I got my site assignment!!!

Today was the big day! All 30 Peace Corps volunteers received their site assignments for their next two years in Ecuador. I am heading to the Coast!!! My town is in the provinence of Manabi, and I am close to the city Porto Viejo. I am so stoked! The village I will be living in is pretty tiny...only 200-500 people. Next week we will be traveling to our sites to spend an entire week there meeting other Peace Corps volunteers in the area and staying with our new host families. There will be two other PC volunteers from my training group in the same provinence, and we are already planning to take trips to the beach together.
The climate change is going to be very derastic considering I have been living in my winter coat and fleece pants in my training site. The culture in the coast is very different too. I have heard that they speak very fast and with a unique accent...it´s gonna take some time to get use to. The food is suppose to be really great, and I´m excited to change things up a little! I´m very happy with my assignment, and I can´t wait to get things started!
Thanks to everyone for the great emails! I really appreciate everyone´s support! I just received my mom´s package today, and she sent me some of the postcards from my going away party. They were so thoughtful and they couldn´t have come at a better time. I have posted them in my room and I loved showing my host family the postcards with the pictures of beautiful Colorado on them! Thanks again! Love you all!!!

My latest adventures!

A small group of us volunteers traveled to Otavalo to shop at one of the largest markets in South America. An abundance of colors, textiles, scarfs, purses, jewelry and gringos filled the market. (Otavalo is fairly touristy but it still took me by surprise to see so many gringos). I was excited to do some bargain shopping, and I definitely found some good buys! The electricitywas out for miles in Ecuador all day on Saturday, including Otavalo. Due to the electricity shortage, we had a candlelight lunch at a highly recommended chicken restaurant.

(Bottom left photo: Sonya, Me, Erin and Rebecca).

Sunday, we spent the day at the hot springs in Oyacachi!

(Casey, Sam, Erin and I)

Nine of us crammed into the front and back of a camioneta (truck taxi). It was a long and bumpy ride winding down the hills of the sierra and into the jungle climate. 30 minutes into the trip, it started to rain…everyone in the back of the truck got drenched. When we eventually made it to Oyacachi, everyone looked cold and miserable. We tried to stay positive and admired the beautiful jungle atmosphere. We hesitantly stripped down into our swimsuits in the cold and foggy weather and then bee-lined it to the hot water. Being the only gringos at the park, we were quite the spectacle. It turns out the pools were AWESOME! (completely worth the long ride) The water was steaming hot and so relaxing. (Just what we needed because we were all a little up tight/ on edge about receiving our site assignments within a couple of days.)The hot springs made for one of the most relaxing and loveliest days here in Ecuador.

By the way, Ecuadorian swimsuits are glorious…wild color combinations and over-sized ruffles. ( I’ve got to get me one!) Later, I had to go and pick out live “trucha” (trout) to bring

back to my host family for dinner. I chose five good sized trout and watched as the indigenous

woman bare handedly killed them and handed

them over to me in a bag…she was hardcore. Me and my trout!
It was a pretty chilly ride back to our community but luckily no rain. The sun eventually came out and to top off our wonderful day, the fog cleared and exposed the magnificent snowcapped volcano of Cayambe, which was also accompanied by a giant rainbow stretched across the sky.
What a perfect day in Ecuador! Front row: Erin, Rebecca, Casey, Sam, Me, Darci
Back row: Jake, Chris and William Blanca and Sierra are our two cows!

Sam and I made brownies for our families…we had to do some trial and error but they turned out to be very tasty!

Dodging Bulls

My host family had family come into town on Friday....at least 6 or 7 people. It was fun, but it was the first time that I have been put on the spot and drilled with a million questions at once by a large group of people. It was a good experience because I felt like I was able to keep up with all the questions....¨How many people are in your family? What do your parents do? You only have one sister?What is Colorado like? Where is New York? Have you been to Alabama? What about Kentucky? (We eventually pulled out a US map, which made things a little easier for me to explain)
We threw a surprise birthday party for William, a PC volunteer in my group, at my host family´s house this weekend. He had no idea, and it was awesome! I know that it must be hard to be away from home on your birthday so Im glad we were able to pull the surprise off! (Obviously this picture is a re-enactment of the surprise, but it really was a success!)

My host family went out of town for the day on Saturday and left me a note saying the house and kitchen were mine for the night and to have tons of fun celebrating William´s birthday. I love my family! So, my friends and I made some delish empanadas for the party!

Party wouldn´t have been complete without a piñata!

When my host family returned from their day trip, they all joined in the festivites. My madre was so funny because she came in saying ¨Oh, I´m so thirsty. I really wish I had something to drink. Do you have any water?¨I thought it was a little strange...but I told her no and that all we had was some beer to drink. She said ¨Yay, that will do!¨I filled her cup half way with beer, and she told me not to be shy and to fill it to the rim....she is so funny
and is also a head shorter than me. (I feel like a giant here in Ecuador)

We attempted to make homemade chocolate chip cookies, but the Ecuadorian ovens are a little different here, and it took us twice the amount of time to cook the cookies. When they were finally done, they unfortunately stuck to the pan...we even put butter on the pan so they wouldnt stick but that didn´t really work out for us. We ended up having to make more of a chocolate chip mound of delicousness for the cake!

Feliz Cumpleanos Willy! We made signs and had fun decorations for the party. We also made William wear the awesome Barney birthday hat all evening and even later on at the bull fights!
(As if we don´t already stand out)

The bulls came to our town for more festivites this weekend! Anyone and everyone is allowed to jump into the ring to try to out run/dodge the bull to try and prove how ¨macho¨they really are. Although they taunt the bull a little to get it riled up to chase them, the men do not actually hurt or kill the bull like in a bull fight, which I was relieved to find out.

Amazing Darci and I huddling together for warmth at the bull extravaganza

Lovely Casey and I at the Plaza de Torros
This was a man dressed up as a woman and another guy who put on a hillarious act. They created some sort of see-saw contraption that allowed them to jump and dodge the bull as it came full force charging at them. I couldn´t believe how close the bull would come to jabbing the men in the booty.

Masks, guinea pigs and fireworks

pLas Mascarillas was another Afro-Ecuadorian village we visited and they made these beautiful clay masks.

The ¨Limpieza de Cuyi¨
(Guinea pig cleansing...you can read more about this in the previous blog post)

We all had to give it a try...the Ecuadorian woman could do a push-up with the
bottle on her head but I wasn´t about to attempt that move.

The traditional dance called ¨Bomba,¨ Please notice the glass bottle on top of the woman´s head. (The saying is that if you can balance and dance Bomba with the bottle on top of your head, you are ready for marriage...this woman was an expert and ready for a husband)

Loved these girls!

Our children´s play on hygeine...I played la doctora

Before I knew it, there was a swarm of girls wanting to braid my hair. One of the villages we visited called Juncal. It was an Afro-Ecuadorian culture, and I loved their community! After our health workshop, a few girls started braiding my hair....

We even had sparklers! (Me, Rebecca, Sonya, Sam--Garrick and Ryan in the background)We had such a great 4th of July party!! I was sad to be away from home but getting together with all my friends here and having our own celebration was a blast!

Ecuador and their guinea pigs...

These have been an exciting past couple of weeks for me….very busy but lots of good times!

• Hiked in the Andes Mountains
• Star gazed on the top of my pueblo’s rolling hills (10,000ft. high). The stars are so bright and feel so close, as if you could reach out and touch them.
• Got sick on a bus…
• …drank a gallon of my Madre’s Ecuadorian concoction when I wasn’t feeling well, which is suppose to be a remedy for stomach problems (some sort of hot tea with strong Oregano spices)
• Got locked in my own room by my friends. When I was sick, my friends came to check on me, bring me some water and hang out with me for a short while. After tucking me into bed, they left, and I fell asleep. Because I had downed all my Madre’s special tea before hand, I got up a few hours later to use the bathroom only to find out I was locked inside my room. Fantastico! My friends had unknowingly put the latch over my door when they left. I had to holler for my host family several times before they came to my rescue. When they finally released me from my room, we all got a good laugh out of it!
• Danced in the streets with my host sisters for the three days of fiestas celebrating San Pedro, the Sun God. The park was packed with people dressed in colorful costumes dancing in circles, singing and passing around drinks until early hours of the morning. The Ecuadorians gave fiestas a new meaning...they danced for over seven hours straight each day. ( I couldn’t keep up)
• Celebrated 4^th of July at Ryan’s (PC volunteer) host family’s house…awesome! His amazing family grilled us hamburgers and hot dogs to help us celebrate our national holiday American style with some Ecuadorian flare…music and lots of dancing. We also made some other American side dishes to go with the great food (Mac n’ Cheese, cookies, potato salad). We even had fireworks!
• Learned how to dance Bomba, which originates from the Afro-Ecuadorian culture in Mascarillas where they rhythmically dance moving their hips and balance a glass bottle on top of their heads at the same time!
• Visited a Traditional Medicine facility:
• First demonstration, we watched as an old witch doctor lady cleansed Rebecca’s (PC volunteer) body with an egg. The idea is to pass the egg over the entire body to pick up any bad energy, and then cracking it into a glass half full of water to observe how the egg separates thus determining what kind of problems the person is having and eliminating the bad energy. As the lady was finishing up the passing of the egg, Rebecca’s face went white as the lady mistakenly dropped the egg on the floor…we were all afraid that it meant something bad. I turns out that the doctor was able to analyze the egg on the floor…Rebecca is fine and is now cleansed of any bad energy that may have existed.
  

• The second demonstration made my stomach turn but was fascinating to witness. The witch doctor performed a “Limpieza de Cuyi,” a medical practice that requires passing a live guinea pig over a patient’s body and then dissecting the guinea pig (I’ll spare you the gut wrenching details) to determine where the problem areas are on the animal, thus linking to the problem areas of the patient (my friend Darci was the “lucky” volunteer for the demonstration).
• Helped my host sister with her business idea to open up her own restaurant in our town. She has been taking cooking classes and would like to start up an Italian cuisine restaurant. ( I told her it also wouldn’t hurt for her to practice making pizza for us some time for dinner J)
• Gave a health workshop to a group of young kids about personal hygiene, (Song we taught them about washing their hands---“Lavo los manos asi, lavo los manos asi, lavo los manos con jabon y el agua, lavo los manos asi.” We also put on a play with Germ Monster fighting Super Jabon (the soap superhero). I played the doctor in our mini-theater production..it was a good time!
  

These are only some of the highlights from my past weeks. Lots more has been going on, but I feel I may have already traumatized you with the guinea pig story so I’ll save some stories for later.
Missing everyone at home! Sending all my love!

I hope everyone enjoyed their 4^th of July weekend!!