Tech Trip

I just spent a week in Esmeraldas…It’s a northern province on the coast. The purpose of the trip was to put all our training to use by actually giving workshops and spending time with kids. That part of it I loved. The first group of kids I worked with were probably about 7…and let’s just be honest all they wanted to do was wrestle. This other girl and I had planned out this cute charla (workshop)…we wanted to have the kids draw a personal flag based on questions we asked them about their family and hobbies, and then we were going to do an activity about not throwing your garbage on the streets. Half of the kids participated, while the other half tickled and tackled me to death. Nevertheless they were sweet and I had fun. The next day we went to a high school and there were about 200 kids there. That day another girl and I had to give a charla on short term and long term goals, and how to go about achieving them. I think cause the kids were older they were a little more into it…or maybe they were just into the two gringas talking to them? Anyway that was also a lot of fun.

And now I´ll be honest, other than the fun I had with the kids…for the first three days I was kind of miserable. I learned I do not do well in humidity. Has anyone been to Atlanta in August? Yea. It was worse than that. I was also kind of pissy because one of our facilitators Pablo told us we would be able to swim in the ocean every day…and he lied. Quininde was nowhere near the freaking ocean. I remember at one point I seriously considered getting naked in front of everyone. We were watching these girls make candles. If it wasn’t hot enough already, someone felt the need to show us how to melt wax in a tiny room crammed with 20 sweaty people. Then I remembered that the Peace Corps has a no nudity rule…I could see the look on my parents faces when I told them I got kicked out for getting naked…and I thought it would be better to just remove myself from the situation and go to the bathroom to splash myself with cold water.

Some people in the city also seemed to feel the heat, so much so that they walked the streets in the nude. Well, only one. On our last morning a few of us were walking to breakfast. We turned a corner and to my surprise a chubby guy was sitting, spread eagle, on the side walk. With not nearly enough time to protect my eyes I got a full shot of his manhood. We kept walking, but what did he do? He got up and followed us. I started to get uncomfortable at that point. A million thoughts of what he planned to do to us passed through my head…then quickly we ducked into a pharmacy. He passed right by us and made his way to a nearby church. We were in the clear, and thankfully he was clearly going to pray or confess. A few minutes later I decided to head back to the hotel to take some pictures of the city. I was clicking away when suddenly, there he was again...I thought fast and snapped this bad boy…

Isnt it precious. Be thankful that I decided not to zoom. Anyway, I survived the heat, barely…and it made me appreciate the nice dry climate in Ibarra. Eventually we made it to the coast, and our hostel was right on the beach. I spent an hour and a half in the ocean body surfing, aka getting man handled by the waves. It was super. Now I´m back with the fam and, although it did provide some comic relief, thankfully there are no naked men around.