April 4, 2009

Well, we have been assigned to our sites and I’m going to the Oriente (the Amazons) the lungs of the world, in the Napo province! I will be living in an indigenous community that speaks Kichwa and Spanish, but I will have to learn Kichwa. It’s a language that is very old, that was spoken by the Incas. There are two types of Kichwa languages that are spoken in Ecuador, one spoken in the Sierra and the other one spoken in the Oriente, and they are very different from each other, so I’m told. I’m very excited to be able to have the opportunity to learn this language and to be exposed to the culture of the Oriente.

We where able to spend a couple of days at our future site, to get the experience of how life will be for the next two years and to make sure that we are prepared to make the commitment to the community. My experience was intense to say the least. We left Quito at about 9am and I arrived at my site at around 4pm. The whole trip was beautiful. We drove about 4 hrs thru the jungle with wonderful views. My site is about an hour an half into the jungle and away from the main city.My community is about 300 people but its hard to believe because i probably saw about 25 people the whole time I was there. The community is great the people are great, but they are extremely poor. I have not seen this kind of poverty and it was harsh reality to face and it will be hard to live with. But my projects will include trying to create gardens for the people to feed themselves ,as well as create some form of income for them. It maybe by cacao (which grows well there) or some other form. I still have lots of assesements to do.

I still have about 4 more weeks of training and everythings has gone by so fast! Next weekend we head out to do technical training in the Oriente. I will be very specific training relating to our sites and projects.

Today was also my first official class of Kichwa and man it was very difficult! It is not like Spanish and not like Inglish...so I have quite a challange ahead. Both with Kichwa and with my site and I´m looking forward to both.

It´s been great reading your guys comments! And I still have had no cuy (which is guinea pig)! I dont really want to buy it off the street...so I´m waiting for like a family to cook it or in some social gathering and tonight i´m attending one so hopefully they will serve some there. Keep the comments coming! And write to me when you can!