Ecuador pride

One of my favorite people, Kristen, just moved to Quito to serve her 3rd year in the city and I am missing her like crazy. Last Friday (day before the big Ecuador vs. Uraguay game) she called me standing outside of the soccer stadium with an extra ticket to the game trying to persuade me to make a impulsive trip to Quito.
A combination of having a disappointing work day, missing the compamy of a good friend and wanting to sport my Ecuadorian pride with other screaming Ecuadorian fans, convinced me to just that. I jumped on a night bus that same day with a few other Manabi queridos. We arrived in Quito a 4 a.m. after getting very little sleep on the bus and got a couple of hours of shut-eye at Kristen´s place before heading to the stadium at 10 a.m. (for a 5:00 o´clock game!!) Ecuador has come serious fans here, and we wanted to make sure after we had traveled all night long to get to the game, that we were going to get good seats. :)

We got our Ecua gear on the streets lining the stadium where there are hoards of vendors waiting to sell you any type of Ecuador sports gear you could ever imagine and waiting to paint your face YELLOW, BLUE and RED!

Getting to the stadium 7 hours before a game starts, is definitely a new record for me. The time, however, went by fast as we made friends with people in our stands and learned new cheers (and swear words :/) to yell when the game started.

Que viva la gente de Manabi!!!
Hiding from the sunThe entire stadium PURO AMARILLO!
¨Vamos, Ecuatorianos, esta tarde, tenemos que ganar!!¨

A giant oversized Ecuadorian flag kept getting passed over our section and the fans would go nuts cheering and hollering as the flag swayed over everyone´s heads.

Everything started looking a little yellow by the middle of the game......Jenn, Kristen and me under the flag

So, end result.....Ecuador lost, and is out of the World Cup :( but it was still an incredible time to be in the stadium with so many excited and die-hard fans.
We didn´t let the loss get us down though, we ended the night by going out dancing and crashing at Kristen´s place early the next morning, only to get on another night bus that day to head back to my site. It was a whirlwind of a trip but I am so glad Kristen convinced me to go!

Surprise visit from USAID

I woke up last last Wedensday planning to have the morning to set-up my lesson plan for my afternoon English and computer class but just as usual, my morning turned out to be nothing like I expected. My host mom, Cecilia, asked me to acompany her to what she called a ¨small meeting¨ at the lake to re-open a part of the road that had been under construction. I rolled up with Cecilia to the ¨small meeting¨in jeans and a t-shirt to find all the major authority figures from my province, including USAID director, preparing their speeches for an inaguration of a major project they were presenting to preserve the lake, Posa Honda, in my site. It was a very formal and well done presentation, and even if it was a random showing, I am glad that I ended up at the event.

I ended up iniviting some of the USAID head figures out for a tour of Posa Honda by canoe, which I think turned out to be a highlight of the day. It was also an oportune time for me to present my environmental health project ideas, and to see if I could get the support of USAID. Needless to say, I let community members know that those types of ¨small meetings¨are important to me, and it would be a good idea to inform me of them ahead of time. Sidenote for Mom: There are so many different types of birds that live around the lake.... get excited for some good bird watching for when you come to visit! :) I just wish I had more bird knowledge to be able to identify the different species.

Come see the whales

Ok, so these pix are a little out of date, but I wanted to post them anyways to give people more incentive to come and visit!!! :) June through September, good whale-sightings are pretty much guaranteed on the coast near my site! Puerto Lopez is known to be the epicenter of whalebreeding grounds.
Because I had never been whale-watching before, I was excited when my friends Kristin, Jess and Jess´s dad came up to Manabi to
to tour the coast with a mission to see whales and find good waves to surf.Los Frailes, so serene and definitely some of my favorite beaches in Ecuador. Standing on this ledge, we saw several whales from a distance.

On our whale watching tour...the weather was kind of crummy, which equals choppy waters....don´t forget your motion-sickness pills when you come to visit!

Whales are not the easiest animal to capture on camera :/ so my pix do not do justice but they impressive animals to see in real life

Later, we went surfing but couldn´t get the surfboard to fit inside the car so we had to travel between beaches clinging to the board that hung outside of the car.We had an fabulous Italian dinner at a little resturant tucked away outside of town with homemade noodles and sauces. A small mariachi band saranated us as we ate. Jess, we miss you! Hope you have adjusted back home and are doing well!

Spreading a little peace and friendship

Niños Promoviendo Paz y Amistad

My PC friend Stacia worked with an organization in the States called E.R.A.S.E who´s missoin is to eradicate racisma and discrimination in the world. One way they work to promote their mission is by donating pencils to kids in underprivledged villages....in hopes of ¨erasing¨ rascism. So, basically, Stacia had box after box of pencils sent to her by this organization. AWESOME, but the boxes arrived at the end of her service and she passed out as many pencils as she could in her community but ran out of time to get them all passed out.
Lucky for me, I inherited all the pencils with the promise to keep the project going.
This got me thinking....because International Peace Day is in September, Kristen and I decided to put together a mini-program in the elementary and highschools where the students not only receive a pencil but learn a little bit about geography, what kids their age like to do in other countries and particpate in a drawing contest. The kids had to draw their interpretation of a world filled with peace and friendship.
The idea took off, and Kristen and I had fun working with the kids!

The elementary school kids in Kristen´s site...so adorable

Peace : Paz

The group of high school students who participated in the drawing contest from my siteWinners of the drawing contest

Teaching a little geography

Peace links with the students commitments on how they are going to promote peace and friendship in their communities.

Paz y amistad: Peace and friendship

One of the winning drawings

Elementary School in Emaus where I live

The little kiddos learning about the E.R.A.S.E. program and the group of students who donated the pencils.

Preciosa

Alvy...love this little kid

Thanks Stacia! Thanks E.R.A.S.E.!

One year into my service....

(I apoligize for taking a break in blogging. I feel as though I hit my year mark in my service, and all of a sudden my workload increased tenfold. Now, that I have had time to prove myself and have pulled off some small successful events, my communities are finally realizing that this random tall blonde girl livig in their town can put together projects and be something of value. So, needless to say, I have had very little free-time, and I really couldn´t be more excited. So here are some photos from August and September)

My community had a festival celebrating Manabi culture and oral tradition. Groups from all over Ecuador particpated in the event. We had indigenous groups from the Andes mtns, Afro-Ecuadorian groups from Esmeraldes and local groups from Manabi singing, dancing and telling stories all through the night. It was one of my favorite events that we have had so far!A night filled with history, stories, folktales and lots and lots of dancing.

Even when the electricity went out, people pulled out flashlights and the event continued. I love these women´s performance....¨Las Tres Marias.¨ They got the whole crowd up and dancing while they sang and made sounds through their pretend trombones that they formed from with their hands. I wish this event was more than once a year.

On to Kristen, good PC friend´s going away party...

All of were VERY sad to see Kris go. Kristen arrived 1 year earlier than me, so her 2-year service came to an end. Lucky for me though, she accepted a position in Quito and will be living in Ecuador another year! So, although she will not be my Manabi buddy, we will still get to visit and spend time together.Hopefully all I have to do to get her to come visit is mention bailes or mangos! haha
Like I have said before, no party is complete without La Hora Loca...masks, ties and a full hour of dancing. It was so sweet watching as Kristen´s community talked about all their favorite memories spent with her and having them share heart felt speeches expressing how much she means to the them. It definitely makes me reflect on how I have integrated into my community and inspires me to want to spend more time visiting people than completely focusing on work. Thanks Kristen for being such a good neighbor, co-worker, counselor, dance partner and all around good friend! TQM

On to my gatita linda...

Anali being her curious self climbing all over the mounds of oranges and grapefruits in my front yard

Hope this isn´t too graphic :/ I decided that with all the kittens that are left here in Ecuador without homes, I needed to get my little cat spayed. So, I asked the vet in my town, and he ended up turing my dining room table into an operating table.
Everything was done very professionally and with anetestics but I still found it hard to watch in the beginning.
In the end, the surgery was actually very fascinating, and I am happy to report, that at this point, she is completely healed, stiches removed and running around like her wild little self.

Women´s Empowerment

¨Mujeres Sanas, Mujeres Felices¨
I decided with all the PC trainees coming to my site, we had to take advantage and do something big for the community. Therefore, we planned a big Women´s Health Fair where we would focus on women´s empowerment. We decided to teach about breast cancer prevention, the Maternal Health Law, Heart Disease, give free pap smears,
vacinations, take blood pressure and calculate B.M.Is.
We had several different organizations particpate, and about 100 women from far away communities attended the grand event. A lot of plannning went into the project but I feel like everything went smoothly and everyone learned something new that day....to me, that equals success.

Here are some of the photos from the health fair and the celebration we had afterwards with the PC trainees...Congrats to all the newbies on a job well done!

We had an awesome inspirtational speaker who taught the women the importance of getting to know their own bodies and building their self-esteem.
At the breast cancer prevention table, we were teaching how to give monthly self-exams.
The women practicing self-breast exams.
A women´s group who has started a mini-business by selling homemade yogurt, cheese, cafe, dulce de leche and artesenia.

SOLCA is an instiution that works towards the prevention of cancer, and they came out to perform pap smears for free for the women in my communities.

Me, Katty and Kris in front of the mobil clinc.

Working the welcome table
The PC trainees did a great job giving mini-presentations on the Maternal Health Law and Breast cancer prevention. They were so clever with their interactive games.The health center was also present giving out various vacinations to the women.
Nurse Katty is a rock star.
She is the one who performed all 80 of the pap smears in under 4 hrs.
I am so proud of my Happy Heart group who had a table where they took blood pressure and calculated B.M.I for all the women at the fair. They are so professional, and I love watching them teach the other women all that they have learned.
All the lovely volunteers that contributed to the Women´s Health Fair.
After our successful day of health presentations, I made sure to serve the newbies some of Manabi´s delicous traditional food.
Plan International, my counterpart organization, came out to my site to give a presentation to the PC trainees.
When all our work was complete, we headed off to the waterfalls!
Our hike to the waterfalls.
Usually the there is more water but rainy season was over...still very pretty though
The brave ones who decided to climb up to the top to get in the waterfall...mind you some were wearing flipflops but that didn´t stop them. Later, after the hike, we went to my friends farm to eat mandrin oranges and other fresh fruit! Good times!
In the evening, we went back to ¨La Finca,¨ a touristy spot in my site, where the volunteers stayed the night in bamboo cabanas. We had a big BBQ dinner with grilled fish, chicken and garlic shrimp! Soooo tasty!
Then, the dancing began.....we had to introduce the newbies to ¨La Hora Loca¨
This is the group that lasted the full hour of dancing. Bravo chicos!
It was fun having all the PC trainees out to my site, and I feel like they got a lot out of the experience. I hope they enjoyed everything Manabi has to offer and will come back to visit very soon!
Many people were speaking highly about my site and saying how awesome it is, and I truly do feel lucky. I hope this will help convince YOU to come out and see its amazingness too!