Disorganized Nazis and Apathetic Royalty

As I mentioned in my last post, I was getting extremely low on clean clothes. It has continued to rain here every day, so I did go to Quito to drop my clothes off at a laundry mat ($10.90 for 24 Lbs.). It was nice not to have to beat them on my neighbor´s concrete slab, but they ruined my brand new Ecuador soccer shirt that was yellow and blue, and now is purple and gold (Go Cougars!).

My goal-less streak in South American soccer ended 33 minutes into my second game. It was a good shot and I didn´t have a chance, so I´m not too upset. We were tied 1-1 after the first half, but lost 3-2 with the other goalie playing the second half. We played the game at the field by my house, and this week there were actually a lot of fans watching. As we started, I got "heckled" by some of the fans about my height and pasty white skin. My first opportunity was a crossing pass that I grabbed out of the air (about 3-4 feet above everyone else) at the top of the box. A lot of the ladies behind the goal started yelling "Bravo!!". I was laughing as I went to kick the ball down the field and I shanked it...right into the back of one of my defender´s heads. They did not "Bravo" me again after that.

We had a meeting at the community bank this week to discuss bank matters and also an ides I have to start a "Producers Association" in La Libertad. Since pretty much everyone grows onions here, I thought it would be a good idea to group together to get a better price for supplies and instead of having 20 people selling onions next to each other every day in Machachi, we could have a few people sell everyone´s onions. My whole presentation boiled down to, "We are stronger together as a team". As I was talking, everyone nodded in agreement, but when I opened the floor for comments, a couple of people said that they didn´t want to work in a group because the lazy people wouldn´t do their share. As we went around, everyone said the same thing and that they just wanted money from Peace Corps to buy a cow, pig, or goat. This was the exact opposite of what I had in mind and I had already said that the funds would be only for "projects" and not for buying feed, seeds, etc. We are hopefully going to have another meeting next week, so I need to think of some new ideas, or this will be another work opportunity lost.

Another thing I had to keep me busy this week was helping my neighbor Carlos with some homework he had from an Excel course that he is taking through the Army. He had a spreadsheet with several problems (finding averages, tabulating ages, and creating a sample grade book). The last problem was actually difficult and involved Macros and complex functions. Carlos let me do all this on my own (I was happy for a mental challenge). The problem is that Carlos´computer runs a pirated version on Windows XP that I´m not familiar with (Instead of the Flying Windows on the screen as you boot-up, his computer has a scull and crossbones). It took a while just to find where all the functions wereand how to use them in Spanish (For example, "If" statements are called "Si" statements). I got it all done though, so score another one for my Spanish.

I´m glad to have other work to do because I haven´t done anything at the high school for two weeks and at the grade school for one week. They have been practicing for the ceremonies on February 27th commemorating the Battle of Tarqui (February 27th 1829 fought against Peru while Ecuador was still part of Gran Columbia). During the ceremony, the kids take an oath and the oldest kids kneel before the flag, kiss it, and say either "I swear" or "I promise". They practiced marching sequences all week and the day of, had the flags flying, the patriotic music playing and everyone in uniform marching in step ready to subvert themselves to the flag of the nation.

Right now, I´m reading a book on the roots of fascism. It goes into detail about how pageantry and conformity were big parts of fascist doctrine. Since I had that on my mind, the ceremony was a little erie, but I have to think the National Socialist wouldn´t have been pleased when the programs started 1 1/2 hours late and there were stray dogs walking through the formations.

The week before, the High School had spent

everyday practicing for their Beauty Pageant where they would elect the Queen of the High School. I was invited to be a judge and with

that came the honor of buying the Queen´s sash ($12). The pageant was typical for Ecuador and had traditional dancing, an evening gown portion, Q&A, and choreographed dance routines. The odd thing was that for all the preparation, the girls participating didn´t seem that thrilled. When they announced the winner, the Queen didn´t even smile. She definitely wasn´t going to get 15 yards for excessive celebration, but that´s taking "Act like you´ve been there before" to extremes.

NOTES:
- I did my taxes this week. It took all of 45 seconds to look at my Peace Corps W-2 and verify that I made WELL below the minimum required to file. In your face, gainfully employed!

- My buddy Jeff had a date with an Ecuadorian girl that he just met. They had lunch, played Volleyball with her family, and just hung-out. Ha called her later to say that he had a good time and wanted to do it again. She agreed and said that she had been, "Praying to God everyday to send her a husband". And they wonder why I´m single.

Jay Verhoff: Maker of gardens, Keeper of goals.

It has been a fun, satisfying, and depressing week in La Libertad. Last friday I went back to the small town outside of Latacunga called Tilipulo with my buddy John. This is the same town that we went to a couple of weeks ago (See Post- You Dirty Rat). I had asked the teacher there to have the kids gather some manure to act as a fertilizer for the poor soil there. When we got there, they showed us 7 huge bags of cow shit that they had collected. I was happy because this showed that they actually listened and were willing to put in some effort on their end. We hit the ground running and started digging and mixing in manure in a small area by the school to make some seed beds. I didn´t know how well things are going to grow there, so we are going to start off small (as you can see by the pictures). The kids and teachers were great and as they say down here Super Pilas or energetic. We planted lettuce, carrots, beans, radishes, beets, and cucumber seeds that John and I had bought in Latacunga ($3) and then I went over some basics of gardening because none of the teachers or kids had ever made a raised seed bed. I´m planning on heading back after Easter to hopefully transplant the baby plants into some new beds that we will make. I also have a feeling that I´ll be doing more of this around the Latacunga area, which would be a good thing.

It was cool too that while I was in Latacunga before and after working, I ran into 10 people that I knew. I kind of feel "local" now because I will usually get a couple, "Hola Jay"s just walking around Machachi or Latacunga.

One of the 10 people I ran into was a former PCV who is in Ecuador teaching a mountaineering course. We had met while climbing up Illiniza Norte and now he is done with the class and traveling around for a couple weeks. He had spent the previous night in Latacunga and told me that he was spending another night because he met an Ecuadorian girl who wanted to take him out dancing. He asked me and John to come out too, so we met up later that night. Now, the guy was a PCV in New Guinea, so he spoke very little Spanish (I had to translate for his temporary "Girlfriend") and he´d only been on his own here for a day, but already he had met a girl. This reinforced the depressing part of the week.

I had three conversations recently with teachers at the grade and high school (which makes me think that they are talking about me). Twice separate teachers asked me if I was gay. I asked why they would think that, and they said that I´ve been here for a year and I didn´t have a girlfriend. They also compared me to the previous La Libertad PCV, Mike, and his many girlfriends (I asked Mike about this, and he said that wasn´t true). I didn´t know what to say because I couldn´t tell them that unfortunately I don´t find 29 year old overweight women who are 4 1/2 feet tall with missing teeth and no education and look like they are 50 to be my "type". I just explained that I was unlucky and left it at that.

The third conversation was worse. The Director of the grade school talked to me 1 on 1 for about 30 minutes about how I was wasting my life. He started with my lack of a girlfriend (the conversation was instigated by me mentioning that I needed to do laundry and him telling me that I needed a woman to do that for me), but then moved on to the fact that I rarely leave La Libertad. He pulled out a map of Ecuador and pointed out all the places I´ve never been to and implored me to, "Live! Enjoy Life!". He actually made some good points and got me thinking that I need to get out more. He then told me that money wasn´t everything and that I wasn´t in Ecuador to save a pile of cash. I had to disagree with this part of his argument because even if I saved up all of my $230 a month for 2 years, I don´t think I´d be able to swim in my money bin Scrooge McDuck style.

Also depressing is the weather. It has rained here literally every day for almost 5 weeks. The President just declared a State of Emergency on the coast because of flooding and there are massive land slides in the mountains in the south. Fortunately it is just a muddy inconvienience for me, but I think I´m starting to get Seasonal Affective Disorder. Every day we usually will get 5-10 minutes of sun. When I see the sun come out, I run outside a try to soak as much in a possible.

Like I said, it´s muddy here. There is a stretch of road on the way to town that is especially bad because they cut down the trees that lined the road and blocked the ditched with leaves and branches. I´ve been meaning to clear the blockage and hopefully get rid of some of the mud, but I know what people in town would say if they saw me do this. There is a very mentally challenged man in town who cleans the main road from the Pan American and may be the hardest working guy around, but he can´t talk and is kind of a joke. Anyway, as I was working, a couple of ladies from the bank came by and asked what I was doing. I explained that I was cleaning the road and they started laughing and saying, "You´re just like Sam!". Sam of course being the other guy, and them referring to him was not a compliment in their eyes. I helped the mud situation, but I´m not too happy to now have people referring to me as the gay, retarded gringo.

Because it has been raining so much, I haven´t been able to do laundry for a while. My neighbors actually built 3 new clothes lines because all their clothes have been hanging out to dry for weeks. I´m getting close to "Commando" time, so I´ll probably be heading to a laundry mat soon.

I went to the high school the other day for class, but as I arrived, the teahers were leaving. It was raining (of course) and one of the female teachers asked me for my umbrella. I told her no because I was using it. She got all pissed and said that it was customary in Ecuador for a gentleman to get wet before a lady. I then said that it was customary in the US for people who lived in a climate where it rained EVERY DAY to always have an umbrella. (I know that this is mean, but she´s a pushy B).

Back to the good news. I had my first soccer game last Sunday. I had expected to mainly watch the other goalie play and only get in during blow-outs, but when I got to the game, the coach told me I´d be starting! I got a little nervious seeing as I´d never played goalie before and the last time I had shin guards on was in the sixth grade (15 years ago). As we were getting ready to start, the Manager came up to me and asked if I knew the rules. I said yes, but as he was walking away I yelled, "I can use my hands, right?". He didn´t think that was funny.

I played the whole first half and didn´t give up a goal! We were up 2-0 and switched out 6 people and ended up winning 7-1 (2 of our goals were accidentally kicked in by the other goalie). I was happy being the best out of the 3 goalies who played that game, but I need to work on my free kicks. I can actually throw the ball farther and more accurately than I can kick it. Also, we got our uniforms. Instead of putting the Cardinals logo on them, the Coach put the logo from an American Movers add that he found in my Cardinals GameDay magazine. Kind of funny to have "American" on the front of the jersey that I thought I´d be keeping as a memento of Ecuador.

The Poor Man´s New Orleans

Last week as I´m sure you all know was the begining of Lent. Lent here seems pretty much the same as the rest of the year (no fasting or giving up ice cream and Ding Dongs), but Carnaval, the time leading up to Ash Wednesday, is huge. It was the same last year in Cangahua, but now I´m a little more integrated and less busy, so I can appreciate it more. I didn´t write about it last year, so here is your description of Mardi Gras Ecua-Style. First, Carnaval lasts a couple of weeks before Fat Tuesday and consists solely of throwing water balloons, handfulls of flour, and eggs at each other. The stores also sell can of stuff like "Silly String" that people spray on each other. Although Ecuadorians love this, it seems to me that all we are doing is creating a lot of dirty laundry. I tried to avoid "Playing Carnival" as they call it as much as possible. This has saved me a lot of clothes washing, but it is a bit embarrasing walking in town constantly looking over my shoulder and then running away from pre-pubecents armed with the ingredients for a cake. I told my friends and neighbors that I only played on the last day of Carnival, so Fat Tuesday (School was out for Carnaval on Monday and Tuesday, so I was free) I put on some dirty clothes and proceded to get soaked and covered with flour. It was actually kind of fun chasing people around, but I was glad when it was over and I can walk the streets without fear.

Right before Carnaval, I tried to get down to Latacunga to watch the Super Bowl, but after waiting two hours on the PanAmerican for a bus (it usually takes 5 minutes), I figured that it wasn't my day, and I went back home. The big city on the other side f Latacunga, Ambato, has the biggest Carnaval in Ecuador, so all the busses were full of Quiteños heading South for the festivities. Long story short, I missed the best Super Bowl since the Rams won because half the population of Quito wanted to throw water balloons at each other in a different city.

Not only was Super Bowl Sunday and Ash Wednesday last week, but Thursday was also my one year anniversary in Ecuador. I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about this. This has been probably one of the least productive years in my life in terms of "work" accomplished, but I've learned so much down here that it is hard to comprehend. I remember the first day here, I tried to call home, but I didn´t know how to tell the guy at the hotel desk what I wanted to do. Now, not only can I do this, but I can also bitch out the guy when he tries to overcharge me! It doesn't seem like it's been a yearsometimes, and at other points it feels like I've been here forever. April 20th will be my one year anniversary in La Libertad, which is a bigger date because it also means I have only one year left. I'll do a little more reflecting before then and try to be more philisophical with my writing, but today there is too much stuff to write about.

Last Wednesday I went to Quito to help greet the new Omnibus. Omnibus 99 is another Sustainable Agriculture/Habitat group with about 50 volunteers. Like they did for us, a group of PCVs went to the airport to yell as they walked out of the terminal and hand them roses ($3 a dozen, so why not). My buddy Andrew and I are not big yellers, so we had a contest to see who could be the least enthusiastic. I think I won because I was depressed after I found out that the North Carolina vs. Duke game wasn't on TV in Quito (The real reason I came in town).

The next day I had my Mid-Service Medical Exam and dental cleaning. I got a clean bill of health (no internal parisites or cavities), but a lot of my friends are now on Fasigyn, a deparisiting medicine. Also, the girls had to go to the Gyno, which turned gave us some funny stories. The Dr. is an older Ecuadorian and apparently very nice, but his English isn't so great, so his phrasing comes off a bit odd. I've heard from three friends that after the exam he told them that they had, "A healthy cervix", "A perfect uterus", and "A beautiful vagina". I guess that´s better than the alternative.

Also, I asked the nurses to run a red blood cell count on me to see what living at 2 miles high was doing to me. I got the results back and have a hemoglobin count of 16.5. As far as I can tell the normal range for this is 14-18, so I'm not as high as I thought I'd be. If any of the urses out there can give me a better idea of what this means, I'd appreciate it.

After Quito, my friend Jeff came to L.L. for the night. We just hung out, made chili mac, and drank a six pack of fresh Budweiser (3 months old) that I found in Quito. The next day we went to Ambato to vist a friend that lives there. She has an awesome place in the city, and since most bars in Ambato have $7-$20 cover charges, we stayed at her place and watched pirated movies that we bought on the street for $1.25. It was fun, but I think we paid $0.30 too much for Rambo IV.

P.S. - The PC puts out a volunteer run newsletter every 3 months down here called El Clima or The Climate. There is a lot of stuff in it, and they print funny articles that PCVs write. I got two in the last issue, and the one that I think you all may understand more of is about the tendencay of Ecuadorians not only to breastfeed their children everywhere (Church, at meetings, on the bus, etc.), but also to extend the period of breastfeeding to kids that are WAY too old. The parts in red I added as translation.

GUIDE FOR NURSING MOTHERS

No matter what your opinion towards public breastfeeding is, a cause I feel we can all get behind is ending the public breastfeeding of children too mature to be partaking in this sacred activity. Therefore, in homage to the greatest American humorist of our generation, Jeff Foxworthy, I have developed a set of rules for nursing Mothers that I like to call, "Your kid may be too old to breastfeed if...". Enjoy!

If while sitting down, your child can stand next to you and eat lunch without problems...
...your kid may be too old to breastfeed!

If you are continually getting nipple cuts since your child got braces...
...your kid may be too old to breastfeed!

If while having a snack, your kid reads "The New Yorker"...
...your kid may be too old to breastfeed!

If your child enters a meeting you´re at and says, "Buenas tardes con todos, solo necesito un poco refregerio" "Good evening everyone, I just need a little snack"...
...your kid may be too old to breastfeed!

If your child is able to unbutton your shirt AND unhook your bra...
...your kid may be too old to breastfeed!

If your child´s lip stud keeps getting in the way...
...your kid may be too old to breastfeed!

If your child takes off it´s colegio High School uniform sweater before eating breakfast because they are afraid of getting milk on it...
...your kid may be too old to breastfeed!

If your husband is starting to get jealous...
...your kid may be too old to breastfeed!

If you have to be at your child´s soccer games to help ward off dehydration...
...your kid may be too old to breastfeed!

If you ever receive a text message that says, "Mom, I´m hungry"...
...your kid may be too old to breastfeed!

If you insist that your son shaves before dinner because his five o´clock shadow scratches...
...your kid may be too old to breastfeed!

If feeding your son on the bus is especially difficult, because he is driving it...
...your kid may be too old to breastfeed!

Finally,

If your child claims that breast milk cures their Chuchaqui Hangover...
...your kid may be too old to breastfeed!

Top of the World, Ma!

Last week was pretty slow and on Sunday I was supposed to have my first practice with my soccer team, so I didn´t have much to write, or time to write it. I´ll fill you in for two weeks with this post.

Starting with the soccer team, we ended up not having a practice, but I did find out what position I´ll be playing...back-up goalie! I had told the coach, my neighbor Carlos, that I´d played Defense before (I didn´t mention that that was in sixth grade), but he thought that with my height, I should play goal (It is ridiculous how many balls go over the five foot tall goalies they have here, so I understand his logic). We then talked about our new uniforms. I have a 2006 StL Cardinals World Series Banner (Thanks Sam and Linda!) hanging in my kitchen, and Carlos said that he liked the design and wanted to put it on the front of the new uniforms since our team won the Championship last year. I asked if he just wanted the "Champions" part, but he said that he wanted the whole thing "Birds on the Bat" and all. I let him barrow a copy of Cardinals GameDay that I got from my Brother-In-Law so he can show the printers a copy of the design. I´d be surprised if they are able to do it, but we´ll see. Also, he told me that I´ll be #12 (After my favorite 1980´s QB Randall Cunningham).

Last week I was at a meeting at the Community Bank. The President asked me if I could go to Quito the next day to drop off the bank´s 6 month accounting report to the PL-480 office. I said it wasn´t a problem, so the next day at 7:00AM I took off. I got to the office after three hours on three different busses, and literally spent 45 seconds there handing in the report. Then I spent three hours going home. To call that process inefficient would possibly be an understatement.

This week I played some softball with the kids at the high school for the first time. It went better and worse than I expected. The very first day, we just messed around in the center of town. After they took turns, they asked me to hit a few. I tossed the ball to myself and hit a line drive that headed straight for this little girl who I hadn´t seen running towards where we were playing. The ball mised her by a couple feet. I told the kids to take her away from where we were playing. They did, and I hit again. This time it was a pop foul that landed far to my right about 10 feet from where the girl was now standing. I decided right there that we couldn´t play in the center of town any more, so we have moved the game to the "Stadium" as they call it. Really just a flat dirt patch above town where the soccer games are at.

While practicing the next couple of days, two students got hit in the head, and one got a bloody nose. Also, after taking about 20 swings, one of the teachers came back the next day and complained that her whole body hurt and she wouldn´t play anymore.

The good news is that a lot of the kids liked playing and after a couple of days, they got a lot better. They even asked me to keep playing after school was out, so I´m hoping that this is going to work.

This Wednesday, I got a call from another PCV who I didn´t know. She told me that her and some other PCVs were planning on climbing one of the mountains by me, Illiniza Norte. She wanted directions to El Chaupi, the town you go through on your way up, and then asked if I wanted to come too. I wasn´t busy, so I said yes. We (6 other PCVs {3 of whom´I already new} and I) met in El Chaupi on Friday night. We satyed at a hostal that I´d booked the previous day, and at 5:00AM on Saturday, we jumped in the back of a truck that took us up to La Virgen or The Virgen. This is a parking area about a third of the way up the mountain. We got very luck and the weather was great. It has been raining every day for the past two weeks, so I thought that when we got the The Virgen, the conditions would be so bad that we´d just hike a little and then come back.

First we hiked 3 hours up to the refuge between Illiniza Norte and Sur. The view was beautiful because the clouds were low, so we could see Cotopaxi perfectly and a lot of the other large mountains were visible over the clouds. We could even see the ash spewing from Tungurahua. Amazing! From the refuge, it was another 3 1/2 hours to the top, but since we were all feeling well, we decide to go for it. Illiniza Norte is not a very difficult mountain to climb, and most people who are going to climb the other bigger mountain will climb Norte first to acclimatize.

We were doing good for the next two hours, but two of the girls started gettting headaches from the altitude, so the went back down. Then I started to get a bad stomache ache (from the french fries I had in my town for lunch the day before). I was almost to the top and realized that I´d have to go to the bathroom ASAP. Unfortunately, this mountain did not come equiped with a Johnny-On-The-Spot. I ended up finding a convieniently shapped rock and did my business. Also unfortunate was my failure to bring any TP with me. The only luck I had was that I brought an extra pair of socks that were not used for their original purpose. After getting that out of my system, I felt better, but had to stop every couple of minutes to rest. We got to the top and the view from 16,800 feet was amazing. I went to grab my camera to take a few pics, but it was not in my pocket. I figured I dropped it when I was on the rock, so on the way back I stopped there and found it next to my other "deposit". It only took 3 1/2 hours to get all the way back to The Virgen and from there we grabbed another truck to take us back. It was a great spur of the moment trip and everybody had a great time despite the headaches from the lack of Oxygen.

P.S. - If anyone can figure out how the titles of my last two posts are related, I bring them a fried cuy leg when I come home.