August 7th, 2009

My House


View From My Front Porch


The School Across from my house


The Backside of my House

“We either find a way, or make one.”

So the very important news first, I am an aunt! Adrianna was born August 4th! I am a bit sad that I wasn’t there for the birth or that I have not seen her, but thanks to Skype, I will be able to see her soon.
The next bit of important news, I have moved! I know live by myself in my own little house near the school. I have also passed a huge milestone, I finished my “probation” period of three months and I can now officially take vacation and take in guests (I have been in Ecuador 5 months now, 21 more months to go!). If you would like to come out and visit now you can. Living on my own has its perks, I have been able to cook my own food, to take in visitors, to go and play with the kids as soon as I hear them, we play jump rope, Frisbee, indoor soccer and anything else they want to teach me. I am starting to fix my garden up. So far, I have tomatoes planted. They where growing under my house so I re-planted them, with the help of Galo. He is a 14 old boy/teenager who came by to visit. He has to be one of the sweetest boys I have met. After re-planting we played cards, I showed him how to play speed (a.k.a. velocidad), he is getting better and I’m sure he will soon be beating me like crazy. Well, the next day he visited again and this time he brought some friends, I made some popcorn and then they wanted to play cards. We played slap and they really enjoyed it. Then Galo and I showed them how to play speed and that went well. It is very interesting to hang out with the teenage boys, because they are still teenage boys and their sense of humor is, well like a teenage boy. Galo is just not like that at all, he blushes when the other boys make jokes. They were also trying to teach me Kichwa, which is just hard, but I’m trying and hopefully soon I will be able to make complete sentences.
We had the second town meeting (since I’ve been here) about two weeks ago and it was mostly to discuss the preparations for the community anniversary, which will be anniversary number one. It will be a total of three day; there will be the crowning of a queen, sport tournaments, chicha drinking contests and lots of Kichwa dancing. I was asked to be on the party committee and I said yes, of course. I will be in charge of overseeing the food preparation and making sure everyone brings what he or she are supposed to bring. I don’t know if I have talked about the town meetings, but they last all day. This particular one started at 7am and ended at 6pm. It is so long to sit thru and it’s all in Kichwa, some Spanish. The funny thing is that they have two people that are supposed to keep the “peace”, they call peoples attention if they are talking or joking during the meeting (which happens a lot). These keepers of the peace, if you may, go outside, get a stick with thorns on it and poke the disturbers of the peace with it. I think that is more distracting to watch the keepers of the peace trying to keep the peace than the actual disturbers.
Let me share and anecdoct, on the first morning at my house, I walked out to the porch, saw, and heard a man walking in the middle of the soccer field with his hands out stretched and moaning. I tried not to pay too much attention, so I went back inside my house. Then five minutes later Misi runs in, so I go out to see what spooked her and found the man hanging from the porch railing about to jump onto the porch. I say good morning in Kichwa and he is non-responsive, I say good morning again and he then moans and leaves. Well, I later found out he recently moved to Puca Chicta with his brother and that he is a mute and not all there. Which is somewhat a relieved because it was either he was a drunk or a zombie.
I have had my share of scary stories out here. I believe I mentioned that there was a grandma that passed away awhile ago, well according to Nelsi (she is my 10yr old neighbor), she (the grandma) has been seen on a path that goes out to the house she lived in which is further in the jungle, in a white dress. I unfortunately been caught going by that path at night; I just can’t help myself; I end up power walking by (although I really want to run).
Projects are starting to pick up. I will be working on four projects; raising chickens, raising guinea pigs, following up with the Tilapia ponds and making a community and house vegetable gardens. I’m very excited to get started on all these, although on most of them I am not an expert, but thanks to the internet and Peace Corps, I will be pretty close to being one.
I also wanted to thank all of you guys who have been sending me care packages, it has been so great to get little things that remind me of home or make my stay that much more comfortable, thanks!!