and the screaming you can hear everywhere! Not to mention they had a problem with the second twin that was born so they asked one of our baby doctors to help with the baby and I got called in as the translator…and I got to see it all whether I wanted to or not. I have to say…I had no idea that the placenta is basically the size of a second baby that comes out afterwards…I think my exact words might have been something along the lines of,” What the heck is that thing!”, as the placenta came out and went into the trash. All in all, it was the experience of a lifetime for sure and I know now that when I do have kids, I want drugs…lots and lots of drugs.
Although I was outside of my neighborhood for a good week working with the mission, some people in my town knew what I was doing because the mission was in the newspaper as well as on the TV News. And somehow or another, my picture was included in the newspaper article as well as on the TV program. Here is the link to the newspaper article if you care to read it translate:
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=es&tl=en&u=http://www.diariocorreo.com.ec/archivo/2010/02/08/hoy-inician-operaciones-gratuitas-a-ninos-pobres&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhiFidIVkP4VafdMqSgPRmWwP_16Aw
I probably could write at least another page about that mission and my experience. Instead though, I will just leave it as I feel very blessed and lucky to have been a part of it. I will forever remember my experiences from that week and the people that I met; both the Americans and the Ecuadoreans. The organization hopes to come back again around the same time next year and I hope that I can help them out once more. It really is amazing what people can do when they all come together to help one another.
So after that, I was beat and I got sick. Nothing really bad though thankfully, just a cold that didn’t want to leave. So I spent the following week after the mission mainly in bed trying to get better. I also got caught up on about three weeks of way overdue laundry…you have to remember this is all by hand…and things that I needed to do around and with my apartment. And of course, more PCV paperwork that was due…love the government paperwork!
Towards the end of February the easy way to describe what I did is to say one word; paint. We had two different projects that we did both that took a week respectfully. The first one was a fight against trash project where we tried to clean up some of the trash, which is everywhere in general, and put up signs and trash cans in the neighborhood. The signs the kids all painted and I painted the trash cans. All of this had messages like, don’t throw trash, or, take care of your neighborhood. Then on Friday we went out and put all of these signs up in the streets as well as the trash cans. This project proved to be very frustrating for me because I quickly realized that throwing trash on the ground or wherever for them is not only normal and accepted but a custom. To change this is going to take a very long time with many failures before having full success.
The second paint project was to draw and paint a map of the world. Sounds easy…but after putting at least 25 to 30 hours of physical labor into it, you will think differently. I can definitely say that I put blood, sweat, and tears into this project once it was all said and done. Mainly because the little kids of 6 to 10 just want to paint anything and everything and I was not having that by the end of the week on my nicely drawn map. All in all though, it turned out pretty well and I have heard a couple of people with positive responses on the map and the mural that we painted next to it. It was also really cool to see once the little kids realized, wow, Ecuador really is very, very tiny compared to the world. So once again, this project became a pain in my side and back…my whole body really…literally…but it was worth it in the end. I will put up some pictures of both the trash signs and the world map and mural on Facebook once I have the time as well so you all can see them.
I am also helping out with a summer camp that the school is putting on with kids ages 6 to 12 or so with English classes as well as another little project that I am going to have them do called “Mi Propio Album”. I have classes with them Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for about two hours doing this. Overall, the camp started towards the end of February and will end the last week of March…about a month and a half in total. The kids do really enjoy it though which makes it worth the while.
I also made another classic mistake that I like to make repeatedly for some reason…I went to the beach in Ecuador. You think that I would have learned by now that with the English influence and red head gene in my family that I shouldn’t try to sunbath. But I just couldn’t help myself! And now I am paying the price as my legs are completely fried and I can barely walk…not to mention I do not think I could put on pants right now even if you paid me. So with this being my third really bad burn in my eight months of living in Ecuador, I hope that I have learned so that this can be my last.
This week, I plan on heading up to Quito to a BBQ with the new kids of Agriculture and Natural Resources Omnibus 103…that is right…it is time for a new group of PCVs here in Ecuador! It is kind of funny, but as my one fellow PCV 102er here said, it is kind of like we are going to be sophomores now. I never really thought I would be back to being a freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior…but if you think about it; it really is kind of true here in PC Ecuador! And I have to admit, it feels good to know that you are moving along and up the ladder of Peace Corps getting out of that lovely freshman stage.
It is also a really surreal feeling at times too…I have been living in Ecuador now for eight months. Sometimes that still makes my head spin with all that I have done and all that I have learned. Not to mention that is the longest I have been out of the States for. The funny thing is I still have eighteen more to go with many more memories yet to make and milestones of the PCV experience to go through. It really is so true what they say about this experience; it is an experience that is one of a kind that will push you mentally, physically, and emotionally in ways that you never even thought of or thought would be possible. Not even to mention it will completely change the way you look at the world as everything in your daily life will change. I think the most surprising thing for me is how what you think you can handle and deal with changes along the way…some things are easier to handle then what you thought they would be while others are harder. Either way, you know deep down inside yourself if you will be determined enough, hardcore enough, weird enough, or in my case, stubborn enough to make it to the end.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Long Over Due Random Thoughts Post
1-19-10, Tuesday
Where to start where to start…this is always the question with these things just because there are so many points that I could start with! I think I will start with a little of what my life is currently like.
I am still living in El Retiro outside of Machala as I will continue to do so for the next 19 months of service hopefully. However, I am also still unfortunately living with my host family. Normally, after three months of living in site with your host family you then find your own apartment to move into by yourself. And yet, as I hit my five month mark tomorrow, I find myself still living with my host family as there are not really available apartments where I live. There is a lady though who is looking to build some apartments so there is some hope there. My plan is to talk with the President of the neighborhood more or less and get something moving here so that I can move out in a month or two more…if that doesn’t happen, then I will either live in Machala or Santa Rosa nearby. This is not ideal, but it is better than my current situation.
Now don’t get me wrong, my host family is not horrible by any means. But with all of the culture differences, it is hard not to have a space of your own. Especially when you consider that I have been living with host families now for a total of seven months and the culture here is VERY family based and not independence based like the States. Not being able to cook or really do anything at all without being judged can get old pretty quick as well as not having your own stuff. Not to mention there are two men in my house that snore all of the time along with three kids of the ages of two, four, and five which are here at least fifty percent of the time that make it hard to sleep at times. Point being, I need my own space for my own mental health.
Other than that, my work right now is starting to come to an end as the school year ends with the last week in February – it will start again in April. This is kind of nice though as it is going to give me some time to reflect back over everything and see how I am doing overall. We also just got back from ReConnect in Cuenca, which is your five month mark in site more or less. ReConnect is a weeklong conference with other PCVs of your group (11 for my group) and your counterparts where you get more training on how to implement projects into your community and how to work on your community assessment tools.
Projects to come in the months of vacation include a fight against the trash here in my town (where we are going to paint and put up wooden signs that say to put trash in its place more or less as well as clean up all of the trash in the street and the Indore fields), a medical and dental brigade in Pasaje, a neighboring town, for two weeks in February (with a NGO from the states called Ecuadant where we will be helping with translating, locating potential kids as patients, and spreading the word of the mission), and hopefully starting to spread the word of a community bank and possibly starting that out. I also have my first project report, like a progress report if you will, due the 5th of February for the PC and a community assessment report due on the 19th of February. So all in all, I think I will find myself enjoying the change in my schedule while still keeping relatively busy.
Now onto the fun(ny) parts of my life.
I have officially had the Ecuadorean hair cut that is given to most North Americans/Europeans/Caucasians at some point during their stay in Ecuador. This hair cut one might just call…well…a mullet. I have no idea why, but for some reason it is what a lot of PCVs have had as a hair cut at one point or another and not by choice. I understand that our hair is different, but I don’t really get why we seem to end up with a mullet cut most of the time. I had this hair cut done in Cuenca during ReConnect. So once I got back to my site I had my lady across the street, who lived in Spain for three years and therefore knows how what to do with my hair, cut my hair. So now, I no longer have the mullet. Just overall short hair which I think I can deal with since the heat is still way up there. But I can honestly say that I had a mullet for three days now…don’t know if that is proud fact or not.
Second point, I have actually had an ant in my pants now. I was in a rush one day and I tripped on the stairs and ripped a hole into my jeans (which I am proud to say I sewed up later). However, throughout the events of the day I ended up down at the river where I picked up an ant somehow. And I am not talking about a little friendly ant here. I am talking about a killer I want to bite you as many times as I can ant. So I came back home to eat my dinner and as I was finishing up I started to feel the little thing biting me in my pants. Somehow it had crawled through my hole and got itself stuck in my jeans. So I ended up excusing myself and running back over into the house so that I could rip my jeans off! In the process, I ended up grabbing the little thing through my jeans so that it would stop biting me at least. I think all in all it probably got about six good bits in…but I would like to say that I had the last word as I made sure to smash it to death with my shoe. So point number two, I can now honestly say that I have had an ant in my pants.
I now get excited when I see that there are two knobs in the shower; one for hot and one for cold is just craziness! Where I am at, we just have one knob and the temperature of what is what you get. There really isn’t a choice. I also think that I am now vaccinated against anything and everything that is possible as we just had the H1N1 vaccination as well. I cannot even tell you anymore how many shots I have had or how many things I am immune to now! And one thing that I have learned since I have been here is that chickens make great garbage disposals. They eat just about anything and everything that you would normally put down the garbage disposal. I think I have also found a new perfume for myself for the following 19 months…it is called bug spray and I tend to put it on at least once a day.
I also have come to the sad realization that I will be two different skin tones for the rest of my time here. My stomach and other parts that get no sun are still my brilliant white while my arms are starting to become a nice shade of red along with the lower half of my legs and face. I tend to wear my thick strapped tank tops a lot as well which also make for lovely tan lines. I guess while we are at it, we can also put the color black/mud brown in there as that tends to be the color of my feet with all of the dust here. I also find myself wondering if my watch tan will ever go away as well.
In other news, I think I have started to integrate some as throwing rocks at dogs is starting to seem normal (I know this might seem odd to you…but the dogs down here are the farthest thing from domestic and they do bite). Not to mention eating with a spoon for just about everything and anything, going to “bathe” yourself in a river as you jump in with all of your clothes on, sweating as you get into the shower as well as the minute you get out no matter what temperature the water is here in on the coast, and accepting the fact that random drunk men will hit on you in the middle of the day no matter what you wear, do, or say. My English has also gotten worse as well so I can only hope that my Spanish has gotten better in the process! It is actually really funny when a group of the PCVs get together now because we all speak in Spanglish and have come to the realization that we are now social awkward in Spanish as well as English. I also am starting to get used to the Spanish key board which now makes it harder to type on the English one!
Other things that might seem odd to you but now seem normal to me: buying a jaba (the equivalent of 12 forties or so) and using one cup for everyone to chug out of as you pass the cup around in a circle until all of the beer is gone, hiding in the shade the minute the sun comes out (well this was normal to me before, but still everyone does it here!), putting a ton of water on your head when the sun does come out because most of the people here have black hair, smashing a ton of people onto a bus until the bus cannot move because of the weight, bug bites twenty-four seven from some type of insect even if you cannot tell what type of insect bite it is (and yes…you will scratch them), and music on telephones. I have to say, I don’t get the last one yet! It is like headphones don’t exist here so they just blare music from their telephones where ever they are whenever they want…let me tell you, it gets old quickly.
I have three other random tidbits for you all to finish with. Number one, my whole definition of Hygiene has now changed. When you have to wash a good portion of your clothes by hand and put them all up on the line to dry…it kind of changes your definition of what is dirty. Jeans for example, they are not dirty until you can see the dirt in them. And when you sweat all day long with a lot of dust, you are never really clean other than maybe for two minutes right after you get out of the shower (but don’t worry people…I still take showers basically daily).
Number two, all I have got to say is one word; bugs – ants, spiders, flies of all types, mosquitoes, cockroaches, grasshoppers on steroids…you get the idea. I hate the lovely little things and I have also learned that with the rainy seasons it is worth the extra thirty seconds at night to tuck in my mosquito net to my bed. I quickly learned this after one night when a grasshopper on steroids (they are the size of the cockroaches) jumped up inside my net on my bed stand. The next morning I had a cockroach fly over my sleeping body onto the inside of my net. The funny part was with the cockroach, I actually didn’t get upset that there was a cockroach inside my net. I got upset because I knew I then had to get up to get my shoe to kill it.
Number three, over our Christmas vacation trip, at one of the restaurants that we ate at, we received a plate of food with a hair in it. And for the five PCVs, it was our natural reaction to point out the hair, laugh at it, and then continue shoving the food into our faces without wasting another second. It was at that moment that we realized we were starting to become immune to the oddities of a third world country. Normally, you would send the plate back and ask for a discount on your meal…instead; we all just laughed at the fact that there was a hair in our food and continued to eat it all without a second thought (this same theory tends to apply with bugs more or less).
Oh the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer…you can’t hate it because you know you will be sad to leave it. And yet, you don’t love it because deep down inside you know the things you are getting used to are not things that you want to be permanently used to…at least not for this girl.
Where to start where to start…this is always the question with these things just because there are so many points that I could start with! I think I will start with a little of what my life is currently like.
I am still living in El Retiro outside of Machala as I will continue to do so for the next 19 months of service hopefully. However, I am also still unfortunately living with my host family. Normally, after three months of living in site with your host family you then find your own apartment to move into by yourself. And yet, as I hit my five month mark tomorrow, I find myself still living with my host family as there are not really available apartments where I live. There is a lady though who is looking to build some apartments so there is some hope there. My plan is to talk with the President of the neighborhood more or less and get something moving here so that I can move out in a month or two more…if that doesn’t happen, then I will either live in Machala or Santa Rosa nearby. This is not ideal, but it is better than my current situation.
Now don’t get me wrong, my host family is not horrible by any means. But with all of the culture differences, it is hard not to have a space of your own. Especially when you consider that I have been living with host families now for a total of seven months and the culture here is VERY family based and not independence based like the States. Not being able to cook or really do anything at all without being judged can get old pretty quick as well as not having your own stuff. Not to mention there are two men in my house that snore all of the time along with three kids of the ages of two, four, and five which are here at least fifty percent of the time that make it hard to sleep at times. Point being, I need my own space for my own mental health.
Other than that, my work right now is starting to come to an end as the school year ends with the last week in February – it will start again in April. This is kind of nice though as it is going to give me some time to reflect back over everything and see how I am doing overall. We also just got back from ReConnect in Cuenca, which is your five month mark in site more or less. ReConnect is a weeklong conference with other PCVs of your group (11 for my group) and your counterparts where you get more training on how to implement projects into your community and how to work on your community assessment tools.
Projects to come in the months of vacation include a fight against the trash here in my town (where we are going to paint and put up wooden signs that say to put trash in its place more or less as well as clean up all of the trash in the street and the Indore fields), a medical and dental brigade in Pasaje, a neighboring town, for two weeks in February (with a NGO from the states called Ecuadant where we will be helping with translating, locating potential kids as patients, and spreading the word of the mission), and hopefully starting to spread the word of a community bank and possibly starting that out. I also have my first project report, like a progress report if you will, due the 5th of February for the PC and a community assessment report due on the 19th of February. So all in all, I think I will find myself enjoying the change in my schedule while still keeping relatively busy.
Now onto the fun(ny) parts of my life.
I have officially had the Ecuadorean hair cut that is given to most North Americans/Europeans/Caucasians at some point during their stay in Ecuador. This hair cut one might just call…well…a mullet. I have no idea why, but for some reason it is what a lot of PCVs have had as a hair cut at one point or another and not by choice. I understand that our hair is different, but I don’t really get why we seem to end up with a mullet cut most of the time. I had this hair cut done in Cuenca during ReConnect. So once I got back to my site I had my lady across the street, who lived in Spain for three years and therefore knows how what to do with my hair, cut my hair. So now, I no longer have the mullet. Just overall short hair which I think I can deal with since the heat is still way up there. But I can honestly say that I had a mullet for three days now…don’t know if that is proud fact or not.
Second point, I have actually had an ant in my pants now. I was in a rush one day and I tripped on the stairs and ripped a hole into my jeans (which I am proud to say I sewed up later). However, throughout the events of the day I ended up down at the river where I picked up an ant somehow. And I am not talking about a little friendly ant here. I am talking about a killer I want to bite you as many times as I can ant. So I came back home to eat my dinner and as I was finishing up I started to feel the little thing biting me in my pants. Somehow it had crawled through my hole and got itself stuck in my jeans. So I ended up excusing myself and running back over into the house so that I could rip my jeans off! In the process, I ended up grabbing the little thing through my jeans so that it would stop biting me at least. I think all in all it probably got about six good bits in…but I would like to say that I had the last word as I made sure to smash it to death with my shoe. So point number two, I can now honestly say that I have had an ant in my pants.
I now get excited when I see that there are two knobs in the shower; one for hot and one for cold is just craziness! Where I am at, we just have one knob and the temperature of what is what you get. There really isn’t a choice. I also think that I am now vaccinated against anything and everything that is possible as we just had the H1N1 vaccination as well. I cannot even tell you anymore how many shots I have had or how many things I am immune to now! And one thing that I have learned since I have been here is that chickens make great garbage disposals. They eat just about anything and everything that you would normally put down the garbage disposal. I think I have also found a new perfume for myself for the following 19 months…it is called bug spray and I tend to put it on at least once a day.
I also have come to the sad realization that I will be two different skin tones for the rest of my time here. My stomach and other parts that get no sun are still my brilliant white while my arms are starting to become a nice shade of red along with the lower half of my legs and face. I tend to wear my thick strapped tank tops a lot as well which also make for lovely tan lines. I guess while we are at it, we can also put the color black/mud brown in there as that tends to be the color of my feet with all of the dust here. I also find myself wondering if my watch tan will ever go away as well.
In other news, I think I have started to integrate some as throwing rocks at dogs is starting to seem normal (I know this might seem odd to you…but the dogs down here are the farthest thing from domestic and they do bite). Not to mention eating with a spoon for just about everything and anything, going to “bathe” yourself in a river as you jump in with all of your clothes on, sweating as you get into the shower as well as the minute you get out no matter what temperature the water is here in on the coast, and accepting the fact that random drunk men will hit on you in the middle of the day no matter what you wear, do, or say. My English has also gotten worse as well so I can only hope that my Spanish has gotten better in the process! It is actually really funny when a group of the PCVs get together now because we all speak in Spanglish and have come to the realization that we are now social awkward in Spanish as well as English. I also am starting to get used to the Spanish key board which now makes it harder to type on the English one!
Other things that might seem odd to you but now seem normal to me: buying a jaba (the equivalent of 12 forties or so) and using one cup for everyone to chug out of as you pass the cup around in a circle until all of the beer is gone, hiding in the shade the minute the sun comes out (well this was normal to me before, but still everyone does it here!), putting a ton of water on your head when the sun does come out because most of the people here have black hair, smashing a ton of people onto a bus until the bus cannot move because of the weight, bug bites twenty-four seven from some type of insect even if you cannot tell what type of insect bite it is (and yes…you will scratch them), and music on telephones. I have to say, I don’t get the last one yet! It is like headphones don’t exist here so they just blare music from their telephones where ever they are whenever they want…let me tell you, it gets old quickly.
I have three other random tidbits for you all to finish with. Number one, my whole definition of Hygiene has now changed. When you have to wash a good portion of your clothes by hand and put them all up on the line to dry…it kind of changes your definition of what is dirty. Jeans for example, they are not dirty until you can see the dirt in them. And when you sweat all day long with a lot of dust, you are never really clean other than maybe for two minutes right after you get out of the shower (but don’t worry people…I still take showers basically daily).
Number two, all I have got to say is one word; bugs – ants, spiders, flies of all types, mosquitoes, cockroaches, grasshoppers on steroids…you get the idea. I hate the lovely little things and I have also learned that with the rainy seasons it is worth the extra thirty seconds at night to tuck in my mosquito net to my bed. I quickly learned this after one night when a grasshopper on steroids (they are the size of the cockroaches) jumped up inside my net on my bed stand. The next morning I had a cockroach fly over my sleeping body onto the inside of my net. The funny part was with the cockroach, I actually didn’t get upset that there was a cockroach inside my net. I got upset because I knew I then had to get up to get my shoe to kill it.
Number three, over our Christmas vacation trip, at one of the restaurants that we ate at, we received a plate of food with a hair in it. And for the five PCVs, it was our natural reaction to point out the hair, laugh at it, and then continue shoving the food into our faces without wasting another second. It was at that moment that we realized we were starting to become immune to the oddities of a third world country. Normally, you would send the plate back and ask for a discount on your meal…instead; we all just laughed at the fact that there was a hair in our food and continued to eat it all without a second thought (this same theory tends to apply with bugs more or less).
Oh the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer…you can’t hate it because you know you will be sad to leave it. And yet, you don’t love it because deep down inside you know the things you are getting used to are not things that you want to be permanently used to…at least not for this girl.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Long Overdue Christmas and New Years Post
1-18-10, Monday
So I know that this blog is way overdue…but like they say, better late than never! And with all of the holidays, we have been busy down here just like I am sure that you all were up there. We were just busy in different ways as I am sure that you will find out as you read on. A little FYI too…I plan on writing another blog post over my life in general next…I am just running behind right now!
First things first, my work is still pretty much the same but it is actually all pretty much coming to an end this week as this is the last week of classes with the next week being exams. With that said, I am a little relieved at this point because I have managed to get myself pretty busy over the last couple of months with my work which has been great. But now it is time to reflect back a little and see how I can improve things for the year to come (the school year here ends at the end of January and starts up again at the beginning of April for the coast schools like me).
As for the memories of Christmas and New Years, I would definitely say that they were some hard ones and yet interesting at the same time. It was very hard to be away from family and friends for the holidays. However, it didn’t really seem like the holidays here much either for me as the temperature I think is averaging about the high eighties to mid nineties with the real feel like temperature is up in the hundreds some days. Point being, I’m a Michigan girl…this seems like summer to me even if you want to call it winter like they do here!
Christmas – They actually don’t really celebrate it much here which surprised me a little at first but then made sense when I started to think about it. For starters, almost all of their family lives in the same block more or less. Point being, they don’t need time off to go down the street and see their mother, brother, sister, extra. Not to mention that they see their family members pretty much every day as they all live in the same area more or less. Secondly, they don’t really do presents as you could guess since the money is always on the tight side…although I do think that the men could cut down on the drinking for a week to be able to buy their kids a toy…but that is just my two cents!
However, they do have lots of candies for all of the kids who walk around door to door in the neighborhood and ask for sweets…more like Halloween in some ways which they don’t celebrate here. Thirdly, everything is still open on Christmas Eve not to mention most things on Christmas itself. The kids have school on Christmas Eve, although this is really just a fiesta for them, and on Christmas there were internet cafes open.
For Christmas this year I went to the Christmas Eve fiesta at my school (which you can see in some of my pictures on facebook) and took part in all of that including drinking some with the other teachers once the kids left at about one. After that I went down to Arenillas where another PCV in my group lives and three other PCVs from my group all came down (this is about an hour and a half from my site give or take that I go to at least once a month I would say). So the five of us all got together and had a Christmas Eve dinner. And I do have to admit, that this is the first Christmas I have ever not been to a Christmas Eve service. For our Christmas Eve service, we just sat around and exchanged experiences as we are all from different places in Ecuador more or less.
Christmas really didn’t seem like Christmas at all for many reasons. One being the weather and another being that we didn’t have Christmas music because the CD player was broken. So instead or being bummed out and mopping around we went to the border town of Ecuador and Peru, Hauquillas, that has an open market right there on the border. Hauqillas is the Ecuadorean side and Agua Verde is the Peruvian side although you really can’t tell which is which as the only thing that separates the two is a foot bridge and signs that say welcome to and goodbye from. So for Christmas we wandered around the markets and bought some cheap clothes ($3 tshirts) and had ceveche (chopped up fish, shrimp, and other sea food that is “cooked” by lemon and lime juice) for our main meal which was amazing.
Then we returned to Arenillas for the night and prepared for our four day trip to Mancora Peru (a beach site about 2-3 hours over the border). Now the trick to this trip, is getting across the border. Not because you need the right paper work, although there is that as well, but because the border is not exactly the safest place. We had to take a taxi from Agua Verdes to Los Tumbes so that we could get a bus from there to Mancora. And getting that taxi was very shady to say the least. Between the five of us though all yelling at the taxi driver, I think we made it alright. But there definitely was a time when some of us thought that we were going to be getting robbed there pretty soon. However, we made it all in one piece!
Mancora is a beach city which actually had some really good waves for surfing. And where there is surf, you have the Australians. It was nice to actually get to act like a tourist for a while though instead of having to try and blend in so much like at our sites…even though we don’t really blend in any where…I think you get the point! So we hung out at the beach and ate some really good seafood and Mexican food on and around the beach. This is where of course I hide in the shade while the other girls took in all of the sun.
The trip back to Ecuador went just fine for the most part…well we did kind of forget to go to immigration in Peru through when we entered. We went to the Ecuadorean one and figure that was enough…but we were wrong. Nonetheless, the guy couldn’t really do much to us about it since we were on our way home when we realized we messed up anyways. So as far as our passports are concerned, it is kind of like we never even went to Peru. However, I do have to say that walking through the back street part of the main market in Peru, Agua Verde, over to the border of Ecuador really felt like a scene from a movie. You had little stores everywhere with people walking through the market “streets” carrying their chickens in their armpits while pushing a trolley with other goods and you could hear people bargaining everywhere. It was really pretty neat…besides the fact that we were all just trying to make it through as fast as possible without getting robbed.
So that was my Christmas more or less; on a beach in Mancora Peru. It was kind of nice though to do something that was very different as when we had those moments when we did realize that it was Christmas that made it harder to be away from home. So the mini vacation to the beach was a good solution for that.
For New Years I decided to take an easy one. And I am proud to say that this is my first New Years in a VERY long time that my first drink was a non-alcoholic one. I actually decided to stay in my site and just have a relaxing New Years here. So for New Years Eve I went to my local school, where they were having a New Years Eve Fiesta of course, and watched my kids burn paper dolls to bring in the New Year. This is a tradition here where people buy paper dolls of different things, such as Bart Simpson, Michael Jackson (most PVCs took joy in watching these ones burn because they WORSHIP him here), random people and things, and when the clock hits twelve, they burn the dolls. Oh yeah…and I forgot to mention…inside these dolls are firecrackers and bottle rockets. So at times, it is a little dangerous, but the kids love it! They say though that this is their tradition for getting rid of all of last year’s problems and starting this year anew. I think it is away to raise the already very hot temperate to an even hotter temperate! But it was interesting to see. They don’t have an official count down either, so it is just whenever people start to burn the dolls that start the New Year.
I had actually stayed in my room until about eleven and watched a movie while drinking some wine. This worked out very nicely because I then got to walk around with some of my youth, up and down our street like they do for fun here, from eleven until one and wish everyone a Happy New Years. Once I got tired of walking up and down the street over and over again I went on home and had my first drink of the new years; guanabana juice :) Impressive, I know.
Now I figured that since for Christmas everything was open, that it would be the same with New Years. Man was I ever wrong. For New Years day EVERYTHING shuts down; even the buses don’t run. Not only were most things shut for New Years day…but they also were shut for the day after New Year’s Day and the day after the day after New Year’s Day! Basically, everyone got to have a three day hangover as New Years Day was a Friday (thus they did nothing for Saturday or Sunday either besides continuing drinking…and man did they ever continue to drink). Very interesting I thought and kind of entertaining to see all of the drunk passed out men in the streets at nine am, noon, and five pm…basically all day! However, having to fend off all of the drunk men from hitting on me, not so much fun.
So there in a nut shell where my Holidays for the end of 2009. There are more details of course if you care to hear you can just ask. But this gives you the idea of it all more or less. Thank you everyone at home for all of the great Holiday wishes, they are truly appreciated :)
So I know that this blog is way overdue…but like they say, better late than never! And with all of the holidays, we have been busy down here just like I am sure that you all were up there. We were just busy in different ways as I am sure that you will find out as you read on. A little FYI too…I plan on writing another blog post over my life in general next…I am just running behind right now!
First things first, my work is still pretty much the same but it is actually all pretty much coming to an end this week as this is the last week of classes with the next week being exams. With that said, I am a little relieved at this point because I have managed to get myself pretty busy over the last couple of months with my work which has been great. But now it is time to reflect back a little and see how I can improve things for the year to come (the school year here ends at the end of January and starts up again at the beginning of April for the coast schools like me).
As for the memories of Christmas and New Years, I would definitely say that they were some hard ones and yet interesting at the same time. It was very hard to be away from family and friends for the holidays. However, it didn’t really seem like the holidays here much either for me as the temperature I think is averaging about the high eighties to mid nineties with the real feel like temperature is up in the hundreds some days. Point being, I’m a Michigan girl…this seems like summer to me even if you want to call it winter like they do here!
Christmas – They actually don’t really celebrate it much here which surprised me a little at first but then made sense when I started to think about it. For starters, almost all of their family lives in the same block more or less. Point being, they don’t need time off to go down the street and see their mother, brother, sister, extra. Not to mention that they see their family members pretty much every day as they all live in the same area more or less. Secondly, they don’t really do presents as you could guess since the money is always on the tight side…although I do think that the men could cut down on the drinking for a week to be able to buy their kids a toy…but that is just my two cents!
However, they do have lots of candies for all of the kids who walk around door to door in the neighborhood and ask for sweets…more like Halloween in some ways which they don’t celebrate here. Thirdly, everything is still open on Christmas Eve not to mention most things on Christmas itself. The kids have school on Christmas Eve, although this is really just a fiesta for them, and on Christmas there were internet cafes open.
For Christmas this year I went to the Christmas Eve fiesta at my school (which you can see in some of my pictures on facebook) and took part in all of that including drinking some with the other teachers once the kids left at about one. After that I went down to Arenillas where another PCV in my group lives and three other PCVs from my group all came down (this is about an hour and a half from my site give or take that I go to at least once a month I would say). So the five of us all got together and had a Christmas Eve dinner. And I do have to admit, that this is the first Christmas I have ever not been to a Christmas Eve service. For our Christmas Eve service, we just sat around and exchanged experiences as we are all from different places in Ecuador more or less.
Christmas really didn’t seem like Christmas at all for many reasons. One being the weather and another being that we didn’t have Christmas music because the CD player was broken. So instead or being bummed out and mopping around we went to the border town of Ecuador and Peru, Hauquillas, that has an open market right there on the border. Hauqillas is the Ecuadorean side and Agua Verde is the Peruvian side although you really can’t tell which is which as the only thing that separates the two is a foot bridge and signs that say welcome to and goodbye from. So for Christmas we wandered around the markets and bought some cheap clothes ($3 tshirts) and had ceveche (chopped up fish, shrimp, and other sea food that is “cooked” by lemon and lime juice) for our main meal which was amazing.
Then we returned to Arenillas for the night and prepared for our four day trip to Mancora Peru (a beach site about 2-3 hours over the border). Now the trick to this trip, is getting across the border. Not because you need the right paper work, although there is that as well, but because the border is not exactly the safest place. We had to take a taxi from Agua Verdes to Los Tumbes so that we could get a bus from there to Mancora. And getting that taxi was very shady to say the least. Between the five of us though all yelling at the taxi driver, I think we made it alright. But there definitely was a time when some of us thought that we were going to be getting robbed there pretty soon. However, we made it all in one piece!
Mancora is a beach city which actually had some really good waves for surfing. And where there is surf, you have the Australians. It was nice to actually get to act like a tourist for a while though instead of having to try and blend in so much like at our sites…even though we don’t really blend in any where…I think you get the point! So we hung out at the beach and ate some really good seafood and Mexican food on and around the beach. This is where of course I hide in the shade while the other girls took in all of the sun.
The trip back to Ecuador went just fine for the most part…well we did kind of forget to go to immigration in Peru through when we entered. We went to the Ecuadorean one and figure that was enough…but we were wrong. Nonetheless, the guy couldn’t really do much to us about it since we were on our way home when we realized we messed up anyways. So as far as our passports are concerned, it is kind of like we never even went to Peru. However, I do have to say that walking through the back street part of the main market in Peru, Agua Verde, over to the border of Ecuador really felt like a scene from a movie. You had little stores everywhere with people walking through the market “streets” carrying their chickens in their armpits while pushing a trolley with other goods and you could hear people bargaining everywhere. It was really pretty neat…besides the fact that we were all just trying to make it through as fast as possible without getting robbed.
So that was my Christmas more or less; on a beach in Mancora Peru. It was kind of nice though to do something that was very different as when we had those moments when we did realize that it was Christmas that made it harder to be away from home. So the mini vacation to the beach was a good solution for that.
For New Years I decided to take an easy one. And I am proud to say that this is my first New Years in a VERY long time that my first drink was a non-alcoholic one. I actually decided to stay in my site and just have a relaxing New Years here. So for New Years Eve I went to my local school, where they were having a New Years Eve Fiesta of course, and watched my kids burn paper dolls to bring in the New Year. This is a tradition here where people buy paper dolls of different things, such as Bart Simpson, Michael Jackson (most PVCs took joy in watching these ones burn because they WORSHIP him here), random people and things, and when the clock hits twelve, they burn the dolls. Oh yeah…and I forgot to mention…inside these dolls are firecrackers and bottle rockets. So at times, it is a little dangerous, but the kids love it! They say though that this is their tradition for getting rid of all of last year’s problems and starting this year anew. I think it is away to raise the already very hot temperate to an even hotter temperate! But it was interesting to see. They don’t have an official count down either, so it is just whenever people start to burn the dolls that start the New Year.
I had actually stayed in my room until about eleven and watched a movie while drinking some wine. This worked out very nicely because I then got to walk around with some of my youth, up and down our street like they do for fun here, from eleven until one and wish everyone a Happy New Years. Once I got tired of walking up and down the street over and over again I went on home and had my first drink of the new years; guanabana juice :) Impressive, I know.
Now I figured that since for Christmas everything was open, that it would be the same with New Years. Man was I ever wrong. For New Years day EVERYTHING shuts down; even the buses don’t run. Not only were most things shut for New Years day…but they also were shut for the day after New Year’s Day and the day after the day after New Year’s Day! Basically, everyone got to have a three day hangover as New Years Day was a Friday (thus they did nothing for Saturday or Sunday either besides continuing drinking…and man did they ever continue to drink). Very interesting I thought and kind of entertaining to see all of the drunk passed out men in the streets at nine am, noon, and five pm…basically all day! However, having to fend off all of the drunk men from hitting on me, not so much fun.
So there in a nut shell where my Holidays for the end of 2009. There are more details of course if you care to hear you can just ask. But this gives you the idea of it all more or less. Thank you everyone at home for all of the great Holiday wishes, they are truly appreciated :)
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
New Pictures Up
Just a quick post to let you all know that I have uploaded some new pictures to my facebook account that you can all see. I still have more to upload from Christmas, but they will come along with a better blog post at some point to let you all know how I am doing.
Long story short, the Holidays were hard but expectantly so. I am glad they are over and ready to move on to the new year of 2010 :) Thanks for all of the Holiday wishes though back from the States!
Long story short, the Holidays were hard but expectantly so. I am glad they are over and ready to move on to the new year of 2010 :) Thanks for all of the Holiday wishes though back from the States!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Long time, no post!
So I know that it has been a while since I have gotten around to my last blog entry. I guess I would have to say that is an indicator of the routine and day to day life activities that I am getting into here. Right now, I am currently at my local school which has Internet connection as well as about 15 computers that the government has provided for them. It is pretty amazing actually...and it is really hard to actually get work done because kids and teachers are always coming in and out and wanting to talk! So I will write a quick blog for all of you instead :)
My job is pretty much the same as of now. I am teaching three times a week here at my local school over self-esteem, values, goals and all of that jazz. I also still go to a school about 30 minutes away every Tuesday for the day and teach all four of the classes there with kids from the ages of 5 to 12 with similar type topics. This is very different than the kids that I teach at the local school because the kids that I teach here are 12 to 16. So I get a little of all the age groups and I am not really sure which is better yet! They both have their advantages and their disadvantages. Although I would have to say at the moment I am leaning towards the older kids as they tend to understand more which makes it easier to teach something.
I am also still working with INFA here and there. But that is slowly coming to a stop for the end of the year and we will have to wait and see what comes with the New Year and working with INFA. I do still hope that I am able to work with them here and there because the kids with INFA (mainly 8 to 12) are a lot of fun. I guess the one new thing that I have picked up is that I am now holding three after school English classes every week here in El Retiro to try and help the local 7th, 8th, and 9th grade kids with their English. It is actually really very different to try and teach a language when it is just your native language. At times, I find it hard to explain why something is how it is...I just know that I am right when it comes to English!
The Spanish language gets better day by day and I have better days than others. I think I have really just realized that right now, I don't have the passion to learn a foreign language like I really should to capitalize on this opportunity. However, I am to the point with my language that I am comfortable enough to converse and say what I need to say. I mean, I do stand in front of kids everyday and direct a class of some sort some how!
I am still living with my host family...which is not ideal, but the only choice right now. There really are not a lot of apartments in my site and therefore it is taking quite a bit of work and time to try and find a place where I can live by myself. I have spoke with my boss though up in Quito and she is really try to work with to help the situation. But really there, there is not much that I can do but wait and hope.
Other than that, with the Holidays pretty much here, it seems really weird! The holidays are hard, and from everything that I have heard up to this point it will be one of the harder ones in my life. It is hard to be away from your family for the first time during the holidays and on top of that, you have a whole different culture and climate that you are in. I still find it hard to believe that it is December much less that Christmas is this Friday since the weather is so hot and humid!
For Christmas though, I have taken a couple of vacation days and I am going to head down south a little to Arenillas where another PCV friend lives and we are going to have Christmas there, five PCVs in all. After Christmas Eve and Christmas day there we are all going to head over the border of Peru for three days and go to the beach over there which is just about an hour across the border. I guess if you have to have a different type of holiday, you might as well make it really different! For New Years, I am not 100% sure yet, but I think that I will be heading up north in Ecuador to a beach location to celebrate with other PCVs where there is a gather in Canoa. Still haven't decided on that yet though!
So all in all, life is going pretty well. It still has a lot of ups and downs but you start to except them more and get used to them. I really can't wait to be living in my own place though hopefully pretty soon. I will miss you all for the Holidays and be thinking of you all often!!!
My job is pretty much the same as of now. I am teaching three times a week here at my local school over self-esteem, values, goals and all of that jazz. I also still go to a school about 30 minutes away every Tuesday for the day and teach all four of the classes there with kids from the ages of 5 to 12 with similar type topics. This is very different than the kids that I teach at the local school because the kids that I teach here are 12 to 16. So I get a little of all the age groups and I am not really sure which is better yet! They both have their advantages and their disadvantages. Although I would have to say at the moment I am leaning towards the older kids as they tend to understand more which makes it easier to teach something.
I am also still working with INFA here and there. But that is slowly coming to a stop for the end of the year and we will have to wait and see what comes with the New Year and working with INFA. I do still hope that I am able to work with them here and there because the kids with INFA (mainly 8 to 12) are a lot of fun. I guess the one new thing that I have picked up is that I am now holding three after school English classes every week here in El Retiro to try and help the local 7th, 8th, and 9th grade kids with their English. It is actually really very different to try and teach a language when it is just your native language. At times, I find it hard to explain why something is how it is...I just know that I am right when it comes to English!
The Spanish language gets better day by day and I have better days than others. I think I have really just realized that right now, I don't have the passion to learn a foreign language like I really should to capitalize on this opportunity. However, I am to the point with my language that I am comfortable enough to converse and say what I need to say. I mean, I do stand in front of kids everyday and direct a class of some sort some how!
I am still living with my host family...which is not ideal, but the only choice right now. There really are not a lot of apartments in my site and therefore it is taking quite a bit of work and time to try and find a place where I can live by myself. I have spoke with my boss though up in Quito and she is really try to work with to help the situation. But really there, there is not much that I can do but wait and hope.
Other than that, with the Holidays pretty much here, it seems really weird! The holidays are hard, and from everything that I have heard up to this point it will be one of the harder ones in my life. It is hard to be away from your family for the first time during the holidays and on top of that, you have a whole different culture and climate that you are in. I still find it hard to believe that it is December much less that Christmas is this Friday since the weather is so hot and humid!
For Christmas though, I have taken a couple of vacation days and I am going to head down south a little to Arenillas where another PCV friend lives and we are going to have Christmas there, five PCVs in all. After Christmas Eve and Christmas day there we are all going to head over the border of Peru for three days and go to the beach over there which is just about an hour across the border. I guess if you have to have a different type of holiday, you might as well make it really different! For New Years, I am not 100% sure yet, but I think that I will be heading up north in Ecuador to a beach location to celebrate with other PCVs where there is a gather in Canoa. Still haven't decided on that yet though!
So all in all, life is going pretty well. It still has a lot of ups and downs but you start to except them more and get used to them. I really can't wait to be living in my own place though hopefully pretty soon. I will miss you all for the Holidays and be thinking of you all often!!!
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