"What's the knife for?" - "Panthers"

To my fellow readers,

   Sorry for the lack of updating my blog, the last few weeks have been a bit busy to say the least. Last I left off we had just gotten back from a family trip up to the Otavalo native market. The following week was spent back in class and doing the final eval. tests (I scored Advanced High on my Spanish test). We also had a volunteer potluck, a value added fair and us 5 business volunteers had most of a day to teach the other volunteers about various business topics. I covered costing and pricing and then a bit of Econ 101 (my professors would be so proud haha). We also played plenty of soccer and a bit of frisbee. Saturday was family appreciation day for which all us volunteers were responsible for planning out the day and bringing all the food. We had 40 of our chickens that were raised in back of the training center slaughtered and prepared for our families as well as fruits and vegetables and drinks. I was on the activities group and being the loudest of the group, got stuck being MC for the day. We had an egg carry, sack race, 3-legged race, soccer, frisbee and basketball to name a few. That night we all met up at one of the volunteer's houses for a fair well party and danced away until the wee hours of the morning. The following day my host family took me on a 3 hour car ride south to Ambato where we saw the big leather markets and ate cuy (guinea pig) and rabbit.

   That Monday we started our final week of training which really lasted two days. We had some over view sessions for scheduling the week and met with various people from the embassy. Tuesday we took a "cultural: trip" into Quito and toured the churches, much better in the daylight, and were done with training by 2:30, free to go home and pack. The following day we all got to the training center at 8 am and were met with lunch. Everyone had on their Ecuadorian best completed by our PCVL who wore a corduroy green sport coat. By 9:00 we started our swearing in service accompanied by the current Chargé of the U.S. embassy (due to the previous Ambassador's PNG status). Swearing in was short and sweat and had a few nice speeches from fellow volunteers. After some pictures and a few good byes, half of the training group hopped on buses and headed to their sight. The other half met up later that afternoon for a nice good by dinner, or "Last Supper" if you will, at were gone by 6. I however, had the privilege of  staying one more night in Tumbaco with my host family who were personally driving me to Tena the following day. Therefore I only saw it necessary to treat them to the Liga soccer game that night at the Casa Blanca stadium (Liga won 1-0).

   Thursday morning I left my host in Tumbaco for the last time with my host family extra early, only to stop off  at our aunt's house for a quick breakfast and coffee before getting underway. We had a beautiful, sunny drive up over the mountain pass of Papallacta and into the Amazon. We made a quick stop in Archidona, about 15 miles north of Tena, for some Mitos (tilapia wrapped in a leaf and bbq'd) before arriving at my new home in Tena around 1. After some words of thanks on my part and words of wisdom and encouragement from my host family, they were off back to Tumbaco to de-Gringo the house. I am grateful for all they have done for me.

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  And hear begins the Tena saga. Having arrived to an Evangelical Kichwa community on the Thursday of Semana Santa, I was just in time for church. We began with dinner, at the church mind you (everyone had chipped in weeks before), followed by the opening mass of  weekend festivities. I couldn't quite tell you how long it went but I left around 10:30 and they were going strong. My guess is they were there till around 1 or 2 am. The following day we went back to the church for breakfast followed by morning mass which lead, conveniently enough, straight into lunch at 1 pm. After lunch we were free to relax in the shade, hiding for the 90 degree heat, or try as I may to throw the fishing net out back in the Tilapia ponds. Then back to church around 6 for dinner and repeat of the night before. The night time mass was highlighted by various church groups introducing themselves, some having come from as far away as Quito, and a few even had songs to share, both in Spanish and Kichwa.

   The following morning I was up by 3 am, headed to the church with my counterpart to cook breakfast for the 1,500 Kichwa people who had come to Tena (how could you say no to that?!). So there we were at 3 am on a Saturday morning in back of a church, cutting mountains of freshly slaughtered beef from the day before, chopping piles of onions, tomatoes, carrots and cilantro. We boiled pots of plantain bigger than I am and massed them in the traditional for with what can only be explained as a wooden bludger from Harry Potter. Then by 6:30 am we served our massed plantain with beef stew and Colada Mora and trash cans full of Chicha to drink to around 1,500 happy and smiling faces. Having made breakfast that morning, I was able to sneak out of morning mass to go buy food from the local market for lunch that day including 300 pounds of potatoes. That afternoon we went swimming in the river that wraps my community and little to my knowledge there was a big swimming hole in one bend in the river deep enough to dive into and race across the river. The water was perfectly refreshing and the sand on the fair side of the beach nearly rivals a real beach from the west coast. That evening I was in bed by 9, having snuck out of the evening mass early due to my immense lack of sleep.

   Sunday was the final day of Semana Santa and looked much more similar to a traditional church mass. After   a breakfast of fresh chicken slaughtered the night before, rice, veggies and more trashcans full of Chicha, we had mass until 11 or so. I spent the majority of the rest of the day napping and reading a book. Apart from my 4 day Evangelical church experience, I was able to meet nearly every Evangelical Kichwa family within 100 miles of Tena and at the least everyone in my community and the surrounding communities. I got a chance to talk, joke, laugh and drink chicha from the traditional pilche (a cup made from a local tree growing gourde) with many of my community members and can not count how many times I have been asked if I am married and have children. I met family members, a professional white water kayak and rafting guide who won Survivor Ecuador a few years back, a local teacher at a bi-lingual Kichwa school, expert hunters, and village elders. I've met mothers and daughters and last year's Miss Tena. And I've been personally introduced as an Engineer of International Business and Economics to many of the Presidents of the surrounding communities in which I will be working over the next two years. So needless to say, apart from the aspects of being in church, I got a lot of important work done over the weekend.

   Monday I officially started work. We went to the office and planned out some of my schedule for the next few months here and then spent most of the rest of the day at the hardware store and the Office of Tourism. Yesterday I was up by 5:30 and out of the house by 6:30. My counterpart Lenin and I, accompanied by two other employees at FENAKIN, drove about an hour south out of Tena to a community called Ponce Loma. We dropped off some farming supplies bought the day before at the hardware store and then donned our rubber boots and hiked out into the jungle. It was an hour long hike through an old muddy trail that lead us to our first destination, a community called Yana Urcu. There we met our guide, a 50 something kichwa man clad in camo from head to toe and armed with a 6 inch kitchen knife. Along with 4 other village members, 2 early twenties boys armed with a machete and a shotgun who literally ran out in front of our group for protection and to hunt, and 2 late 50's men also armed with machetes to clear the path, one of which was missing more than half his teeth. After a few cups of Chicha de Yucca we left Yana Urcu and headed north, following an old, muddy hunting trail out through the Amazon Jungle. At various points during our hike which was more of a slow jog, our guide would point out various trees marking the edges of properties lines of the men in his family (most properties were around 40 hectares minimum). Within an hour we got to the end of the trail where they had put in a little wooden cabin on the edge of a cliff looking out over the valley. From there we dropped off the side of the trail and picked our way through the jungle, all the while our guide new exactly where he was going (and when I say through the jungle, I mean zero trail, jumping over trees and clinging to branches as we switchbacked down the cliff. Once we were about an hour off the trail and walking along a cliff drop, our guide stopped quickly and hacked down some branches in front of the cliff to reveal an amazing view out over the valley to a giant waterfall (literally named Mother Waterfall in Kichwa) completely in accessible but for this one foot path. At this point in our hike I asked our guide why we was carrying a kitchen knife, he looked back at me and simply replied, "panthers," and carried on with our conversation. After 5 minutes of rest to talk about building a pathway out there and a look out we quickly turned around, and with the same speed as our walk down into the valley, we ascended and hiked out. By the time we arrived back and Yana Urcu, I pulled off my rubber boots and rung the sweat out of my socks to let my then pruney feet dry out in the sun. My pants had wicked sweat to mid-thigh and my shirt had soaked through- I drank over a gallon of water.  One hour back through the mud saw us to the car and we headed home, all-in-all it was 7 hours of hiking with a short break for chicha, chicken and yucca soup.

   Needless to say, when I woke up this morning after one of the more solid nights of sleep I have had to date here in Ecuador, I was a bit soar. Never-the-less a  Peace Corps Volunteer's work is never done so by 7 am we were back in the truck off to pick up 335 baby chickens and deliver them out to a community 3.5 hours down the Napo River. For the first 2 hours we followed a well groomed gravel road, maintained by the oil company drilling somewhere out in the jungle, but for the next hour and a half we were on a...more humble gravel road that was determined to make us turn back. There was no stopping our little Mazda truck from delivering those baby chicks however and we made it out to our destination in good time. The road ends at a river, which during a dry period is easily crossable by trucks, though the heavy rains last night and this morning brought the trickling stream to roaring life, easily 8 feet deep and churning thick with mud and silt. We were met by many members of the community there at the river who had come to carry their supplies back over an old, shaky suspension footbridge and out an hour's walk to get home (supplies included nine 100 pound sacks of feed) and they did so with smiles from ear to ear.

Compost, Bracelets and Ham Sandwiches

   To whom ever may find themselves reading this blog,

  Having left off on the 25th of March, I will try and best remember what I have done in the last two weeks. That weekend I did in fact get to try the famous Cuy (guinea pig) from Ecuador and it was indeed rather tasty. Sunday night the PCVL's invited the "Jungle Crew" out for dinner following a work party on composting. We ate 3 different kinds of Pita bread (yuca, plantain and fava bean flours) as well as a giant plate of salad which we had all been craving for weeks. It was a great opportunity to unwind a bit and talk with the PCVL's (volunteers that stayed on an extra year to help us with our service) about their time in the Amazon and share stories.

   The following week was spent learning Kichwa, and apparently I am at the Beginner Advanced level already, discussing HIV in Ecuador, working on our garden plots, teaching middle school kids business practices and Sports Day. Kichwa has definitely proved itself to be a difficult task, however I feel like we are all picking it up pretty quickly and it is fun to be able to throw phrases around in class with other students. So far I've learned to introduce myself and talk about certain things and events in the present tense as well as count to a million. Wednesday we had an open house for the first half of the day in which 120 middle school children from the neighborhood school came to the training center and rotated around the 10 stations we had set up. My group and I taught about good business practices including marketing, costing- pricing, product quality and handling money. In other words, we made lemonade stands. They had fun and all but the youngest group of students seemed to fully understand the concepts we had taught. Then on Friday we had a Sports Day. We began with a 2 hour session of talking to current PC volunteers who had come to the training center for the day for an open forum. This was followed by the commencement of the Dia de Deportes. I gave the inaugural speech, followed by the national anthem and a Mrs. Sports Day competition or Reyina in Spanish. This was followed by 4 or 5 hours of soccer games, 30 minutes each and a huge lunch buffet prepared by the PC Volunteers who had come for the day. My team didn't win the games however we did win nicest Reyina.

   That weekend was spent packing for the Tech Trip to Arenillas, attending a birthday party and being invited over to Grandma's house for cow tongue. We left to Arenillas, on the coast near the Peruvian boarder, around 5 pm on Sunday evening and arrived to Arenillas around 8 in the morning on Monday. After a short stop to drop our things in the hostel and a quick breakfast, we headed to the Municipal tree nursery to see how they were working to reforest much of the area and what techniques they used there. Around noon we drove south to the boarder and visited a local National Reserve run by the military. They gave us a tour through the Tropical Dry Forest and discussed various projects being run through the park, we also bought our first frozen chocolate bananas. The next morning we were up early and on a bus out to the Mangroves. We hopped a Navy boat for the price of 10 gallons of gas and a quart of oil and headed into the mangroves. Our guide took us to a shrimp farm and we walked the perimeter of their 5 hectare plantation amongst the mangroves before heading back to Arenillas. Then following lunch we spoke with the local government about their waste management practices and their new campaign for recycling.

   The next day we spent the morning at a local girls high school teaching about recycling and family gardens. I was in the garden group and over the coarse of the morning we taught around 120 girls how to prepare their garden plot behind the school which had long since over grown in waste high weeds and been covered in about 4 trash cans of garbage. With each of our 8 groups of 15 girls we cleared the garden and dug rows, all the while discussing proper technique and ground preparation with compost. Being the more talkative person in our group (go figure) and the most comfortable Spanish speaker, I ended up giving most of the introductions and major speeches while the other volunteers felt more comfortable talking to smaller groups during our projects. As a comical highlight, one of the girls asked 3 different volunteers for my number (they thankfully all declined) and to my credit she was the most mature 14 year old there haha. Other than that, the morning went well and was topped off with the purchase of 2 chocolate covered bananas. We also visited a local Reserve in which a High School teach had reforested farmland over the coarse of 25-30 years back to what is naturally a Tropical Dry Forest. We walked around the forest and also helped to clear some of the pathway with machetes. Afterwards he and his wife gave us each an Ecuadorian bracelet made by their family. That night some of the volunteers and I attended the local pickup basketball game in Arenillas. I must say I have never sweat that much outside of a sauna with the heat turned all the way up. After sitting on the concrete bench to cool down afterwards we left a large pool of sweat where each of us had sat.

  The following morning we bussed East about an hour to the site of another Volunteer who has been working with a local organization of coffee farmers who are trying to move into the bigger markets here in Quito and Guayacil. We toured a coffee plantation and saw a venomous snake related to the Equis, or Fer-de-Lance, the most venomous snake in Ecuador, which caused the tour guide to jump quite high before killing it. We also got to sample some of the coffee they roast there at the plantation. It was interesting to see all the volunteers go wild over the "best coffee ever" which I would stack very low on any shelf in the states (not to mention in Langley).Though I must admit even I was happy to drink anything that was not Nescafe. We then headed about 2 hours north to Naranjal, a larger city of around 50,000 occupants, for the evening of street food and beer in our air conditioned room at Hotel Delicious. I have to say that stay was much appreciated and I enjoyed our 3 bed room between the two of us including the A/C and hot water. Also, the two dollar pork chop I picked up for lunch was probably the better pork I have had to date in Ecuador (while it might be more risky, street food is usually quite amazing).

   Friday morning was the bigging of my longest day yet. We started off around 6:30 am leaving the hotel and heading to the Ecological Mangrove Reserve in Churute, about an hour long bus ride to the north. We learned about problems within the park and how the ministry goes about improving the park. This was followed by a 5 hour tour of various parts within the park including a short hike up a hill to look out over the valley, an hour and a half hike through the jungle where we saw monkeys, tarantulas and waterfalls, and a quick stop at the mangrove forest. It was during the jungle hike when I truly began to appreciate the power of Vitamin B1 and DEET insect repellent. As we walked through the jungle nearly everyone was followed by a thick cloud of mosquitoes and nearly everyone was eaten alive with the exception of myself and one other volunteer who is also taking B1. This goes to show that I will continue taking it in Tena and highly recommend it for the itchy traveler.  Following a short bus ride back to Naranjal and a crab salad lunch for the bargained price of $3.00,   I took a group of volunteers to a jersey shop we had passed the day before. I picked up 5 different jerseys (2 Real Madrids,  Chelsea, Barcelona from Ecuador, and Oriental Petrolero) all for 20 dollars, or 4 bux a piece. After a quick meeting with a volunteer stationed in Naranjal, we hopped the 3 hour bus to Guayacil which passed a giant chocolate factory and then the Chiquita Banana factory, the combination of which was nearly a religious experience. After a 3 hour layover in the four story mall that is the Guayacil bus terminal, we boarded our 10 pm bus headed to Quito. I believe I managed to get some 2 or 3 hours of sleep in over the coarse of the bus ride which ended in nearly everyone freezing cold by around 3 30 am. We arrived in Tumbaco by about 8:15 am on Saturday.

   After a quick hot shower and a big cup of coffee Saturday morning, the host family and I jumped in the car and drove out to Otavalo, 2 hours north-east of Quito. Otavalo is the single largest indigenous market in the entire continent of South America and is one of the better cultural treasures for today's tourist. After wandering aimlessly through the sea of tapestries, gold jewelry and local Kichwa dresses, I was forced to pick up an Alpaca Poncho for the price of $15 after some haggling, as well as some very comfortable woven pants and a giant pumpkin. For lunch we went to a local favorite restaurant where I got what is probably the best Cuy  (guinea pig) in all of Ecaudor and topped off with biscotti and coffee. I finally got to bed around 11 pm that night after watching the soccer game between La Liga and Deportivo Quito (a local rivalry) with my entire family.

   . We are now coming to the final stretch of training with this week of classes and then swearing in next Wednesday. I am looking forward to getting out to my site to start working. And with that I better call it a night here, I am up early in the morning to get back to class. I hope you have enjoyed the post for this week y Espero que les vaya bien, Chao!