My site

So after 6 months of knowing what country I am going to in the peace corps (Ecuador, duh...), I finally know where I will be spending the next two years. My site is a small town about 6 hours south of Quito (by bus) in the Sierra called San Lorenzo, in the province of Bolivar. It is a town of about 800 people with a surrounding community of 2,000, sort of like Pesillo. The neareast city is Guaranda, which I will be going to for supplies and Riobamba (which I heard was really nice as well). One of the 4 co-trainers that we have right now worked and lived at that site so I get to pick her brain about everything. My official job description is a bit open-ended but here are the highlights:

1. I will be working with an agricultural cooperative that is interested in promoting small value-added projects and also work with the community to improve record-keeping and collection mechanisms.

2. Improve irrigation use and water management, especially field level irrigation

3. Crop diversification, school, and family gardens. (also help with solid waste management using worm composting)

It sounds like a lot and I guess it is, but I will be working in an unstructured environment and need to ¨self-motivated¨. We´ll see how it goes...very excited about the whole thing. I will be doing a site visit on sunday through thursday of next week in San Lorenzo to check it out and get to know my counterpart, the person who I will be working with the closest (she happens to be my host mother for the first 3 months so that is cool). From the map, San Lorenzo is sort of in the middle of Ecuador, maybe a little south...but I like it because I am in the mountains and can get to the coast or oriente (jungle) within a day, so I can visit other volunteers as well.
It is great knowing where I will be going to...finally, now I can prepare myself for the next stage of Peace Corps life.

Til´ next time