chao Ecuador

I guess I am getting senioritis with my blog entries, I was pumping out one a month but now with my time winding down in San Lorenzo I have gotten too lazy or just forgot to blog. That´s a shame for the 10 people who may have had an interest in reading about the goings on in a town of 300 people in the middle of the Ecuadorian Andes. Anyways, for my faithful reader(s) (i.e. HI MOM!) I think I should do a despedida (goodbye) just for shits and giggles.

The standard clichés of the Peace Corps Volunteer right when he or she is leaving their site is usually always the same. ¨The two years just flew by¨ or ¨It was rough at first but I really grew to love my community, host family or my projects¨ or my personal favorite ¨I wouldn´t trade this experience for anything¨. For me personally, all of those clichés have some truth in them…that´s why there are clichés in the first place. From day one in San Lorenzo, I felt comfortable with my host family and the people in general. I never felt alone (well as much as a tall gringo in the middle of a tiny Ecuadorian town in the highlands can feel) and always had a support system if I needed it. However, the truth is that I never really needed that said support system because I mentally prepared myself of life in Ecuador before I came down here. If I had 3 meals a day, running water and wasn´t cold at night, I considered it a success. Anyways, from a social standpoint, I never felt I needed to escape my site every weekend like some other PCVS tend to do.
From a work standpoint, I could either take a glass half empty or a glass half full approach. I will just say that the glass was filled 50% full. Maybe I could of done more if I came in more aggressive and forced some work, but then I wouldn´t of integrated with the community like how one should when being a gringo in a small town of 300. I always felt you needed to earn people´s trust and find out how they work and go about things instead of saying ¨okay, so here is what I need to do and you should just do what I say¨. So it´s a nice way of of saying that I slacked off the first year and didn´t do anything until the second year haha. All smart ass comments aside, I always went to bed saying that I didn´t do anything of substance that day or week, but looking back, you realize that you did more than originally thought.
Also one needs to realize that coming in as a young gringo still learning the language in a community that is not really receptive to change, that doing (or trying at least) what I did is an accomplish in and of itself. You realize that helping out building an irrigation canal or an organic family garden or teaching someone who to prepare organic fertilizers…yeah those were fine, but most people are going to remember the conversations with the gringo and learning about Los Estados Unidos and its culture. It was fun playing ambassador because I may be the only foreigner that they truly will get to know in their lives and with that comes a sense of responsibility to educate them about the good ol´ US of A.

With that, I bid you all chao…I hope all of you have enjoyed reading about my 27 month journey in Ecuador. I will be travelling for a few weeks after I leave Ecuador but this blog is called my life in Ecuador, not my life in Peru, Chile and Argentina. Plus, I will probably not feel like blogging as I am not a big writer in the first place. So with that being said, this has truly been an experience of a lifetime living and working in this beautiful and tiny South American country. The people that I have met are truly some of the most generous and happy people that I have ever met. I will remember them for the rest of my life and I wish that you all have a chance to come down and visit my home away from home sometime, mi lindo Ecuador.


Hasta luego

goodbye agriculture

We just had our COS (Close of Service) conference which tells me two things. One, I am almost done down here in Ecuador. Two, I NEED TO FIND A JOB NOW. Sorry for all caps on that one but its not something I´m chomping at the bit to do now. During our COS conference, while being flooded with all sorts of paperwork (do you realize we have to sign a form that requires us to fly an american carrier back to the states? take that TACA airlines! you´re not getting my money!) before we leave at peace corps volunteers, we were informed that the sustainable agriculture program is going to be terminated in the next two years. The group of volunteers that are in training right now are the last AG volunteers to enter the country. This means in a few years there won´t be any more volunteers that do what I (and many other talented gringos) do in Ecuador.
Agriculture has been in Ecuador since the inception of Peace Corps Ecuador, 50 years ago. There have been TWO program managers in Agriculture in this time, while other programs have had that many program managers in the last two years. It certainly is a sad day as the AG staff (especially our program managers Nelson and Eduardo) are two of the best that PC Ecuador has. The reason behind the move is that there are so many sites in Ecuador and not enough qualified applicants to fill the positions from the US. From that perspective it does make sense because not many people focus their careers on agriculture. A lot of the volunteers that came down here for training don´t know how to prune a tree. Second, Peace Corps Ecuador is adding a program, Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). Now, it could be said that I have already been apart of that program for the last two years, even though I am an agriculture volunteer. The Peace Corps wants to focus its resources on Health, Small Businesses, Natural Resources and English in the near future. I have always wondered why Peace Corps is even in Ecuador in the first place. There is a reason why it is called posh corps. Lots of volunteers live in the city in nice apartments with wireless internet...is that really a peace corps experience? Meanwhile, in the areas where volunteers are needed, volunteers can´t go there because of safety concerns. So it has become a double edged sword here in Ecuador.
Oh, and we´re a few weeks away from Carnaval here in Guaranda, I can´t wait for the debuachery.

Back in Ecuador

I ended up going home to southern California for Christmas and new years and you always hear about the term ¨culture shock¨, in which a person who has been living abroad comes home after awhile and is in shock at everything. Being home for two and a half weeks, there were some moments where it felt weird, but then again, growing up and living in southern California, you can´t be too shocked after living in a Latin American country and coming home. Seeing as how half of the kids that I spoke to at my mom´s middle school speak Spanish, there really isn´t too much culture shock in there.
It definitely felt good to be home (or close to it) for two and a half weeks and not eat white rice twice a day and see all of my family and friends for Christmas and new years. Though it did not feel like I was back in the United States, more like on a vacation and I was at LAX again back on a plane back to Ecuador. On my first leg of my trip back to Ecuador, I got bumped up to first class (first time ever!) because a family wanted to sit together and I was taking one of the spots. However, my flight left at 1:30AM so I couldn´t really enjoy all the immenities of a first class passenger because I wanted to sleep the whole time. Though I must say the leg room was a nice plus and the breakfast Belgian waffles were superb! Plus all the evil stares from the economy class passengers as they walked by made me feel like a pompous trust fund kid, so that’s always fun!
So now its back my little pueblo of San Lorenzo as I am going to try to make one final push here in these last few months to make a positive impact on the community. There will not be another gringo or gringa coming in to fill my spot in May so I would really like to put my ¨stamp¨ on the community while ALSO trying to find a job in this wonderful whimisical world we call the US economy.