Believe it or not, Jay isn´t at home!

Starting with Halloween, I decided that my goal for my last two and a half months in La Libertad was to spend as little time as possible IN La Libertad. That sounds like a horrible thing to say, but I really don´t have enough time to get anything major started here and I'd rather focus my time and energy on the gardens we have already started. Halloween, my friends´ visit, Mama Negra (twice), Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year´s Eve, meetings, and other short trips will keep me out of L.L. most weekends until I start working in Quito on January 19th.

The day that Susan, Kari, Nate, and Scott left Quito, I ran the Mitad del Mundo Media Marathon (Middle of the World Half Marathon) in Quito. The race started near the Peace Corps office and ended at the Equator. That combined with the fact that the race´s starting line was over 9,500 feet in elevation made it an interesting race. (You may notice that I didn´t mention my finishing time...there is a reason for that)

Thanksgiving was at a friend´s house in El Chaco (the same place we had the Halloween party). There were ten of us and the food was great.

I went to the rescheduled Mama Negra after Thanksgiving. It wasn´t as fun as last year, but at least I successfully avoided getting pulled out into the parade while a group of men danced around spitting booze on me (see post: Mama Negra).

St. Nick came again to my neighbors´ kids. They remembered the tradition from last year, but I still couldn´t convince them that it wasn´t me putting candy in their shoes.

Last week I went out with six other PCVs to another Volunteer´s site in the Transisitional Zone (the area between the Sierra and the Coast). We were celebrating two of my friends´ birthdays, so we had a little party on Sunday night. On Monday we got up at 5:45 AM to help out with a census the government is taking. We spent the morning and afternoon sorting papers and then filling them out with the information from individuals in a community called El Paraíso, The Paradise.

It was interesting to see how another community lives, but I had a small problem that day. I had slept on the floor the night before and when I went to put on my jeans in the morning, I noticed a bunch of bug bites on my legs. My body not being used to bug bites, went crazy. Three of the bites looked bad, and one formed a huge blister. PCVs are pretty used to seeing gross stuff, so I got a little concerned when everyone saw the blisters and said, "Wow!!". Fortunately, some Hydrocortisone and Antibiotic creams helped. Although I still have some red splotches on my legs, the blisters are gone.

Enough of my fun, I´ve been working too. We´ve been transplanting the gardens that we planted in October and its been going well. I´ve been able to show the parents what to do, and since the plants are growing well, they believe now that I actually know what I´m talking about.Since we usually have a ton of plants, we are able to transplant a lot at the schools and still have a bunch to give to the parents to take home. They can transplant near their houses to start gardens to feed their families. We surpassed our goal of gardens planted (14) and have given away thousands of plants to the parents that we´ve trained. I feel like I accomplished something (albeit something very small) with this project. With the schools being on vacation from December 19th to Jaunuary 5th, I only have two weeks left to work on the gardens. I´m pretty sure we´ll get it all done, but if not, John will be able to get the rest. Also, I´m going to pass along the project to the next PCV in La Libertad to continue if they want to.

My fish came with a head!

Hey all,

Last week, four friends from the US came down for a visit. We had a great time, and I want to thank Susan, Kari, Scott, and Nate for everything. I get so caught up with my work and the frustrations of living in a foreign country that I often forget how lucky I am to be here. Showing them around and seeing how they reacted to what has become a "normal life" for me was a fun and needed refresher. Anyway, enough with my babble. The rest of this post was written by my friend Kari...

I knew the minute Jay was accepted to the Peace Corps, Scott and I would definitely pay him a visit wherever he was going to be placed (apparently also assuming we would be invited :) When we found out he was going to be in Ecuador, I had no idea what to expect. This was probably a good thing as visiting a Peace Corps volunteer and visiting a country are definitely two different adventures. I would love to say Nate, Susan, Scott and I saw Ecuador through Jay’s eyes, but even that would be a stretch—a glimpse is what we got—a tiny, miniscule glimpse of life in this beautiful country.

We saw a market full of unfamiliar fruits and veggies, a sampling Jay would prepare for us in the morning which served as the catalyst for Nate’s incessant quest for Tomate De Arbol juice for the rest of the trip. “Fresh” was also newly defined for me as Susan nudged me at the market and pointed to a man walking by carrying his dinner (whatever it was, it was already skinned and waiting to be fried). We saw fifteen Ecuadorian women lined up to sell fried plantains and we listened to Jay as he told us of the time he tried to buy two potatoes. Apparently, one cannot purchase anything less than the 25 lb bag—no matter what the price. If the market doesn’t have what one is looking for, Jay showed us what his recourse was—planting everything himself. In fact, the entire salad that Jay made for dinner that evening was pulled right from his own garden!

We ate some wonderful dishes including fresh seafood on the coast. Excited to try some of the fish, I ordered the fresh tilapia only to find it presented to me in its entirety—from the head to the tail. Before I could faint, scream or fall into a state of shock, Scott quickly removed it from my plate only to have Jay reach over, grab it and suck everything out of it—eyes and all! Nothing is wasted in this country and I admire them for that (not enough though to begin eating fish heads.)

Along with the fresh fish, the Ecuadorian coast greeted us with plenty of pineapple drinks, fresh roasted coffee and a secret path to a black sand beach (about a 10 minute walk :). The scenery was as breathtaking as the waves were refreshing.

We traveled throughout the country by bus. Climbing through the mountains and descending toward the coast, we were kept on alert by a cacophony of Spanish discotheque tunes. There was no need to worry about finding a place to eat while on the road because the townspeople would jump on the bus as it slowed in order to sell fresh pastries, chocolates and chips. Sales were not impeded by a crowded bus either—somehow salesmen found a way to squeeze through the aisle. It was as if that one yogurt-pop sale was the most important of the day—talk about dedication to one’s work.

The five of us lived in very close quarters for the duration of our trip and adjusting to the shared bathrooms and cold showers really reminded us how much we take modern conveniences for granted. Even the preparations for the trip taught me this as I trekked down to the travel clinic for Typhoid Fever and Hep A shots. Those along with the malaria pills and mosquito nets we slept under made me nervous—nervous about diseases that I don’t even think twice about now—diseases that kill over one million people each year. According to the World Health Organization a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds. I couldn’t get over thinking about how sheltered and disconnected from the world I am.

The Ecuadorian people were wonderful and from the little time I spent here, I thought they seemed genuinely happy. They were kind, the children were full of hope and they truly seemed to be living life in the moment. Jay is doing some incredible work down there with the Ag program and community gardens, but I think the most impressive thing about him is that his goal isn’t just to “help” but to effect change by creating something sustainable. Since this can only be measured over the long term, I imagine the day to day tasks can be quite daunting; however, Jay does them successfully and was able to share many of his insights with us; for this I’m grateful.

Someone told me once that “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” I’m not sure who originally said this, but it was an eye-opening trip full of firsts and I am so glad I was able to see Jay and this miniscule glimpse of his life.

Hail, Proust, Cows, and other things that can ruin your day

Unfortunately, this week has consisted of one small annoyance after another (sprinkled with good news). First, classes were cancelled on Monday and Tuesday of the week because of an Ecuadorian holiday, so I had some time to get caught up on some chores on Monday. Monday night, my friend John called me up and asked if I wanted to climb El Corazón (15,700 feet) on Tuesday since we were free. It seemed like a good time to finally do it, so I left my house at 8:00AM on Tuesday, met up with John in El Chaupi, and we started to climb. Most of the way we followed a road, but then we had to follow a ridgeline covered with tall grass and spongy mounds of high Andean plants. The “real” climb started around 1:00PM when we left the grassy part of the mountain and started to climb the bare-rock trail. The weather was cloudy, but we were determined to get to the top. After seven hours of climbing, we made it to the top. The view was….of nothing but clouds. We couldn’t see anything, and to top it off, it started to hail. We hightailed it back down about 100 meters, and the miraculously the clouds blew away and we got a great view of Machachi, El Chaupi, La Libertad, and the valley around my house. Then the clouds rolled back in and we had to walk another four hours soaked and pelted by sleet, but it was worth it.

I think I’ve reached Critical Mass on the amount of damage I’ve done to all my worldly possessions, because everything is starting to just fall apart. My backpack, sleeping bag, jeans, all my shoes, camera, radio, CD player, cell phone, and every one of my embarrassingly “holy” socks are all in some state of disrepair (if not completely broken). I guess that shows that I’m really living the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer. The latest thing to go was my new iPod. I’ve been using it as an external hard drive and I think that hooking it up to my neighbor’s computer filled it with viruses. I grabbed some stuff of a friend’s computer the other day, and his anti-virus software deleted a bunch of infected files before I could stop it. It looks like some of the deleted files are necessary for it to run, because I can only get one song to play…ABBA’s Dancing Queen. Talk about worthless. This shouldn’t be a long-term problem because on Thanksgiving I’ll see a friend of mine who said he’d let me download a new copy of iTunes and all his music. Keep your fingers crossed!

Nine months ago I had planted some Broccoli by my house. Normally it takes about 3-4 months to harvest, but the cold really stunts growth up here, so the first ones weren’t ready until after seven months. I harvested all but two of them which were still very small and I didn’t think would produce. To help these two, I fertilized them a lot, and they started to form heads. They were almost ready this week and I had planned to serve them to my friends who are coming to visit (more on them later). After NINE months, FOUR days before I was going to harvest them, my old neighbor tied up her cow next to the broccolis and it ate them. I’d be upset, but stuff like that happens so often that you just have to throw up your hands.

The good news this week was that I went to check out one of the school gardens that we planted in October. Everything was growing well and they had already harvested most of the radishes for the kids’ lunches. We set up a date for the parents to come back and then we’ll show them how to transplant the plants into different beds at the school and also give them plants to take home. This is where the real goal of the gardens is accomplished. If the parents can see that they can grow more than corn/potatoes/ onions, it will make them more likely to continue with the gardens in their own houses after I’m gone. Any extra vitamins in their kids’ diet will make a huge improvement. If this first garden is an indication, I’ll be busy setting-up work dates, transplanting, and showing the parents how to do the whole process on their own land for the next month. Hopefully it works out like this and the time before I start working on training will fly by (and be the most productive period of my service).

Also, my neighbors just bought a pick-up truck. It is a 2001 and has over 100,000 miles on it, but they are proud. Sara doesn’t know how to drive a stick, so I told her I’d show her how…this should be interesting.

This week I finished the longest book I’ve ever read, Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. Where to begin? Remembrance of Things Past is over 2,200 pages, and nothing really interesting happens. It basically consists of a guy talking about French society of the late 19th and early 20th century. It has been called the “Major novel of the 20th century”, and Steve Carrell’s character in Little Miss Sunshine calls Proust the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Maybe, but I thought it was wretched. At least I read the whole thing, so I can say that with authority. The funny thing is that the copy I had was signed on the cover “Marjorie Harden – 1941”. As I was reading the second volume, I started to have to separate many of the pages in order to read them. They weren’t stuck together with gum or jelly. When the book was printed, the bottoms of those pages were never cut apart. Therefore, in the 67 years since Ms. Harden signed it, NOBODY had read the book!!! I don’t care how smart a critic you are, great literature has one requirement…people must read it.

Finally, I mentioned that I was going to have visitors. My friends Kari, Susan, Nate, and Scott are coming down from Chicago for a week. It is going to be fun showing them around. The next post will hopefully detail their trip in their own words.

Change is Good?

First off, congratulations to everyone who voted last week. It’s good to see Democracy at work. Although I didn’t vote for Obama, it has been interesting to observe the reaction from Ecuadorian citizens and the Press. The day after the election, everyone I know was asking me about the first “Presidente Negro”. I told them that I didn’t vote for him, and they asked why. I told them that I thought he would raise taxes and that I always voted for Republicans. I think they just thought that I didn’t want a black President. This country is about as racist as you can get (they refer to people from the coast, where most Afro-Ecuatorianos live, as Monos, or monkeys), so I think that they feel that we should be the same. The Press talked a lot about how “historic” our election was and that a lot of things will change. They never elaborated on what would change though…I guess they bought into the hype as well.

I was with a friend the other day and we ate lunch at a restaurant run by an Afro-Ecuatoriano. We asked him how he felt about a black President. He just said that he thought that Obama would help poor people in Ecuador. I know that all Presidents have a tough job, but putting Ecuador’s problems on his shoulders as well, may be a bit too much.

My boss came to visit La Libertad this week. The purpose of his visit was to confirm that we would be getting a new PCV after I left. I had told him already that I didn’t think that they really needed a new volunteer here. I’ve had to leave L.L. to find a lot of my work, and the people haven’t been very receptive to some of the changes I thought they should make if they wanted to improve, so I was worried about what a new PCV would do. The people here wanted another volunteer here very badly though, mostly I think that they want a new PCV because they have had one for so long. They’re not receptive to change, so they want to keep their PCV status quo.

My boss wanted to put another PCV here because (this is just speculation on my part) he needs to find sites for 21 new PCVs before the end of April. Putting another PCV here in L.L. makes his job that much easier. Since my boss and the whole community wanted to put a volunteer here, I kept my mouth shut. In the back of my mind, I thought that maybe the problem was more with me than the community. Maybe a new PCV would find all kinds of work that I never got involved in. Then I remembered that Mike, the PCV before me, had similar problems.

It’s going to be hard training the new group of volunteers and then telling one of them that they are going to live here. Hopefully I’ll be able to make sure that the new PCV likes to work with children because there are a ton of opportunities here to work with kids and adolescents.

The Halloween party last week was a blast. One interesting thing was that like last year there appeared to be an unplanned general theme among the costumes. Last year, there were about 10 guys in drag (I was not one of them). This year there was a very religious feeling. There were two guys dressed like Jesus, one dressed like Biff, Jesus´ best friend (To get the reference, you have to read the book Lamb), some Mormon and Evangelical missionaries, a couple witches, an angel, a devil, a nun, the Virgin Mary, and one very handsome Priest.

Finally, Mama Negra, the biggest parade and party of the year in Latacunga was scheduled on the 8th of November. Unfortunately, two nights before the parade a 13 year old was killed at one of the pre-parties. It is still unknown exactly what happened. What is known is that a firework exploded and hit the kid in the head. Some say it was an accident and others say it was done on purpose by a rival high school. Either way, the parade and party were cancelled by the head of the Province for the next three years because of security concerns. The people in Latacunga were upset about the decision, and I can’t blame them. A lot of people had bought food and beer to sell to the thousands of tourists who would come to the party. This has to be a big income generator for the town and surrounding communities, not to mention a great time. It would be like cancelling the 4th of July on July 3rd.

(NOTE: As I write this, I was just informed that the party has been rescheduled for November 29th)

Be Afraid (Of Ghosts, Not Barack) !!

Voting in a foreign country turned out to be a bit more complicated than I had hoped. Unfortunately, the State of Missouri is not the most technically advanced State in the Union (Surprising, I know!) A bunch of my friends were able to order their absentee ballots on line, receive them as a PDF, vote, sign the ballot, and then just mail it in. I had to print out a form and then mail it to the Board of Elections. I had hoped that they would only require a signature, so I had the ballot mailed to my parent´s house for them to complete. So much for planning, Missouri requires all absentee ballots to be co-signed by a Notary Public or other official authorized to administer oaths. Therefore, my Parent´s had to mail the ballot to me to get the appropriate signature. I thought that someone in the Peace Corps office would be able to do this, but nobody is so authorized. I looked for an American Notary in Quito, but without luck. I had to have one of my friends scribble a crazy signature where the co-signer was supposed to sign, hopefully this will work.

While I was in the office committing voter fraud, I turned in a ballot from one of my friends who I knew who had voted for Obama. I have to admit that I was tempted to tell him that I turned his ballot in and then throw it away. While I was thinking, I had a moment like in a cartoon. Karl Rove dressed like a devil appeared on one of my shoulders. He whispered in my ear, “Pitch it! He´ll never know”. Then Dick Cheney popped on the other shoulder dressed like an angel. “That would be a disservice to Democracy, Jay. You know better than that”, he said. I turned the ballot in…thank you Mr. Vice President.

With Halloween approaching, I thought I´d retell a story I recently heard. It is about the Hacienda where I had lunch with the new Ambassador (Post: Make Cotton Soff – In Word) you can also see the website at http://www.yourghoststories.com/real-ghost-story.php?story=3692

"La Cienega" is a Spaniard hacienda built on the province of Cotopaxi-Ecuador. Two hundred years ago this hacienda served as home of Spaniard conquerors, they had thousands of indigenous people working on huge fields.

These haciendas were the heart of the economics in that time. Now, this hacienda is a touristic site, because is a building which has history. This hacienda has not been remodeled or modified it has been kept the same way as it was two hundred years ago. The hacienda works as an inn, and has the name of "la cienega".

It was late October; I went to the cienega to spend a weekend outside the city. My younger sister and brother were scared because they knew this place was supposed to be haunted.
There is a legend which says, that the Africans and indigenous people who worked on this hacienda suffered everyday, they were slaves, and working schedules were so harsh, most of the slaves died in the middle of the task. And their bodies were buried in the fields.
It was Saturday in the night, after we at dinner in the hacienda restaurant, my parents went ahead to their room with my sister. Five minutes later, I went with my brother. As we were walking through a hallway, my brother just fell to the ground, he said he felt something grasping his foot.

There was no one, and there were no doors on that hallway, from which, a prankster could play a joke. I felt cold, and seen. I continued to walk very fast to our room. That midnight my brother woke up screaming because he said that he felt that someone was pulling his feet. I calmed him for a couple of minutes, and took him to my parent's room. I returned to my room.

I went to the bathroom to pick up a bottle of water because I was thirsty, when I stared at the mirror. At my side I saw a face, the face was ugly and seemed to be rotting, and I simply fainted. I woke up at nine o clock. I checked my arms and they had scratches, as like those of a cat, but instead, these were only two lines in each arm. I was freaked out.

That next day I talked to a staff member and told him of what happened the other night. For my surprise, he simply told me that these kinds of experiences are weird. Although, that hacienda has a certain reputation of haunted.

A week later, I learned that this place gets its name "la cienega" from the translation from the Spanish, what means is "the swamp" because the Spaniards not only buried corpses on the ground, but mainly on a nearby swamp, which is about a five miles from the main house (where the inn works). And local people say that the spirits which inhabit the hacienda are enraged spirits who seek vengeance from their cruel masters.

I have to admit that I don´t believe in ghosts and didn´t feel anything crawling up my neck while we were walking around the Hacienda´s grounds, but it is still pretty interesting.
Speaking of Halloween, I hope you all have a good one. I´ll be leaving La Libertad this Friday and heading out to my friend´s site, El Chaco. I´ve been there twice before, and it is nice and the weather is hot. About 70 volunteers from all over the country are heading there for a big Halloween bash and the next day we are going to have a rafting contest down the Quijos River. It should be fun, and after the last couple of weeks, it will be a nice break from planting gardens every other day.

Speaking of gardens, John and I planted our 12th one this week. That was our target number when we started the project so I´m pretty happy. We have two more lined up next month and then hopefully we will start transplanting. The next big hurdle will be getting the parents to plant gardens in the own yards. We´ve taught them the techniques, now it is up to them (with a little prodding from us).

What it is like to bathe once a week

Towards the middle of last month, the water pressure in my part of town dropped significantly. There was still enough water coming out for us to cook with and even enough to shower with, but the pressure was not high enough for my hot water heater to work. The sensors in the heater weren’t tripping when I turned the water on, so I couldn´t get any hot water. This was a pretty big problem for me since it has been cold and rainy lately. I tried to take a cold shower one night, and I barely got my head wet before I ran out of curse words to yell. Instead, I used my neighbor´s shower which still worked. The problem with theirs was that it would run for about 10 seconds and the hot water would cut out. Then I´d have to shut the water off, let the heater reset, and try again. I ended up getting semi-clean, but it took a while and I ended up colder than I started. Since it was such a pain to shower, I ended up taking one shower a week for about the last month. I smelled pretty bad some days, but that´s life. I was contemplating “re-wiring” the heater Tim Allen style. I figured I could hook the gas up directly to the burners and light it with a match. This may have worked, but more likely it would have just blown up and killed me.

Fortunately, the head of the water committee spent a couple hours this week digging up a stretch of tubing and fixed the problem. I took a shower on three consecutive days…ah, the simple pleasures of the poor.

Another problem that I´ve failed to mention is that my camera broke (I say mine, but it really was my brother´s). It had been acting up for a while, and I knew it was a matter of time. The humidity here is so bad that pretty much everything breaks sooner or later. Some days I´d have to set the camera outside in the sun before I could take a picture because the inside of the lenses were all fogged up. That´s is why I haven´t had many pictures in the last month´s posts. I thought about getting a new camera, but I would end up just breaking that one too. Also, I´ve decided that taking pictures makes me look even more like a tourist, so not having the camera helps a little.

I talked to my boss the other day about the project proposal that I recently submitted. He said that the proposal was well written, and there were only a few things that I needed to modify. Then we started talking about some of the concerns that I had. He said that the profit margin on projects like ours was shrinking because the price of feed was going up. I told him that I didn´t think the ladies understood the risks and amount of work that was involved. He then asked about the other activities that the ladies were currently doing. I told him, truthfully, that all the ladies are busy constantly now and think that they can add the chickens without a problem. He said that they would need to drop all their other work to be approved, which they won´t do. That put an end to the conversation and to our project as well. I´m actually happy that it ended this way because I think doing anything with the ladies in my town would have turned into a disaster.

I was not looking forward to telling my neighbors and “friends” that I had accepted the job helping with training and was going to be leaving La Libertad earlier than I had planned. I finally had an opportunity to talk to my neighbors, Sara and Carlos, alone this week. We were driving to pick up some onions and a told them my plans. Carlos didn´t say anything, and Sara just said, “So, does this mean we are going to get a new volunteer earlier?” I had expected them to be upset that I was leaving, or at least kid me about wanting to live in the city. I was glad to see that in my 18 months here I made such a deep impression on them that they are more concerned with the next guy than me. Maybe this has something to do with them getting attached to Mike and then him treating them like shit and never visiting. Hopefully I´ll be able to break them of those feelings.

Speaking of the next guy, now is the time when we have to apply for a new PCV. I´ve talked to a couple of people about it, and I´m trying to talk them out of the idea. I´d feel sorry for the poor bastard that has to live here after me. In order to get anything accomplished, I´ve had to leave town. That´s not the way that it should work, so I´ve told them that if they want another PCV, they have to have concrete ideas of what they would do (I wish the previous guy had done that!). We´ll see what they come up with.

Two Small Failures & One Big Success

A couple of weeks ago one of my friends sent me a text message about climbing one of the big Ecuadorian mountains (Cotopaxi, Chimborazo, or Cayambe). Since you need a guide, equipment, and a couple hundred bucks to climb the big guys, I really don´t want to. The way the weather is down here, you are more than likely to get to the top and not be able to see 10 feet in front of your face. Instead, I suggested that we climb the Ilinizas which are easier to do and don´t cost anything. My friend liked the idea, and what started out as two or three people hiking turned into eleven of us.

We spent the night at a hostel in the town near me and woke up the next day at 5:30. The weather was bad the night before, but it looked like it was going to clear up. Unfortunately, it got worse as we climbed. About half-way to the refuge (which itself is about half-way up the mountain) it started to snow. We hiked another hour or so up the trail in the snow and wind. It was nice to see a little different weather, but once we got to the refuge, it was clear that we had to turn around.

Of course, the next day the weather was better, but that´s they way it goes.

It was nice to see everyone, and five of the volunteers from my group got to see my site for the first time. A couple people mentioned that if they were stuck in La Libertad, they wouldn´t have been able to take the cold and the rain and probably would have quit. That strikes me as funny because one of the girls who said that lives in the jungle and her entire town is infested with rats. I know for sure that I couldn´t have lived there. I think we all are able to adapt to whatever difficulties that we have, but think that we couldn´t deal with someone else´s situation…the grass is always browner on the other side!

Another nice thing about the visit was that one of the girls who came is an expert in yogurt manufacture. I organized a workshop for the ladies in my town to learn what we need to do. I invited around 15 women to come to my house the day before our hike, but when we were supposed to start, only 2 showed up. We still did some stuff, but it definitely was a lost opportunity.

So, those are the two failures, now for the success. A couple of weeks ago, I applied for a job with the Peace Corps office. The position is called “PCV Co-Trainer” and this week my boss called and told me that I got the job. Basically, two volunteers are chosen from each program to help with the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the training of each new Omnibus. As of January 19th, I will be leaving La Libertad to work in Quito and the training site (I don´t know exactly where this will be, but it has been in Cayambe for the last couple years). I very excited about the opportunity and it is going to be a huge lifestyle change. Not only will I be working in cities, but I´ll also be in a lot of meetings, I´ll have more specific responsibilities, and I´ll be living with at least three other Americans (the other Co-Trainers). This is going to look great on my resume, and it is going to help with my transition back to a “normal” life after the Peace Corps. Also, I will only need to stay in Ecuador for a couple more weeks (I´m not sure of the details, but I think instead of finishing on April 20th, I´ll be done sometime towards the middle of May). It will also be nice because I´ll leave La Libertad, but be able to come back and visit. Mike, the previous volunteer here, left and even though he was working in Quito, never came back. I think this did a lot to damage the way people here think about his time in town. Instead of remembering all that he did, they just talk about him never visiting.

Anyway, I only have three months left here, and although I´m sure I will miss some of the people, I can´t wait to start on something different.

Finally, it was great to see that the Cubs were able to continue their hot streak in the Playoffs. 100 years of futility…wow!!! Here is a picture of a hat I bought to rub the Dodger´s victory in the face of a friend of mine who is a big Cub fan.

Green Thumb?

This gardening stuff has really taken off. Since the beginning of the school year John and I have been to 11 schools and still need to visit four or five more. One school actually already had plans to work with a group of University students from Latacunga, but asked us to “manage” the project. Its amazing to think that last year I grew my first crops and now I´ve been bumped up to a management position. Another 10 months and I´ll probably own my own farm.


Some of the schools had even organized formal work days, or Mingas for all the Parents to come and help. The mingas are pretty common down here, but when they set one up for you, it means they´re serious. Two of the schools we visited for the first time were kind of funny. They were both near some tourist destinations, so I think they were used to gringos being around, but not communicating with them. The whole time we were working, they parent´s kept assuming that we didn´t speak Spanish. They even would talk about us in front of us, thinking that we couldn´t understand. In another town they asked where I lived. When I told them that I lived in La Libertad, they were amazed. “Really? In the pueblo?”, one guy asked. I think that made me seem a little more credible in their eyes because I didn´t live in the city.


Other than the gardening, I was busy the last week finishing up our grant proposal. I turned it in to my boss, but honestly I hope we don´t get it. The thing is that no matter how hard I try to explain to the ladies, I don´t think they understand the risks and work involved in the project. The proposal is for constructing 13 chicken houses. The women would then be responsible for buying the chicks, feed, and other supplies. I figure that should run to about $500 in the first two months. Then we´ll start selling the birds and recouping the money. There was another small chicken project in my town recently, and about 40% of the birds died due to poor care. I told the ladies who had the birds a few things they needed to change, but the didn´t listen. My worry is that once the ladies have the cash, they´ll just do there own thing, a lot of the birds will die, and then they´ll stop the project because they lost all their money. I had to turn the proposal in though, because they ladies kept hounding me. I´ll have a meeting soon with my boss where I can explain my doubts. Maybe we can try to get the project´s scope decreased.


Notes:
The election we had down here over the weekend went off without a hitch. The new constitution was approved overwhelmingly and they are going to start changing the laws in the next couple weeks. We’ll see how things go, but either way it is kind of crazy to live in a country while they are changing the rules you have to live by.


Also, I just liked this picture of some of the kids in my town

Dannon Ain´t Got Nothin´On Me

There are some things in life that scare me: airplane travel and rodents mainly (funny that I took three flights to come to a country where we eat rodent for dinner regularly). I had an experience recently though that was scarier than all those other minor tribulations. As I stared into a pot full of light purple creamy goo, stuck a spoon into it, raised that spoon to my mouth, and ate what it was holding, I thought to myself, “This could be the last thing I do”. That´s right, I ate blackberry yogurt that I made with my own hands.

A couple months ago I went to visit a friend and saw a small scale yogurt project that some women from her town were doing. It wasn´t that complicated and would work well in my town since a lot of people have milk cows. They way things work here is that families will have 2-10 cows that they keep by their houses and everyday someone takes the cattle to their grazing lands. Every night they bring the cows home, milk them, and then the next morning a guy drives around in a truck and picks up the milk to take to one of the plants that packages the milk or makes cheese, ice cream, etc. Right now they are getting about $0.32 per Liter of milk. Then of course, they take that money and buy food with it. One of the things that is very popular in town is yogurt. So, my idea is to cut out the middle man and have people make their own yogurt.

The process basically consists of pasteurizing the raw milk, adding a bit of plain yogurt, and then letting it sit at 122-130° F for about five hours for the culture to work. It’s the five hours at high temp that are a bit of a problem up here. To do this I made a wooden box with three light bulbs inside. With an attached dimmer switch, I can keep the temperature pretty constant (would you expect less from a chemical engineer?). The first couple batches turned out OK, but not perfect. I´m going to keep working out the kinks, and hopefully we are going to start selling our 100% natural yogurt at the grade school to replace the artificially colored and flavored stuff that they sell now. And the best news is that after that first bite, I´m still around to write this post.

¿Should I Be Teaching Spanish?

Things have been semi-busy in the last couple of weeks. Since school started we have been visiting 3-4 schools a week setting up times to start planting our gardens. There has been a lot of interest, and it looks like we´ll surpass our goal of 12 gardens. A big opportunity came this week in Latacunga. There was a meeting of all the school Directors in the area. John and I were able to give a 7 minute presentation on our gardens and afterwards we talked to a bunch of Directors we hadn´t met yet about planting at their sites.

In La Libertad things are OK. I´ve been busy with the English classes and on the 1st day of each class at each grade, I´ve been giving tests…on the Spanish alphabet and writing numbers in Spanish. Most of the kids were able to do it without any major problems, but it´s sad to see older kids who after 5-6 years are still unable to write out the alphabet. My goal is to get these kids some extra help while I´m teaching English. Let´s face it, if they don´t know their own language, they´re not going to succeed in another.

A good/bad thing is that the grade school is expanding. Next year, they plan on having an 8th grade (right now, the school only goes to 7th grade). Each year after that, they plan on adding another grade until 10th. The thing is, the High School will probably close since all the students they would have will still be in the grade school. Because of this, there is a small feud starting between the two. Mostly it is the High School teachers bad mouthing the school. I told them about the results of the ABC tests, and they said, “Well, what do you expect with the teachers there. We don´t know what they do all day!”. It was funny since they told me this while we were sitting in the office during the middle of the day watching TV.

Last weekend I went to Quito to watch the Notre Dame vs. Michigan game. It was a great game, and I finally got to see the Irish win. It was especially nice since I watched the game at a bar owned by a Michigan graduate and was surrounded by Wolverine fans.

You may not have heard, but it is a crazy time in Latin America. First, some Russian bombers flew to Venezuela last week http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article4753363.ece The US Government said that there was no nuclear weapons onboard, but with the US-Russian relations as they are and Hugo Chavez being no friend of America (or democracy), you could see how he wouldn´t be against another Cuban Missile Crisis. It would definitely drive up oil prices (which would give his and Russia´s governments a lot more cash to spend on keeping their huddled masses under control).

In Bolivia there have been protests for and against the US and the Bolivian President, Evo Morales. Here are some links that explain better what is going on http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2008/09/17/bolivian_governor_arrested_peace_corps_volunteers_evacuated/ . and http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/16/bolivia.peace.corps/ The Peace Corps just evacuated all the Volunteers out of the country, and with the way things are down there, I don´t see them coming back anytime soon.

Here in Ecuador, the debate over the new Constitution is heating up. The referendum is on the 28th of September. I don´t see us having any problems, but you never know. During the weekend of the Election, the Peace Corps is making us stay in our sites to keep us out of trouble. Also, I´m going to stock up on rice and canned goods…just in case.

Make Cotton Soff - In Word

Besides the low rent and inexpensive food, a great thing about Ecuador is the cheap (prices and quality) Chinese made clothes that can be found all over. Pretty much all the T-Shirts down here are American knock-offs of name brands, sports teams, or they just have English writing on them. I was walking through the market the other day and saw a $5 shirt with the title of this post written on it (misspelling included). I have no idea what it means, but how could I pass up a shirt like that…it is now my favorite.

Had another fun/life threatening experience with my neighbor Carlos the other day. His outdoor hot water heater was on the fritz, so we decided to take a look at it. We figured out what the problem was and were taking apart one of the gas valves when a friend of mine sent me a text message. I was standing next to Carlos responding to my friend while he was fiddling with another valve. He apparently turned to water on while the gas valve was disconnected. When the water came on, another gas valve opened to light the pilot and then WOOOOOSHHHH!!!!! I turned and saw a jet of flame shooting out the side of the heater and climb up to the second story of Carlos´ house. We both ran and Carlos turned off the gas at the tank. I was unscathed, but Carlos singed most of the hair in the front of his head. Someday that guy is going to kill me.

What does it take to win “Mother of the Year” at the high school that I work at? I´m not 100% sure, but just remembering your kid´s name and Birthday will get you in the Finals. I was working up there registering students for the new year, and a bunch of the parents when we asked them what their kid´s Birthday was, they had to look up the date on the Birth Certificate. Some parents even had to look at the paperwork when we asked them their kid´s name, unbelievable. Another crazy thing is that to register the older students, they needed copies of their ID. Unfortunately, they are unable to get IDs now because there is a shortage of materials to make IDs in the WHOLE COUNTRY. Nobody can get a license or ID for at least a month.

The good news is that school started this week, so I´ll be busy again until I leave. I´m still going to be teaching English at the grade school and along with nutrition/heath classes every once in a while in the high school, I´ll also be teaching “Logical Reasoning”. If you remember, a couple of months ago, I helped the high school teachers prepare for a logic test they had to take. They liked it so much, I´m stuck doing it. Actually, it should be fun. On Tuesday I went there to see when they wanted me to start. The Director looked at me and said, “Now!”. They were busy getting paperwork ready for the parents, so I had to teach a one hour class without materials or preparing. I was pretty happy that I pulled it off.

I´m planning mostly on doing word and math problems with the kids and Brain-Teezer type puzzles, so if you have any, please send them to me jayverhoff@msn.com .

Another highlight of the week was that on Thursday, my friend John and I got to eat lunch with the new US Ambassador to Ecuador. Here is her profile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_M._Hodges. We met her at the 300 year old Hacienda Cienega “Swamp House” between La Libertad and Latacunga. The owner gave us a tour and explained some of it´s history. It was interesting. You can see pics of the Hacienda at http://www.hosterialacienega.com/html/en/hotel_cotopaxi_ecuador.html. We then had a really nice lunch with the Ambassador, two members of her staff, and the owner. The lunch cost about $25, but the owner was trying to impress the Ambassador, so he picked up the bill. Unfortunately, the owner talked most of the time, and since he was there, we talked mostly in Spanish. We only really talked about what John and I are doing for about two minutes, but for free filet migñon I´m not complaining.

Finally, here is a quote from the comedian Lewis Black that I just heard. It is a couple years old, but it reminded me that no matter how bad it gets down here, I still went to college in a worse place…just kidding.

“If you´re thinking of killing yourself, Rolla is the place to go. Because when you get there, you´ll take one look around and say, ´I want to end it all´. You can´t even get there directly. You fly into St. Louis and then drive two hours south on Route 66. They wrote a song about it…but not that part of the highway.”

- Lewis Black on Late Night with Conan O´Brian

From The Neck Of The Moon

I think that I mentioned a while ago that I joined the recently formed Agricultural Task Force (ATF). Since the group is new, we don’t have any set responsibilities yet. I suggested that one thing we could take on was helping with the training of the non-agricultural Omnibuses. The Peace Corp big shots loved the idea, so last week, five of us went back up to Cayambe to give a 3 ½ hour presentation on agricultural themes. During our training, we received a couple days of health and education training, but the Youth & Families and Health programs don’t receive any significant Ag training. I talked about school and home gardens, inter-program cooperation, and a little about nutrition. The rest of the group talked about composting, value added products, and chemical use and protection. It went really well, and several of the trainees told us that our presentation was the most practical session they had during their training.

The bad news is that the training may be the last function of the ATF while I am here. I talked to my boss the other day and he said that the budget of PC Ecuador is going to be cut by Washington and there is no money to fund our activities. We are going to try to find other sources of funding and we have ideas for cheap projects, but I think we will be limited to training activities and information dissemination. I did just write an article for the Youth & Families Program’s newsletter about school gardening, so I can hang my hat on that.

Last weekend was the Festival de San Juan in La Libertad. The festival was the same as last year except they didn’t do the Maypole dace, so they didn’t need me to act as the pole. The one notable thing was that at Mass on Friday and Saturday, the Priest told the story of John the Baptist. For those of you who don’t know, John was preaching in Galilee and got in trouble with the ruler and his wife. John was arrested and during the ruler’s birthday party he was beheaded and his head was brought to the ruler’s wife on a platter. The Priest told the story twice because after the first time he asked a couple of questions and nobody knew the answers. Then he started an hour long rant about the town. He said that it was improper to celebrate the death of John the Baptist at a party by having another party. He said that most kids memories of the Feast of John the Baptist were, “Dad got drunk and fought with Mom”. Instead of drinking, the Priest said that we should take time to reflect on the past year with our families. Of course this went over well. Most people weren’t paying attention anyway, and as soon as he left, everyone started drinking. I didn’t stay long because of what the Priest said and also one shot of homemade sugar cane alcohol is enough to last me for a while. The thing about that whole situation that strikes me is that these people will not listen to their own Priest and I’m supposed to get anything accomplished here!

The Priest also went on to criticize the town’s leadership for deciding to build a new church without saving enough money to repair the current church (it started to rain during mass and water was coming down on the alter through the giant whole in the roof). Next he jokingly said that he hoped somebody died during this year’s festival so that next year we could celebrate that death AND the death of John the Baptist. It wasn’t exactly at the Fiesta, but a guy from my town did die that weekend. It was Sunday morning after a soccer game and the guy was trying to cross the Pan-American Highway on his way home and he got hit by a car. He was drunk at the time. I’m sure it was from drinking at the Festival till early in the morning and then continuing at the game. I went to the wake, and people were drinking there, I guess the Priest was right next year will be a blast.

I went with my buddy John and a group of 60 High School kids from Latacunga to Mt. Cotopaxi last Sunday. John set the whole thing up and got funding from the US for two buses to pick us up, guides, and lunch. It was great because the kids had never been there and the weather was not very cloudy. We climbed from 15, 090 feet to about 15,944. That’s where the snow line is, so we got to climb around the glacier. I took the Priest’s advice and went off on my own away from the kids for a while. Standing on the glacier, listening to the ice crack and water run underneath me, while looking out at the snow-capped peaks in the distance made me think, “Man, my feet are cold!”. I did learn an interesting fact. Cotopaxi, the name of the Volcano and of the Province that I live in means “Neck of the Moon” in Quichua. Pretty cool.

Finally, congratulations to Jefferson Peréz, Ecuador’s most famous athlete, on his Silver medal in the Men’s 20K Walk in Beijing. This is Jeff’s second medal (and I believe the only ones for Ecuador). I know its not on par with Michael Phelps, but we take what we can get down here. I do feel a little silly though admitting that I watched a bunch of guys walking around in circles for a hour and a half…with interest.

Erradicating Child Labor...By Making Kids Work

I´ve been busy and bored at the same time for the last couple of weeks. With the schools on vacation until September, I have a lot more free time during the day, but I´ve been trying to keep occupied. Even though we are allegedly in the “Dry Season”, the weather has been overcast and it has rained every week lately.

Since I had some time and the weather hasn´t been sunny, I took my laundry to Latacunga last week to wash it at the laundry mat. My buddy John had dropped of the ad we made for the cleaners earlier, so when I showed up, they didn’t charge me. The free laundry was nice, but when I talked to John, he said that he just gave them one copy of the advertisement. The owner assumed that we had handed out a bunch of copies. John said that we would de that, so I had to come back to Latacunga another day to give out the ads. We spent a couple hours going around town giving the ads to all the hotels and tourist agencies that foreigners usually go to. Also, we hung up about 50 copies around town. After we posted a flier, we´d walk away and almost every time we´d look back and see a couple Ecuadorians looking at the ad. The ad was totally in English, so I know they couldn´t understand it, but I guess the novelty of a couple gringos hanging up fliers was too much for them to resist. We even gave out a few ads to people who came up to us on the street and asked for one to take home.

I went into Quito last week to see the new Batman with some friends. The movie was good, and while in Quito I bought a couple more movies and the entire 4th and 5th seasons of “The Office” (All for $14. You gotta love pirated DVDs!!) Also in Quito, I bought a thermometer to use with the yogurt project I´m trying to get started. Out of curiosity, I had some water boiling and took its temperature. It was boiling at only 188° F. At sea level, water boils at 212° F. Living at an elevation of 11,200 feet does some crazy things.

Other than watching “The Office” and reading, I´ve been trying to practice my Spanish a little. I bought a copy of the Instant Immersion CD/CD-ROMs. It said “Advanced” on the package and I though it would help with my vocabulary and maybe get rid of my accent (I´ve been told by Ecuadorians who live in the city that I sound like the Ecuadorian version of a redneck). Unfortunately, my Spanish is above the level of the CDs, so I don´t think that they´ll do me much good.

Another thing that I´ve been doing is working on the gardens around my house. I have two new ones going and I was finally able to harvest some broccoli that I´ve been growing. I steamed some for dinner the other day and I have to admit that it was the best tasting Broccoli that I´ve ever eaten. The problem is that it took almost 7 months to grow. In the States it should only take about 2 ½ months from seed to harvest. The short days, lack of sun, and cold temperatures really screws me here.

I did also get a little publicity for the gardens we are doing near Latacunga. There was a half page story (mostly pictures) on them in the July issue of Social Responsibility magazine. I think the head of the project that we are using to get our contacts in the schools wrote it up using pictures that I had taken. The funny thing is the magazine´s purpose. Social Responsibility has it´s mission statement printed under the title on the front page. It says that the magazine is dedicated to “Eradicating child labor in Ecuador”. Of course, most of the pictures in the article show kids from the schools working in the gardens. I guess a garden can´t count as a sweat shop even if the kids are sweating.

The last piece of semi-exciting news is that JayInEcuador is now the top Google result when you search my name. Finally!

I´m Back Baby!

After a three week vacation, I´m back in Ecuador (for better or worse). I had a blast in the States and want to thank everyone who hosted a BBQ, gave me tickets to a ball game, let me sleep on their couch, drove me around, let me barrow their car. bought me a beer, took me out to lunch/dinner, gave me a hug, said they enjoyed reading the blog, and generally made my trip home the best time I´ve had in a while.

The trip back was pretty uneventful except for a lot of turbulence over the Gulf of Mexico (Thanks Dolly!) and when we landed in Quito, the woman across the aisle from me asked me in Spanish, "What time is it?". I answered her, but she just looked confusedly at me. I repeated the time, but again, she didn´t understand. Then she held up nine fingers and said, "nueve". I said yes, and then she started talking to me very fast. I only understood about 1 word in 50 and thought, "Holy S___! I lost all my Spanish while I was in the US". Then a Mexican lady behind me started talking to us. Her, I could understand. She asked if I understood the other lady and I said no. She then asked the lady where she was from. She didn´t understand and showed us her passport...she was from Hati! She was speaking French the whole time with a little Spanish thrown in, Thank God!

I got to my house too late to visit my neighbors, and since I was tired from the trip, I just went to bed. THe next morning, I awoke to my neighbors knocking on my door asking me to get up. I opened the door, and two of my neighbors were carrying pots and pans and asked me to come with them to another neighbor´s to kill some Guinea Pigs for a fiesta that night. Well, if you´re going to get back in the swing of things, you might as well go all the way. (Note: I went to a pet store in the US and saw that Guinea Pigs go for $34.50 a pop. Outrageous! I can get a Guinea Pig cleaned, cooked, and with two side dishes for $6). After killing them, my neighbor asked if I could go to her daughters graduation that afternoon to take picture. They had another neighbor´s camera, but didn´t know how to use it. I changed out of my killing clothes and we took off. We got to the high school at noon, but of course the ceremony didn´t start until 4:00. After the graduation, which was really more of a fashion show since the school´s curriculum was clothing design and manufacture, we went back to my neighbor´s to eat (oh, guinea pig and potatoes how I didn´t miss you!) .

Later, the DJ started up and we drank and danced until 3:00 AM. Itried to leave earlier, but they insisted that I stay. I just kept thinking that two days earlier I had dinner at a nice Chicago sushi restaurant with 12 of my friends. Good food, good wine, good conversation and a lot of laughs. Now, I was dancing all night to music I didn´t like with a belly full of rodent. The thing is, earlier in the night when we were making toasts, my neighbor raised her glass to congratulate her daughter and turned to me and said, "Jay, I´m glad you made it back in time to help us celebrate because you are a part of our family". That got to me. As much as I miss my friends and family, I´m glad I here for now. I only have nine months left to work, and its going to fly by. I don´t think I´ll miss the food or unpunctuality when I leave, but I know that I´ll miss being a part of this messed-up World.

Random Notes

Sorry that it has been a while since I updated, but the last couple of weeks have been thankfully busy. I´ve been working or traveling a lot which has kept me from spending all my time thinking about my trip home next month (July 1st through the 22nd). Here are some of the highlights...

->We finally got all the numbers together for the chicken project and I did a feasibility study on the business (who says you have to have an MBA?). I found that we´d make money, but only in the long term. During the first year each member of the group would have to fork out almost $900 of their own money and then wouldn´t recoup it all until the third year. I think that is way too much money and too long a time for people in my site to stay with the idea, so it looks like that project is a bust. Instead, we now are looking at working with broilers instead of laying hens. I haven´t done the study yet, but hopefully the numbers will be better.

->I just joined the recently formed PC Agricultural Task Force which will be working with country wide agricultural training. I still don´t know a ton of Ag stuff, but I hope to help with organizing and setting goals for the new group. My first idea about slightly changing the format of Pre-Service Training has received a lot of good buzz, and I think it will be implemented.

->I went down to Ambato for a friend´s birthday party a couple of weeks ago. It was nice to see everyone and while I was in the city, I picked up a $1.25 bootleg copy of the new Indiana Jones (Sorry George Lucas). I was excited to see the movie since I´ve always been a fan, but was very disappointed. The only redeeming quality in my mind was that it was set not far from here and there were several small bits that had connections to Ecuador (Francisco Orellana, the explorer, and the Quichwa language which they still speak here).

-> I traveled to the northern part of Ecuador last week for a couple of days to visit some friends. It was nice to see a different side of life and feel some warm weather. It is usually pretty dry there, but it rained almost every day...I must have brought it with me. The area where my friends live is called the Chota Valley and is famous for being the home of almost all the Ecuadorian Nation Soccer Team´s players. Since a lot of the residents are Afro-Ecuatoriano, the culture is very different and I could have conversations with people, look them in the eyes, and not have to squat...how bizarre! We basically just hung out, but I did get to see one of my friend´s yogurt projects. She showed me how to do everything, and its pretty easy. When I get back from vacation I think I´m going to try it out in my town. I think that I´ll do it all on my own and later on I´ll get others involved (there will be a lot less headaches that way).

Other than that I´m getting stuff ready for the trip. I have some garden work to do next week and then some packing.

I´m looking foreward to seeing everyone and if you are planning on being in Chicago or St. Louis in July, send me a line.

P.S. - This will be the last post until I get back from the States, so until then, Hasta Luego!

The Body of Who??

I had just finished teaching at the grade school last Tuesday when the Director asked me if I was going to "Corpus". I told him that I didn´t know what that was, so I didn´t know if I was going or not. He explained that it was a big party this weekend outside of Latacunga. Since I didn´t have anything to do on Saturday, I went to check it out. The name turned out to be short for Corpus Christi, Latin for Body of Christ. And the festival was allegedly to celebrated the feast of the Eucharist, but in reality it celebrated beer, booze, and dancing to bad music. The parade started right on time (2 hours late) and was pretty much the same as the Mama Negra parade in Latacunga, but with a little less booze. There were a couple of other PCVs there, and it was a good time. The funny thing was that they didn´t try to hard to make it look like they were celebrating a religious feast. The only guys wearing anything religious were the guys (sorry, I don´t know what their official name is) wearing these huge hats with pictures of the Virgin and Jesus on them. They are traditional to the Pujili area (where the parade was).

While we were walking around we met an Israeli guy who had just started traveling around South America. Since he didn´t speak much Spanish, he tagged along. It was amusing to see how shocked he was at the way people were acting. He refused all the drinks people piled on us, kept asking if people always sold food uncovered on the street, wondered why the police just stood around while fights were breaking out, and generally questioned what he got himself into. None of this stuff bothered or surprised us PCVs. I guess that shows that we have integrated.

The traveler left before us and later as I was changing buses in Latacunga I ran into him again. I asked if he got back without any problems and he just shook his head. He said that on the bus ride back to town he fell asleep and someone stole his hat. He couldn´t believe how that could happen...lesson learned for him.

We planted another garden last week and all went well. I also got some good news from my boss. Since I´m having to travel a lot more to go to all these gardens, I´m paying a lot more on bus fares. I asked for a raise to cover these extra expenses and it was approved. I will now be receiving $10 more a month...huzzah!!!

Schoolyard Taunts Ecuadorian Style..."Ok, who brought the wet shit?"

I went to another small school outside of Latacunga this week. The school was in a town called Tanicuchi and was very poor. THey already had a small garden, unlike the other schools we are going to work at. Their garden was planted January by a group of university students from Latacunga. In it´s 15´x 30´foot area there were only about 12 small plants growing. It was pretty sad looking, so we dug it up and started from scratch. I asked if the university students had ever come back, and they said no. Now, I don´t know the whole story behind the students working there, but this is similar to the story of most development work. People come in, spend a day working(or some other short period of time), leave feeling that they´ve accomplished something, and then never come back. In actuality, they accomplished nothing sustainable and do more harm than good. The school is a good example. The garden sucked and was taking up space. Also, the kids and the teachers didn´t work as hard or seem as interested as the other schools we´ve been to and I don´t think the trust us to come back. We told them they need to water the plants every day, but after their first experience they may not. If they don´t, nothing will grow and the cycle will continue.

Anyway, we got the garden planted and fertilized with manure the kids brought. AS we were dumping the plastic bags of crap out, one bag was full of fresh cow manure. The rest of the bags were full of dry (and therefore less smelly) manure. As the wet turds plopped out, some of the kids looked around at the others and said, "OK, who brought the wet shit?" I had to laugh as the other kids furiously denied it.

I spent last weekend working at the community bank´s charge days. Everything went well, and at the end of the last day I closed up shop and took the keys home with me. Normally, at the end of the day, one of the ladies will come and take the money we´ve collected and take it home to deposit the next day. We had over $6,000 that day, but nobody came to collect it. We put the money in a box in the bank and when I got home, I gave the keys to my neighbor in case anything happened (I didn´t want to get the blame).

The next day at 6:30 AM one of the ladies from the bank started tapping on my window. She asked me to come out and talk. I went outside and she asked me for the keys to the bank. I explained that my neighbor had them and went back to bed. About 10 minutes later, she was back knocking on my window. Again I went outside, and she asked me where the money was because she had to make the deposit. I told her where we put the money and was starting to go back inside. She then asked me to come with her. I asked her why and she told me that she didn´t know where the money was. I explained again (I know I said it right because it wasn´t hard to say in Spanish), but she kept whining that she needed me to get it. I was starting to get pissed at this point, but I told her, "Let´s go!". She said that she had to go to her house first and would be back at 7:00. I changed clothes and was ready to go at 7:00, but she didn´t show up till 7:40. Now I was steaming. I started walking to the bank at my normal pace (about 3 times faster than Ecuadorians walk) and she asked me if I was mad and I said yes. She couldn´t understand why I was pissed even after I opened the bank and got the money from where I said it was. She got me up at 6:30 AM for five seconds of work at 8:00, so I think I had the right to be pissed.

I was talking to a PC friend later that day and told her the story. She said that she has heard similar stories recently from other PCVs in our group. I think we are all getting to the point where we are comfortable enough with our Spanish, our sites, and we have seen enough ignorance that we now are getting mad and telling people about it. I don´t know if that is the right thing to do, but such is life in the Third World

Red Country - Dead Meat

The new Government of Ecuador has been making a lot of changes lately. (Note: The Constitutional Assembly that is writing the new Constitution is still hard at work. You can tell that it is hard at work because that´s what the commercials say. Yeah, they have to have advertise! The country overwhelmingly voted for the new Constitution, but after the Assembly dissolved the Congress, took it´s power for themselves, and several members have been involved in scandals, I guess they feel that they need a little good publicity.) From tougher rules for the mining industry to possibly kicking out one of the country´s biggest cell phone companies (my cell phone company) the new guys are turning everything upside down. They even declared a new National Holiday on May 1st. May Day is now the “Day of the Worker” in Ecuador…Communism City here we come.

Another smaller change that they have made deals with the customs department. They have made it a lot harder and much more expensive to get something out of customs. Therefore I want to repeat the rules for sending packages down here. DO NOT SEND ANYTHING OVER 2 KILOGRAMS (4.4 POUNDS) OR DECLARE A VALUE ON ANY PACKAGE. Please don´t take this as a plea for gifts. I don´t need anything and since I´ll be in the Status in July, I´ll be able to get everything I need for the rest of my time down here then. I just don´t want anyone to send a $10 gift that would cost me $50 to get out of hock (I probably would just leave it there).

If you will remember from my post a couple of weeks ago, we had to say good-bye to one of my good friends. She had been traveling too much and the PC bosses kicked her out. The day before she left we had a going away party in Quito for her. One of my other good friends came up from down South to see her off. Unfortunately he didn´t have permission. He traveled a lot too and when he called his boss to tell him that he was coming, his boss said that he couldn´t. He came anyway, and sure enough, the PC found out and he got the boot as well. That takes my original training group of five down to two and the whole Omnibus from 46 to 28.

Speaking of my Omnibus, we had our Mid-Service meetings last week in Quito. It was nice to see everyone and share stories/experiences, but from a “work” standpoint, it was a waste of time. At this point everyone´s situation is unique and what everyone is trying to do is so different that it is better just to call someone up on the phone if you have questions about a project that may be applicable in your site. Also, there are a couple people in my group that love to hear themselves talk. Any session that should have taken one hour inevitable took two or more. By the end of the second day everyone was exhausted and a lot of people were getting frustrated.

Thankfully, yours truly suggested an post-meeting activity for everyone, and it turned out well. We all met up at a bar after dinner and had a Pub Quiz. If you don´t know what that is, it is basically a trivia contest with some beer thrown in. All but two of the PCVs in our group came, and even though my group came in third, I had a good time.

The interesting culinary store of the last two weeks happened the other day when I walked in to my neighbor´s house and she was frying up some meat. She asked me to eat a bowl of rice and meat. It was surprisingly good and I asked what it was and where she got it. She said that it was sheep and our neighbor gave it to her. I was surprised that someone gave away that much meat, so I asked why the neighbor did that. Rosa then explained that a dog got into the neighbor´s flock and killed a bunch of sheep. There was too much meat for her to eat, and you can´t sell dead animals in the market, so she gave it all away. I´m not 100% sure, but I think that was the first time I´ve ever eaten and animal killed by another animal.

The Great Gringo Goalkeeper experiment may be over. I got benched last week. I probably shouldn´t be upset seeing that the other guy has been playing all his life and I have a grand total of ten games at goal under my belt, but I don´t like being told that I´m no good at anything (especially since I´ve given up less goals so far than he has). Anyway, I probably will just play when the other guy can´t make it.

Invoking God´s Wrath...One Trash Fire at a Time

We have trash pick-up here every Wednesday. A truck come through the center of town and will pick up any bags of trash by the road. I usually take my glass and metal trash to be picked up while I compost my organic trash and burn the rest. I was starting a fire last week with old newspapers to burn my trash (Thanks Steph and Matt for the gift that keeps on giving!). My old and half-senile neighbor came by and tried to take the newspapers I was balling up out of my hand. He kept saying, "Give me your Comercios" (El Comercio is the Quito paper). I tried to tell him that the papers were in English and he couldn´t read them, but he was insistent that I give them to him. Now, this isn´t the first time that he has asked me to give him stuff, so I kept telling him that I needed the papers and the were no good for him. I eventually used all the papers to start the fire and then moved away from the smoke. Don Alfredo walked over to me, looked me hard in the eyes, and told me a story. He said that before he got married, he worked for a Frenchman who owned all the land around the town. He said the one day the Gringo brought out a huge bag of money and asked Don Alfredo to separate it into piles of old and new bills. The man then put the new bills in his safe and took the old bills outside. He then lit the pile of old money on fire while Alfredo watched. Don Alfredo said the he asked the man to give him the money, but the man said that the money was old and useless. Don Alfredo said he still couldn´t understand why the man would rather burn his money that give it away. Then Don Alfredo pointed to a small hill by my house and said, "A week later, the Gringo was driving his tractor on a hill like that. The tractor fell over on the Gringo and he was crushed to death." Don Alfredo then patted me on the shoulder, nodded knowingly, and then asked again for some newspapers. Like I said, he is only half-senile. The story worked, and he got some of the papers I had in my house.

I went back to Tilipulo to transplant the plants that we planted in February. They were doing well and we ended up making 7 more beds. This time we worked with the parents of the kids in the school because they said that the kids hadn´t showed them how to make the beds. It went well and the parents said that they learned a lot. As you can see from the pictures, we made a big difference. The plan is to come back in September after Summer Vacation to plant twice the area. Also, some of the parents said that they were going to make gardens by their houses. This is my real goal for working there. Hopefully with their own gardens, they can improve the diets of the families (especially the children) of that town.

I was in the High School this week, and some of the girls of the third year (15-16 years old)were making maps on big pieces of paper. One of the maps was of all the mountain ranges of North and South America. They were copying it out of their Goegraphy book, and it looked nice. I complemented them on it and asked where Ecuador was on the map. One of the girls said, "Jay, this is a map of mountains!". I said I knew that, but where was Ecuador on the map. She didn´t understand what I ment until I pointed it out and said, "Here!". Then I asked if she knew where the US was. She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "Jay...this isn´t a map of Europe!". My Fault.

It isn´t hard to figure out why a 16 year old would think that the United States of AMERICA is in Europe when you consider their teachers. I next went into the office and the teachers were huddled around a sheet of paper saying, "Victoria is taller than José, but shorter than Maria. Pablo is taller...". I listened for a minute as they argued over who was the tallest. Finally, I told them the answer and explained it. They were amazed and asked another question. Apparently the teachers have to take an IQ test next week and wer working on practice tests with some difficulty. Since I could get the questions, I am now teaching logic classes to the teachers every day until the test. They dodn´t have experience with these types of tests, and since their raises depend on the results, they are excited to learn.

I actually like the problems. Here are a few examples that they couldn´t get. Fill in the blanks with the numbers that continue the sequence. The answers are on the following post. Good luck.

1) 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27, 16, __, __, __

2) 2, 4, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, __, __, __

3) 2, 3, 4, 9, 16, 29, 54, __, __, __

4) 0, 1, 1, 2, 4, 7, 13, 24, __, __, __

Answers to the Questions

I hope you got them all...

1) 81, 32, 243

2) 4, 12, 13

3) 99, 182, 335

4) 44, 81, 149

The 1 Year Countdown

Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in The Prince that only from the mountain top can you see the valley, and only from the valley can you see the mountain top. As I try to sum up my experiences from the first year in La Libertad (April 20th 2008 - 2009), I keep thinking of this line. It may be a cop-out, but I don’t know if I can fully grasp the significance of being here for myself or the people I know. Although I live at over 11,000 feet, often I feel like I’m right at the bottom of the valley. Either way, I don’t think I’ll "see" what I’ve been doing here until I’m out of it. I’ve heard that most PCVs quit right away or at the 1-year mark. I think that there are a lot of people who want to quit earlier, but want to stick it out at least a year. We have already lost two this last week, and I’ve heard a couple of other friends say that they may leave.

I’ve also heard that a lot of people don’t get going on their projects until the second year. I hope I’m on this side. I’ve had work the last 12 months, but nothing too spectacular. The chicken project, the gardens in Latacunga, and possibly with the Government hopefully will make my last 12 months memorable.

I would like to take this milestone to thank everyone who sent packages, cards, texts, phone calls, and well wishes down here. Without the support of friends and family, I don’t know where I’d be. (That goes for a lot more than just Peace Corps service!) I hope this message finds you all well up North and enjoying the first tastes of summer.

I miss you all and can’t wait to visit in July, but first I have to get to work.

Right now, it arrives...summer !

¡Ya llega verano! I heard this, which translates into the title of this post, a couple of times this week. This is good news because that means hopefully that it will stop raining. Winter here means clouds, rain, and mud, while summer means clouds, wind, and dust. neither is ideal, but at least I'll be able to dry my laundry.

I went into Quito on tuesday for my friend Maria's going away party. We had a good time, but it was tough to say good-bye at the end of the night. I then went on wednesday morning to Mindo, a town 2 hours west of Quito. There is another PCV from my Omnibus there who is working on a chicken project. I wanted to get some ideas and any excuse fro going to the tourist haven of Mindo wasn't going to slip through my fingers. I've heard that Mindo is beautiful and I wasn't disappointed by the scenery or the project. The weather was great and other than all the bug bites I got, everything went great. The project is a lot bigger than what we will start with, but I picked up some hints and more importantly some contacts in Quito.

Both schools in La Libertad were on vacation this week, so it was a good time to visit Mindo. The lack of school and the drier weather also meant that it was a good time to play baseball. My buddy John wanted to come up to visit the kids he works with in Latacunga on the radio, so he came up too. It was fun to play, and luckily it didn't rain until after we finished.

I think old age is catching up with me! Two weeks ago I jumped for a ball while playing soccer and was undercut by the other team's Forward. He banged my Quad pretty hard and the next day I could hardly walk. It is still hard to squat, but doesn't hurt too bad. Last week the only goal I gave up in a 3-2 Reina de la Paz victory went in off my middle finger and jammed it. It hurt after the game, but nothing too serious. I was visiting my neighbors when one of the ladies saw me looking at my finger. I told them what happened and she took my hand, asked for some cooking oil, and then started very roughly rubbing the oil in the joint. The pain was intense, so I pulled my hand away. The ladies were all disappointed that I couldn't "take it", and said that it would help. I couldn't look like a whimp, so I gave her my hand back and sheprocedded to manhandle it for 10 minutes. Needles to say, when I woke up in the morning, it looked like I had a giant purple sausage growing out of the end of my palm. Ecuadorian home remidies to the rescue again.

I don't think I'll let them work on the sprained ankle I got this week.