Things must be changing right?

What has changed 10 months in… it is too soon to tell, but I think after hanging out with old friends and going home for Christmas I might see some differences. Right now the most noticeable thing is my clothes. They are destroyed. After the fourth time of forgetting my pants pockets were ripped out, putting change in them, feeling it run down and fall down my leg and onto the sidewalk, laughing off the weird look from the person behind me, I took a special day to scrub sweat stains and sew seams. It was funny literally having holes in my pockets though. Now I just have to ignore the curtain texture and faded color of everything. The day I get to burn the pair of jeans, two pairs of shorts, four t shirts, and 3 long sleeve shirts I have will be a good day.

I suppose I’m more at peace with how things are. I feel less like a prisoner and not so angry and frustrated. For almost every negative I can think of a positive. Yeah no larch trees this year, no mountain biking over the soft needles, no sitting by the fire with a hot drink, no hunting, no anticipating of snowboarding with ski/snowboard films. It really is pleasant though to have a summer evening every day. The fruits change, the trees flower, and the birds instead of leaving are returning. The egrets are flocking in as fast as the geese are fleeing Montana. The mangos drop all day and night like heavy, wet, spring snow plops. Life is different, painful, awkward, joyous, and beautiful all at once.

• Awkward when my dad asks me to get medicine in town, I don’t read the bottle and I go to the pharmacy. There is a picture of a cow on the damn thing and sure enough, after reading it says equine parasites. The lady kindly directs me to the nearest vet.
• Painful when I spend too much time on memory lane.
• Different when I sit next to a guy sharing his ice cream with his rooster on the bus, and the rooster is voicing his approval loudly.
• Beautiful in the evening, every day between 5 and 7 is a summer evening with a sunset and a breeze.
• Joyous when I get to see other volunteers and debrief and feel like my old self for a brief minute.

The November Norm

 

Pictured above… 4 Lascano couples (including my host parents) turn their civil unions into marriages + new host family in Las Mercedes.

Tomorrow I’m headed to Quito for the first time since August and I’m jazzed! Why so excited you may ask? Well- I love seeing the old Tumbaco family, and…. I have friends coming from the Untied  (wow spelling is taking a nose dive ) ahem, United States of America!!!! My worlds are going to collide in a glorious supernova of show and tell, and having as much fun as is humanly possible. To give you an idea of what jazzed means to me, it is 3AM here and since I have to leave on the bus at 4:30AM I’ve scrapped the idea of sleeping till I get on the bus. First I was watching 30 Rock and working on the latest crochet project, now I feel like writing.

So I get a lot of hey what’s new,

I want to reach for this mind blowing story, but honestly life just feels normal. I know it’s not, a handful of ridiculous things happen every day, but they are quickly becoming old hat.

On the days I go to Lascano I put on my backpack, oversized kids skate helmet, and jump on my undersized bicycle. I have to walk it up the big hill ( can’t put much force on the pedals ) and walk it down ( no brakes ). The other hills are safe enough to wing it, or small enough that I can rub my shoe along the wheel to slow it down. The dogs still chase me but I now no longer pay them any attention- they are all bark. It’s a “ Buenos dias” and wave to everyone in their yard, and an hour later I’m in Lascano ignoring the taxi moto drivers that hiss, whistle, and hoot when they see the gringa on her bike. The way people react when I tell them I biked to town is like I did an iron man, when in reality it is all of 15km. I keep it to myself that I used to consider 100 km a perfect ride on the old roadster. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be on that light, speedy piece of magic… so I’m perfectly content with my clunker The Fashion.

I head over to Amarillis’s restaurant, discuss the latest, help her cut up some chicken or vegetables, eat lunch, and borrow the computer if her daughter isn’t hogging it to post all of her selfies on facebook. I have a class with some kids after lunch, and on the way I’ll grab a water and a piece of candy. The kid that works at the tienda loves heavy metal and always gives me the third degree about if I know who Slipknot or System of a Down is. He’ll pull out his cell phone and ask me to translate, which is difficult- I don’t know what people are saying in screamo, and I’m not sure how to translate “Why don’t people trust in my self-righteous suuuicciideee!.” I do my best, he laughs, I go to the house and do art projects for an hour. The only kids that stuck with the class are from super poor- the other ones were busy with after-school Catholic class, sports, and karate. The 6 kids don’t know when their birthdays are and spend half of class wanting to borrow my bike. They ask me how much everything I own is, they ask me for money, and they want to borrow my things. It takes a lot of energy, but they are getting better behavior wise and getting the teeniest bit of attention means a lot to them.

Sometimes I head back to Las Mercedes, but more often or not there is a party to stick around for. The big ones in October were : My host mom and dad Amarilis and Etiel got married after a 20 yr civil union with 3 other long time couples ( unions here are popular because divorce has  a big stigma and wives are often treated like indentured servants ). Then, their daughter Bea turned 15 and thus had her quincinera. Lots of selfies taken that night.

Parties mean we get ready for 2 hours. I could be ready in 15 minutes but without fail someone will do my make up with liquid black eyeliner along with metallic eye shadow, and it takes me an hour to get rid of the 10 dollar hooker look. The dances start at about 12, a dinner is served about 2 in the morning, and we go to bed about 5. The best part for me is when my host brother, with his perfect silhouette, struts across the floor and grabs me for a dance or two. I have to remind myself to breathe, that his hot curvy girlfriend is a senior in high school, that I only have a crush on him because he is tall and the best dancer I’ve ever met, but time stops never the less. I love and hate remembering what it is like to have feelings for somebody. Feelings other than, if you continue to look at me in a lecherous way I will break precious Peace Corps policy along with your knee caps. Machismo gets old in other words-unless it means improved customer service, rides to nearby towns without waiting for the bus, and giving me a seat on the bus. I’m a hypocrite I ‘spose, but I really do just want to be an anonymous, normal person again.

In Las Mercedes I moved in with a new host family in September. My first family was kind and their house gorgeous, but I’d take a standard of living downgrade any day to be an actual part of the family. I hand wash the clothes, walk out the road to get cell phone service, the refrigerator goes out sometimes, and it is all great because I’m not walking on eggshells around people I’m not sure want me around.  I will introduce the new family:

Mom- Marta is the opposite of the hot-headed, flashy, Latina stereotype. If she ever gets mad, fear will strike my heart to the core. She is incredibly happy, easy-going and mellow. I’ve never heard her raise her voice; even when she is a little ticked she still sounds kind. Also, the second you step into her kitchen you will begin to receive food- so if you aren’t hungry don’t enter.

Isacio is just as mellow and kind, working constantly on planting, building projects, and he bikes everywhere, even to pick up Elaisa from school. She sits on a hand-made board seat on the bar between the seat and the handle bars.

Elaisa is Ms. personality. In school she looks forlorn, and little bored, but at home she is completely different- giggling, making up secret handshakes, dance moves, and using my bathroom air freshener as perfume.

Maria is patient with her crazy sister, sweet for a 12 year old, but still a little mischievous. She had me make up a facebook account for her- and asked if I could put her year of birth two years earlier so she could be 14 with a sheepish smile.

The girls  hug me, tease me, do my hair, we all go to dances together, bingo together, and we went to a waterfall for a family trip. I’m so glad I decided not to live on my own. Having other people moving around me keeps me moving which keeps me positive.

When I’m not hanging out with them you can find me at the high school teaching english- which I love as it turns out. I had them do a skit where one person said “Look out!” One person ran into the other and said “I’m sorry, are you all right?” And the third person said “I’m fine”. They were loving it and started adding flare to the scene ( it turned into a motorcycle accident) and the third person started saying “I’m not fine!”  I love how different all of the kids are; there are some pretty cute individuals.

Or you might find me on my neighbor’s porch crocheting, running in the morning, riding my bike in the evening, working in the school garden with the janitor in the afternoon, or in the hammock under the mango tree with my kindle hoping I don’t get beaned by a mango. After 8 it is me time to dig into my now bottomless hard drive with a year’s worth of tv shows and movies.

So that’s what’s new; the new normal.

I am working some I promise!

Starting the Las Mercedes school garden

In school I started some gardens and some English/ art classes. For example, we would practice English names for body parts, sing head shoulders knees and toes, then draw a person and label it. I’m not going to get teacher of the year but at least I got started in getting to know the kids in town. Last night I was at a funeral in the church and every student I knew smiled and waved at me, one gave me a high five and one of the kindergarteners gave me a hug around the knees. They can be less cute in class, even with their little uniforms. I have to plan out every activity so clearly and think of everything that could go wrong because there is always a problem. The 1^st and 2^nd graders especially have a knack for orchestrating episodes of crying, fighting, yelling, and my least favorite of all… whining. Profe she got more markers,profe I want more paper profe, I don’t want to sit next to him, profeprofeprofeaggghhhh!!!! I would like to pull a Mrs. Trunchbull from Matilda and hammerthrow a couple of them somedays… One other thing is that they have a hard time doing anything without an example to copy, so I do my best to encourage originality but it is definitely a struggle. The best part is the excitement, they love pronouncing English words even though they were embarrassed at first, and I can absolutely mystify them with a sentence in English. “How did you learn to do that?” they will ask after they’ve had a giggling fit. The excitement over the gardens was out of control and I’m relieved things are growing because I just couldn’t keep anything organized. I bet half of the kids refuse to eat their vegetables at home but they’re so excited about growing their own beets, onions, carrots, tomatoes you’d think they were planning on harvesting twinkies.

I also started a garden with a youth group in Lascano- but didn’t have help from parents like in Las Mercedes so it was a lot more work. There isn’t exactly a Lowes around here so to get dirt we had to find people with coffee plants and scrape up the degrading leaves underneath them. For wood for the beds we waded into the river and hacked down overhanging bamboo. They were actually pretty fun excursions and I paid my 11yr old helpers in empanadas.

In Lascano I’m now living in the house that serves as the women’s group’s center, so it is sort of like my own place. I like it, but my bathroom has a frog problem- of all of the animals I thought would give me trouble here frogs were not one of them. It started when I sat down on the toilet one day and heard a plop that was not any of my business. I leaped up mid pee and sure enough there was a frog swimming for the toilet hole. Later I turned on the shower and one hit me as it was blown out of the spigot, also, they cling to the curtain and watch me, they hide behind the shampoo… If you watched me get ready to use this bathroom you’d think I had OCD turning on all the spigots, looking under the toilet lid, sweeping the curtain and shelf for peeping toms. Only after full inspection do I hop into my birthday suit in there any more!

With the two women’s groups I work with in Las Mercedes and Lascano we are doing recycled art. In this part of the coast a lot of groups have had success with products from recycled goods and so it is one way we can get money for the group and some income for the ladies too hopefully. Of course part of the point is to raise awareness about the trash that is thrown all over here… but I’m not sure if that will ever get through. I can’t count the number of times people that know I’m a natural resource volunteer through their shit out the window in front of me, even my favorite people. Once on the bus I had just finished telling a woman about my plans to have a recycling competition in the school because trash is a problem in town, and after telling me what a great idea that was, she chucked her water bottle out the window. Old habits die hard I guess.

One of the Las Mercedes women, a personal favorite of mine here, is super interested and talented in recycled art so I practically forced her to come to our old Tumbaco training center for a recycled art conference with me. It is difficult to get women to travel here- most have never gone far from home, if they have it was with a husband, and if they don’t travel with their husband they must ask their permission. I may have said it before, but I’ll say it again- I would rather my eggs dry up and I die alone than get married in this culture. It was worth all of the trouble however; my counterpart got a ton of new ideas, met people from all over the country, saw the capitol for the first time, and had a week to herself for the first time in her married life. It was not without struggles however. She was terrified of traveling- and it was a bit comical that I the 24 yr old non-native Spanish speaker was leading around and assuring a 37yr old Ecuadorian through every bus, terminal, and metro. I understand the extremely different background she was raised in, but I couldn’t help but wonder more than once how she thought I had made it through the country with basic Spanish, all of my luggage, alone.

We also didn’t have running water for four days in Tumbaco- which was not was I wanted from leaving the campo for the city. So much for that water pressure and warm temperature I had been dreaming about! It was harder on our counterparts who have a much higher standard of appearance than the Peace Corps volunteers. At one point my counterpart asked me how we had drinking water (they had used all of theirs to bathe) and I said we just weren’t showering, and she looked at me like I had said I hate babies.

All in all though it was a success- I feel like we are better friends, and every time she sees me she has made something to show me. Our group is also excited about making ceramic looking beads from magazines, beads from melted pop bottles, weaving with potato chip bags, crocheting plastic, and making jewelry and wallets from tire tubes, so we are now having biweekly instead of bimonthly meetings to make things. No this is not what I thought I would be doing in Peace Corps, but I like it a lot. We all laugh at how obsessed we have become, I myself spent every second of my free time yesterday crocheting like an crazy old woman with plastic bags.

At this very moment I am back in Las Mercedes after my second weeklong excursion in Tumbaco for the month. After recycled art we had our reconnect conference to touch base and begin planning projects. It was very hard to see my Peace Corps friends, have food options, see my old wonderful host family, have wifi and skype old friends and parents, have dance parties without hours of repetitive cumbia, and then come back to reality after two weeks. While I’m beginning to have a life here, it isn’t the same yet. I forgot that laughing to the point of red face, tears streaming was a part of my personality at one point. Ali, Monica and I climbed 15,000 ft Pinchincha on Ali’s birthday and I spontaneously danced the Cupid shuffle on top and I got a sense of calm and wonder coming down out of the clouds. I jumped off a waterfall in the Mindo cloud forest and felt adrenaline. All of these emotions used to be a regular part of my life experience. When you get caught up in the day to day it is easy to forget about the way things were, and a very rude awakening to leave for two weeks and come back. I thought I was sick when I got home since I was having a hard time waking up and dragging myself away from episodes of GIRLS, but I think I was just depressed. Now I’m getting back into the swing of things by enjoying little moments and interactions, forcing myself to run, by not thinking too far into the future- just the next day, avoiding thoughts like how old I’m going to be when I get out of here ( non marry able by Ecuador standards).

My goal is to really get to work at being a part of my community in the next two months so that after I get a friend visit in November and go home for Christmas I will be able to look forward to coming back a little bit. Thank goodness for crafts and cool Ecuadorian lady friends!

That’s it for now from the equator,

Later!

Headway- 5 months in

Whales!

Inti Raymi chicken/fruit basket dancing!

Well if I was back at home I would be half mourning the end of summer, half anticipating the arrival of my favorite season, fall. Here, I’ve learned to appreciate the most subtle differences in temperature, because I’m going to be in living in summer for 19 more months. Note that I have dipped below the 20 mark! For example today we had a cool wind, and I celebrated by putting off my morning run until 11 and writing to you all. It is hard to keep up blogging because usually when I have free time I’m catching up on lesson plans for school, there is someone I need to visit with and nobody uses phones here so I have to go to their house, I need to exercise to keep up with the influx of carbohydrates in my diet, my host sister Perla wants to hang out, I have correspondence to do because I’ve received so many wonderful emails and letters, or I’m so completely drained from the day that I don’t have the energy to do anything but watch episodes of TV shows. I need to read more, but I got bogged down in Games of Thrones and I don’t know if I should push on through or give up and start something new. I like socializing here- but I’ve always been one of those people that gets worn out by it. It doesn’t help that I’m not a great conversationalist, and now I’m a poor conversationalist with the vocabulary of a third grader!

On the language front however, I’m juussst beginning to notice some changes. First, people I once thought had slurred unintelligible speech I can now pick out just enough words to guess what they are saying. Also, I used to have to really psych myself up to go visit with people. A cup of coffee, music, a pep talk in the mirror… now I would say visiting is one of my favorite ways to spend the afternoon. People will take me down to the river, show me their pigs, invite me to bingo, have me help their kids with English homework, tell me about their lives… I’m finally starting to feel a little bit a part of things and am making a few friends. Mostly 12 yr old girls and 40 yr old women. Teenagers are focused, no obsessed is a better word, on Facebook, cellphones, pop music, and boyfriends. Young women are focused on babies. The few that do not go directly from teenager to mother hood are not out in the campo, they are in cities studying or working. So… I’ll take what I can get.

This is where fellow peace corps volunteers come in and why they are invaluable. Some days, I need to remind myself that I am a young 24 yr old that enjoys a responsible amount of unwinding. So far I’ve made it to see friends in Otavalo the northern mountain market town, and to the beautiful Atacames beach in Esmeraldas.

I couldn’t have had much more opposite vacations. For Otavalo I dug out my smartwool, my beanie, and time traveled into early October ( Montana weather wise.) My friends live in small indigenous communities in the area which happened to be celebrating Inti Rymi, a festival for sun and corn. So we trucked up to Monica’s site Achipalla to participate. I was a little jealous… the wind was cool, there was a peacock strutting around her yard, her dad was dressed in these amazing alpaca hide chaps, her mom in the traditional long skirt, ornamented white blouse with tons of gold necklaces around her neck. We picked up some beautiful fruit baskets from their parents’ house and packed like sardines with their neighbors into a canopied pick-up truck, then drove down a very bumpy road where we joined 20 or so other communities in a big open dirt field. Around the field were food vendors and flute music, and two big volcanoes looming down. I think I spent most of the day   staring at them thinking, “I love real mountains, they’re so great.”

 We milled around while a lot of Quechwa speeches were being done until finally the community dancing began. One by one each community would filter out in a circle onto the field. Inside the circle were musicians playing harmonicas and accordions. Rotating around them in small mini steps were everyone else, some holding the fruit baskets over their heads and others displaying live chickens with their feet tied. Their costumes ranged from traditional clothing to the ridiculous with each community circle trying to outdo the other. For the next few hours, nothing changed (except sometimes the dancers went clockwise and not counterclockwise) until every community had danced in each of the four corners on the field. Then the women served up lunch and the men began drinking. By miday the men started passing out like flies along the road, along the field, or occasionally were caught up in slow motion fights that while unfortunate were super funny to watch. I couldn’t figure out how they got drunk so fast- but after tasting their homemade alcohol it became clear. It was mixed with coco juice- but I didn’t get a coco aftertaste until 5 minutes after my sip that cleared out and burned my throat, nasal passages, and tear ducts. It was very very strong. We left soon after, and I noticed even Monica’s stoic respectable dad was getting a telling off by her mom as we were leaving for getting a little too red in the face.

Back in Otavalo we savored everything we weren’t going to have for a while in the touristy places- Mexican food, coffee, pie, and delicious street food. Then I left at the butt crack of dawn to try and make it back to Portoviejo before the last bus left for Las Mercedes. It was a perfectly clear morning so I got to see every northern volcano between Otavalo and Quito- and I made it home 14 hours later. Win win.

For Esmeraldas I dug into the other side of my closet. Bathing suit check, shorts, sunscreen, check. I headed up the coast but didn’t make it quite there in one day, so the 4^th of July I spent alone in a hostel. Depressing when I think about the parade, fireworks at Seeley Lake and vanilla strawberry cone from the ICP, but here with no one celebrating it was mostly a nice relaxing evening away from the family. The next day I arrived at Atacames, the prettiest beach I’ve seen here. We bummed on the beach all day- and I only had two complaints. One, the waves were brutal and there was a rip tide so we couldn’t do much swimming- secondly, I got an extremely painful pinch/ puncture bite under my big toe that made walking the rest of the day unpleasant ( it actually still hurts a month later- and I found out I stepped on a toadfish that put some barbs in my feet that will be there for a while). I was mostly worried that that night would be my one opportunity for a long time to go dancing with a group of Americans without the watchful eyes of the community on the gringa. Luckily with enough Ibuprofen and beer my foot was mostly numb ( I was reeaally desperate for dancing) and I made it out. It was the most fun I’ve had for a long time with my favorite reaggaeton hits and a great group. It was such a contrast to the northern Inti Rymi circle dancing. Women wear tight as possible, bright as possible, often see through clothes with huge platforms or heels and more make-up than Liza Minnelli. They shake and shimmy everything even making the most basic steps look good. The men have their sunglasses, gelled hair, distressed tight jeans and cologne. It is such a completely opposite, Miami wannabe scene, and only 200 miles or so away from Otavalo.

The next day we saw whales, I got food poisoning, and had to travel home nauseous, again, but this time I kept the vomit in until I walked through the front door and went straight to the bathroom without even saying hi to my family first.

Whenever I feel too sorry for myself, I think about how I got placed in a Peace Corps country that has so much variety and so much to see I’m only going to scratch the surface in two years of vacations. It is not a bad deal.

What is also nice is that I don’t live near any of the touristy places, so I’m never tempted to leave and speak in English, there is nowhere to go. Even the capital of Manabi where I go for mail I’ve never seen another gringo. It forces me to learn Spanish, people know I’m not a tourist so they are nice to me, and then when I get to leave site it is a huge treat. Huge. I went into a bookstore in Quito when I was there for a workshop so beautiful I wanted to go behind the counter and hug the people working there for having such a wonderful store. The kid section literally brought tears to my eyes. I’m already fantasizing about our reconnect conference where I will get to go back there and then sit in a coffee shop with wifi. Sometimes I feel guilty that I live in a Peace Corps country as posh as Ecuador, and I definitely feel guilty that the income gap is so large most people here could never experience their own country like I can (travel to Otavalo or Atacames on a whim, buy a book in a store) but I can only be so hard on myself when I’ve flipped my life upside down like a pancake. Some days you have to take care of yourself so you can be a good volunteer and not a cranky one.

I realize after writing this that if I don’t break everything I want to write about up you all are going to have to read a book on Mariah’s life in June, July and August which is just not very interesting. I’m going to tease out some themes and put them in a couple of different posts. Recap of first months in site to be continued…

Fruta del Pan

Award winning weirdest fruit to date in Peace Corps is here… I thought my neighbors were crazy when they told me to pick these rotten things off the ground instead of picking the green ones from the tree.(The final product is in the below posts).

Fruta del Pan continued

I know what you are thinking… ummm delicious, nothing like rotten grubs off the forest floor.

End Product

So… at the end it looks like a nut but it isn’t. You boil them, peel off the hard shell and surprise! inside is something like a sweet smooth potato. A very time intensive potato, but I love surprises.

2 Months In

Well here is June! That means two months in site done diddly done. I have somewhat of a pace going… and I have done a few things finally so I actually have a little bit to write about.

Productivity wise…

Womens groups- I got my two groups together (Lascano and Las Mercedes) and we talked about having the goal of making things to sell in nearby towns. Later we had a class on hammock making and coming up soon we’ll have a class on how to make cheese and milk from soya. These classes my counterpart is setting up, but I did teach them how to make beads from magazines that look ceramic when rolled up tightly. More recycled art projects to come.

School- I introduced myself to the community at the parent teacher conference and I’m going to start teaching some classes in June, mainly related to starting organic gardens in the school.

Peace Corps Community Assessment Tool-I have started the mandatory interviews and so far they are going well. In the interviews I learn things like what main health concerns are, what environmental problems exist here, and also things like people want to start walking with me because they think I’m lonely when I go running by myself. I skipped explaining that I like alone time because the thought of a walking group is great. I find women here spend a ton of time talking about who is fat, who is skinny, why they are fat, why they are skinny, who is getting fat, what foods make you fat, people that didn’t know they were pregnant they were so fat, diabetes, etc. A little exercise program would probably be pretty popular. I’ll just have to get those runs in early early.

Other- My host mom and I had a party for the kids in town in Lascano for Dia de los Niños. It was so much fun to dance again even with pipsqueeks, especially kids with rhythm coming out of their ears. I would honestly take lessons from some of them. I miss dancing!

Un productivity wise…

We are only allowed to leave our site 2 nights out of the month the first three months, so I’ve only taken one mini vacation. I went to an organic farm where some trainee friends were in a workshop and hung out with them one night, went to the beach for a few hours the next day, and then stayed with another friend in a beautiful beach town complete with fancy coffee shop, a Galapagos tortoise, a boardwalk to run on in the morning, and a huge market. It was a small break but I realized, living way out in the campo makes vacations so exciting. I also feel more grateful for those three months of training because it is so fun to see familiar faces again- nothing like suffering together to make friendships! Being on the beach also made me realize, “Holy shit, I’m in Ecuador!” When I start getting vacation time I am going to see some of the coolest stuff of my life! It is easy to lose perspective in the day to day grind. Not grind, I don’t have some sort of busy routine- it is more of a slog of pushing myself to socialize, plan, organize. Mariah that likes to sit in her room and drink tea, read, draw, watch movies from the 90s, is kicked out the door by a much bossier Mariah that knows if she avoids her community and exercise she’ll be miserable by 4 in the afternoon.

 This month I’m going to visit friends in Otavalo for their big Inti Raymi festival- and I am so ready to talk in English again! And have a beer! And see some cool cultural stuff! And get up cold in the morning and take a hot shower! I’ve also come to love being on the bus with my own music, a book, a breeze, and the feeling that I’m going somewhere. And… I’m hoping for an ego boost on my Spanish. On the coast enunciation and practically the beginning and ends of words are over rated, so when people are talking fast here they might as well be talking in Swahili. I will listen in on a conversation, strain my ears, concentrate as hard as I can, and at the end I think, “Crap. I’ve been in country 5 months and I got nothin.”It is beyond depressing.

Speaking of drepressing, I’m actually surprised at how rarely I’m depressed here. I’ve taken my life and subtracted alcohol, normal young adult social interaction ( speaking in you first language, doing an outdoor activity for example) a lot of my hobbies, public land, mountains, familiar flora and fauna, family, friends, sex, driving, some of my favorite food, anonymity, by all accounts I should be miserable but I’m not. Maybe a little crazier. Never the less I inevitably have my fair share of Debbie Downer days when I just don’t want to interact with anyone, I give up and watch movies like Forest Gump and Lion King, cry at all the sad parts- and start anew the next day. Hopefully nobody ever catches me crying when Mufasa explains to Simba that the stars are his ancestors… talk about embarrassing.

I’m also way more comfortable than I thought I would be in the Peace Corps. Sure sometimes I go running and I come home dripping and the electricity and water are gone when I get back and I have to marinade in my body toxins all day avoiding people who might smell me. I also got an unpleasant surprise one night in my Lascano house when I thought a bird had flown into my room and crashed into the wall. Peeking through my bug net I instead saw a bug as big as a bird with fingers longer than mine, like a blown up cockroach clicking its way toward me. I abandoned my pride and had my host sister in highschool throw it out the window for me. Other than that though I’ve only seen a few small spiders in my room. All in all not too shabby.

The things that make Peace Corps hard are not the missing comforts- It is not being able to understand and communicate without significant effort and still only getting about 50% of what is going on, missing family and friends, and not feeling like you have a purpose. The mind is a much greater weapon here than what is going on in the environment.

That being said I do fantasize about things like making a cup of coffee, putting it in a thermos, and drinking it as I drive somewhere. Not having dog anxiety when I go bike riding. If only my neighbor Rodrigo would not yell at his cows at 5 in the mornings. The bigger things- like a day in Glacier or the Bob Marshal or snowboarding with my favorite people is too ludicrously wonderful to even think about much, like asking for a unicorn for Christmas.

In other news…

The season is changing out of the more humid one to the less humid one. I realized this as I woke up the other morning and thought, jeeze something woke me up, was there a sound outside, do I need to pee? And it hit me, I’m cold, even with a sheet on top of me. I looked at my arms and I even had goosebumps! Since then we’ve been having lovely fresh mornings.

So that is that. The June report. I don’t have much to toot my horn about but I guess I feel good because two months ago I was here with a completely blank slate. Now there are some bright spots on that slate- people I look forward to seeing throughout the week, parts of my routine like going to the Saturday market and eating strawberries till I’m sick, a little knowledge of my surroundings, a little progress in work here, encouragement from other trainees and home, it makes all the difference.

Till next time- Besos!

Mariah

To Las Mercedes

We all graduated us 109ers, and it was actually more meaningful than I thought it would be. At the beginning of training I thought it would be a cute formality, like graduating from kindergarten, but after 3 months that really tested my patience and endurance, it was cool to see how far we had come. It was like our lives got put into pressure cookers- and we made close friends, new families, learned Spanish and a new culture, just like that. We took the military oath to serve our country and I was moved by the commitment we were all making. And I was voted most likely to go to a chonga ( which is a brothel). Backstory: we had a question on our language and culture exam “What is a chonga, and would you go to one?” I didn’t know, but I wanted to write something, so I said- Of course, a chonga is the same thing as a minga which is a community get together to work on something, so of course I would attend and participate. 

After graduation we walked to the nearest tienda with Pilsner, bought a crate, and hauled it back to Ali’s posh corps house. It has a huge balcony- and we spent the evening dancing, drinking, and playing games. I am absolutely cherishing this moment as I type sitting here beneath my mosquito net sweating. On a side note, I think I should just start eating salt straight to keep up with how much I sweat here.

The last night in Tumbaco I spent with my family. I bought them ice cream and Uno as a thank you, which we stayed up late playing. It was really something to feel so at home with people I could hardly talk to a few months ago. I teared up as I tried to explain how much I appreciated being taking under a wing when I had arrived here feeling quite alone and vulnerable.

The Tumbaco exodus was not pretty. I decided that I would pack the night before since I could sleep for twelve hours on the bus the next day. In theory. Of course- rather than getting sick when I would have looovveeedd an excuse to sit in bed and watch movies instead of go to training for 8 hours- I got sick as I was stuffing 140 lbs of luggage into three bags at 1 in the morning. I alternated laying down, puking, and packing until it was time to get on the bus at 6. My host mom didn’t get much sleep either since she kept making me different types of tea to settle my stomach throughout the night.

On the first bus Ali was there to give me a back rub and hold my hair back as I barfed into a grocery sack. The rest of it though I was on my own, being the sad little gringa grossing everyone out with her dry heaving. Luckily one of the people I grossed out was a super loud vendor shouting about Jesus and selling chocolates at the front of our bus until I started to vomit. He hurried up his speech and started passing out his goods soon after. On top of all of this, I arrived in Portoviejo that evening with no food on my stomach, all of my bags, and raced ( I mean waddled) across the terminal to find that I missed the last bus to Las Mercedes. I caught one to the closest town to Las Mercedes, and the driver called a friend of his to take me the rest of the way. He had recognized me from my site visit… and I realized I was no longer in the city- this was pure small town straight out of a country song stuff.

I made it to my wonderful room that my family had fixed up for me, and slept an extremely solid 10 hours, save for 5 minutes I wondered how the hell one begins being a Peace Corps Volunteer.

 

I started my first week by getting out of my house once a day. I went and visited my counterpart- we peeled peanuts. I went with her husband to Portoviejo and bought a bike- brand name Fashion- color orange, it couldn’t be much different from my weightless speedy Cannondale but after a week of fixing flats, adjusting this and that it is ready. I made cinnamon rolls with my sister and took them over to a neighbor and we watched Americas next Top Model and visited for a while. I go running. I went to a community meeting about building a new volley ball/ basketball court in town. I was introduced to every one as the new single volunteer. Of course. This is one thing I’m not sure how to tackle yet, but here the first question people ask is if I’m single- and then start to set me up with their friend, brother, son, ask me if I like dark skinned men etc. I’m not a prude, but I get so embarrassed every time this happens- I just don’t know how you react when you literally just meet someone and they start teasing you, telling you dirty jokes, and asking personal questions.

No matter how small all of these activities seem- they make my days go really fast and every positive interaction feels like a big victory. Of course on the flip side there are a lot of miscommunications that make me feel really dumb, but not too many. The bad days are the ones I stay inside and don’t go out to see people. I start thinking about home and I get depressed, so I’m on the every day do one thing train. It is working! I’ve been here two weeks now and it has flown by. Already Tumbaco seems like a far away memory, and that last winter in Montana might as well have happened years ago. Changing realities plays tricks with time.

So the coast is different from the Sierra. I’ve noticed it is completely acceptable for men to cool themselves off by lifting their shirts above their gut and holding it there for 10-15 minutes. In general people are just a lot more laid back and less worried about outward appearances than they are in the mountains. I was also surprised that there are so many horses, rodeos, cowboy culture in general here. Especially in Lascano I see more horses and burros and mules in the streets than trucks or motos. In terms of wildlife I saw an iguana casually climbing a tree, smoothly and gracefully as it lifted its head up and down over and over again. I stared at it, but the people I was with looked at it the way I look at deer and didn’t even give it a second glance. Every day I see a new bird or butterfly, and to my horror, while on the Fashion I spied a tarantula so f***ing big I could see the inch long hairs on its legs from my bike. It was somewhere between the size of my hand and my face. I think I tucked in my mosquito net a little tighter that night… though I have yet to see anything unpleasant in the house. Sure it is pretty hot and humid but it is only unbearable midday when the sun is out. At these times I take a nap after lunch ( more like a heat induced coma) and then jump in the cold shower a couple times. All of the seafood I’ve had here has been excellent… but when people told me they eat 2 cups of white rice three times a day, they literally do. My family in Las Mercedes is a little different because they have had a lot of volunteers and have foreigner friends so they know that this isn’t normal for me and let me choose how much I want. The family in Lascano on the other hand asked me over a breakfast of steak ,pig skin, and rice why people didn’t eat rice with every meal in the US. As I could feel my arteries clogging, I tried to think of a polite answer that wasn’t… Um it doesn’t have nutrition, taste, and makes you look pregnant. Calming the ever vigilant health conscious nazi that comes out in me when I’m stressed,I said I just thought it was a different cultural preference.

One thing I really like about new life is that it is the first time since those summers in highschool where I haven’t had that much to do. I can read to my hearts content. I started with Game of Thrones for fun. I’ve been living for a long time with my hours scheduled out for work, exercise, and errands every day, but now I just have one or two things I need to do daily.

In addition to living in Las Mercedes I also go to Lascano on Thursdays and Fridays which is two hours on foot and an hour on the Fashion. They think I’m crazy for walking and biking here, I think their crazy because it is a beautiful ride. Lascano is quite a bit bigger so there are soccer games to be played at night and more people to meet and talk to. I’m trying my damndest to remember about 30 kids’ names right now. My family here has a restaurant so I’ve been washing dishes and helping cook. Also just like back in high school…

I’m just taking things a day at a time, trying not to think about how much time I have ahead of me, enjoying the little things- like when my Lascano mom and I walked on a dirt path in the evening for ½ an hour to the grandmothers house and had real coffee, butter, cheese, soup, and maduro platanos that all came out of the yard while we sat on the porch and listened to the rain pitter pattering on the roof. If anything exciting ever happens, or I ever accomplish anything I’ll let you know but until then I think I will be visiting, reading, watching things on my hard drive, running, riding the Fashion, and that is about it. Wish me luck.

 

Mini Vacation

We had one weekend that we could spend not at our host family’s house… and it was the most fun I’ve had in so long. Pure- non supervised non regulated fun. We strolled through the historic Distric of Quito and I thought I had entered a European portal. We climbed the scary ladder steps to the top of the Basilica and got a beautiful view of the city. We got a beer whenever we felt like it. We stayed in a cute hostel with lots of staircases and book cases and a balcony dining room / bar and an open fire pit. Then the next day we hiked Ruminhaui which sits right in front of Cotopaxi.

The altitude made it slow going but it was gorgeous. Beneath us was a green delta- looking grassland, behind us the glaciers of Cotopaxi peeking through the clouds, in front of us the black rocky walls of Ruminahui, and I saw some relatives of Indian Paintbrush and Lupine in the grasses as we walked. We were not up at the top for long, it started to sleet, but just long enough to get that wonderful high one feels from the perspective of a mountain top looking out. Or maybe the thin air was getting to me, but I felt complete, and normal, and at home for a few moments.

Driving back to Quito I felt angry. I didn’t want to go back to Tumbaco for another week of now pointless training, and I wasn’t looking forward to getting split up from my other volunteer friends and Tumbaco family at the end of it. Also our trip reminded me that three months ago I used to be free. I would go on a mountain adventure every weekend with friends. We could camp out, build a fire, jump in the lake, or bring snowboards, or climbing gear, and stop by the brewery on the way home. Whatever the hell we wanted. Or I could go out on my own, which would never be an option here.

Deep breath. Yeah my life was wonderful back in Montana, but I didn’t sign up for the Peace Corps to have fun. I was looking for some meaningful character building, to do something constructive for a change, and I think that is what I will get. I am on a once in a lifetime opportunity, and as annoying as the Peace Corps can be in terms of fun squashing they have provided the structure for this to be possible so I’ll stop complaining. Once this is over however- I’m going to the northwestern United States and sticking some roots in the ground so I can live in those pine forests till I die.