Homesick

What do you do or how to you feel when someone you meet basically tells you that your job is impossible to realize, or impossible to even make a dent in?

One lovely warm day in the campo, I wandered up the neighboring grassy hill with my little host brother to play soccer.  It ended up that he went off to pick and chew on sugar cane, so I sat on a wood bench in front of a friend's newly constructed house, watching two cows mow down a lawn and wondered why we don't do that in Illinois if we care so much about low-lying grass.  Then one cow pooped and my host brother's soccer ball plopped directly into the fresh paddie.  Maybe that.

The cows' owner came back and sat down to talk.  His question:  How long are you here for and what exactly are you doing?  I explained and like many other times, he focused on trash.  He told me what all us volunteers already know - how people toss trash on the ground even when a trash can is a step away.  They do it when they're kids and they do it when they're adults.  It drives him crazy and he's all but given up trying to get people to put trash in its place.  And what was saddest was when he reminded me of that time not long ago that I helped him pick up trash in the center of town - he said that in all his six-something years of living here, that was the first time anyone helped him pick up trash. 

He went on and told me how some visiting teachers from outside the country had completely changed the way kids dealt with trash.  The road outside the school was clean, every room in the school was spotless, etc. (to make a note the school IS pretty clean now).  Apparently a month later, when the teachers left, the school fell back to being dirty.  Same thing happened with another volunteer 'like me.'  And there once was a recycling program in town but people just got bored, or disinterested, unmotivated, or something...and now there's a small recycling shack and no one recycles.  The governmental organizations that promised to take their trash out of the valley never followed through either. 

He shook his head and said my job is impossible, or maybe doable in a hundred years. 

I went home and took a nap, feeling unmotivated myself to go out and do much that day.

Then some bizarre things happened this week:

-Went to wash the dishes and found a skinned pig head (plus eyes) floating in the sink.

-Found cardboard in the toilet and had to fish it out myself.

-Lightly scratched my nose and suddenly it was gushing blood.  People found this hilarious.

-Cracked open an egg and found blood.  Host mom says that's because it's the hen's first egg.  This is one of many reasons I prefer veganism...

-Made chocolate chip cookies that melted into one tasty cookie blob.  Still learning how to bake without measuring cups or spoons in an oven without a thermometer.

-There is something like a garbage shortage because half the town is making recycled art.

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.

A real project?

The day I got back from Chimborazo was horrible...I won't go into the details but coming home was very disappointing. It could be taken as just a misunderstanding and a natural (??) desire to take advantage of a foreigner, but the way I see it, it was a pretty cruel thing that happened and I was offended.

The rest of the week I spent mostly indoors avoiding life outside. I didn't want to face anything related to what happened that Tuesday afternoon. My host even thought I was mad at her because I was so elusive, but she was too so we didn't actually meet until Saturday morning. I tried entering the kitchen as bright as I could manage with the required "Buenos dias" and though it was rocky, eventually things would repair yet again.

The week continued to get bad, pretty much ending with my folks announcing that they have to give up one of their dogs, Gizmo, because he has a major behavioral issue (like, almost ripping fingers off and sending both my folks to the ER). Gizmo's threatened and bitten my dad, mom, and even my best buddy back home who began wearing full motorcycle protection gear to my house to avoid his teeth. But he never bit me, so while I can understand his behavior is unacceptable, it's hard for me to feel like he's really a bad dog. But later that day my mom texted me to say they were giving him another chance but only with training. We'll see...

The weather was nice for a little while in early January but now it's back to being mostly rainy and quite cold. It's 55 in my room right now, which isn't a very comfortable temperature to be honest. My fingers are icy. My host had to cut grass for her guinea pigs and rabbits (which are all dying, along with the chickens and we don't know why) and came back soaked and muddy. So I've been doing a lot of indoor work myself.

Last night was a regular community meeting and I requested to have a word. I'd written out a long speech detailing what happened on Tuesday, about integration, about what I want from the community, and pretty much crossed all that out until what remained was a short bit on how I've been here almost a year, how I have a year left, and I want to DO something with that year but I need help and interest or I'm leaving. I had to write it out or I wouldn't remember everything, but the reaction to it while I read was interesting. At one point I listed a bunch of potential projects related to my program, and after a few there were loud (excited?) whispers. I recall doing this almost exact speech when I first came to the community, but now that one of my favorite people is president, I think I have a better chance of getting things happening with his support.

So when I was finished, the secretary next to me said she was personally interested in learning how to make things with used materials (trash), and a few others chimed in that they want an artesanias group. The secretary was fiddling with a plastic bag and held it up saying they could do something with it - and I added that yes, I can show them how to make yarn out of it, and it's easy (huge gasps and whispers). People in the front row agreed and said they have a problem with what to do with trash, and they especially want to stop burning it (my mouth might have dropped open at this moment). Turning trash into some useful materials may help the problem a little and it may begin opening doors to other solutions like reducing trash in the first place, recycling, and maybe designing a small landfill. Who knows... I just know I was thrilled with what I heard. Finally, THEY picked the day, the time, and the place. It'll start this Sunday at 10 p.m. in the community house. I'm planning on making a couple posters to announce the event to the rest of the community and at the first meeting we'll look at some things we'll be making (some examples I've made and pictures on my computer of other possibilities), and agreeing on a schedule of what we want to make and when.

Then my host next to me jumped in and told everyone how they need to make wood ovens. She told them how creative I apparently am, how one day I decided to paint my room and the next day it was painted perfectly - "like a man paints." (everyone roared laughing). Hah. Right. And she mentioned the 'marvellous' things I knit. So naturally, I can make ovens. Wood-burning is not at all ideal in my location because of heavy deforestation, but people need to burn fires so it happens. Good ovens help a little by convecting and conserving heat, reducing the need for tons of wood. Plus building them can introduce other topics like why not to burn trash, what kind of wood is best, how to cure wood properly for maximum efficiency. Again, there was a great amount of reaction and enthusiasm to this idea. One guy invited me to see his oven the next day - hello, oven-making counterpart.

So I left the meeting feeling like things were actually going to happen now. Finally. Maybe? I've learned not to be too optimistic. But I will be happy if one person shows up to the artesanias meeting.

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.