matando parasitos, tirando machetes, y haciendo pecho

Killin' parasites, throwin' machetes, and doing chest...

E. Coli - not just from tainted beef anymore!

Well, they finally got me... los parasitos. It had been over 4 months down here, so last week I took a test for the hell of it to see what was crawlin around inside me. E. Coli, Giardia, and some other ameoba that had a less memorable name. No biggie though... the E. Coli was a distant cousin to the one that kills people, and I got them all treated with a series of pills over 3 days.

 

Giardia - smells like roses!

Funny thing, though, I didn't notice any symptoms. Giardia is known for extra stinky farts and poo, but I've been showing those symptoms for years. Anyway, went ahead and took the pills, was feelin fresh, and then last night after our Christmas Party, I woke up at 3am with the uncontrollable urge to vomit. So I donated my half digested rice and lentils to the septic tank, went back to sleep, and did it again a couple hours later. One 7-UP, two gatorades, and a few hours later, I'm back to zero bloggin about it. Not sure what it was, but I felt like $2 for the majority of this morning. All is well though. I'm feelin fresh again, and I'm gonna stop by the clinic for another test Monday to make sure everything's okay.

Don Maximo laying on the glue

In other news, I was throwin around a machete last week with our guard Maximo. Just carving up some cane to make our año viejo monigote. Down here, the tradition for New Year's Eve (they actually celebrate the Año Viejo, the old year, instead of the new year), is to make a monigote of something from the old year, stuff it with fireworks, and burn it down on the 31st. Some people just buy a premade generic one (there's a lot of Buzz Lightyears getting sold out there), but Don Maximo is known throughout Durán for his monigote crafting abilities. Last year he made a huge piojo (lice--one of the volunteers got bird lice around this time last year) and a life-sized replica of one of the volunteers. This year, we're working on a life-sized Chevy truck (modeled after the oldest member of the Rostro fleet, which has already suffered two crashes in the past 4 months--thanks Celso and Caitlin!), and a paloma (pigeon... I thought I left my pigeon woes back in SF, but there's at least a dozen that have taken up residency on our roof. www.nomorepigeons.org/whynot?).

And finally, haciendo pecho... brought my camera to the gym the other day because my 16 year old neighbor Kevin wanted to post a video of himself crushing out some bench press. The place is called Biceps Gym, it's on the 3rd floor of a concrete building, costs 50 cents/day, has an open wall facing the street, and some of the finest equipment from the early 90's.

Kevin doing biceps at Biceps... not sure what the bald eagle/American flag picture is doing in the middle of Durán, Ecuador, but it inspired me to crush out a couple more reps

I posted a bunch more pics of the monigote and un dia al gymnasio in my AJS photo album from my last blog. There may or may not be videos of Kevin and I dominating the bench press...

mi barrio

click here to check out all my pics from AJS!

Antonio Jose de Sucre is a small cooperative of about 3 square blocks in Duran, Ecuador. Rostro de Cristo has held a strong presence in this community since 1994. The property has two buildings; the first is the Rostro de Cristo retreat house that houses about 13 retreat groups a year. The second building serves two functions: the first floor is a day care center/preschool run by Nuevo Mundo, and the second floor is where I live with the other year long volunteers--Beth, Tasha, Celso, and Jessie.

Antonio Jose de Sucre is an older neighborhood than El Arbolito and therefore in many ways more progressed. This small barrio already houses a casa comunal (community house), a cancha (cement soccer field), a playground, a Nuevo Mundo medical dispensary, and continued improvement of paved roads. However, the poverty is still rampant: residents have no running water, there are frequent power outages, standing dirty water in the rainy season, as well as many families who still live in cane houses.

So that's the official AJS background from the Rostro website. Rostro has had a long history here (year long volunteers have been living in AJS for 16 years), and we were incredibly lucky to already have those relationships when we came here. From the first day, all the neighbors have been incredibly hospitable to all of us volunteers--inviting us over for meals, birthday parties, or just to talk or watch TV. I tried to caption most of the pictures, so rather than ramble on here, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy!

The New World!

Pocahontas had no chance

No, not the shitty Colin Farrell movie... I'm talking about the school I teach at, Fundación Nuevo Mundo! Thusfar I've blogged about a bingo and my secret love affair with mayo, an attempted coup, a weekend in paradise,  a 7 year old's birthday party, and more info than I'm sure anyone cares to read about Rostro orientation, potential work sites, and after school programs... how about a normal day in the life of a 27 year old accountant teaching English in Ecuador??

Most mornings start around 7am with a community prayer. We have a pretty liberal interpretation of prayer (gracias a Dios), so it can be anything from a traditional prayer to a song, poem, or excerpt from a book or speech (like for example when Celso enlightened us all with the Emancipation Proclamation one morning... nothing like a little Honest Abe to start the day!). After prayer I usually take Oso (our dog) for a walk, say hi to some neighbors, and finish up any lesson planning or grading before heading in to work.

At 12:15 every day I teach English to the 14 graduating seniors at Nuevo Mundo. The school year here is from March - December, so these guys are deep into 2nd semester senioritus. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a challenge trying to keep their interest, but I just keep reminding myself of how much fun I had senior year in high school (and how little I remember from the actual "school" part of it). They're all great though, and I admire the hell out of all 14 of them. Just to graduate high school is a huge accomplishment here, and all of these guys are going to college next year, and I know they're all gonna do great things with their lives. I gave them a writing assignment a few weeks back to talk about what they want to do after graduating (I billed it as practice speaking in the future tense, but it was more for my own curiosity than anything else), and they talked about wanting to be doctors, dentists, engineers, business people, and teachers. A couple of them are hoping to get scholarships to study in the States, and literally all 14 of them mentioned something about wanting to start a foundation or give back to the Ecuadorian people in some way.

It's a great testament to the type of education they get at Nuevo Mundo. A lot of schools in the States value community service and teaching social justice (probably the main reason I'm here now is what I learned in high school and college), but it just rings so much truer here because poverty and injustice are part of everyone's daily life. There are plenty of historical/societal factors to blame for the injustices here, but instead of focusing on the blame, Nuevo Mundo empowers these kids to make positive changes in their world. It not only provides them with the tools, the education they would not otherwise have, but the mission of Nuevo Mundo is also to inspire the heart to use these tools to create change.

Bieber fever is rampant here

So after the seniors, I teach 2 classes of 7th grade English. No matter where you are in the world, pretty much every teenage year is hilariously awkward, but 7th grade has to be up there as one of the funniest. You're definitely not a kid anymore, you kind of think you know everything, but you're still trying to figure out the whole social dynamic and how you fit in, and to top it all off, hormones are going crazy! Haha it's definitely a challenge to teach this age, and just as the seniors give me a hard time with senioritus, the 7th graders give me a hard time with whatever you want to call being 13 years old. They've been learning English since Kindergarden, but they are definitely beginners compared to the seniors. They constantly try to talk to me in Spanish, which is pretty hilarious because my Spanish is barely better than their English. They're all awesome though, and we usually have a great time in class.

The 7th grade classes are at different times every afternoon, so in between and after classes I usually work on lesson plans, grading, etc. (aka my least favorite part of teaching). Also, Celso, Caitlin, (the other 2 Rostro volunteers who teach at Mundo) and I each spend a couple afternoons a week tutoring the sophomores and juniors who have scholarships to attend the morning school. A couple years back, the afternoon school decided to phase out the high school (the seniors I teach are the last class left), and instead offer scholarships to the top 10 students from the 9th grade to finish 10th - 12th grade in the morning school's IB program. I talked a little bit about this in my earlier blog about the different work sites, but the morning school, known as Centro Educativo, instructs the wealthier students of Ecuador, while the afternoon school, Fundación, allows the poorer children to utilize the same facilities as the morning school. Half of the classes in the morning school's IB program are taught in English, so we help the becados (scholarship kids, from beca, which means scholarship... not to be confused with pecados, which means sins!) to make sure they're understanding everything in their classes (History is a big one because there's so much vocab they've never heard before).

The becados probably have the most interesting social dynamic because they all come from poor neighborhoods like Durán and now have scholarships to attend high school side by side with the wealthy elite of the Puntilla. Cliques and normal high school social dynamics are tough enough as it is, but this adds a whole different challenge to everything. They taught me a word the other day, pelucón, which is a common word for the Ecuadorian bourgeoisie. The literal translation is hairy, and refers to the old wigs French aristocrats used to wear in the 17th and 18th centuries (think George Washington, etc.). Ecuador's liberal president, Rafael Correa, has popularized the term often using it to refer to people with money who represent the old political practices/parties of the country.

The last class gets out at 6:10pm (remember, the pelucones use the school in the mornings, so the foundation school doesn't start until the afternoon), then I take the yellow school bus with the foundation kids back to Durán. I usually get home around 7pm, have a lovely dinner with my roommates, then wrap the night up with some more planning/grading, hanging out with the neighborhood kids, reading, and/or journalling. Oh and random Ecuador fact while I'm on the topic of daily routines... the sun sets and rises at the same time all year on the equator. Sunrise around 5:30 - 6am and sunset around 6 - 6:30pm... 12 hour days all year.

Part II: the longest tarde of my life...

Whoa! How about that cliffhanger yesterday?!?! Sorry I was running out of time at the cyber and couldn't finish everything. Don't worry I'm safe and everything is fine down here. Here's how the rest of the day went down...

12pm - HIGH NOON. Christina and I get back from the clinic and our house is officially CTU Headquarters. Kipp and Wellington (Rostro de Cristo Head of Security/superhero) are both on the phone, coordinating with our office in the States and our volunteers trapped in Guayaquil (I was going to use the word "stuck" but "trapped" just sounds so much more dramatic). To recap from yesterday's blog, the bridge from Durán to Guayaquil is closed, the police all across the country are on strike, buses aren't running, banks, schools, businesses and anything else that would benefit from a police presence (i.e. the entire country) are closed, and Christina's walking around with an IV bag because the parasite inside her won't let her hold any fluids down. Oh, and our in country director Megan is on a plane to Miami (by now the airport is also shut down, but her flight was literally the last plane they let leave the country), and Celso (aka the only fully bilingual volunteer now that Megan is out of the country) is no where to be found.

Jon and Brendan are at their worksite in Guayaquil, and the plan is for them to spend the night there if the bridge doesn't open. I exlained the worksites in more detail in a previous blog, but Jon and Brendan work at Damien House, a clinic for people suffering from Hanson's disease run by Sr. Annie, a bad ass nun from Brooklyn. Annie's been in Ecuador for 30 years, so even though we're all worried, we know they're in good hands. Tasha and Tierney are also at their Guayaquil worksite, Santiago Apostal, a school for working kids. Their plan is to hold tight there, but if possible rendezvous with Jon and Brendan at Damien house so they can all spend the night at Sr. Annie's.

Jessie and Beth are at their worksite, Chicos de la Calle, in Durán, so Wellington and Kipp take the truck to pick the girls up (buses aren't running).

12:30ishpm - Oh look who it is! Celso casually strolls in. He was just across the street at Jesus' house having lunch and watching the news. We also had the news on, and by now we're starting to hear a little more about this police vs. Correa drama. Aparently it's not just a strike, but an attempted coup. Every channel keeps playing this clip of Correa yelling "If you want to kill the president, here he is! Kill me if you want to! Kill me if you are brave, instead of hiding in the crowd like cowards!"

2pmish - The main bridge is still closed, but we get word that the other bridge--an hour out of the way--is open. Kipp and Wellington are back by now with Jessie and Beth, so Celso and Wellington pick up Isidro (another guard, who brings a shotgun just in case) and the three of them set off for Guayaquil to rescue Jon, Brendan, Tasha, and Tierney from the mayhem in Guayaquil (I considered using the words "pick up" instead of rescue, but then it wouldn't really be a RESCUE OPERATION, would it???).

Before they left, they picked up Caitlin from the Arbolito house and dropped her off at the our place so all the volunteers would be in one place. So Caitlin, Jessie, Beth, Kipp, Christina, and I are all at the AJS house, holding tight until further notice. I'm not really into pooping my pants if I don't have to, so I went to grab some ice cream at the store with Jessie while everyone else watched the news and chewed their finger nails. By now our office in the States had emailed our parents a couple times to let them know about the situation and that we're all safe at the house. So a couple parents called to check on us, and we found out that Ecuador made the news back home... exciting!

5pm - The rescue team gets back safely with all the volunteers! Guayaquil sounded pretty crazy... streets closed, demonstrations all over the place, people burning tires, LOOTING! Never even a hint of a threat to our safety, though, so nothing to worry about. Haha one funny story from the rescue op... during the madness of rushing off to Guayaquil, no one thought to grab money for the bridge fair. So Celso, Wellington, and Isidro are in line at the toll and all they can scrounge up from their pockets is 20 cents. But wait! What's that? A first aid kit in the glove box?! That's gotta be worth something, right?! At pretty much every major stop light--or, in this case, bridge toll plaza--people come up to cars trying to sell fruit and other wares. Wellington flags down one such vendor and tells her he'll sell her the $5 first aid kit for the low low price of $2. She agrees and just like that they've got bridge toll taken care of!

The rest of our night was pretty uneventful. We made dinner, watched a movie, and tried to not think about whatever madness was going on. The police had the President trapped in a hospital for most of the day, but it wasn't a coup attempt so much as it was a police strike that got out of control. The army came and rescued Correa at around 10pm Thursday night, after a brief firefight with the police outside the hospital. Sadly, 4 police officers died and several others were injured. Once the president was freed, though, everything was relatively back to normal. The US and every other country in South America announced their support for Correa, and even Correa's largest political rival, the mayor of Guayaquil, publicly backed Correa's government. School and work were still cancelled again Friday, but for the most part, everything was back under control. Here's a good article from the Associated Press that summarizing all the events of the day:

Ecuador revolt: Attempted coup or uprising?

Bottom line, it was a hell of a day, but we're all safe and sound down here, looking forward to getting back to work Monday. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!

Part I: just a little political unrest, no big deal...

So my plan was to spend my next blog updating everyone on my sweet new job as an English teacher, tell you all about the awesome kids I'm teaching, and maybe throw in a few pictures... then the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan yesterday, so I'm guessing you'd rather hear about that instead. Here's how it all went down...

7am: Took Oso for a walk (Oso is our kick ass guard dog) and bought some bread for the house. Thursdays are my prayer days, so I read a little pump up excerpt from Nelson Mandela's Inaguaral Speech. Pretty standard morning so far... I don't usually teach until the afternoon, so I've been working walks with Oso into my daily routine.

8am: Celso and I drive to the airport to meet our in country director, Megan. She's flying out to the States for a vacation, so we need to pick up her car and bring it back to our place. The handoff goes smoothly, Celso takes the van, and I drive the truck back to Durán. On my way back over the bridge (by now it's around 9am), I notice a ton of police officers going the other way (toward Guayaquil), and when I get to the Durán side of the bridge, there's cops setting up a road block and stopping all traffic leaving Durán. "Interesting," I thought, "there must be an important person in town or something." I forget what it was, but there was a great song on radio Disney (mostly trashy american pop/hip hop, but the only tunes I can get in English) at the time, so I was pretty busy rocking out to that to get too concerned with the road block.

9:30am: I get home and Kipp and Christina, two other volunteers from the Arbolito house are in our living room. Christina was just at the local health clinic (right around the corner from our house) getting an IV cuz she was up all night vomitting and couldn't hold any liquid down... yet another case of the parasites (we're all getting hit by them). So they're hanging out until Christina feels better, and I finish grading some homework, get dressed for school, and head out.

10:30am: On my way to the catch the bus to work,  I find out from our guard Wellington that the bridge is closed for a police demonstration. "Ohhhhhhhh yeah I think I saw that this morning." So we call Nuevo Mundo and find out classes are cancelled today. I'm pumped! I change out of my work clothes and start to think how I'm going to spend my first snow day in Ecuador! The eternal day off debate... do I get productive on something I've been meaning to do, or do I sit around and watch movies all day...

10:45am: The initial excitement wears off when we start to realize what's really going on. In addition to meaning I don't have to work, "police demonstration" also means that there are no police working in all of Guayaquil. Soon after we find out that means there are no police working in the entire country. That kinda stuff just doesn't happen in the US, so we're starting to get a little scared here. All we know at this point is President Correa tried to pass some law that would have cut police bonuses, so the police all across the country decided to strike. Pretty scary considering the normal dangers of a third world country compounded by the lack of a national police force.

11:30am: Remember poor little Christina who's laying on my couch with an IV? She had to go back to the clinic to get her test results, so I walked her over there (carrying the IV of course). When we get there, though, we find out that the clinic closed early for the day because of all the madness going on. By this time we also found out that all the banks closed across the country since there would be no police to protect them from bank robbers. Schools, medical clinics, banks, internet cafes, corner stores--everything is closed, buses aren't running, the main bridge into Guayaquil (only the largest city in the country at 3+ million people) is closed, and everyone is pretty much locked in their homes glued to the news. Oh and did I mention we have 4 volunteers stranded in Guayaquil and our in country director is on a flight to the US???

I'm already being overly dramatic, so just to be extra annoying I'm gonna put some scary pictures I found on the web and do this...

TO BE CONTINUED.... 

so what are you actually DOING down there??

#1 question I got before leaving... oh cool, you're moving to Ecuador for a year... what are you going to DO?? Kind of a tough question to answer since one of the primary missions of the program I'm volunteering with, Rostro de Cristo, is to be with the Ecuadorian people and not to do things for them. When I was looking at different volunteer programs last year, this was one of the aspects of the Rostro de Cristo program that I was really attracted to. There are a lot of great programs out there that provide amazing services to developing countries, but when the focus is on doing something for a community, it can be more difficult to really know the people and understand their struggles. Instead of centering the program around the services we provide to the Ecuadorian people, Rostro focuses on being with the Ecuadorians--living and working side by side in their communities. We are guests in their country, and no matter how many answers we think we have, North American solutions to South American problems are not always the best ideas. So Rostro's mission is to live and work with the Ecuadorian people--living simply in their communities, really getting to know the people on a personal level and experiencing their struggles firsthand.

That being said, we can't just hang out and BE for an entire year. So Rostro gets us down here and sets us up with a place to live (we have 16 volunteers this year living in 3 distinct communities), then works with local non-profits to set volunteers up with work placements for the year. Most volunteers have two placements--a morning placement with a partner Ecuadorian non-profit, and an afternoon placement with one of the 3 after school programs that Rostro runs. We spent our first week and a half here visiting each of the placements and after school programs, then at the end of the 2nd week here, we spent a whole day hashing out who would be best fit at each placement. It was a really interesting process because we had to consider more than what felt best for us; we also had to think about what was best for all the volunteer community as a whole.

Most of our placements only need 2 volunteers, so there had to be some compromise in who gets what placement. For the most part, though, everyone this year got placements that they're excited about. I ended up getting my first choice, a school called Nuevo Mundo, so I'll tell you a little bit about that, then I'll talk a little bit about some of the other placements we have volunteers at.

Nuevo Mundo! I´m really excited about working here. There's a great description of the school on the Rostro website, so I encourage you to read that and check out the school's English website. Basically, Nuevo Mundo provides completely free K - 9 education to students from some of the poorest neighborhoods in Durán/Guayaquil. They're able to do this by running a private K - 12 school in the mornings for the wealthier children of Guayaquil, then using the same facilities to provide free education to the kids who can't afford it in the afternoon. Essentially, the tuition the morning school collects subsidizes the afternoon school. Not surpisingly, a free education at one of the best private schools in the country is very popular, so students must apply to the afternoon school, demonstrating both need and merit.

Just this year, Nuevo Mundo started offering scholarships to the top 10 students graduating from the 9th grade afternoon school program (high school here is only 3 years--10th - 12th grade) to finish up 10th - 12th grade with the morning school IB (International Baccalaureate) program. Getting into the morning IB program essentially guarantees that these kids will make it to college, often with scholarships to universities in the United States and Europe. Even though not all the 9th graders get into the IB program, most of them end up going on to other high schools and getting into college, thanks to the education they received at Nuevo Mundo. I've just been shadowing classes and working on lesson plans up until now (the academic year here is from April - January, and the students just got back from a 2 week break between the 1st and 2nd semesters), but I start teaching this Monday, so I'll let you know how it goes! I'm starting to get a little nervous since I've never taught before, but I'm more excited than anything because of how inspiring the school's mission is. More to come this year!

Each of the placements is inspiring in it's own way, and I honestly would have been happy at any of them. Here's a little more info about a couple of the other sites I looked at and the volunteers who will be working there this year. I've also provided links to the Rostro website which has great descriptions of all the program (if you haven't noticed, I like to add hyperlinks... often I'll reference wikipedia or another site with more info, but sometimes I just throw something random in there).

Chicos de la Calle - This is an amazing program run by the Salesians that offers Ecuadorian boys who live and/or work on the streets (chicos de la calle literaly translates to "boys of the street," or "street boys") shelter, food, education, and job training. Where Nuevo Mundo works with the poorest kids from Durán & Guayaquil who have the most potential academically, Chicos de la Calle works with kids on the comletely other end of the spectrum, many of whom have no families or grew up in abusive homes, have been involved in gangs, have little to no formal education, and would be falling through the cracks of society if they weren't in the Chicos program. Two of the girls I'll be living with in the Antonio Jose de Sucre (AJS) house, Beth (from Baltimore via Villanova) and Jessie (from New Jersey via DePaul) will be working here, formally as English teachers and social workers, and informally as friends and positive role models for these kids.

Damien House - Named after Father Damien, the Belgian priest who spent 16 years living with and caring for patients with Hansen's disease (formerly known as leprosy), Damien House has 4 simple goals that really sum up it's mission: 1) To provide complete medical care for patients of Hansen’s Disease, 2) To help patients live a life of dignity and love, no matter what their situation may be, 3) To help patients return to living full lives, and 4) To provide public education, to dispel the myths regarding leprosy, to allow earlier treatment and minimize complications. Damien house was founded by Sr. Annie, a complete firecracker from Brooklyn who has been living and working with Ecuadorians suffering with Hanson's disease since the late 1980's. Sr. Annie pours her heart and soul into Damien House every day, and talking to the patients (many have been there over 20 or 30 years and are in their 80's and 90's) about how much Damien House has done for them is really inspiring. Two volunteers living in the Arbolito house, Jon (Boston College) and Brendan (Scranton), both from the Scranton, Pennsylvania area, will be working at Damien House this year, spending time with patients and helping Sr. Annie with everything from the website and brochures to wound care in the hospital.

Here's a link to pictures of the rest of the volunteers. I live in the Antonio Jose de Sucre neighborhood (AJS) with Celso, Jessie, Beth, and Tasha. Six other volunteers, Caitlin, Jon, Brendan, Tierney, Christina, and Kipp live about a mile and a half away in the Arbolito community. As I mentioned above, Jessie and Beth are working at Chicos, and Jon and Brendan are working at Damien. Celso (originally from the Dominican Republic, via Boston College), Caitlin (from the Boston area and also went to Boston College), and I will be teaching English to 7th, 8th, and 9th graders at Nuevo Mundo. Tasha (Long Island via Villanova) and Tierney (New Jersey via McGill) are teaching English and tutoring at a school for working kids; and Christina (Boston area via Villanova) is working at a local parish teaching English to kids and helping out part time at the health clinic and soup kitchen. Kipp (Seattle via Seattle U) is in charge of coordinating the 25 retreat groups from the States we host throughout the year (our first retreat group is from Santa Clara and they just got in last night!). In the Monte Sinai community, Jeff (Jersey via St. John's) and Jenn (Fairfield) are doing similar work at other Chicos de la Calle sites, Aaron (Wisconsin via Notre Dame) and Becky (South Dakota via Creighton) are doing medical work at free health clinics, and Marita (Minnesota via St. Benedicts) is teaching primary education.

Daily dose of Ecuadorian reality... SUBURBS! My archnemesis from the good old US of A followed me down here... As I mentioned above, the Nuevo Mundo afternoon school functions by operating an expensive private school in the mornings. Because of that, the school is located in one of the nicest areas of Guayaquil, the Puntilla. If it wasn't for all the people speaking Spanish, you'd think this little penninsula between downtown Guayaquil (left of the river on the map) and Durán (right of the river) was in the middle of Orange County. There are gated communities, SUV's, malls, and of course, trendy coffee shops. 3rd world to 1st world in a 20 minute bus ride.

orientation, Orientation, and MORE ORIENTATION

After a NyQuil induced red-eye from San Francisco, I arrived in Boston the morning of Monday, July 19th. The program I'm volunteering with, Rostro de Cristo, partners with JVC International every year for a two week domestic orientation at Boston College before volunteers leave the country. So in addition to the 15 other volunteers I'll be with in Ecuador this year, I got to meet 33 JVC volunteers who will be living and working for 2 years in Peru, Belize, Tanzania, Micronesia, Nicaragua, and Chile. Leaving home and saying goodbyes was pretty heavy emotionally, so it was really comforting to meet a bunch of other people all going through the same thing. It was also nice to still be in the US for a couple weeks before completely leaving the country for a year--I think it made the transition from home to Ecuador a lot easier. Orientation was packed full of useful information--everything from health and safety in developing countries to workshops on teaching (which most of us will do at least in some capacity), to living in commuity (both JVC and Rostro de Cristo emphasize the importance of living in a commuity of fellow volunteers and supporting each other throughout the year) to workshops on social justice and spirituality.

We left for Ecuador the morning of Sunday, August 1st. After a 4 hour flight from Boston to Miami, a 5 hour layover in Miami, a 3 hour flight from Miami to Guayaquil, and over an hour in customs, we didn't get to bed until almost 2am on our first night in Ecuador. With only 5 days of overlap with last year's volunteers (Rostro brings in a completely new group of volunteers to Durán each year), we were up at 8am the next day, Monday, August 2nd to start our in country orientation. The first couple weeks here FLEW by, and I'm still trying to prcess it all, but here are a few highlights and first impressions of life Ecuador:

• surprise, surprise... it's HOT! Most days are in the high 80s this time of year, with nights in the 70s. Coming from San Francisco, this is at least 20 degrees warmer than what I'm used to. The funny thing is this is the coldest time of year in Ecuador, so all the Ecuadorians think it's freezing out. It will be in the low 70's at night and I'll be wearing shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt, and our Ecuadorian friends are wearing long pants and heavy jackets. Apparently the rainy season from late January - early May is the hottest time of year, when it's raining, humid, and temperatures average in the 100s every day. So I guess compared to THAT it's cold right now...

• there are animals EVERYWHERE--dogs, cats, chickens, and roosters are common pets, and some people have guinea pigs and/or ducks. There are also stray dogs and cats all over the place, and as I mentioned in my first blog they are FERTILE. Geckos frequently make it in the house, but they help take care of the mosquitos so we let them be. We haven't found any mice in our house, but the volunteers in the Arbolito house have already caught 4 over there. The dogs, cats, and roosters make noise at all hours of the day/night (I thought roosters only crowed at dawn, but aparently they like to cock-a-doodle-do ALL NIGHT LONG). This was pretty annoying at first, but I guess I'm used to it now because I don't really use my ear plugs anymore. Oh and last week there was a bull walking down the middle of the main road by my house. Completely alone, casually strolling down the road. No aparent owner, and I was the only one who thought anything of it because everyone else--cars, buses, bikes, people--just drove/walked around it like it was no big deal.

• They speak Spanish here! Weird, huh?? This is probably going to be the toughest part of my transition since I haven't taken a Spanish class in 10 years. The more I practice, though, the more it comes back to me. In addition to conversations with neighbors (which are pretty simple at this point--I can usually understand at least half of what they say), I'm trying to do at least 15 minutes a day of vocab or grammar practice on my own. Luckily there's a few volunteers with really good Spanish (including my housemate Celso who's a native speaker from the Dominican Republic!), and they've been great about helping when I don't understand things.

mmmmmmm!

Lots more differences--and similarities--with the US, but I don't want to write a book here. I'll end with one more quick dose of Ecuadorian reality: DON'T DRINK THE WATER! We don't have plumbing in Durán (aparently they put pipes in a few years ago, but they haven't started using them), so water trucks come around every few days to fill up our cistern. We use this water for showers, sinks, and toilets, NOT drinking. We get separate deliveries of drinking water (think Alhambra jugs), which we use for drinking, cooking, brushing our teeth, etc. I haven't gotten any yet, but apparently parasites are pretty common. It could come from eating food at a neighbor's place or a restaurant that cooks with the cistern water, or even just from the little bit of water that inevitably gets in your mouth when you shower. Nothing yet, but I'm keeping a close eye on my bowels, so I will keep you posted!