Monday, April 20, 2009

tech trip

A lot has happend in the last two weeks as I have not had time to update this thing. It was cool spending Semana Santa in Pesillo with my host family and have some down time with them. One of the days my host mother made us fanesca, which is a typical ecuadorian dish, consisting of soup and other vegetables (supposedly it has 12 grains in it). It was really good...served with this drink that tasted like a cross between oatmeal and horchata. During that weekend, I got to experience something rather incredible. One of the PCTs, Ian, who is jewish, hosted a sader at the restaurant in Pesillo, where one other PCT, Mike, lives. Mike´s host family was there and so was every other PCT in Pesillo. It was interesting to say the least because first I didn´t know what a sader is and second, it was mostly in Spanish. You really have to love the cross-cultural immersion of Jewish and the Catholic religions together. My contribution to the whole thing was helping Mike´s host family paint their restaurant, pretty random but they were doing it and I offered to help.
After that, our entire group headed to Porto-Quito to start our 8 day cultural/technical trip. Porto-Quito is located about 2 hours west of Quito in what is known as a transitional zone. It was extremely hot and the conditions were almost jungle like...very humid. It was fun hanging out by the pool, playing soccer, and just relaxing for a few days. Even the cold showers felt nice! Anyways, we did do some organic gardening sessions, mixed in with a ¨leadership¨ session, which was actually very informational and not boring. I have tons of bug bites on my calfs to prove that I went there, the itching has just started to subside. After that, the sierra group (all the volunteers heading to work in sierra region, about 16 of us) headed to Riobamba, which is about 4 hours south of Quito. One of the larger cities in Ecuador, it was a good change of pace to actually experience a larger city in Ecuador. The agricultural group headed to an organic farm just outside of Riobamba and visited a farm with its own microclimate that can grow fruit (such as oranges, blackberries, and limes) that normally cannot be grown in the sierra because of its climate. Fascinating stuff and something to aspire to at my site. After Riombamba, the group headed to Salinas, which is about 2 hours west of Riobamba and 1 1/2 hours north of my site in San Lorenzo. Salinas is known for its cheese, chocolate and other value added products like soccer balls. Spending time there (along with some breathtaking hiking) showed me what could be done with local resources if used properly, definitely something to aspire to.
Really tired from traveling all day...10 more days until my projects begin!

Ashta Cama

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Lovin´ San Lorenzo

As stated in the last blog post, my site will be in San Lorenzo, a tiny pueblo of about 800 people 6 hours south of Quito by bus. This week I got to visit my site for a few days, meet my counterpart, and look at some of the projects that I will be continuing. On sunday I headed down with Mary, who is one of our co-trainers and the PCV which I will be replacing. The bus ride was long...but once I got there, it was all worth it. San Lorenzo is a nestled in the mountains of the sierra, on a clear day you can see Chimborazo, which is the highest mountain in Ecuador. I arrived to meet my host-family, who is all super nice and welcoming. It helped to know that I am the 2nd PCV to ever be there, so everyone is down didn´t seem to shocked to see another gringo...I think. My host-mother is my counterpart (the person I am working closely with) and she also happens to be pretty amazing. She is a single mom, raising three kids (20 year old daughter, 13 year old son, 5 year old daughter) and is also the president of the cooperative that I am working with. I honestly don´t know when she sleeps but it has to be sometime during the night. I got along with the family instantly even though my spanish is not where I want it to be (which is to say...perfect) but it helps to be able to laugh at yourself.
I got to see the canal that I will be working on, it extends about 5 km back from the city in the hills...beautiful hike with amazing views of the city and surrounding communities. So if anyone comes down to visit me...you know of one place where we are going. Checked out the gardens at the schools...i said i would offer to help out teaching english...don´t be surprised if I am english teacher to go along with peace corps volunteer in a few months. I am really excited about a few reforestation projects that I can be involved with and the vermicomposting project as well. Basically we would take food waste from the city and chop it up in a shredder and use it in worm beds to make compost. We would still need to design and make the shredder, which mary would help me with.
As far as the cooperative goes...I will be helping Maria (my counterpart) make value-added products to help create small businesses. Two of the highlights are making marmelade out of sambor (similar to watermelon) and making wine. Wine is usually not grown in this part of Ecuador but it will be interesting to see what happens with that.
I am really excited about everything right now...I always thought my peace corps experience would be living in some shack by myself in the middle of nowhere with no running water and electricity. I don´t know if I got lucky or not, maybe I should of applied to go to Africa then. I guess I came in with such low expectations that everything I recieve is a luxury, I don´t know. Anyways...I got a week then we head out on our technical trips (a week learning agricultural practices with other volunteers that will be living in the Sierra)...stoked about that.

Ciao