Viva La Costa!

If I had to describe the Coast in three words they would be Hot, Bacan (the equivalent to fun or cool in the States and Chevere in the Sierra), and Mosquitoes…

AKA it is my new favorite place in Ecuador!

All in all I would say my site visit went perfectly, although the 9-hour overnight bus ride was definitely not the highlight, I am pretty happy that I successfully made it through both the Quito and Guyaquil bus terminals without getting robbed or completely lost, which was most likely due to the fact that I was not traveling alone. Hopefully, that will be the case whenever we leave for our sites after swearing-in as well.

So, I do not have any pictures of my site yet since I was afraid to take my camera with me since the bus terminals are crazy. Plus, I decided I have two years to take pictures, but I will try my best to describe it in words. I am actually living in Puerto Rico, which is across the river from Colimes, where I will mostly be working. Colimes looks a lot like Florida, say maybe Fort Lauderdale…but obviously more beautiful. There are people riding motorcycles, horses, cars, buses, and mototaxis (which are motorcycles attached to a cart) all on the same road…and it can be pretty intense at times. Everything is so green, almost as if someone just painted everything green, it is really beautiful and tranquilo, or calm. It honestly made me miss home a bit, which I think is actually a good thing, because I can definitely see myself living there and loving it for the next two years.

For all of my sweet friends and family from the South, the weather is very similar to our weather around May, but it is a bit cool at night and since it is “summer”, or the dry season, it does not rain…ever. Yet, during the “winter”, or rainy season it is warmer and rains EVERYDAY, so much so that the river floods and I will no longer be able to cross the river on the sugar cane bridge, and I will have to take a canoe to work everyday, which in my opinion is pretty sweet. And yes, I do feel a bit like I will be living in Candyland since there is a bridge made out of sugar cane…

My new family is also pretty awesome. I will be living with a mom and dad, Carolina and Alberto, who are both teachers, so as you can imagine they have already started cracking the learning whip. They have four sons, two of which live in the house, Carlos, who is 23-years old and Beto, who is 15-years old. Junior lives across the river with his wife and adorable baby and the other brother lives in Guyaquil. Carlos also has an amazing girlfriend who runs the family store during the day while everyone else is at school and she lives across the street. She is very sweet and is definitely going to be a great support system. The entire family is a blast and Carolina has already begun to call me the hija, daughter, she never had.

During my site visit I had the opportunity to visit the PLAN Ecuador office, which is my NGO that I will be working with for the next two years. The office is located in Santa Lucia, which is about 40 minutes away by bus. Everyone in the office is very helpful and amable (nice) and the office even has air conditioning and internet…so, as you can imagine I plan on spending a fair amount of time there! I will be helping them out with charlas (or health and nutrition talks) and they also have an international big brother/sister program that will probably help out with as well. I also met my counterpart, Sandra, who is also muy amable and fun. She will be a great resource because she knows all of the current health volunteers in Colimes, in addition to everyone in town, and we will also have monthly meetings at her house.

I had a chance to meet the closest volunteer to me, Mathias, who is a blast and is very helpful. He showed me around his site which is about a 30 minute bus ride and is also where the nearest ATM and internet are, so if once I get to site and I am slow to answer your emails, do not be offended ha. I hung out with a group of the kids that he has been working with and they are so cute and so much fun! I will probably try to continue that youth group after he closes service since these kids are already accustomed to meeting and are excited about learning, etc.

I also visited the Subcentro, which is the local health center in our town. I will most likely be spending a fair amount of time there in addition to the three local high schools and the one elementary school. I had the privilege of introducing myself to the all of the kids at one of the high schools, which was fun/a bit nerve racking since I definitely did not prepare a speech!

So, in general it seems like my work thus far is pretty unstructured. The volunteer before me, Diana, who the entire town of 21,000 people was in love with, has definitely set a high standard for me. Unfortunately, she is already back in the States, but she has been so supportive through email, and I am already feeling better about the few things I was a bit nervous about. I would like to continue most of her projects since they will definitely be a great place to start. It was hilarious when Carolina introduced me as Diana’s replacement because no one believed I was American, until of course they heard my Spanish!

Overall, I spent a lot of time this week lying in a hammock, reading and eating sandia (watermelon). It was definitely nice to have a break from training and having a set schedule everyday. I am excited to get to know everyone at my site and begin my work on the Coast, but this week definitely made me realize how much I will miss the other volunteers in my training group, especially since we have all grown really close. Luckily, there are several volunteers in Guyaquil, where I have to go to receive my mail, and also in other sites within 2-4 hours.

The Sierra definitely feels colder after being on the Coast for a while, but I have missed it all the same. I will definitely be enjoying the next month without mosquitoes before I officially call Colimes home!

Mangos and Mosquito Nets,

Tiffany :D

The news we have all been waiting for...

So, today was the big day! We finally had our sites revealed to us and I am headed to the Coast of Ecuador! I am so incredibly excited! I am about a 85 KM from the largest city in Ecuador, Guayaquil, and about two hours away from the playa (the beach!)! I am so excited! Wait, I believe I may have already said that… ha

My site is located in Colimes, which is a fairly large town (for the Peace Corps anyhow) of a total population of about 21,490 people. I will be working in Public Health with a concentration on nutrition, tropical diseases and parasites, teen pregnancy and sex education. All things that I have a great interest in and am very excited to learn more about and get my hands dirty, so to speak. For all you who are interested, there is running water, phone service, and internet in my town, so everyone should be delighted to hear that! Especially those of you who will be coming to visit *Hint Hint*

Saturday is the big day that we are leaving to go visit our sites! Some of us will be leaving Saturday; while others who have closer sites will be leaving on Sunday. In total, I have 13 hour overnight bus ride... so, that is going to be pretty intense! But we will be traveling through Quito and Guayaquil so maybe we will have the chance to hit up some nice food locations!

The agencies that I will be working with are Plan Ecuador Santa Lucia and NUTRINNFA. With these organizations and my counterpart, who is an Ecuadorian who the Peace Corps has assigned to me, I will be giving presentations about nutrition with high school teachers and also giving presentations regarding themes like sexual and reproductive health to youths in three high schools. I will also be working with the promoters from Plan International/Plan Ecuador in sexual and reproductive health. My secondary projects are to work in technology and communication, which we all know how much I love technology, in high schools and work to create new business ventures. So, basically I have my hands pretty full for the next two years! Needless to say, all of this can change whenever I actually get to my site, even my counterpart and the agencies that I am working with. Overall, I am ecstatic, but I am obviously pretty nervous as we are going through two of the largest bus terminals in Ecuador this weekend in one trip! Also, of course this is my first time to visit my site, so obviously all of this is new and exciting, but also a bit nerve racking.

There is apparently one volunteer that is already there that is pretty close to me that was actually a volunteer in Bolivia before they were evacuated. I hear he is pretty cool, so I am definitely excited to meet him! Also, I am very excited to meet my counterpart and I hope we get along very well, or at least professionally! I believe my host family has four members, but I cannot be sure until I arrive this weekend. My host mom will be meeting me at the bus terminal, so that is a pretty sweet setup. I will be living with her for the first three months at my site, and I will be staying with her for the five day visit at my site this coming week. I am so excited to get some fresh seafood and fruit, and I guess I will have to begin my long journey to love bananas this week as well!

Other than site visits, which have obviously been the major highlight of this week, there was a small disturbance in Cayambe, which is the town we travel through at least twice a week to get to our technical training and general meetings. Here in Ecuador there is a large Indigenous population and they are known to take justice into their own hands when someone from their community commits a crime. Earlier this week three Indigenous teenagers were accused of murdering a camioneta driver (camionetas are like taxis, except they are trucks) and the community wanted the one captured teenager back in order to execute their own form of justice and locate the others who were accused. Obviously, the police did not want to give the suspect back because he has not formally been proven guilty. So, various members of the Indigenous community rioted in the streets of Cayambe yesterday and there was tear gas thrown and other things that were definitely a first experience for me. It was a little scary, but it was also a reality check for many of us who, up until this point, had not really considered that things of this nature happen in Ecuador. Obviously the Peace Corps has an amazing emergency action plan and they were able to get all of us out of harms way without any problems.

This week we have a day and half of language classes left before we head to our sites! Everyone is very excited and ready to visit our sites! I will update everyone on my adventures as soon as I return!

Peace, Love, and Ecuador

Ciao

Tiffany :D

El Fin De Semana….

This weekend was a free weekend for us to spend time with our families. Obviously, Saturday was the 4^th of July, so I spend some of my free time with some friends in the larger city close to my town. It was my first 4^th of July away from home, so it was pretty interesting. We went to the local German Café (yes, there are German café’s in Ecuador) and had a little American feast. I enjoyed a plate of spaghetti and some chocolate ice cream… not so bad for a 4^th of July out of the States.

We had our actual 4^th of July celebration on Friday with Peace Corps Staff, Co-Trainers, language facilitators, and current volunteers who are our big brothers and big sisters. My big brother is Nick, who happens to also be a Co-Trainer, so we are already pretty close as you may imagine. The other volunteers were great and they were a wealth of information and definitely eased many of the fears I have had thus far. They are also amazing cooks! We had hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, real green salad, guacamole, chips, and cake just to name a bit of the awesome feast they prepared for us. I honestly forgot that we were in Ecuador for a minute!

We also had a futbol, or soccer, tournament between communities, the staff and the co-trainers. Our team amazingly made it to the championship game, but we were, unfortunately, defeated by another community that had a pretty awesome chant, and needless to say an amazing team. I was also the reiña, or queen of my community, which was interesting to say the least. It was pretty fun, but it definitely reinforced why I have never been a contestant in a beauty competition!

Today, Sunday, I went into the larger city to watch the fiestas and dancers with my family. It was pretty fun! There were tons of people though, which can sometimes be a bit dangerous, but probably not any more risky than Mardi Gras in America. I am excited to begin week three of training, especially since we will be one week closer to finding out our sites! The anticipation is almost unbearable!

Hasta Luego!

Tiffa :D

A Day in the Life Of a Peace Corps Trainee

So, if you have not figured it out yet, I am not officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. I am actually still only a trainee. In the Peace Corps, there is about a three-month training period, which varies from country to country, in which you learn cultural, language, and technical skills. So, this being my second week in country, I am still in training until mid-August.

I am sure everyone is wondering what exactly it is that I am doing on a daily basis, so I thought I would give everyone a rundown of a typical day in the life of a Peace Corps Ecuador Trainee:

6:00 a.m. – I wake up and have breakfast with my Madre and whomever else in the family is awake since my Madre has to leave for work at 6:30 a.m. and this is the best way to insure I eat breakfast every morning. After breakfast I finish of my laundry if I have any (which I do outside, with a bucket, a little bag of detergent, a bar of soap, a brush, and FREEZING cold water), shower (with lukewarm water which feels amazing at this point) and then get dressed for the day.

7:00 a.m. or 7:30 a.m. - Depending on the day, we (me and the other three volunteers in my town) either get on the bus to go to a small town about an hour away from where we live for our technical sessions or group activities, which I will explain in more detail later. On other days we stay in our small community and have language lessons from 8:00 a.m. until about 12:30 p.m.

12:30 p.m. – We have a break for lunch which we either go to a restaurant (or other people have begun to bring their lunches, but I am personally taking advantage of the fact that there are restaurants during training, my favorite of which being the pizza parlor and the Chinese restaurant) or if we are in our community we eat lunch at two other volunteers’ home where we have our language lessons. Their Madre cooks really well, but I am still adjusting to eating so many vegetables…

1:30 p.m. (or 2:00 p.m. if we are lucky) – We return to our Spanish lessons on some days and other days we have our technical sessions both of which last until 4:30 p.m.

So, basically we are back in high school (as many Peace Corps Volunteers, or PCVS, had already prepared us for), which is not necessarily a bad thing, it is very structured, but I believe it helps our days go by pretty quickly, but we are definitely exhausted after class. There is usually a little time before dark to do a little laundry, run to the Internet Café or the grocery store for a bit, or grab a snack before heading home.

7:30 p.m. – My family has dinner, which is often a bowl of soup with a chicken, rice and potatoes. Other times we rice and some sort of meat like chicken, fish, or beef. Wednesday night we had fried shrimp, salad, and rice… needless to say I was ecstatic! It was almost as good as the shrimp my Grandma makes at home… almost. The shrimp were actually pretty awesome and fresh. *Quick fact: shrimp are actually one of the major exports of Ecuador!

8:30 p.m.- I usually start getting ready for bed. I know, it is insanely early, but I am usually worn out mentally and physically by then and the rest of my family is usually headed to bed as well. I may read for a while, rearrange my ipod playlist, watch las noticias, or the news, study Spanish for a bit, or play a few games of Snood. After this, it is usually lights out and I get ready to do it all over again the next day!

This year volunteers have Saturday and Sunday off which is a nice addition to the schedule in my opinion. For the next few weeks we will be spending the weekends at home, so we will have plenty of free time to hang out and see what it is like to actually have some unscheduled time, which I am definitely excited about.

As far as technical and language training go, they are both pretty self-explanatory, but for the sake of understanding I will explain. Technical training is the training that we receive in our specific area. For example my area is Health, or Salud, so I obviously receive technical training in the areas of child and maternal health, sexual and reproductive health, and environmental health. In addition to learning more about the specific topics, we also learn hands-on skills in which we will be able to teach the people in our sites about these topics through Charlas, or short informative talks, puppets shows, and other techniques of this manner. Our language training consists of typical language training in addition to learning vocabulary and common phrases that are specific to Ecuador and even more specific to the areas in which many of us will be placed for site. Our language facilitators also work with us on vocabulary tailored to our specific areas like Health and Youth and Families, or Jovenes y Familias.

Another frequent question I have encountered is “How is the weather?” Well, it is actually pretty chilly here in the morning and at night. I would hate to through out an exact temperature without being certain but I would say it is in the low sixties at night and in the morning. During the day it can get as warm as 70 degrees or at least to the point that you are warm in a long-sleeve shirt and long pants. I am actually enjoying the break from the 100-degree weather in Mobile, but I do miss the warm at times. The nice part is that there are definitely less insects in the Sierra, and if you know me, then you know just how happy that makes me. J

So, that pretty much covers a day in the life of a Peace Corps Trainee. If you have any more specific questions, feel free to email me! Peace Corps Trainees love email!

All my Love,

Tiffa :D