March 10,2009

Well, I’ve been in Olmedo officially one week and it seems longer. Not because I don’t like it here but because there has been so much that has happened and that I have done. Also so much that I have learned and it makes me so happy to be learning again in such vast quantity and quality.
So training began Monday March 2, 2009 and it’s just been great. I’ve been really busy. In out community we had to go look for a place where we would be able to start a hurta (garden), the kinder garden school was the first to say yes to the idea of starting a garden with the kids. Soon this project will need to take off; we still have to meet with the teacher to figure out what will be the best way to teach. This project should be well on its way this week.
We went to an organic farm on Friday and it was amazing to see how “green” this farm is. Nothing is wasted, I mean nothing. We had an organic lunch which was delicious. They served green rice, a spinach broccoli ‘cake’, meat balls, a green salad, blackberry juice and for desert we had bananas. It was delicious. We planted some cabbage, lettuce, an avocado tree and some citrus trees. We also witnessed the slaughter of a cuy, I will spare you the details, but it was quite interesting to say the least.
Saturday I had a cultural field trip with my host family to a city called El Quinche. There we visited the Virgin of Ecuador, La Virgen Del Quinche. They were celebrating an anniversary so they had a procession and a live band. It was very interesting and quite similar to the celebrations for the Virgen of Guadalupe. There was lots of food and of course lots of places where to get some cuy (a.k.a. guinea pig) for el almuerzo (lunch). After, we went back to Cayambe and there I went to see my host brother play basketball at his high school, where there where two other matches. My host brother’s team won 40-8…the other team was really short compared to his team so the match seemed a bit unfair.
On Sunday the other trainees and I attended a health fair here in Olmedo. It was fun; they had a band, dancing and food. The fair seemed a success, lots of people came, there where lost of people that where looked at and it was such a nice day that there where lots of people around. When I got back to my host families home, my host brothers and their cousins where waiting for us to go and play basketball. I have not played basketball since high school and let me tell you that I am not good and the altitude doesn’t help. I find myself gasping for breath with the first dribble. I think it has been one of the hardest things to get use to. Going up any kind of incline is ridiculous!
Later in the day on Sunday I got together with my group and we started working on our community map. It’s supposed to help better understand the community that we live in and also its practice for when we are in our own site. We walked all of Olmedo, which took about 3hrs. We also finally made it to the cemetery which is on the edge of town. It is located on a hill and you get the best views of Olmedo from there.
So we found a place in Cayambe where they sell decent hamburgers and pizza. It is great to be able to have somewhat of a comfort food while being so far away. This Saturday coming up we have a cultural field trip, which I don’t know where we will be going. Our facilitator has told us that there are about 5 different places that we are supposed to go to and he is not sure where we will go. But I’m sure it will be exciting and beautiful as most of our trips have been.

Day 7

So much has happened since last time I posted.

We stayed in a hostel in Quito the first couple of days there and it was great. Its a huge city. I got to get to know the rest of the volunteers and it´s been really good everyone is really great to get to know them. In quito we visited mitad del mundo (half of the world), and we had typical Ecuadorian food which was delicious! We left there on Saturday morning.

I´m currently living with my host family in a small town near Cayambe where I will be staying for the next 2 1/2 months. I have two younger brothers and the family is extremely nice. They have a lamb and calf that are hand feed and it´s great to be able to feed them. The town is located at the bottom of the extinct volcano of Cayambe and it´s very beautiful there. It chilly during the day and somewhat cold at night, if that makes sense. Tomorrow we start our first training class in language and I´m looking forward to that.

We came into town today to do some sight seeing in the bigger city and to use some fast internet :)

Thanks to all of you that are following the blog and for all your kind words.