"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.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  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!

Alli Alli con la Runa- And Back to Tena, Napo

   So last I left off I had yet to meet the US ambassador. Well last Tuesday we danced an Ecuadorian dance for her which went well and was rather comical to say the least. Wednesday was site placement day and needless to say there was much excitement in the air. The PC staff arrived early in the morning and drew a map of Ecuador covering the futbol field entirely made out of rose pedals. I was placed in Tena which is the same city I had visited on my tech. trip 2 weeks before hand. After a few hours of class we were sent home to pack and head out the next day for a site visit of one week. I left for Tena around 9:30 in the morning on Thursday and got to town around 1 o' clock to meet up with my new counter-part named Lenin Grefa and get some lunch in town. Lenin is a native Kichwa and is the head of the eco-tourism project I will be helping out with in Tena. The organization I will be in is called FENAKIN and is an organization of 7 indigenous Kichwa communities all working in eco-tourism and community based tourism. My primary projects for the next two years are establishing a business plan for this one year old organization and helping to develop a $2 million dollar eco-tourism project in the Amazon. I will also be helping to establish a liquid-organic fertilizer operation to increase cacao production in the area (chocolate) and devise a method of working around the intermediaries in the area. I will be helping to design and construct large greenhouses of native edible plant species as well as native medicinal plant species. We will be designing irrigation systems with automatic rainwater catch systems and start a few community banks.

   Later on Thursday after arriving in Tena and meeting Lenin he took me back to where I will be living for at least the first 3 months of my service in a community just outside of Tena named Awapungo. Awapungo is an indigenous community of about 30 families that live on a single road following the river. I will be living in a two-story concrete house with a man named Franklin Calapucha, who is about 35, and his two parents who are in their 70s. My room is on the second story and has a balcony. Also, the second story is only about 1/3 built so apart from two rooms and a bathroom along one wall the rest of the story is completely open bare concrete with a concrete ceiling. So naturally we have a coffee table with matching chairs and a couch next to our bamboo railing for drinking coffee in the morning and getting out of the sun during the afternoon. Franklin and his parents have a couple hectares of property in which they produce cacao, to sell to the intermediaries, as well as yuca, plantains, and many randomly dispersed native edible plants all for personal consumption in the house. We also have 3 tilapia ponds which they use to sell to neighbors but largely for personal consumption. Therefore we spent the first three days of my trip eating a typical dish called Mitos which is tilapia wrapped in what looks like a banana leaf with a pinch of salt and cooked over an open fire in the communal outdoor kitchen.  The men typically go out before lunch, the biggest meal of the day, to gather food from around the property and catch fish to eat with a net.  The women then prepare lunch and the whole family uses this time to share stories and interact with one another. I also went to a community meeting Thursday night and had a chance to meet the majority of the families in my community and introduce myself formally to the group.

Harvesting Yutsu

   On Friday we went to the office for a bit in the morning then picked up a truckload of supplies for building greenhouses and delivered them to one of our communities within the organization which is going to grow native edible plants for the consumption of the tourists that visit the community. 

   Saturday morning I got up early and went for a hike up the road with my host brother Franklin. It was a good chance to get to know the area and also great to see more of the jungle. After the hike we stopped off at Lenin's house which is just down from my house on the same property since Lenin is married to one of Franklin's sisters.  They took me on a tour of their house and then out into the cacao fields and into the forest. We gathered some cacao pods, walked through the yuca and plantain fields and picked a bunch of plantains for lunch. After the yuca field we went down a pathway through the jungle and picked a local fern called Yutsu in Kichwa which tastes a lot like asparagus and moved deeper into the forest. At some point Lenin grabbed a vine hanging from a tree which had a strong citrus flavor and is supposedly good for combating cancer. Some time later on our hunt (vegetarian style) we stopped off at some small chicken coops that they had built in the forest and got caught by the rain so we waited it out under the roofs eating oranges off the tree nearby. Once the rain died down we walked back to the communal kitchen down next to the tilapia ponds to find a neon green, hairy caterpillar which is supposed to have a strong neurotoxin.... so we used it for fish bait. After some unsuccessful fishing I tried my luck with the trowing net and actually caught one! - Needless to say, lunch was amazing that day. 

   Sunday was a pretty straightforward day. Being evangelical, basically the entire community goes to church on Sunday. We were in church about 2 hours until Lenin leaned over and told me soccer was about to start and we had to sneak out. The rest of the day was spent watching various local teams play against each other and trying the infamous Chicha (a slightly alcoholic drink made of fermented yuca). 

   Monday was back to work and we spent most of the morning in the office. After a nice lunch we headed out to one of our communities called Kamak Maki which I had visited earlier on my tech trip. Kamak Maki is an indigenous Kichwa community located on the bank of the river Napo. They are actively working in eco-toursim and have an animal rescue of native animals as well as a pathway lined with native medicinal plants. We talked with the president of the community and were shown around the property to look at improvements they had made and discuss future projects. After playing with some of the monkeys outside and having a coke we reluctantly headed back to Tena for the night.

   Tuesday was similar to the day before in which we visited the office, had a nice long lunch, and then headed out to another community. This one was further downriver from Kamak Maki and is called Campo Cocha. Campo Cocha is another indigenous community located on the river bank. They have no running water and use the river to bath and gather water. The community is working in eco-tourism and is currently renovating their 2 cabanas for the arrival of the summer tourists. Again we met with the community president and discussed future projects as well as the Peace Corps volunteer who will be living there for the next two years. On our way back my counter-part Lenin told me a Kichwa story of the boa. As the story goes there was a man who went to the river every day to fish. The river was full of fish and he always left with a full sack of fish.  Everyday he would come back to the same place in the river and every day, unbeknown  to him, the boa was always watching. Everyday the boa sat in the shallows and watched its prey hunt and eat and grow fatter, waiting until the opportune time. And one day the boa would strike, having hunted the man from the shallows. For this the Kichwa people have fear of still spots in the river and never visit the same fishing spot too frequently. He also told me that the boa, being as cunning as it is, wills people into the water. He said that the boa calls to you in your dreams in the shape of the "Yacu Warmi", or Lady of the Water. They say that the Yacu Warmi is always a beautiful American woman who comes to them in their dreams and beckons them into the water. 

Lenin and his wife

    Anyways, Wednesday was my final day in Tena and I headed back to Tumbaco at 1. However, before I departed we made a stop off at a local farm store to purchase 900 chickens which the organization will take to 9 different families in one community to grow and sell the chickens for profit. We also went to the office for a bit where I wrote my first grant to the ministry for a list of project we want to start working in when I come back in April. -All in all...a very productive week!

   Apart from the site visit, today I started learning Kichwa and am excited to get some phrases down to use in my site. Also, tomorrow my family here in Tumbaco and I are going to get Cuy for dinner (guinea pig) so I'm definitely looking forward to that.

Hope this post finds you all well! Chao!

Week 6: The Magic School Bus

    Last weekend (the 5th-6th) was the Carnival holiday which luckily lasted through Tuesday. Carnival marks the beginning of Lent, meaning its an excuse to party for four days and through water balloons, eggs, chocolate syrup and whatever else you can think of at passersby. My Carnival experience was pretty low-key by local standards and I did my best to avoid the carnage.... other volunteers were not so lucky. Saturday I climbed up to the top of Ilalo, the 10,500 foot volcano out my back door, with a friend of mine and we ended on the other side of the volcano for a beer and some roasted pig. Later that day I found myself in an Empenada making contest with the women of my family including my host-mom, aunt and grandmother... needless to say....I lost. The following day I went with my aunt and uncle and the volunteer living with them out to a nearby city called Al Quinche. Al Quinche is known for its cathedral and the massive monument within that is completely covered in gold leaf. Sometime in late November there is a walk from the Cathedral in Al Quinche to Quito some 30 miles away carrying a statue of the Virgin de Al Quinche. Anyways, my host uncle drives a school bus during the week so for normal family activities including more than 4 people they end up driving the school bus. So here we are driving down the road with 6 people in the front of a school bus on a Sunday headed to church. For those of you who have not traveled leisurely by school bus I do recommend it for the space and ability to hold up traffic while you stop at roadside food stands.

   On Tuesday my host family and I wound up once again the "Magic School Bus." We headed into Quito to get some more family members (this trip we had a total of about 14 people in the bus) and drove south to Maracas where they have a natural hot spring and a natural mineral water spring. Right before the entrance to the spring were about 10 locals lined up on the side of the road with buckets of water to throw at unsuspecting passersby. This is where the true advantage of the bus began to pay off when my uncle decided he should slow down and block off the whole road while we had a truck with about 8 people in the back behind us. The hot spring was on par with a normal Ecuadorian spring, i.e. too many people, lukewarm at best and random hairs floating around. The mineral water spring on the other hand was rather cold, completely empty due to Ecuadorians dislike for cold water, and by the way it was mineral water. There is a company here in Ecuador that bottles the same water from the source and sells it for a dollar a bottle.... I swam by myself in an entire pool of it. And by the way for those of you who have not swam in a pool of naturally carbonated water.....it's an experience. On the way home the School Bus was invaluable as we were able to make random coffee stops and ice cream breaks on the side of the road to converse and play cards for 10-15 minutes at a time. 

   The rest of the week was back to class in our normal fashion though we were able to catch up with the other 3 groups from the tech trip and exchange stories. Thursday after class we had a good game of Futbol and Friday I learned an Ecuadorian dance (more to come on that in a bit). Friday was also the bigging of the Tsunami watch which put all us Peace Corps Trainees on "Stand Fast" meaning I had an excuse not to leave Tumbaco for the weekend. Friday was also the start of the Birthday weekend in my host which was started off with a sleepover of about 10 9 year old girls for my host sister's 10th birthday.  On Saturday our normal four hour language class turned into a 2 hour trip to a local outdoor market to become familiar with local foods and products. Later that afternoon we commenced round two of the Birthday weekend with my host brother's 13th birthday and the arrival of some 25 family members for lasagna and cake. I learned a number of Ecuadorian party games and was able to teach a few from the states as well. During one game I had a chance to pull out some of the few Quechua words I had learned the previous week which put the entire room almost to tears laughing. Sunday we had a bbq at another volunteer's house where his host mom had made an amazing feast for about 20 of us! Later that night I made M&M cookies for my family which took about twice as long to bake up at 8,000 feet elevation as they were supposed to. My host mom was apparently quite impressed as she had a fresh bag of M&Ms for me when I walked in the door today, "So she could learn the recipe." Those cookies lasted about 20 minutes. 

   Back to school today, we had another dance practice which consists of 3 other guys, 4 girls and myself learning an Afro-Ecuatoriano dance which we are to perform tomorrow for the US Ambassador to Ecuador. Needless to say it should be a good time for all! Also, on Wednesday we get to learn our site assignments and then actually go visit our sites for a week beginning on Thursday. There has been a lot of excitement around the training center as to where people are going and we are all looking forward to getting out to our sites and start meeting our future families.

   

  

"To keep him from going for your jugular, you have to put your fingers in his mouth"

   Realizing that I have missed a week of blogging, I am now having a hard time trying to remember what we did two weeks ago. Following the trip to La Mitad del Mundo we had a pretty standard week of classes.  Thursday was a bit more intense than usual when my Spanish group and I had to give a 45 minute presentation on recycling to a bunch of 11 year old Ecuadorian  kids at a local school.  Later that day I also gave a 15 minute presentation on my own about a local holiday. Both presentations went well and I am happy with how quickly my Spanish is coming back. Fast forward to the weekend... we started Saturday off with 2 hours of language classes and being Flag Day here in Ecuador we took the next 2 hours to have a potluck with both plates from here and home as well as some guitar playing and learning some local songs. Finally to Sunday, I am proud to say I spent Sunday in Quito at the La Liga vs. Nacional futbol game. Both teams are from Quito so when they play its definitely a big deal here.

   Now onto this last week. The last 5 days have been spent in the Amazon rain forest in and around a city called Tena. A group of 10 volunteers including myself and 4 facilitators all went on a Tech Trip for the Amazonian region. The four and a half hour bus ride out was pretty awesome to start off. For about an hour we had a crystal clear view of the 19,346 foot Cotopaxi volcano covered in snow next to the 18,874 foot Antisana volcano. The next 3 hours were mostly downhill once we crossed over the Andes headed east into the jungle. Later that afternoon we met with a local organization in the area that works with community economic development through the production of cacao, or chocolate. They teach local farmers how to sustainable produce and harvest high quality cacao which is actually some of the best in the Amazon and is sold in Whole Foods in the US as Kallari chocolate. This organization has also helped to develop one of 4 biosphere national parks in Ecuador. A biosphere national park is one that includes an outer ring, a buffer zone and a central protected area unaccessible by the outside world ( the US has over 42). That day we also visited a local wildlife rehabilitation center and got to see many animals from the Amazon that were either kept as pets or found injured and brought in.

  The next day we met with another organization in Tena that works with small Quechua communities many in Eco-tourism. We discussed various aspects of their business and business strategy (or lack there of... its exceedingly common here to have communities decided to enter the Eco-tourism market with no business plan at all) and other business practices in the Amazon. Following the presentation we hopped into a truck taxi and drove down along the Rio Napo about an hour to a small Quechua community. The community we visited is called Kamak Maki and specializes in animal rehabilitation. The community consists of about 30 families that all live on the river bank. We helped to work on the construction of a new community center and got a tour of the animals and local plants. They have two resident monkeys that love to climb and play on people as you wander the community. They also have a young ocelot in a cage that was orphaned a few months ago. If you are wondering, yes... I did get to hold the ocelot and yes it was pretty awesome. The Quichua man showing us around the community told me that the ocelots instinctively attack the jugular vein in the neck and to suppress this instinct you have to put your fingers in his mouth like a babies bottle. For lunch the ladies of the community prepared a traditional feast using tilapia wrapped in big leaves and cooked over an open fire. That night we stayed at another local community up the river about an hour and a half. This community is also working in Eco-tourism and had received a grant to build a small cabana style hotel close to the river. This community specializes in hand crafts and cacao production as well.

   On Wednesday we started the day off learning about the community based hotel we had stayed at overnight which using a local grant was constructed by and is now run by the local community members. Then we helped to clean up and prune the gardens and walkways in preparation for Carnival this weekend. Later in the day we took a short canoe ride across the river back in Tena to an island wildlife preserve for a talk about forest conservation projects, rainwater collection and composting toilets. The organization giving the talk had created a documentary about local deforestation to be showed to communities here in the Amazon. It was really interesting for me because they had filmed the entire documentary in the local Quechua even though all Quechua here speak Spanish. They also used local community leaders and stories from village elders about the previous existence of the jungle as far as reduced water levels, higher temperatures year round and greater sensibility to the sun.

  Thursday we spent most of the day with a start up business here in Ecuador working with Guayusa. Guayusa is a native tree, used like tea, that by traditions the Quechua tribes  wake up around 3 30 or 4 and prepare Guayusa. They drink the Guayusa over an open fire and in the hours before sunrise tell ancient stories, discuss meaningful dreams or share songs. Guayusa is a typical drink found in many restaurants in Tena but otherwise does not leave the area. The business we spoke to was started by 3 US guys fresh out of college that have employed upwards of 30 local Ecuadorians and over 100 farmers to produce and sell Guayusa in the United States. After a brief discussion in the morning we headed up into the jungle by taxi to the end of the road where we got out and started hiking in our mud boots. Our hike took us out into the Amazonian jungle through the mud and over a river which we stripped to our underwear to cross. The river had no human contact between its source and this crossing point making it the cleanest and purest water I have seen so far. Our continued assent into the jungle took us to an area of jungle own by a local farmer who knew the location of several Guayusa trees that have been growing since his grandfather was a kid. The trees are dispersed throughout the jungle and we harvested leaves from 3 or 4 before filling up 3 bags weighing 30 pounds each. Our hike back was delayed by an extended crossing of the river (couldn't let it go to waste) and then we were  back on track to town after a quick stop to learn how to thatch a roof with palm fronds.  Thursday's lunch consisted of a large ice cold glass of Guayusa, an amazing traditionally cooked tilapia and some grub worms (they actually taste like bacon).

   Lastly today, we started the day off by giving a 45 minute presentation to 11 year olds at a school outside of Tena. This time we were in groups of two and my partner Sean and I discussed deforestation in the Amazon. We had a few games to play with the kids and they were all very interactive. We had a lot of fun and got to test out a game about deforestation for the organization we met with on Wednesday. Immediately after the presentation it began to rain...and proceeded to rain about 5 inches in the next hour. We were stuck at the school during the rain storm and ended up playing soccer and basketball under a covered area until our bus showed up to take us back to Tena and then to Quito. Once I got home and had some time to unwind I followed my host family next door to our grandmother's house for my uncle's birthday party. We had cow tongue (actually really good) and a great three layer strawberry cake.

   This weekend is Carnival which consists of lots of water fights and foam in a can. I am looking forward to spending some time here in Tumbaco as well as going down to Rio Bamba at the base of Volcan Chimborazo on Monday. I hope this post finds you all well!

Malaria, Tsantsas and Caca de Vaca

   Well here we are wrapping up week number three. This past week has been rather long, both in a boring "I've been stuck in class learning about policies" and "we try to do as much as we can on the weekends" way. Last Sunday the host family and I piled into the family car, a KIA SUV, and drove about 2 hours out into the country to the Quito Zoo. The zoo was quite interesting seeing as how nearly all the flora and fauna there are native to Ecuador. My host dad took off for work on Monday, he is and electrician in the oil fields by the Colombian boarder, were he stayed until Friday night. Early in the week we started our community garden out back behind the training center. Each group of 4 gets a plot about 10 by 30 feet to work with and the best plot at the end of training gets a prize. We also learned about building worm beds, organic composting "the right way" and how to make a very effective liquid organic fertilizer, consisting of pig manure, wood ash, tree leaves, old milk and some other lovely ingredients all mixed into a mesh bag left to steep in a tank of water.

   On Wednesday the advantage of being in the "advanced" language class became evident. Following our trip to the Peace Corps office in Quito, all the volunteers headed back to Tumbaco to work on community maps and various other class projects. My group on the other hand ended up getting ice cream and laying in the central park experiencing a "cultural" siesta with our professor who decided we knew enough about the neighborhood.

   Throughout the rest of the week we spent a fair deal of time talking about various tropical diseases, more safety and security policies, community banks (which actually thrive here), as well as  a trip to a local tree nursery where we learned everything from planting seed beds and transplanting, to harvesting seeds and large scale composting. Saturday's class time was spent in language classes followed by a tour of a small farm next to the training center. The farm next door raises cuy (guinea pigs), rabbits and real pigs. It was interesting getting to learn about raising all three animals and could be vary useful out in the boonies where basic concepts like not inbreeding have yet to take root.

   Playing with the pigs next door gave way to the rest of my weekend at around 3 o' clock that afternoon. Following a short siesta my host family and I, as well as a fellow volunteer, drove up to Quito to tour the major churches in the city. By far the largest and most impressive in my opinion was the Basilica which tours over nearly every building in Quito and is complete with turtles and birds in place of the more traditional gargoyles. For dinner we stopped off at a kebab restaurant in Cumbaya, an upscale suburb of Quito much like Tumbaco. The food was amazing and to my extreme joy the kebab restaurant is located right next to a high end sushi restaurant and an Irish pub, I may have to move in.

   On Sunday we got out of the house around 8 and drove south up over the Papallacta Pass at 14,000 feet on our way to the Papallacta hot springs. The drive up was by far my favorite part of the trip, winding through the high Andes Mountains. As you reach the top of Papallacta Pass the land opens up in front of you, looking down the valley of Papallacta and out at Volcan Antisana, touring at 18,875 feet. On the way back from the hot springs we stopped at a fish farm in the hills owned by a family friend who gave us a quick tour of the fish ponds and his cuy barn, complete with a thatched roof. We also toured the fish farm across the street which used the slope of the hill to run the farm. He had split a small stream in two and dug small tanks into the ground, separating each tank with a net that would hold the fish back. Each tank had different sized fish with the smallest at the top and the largest at the bottom of the hill. As the largest fish were sold off he could open the upper tanks to let the fish flow down to the lower tanks,  a rather nice set up in my opinion that required very little work.

   Lastly, today being Presidents Day and all, we took a class field trip the La Mitad del Mundo, or the Center of the World. La Mitad del Mundo is a very large monument to the equatorial line which was calculated by hand by some French guy back in the 70's. To his dismay however, he was off by a few hundred meters but they still built a very large monument with his name on it. Slightly to the north is another, much smaller, museum which actually lies at 0'00"000 latitude. On the equatorial line you can preform a few experiments like balance an egg on end on a nail (which I successfully did), have a vertical sun clock, and watch the water in a sink drain straight downward. The last one was a bit more of a surprise to me since the lady doing the demonstration moved the sink 10 feet to either side of the equatorial line to demonstrate that it does in fact drain opposite directions. Also at that museum were various examples of indigenous cultures which included seeing a real Tsantsa of the Shuar tribe (Quichua for "shrunken head"). The Shuar people are known as mighty warriors who cut off the head of great opponents and shrink them believing that the head contains the soul of their fallen enemy.

   Espero que les vaya bien, Chao!

Two weeks down, only 112 weeks to go

   Having been a whole week since my last post, I am having trouble remembering where I left off. I believe it would have been last weekend leaving off at the beginning of the week and the first days of "real classes". This week started off with a few more days of Peace Corps policies and the occasional staff skit of what not to do and how to react to certain situations. One of these said skits included a female volunteer and a prop backpack of which she knew non of the contents as she walked into her new house to be greeted by her two younger siblings and host parents. While the parents piled on the food and welcomes, her pesky siblings proceeded to pull bras, thongs, birth control pills, an impressive heap of condoms and other unmentionables out of her backpack (to which she was unaware of possessing).  Other days had us sitting in a nice cool room listening to the Medical Officer cover a gratuitous number of causes for diarrhea (as well as a few happy terms such as Montezuma's revenge and adjectives such as "explosive"). Now sitting here quietly in my room I am taken back to fond memories of a famous tune written by our very own Kevin Lungren covering such topics.

   This week also saw our first round of vaccines (rabies, typhoid and yellow fever?) as well as technical and language interviews. Apart from feeling like somewhat of a human pincushion I have to say I am rather proud of having tested into Spanish at the Advanced-medium level, far above the Intermediate-medium level needed to become a Peace Corps Volunteer. The last two days we had a chance to talk to some currently active volunteers from around Ecuador and ask the "nitty gritty" questions (like "how's your Spanish now" and "do volunteers tend to date while they are here?" to which came my favorite response of the day. "The best way to learn Spanish is to sleep with a dictionary").

   Apart from the various school activities and a random survey we had to partake in at the center of town, I have been spending most of my time with my host family. My host dad Hermeo, who works as an electrician in the oil fields on the Colombian boarder, came home on Monday. He is a very likable person and is always checking in on me to see if there is anything I need. He has shown me around town in the family SUV and we spent most of today driving up into Quito to a park in the center of town where you can see nearly the entire valley and city of Quito. He also took me to a small shop that sells humitas, a sweet bread baked inside a corn husk, that opens for one hour per day and normally sells out before the hour is up.

   In the coming week we are planning various class trips and cultural excursions, (couldn't really tell you the difference between the two)  as well as various group projects like building a community garden and raising chickens for our swearing in feast. Also, to those who are interested in visiting me here in Ecuador, please feel for that free to do so after July 1st. Peace Corps encourages us to have friends and family here and you are welcome to stay for as long as you want (I know of one volunteer who had a friend staying 6 months in site).

  With that I look forward to reading your comments and I hope February is treating you all well, I know I am enjoying the 70 degree weather. Que les vaya bien! Chao!