Back to home base - 7/21/09

I´m getting pretty bad at writing regularly which, at the moment, is a sing that I have been pleasantly busy. The Friday since I last worote, we went to a club in Ibarra called Mojito where they were playing a wildly eclectic mashup of classic rock, spanish tunes, techno, and, of course, copius amounts of Michael Jackson. Definitely a good time. The next day we brought obscene amoutns of food ( everything from red velvet cake to chilli cheese covered hot dogs and hamburgers) and spent the day celebrating the homelands´independence. We fnished up the night with an array of really crappy fireworks. The highlight was when on of the fireworks turned on us and shot this little rocked directly at our heads; it was the most exciting one by far. The next day I embarked on a long journey towards Cuenca. I spent one night in a hostal called Casa Blanca in Baños which I do not think I would recommend to anyone who is not enthusiastic about other peoples´pubic hair in your bed and on various areas of the bathroom. I got out of there the next morning and finished up my journey to Cuenca. I stayed at a weird hostal, but it was lacking the hairy decor and so I couldn´t complain too much. The hostal, called El Cafecito, was more of a bar with rooms right off the sides which allowed for some loud tunes and even louder talking to fill the room until the wee hours every night. But I did meet some fun people, such as a crazy Chilean man who spoke a mile a minute, and, incidentally, I met a man named Phil who came to volunteer in Salasaka after. Cuenca is pretty and quite tranquilo; it looks like a city in Spain and has a lovely river, but other than that there wasn´t a whole lot to do. For the weekend I headed to Vilcabamba, the Valley of Longevity. It was so gorgeous, with rolling hills, jungle, forest, and everything in between. You can do hikes or just relax. I met a ton of the rahter sizable expat population and they took me around to their friends houses and their favorite spots. The people I met there seemd to want nothing but to make everyone feel welcome, comfortable, and happy. It was a very lovely weekend. Although, one night I went to bed, feeling fine, read a bit, and all of a sudden I was thought, oh god I am going to throw up, and had to run to the bathroom to up chuck my previously delicious meal. But other than that, I really loved Vilcabamba; so much so that I might only stay at Rio Muchacho for two months and then go back to Vilcabamba for a month to volunteer at an ecolodge there. After Vilcabamba I made my way back to Salasaka, my home away from home. On the way I had to stay at a scary ass hostal near the bus station in Loja that was tended to by a drunk, verbally abusive, psycho (verbally abusive to his girlfriend not to me). The next night I finally made it into Salasaka. I was so ready to pull up to the front door of Pacha Mama (the hostal), however, there was obscene amounts of construction blocking my way. I told the cab driver to just let me out somewhere and I¨d trek the rest of the way. Easier said than done! Every path I knew to take, there was a tne food ditch in my way and it was pitch black out. Finally I decided I was just going to blaze my own freakin trail. So I busted out the headlamp and started walking in the general direction of Pacha Mama. It was going okay until a pack of angry, inbred, weiner dog, mutts came growling and barking at me. Weiner dog mutts may not seem so scary, however, all I could think of wasif I had to get those massive rabies shots in my stomach, it´s really going to suck. Luckily the owner of the rabid mob came out to save me. I frantically explained to her my plight and she escourted me back to Pacha Mama. This is why I love Salasaka! I was definitely shocked by the amount of people there; some old faces, some new, and a couple who had also skipped out on Arutam early and made their way here. The next day I felt a tad out of my element because we were now running semi private lessons instead of holding regular class, but I have found that I actually prefer it. THe kids actually want to learn and there´s way less of them, so it´s easier to teach and more personaly attention for the kids. Personally, I think I´m an awful English teacher; I don´t understand the rules in English and explaining them in Spanish is just that much more complex. However, I found a copy of Frog and Toad are Friends in the library and I¨m pretty excited to make the kids read it. I also teach math whic I pretty much love. Takes me back to when I was ontop of my arithmatic game in middle and high school (Shout out to Russ Pline!). Any who, the week went relatively smoothly and I became fast firnes with everyone here; it´s very much so a brady bunch family. Friday night we did a bit of indulging which included meat (MEAT!) and potatoes, I made riquisimas chocolate chip cookies, a banana and blackberry sauce cake, a freshly squeezed juice bar with rum, and to top it off, we roasted bananas in tin foil in the fireplace (camp style), and had a contest of who could create the best filling the the naners. My personal favorite was Gretta´s campo fresco cheese and cinamon. A lovely evening indeed. The next day was the confirmation of twenty kids in Salasaka. Gretta, Bill and Justine were all padrinos, godparents. That morning I did my first ever souveneir shopping (it was great) and then went to the church to watch confirmation. Later that night, we were invited to help celebrate at the house of Bill and Justine´s newest godson. Well, first we had to find the house, and in the campo, it´s just not that easy. THey told us to listen for the loud music which is like telling someone in the US suburbs to look for the SUV. So we headed in the right direction and, low and behold, there was a house with enormous speakers, blaring music. So we went up to ask if this was the right house, and of course it wasn´t, so we said sorry for barging in and turned to go find the party we had originally set out for. Then, the little girl who had been confirmed, and it was her quinceniera (15th bday), asked me ¿Pues, porque no estan entrando? Why aren´t you guys coming in? And, as with any food, beverage, or party invite, we could not decline. So we thanked her profusely and entered the party. THere was an enormous chicken, veggies, cuye, a homemade three tiered cake, fruit, cookies, and candy. And as soon as we sat down we were handed a giant bowl of chicken soup and some of the strongest chicha I¨ve ever had. Everyone treated us like royalty, but it was still a bit awkward, being that we accidentally crashed the party. We stayed for awhile; some of the girl´s relatives made extremely heartfelt speaches and everyone of them welcomed us and thanked us for joining their party in the celebration. I mean personally, I didn´t feel to burdened crashing a party and getting free food, but your welcome random Salasakan family! These people give a new definition to hospitable. More chicha was followed by dancing with the family. After a while we excused ourselves to go find the party we hadinitially set out for. Eventually, we got to the right party. Again, we were greeted with copius amounts of food and drink and followed it up with some wild Salasakan dancing (not wild at all, we were two-stepping). After that we decided to head back to the first party we were at. THere were even more people now, all of whom were plastered. The dancing continued and more speeches were made. One of the volunteers had a bit too much to drink and started vomitting in the corner of the room while an incredibly drunk relative made a speech. I looked over in utter disbelief, ¨was she really just puking in someones living room during a toast?¨ Not many people noticed, thank god, and the drunk ass relative making the speech fell over. A distraction! With all the attention on him a couple of guys escourted the volunteer out of the house and back to the hostal. But disaster striked again when another volunteer attempted to remove the box that contained the contents of the volunteers sotmach; the bottom fell out. Luckily I did not have to witness that part, but I felt the shame nonethless. Apparently no one was too offended by the display; we continued to be served drinks, asked to dance, and Phil was asked to be a godfather. At the end of the night we all managed to stumble out way back home. The next morning was a rough one for everybody. I was supposed to leave Sunday night to go to the coast but I changed my plans, a couple times actually. Now I´m supposed to leave tomorrow to go to the coast but I have a bad cold and it just doesn´t seem like a good idea to hit up a beach party while I´m sick then go onto my next volunteer site. It´s also really very sad for me to leave here, and it´s really easy to stay. So we´ll see how I feel tomorrow I suppose.

It´s already July???!!! - 7/1/09

June came to a close crazy fast. My last week in Salasaka was pretty good. We kept practicing for Intiraymi at the school which was painfully boring, however, some familiar faces have shown up at Katitawa. These two hippie dippy South African girls, Tansy and Amy, and the wonderful Londoner, Eden, all came to work from Arutam. The two SA girls were still as strange as I remembered them, but they have definitely toned down the craziness a bit since I last saw them so they were quite nice to have around. And having Eden there was wonderful; she´s just so down to Earth it´s refreshing. The day of Initiraymi finally arrived and the kids did well, there was a large turnout, the local news station covered it, and I think everyone was pretty satisfied with the results. Lambchop was butchered and made into both a soup, which was uber foul including intestines, and also made into a roast with habas (beans) and potatoes. It was roasted on hot rocks in the ground and covered with a piece of metal and some branches. The roast was pretty good, but many volunteers, suspiciously, got diarrhea in the following days... so I don´t know if I would recommend following in these footsteps. After the performances, speeches, and food, the booze obviously followed; it wouldn´t be a Salasakan community gathering without a couple crates of Pilsener, some puro, and whiskey. We were all enjoying ourselves and apparently so were our very young students. I looked over at this seven year old kid downing a beer and others were lining up for their share. I asked the adults if this was normal and they just kind of smiled and shrugged. Such is life in Ecuador. Later that night we were invited to a friend of a teacher´s house for some coca leaves, coca alcohol, and chicha. Coca is used to keep people awake and suppress appetite as well as cure altitude sickness. If combined in huge huge quantities it makes cocaine which is why it´s so controversial (an illegal in Ecuador, oops), but it has to be something like 30 kilos of coca leaves to make one gram of cocaine powder, so its not anything to worry about. Chicha is a traditional Quichua drink made from chewed up fruit or corn that ferments. I prefer chicha over the other stuff which tastes like an anise plant just lit a fire in your GI tract. The next day we went to Salasaka´s town celebration of Intiraymi. I was told that there would be music, dancing, and a large bonfire - somethings were left out of the explanation. It started out really lovely. We were walking down towards the plaza and people were singing and carrying large tree branches; it literally felt like you were walking through a moving dancing forest. When we arrived at the plaza we joined in the enormous group of people surrounding the dance floor/stage area. This is when "the shit hit the fan". So we are standing in the crowd waiting for something to start (not sure what) when a group of men, wearing monkey masks and boxing gloves, started running through the crowd punching - and I mean really punching - random people in the head if they didn´t run out of the way fast enough. My friend Eden got boxed. It shocked the hell out of us, and yet, none of the Salasakans seemed the least bit surprised. That was kind of my "oh shit" moment and realization that the celebrations Ecua-style didn´t follow the regulations that would be the norm in the States, such as, don´t punch people in the face. So I was already tense; we literally had to keep on the lookout so we wouldn´t be punched. Then the monkey boxers got on horseback, rode their horses carelessly through the crowd, and continued their boxing brigade from there, adding a new level of danger, and for me, anxiety. Then, they let loose a couple of bulls to run through the crowd and people just had to clear a pathway or be trampled. But, my least favorite part was when they picked up a flaming object and tossed it into the crowd. Literally, not gauging where it was going to land or plan for anything, just chucking a fireball at a group of people like it was a piece of candy. was thinking that if I see a child running out of the crowd with his or her head on fire, I´m really going to need some therapy. Again, the Salasakans were unphased, laughed, and then continued on like nothing happened. I think I said "I´m not comfortable with this", at least 20 times. The next big event was the fire which was made up of the tons of lovely dancing tree branches we had marched toward the plaza with earlier. The fire was enormous; about two stories high and just blazing. Compared to what had been happening earlier, this put me at ease. As the fire died down a bit I got to crank my anxiety levels back up watching children running through the 8-10 foot flames of the fire; luckily no one got hurt. Finally, the music and dancing commenced, but I was so worn out from the stress of the prior activities that I didn´t last all night. In the end, I´m happy I went and experienced the Intiraymi celebration in Salasaka; if I hadn´t seen it for myself there is no way in hell I would have believed it. After I left Salasaka I went and met up with Sam, and Andrea, and many other Peace Corps friends which was so much fun. We spent the night in Wuito at the Secret Garden Hostal which was stellar and had an incredible dinner at a place I think called Cafe Mosaico, or something to that effect. The next day, Sam, Andrea and I went to Sam´s site in Pacto where we got to see where she lives and meet all the people she interacts with on a daily basis, and even take part in the aerobics class she leads every day. Her best friend and surrogate family member, Mary Lou, cooked us a phenomenal dinner and told us about her time with Sam thus far. The next day we met up with ten other PC volunteers at another site near Santo Domingo. We all went to an area in the jungle where the indigenous Tsachila group lives and they showed us some important aspects of their culture and a shaman cleansed us. It was pretty interesting and I liked being able to compare aspects of that indigenous culture to others that I have come to know. That night we all went back to the PCVs apartment, broke out a lot of drinks and food, danced, sang, and played games that Sam facilitated. It was a wonderful time. The next day Sam, Andrea, and Roberto (another PCV), and I took a long bus ride to Canoa on the coast. We stayed at a chill hostal on the beach, ate delicious foods, and mourned Michael Jackson´s death. The next day the weather was not particularly gorgeous. We hung out for about half the day then decided to make a move. Roberto and I went to Bahia de Caraquez to spend the day and then take a night bus to Ibarra where his site is and he has a 3 story house (so not peacecorps!). Sam and Andrea made their way towards Manta where they were flying back to Quito the next day. Our night bus to Ibarra was absolutely terrifying. I was knocked out on sedative-heavy motion sickness pills, but I would wake up every so often to the bus rocking dangerously back and forth and the clutch making a terrible grinding noise. But we eventually made it back alive. That afternnon Roberto and I took a hike down to a river and then later that afternoon, Thea, a friend of another PCV, came to join us for the night because she was in Otavalo and sick of being on the bus. Thea is wonderful; she´s crazy positive and down for anyhting. That night we went to a PCV couples´ house for dinner (Erin and Jacob) who were hilarious and just awesome company. The next day we went to meet up with more PCVs in a town called Tapacundo for another Intiraymi celebration. This one was a hell of a lot tamer than the one in Salasaka. This celebration consists of different groups of people dressing alike, singing a song over and over again, drinking lots, and dancing, doing what is called "the campo shuffle" to us gringos, all over town. The group I danced with was wearing traditional Ecua hats, goatskin chaps, and black leather jackets. I thought they looked pretty great. It was really fun dancing and then we also hung out by the little bonfires made of eucalyptus branches that dotted the main road. That was all very fun. Then a PCV who was a notorious drinker showed up and was just bouncing off the walls. People started to head home, but not this guy, and because Roberto promised to take care of him and make sure he didn´t et into trouble, I was forced to stay out later than desired. We tried getting this guy to go home which resulted in him crying, shoving Roberto a bit, yelling, and his eventual abandonment. He ended up not going to jail, sleeping on the street, or dying, so I guess it was okay. I headed back to Ibarra, went to some hot springs in Chichimbiru, and continued the role as Peace Corps groupie for a couple days. Now I´m in Quito enjoying some alone time and delicious oods for a couple days. I always thought I would just deal with traveling alone, but I¨m finding it really enjoyable. Friday afternoon I am returning to Ibarra to resume my groupie role. Friday night I believe there is dancing and clubbing in the works and then Saturday is a big ole, American style, 4th of July day at the lake, complete with fireworks and grilling out. Have a happy 4th of July everyone!

Quilatoa is beauuuutiful! - 6/15/09

Well this past week hasn´t been epic or anything, but there certainly has been some highlights. We have been preparing the kids at the school for an open day that will be ocurring on the 18th. People from all over the community, surrounding areas, and a local news team will be coming to Katitawa. The kids will be performing traditional dances, explaining the dry toilets, compost, recycling, and solar panels, talking about the volunteers who come from all over the world, the teachers will be talking about the school, and finally there will be a celebration of the holiday, Intiraymi. Initraymi is the local celebration of the Earth and I think the Sun which comes complete with a traditional ceremony and a sheep roast. THe sheep arrived today and I´m doing my best not to get attached. We were thinking its name should be either cena (spanish for dinner) or lambchop. So practicing for the opening day has bee taking up most of school time. It´s important that it goes well not only to show the community that Katitawa´s more experimental ways are beneficial to the kids, but also, to attract new students. This past weekend 2 volunteers and I went to Quilatoa for the weekend which is a tiny town that has one of the most beautiful lakes situated in the center of an old volcano. It is incredible gorgeous with turquoise blue water and an amazing hike. We hiked down to the lake, hung out for the afternoon, then hiked all the way back up. The altitude kicked my ass, to put it mildly. We stayed at this lovely little hostal right at the park entrance that had wonderful, big, family style meals, a big warm fireplace, and copious amounts of hot chocolate. No one slept well because the altitude is so high up you literally can´t breathe, but it allowed a group of us to get up and watch the sun rise over the crater which was phenomenal. Also, I´ve changed my plans slightly to meet up with my friends Sam and Andrea a little earlier than I planned to leave Salasaka, but what are the chances of a South American rendezvous? It will be really great to see some familiar faces, so for now I´m just going to enjoy the rest of my last week in Salasaka!