Why not to ET - the big giant list of stuff

Still waiting to visit Imbabura - the date has been pushed back until next Thursday.  So here´s a post I´ve been meaning to publish for a while!

One rainy, cold day when I was feeling particularly down, I decided to try to organize my thoughts into a list of ´Why Not to ET´ (ET = early terminate = governmentspeak for ending service).  Well... suddenly I thought if there´s a list of ´why nots´ maybe I should make a list of why it would be a good idea to ET.  I hope you can see the humor with some of the comments.

WHY NOT TO ET:

1.   I made a commitment to 2 years of service.

2.   I'm worried it would look bad for future employment if I quit.

3.   I have free health care.

4.   My food, shelter, and extra stuff is paid for.

5.   I want to feel a sense of accomplishment for getting to the end.

6.   I get to climb a mountain every month.

7.   My loans are deferred.

8.   I'm practicing Spanish.

9.   I have free time for self like reading, knitting, watching movies, etc.

10. I get to travel occasionally.

11. I'm learning patience.

12. I'm learning humility.

13. I live in the mountains.

14. I like sierra food more than oriente or costa food.

15. I'm remote but I have electricity, water, and gas.

16. The Milky Way is brilliant when the power goes out at night.

17. I get free flute (quena) lessons every Saturday.

18. I have a job with almost no supervision but a lot of trust and faith.

19. People I hardly know from the States sent me packages full of tea and candy.

20. My room is freshly painted.

21. My favorite person in the community is the new president.

22. I am finally cooking for myself.

23. My cat doesn't have the right immunizations or medication to go to the U.S. yet. (done)

24. Movies are $1, yea!!  Which is great until: See #23 of opposing list.

25. People finally want to work with me building ovens and making recycled things in an artesanias group.

26.  I have earplugs now.

27.  I'm learning a new language bit by bit (Quichua).

28.  Getting packages and letters is fun!

29.  My immunity is finally kicking in...?!!!

30.  I'm getting along better with my host now that I cook for myself.

31.  I have a DVD player again!

32.  What else would I do? Job, grad school, be a bum?

33.  Big avocados are roughly 3/$1, oranges 10/$1 and there's Malta, spicy chifles, Amor chocolate wafers, alfahores, patacones with ketchup, fresh limeade, cheese and onion sugar-coated empanadas, mora, bamboo-scented deodorant, lychees, ...

34.  My Ecuadorian mom in Tumbaco checks in on me and cares about me.

35.  There's now recycling in Riobamba that pays for plastic bottles and I'm going to encourage my community to take advantage of this.

36.  I'm getting used to not having internet.

37.  The kids seem to really like me.

38.  I have an amazing mountain view out my window.

39.  I have apparently avoided getting parasites (so far).

40.  I've been offered a site change.

41.  I don't get noncompetitive hiring status in the federal government if I leave early.

WHY TO ET:

1.   I miss blending in.

2.   I'm sick frequently.

3.   I'm lonely and bored.

4.   Every person I've developed a working relationship with in my community has left.

5.   It's cold and I don't have a heater - just lots of blankets.

6.   It rains a lot and there's a lot of mud and pig poo somehow always gets indoors.

7.   Donkies, roosters, buses and lecheros wake me up at 4:30 a.m.

8.   Maria is hard to get along with sometimes.

9.   Internet access is once or twice a week.

10. I don't understand Quichua.

11. There are gigantic chunks of meat in the fridge dripping over everything.

12. The school teachers (used to?) drink during class.

13. Sometimes I see or hear animals slaughtered.

14. The weekly parroquial meeting I pay $1.30 to get to only actually meets...never.

15. Bills are draining my bank account without me noticing.

16. Spanish is still hard to speak and understand sometimes.

17. I feel somewhat forgotten/cut-off...from people outside the country and from people inside.

18. I have to bring my garbage to Riobamba - compared with burning it or tossing it in the river.  Not a great alternative because it just ends up in an environmentally unfriendly dump anyway.

19. After my journal was stolen I've felt a little violated and bitter.

20. People see me as just a rich gringa and attempt to swindle money from me.

21. Things aren't happening and I feel I'm wasting my time for people who don't care about me.

22. The kitchen is gross and when I clean it, it just gets messy again the next day which is not my doing.

23. The cat broke my DVD player (turns out that's not hard to do).  But this is resolved.

24. Phone service cuts out a lot.

25. Sometimes landslides cut off access to my site and I have to walk 2 hours with groceries.  The worst part is that the road is in bad condition when it opens back up - almost too dangerous for buses to travel on.

26. I feel like I'm missing time I'll never get back with family and friends.

27. I miss the changing of the seasons.

28. Maria doesn't believe in me or support me, yet still expects me to get something done when no one else participates.

29. One year has passed and nothing has happened.

30. My cat has all her immunizations to go to the U.S.

House hunting

So the adventure began at the community president's house. I already knew I wouldn't live there; I wanted to live alone. But I humored him and let myself be walked upstairs. Except someone...his mother-in-law, mother, whatever, didn't seem to want me there at all and was way less than friendly. The president seemed annoyed with her too. We walked up the cement stairs, slick and wet with moss, to the second floor where we paused. The president started to point out a couple other houses in the area when something warm hit my face. The naive part of my brain immediately thought someone had just tossed a bit of hot water off the roof but the truth surfaced just after - a bird had shat on my face. The president laughed in disbelief and I stood with mouth agape, hoping he would offer something...a towel...anything... but he didn't and I wiped off the crap with my sleeve.

We didn't even see his upstairs room which is fine. We walked up the road just a couple houses down to a white house lacking a gate. The president asked the woman coming out if we could have a look at her free room but she refused because they don't have a bathroom. Hmm.

I took a walk by myself as the sunlight faded up the road towards the park to see a brand-new house that someone told me was unoccupied. I was fairly sure which house it was, but I couldn't recall if it was before or after the park office. So I walked well beyond it to what is pretty much the end of the community, and turned around and walked back in the dark. Sure enough, it was the house I was thinking of. It's far from the 'center' of town but still in a cluster of homes. Unfortunately it is a bit of a large house...two stories, just built, freshly painted with new windows and a door incoming next week, fridge, cooking range...apparently it's all set and ready to go. Except it's got no one to live in it. I guess the story is it belongs to a family living in the States and they sent money to Ecuador to build it. When they're coming back, I have no idea but I have to find out. As far as options go, this one is sounding like the best. And I'll be honest, it would be really, really nice to have tile floors.

(PAUSE)

As I sit here on my bed writing this entry, a meeting for the community's women workers is beginning. They're a part of my counterpart's project I'm helping him to execute, and my job is to collect all the names, dates of birth (just the day and month) and identification numbers which will be used to assign them to a specific species of Andean plant that they are responsible to care for.

So my host just visited me about 15 times bringing me identification cards to copy down. But this time she didn't come up; two other women did, knocking shyly on my door. Come in, come in, I said, it's ok. They entered with more of my coaxing, unsure if it was remotely ok for them to be in my space. One handed me her information written on a piece of thick paper and the other toyed with all my knitting projects laying around (I'm one of those impatient, indecisive knitters). They first saw a pair of long mittens - my first ever, actually - and wandered over to my half-knit sweater. You have to teach us how to make these things, the older woman told me. About two times a month, she added. I said, "Great! Whenever you like," which I thought to myself is always the prevailing issue here...getting people to commit and agree on a time. Then I handed them the ball of "yarn" made from a plastic bag and said I could show them how to make it and crochet with it. The older woman jumped on it and said, "Yes! Like make a shoulder bag!" Exactly.

At that point they saw my kitten curled up in her favorite place ever...in my lap...and cooed over her, laughing at the name Misi. I'm not a Quichua speaker so Misi doesn't sound stupid, but I imagine if I ever met a cat named Cat in the U.S., I would wonder. They asked what I planned to do with her when I left to visit home. Another volunteer said she'd take care of her, so that's no problem. Then they asked about my rabbit. Well...I haven't got a clue. Eat her! they said in unison. The image of Moo's super soft black and white pelt hanging on the wire clothesline popped into my head and I felt a little ill.

(/PAUSE)

So now it's a few days later. My counterpart in the park found me (reluctantly) an unoccupied house that's up the road from the office...which means it's super far from what is essentially the center of town. But it's in a really gorgeous, quiet area and apparently it's got everything I'd need. I haven't seen inside yet and progress on that is going slowly. So slowly that I didn't find a house before 20 November when I pay the rent for the following month.

But now I'm confused again. Maria is being friendly again and with greater frequency is allowing me to choose if I want to eat what she makes. Not frequent enough though. And it's true; I enjoy a lot of things here that I would have to do without or spend a lot of money on in another house... mainly things like a bed and covers. Since I live in a cold place, I'd need to buy piles of blankets and those wool and fleece blankets are super expensive here.

What to do...?!

A (very long) essay on progress and life

As I write here in bed at night, it's pouring outside. It's also icy cold and I'm sick...again. I'm getting sick about every month. People here say it's because of the cold, but I think it's a combination of things - the cold, the ease that germs are passed around (coughing into the air, picking constantly runny noses, etc), not very good nutrition (soup, potatoes, rice, soup, potatoes, rice...), and large amounts of stress.

I really didn't think this would be a stressful job, but it actually is the most stressful I've had. Well...maybe in a different way from grad school 'cause that was pretty stressful too. But that includes taking complex coffee orders from pushy mathematics professors during coffee rush hour, lining up hundreds of children and getting them to stay in a precise order for picture day, being the only baker on duty for a major holiday food event in sub-freezing weather, holding a pole still and upright in a thigh-deep rushing glacial river, scanning hundreds of theses page by page day after day, etc. etc. (I also have a fair share of some of the easiest/most fun jobs out there...and holding a pole still in subfreezing glacial rivers is fun too).

This one is hard because I'm constantly trying to get people motivated and enthusiastic about something, anything. It's hard because I'm ridiculously bored and so I feel pretty worthless. My host has no problem telling me that too, which makes me feel even worse.

Last Tuesday was, to me, the most exciting community meeting yet because it had an entirely environmental theme. My counterparts from the national park were there with a very passionate community member. This guy gave the first speech, meant to rally the community together and use me as a resource because...hey... that's why I'm here and my schedule is wide open. I was thrilled hearing this until I looked out to the members present. No one seemed to be paying him any attention except the leadership up front. Maybe no one actually cares about why I'm here. Maybe I shouldn't be here, I thought.

He went on to discuss his ideas for eco-tourism in the community. Some ideas are fantastic, like building cabanas for the Centro Interpretivo in the sierran style (called a "chosa" it's a mud wall building with a straw roof that many people here use for cooking or smoking food). Others were really bizarre. He again told his story comparing New York's twin towers (that were destroyed by Saddam Hussein...) with the two mountains sandwiching the community that are also called "The Towers". Only, he said, these towers won't fall down or fail the community. One of his ideas was to try either hanggliding or zip-lining across the valley from mountain to mountain. Hanggliding, cost aside, is doable. Ziplining is certainly not. Neither will happen. Then he began describing something I didn't understand...a word he kept repeating was unfamiliar to me...when he excused himself to go get 'it', whatever he'd been talking about. Five minutes later, he came back in walking very slowly, carrying with the most intense care a model carriage holding a doll, drawn by a white horse with pink glittery hair. He approached the front desk and set it down slowly. He went on to say they could make these carriages to hold six tourists at a time to ride up and down the road.

At least he's enthusiastic. I think we can count on him to at least try to get others to care and to help finally open the community's Centro Interpretivo.

My counterpart from the park made his speech next describing more potential future projects, and proposed a meeting on Monday to discuss Sociobosque, a program they're trying to introduce here. I have no idea if anyone at that meeting will go, but I know myself, the two park guards, and probably the community president and my host will go. His main project focus with me is creating a solstice garden by the Centro Interpretivo. The idea is each member of the women's workers association here in the community will be the guardian of one species of native plant (and will even get their own t-shirt apparently), and there will be 52 plants - one for each week of the year. The plants will be arranged in an ellipse relative to the sun in some way. I did a bit of reading online and found we could build a analemmatic sundial...maybe inside the elipse of plants. Whatever works out, they want it to be spritual and to honor their heritage. Quichua people have a holiday - Inti Raymi - on the summer solstice so they have a special interest in the movement of the Earth around the Sun.

So that meeting gave me a bit to think about at least. I'm also working on a program proposal for the school director to teach kids about Leave No Trace in Parque Nacional Sangay. The director brings kids to some apparently excellent hot springs in the park called El Placer about once or twice a year. I'd like those trips to become something even more than a hike and I think LNT ("Sin Dejar Huellas") is a great theme for them. The only problem (and it's not really a problem because I agree) is my counterpark in the park is requiring the kids to be at least 15 years old...but then he relented and said 12 at least. 15 years would have been a problem because his school kids are younger than that - not quite high school age. So hopefully the group he wants to take is old enough, and they want to try out my Sin Dejar Huellas idea (just posted about it here on the Green Sheets blog).

Finally... I've decided for sure I want to move out. I've been living in this house for over half a year with this woman who makes me absolutely insane. She's almost always in a terrible mood, she criticizes me on everything, she has me do thankless chores, she doesn't give a crap about my life and has no interest in talking with me (just to me), and possibly the worst is she prevents me from cooking for myself by preparing all the food for the day and guilting me into eating it despite my expressed wishes to cook my own food. The intensity of it all goes up and down...some days it's not so bad, other days I've almost got my phone in my hand to call my program manager to say I'm quitting. It all seems tied to how she feels. So I've started the search but I've given myself little time...ideally I'd like to be out by 20 November to avoid paying her up to 20 December. Somehow I don't think she's interested in prorating rent. Before now I thought I could just deal with her because I like the house, but now I need to leave in a hurry.

I've been reluctant to move because it actually is a great situation minus the occupant. I like my house, I have a cozy clean bed, it's relatively warm, I have electricty and a hot shower, a cooking range, fresh grass for Moo and a place to throw out her waste, and I feel pretty safe. Also, my host put in railings, windows, and a new steel door for me before I arrived (seems like a really nice gesture huh?). Honestly, I don't really want to leave. If my host would just listen to me and let me cook for myself, things would be peachy. Just finding somewhere is the tricky part. And probably actually moving because I've already accummulated a lot of crap. And probably definitely telling my host I'm moving which will be instantly depriving her of my monthly rent. In reality, though, she'll probably be thrilled to see me go.

It sounds like I have about three options which I get to check out this evening. One, I've heard, is living in the upstairs unit of the community president's house. I don't know anything about him or his family but I think I just totally want out of living with someone so I don't know if this will work. Another is the (very large) house of someone I know, who is apparently gone for a long time and I could serve as a caretaker. I had no idea he and his family left and I don't think I feel comfortable moving into a big empty house that they all could come back to anytime. And it's located at the top of the mud alley...by top, I mean, partway up the mountain. Not ideal. There's another house way down the road towards the national park that sounds intriguing, but the downside is that yes, it's remote, and it would take a 20 minute or so walk to get to the buses that are far from ever being on time. So I imagine that involves a lot of waiting on the very stoop I live by right now, walks in freezing rain through mud and pig poo with heavy loads from Riobamba, and being socially disconnected (like I'm really connected in the 'center' of town anyway). Meetings are from 8-12 a.m. often, so after a meeting I'd have a long, dark walk back home.

So from everything I know right now, I live in the most ideal house for me. Damn.

If not now, when?

At dinner today with my training host family, I realized when tomorrow comes I can say "Tomorrow I'm moving to my permanent site. For two years. THIS IS IT." I can't believe the time has come and after a year of applications, interviews, travel and training, Omnibus 105 Ecuador will be sworn in as United States Peace Corps Volunteers.

In honor and memory of our training time together, I put together a little video:

It's tough to describe how I really feel. I'm excited, but daunted. The job is indeed tougher than I thought it would be, and whatever is before me is a lot more difficult than I imagined. And I face something else I didn't expect - leaving what has become my family. My training host family is home. I love where I live, I love the comfort and privacy, I love that I can be a vegetarian with no problems, I love how patient my host mom is and how entertaining and...well... brotherly my host brothers are. I never had siblings so for three months it was really fun to have teenage brothers even though we didn't get to hang out much.

So it's hard to leave. After we've established the only home we know in Ecuador, we have to move on. And it's not even a smooth transition - because it's Semana Santa (Easter week), travel is an unbelievable mess so Peace Corps is making us leave the same day as swear-in. For some of us (me), that means right after the ceremony, at 10:30 a.m., we board a bus for Quito to catch rides to our permanent sites. No after party, no celebration.

And as usual, I'm not packed yet.

Host family, day1

I've started a photo blog here: https://picasaweb.google.com/govolcano/PeaceCorpsEcuador so please feel free to check that often, as I hope to update it often!

We left San Patricio for good after a meal heavy on yogurt. Some kind of fruity yogurt smoothie, and fruit totally covered in purple yogurt. I'm not used to eating yogurt so... that's a bit tricky.

Kelley, a PC medical officer, gave us a crash course on using the giant medical kit we all received. I'm actually really impressed with the kit and I totally appreciate having it. And whenever we run out or come close to doing so, they send us supplies totally free of charge. I like this.

Next the staff performed a series of culturally overexaggerated skits that included a few trainees to demonstrate some situations we might encounter, but I think it was more efficient at loosening us up and getting us to relax a little about our pending encounters with our new families. The skits were hilarious though - definitely thought the one of the 'kids' digging through Paige's bag (sorry Paige!) was the funniest.

They fed us again: a chicken or cheese (yo) sandwich with ridiculously amazing tomate de arbol juice. My favorite drink so far. Now suddenly I realize why a month before Ecuador, I started CRAVING orange juice. It was preparation because I was never really a fruit person before.

We were led to a new room where Andrew gave us a sort of pep talk about meeting our families, and handed out a map so we knew where we were. And then we picked up cards with our names, and were released to the foyer to find our families! It took a lot of looking and confusion for my host mom and me to be united, but it happened...dragged my luggage to the street, and into a taxi we went. My home is way, way far from the training center. I wonder who else is nearby? PC said we were put into clusters. Farther and farther the taxi drove, until we reached a locked gate, entered that, and came across another locked gate. Home!

Home is three houses, all the same family. Paula, my host mom, introduced me to her mother Greta, a lovely woman who speaks clear Spanish and flashes smiles at me all the time. Paula's young son Mateo was home, as was Matias who immediately shared with me his favorite music videos on YouTube, and asked to see mine. And there's Mario. M-M-M.

My personal space is enormous. Way bigger and nicer than I ever had a right to expect. I live in one of the three houses on the second floor. There's a large living/study room, a kitchenette (without cooking abilities), a bathroom and shower, my room, an extra room - all to myself. Totally private.

My host family is not obligated to make me lunch and I have to pay them for this in addition to what the Peace Corps gives us to pay them for breakfast and dinner, but even still they invited me to lunch. Another great soup with potatoes, carrots, onions and pasta (I'm loving the soup thing), a salad (tomatoes, broccoli, and a little lettuce with olive oil), rice, and a type of lentil cake (torta de lenteja?). I took a bite of the lentil cake and freaked a little - the texture reminded me exactly of meat. I asked again what was in it: Paula assured me it was just lentils and eggs. Oh, eggs? I'm not used to those either. More adjustment.

Peace Corps also told us not to have the cheese or milk until our stomachs settle in a week or so, but Matias offered me some to put in my soup. And it was that familiar white semi-soft salty cheese like queso de campo in El Salvador, so I accepted it. Eight hours later, I still feel fantastic.

Carlos (?), Paula's husband, arrived after work (he teaches English), and tried to get me connected to the wireless internet. We tried for what seemed like hours, and many people filtered in to help - that's another strange thing to me here, all the people around all the time! Finally they were successful and I was able to get on and Skype my parents.

Paula called me back for dinner, which was a quiet meal between herself, Carlos, and me of the same salad, rice, and a grilled cheese sandwich of the white queso. They finished way before me, so they drilled me with questions and, maybe it was nerves or tiredness, but my Spanish went down the drain. I think I disappointed my host dad, because I can speak Spanish when I'm 100% focused, but if I loose concentration, away it goes. Paula asked me tough questions like why I'm a vegetarian, and how the economic situation is in the U.S. Yikes. I excused myself at 8:30 due to exhaustion, but here I am at 11 still trying to get settled. I hope I can sleep in. Tomorrow, from what I understand, they're taking me to Quito to a market where people sell local crafts like textiles and hats. Hmmm...we'll see! I wish I could take pictures but from everything I've heard, I don't feel comfortable doing that just yet.