Trips

It has been a while since I´ve been able to update this blog (or even check my e-mail) because for the last couple of weeks I have been pretty busy. I had the eight day site visit to La Libertad (L.L.) and then two days later, we went in groups on a ten day Technical Trip. There is a lot to talk about from these two trips, so this post is going to be long...bare with me.

First, I found out from my Mom right before my site visit that my Cousin Dale passed away. He was only 36 and died from a blot clot. I was shocked when I heard this. I never deluded myself that I would be able to be away from home for two years without anything bad happening, but I never thought it would be to someone so young. This is the hardest part of the PC experience, being away from friends/family during hard times. Dale will be missed.

As for my trips, they both went well. I was nervous before my trip to L.L. because I didn´t want to give my new neighbors a bad impression. I think that everything went as good as possible given my limited Spanish. I arrived with the current PCV who is living in my site, Mike. He showed me the house he is living in now and that I will move into at the end of the month and introduced me to the family that owns the house. It is actually a kind of compound with the family's three houses surrounding an open area. Two sisters live in the houses next to mine with a third sister living nearby. The third house in the compound is solely for me. My house is great. It has four rooms (bedroom, bath, living room, and kitchen). The bathroom is about two years old as the family added it on when Mike moved in. The bathroom is nicer than some of the bathrooms that I had in Chicago. I have a hot water heater that runs to the shower, sink, and kitchen. This is huge because most of the other PCVs have to take cold showers or boil water and take bucket baths.

Mike has the place set-up, but he is moving to Quito to work in the PC office and is taking everything with him. I get some money for a settling-in allowance, so I´ll get to set things up the way I want to. I think I´m going to turn the living room into a work-out room. I´ll have to make all the equipment and weights myself, but it will give me something to do in the evenings.

The only problem with the house is that it wasn´t built for a 6 foot 2 man. The door to get into the house only goes up to the tip of my nose, and the ceiling is about one inch too short in some places. I can stand in the bathroom (it is sunken) and the kitchen, but to get through the jams between the rooms is going to be an adventure. I foresee a lot of busted foreheads and broken light fixtures in my future.

I didn´t have a lot of time to hang out with the family, but they seem very nice. Mike likes them a ton. They have a couple of young kids who are always running around and a son who is about 11 who I´m going to teach how to play baseball (I need to get him a glove in Quito before I get there so we can toss the pill around after dinner).

The town of L.L. is pretty small and on the cold side. March is during the rainy season, so we got rain everyday. When the sun came out, it got pretty warm, but as soon as it went behind the ever present clouds, the temp quickly dropped. At night it was especially cold. I slept with my socks, warm-up pants, and sweater on and three blankets and was still cold. I´m definitely going to need an electric blanket.

There are a couple of stores in town that sell the basics, so I´ll have that for emergencies. Otherwise I can take a 1/2 hour bus ride to the nearest town, Machachi, to shop in the supermarket, farmer´s market, or other stores that will have pretty much anything else I could need. I´ll probably head to Machachi at least once a week. Quito is a little under two hours away, so heading there for special stuff won´t be a big problem either. Also, L.L. has good cell phone reception. I get a PC issued cell when I swear-in on April 20th, so y´all will be able to call me whenever you want to catch-up.

The one really cool thing about L.L. is that is is between a couple of mountains. When the clouds were light (once during the week), you can see the Ilinizas range, El Corazón, and Cotapaxi (the second or third tallest active volcano in the world, depending on your definition). The view is amazing.

I will have a lot of work to do in L.L. once I get settled and a little stronger with my Spanish. The irrigation system needs some work and there is talk of constructing some reservoirs for the dry season. The community bank is strong, and I hope to work with individual loan recipients on projects. Also, onions are one of the only products that are grown around the town, so I´m going to try and help with crop diversification and possibly value added products derived from onion (can you say dry soup mix). There are a bunch of other things going on, so I´ll definitely be busy. To start off, twice a week I´m going to teach English to 6th and 7th graders. I think they will actually be teaching me Spanish, but oh well, it´ll be fun.

The main group that I´ll be working with is the women's group that runs the bank. They are a great bunch of ladies and when the found out that my Birthday was on the Saturday of my visit, ("when is your Birthday" was the second question they asked), they decide to have a party. It was fun. Cake, beer, and party games what else could a 29 year old ask for.

The day after the party I had to head back to my CBT site, but I am excited to return to L.L. and get going with my work.

The two days between the trips were spent getting stuff ready and doing laundry. Not so exciting.

The 41 of us left on Omnibus 97 (2 more quit after the site visit. Bring the total to 5) were split into 5 groups for the Tech Trip. I´m in the Sierra-Ag group with 8 others. We spent the first day of the trip at an Organic farm outside of Quito. It was a beautiful farm. The guy that ran it, Don Pancho, spoke perfect English. He gave us a tour and a background of Ecuadorian agricultural practices. He blamed a lot of the problems of Ecuador today on Chemical companies taking advantage of the peasants after the Agricultural revolution of the ´60s. He really HATED chemical usage and chemical companies in general. Later he asked us what we studied in college. I tried to avoid the question, but finally had to say Chemical Engineering. He was surprised, but not to pissed. Actually, he had me explain a couple chemical processes to the group. It felt good to use Thermodynamics for a change. I have to admit that I didn´t really agree with a lot of what Don Pancho was saying, but it was still interesting.

The next day we went to a tree nursery. It was nice, but I started to feel bad. I had some stomach problems and sadly most of my energy was focused on not crapping my pants. I didn´t get a lot out of that day. The next was worse though and I actually puked for the first time in a while in the middle of and organic fruit farm. I was able to get away from the group so nobody saw. I felt better after that, but still have some GI probs even today.

We spent most of the rest of the trip in Riobamba at a nice Hotel. It was good to be in a city for a change. We ate at nice restaurants every night and I took a lot of long hot showers. The best thing about being in Riobamba was that we had ESPN. I was able to watch the Final Four and the Cards opening day game. It would have been better if STL won, but I´ll take what I can get. I also saw the Cards third game (another loss). I have the 29th marked on my calender because they are showing the Cards/Cubs game here. Now I just have to find a place to watch it. On the subject of the Cardinals, there was a hat shop in Riobamba that had a Cards hat that I bought for $3. I got a Guinness hat too. The funny thing was that as I looked around, I saw a hat that said "Sachs Electric" and "St. Louis, MO" on the back. I have no idea why a Chinese run knock-off hat shop in Riobamba, Ecuador would have a Sachs Electric hat. Small World!

To finish the trip, we went to a couple of local markets, a fruit drying project, another organic farm, and a couple of days in an indigenous village. Overall it was a good trip. I did get to see something crazy for the first time. As we were riding the bus back from the fruit farm, I looked to the right and "Holy Shit", there was a volcano in the distance erupting a huge plume of smoke. I asked to Tech Trainer next to me what we had to do. He just said, "It has been doing that for a couple of years". That was my first view of Tungurahua. I guess you get used to it. The wind did change one day and covered the streets with ash. I was busy watching Opening Day, so I missed that.

We got back from the trip last night (one day early). I´m glad we came back early so we could see Good Friday in Cangahua. For dinner I had a traditional Good Friday dish called Fanesca. It is a tasty chowder with fish and a bunch of grains and beans. After that they had a procession through town with a cross, music, and huge representations of Saints. I was exactly like the parade in Godfather II that goes on when Vito kills The Black Hand. Tonight they are having a big fiesta at the town hall, so I´m going to have to dance and drink wine all night...a tough life.

We are getting to the end of training now. One more week in Cangahua then a week in Quito, and it´s off to L.L. This really has flown by. I have another language test on Friday this week where I have to get a five out of ten. I think I should be OK, we´ll see. Other than that this week is just getting or training activities finished and stuff ready for Quito. I´ll have time next week to jump back on the computer, so I´ll let you know then how Easter is in Ecuador and how the test went.

Until then, take ´er easy!

Jay