I wish everyone could experience these things…

Let me just take a minute to describe the cacophony that awakes me every morning. It begins promptly at 4am. The hens get to cock-a-doodle-doing…three to five times per minute. Shortly after, dogs begin to bark, and howl, and yelp. At what? Still not sure. At around 5:30, the real show starts. It’s a combination of cows and pigs crying for their lives as they are hacked to death. Meanwhile, the hens, whose voices are tired from cock-a-doodle-doing for the last hour and a half, get kind of lazy. They begin to sound like a woman, no a group of women, shrieking with severe cramps. Then finally, at 6:30, I get up.

On Friday morning half of our group went to Mascarillas, an Afro-Ecuadorian community in the north. (See facebook for the pics). The weather was hot a dry, a nice change from the chilly communities we live in. When we got there we watched a lady make a mask, which is what this small town is best known for. Then we got to make our own masks! Mine was wonderful, of course. Then for the next 5 hours or so, we walked around the village and jungle. The jungle walk was fun…I fell in love with one of our facilitators Lenny. Now he calls me his esposa (wife)…I´m fine with that, obviously. Of course the no fraternizing rule means we must keep our future marriage a secret. I guess I´m blowing that right now but whatever. The only down side of the walk was that I was wearing flip flops. So not only did my feet get covered in mosquito bites, but I stepped ankle deep into mud several times. The only enjoyable part was that Lenny would consol me.

Later when we got back to the town we hung out on the street for a while. There was music blaring from every house and all the children were on the streets playing. Anyone promoting ADHD meds would have a field day in this community. The kids would jump on you and hang there, tug at your hair and clothes. Still it was endearing. At one point John, the other Portlander, was racing through the streets with a child on his back. It was like slow motion when he face planted into the gravel ground, and the child on his back rolled for at least ten feet. Everyone´s jaws dropped in silence, until a roar of laughter erupted and the boy ran after him wanting to do it again! They´re all crazy, but very tough. I fell particularly in love with one little girl, Frances. She is two, very moody, but the sweetest little peach you´ll ever see. Later that evening we were hanging out with some of the boys in town. When we realized we needed to do something about the gender imbalance…we told one of the guys to go get some of his friends. He stood up, walked ten feet, and proceeded to perform this elaborate whistle. If only you could have heard it. Then, seconds later, off in the distance, another elaborate whistle could be heard. This went on for a minute or two, until around the corner came three of his cousins. I will never forget it. It was…hysterical. We played an innocent game of Verdad o Desafillo? (truth or dare) for a while. My friend Brook who is quite possibly one of the funniest people alive, was saying swear words in Spanish to them. Needless to say they enjoyed us.

We left yesterday morning. When I got home my host brother and sis were back for the weekend from Quito. We were watching There´s Something About Mary when, at 7:30pm, my host dad staggered into the bed room. He had been our partying with his friends, and was the most borracho (drunk) I have ever seen a Latin man. My host mom had to take off his jean on jean outfit and tuck him into bed, where he proceeded to giggle and speak in drunk Spanish gibberish. They even put him on the phone with the 11 year old daughter whose visiting the Galapagos so she could share the enjoyment. Oh how I wish I could understand even a word he was saying, nevertheless the sound was fantastic.

This morning, my host mom woke me up early because we were going to another parade. I have regained my appetite a little…but I lost it yet again when I walked into the kitchen and saw my breakfast. Thanks to my father’s hangover, there was a giant plate of plain pasta covered with ground beef that had been sautéed with onions and jalapeños. Doesn’t sound so bad right? Don’t forget it was 8 in the morning. I took two bites before I asked her to save the rest for my dinner. She wasn’t at all offended.

After the parade we went to my older brother´s game. Let me just say that recreational soccer in this little town in wonderful. We got to the game and already everyone watching was borracho. So much so, that the bystanders were running on the field to kick the other teams players. Yellow cards were thrown out left and right. And when finally the oldest man on the team got two yellow cards and was kicked out of the game, the ref had to run for his life. Of course he didn’t have to run fast, because the drunks chasing him had no coordination whatsoever. But I felt kinda bad for him when they started to spit. The game was over after that. 10 minutes later, everyone was laughing as if nothing had happened. Ohh the joys of different cultures.

OY VE

The last few days have been fun but hard! It finally hit me than I´m actually here and I had a little panic attack. Just taking it day by day though, I´m sure things will get better. The other day we arrived in our training city in the Sierras....we stayed at this compound and I met my first friend Carla! She is 10 and we played basketball in the dark. I was winded after about 4 minutes. The next day she took me next door to her school and the kids where so cute. Imagine 40 kids crowding around u like you´re a celebrity. I always knew I was meant to be famous. Later we watched them all practicing for a parade that was on Sunday I tried to upload the video but its not working! You can see more pics on Facebook though. Later that day we took a walk around the city, I was thrilled until I saw a sweet stray puppy get hit by a car. It quivered in the road for a minute before a bystander picked it up by its tail and threw it off of the road. Culture shock experience numero uno.

So at training they mean business. Its hard core but its good, it keeps me excited I guess. They split us up into smaller groups of five and sent us off to smaller communities. My family is really sweet. I´m their seventh trainee so they understand that I can´t eat and my mom just gives me herbal tea all the time. It’s the weirdest thing ever though. I literally take two bites and I want to die. Still the doctor says it’s normal.

Anyway I know I´ll come out of my slight depression this weekend. I get to go spend a night at an Afro-Ecuadorian community! You can only imagine how thrilled I am. By the end we have to be able to dance bomba with a bottle on our heads without it falling. I´m thinking bomba is just a lot of hip gyrations…? We´ll see. Stay tuned!

IVE ARRIVED

Yay for my followers! Momma and Todd. The rest of you better step it up! I only have a few minutes to use the comp since there is only one in our hostel and everyone is in line. But so far Quito is amazing! We got to the hostel greeted by a bunch of volunteers screaming Bienvenido a Ecuador!!!! Had a nice intro with all of the directors and then we had a wonderful meal of pan fried chicken, salad, rice and mashed potatoes. We wont be here for long though...leaving tomorrow for Cayambe and then we will be with our families on Friday. K gotta go now just wanted people to know Im alive and well...no parasites yet:)

Here we go!

OOk my first blog post! How super. I don't really have anything interesting to write yet, so I'll just recap the last 24 hours. Leaving PDX was kinda rough, I wept...just slightly...as I said bye to my padres. But then I got on the plane and felt a sudden rush of relaxation. Probably as a result of the TWO xanex I had taken moments earlier (sorry mom), but that was nice. Thankfully I had cool people sitting next to me on the flight. A girl names Kristin, who was rushing home to save her boyfriend from her dog, who was apparently running the show while she was away. And Tim, a late twenty something guy who was on his way to Mexico for a month to work on wind turbines. He showed me some pictures of him hanging off of giant blades, where he glued stuff back together...pretty sweet, but I though it was weird that they used glue on those things. After our nice discussion I passed out, and woke up in Houston! On the next flight I had the whole row to myself....there’s really nothing better than that.

I got to Miami around 11. Took a taxi to the hotel where I was greeted by several precious Cubans who helped me with my bags and up to my room. My roommate Molly was already there...she's from New Mexico and just graduated a few weeks ago. Nice girl. She told me her parents where in the Peace Corps in Jamaica in the 70's....and actually there is tons of violence in the Caribbean. So now I'm quite happy I didn't end up there! See...there are reasons for everything.

I woke up this morning and went down to the pool. It was already 90 degrees at 9am, and too freaking humid, so I didn’t last long. Then I finally met a bunch of other volunteers! People are from everywhere, apparently there is one girl from Bend who got evacuated from Madagascar because something bad is going on there…but I have yet to meet her. After that I had lunch with a fellow volunteer named Dana. He is 32 but seems 22…acts like a total Eugenian, but cooler. We ate pizza…and I found out he is a vegetarian because, when visiting his grandma on a farm last year, he became friends with a turkey, and hasn’t been able to meat since.

Ok that’s it for now. It’s time to go meet everyone else! More to come…