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.

Chiquito Postito - Small Post

Things have been busy here (I can tell by the lack of progress on the collection of short stories that I´m currently reading), but slow (I can tell by the lack of stories to write about) this week. I was able to go top Latacunga las Saturday to watch the UNC game. Unfortunately, Carolina lost, and even more depressing was that that was the first full live college basketball game I saw all year.

We are getting started on the chicken project finally. I had a short meeting after we finished working all day in the community bank this week. We now have a rough idea of the next few steps that we have to take. Everyone is excited to get started (including myself). I´m trying to keep their expectations low because we may not get funded. I talked to my boss about the project and she said it was a good idea and suggested that everyone work individually instead of in a big group. She thinks that this will cause less problems amongst the group and even though we will lose some of the "team building" benefits, it will work out better. The ladies were all very excited to learn that they could work by themselves which shows how little they trust each other (even Sisters were happy they didn´t have to work together).

Also, my boss and I talked about trying some value-added projects with the onions we grow. She said that she had just talked to a guy who works for a large food processing company in Ecuador that is always on the look out for more product to buy. She said that his company sells onions packaged in vinegar and can´t get enough raw material. She thought it´d be a good match, so she started to write down his information for me. I said that I´d never seen the long white onions that we grow packaged that way. She stopped writing, looked at me, and then throw away the guys info. "I forgot that you only grow those types of onions. You can´t do anything with those." she said.

Got some bad news this week. One of my friends decided to quit. His work wasn´t going well and his Grandmother recently got very sick. He thought he´d be of more use at home, so he left. Another very good friend got kicked out of PC. She had been traveling a lot without telling anyone. She wasn´t happy in her ste and had an Ecuadorian boyfriend in the city near her, so she spent a lot of time there. It sucks that she is leaving because she was one of the few people I talked to regularly, but I think she´ll be happier in the US.

Bush League Bullfighting

How do Bullfighters get started? Is there a Minor League of Bullfighting? I'm sure questions such as these have kept you up as many nights pondering as they have me. Fortunately, I can now answer both of these questions. Last week I went into Machachi on Saturday morning to see "7 Brave Examples of Local Bullfighters". I had seen the signs proclaiming this in La Libertad and decided that I had to go. A friend and I got there at 12:00 (That's when the sign said that it was going to start, but this being Ecuador, the festivities didn't start until around 1:00). When we got there, we were the only ones there except guys setting up the DJ equipment. We were able to get the best seats in the house. I say seats, but the "stadium" was really just a ring with grassy knolls around it that were formed into stands. The day was nice, and sitting there by this small bull ring shaded by trees and the mountains looming in the distance was pretty cool.

Finally the fights started and I realized that the "7 Brave Examples" were a little better at being brave than being examples. It was just like minor league baseball. A lot of young guys working on their game, with a couple of over-the-hill guys trying to hang on, and one stud prospect. They all had the Matador gear on and tried to do all the moves, but ended up getting pretty beaten up by the bulls. Luckily nobody got hurt. It was funny to see one of the kids get flipped and then run to the side of the ring. While the helpers kept the bull occupied, he was talking to his coach in the stands. I couldn't hear the conversation, but I imagine that it went a little like this...

Bullfighter - Coach, I'm getting killed out there. What should I do?

Coach - Well, do you see those horns on the end of the bulls head?

Bullfighter - Yeah.

Coach - I'd try to avoid those.

Bullfighter - Thanks.

Before the fights, I was hoping that they would kill one of the bulls. Once I got there, I changed my mind. I didn't think that these guys were good enough to cleanly kill the bull, so instead they rushed the bull and tapped it on the back in the same spot that they would have stabbed it. That was a lot safer, and the bulls didn't have to suffer. They have bigger fights in Quito and Riobamba that I now want to attend to see the real deal.

Happy April Fool's Day! I hope you all had a good day because I know I had fun. I got three of my friends good, and one rumor that I started is still making the rounds. What can I say, I got to have something to keep me busy.

Work has been OK lately. I finally got the High School to let me teach some nutrition classes. My plan is to get them to use the vegetables that they grow for lunches for the kids instead of just rice, potatoes, and candy like they serve now. Also, I want to do a health fair with the kids making food for the teachers and parents to taste test. We'll see how it goes. I think I may finally start assisting with Chemistry and Physics too.

My buddy John went the other day to see the garden that we had planted in Tilipulo. He said that it is doing great. I'll be back there in a week or so to transplant the new plants. Hopefully this will be the start of more outside work.

I was walking through town the other day and a truck pulled up next to me. It was a government truck and a guy from the Ecuadoran Agricultural Ministry was driving. He said that he was visiting my town and heard from some people that I was doing some experiments in crop diversification. I showed him what I was doing with alternative crops (to little success). He was interested and asked me to come by his office in Machachi to see how we could work together. I think he wants me to organize Ag classes in La Libertad. Nothing really exciting, but any work is good work.

Finally, To add on to the pile of bad/odd things that have happened to Ecuador since I got here, the main traffic hub in the south of Quito was heavily damaged this week when a water tunnel running under it broke and then created a huge hole in the middle of the Trebol or Clover. You can see pictures at http://www.interactive.net.ec/noticias/crater_en_el_trebol_en_quito_incomunica_a_la_capital.html

and

http://www.ciudadaniainformada.com/ciudadania/ciudadania-despliegue-noticias/ir_a/ciudadania/article//quito-en-emergencia-por-colapso-de-colector-del-trebol.html

It is going to take a while to get this fixed and will make my travel to and from Quito a little harder.

P.S. - We tied last week's soccer game 1-1, but I didn't give up a goal in my half

Holy Water, Holy Week, Holy Cow!

First off, sorry that it has been a while since I updated the blog. It has been a hectic couple of weeks, but since time flies when you are having fun, that is a good thing. To start off, thanks to Ellen Christ for a great week. She (My good friend Jeff´s Sister) was in Quito working for a medical mission and stayed a week longer to travel. It was great to have another friend visit.

Ellen came at a perfect time, and everything worked out well. The first reason it was a good time to visit was that my neighbors baptized their two youngest daughters on Ellen´s first day here. They had originally asked me to be the Padrino or Godfather. This is a very big deal in Latin America, and I was honored that they asked me. We talked about it a little more and they decided that it may not be the best idea. Usually the Godparents will be involved with Confirmations, 15th Birthday´s and Weddings. I told them that I wasn´t going to come back for these parties to participate, so they decided to have a couple from Quito that they know be the Godparents. The problem was that the couple doesn´t know the girls at all, so they had me be the "Semi-Godfather" and help out at the Baptism. Also, for the next 13 months I will see the girls everyday, while there official Godfather probably won´t see them till they turn 15.

The day before the party I was sleeping and awoke to my neighbor beating on my door and yelling, "Jay, wake up! We´re going to peel the pigs!". Now, how can you not get up for that? That was around 7:30, and commenced 17 hours of killing animals and cooking food for the next day. I personally killed 2 pigs (what they called "Peeling", was gutting and burning off the hair with a blow torch), 25 chickens, and a couple Guinea Pigs.

The next day I got up and went with the family for the Baptism. At the Church I met Ellen and I let her describe the rest of the week in her own words. (Note: Ellen´s account is in red, and my comments are in white...

First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAY!

Jay asked me to write a post for his blog to tell you about my Ecuadorian experience... I first spent a week in the poor villages of Southern Quito on a medical mission while staying in Quito for the week and seeing a few sights around the city. It was an amazing experience, especially seeing the drastic economic change from the modernized city of Quito to the poverty stricken areas of Southern Quito.

I then headed to meet Jay for yet another look at the Ecuadorian culture....I met Jay in Machachi for the baptism of two little girls that are his neighbors, went back to Jays house (that he is too tall for!) and got ready for a "real Ecuadorian party". (By "real Ecuadorian party", Ellen means a real sierran party. On the coast and in the jungle they do things a lot different) Jay´s neighbors threw a HUGE baptism party, there had to have been 150-200 people there. To give you a few highlights to the party: a massive 3 story cake with a fountain underneath, a live band, watching people eat guinea pigs, passing out to-go grocery bags at dinner to all the guest who proceeded to eat 1/3 of their food then put all the rest of the food mixed together in the bag, dancing and taking shots all night (I learned that it is rude to say no to a dance or drink so I danced and drank all night...even double teamed by Ecuadorian men...thanks Jay!), then going to bed at 4am only to be out lasted by the 80 year old grandma who was still taking shots and dancing!

Day 2 we headed out to the town of El Chaco in the national forest. The bus ride out there was beautiful, there were many waterfalls in the lush forest. That night we went to Palm Sunday mass up on the hill of the town and then had pizza and beer with Jays Peace Corp friend and his Ecuadorian friends.

The next day (St. Patricks Day!) we woke up and went rafting on the Quijos River in the cloud forest. Apparently the rivers in El Chaco are known for world class rafting. (The 2005 Rafting World Championship was held on the same stretch of river that we rafted on) The rafting was amazing and the scenery was breathtaking, through the forest and canyons. During our trip down the river we hopped off the raft at a distillery literally in the middle of the jungle. The locals were making a sugar juice and a strong liquor called puro. They were very friendly and we help crush sugar cane, take shots of puro, and see the distilling process (quite barbaric compared to the AB brewery!) Then after starting St. Pattys day with a few shots of puro we headed back down to the rafts and finished the river. That evening we headed to the town of Tena to meet a big group of Jays Peace Corps friends for again pizza, beer, and some of Tena's famous cocktails.

Tuesday we headed out to the Amazon Rainforest to a town called Compana Coche. It was a trek to get there, a bus, a canoe, then smashed in a truck bed full of Ecuadorians and animals. Another one of Jays friends lives out there and we stayed at her house. In her hut she has living with her bats and rats however I am sure she keeps herself safe with one of her many machetes she has. We then walked around town and drank Chicha with the locals. This is probably where I most likely will get some worm or parasite, but like I said before it is rude to refuse a drink. This drink this community drinks is basically a plant called Yuca (Cassava in the US) that the women chew up in their mouths, spit out, ferment in there Amazon river water and drink as an alcoholic beverage out of a shared bucket! The girl that lives at this site drinks this all day, I am surprised she isn't dead. I should have opted for a guinea pig, that would have been a wiser choice. We then ate dinner, drank beers, then Sadie and I slept under the mosquito net while Jay slept in the hammock with the rats and bats all night.

The next morning we woke up only to find Jay on the hammock under a plastic sheet for protection from the rodents, pretty funny. (Not really!) We then walked more that morning to an amazing view point of the Amazon (Actually the Rio Napo, a tributary of the Amazon, but pretty much the same thing) before we left Campana Coche in the pouring rain. My bag got soaked in river water and I literally thought our canoe was going to tip because we took it across river with 20 school kids rocking the boat. But we made it across and it was well worth the experience. We then took a bus to Baños and had another beautiful bus ride from Puyo to Baños in the forest with tons of waterfalls. That night in Baños we walked around, saw the volcanic ash from Tungurahua, ate dinner and went out for drinks.

Thursday morning we woke up and Jay took me for a real Ecuadorian breakfast, llapingachos (cheesy fried potato pancakes, fried eggs, and rice). We then hiked up around Baños and caught some really great views of the city. In the afternoon we caught a bus back to La Libertad and then Quito for the evening. In the huge city of Quito we had a night outside of the Ecuadorian culture in what Jay calls 'gringolandia', La Mariscal: dinner at an Indian restaurant, watching NCAA at a sports bar, then drinks at an Irish Pub.

My last day in Ecuador we woke up and had another real Ecuadorian breakfast, Bólon de verde (fried cheese and plantains). We then headed out to Mitad del Mundo, middle of the world, to see the equator actually at 12:00 on the Equinox. Couldn't have planned it better! After walking around the equator we went back into Quito to see some of the holy week festivities Quito had, the city was packed. The afternoon ended with watching some of the procession through the city (basically miles of Ecuadorians dressed in what looked like a purple Ku Klux Klan outfits carrying the crucifix these guys are called Cucuruchos), eating Fanesca (a traditional soup during holy week made with 12 types of grain to represent the 12 apostles), then going to Holy Friday mass at Iglesia de la Compania (a beautiful church in historical Quito). It was really interesting to seeing the traditions of Ecuador during a holiday week.

Long story short, you need to come visit Jay! I had a great time and Ecuador is a beautiful country. It was amazing to see the many cultural differences with in the different regions of the country and I only skimmed the surface. Thanks Jay for a great second week of my trip!

Ellen

Thanks again to Ellen for bringing down a couple bottles of Sierra Nevada. And not getting too grossed out by seeing fried rodent and drinking previously chewed food.

After Ellen left, things calmed down for a day or two. Easter was pretty much a bust. I woke up early and told my neighbors "Happy Easter". They looked confused for a second, and then said, "Oh yeah, today IS Easter". Apparently not that big a deal. I did make some hard boiled eggs, but didn´t bother decorating them. Then I played soccer (We lost and I gave up two goals. I must have some bad Karma from telling all my soccer friends how east their game is) and then went to work at the bank. Easter dinner was a delicious plate of cuy...what more can you ask for on a holiday.

As Ellen said, this Monday was my 30th Birthday. I´m not really big on Birthdays, but I figured that 30 was a little different. I didn´t want to spend it in La Libertad, so I took a bus to Cuenca and met up with a bunch of friends. We spent Monday night hanging out and Tuesday we walked around Cuenca and then went to my late birthday dinner at a new sushi place (My first sushi in 13 months, so it was a treat). After dinner, we hopped on night buses back to our sites. Thanks to everyone who sent Birthday wishes, but let´s never mention that my 20´s are in the past.

Note: I finally got my flight back to the US. I´m landing in Chicago on July 1st and heading back here on the 22nd of July. My plan is to spend 1 week in Central Missouri, 1 week in St. Louis, and 1 week in Chicago. Save the date, and I´ll see y´all in three months!

Projects

The last week and a half have been interesting because it seems that everyone now wants to start a project with me. As I mentioned before, the bank group wanted to do something with me. We had another meeting (this time with only 12 people) and it went better. We settled on doing a chicken project. A lot of people already have chickens here, but they are mixed or creole breeds that don´t produce much. The creole breeds are very hearty though and are able to live outside people´s houses off bugs, worms, and a little grain given them by their owners. Our project idea is to build a large

building with space for the chickens, coops, and storage for the feed that we will need to give the ore delicate "Pure-Breed" chickens. Our next step is to find a location that works for everyone and then begin writing the proposal in Spanish.

Also, at the High School, two teachers asked me last week why I wasn´t working with them on their project. They made it sound like I was being lazy. This pissed me off, so I told them that they had all the paperwork that we need to complete on the school´s computer for months, but they hadn´t even read it. They claimed that they didn´t know that the files were there, but I explained that two other teachers were with me when I downloaded it. I also, told them that another teacher had told me that they didn´t want to start the project, because they didn´t know what was going to happen to the school after the new constitution was finished (apparently there is some talk of school closing and combination). The teachers acted surprised about this and said that they´d talk to the teacher who told me that. Then, another teacher came in and said that I spent more time at the grade school and that I liked them better. I then told the , sarcastically, "When you spend three weeks practicing for programs, what am I supposed to do?". They then dropped the subject and haven´t asked again about the project. I´ve pretty much given up on working with them.

Finally, one of the police officers who started working in La Libertad about three months ago asked me if I could help him and the Grower´s Association he is a part of with a project. I asked, what is the project? He said that they didn´t know, but they wanted to do a project with me. I knew what they really wanted...free money. I told him I´d see what I could do. Since he lives about an hour away from me, I told him later that my boss said I couldn´t help. (I never actually talked to my boss, but I imagine that´s what he would say, and it is always better to put the blame on someone in Quito. Especially when your dealing with your town´s cop.) Instead, I´m going to get them and help them complete the paperwork to request and PCV to live and work there. I actually think that it would me a good site because it is a bigger and warmer town with an existing agricultural organization.

Last week, one of my friend stayed in La Libertad for a night. He had a friend flying into Quito and didn´t want to pay for a hotel. I was glad for the company, and the weather was clear, so I got to show him around town for a look at the mountains. I don´t know why, but every time somebody comes to visit, the weather gets better.

This week I was also able to get some work done on my garden (I´m growing Brocolli now) and do some more computer work. Next week, my neighbors are Baptizing their two youngest daughters. I helped Carlos print out the invitations on his computer. He wanted to put a picture of his middel daughter on the invitation, but in the background of the picture there were other kids. He didn´t like that, so I spent an hour or so "PhotoShopping" out the offending kids. It turned out nice, and Carlos and Sara were impressed. Unfortunately, when we printed out the invitations, after two or three, the print cartridge ran out of yellow ink. The invitations looked crappy, but they needed to go out the next day. So much for my work.

I hear that Ecuador has been getting some press over the Ecuador/Columbia border situation. If you don´t know, basically Columbian forces probbed 1 mile into Ecuadorian teritory last weekend to kill some members of FARC (Columbian Armed Revolutionary Forces - A marxist guerrilla group) who were hiding in Ecuador. Columbia almost immediately apoligized and said that the forces didn´t know that they were in Ecuador (yeah, right). Ecuador and Venezuela then started to mobolize their forces to the Columbian border to defend against Columbian agression. Some people were saying that it could lead to war, but I didn´t think that it would amount to much. Peace Corps HQ didn´t even issue a warning, and they warn us about everything. Last Friday, at a big meeting of Latin American Presidents, everything got worked out and the "crisis" is over. In the end, all that happened is that a handfull of drug-running communist terrorists were killed by Columbia while somehow living safely in Ecuador.

Soccer update: We´ve played two more games since my last post and we are 1-0-1. I played both second halves and gave up one more goal (a high arcing shot of my defenseman´s head that I didn´t even see because of the sun...excuses, excuses)

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.

You Dirty Rat

One of the things Peace Corps stresses is that volunteers from multiple programs work together. In that spirit, the PCV from Latacunga and I decided to look into some projects around there. He is in the youth and families program, so he travels to a bunch of schools around Latacunga. A couple have asked him for help setting up small gardens near the school. He knows even less than I do about horticulture, so he asked me to help out. Our first visit was to a small town called Tilipulo. I thought that things were rough in La Libertad, but it was much worse there. John couldn´t remember the exact directions to the school, so he went to ask a family. The Mother offered her son as a guide for 20 cents. We declined the offer and walked another 50 feet to where the school was. My idea was to take a quick look around to see what was growing and what we would need to do, but as soon as the word that there were a bunch of "gringos" in town spread, we were surrounded by locals. We explained what we were doing and then they told us there plans. They wanted to start planting a nearby field right away with seeds that of course we would provide. I said that we wanted to start smaller and work mainly with the kids.

We looked around a little bit more, but they kept treating us like tourists. One of the ladies was spinning wool on a hand reel and some of the other ladies kept asking us if we wanted to take pictures of her (I we did, then they´d ask for money). As we were leaving, one of the ladies asked for a dollar so she could buy a coke. I said that I didn´t have any money. She then said it wasn´t a problem and told us that when we came back she would grill a cuy for us. I know she wouldn´t charge us for the guinea pig. It is such a strange thing down here when people will beg for small change, but then offer you a meal that costs $7 at any restaurant in the city.

The other night I was in bed almost asleep when a moth started buzzing around my bed. I laid there a bit before motivating myself to get out from under my warm covers. While I was laying, I heard a rustling sound in my room. I´m used to having to kill a moth pretty much every other night, but I hadn´t heard this other sound before. I turned on the light and first turned to see the moth. It was caught in a web by my bed and a big spider was crawling towards it. Also, there was a massive slug squirming up the wall by my light switch and to top it all off, I found out what was making the rustling sound in my room. As I turned to swat the moth, I saw a rat sitting in the middle of my room.

I HATE rats and mice. I wouldn´t cal lit a phobia, but it is close (now you know why I´m not a big fan of eating Guinea Pig).

After a slight pause of revulsion, I went after the rat. It was a fast mother and took off into my bathroom to hide. I ran into my kitchen and grabbed a broom, killed the moth/spider combo and the slug, and then went into the bathroom. The rat immediately ran out, and thus began a 40 minute midnight rumble to the death. I pretty much destroyed my room as the rat went under everything, ran up my walls, and climbed my shower curtain (which I ripped off the wall with a swing of the broom). I finally clipped it and then finished the job after spitting out every expletive in Spanish and English that I know. The rat was over a foot long from nose to tail and I don´t know how it got into the house, so now at night whenever I hear a noise, I get a little freaked out.

A couple of my friends from the southern end of Ecuador were in Quito for meetings last week, so I spent the night on Thursday hanging out with them. It was nice to catch up and also to pick up my mail from the office for the first time in a while. I got a bunch of packages from my family with Christmas presents and a big box from a college friend with softball bats, Chicago style 16" softballs, and matts for bases and home plate. I´m planning on playing softball with the kids at the high school. I hope they like it because I´d like to play all the time.

Thanks Mom, Dad, Steph, Matt, and Kyle for the Christmas presents and thanks Vaughn for all your work getting this sent to me Belyew, Bosone, Schriner, and Kruzic for the softball gear. I´ll post some pictures of the kids playing (or more likely, trying to play) softball soon.

Also while in Quito I was able to get the battery changed on my watch. I went to the Fossil store in the mall so that I could be sure to get the right battery put in my Fossil watch. As I was waiting, I thought to myself, "Do they really need Peace Corps Volunteers in a country where I can take a bus and get to a Fossil store in 3 hours?".

Checkmate!

Thanks to John, the PCV who lives in Latacunga, I now have something to occupy my nights. He found some cheap chess sets and gave me one. I´m currently trying to teach the kids next door how to play chess, or ajedrez, in Spanish. I´m on a pretty good winning streak against them, but the are starting to pick it up.

It has been a busy week and a half, starting off with another first for me. I got to help slaughter my first hog! I went to visit one of the families in town the other day, and right as I got there, they were getting ready to kill the pig. We muscled it to the ground and then the 60-something mother of the family stabbed the pig in the heart. It took only a minute for the pig to die, and then we put it in a wheelbarrow and poured boiling water over it. We had to keep moving the pig in the barrow to get the water over all of it, so I was glad that the clothes I was wearing were already dirty and therefore didn´t mind the bloody/shitty pig water getting on me. Next we ripped the hair and epidermis off the pig. We couldn´t get all the hair off, so my job was to shave the pig with a Bic razor (an activity I´m out of practice with as you´ll read). Then we ripped off the hoofs and cut it open and removed the guts to feed to the dogs. Next we separated the skin from the meat and rubbed it all over with spices before sending it to the next town over where they have big ovens that can roast a whole pig. The typical roast pork dish down here is called hornado and is very tasty. The family said I could come back the next day to eat, but unfortunately I had plans. My payment for shaving their pig instead was a plate of boiled potatoes with a couple of chunks of the pigs fried kidney. Not only did it smell like piss, but it was super tough (I only managed to try one small bite). Thankfully there were a couple dogs in the house who took care of the meat for me.

The other day my neighbor, Carlos, came into my house and asked me to help him cook some "American Food". He showed me a package with Mareican Army rations that he got from his work. Apparently the Ecuadorian Army is trying out some new MRE´s and Carlos got picked to see how they taste. The problem was that the instructions on how to heat it up were in English. I translated and we used the chemicals in the kit to heat up a nice spaggetti dinner. While WE were doing this, Carlos´wife, Sara, was gutting and ripping the hair off a couple of Guinea Pigs for their real dinner. When the pasta was ready, I offered some to Sara and she pulled away, shook her head, and wouldn´t eat. Disembowling a large rodent for your meal=OK. Chef Boyardee=Disgusting.

Another example of cultural differences happened on the bus back from the market this week. On the Pan-Americanthere was a bad accident about half a mile in front of us. As soon as our bus stopped in the traffic, litteraly 75% of the pasengers jump off the bus and sprinted up the road to the accident site to see the crashed cars. It wasn´t just the people in my bus, the side of the road was full of people running to try to see a dead body. I know that people will rubberneck in the States, but this is a whole different level. I don´t know, they think I´m odd when they see me outside on a clear night staring at the stars.

I spent my one free afternoon this week picking the radishes we planted last month. As I suspected, the ones I planted with a lot of space between them were huge, and the ones my neighbor planted were tiny. It didn´t matter to them though, because we fed them all to the rabbits. I found out that nobody in the family likes radishes, but then either do I. I then cleared and fertilized some more land for my new garden that I´m planting with lettuce, zucchini, broccoli, cucumber, and pumpkins. I´m goign to try covering this garden with a half assed plastic greenhouse that I´m making. I think it will help the non-lettuce plants especially, and may be an option for the families here if it works.

NOTES:
-I added another PCV´s blog link to the frontpage of my blog. He was a science teacher before he and his wife came down here. The blog is good, and I especially like the pictures of the poker game we had the other week. Check it out at http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Ecuador/Puyo/blog-232911.html and scroll down to the pictures.

- Tungurahua, the volcano I passed on my way to the jungle for the Christmas party, is gettign ready to erupt. It is only about 40 miles away from me, and I can see it from the hills near my house, but I´m in no danger.

- This week I finally used up the first can of shaving cream that I brought down here. I hate shaving, and since nobody cares what I look like down here, I rarely shave. That is one of the benifits of life in the Peace Corps, but it does put you at a disadvantage when you have to shave a whole pig.