In my last few days at site, I realize how sweet life here is. It must be because it is the end, because I seem to appreciate everything more. I walk with a lightness in my step, smiling at the man pushing the cart of fruit, my students streaming out of school at 12:30, joyous to be free, the old señoras who sit on the stoops in front of their house. I realize what I should have done. I should have gone out more, enjoyed people more, and not let negativity get me down. I could have done more good.
But even at my lowest moments here, there were people nearby to help push me up. Rocio and her kids, who showed up at my house nearly every day with food or with an invitation to eat with them. Karla, her 9 year old, who took me to the doctor's when I had one of my million digestive issues. Norma and Pablo and Judi and Hector, whose tranquility and love is endless and whose house, nestled by a river and surrounded by fruit trees, is close to paradise. Valeria and her endless calm and good nature, and Mario and his inner goodness and intensity. Vero and her generosity and earnestness, Marianita and her pure motherliness. There are so many people who made my experience the way it was, and although I stumbled, fell, got my knees scraped and my ass kicked by this whole Peace Corps experience, even though I am still selfish and very imperfect, I think I emerged a better person. More patient. More understanding. Most importantly, more willing to forgive. More confidence.
My friends have told me that I am more mature, and I think that maturity comes from failing and getting your ass kicked. Once you learn how and why you failed, you can get up, ego bruised but overall intact, and keep going. And that perserverence and stubbornness is going to keep me going in the world of big cities and phD programs, of resumes and qualifications and planners. This world I'm going back to- a world without two to four hour lunch breaks, where people drive an hour to and from their work, where mangos come from Far Away and don't grow on trees- this world baffles me. But I know that now, I am more awake, more alive, more present. And I can keep that going into whatever corner of the Earth I end up in.
Thank you, Zaruma, thank you most of all to all of the people who have paved the way with love and kindness and laughter. And thank you to the bad people who taught me how to use my voice and stand up for myself. You have kicked my ass, but i am still here. Thank you for all of the darkness and all of the light. i will miss you.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Sunday, August 26, 2012
sunday funday
This last weekend, I ate half of a chocolate cookie pie and spent the day at Jas' place watching Disney movies. We got really into the songs. As we sat there, drinking wine and watching Pochantus, we started laughing uncontrollably. This is our Peace Corps Life: meeting up with other Americans, not to have crazy wild parties, but to watch Pochohantus and eat cookies. Who knew that this would be Peace Corps?
The host family situation has cleared up a bit. That's one of the great things about being here- you really learn ALL of your flaws and your strengths. I learned that one of my flaws is that I hold things in until I burst. I'm like a New Orleans levee cerca 2004, and two weeks ago I had my own personal Hurricane Katrina. And people here really don't hold things in. I'm always in awe of my 14 year old host sister, who says every annoyance immediately (usually directed at her mother). "Ayyyyyy MAAAAAA!" she shrieks (usually right into my ear, since I'm usually sitting next to her, leaving me half deaf for the night. Teenage angst is LOUD.).
I finally had to talk to my host family and explain why I was so upset. They didn't really understand why being called "lazy" or a "pig" or a "man woman" or "someone who will never get married" was so offensive. I guess they thought that by saying these things, they would spur me to action, to become an insta-Martha Stewart. But I'm not like that- I hate being told what to do if I don't see a point behind it. So telling me to sweep every day doesn't hold weight unless I can personally see a benefit from it. They haven't gotten that. And they don't view themselves as insulting me, even though in American culture, being called a pig or lazy is extremely insulting. Oh well. The levees burst, I tried to pretend that they didn't by ignoring them, and it all came to a head anyways. After a year here, I am still butting heads with the culture constantly. Hopefully with a little love and better communication, it will all get smoothed out.
Cool things I get to do this week:
1. Meet a group of needy kids whose parents don't have enough money to feed them lunch, who get fed by and hang out with a group of church ladies. I am going into meet them on Tuesday and hopefully can do some fun activities with them after lunch.
2. Revamped my schedule to include the middle schoolers. HEYYY puberty and braces!
3. The rector said that he would give me the keys to hte pool and become an official coach, so I get to talk to the Cubans and see if they will cede control of the girls swimming team to me. Or let me work with them with all the teams.
So many things happening! I feel stupidhappy about it all, even though so much of the time, I am screwing up. But learning and growing from it all. That's the lovely part. I'm glad I had this host family freakout- now I really know how I process with and deal with being angry. I ignore it and wait for it to boil over. Not effective! Not useful! Completely counterproductive.
Hopefully some good will come out of all of this....
The host family situation has cleared up a bit. That's one of the great things about being here- you really learn ALL of your flaws and your strengths. I learned that one of my flaws is that I hold things in until I burst. I'm like a New Orleans levee cerca 2004, and two weeks ago I had my own personal Hurricane Katrina. And people here really don't hold things in. I'm always in awe of my 14 year old host sister, who says every annoyance immediately (usually directed at her mother). "Ayyyyyy MAAAAAA!" she shrieks (usually right into my ear, since I'm usually sitting next to her, leaving me half deaf for the night. Teenage angst is LOUD.).
I finally had to talk to my host family and explain why I was so upset. They didn't really understand why being called "lazy" or a "pig" or a "man woman" or "someone who will never get married" was so offensive. I guess they thought that by saying these things, they would spur me to action, to become an insta-Martha Stewart. But I'm not like that- I hate being told what to do if I don't see a point behind it. So telling me to sweep every day doesn't hold weight unless I can personally see a benefit from it. They haven't gotten that. And they don't view themselves as insulting me, even though in American culture, being called a pig or lazy is extremely insulting. Oh well. The levees burst, I tried to pretend that they didn't by ignoring them, and it all came to a head anyways. After a year here, I am still butting heads with the culture constantly. Hopefully with a little love and better communication, it will all get smoothed out.
Cool things I get to do this week:
1. Meet a group of needy kids whose parents don't have enough money to feed them lunch, who get fed by and hang out with a group of church ladies. I am going into meet them on Tuesday and hopefully can do some fun activities with them after lunch.
2. Revamped my schedule to include the middle schoolers. HEYYY puberty and braces!
3. The rector said that he would give me the keys to hte pool and become an official coach, so I get to talk to the Cubans and see if they will cede control of the girls swimming team to me. Or let me work with them with all the teams.
So many things happening! I feel stupidhappy about it all, even though so much of the time, I am screwing up. But learning and growing from it all. That's the lovely part. I'm glad I had this host family freakout- now I really know how I process with and deal with being angry. I ignore it and wait for it to boil over. Not effective! Not useful! Completely counterproductive.
Hopefully some good will come out of all of this....
Sunday, August 12, 2012
estreza, estreza, estreza
I don't know what I thought life would really be like before I came here. I think I imagined living in the jungle, waking up to monkeys walking over my roof, and hearing the buzzing of a million insects every night. I imagined knowing my entire village, peeing outside in a latrine, and becoming a generally enlightened person as a result of the whole experience.
None of that has happened. I am in a wealthy town, a "Posh Corps" town, where the average resident drives an SUV and where the majority of the teenagers own Blackberries (which cost about $600 here). A town of 20,000, which can feel suffocatingly small at times, but where I know that most people still don't know who I am. So, it's small enough that everyone pretty much knows everyone elses' business, but big enough that at the end of two years, most people still won't know me.
I pee in a toilet, although above it there is a "window" with absolutely no covering to the outer world, so that all slugs, mosquitoes, ants, cockroaches, moths, and even rats can come in at will. I've seen each of those creatures in here at least once.
The hardest part about being here for me isn't the insects or the rats or even the crying baby that lives next door that keeps me up at night. The hardest thing for me is dealing with the people.
Now, there are tons of wonderful things about the Latin culture. Many people have huge hearts and are incredibly generous. They love their families fiercely and stick together like Pat Robertson supporters to Republican candidates. Brothers and sisters hang out at school, which is so alien to me. My sister and I, like proper American teenagers, avoided each other like the plague at social events. We never went to parties together or had the same friends. Here, siblings chill together after schol, go to parties together, go shopping together, and even have the same group of friends. Mothers are incredibly attached to their children. Families gather every weekend for a big, long lunch, including soup and a big main plate that almost always includes rice and some kind of meat. They sit and talk and laugh for about two hours, go off to take naps, return at 4 for a cup of coffee and a piece of bread (called the entrecomida), scatter again, and return at 6 or 7 for a small dinner. It's a beautiful and calm life that the people here seem to have, a life centered around the togetherness and joy of family.
The bad thing about the culture is the rigidity of gender roles. Many women in this town (more from the older generation) are taught that their most important duties in life are that of a wife, mother, and homemaker. The house should be neat at all times, and beautifully decorated. The floors should be swept, the bed made, everything organized neatly, the shirts ironed crisply. Failure to keep your home beautiful reflects horribly on you as a woman. It means you are a machona, a man-woman, a woman who doesn't know her place.
As you all know, American women aren't taught the same thing (at least, not the women where I live). We are encouraged to play sports, to develop ourselves. This Olympic Games, the majority of the US medal winners were women. We are encouraged to get good grades, play a musical instrument, go to college, get a good job, get an apartment. Women in their mid twenties should have a fabulous life- full of freedom, full of friends, family, social activities, fashionable clothes, and dates. Some women get engaged and married at 23 or 24, but so many more wait until they are 29, 30, 34. There is no rush to marry- why should there be? Weddings are expensive, freedom is enticing, and we want to know that we have found The One before we get married.
My mom was a feminist, and never taught us to stay at home once we got married. Working and having a life outside of kids and a home is a value I absorbed as a little kid. Because of this, knowing how to iron perfectly or make tons of food never has been my top priority- they've been skills I've picked up slowly (and painfully) along the ride.
This I've been having major problems with my host family. I get criticized almost daily by my host mom, who says that I am lazy for not cleaning more and that I will not be able to find a husband if I don't learn to be more of a "woman." When she says "woman," she, of course, means a Latina woman, who values family above all, and stays at home to care for her kids and her husband. This idea is so foreign to me. I'm so stressed by the constant criticism, the constant nagging, to be a "better woman." When you throw in the crying baby next door, the puppy that poops all over my host, and the general loudness of living on the same street as both the market and the dance hall, it's too much to deal with. It's driving me crazy and making me stressed out. I feel like I cannot escape the loudness of life here.
So, I am trying to move. Hopefully, this week I can find a new apartment to live in, one that is both cheaper and quieter. Cross your fingers for me, because finding an empty apartment is pretty difficult here in Zaruma. I don't know how I will explain this all to my host family, but I've come to realize that they aren't my real family, so it doesn't matter. I will be a horrible volunteer if I continue to be so miserable and so stressed out.
So, deep breath, one, two, three, LEAP! Who knows how this saga will unfold.
None of that has happened. I am in a wealthy town, a "Posh Corps" town, where the average resident drives an SUV and where the majority of the teenagers own Blackberries (which cost about $600 here). A town of 20,000, which can feel suffocatingly small at times, but where I know that most people still don't know who I am. So, it's small enough that everyone pretty much knows everyone elses' business, but big enough that at the end of two years, most people still won't know me.
I pee in a toilet, although above it there is a "window" with absolutely no covering to the outer world, so that all slugs, mosquitoes, ants, cockroaches, moths, and even rats can come in at will. I've seen each of those creatures in here at least once.
The hardest part about being here for me isn't the insects or the rats or even the crying baby that lives next door that keeps me up at night. The hardest thing for me is dealing with the people.
Now, there are tons of wonderful things about the Latin culture. Many people have huge hearts and are incredibly generous. They love their families fiercely and stick together like Pat Robertson supporters to Republican candidates. Brothers and sisters hang out at school, which is so alien to me. My sister and I, like proper American teenagers, avoided each other like the plague at social events. We never went to parties together or had the same friends. Here, siblings chill together after schol, go to parties together, go shopping together, and even have the same group of friends. Mothers are incredibly attached to their children. Families gather every weekend for a big, long lunch, including soup and a big main plate that almost always includes rice and some kind of meat. They sit and talk and laugh for about two hours, go off to take naps, return at 4 for a cup of coffee and a piece of bread (called the entrecomida), scatter again, and return at 6 or 7 for a small dinner. It's a beautiful and calm life that the people here seem to have, a life centered around the togetherness and joy of family.
The bad thing about the culture is the rigidity of gender roles. Many women in this town (more from the older generation) are taught that their most important duties in life are that of a wife, mother, and homemaker. The house should be neat at all times, and beautifully decorated. The floors should be swept, the bed made, everything organized neatly, the shirts ironed crisply. Failure to keep your home beautiful reflects horribly on you as a woman. It means you are a machona, a man-woman, a woman who doesn't know her place.
As you all know, American women aren't taught the same thing (at least, not the women where I live). We are encouraged to play sports, to develop ourselves. This Olympic Games, the majority of the US medal winners were women. We are encouraged to get good grades, play a musical instrument, go to college, get a good job, get an apartment. Women in their mid twenties should have a fabulous life- full of freedom, full of friends, family, social activities, fashionable clothes, and dates. Some women get engaged and married at 23 or 24, but so many more wait until they are 29, 30, 34. There is no rush to marry- why should there be? Weddings are expensive, freedom is enticing, and we want to know that we have found The One before we get married.
My mom was a feminist, and never taught us to stay at home once we got married. Working and having a life outside of kids and a home is a value I absorbed as a little kid. Because of this, knowing how to iron perfectly or make tons of food never has been my top priority- they've been skills I've picked up slowly (and painfully) along the ride.
This I've been having major problems with my host family. I get criticized almost daily by my host mom, who says that I am lazy for not cleaning more and that I will not be able to find a husband if I don't learn to be more of a "woman." When she says "woman," she, of course, means a Latina woman, who values family above all, and stays at home to care for her kids and her husband. This idea is so foreign to me. I'm so stressed by the constant criticism, the constant nagging, to be a "better woman." When you throw in the crying baby next door, the puppy that poops all over my host, and the general loudness of living on the same street as both the market and the dance hall, it's too much to deal with. It's driving me crazy and making me stressed out. I feel like I cannot escape the loudness of life here.
So, I am trying to move. Hopefully, this week I can find a new apartment to live in, one that is both cheaper and quieter. Cross your fingers for me, because finding an empty apartment is pretty difficult here in Zaruma. I don't know how I will explain this all to my host family, but I've come to realize that they aren't my real family, so it doesn't matter. I will be a horrible volunteer if I continue to be so miserable and so stressed out.
So, deep breath, one, two, three, LEAP! Who knows how this saga will unfold.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Second Trimester Eve
Zaruma was dead today. The streets were nearly empty. Cars whizzed by, full of families going to El Cisne, a church two hours away that is in fiestas all of this month. Dogs wandered around the streets, bored, looking for something to do. Men sat on the steps of their houses, looking out. Kids ran around together, kicking soccer balls and racing each other.
Tomorrow is the start of the second trimester at my colegio, 26 de Noviembre, and everyone is gearing up for it after three blissful weeks of vacation. I don't know how it will go. I hope the teachers come to my workshops, and my new schedule works out. I hope that they're more willing to try new activities out of the book, and to plan with me. I basically just hope we can reach a happy place where they feel like they're being helped, and I feel like they're benefitting and putting in the time. Basically, like I'm being productive, and a Good Volunteer. We'll see.
The pool's open, which has been blissfulincrediblelovely. I've been going with my two youngest host "nieces". The older one, Dani, is a little dolphin. She is a fast learning, tall and still growing girl with no fear. I LOVE kids like that. I've taught her how to dive (although she still flops her back feet), how to swim the freestyle (though breathing is so so) and how to do a streamline. The youngest, Ari, the baby, likes to practice kicking and smiles and shakes her head when I try and get her to do freestyle. But her sister is toughter than me, and, with both of us, I think she'll learn soon.
The pool is like this rectangular, chlorinated, blue body of hope. Hope that the swim team will become a reality. Hope that I can actually teach kids how to swim, help build their confidence, and give them a place where they can exercise, have fun, and take risks. Everytime I leave the pool, I'm so happy. I'm glowing with peace, my muscles sore and aching, the sun drying off my hair and my arms. The mini traffic jams and groups of staring guys seem more manageable, less annoying. It's pure bliss.
Tomorrow is the start of the second trimester at my colegio, 26 de Noviembre, and everyone is gearing up for it after three blissful weeks of vacation. I don't know how it will go. I hope the teachers come to my workshops, and my new schedule works out. I hope that they're more willing to try new activities out of the book, and to plan with me. I basically just hope we can reach a happy place where they feel like they're being helped, and I feel like they're benefitting and putting in the time. Basically, like I'm being productive, and a Good Volunteer. We'll see.
The pool's open, which has been blissfulincrediblelovely. I've been going with my two youngest host "nieces". The older one, Dani, is a little dolphin. She is a fast learning, tall and still growing girl with no fear. I LOVE kids like that. I've taught her how to dive (although she still flops her back feet), how to swim the freestyle (though breathing is so so) and how to do a streamline. The youngest, Ari, the baby, likes to practice kicking and smiles and shakes her head when I try and get her to do freestyle. But her sister is toughter than me, and, with both of us, I think she'll learn soon.
The pool is like this rectangular, chlorinated, blue body of hope. Hope that the swim team will become a reality. Hope that I can actually teach kids how to swim, help build their confidence, and give them a place where they can exercise, have fun, and take risks. Everytime I leave the pool, I'm so happy. I'm glowing with peace, my muscles sore and aching, the sun drying off my hair and my arms. The mini traffic jams and groups of staring guys seem more manageable, less annoying. It's pure bliss.
Musings from the almost-year mark
It's Friday night here. Pretty typical night. The neighborhood boys are playing trucks down the steps outside of my house. A family who will sell fruit at the market tomorrow arrived, and a swaddle of children and babies are all watching their parents arrange the food for all the people who will swarm our street tomorrow morning. One of these days I need to take my camera out there and photograph the chaos of the market.
This last week, I went up to Quito to go see the Peace Corps dentist. Fourteen hours on a bus and I'm transported into a big city with traffic jams, men in suits, and volcanoes in the distance. It's so nice being amidst the whirring of a city. It's like being back in DC. Hearing cars honk and seeing restaurant after restaurant, and not knowing a soul that passes me by on the street thrill me. The kabobs, the bus line, the Ecovia (metro) whirring by, not giving a damn that I'm there, flying by to the ticking, impatient City Clock.
I met some Trainees from Omnibus 108 who were about to swear in, and it struck me that we really aren't the "new" volunteers anymore. It's been almost a full year since we swore in. We're the old, seasoned, veterans who somehow, somehow, are still in the field, chugging along.
At the (almost) year mark, it's hard for me to say that I've accomplished a lot. I don't feel like I'm this giant, important figure in the community. I think that many people still don't know who I am. Sometimes I even wonder if the isolation is getting to me too much, and that instead of reading Tolstoy, I spend my free time watching movies or on the Internet. That, when given the chance, I'll sleep all morning. I thought that by this point, I'd be more established, more known, and more happy.
It seems like some of my projects are just now starting to take off. Like the teacher workshops. I've managed to wrangle all of the together for a few workshops, and we are planning to do more next week, and throughout the school year. I like working with them. I like getting them all together and trying to muddle through the English language with them.
The teenagers have been really hard to teach. Because of their age, they are constantly moody, constantly on their Blackberries, texting in class. Sometimes they come in with huge smiles, and other times they put their heads on their desks sullenly and don't want to participate. Some of the teenage boys ask me what I'm doing after school and want to hang out- HA! It's such a dramatic age. My seventeen year olds are on the cusp of leaving home, of becoming adults, of figuring out who they are.
I've gotten frustrated with them and been impatient. I don't see their English getting better. I don't see them improving, or trying. It's made me want to switch classes. But my boss told me the other day that in education, you need to wait until the end of the year to see any results. I won't know anything until the end of February. Then, we'll see if they improved. And if they didnt, she said, you readjust for next year.
Teachers are some of the most patient people on the planet. I mean, you have to deal with everything. Family and relationship problems walk into the classroom with the student. You have to deal with the kid whose angry because his stepmother is cruel, the girl who gave birth to twins last year, and the boy who is always sad because his mother had to leave him to work in the US. Then, you have to get them interested in the language. Then you have to teach it. Day in, day out, even when they give you bullshit and act like hyper monkeys. Even when all they want to do is ask you questions about the US, like
"are there only white people in the US?" (yes....that's why we have a black president)
"do you let boys pay for you on dates?"
"in the US, does everyone smoke marijuana?"
"how many wives do jewish men have?"
I always want to see quick flashy results. I want to hear them speaking the lanugage. I want to be surrounded by laughing children who are all speaking in English and who get enthusiastic and clap during every class. I want all of my teachers speaking English, for the whole class. I want to see them planning outside of their standard book. I want all of this, and I want it NOW! Now, now, now. But now never is what I think it is going to be- and it's always changing.
So, at the year mark, I feel a great reverence for the god of Patience, who is at best a passing acquaintance of mine. Hopefully, this year, we can be more aquaintance. It's a long haul. Slow and steady, slow and steady.
This last week, I went up to Quito to go see the Peace Corps dentist. Fourteen hours on a bus and I'm transported into a big city with traffic jams, men in suits, and volcanoes in the distance. It's so nice being amidst the whirring of a city. It's like being back in DC. Hearing cars honk and seeing restaurant after restaurant, and not knowing a soul that passes me by on the street thrill me. The kabobs, the bus line, the Ecovia (metro) whirring by, not giving a damn that I'm there, flying by to the ticking, impatient City Clock.
I met some Trainees from Omnibus 108 who were about to swear in, and it struck me that we really aren't the "new" volunteers anymore. It's been almost a full year since we swore in. We're the old, seasoned, veterans who somehow, somehow, are still in the field, chugging along.
At the (almost) year mark, it's hard for me to say that I've accomplished a lot. I don't feel like I'm this giant, important figure in the community. I think that many people still don't know who I am. Sometimes I even wonder if the isolation is getting to me too much, and that instead of reading Tolstoy, I spend my free time watching movies or on the Internet. That, when given the chance, I'll sleep all morning. I thought that by this point, I'd be more established, more known, and more happy.
It seems like some of my projects are just now starting to take off. Like the teacher workshops. I've managed to wrangle all of the together for a few workshops, and we are planning to do more next week, and throughout the school year. I like working with them. I like getting them all together and trying to muddle through the English language with them.
The teenagers have been really hard to teach. Because of their age, they are constantly moody, constantly on their Blackberries, texting in class. Sometimes they come in with huge smiles, and other times they put their heads on their desks sullenly and don't want to participate. Some of the teenage boys ask me what I'm doing after school and want to hang out- HA! It's such a dramatic age. My seventeen year olds are on the cusp of leaving home, of becoming adults, of figuring out who they are.
I've gotten frustrated with them and been impatient. I don't see their English getting better. I don't see them improving, or trying. It's made me want to switch classes. But my boss told me the other day that in education, you need to wait until the end of the year to see any results. I won't know anything until the end of February. Then, we'll see if they improved. And if they didnt, she said, you readjust for next year.
Teachers are some of the most patient people on the planet. I mean, you have to deal with everything. Family and relationship problems walk into the classroom with the student. You have to deal with the kid whose angry because his stepmother is cruel, the girl who gave birth to twins last year, and the boy who is always sad because his mother had to leave him to work in the US. Then, you have to get them interested in the language. Then you have to teach it. Day in, day out, even when they give you bullshit and act like hyper monkeys. Even when all they want to do is ask you questions about the US, like
"are there only white people in the US?" (yes....that's why we have a black president)
"do you let boys pay for you on dates?"
"in the US, does everyone smoke marijuana?"
"how many wives do jewish men have?"
I always want to see quick flashy results. I want to hear them speaking the lanugage. I want to be surrounded by laughing children who are all speaking in English and who get enthusiastic and clap during every class. I want all of my teachers speaking English, for the whole class. I want to see them planning outside of their standard book. I want all of this, and I want it NOW! Now, now, now. But now never is what I think it is going to be- and it's always changing.
So, at the year mark, I feel a great reverence for the god of Patience, who is at best a passing acquaintance of mine. Hopefully, this year, we can be more aquaintance. It's a long haul. Slow and steady, slow and steady.
Monday, July 16, 2012
roosters and dogs
The roosters and the dogs in the neighborhood seem to be having a noise competition. The roosters throw out a caw, and the dogs respond with vicious barks. I wonder is there is a showdown in a field somewhere between a pack of roosters and a pack of dogs. Never a dull moment in Zaruma. Even the Monday nights are full of action.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Lovely, Lovely, Lovely
Today I hung out with the school librarian and her family.
The school librarian and I have this kindred connection because we both love books and solitude, neither of which is too common for most people I know here. Most people I know here love talking, talking, talking, talking to relieve stress. When I get stressed at school, I run into the library, where the solitude of the books and the sweetness of the librarian soothe me until I have enough courage to go bakc out and teach yelling kids.
Today the librarian and her daughter, who is my age, her DJ son, and her daughter's daughter, who is three and adorable, went to a pool in a nearby village called Ortega. Ortega is tiny. It has maybe one tienda, and if it has a restaurant, I've never seen it. It is up in the mountains, surrounded by green green trees, and when you go you always hear the sound of running water from the river.
We went to a "pool" which consisted of:
A volleyball court (Necessary, for Ecua-Volley, a version of volleyball, is insanely popular)
Two pools
A snackbar area
Pretty normal, pretty standard. The difference between this pool and a normal American pool were the animals. A white dog guarded the pool and followed us around wherever we went, begging for attention and food. Roosters wandered around on the volleyball court and the grass. Reggaeton music blared out of the speakers.
The water was freezing freezing freezing, but the three year old kept jumping in with her big inflatable duck "Pato" and kept throwing her duck at us. I taught the librarian how to do some kicking and then the three year old mimicked us.
Then we went home, the daughter and I made oatmeal raisin cookies, we listened to the DJ brother's electronic mixes, and the three year old learned how to take pictures, so she ran around documenting her whole life: her mom cooking, her Barbie, her Pato, her uncle. After eating tamales and coffee, they paid for my taxi all the way back to Zaruma, and sent me home with a giant bag of grenadillas (passionfruit) and oatmeal raisin cookies.
What a fantastic day. I can't believe how generous and full of life the people here can be. I want to bottle today up and remember it forever. This is the Peace Corps at its best.
PS. Here is a grenadilla:
So cool.
The school librarian and I have this kindred connection because we both love books and solitude, neither of which is too common for most people I know here. Most people I know here love talking, talking, talking, talking to relieve stress. When I get stressed at school, I run into the library, where the solitude of the books and the sweetness of the librarian soothe me until I have enough courage to go bakc out and teach yelling kids.
Today the librarian and her daughter, who is my age, her DJ son, and her daughter's daughter, who is three and adorable, went to a pool in a nearby village called Ortega. Ortega is tiny. It has maybe one tienda, and if it has a restaurant, I've never seen it. It is up in the mountains, surrounded by green green trees, and when you go you always hear the sound of running water from the river.
We went to a "pool" which consisted of:
A volleyball court (Necessary, for Ecua-Volley, a version of volleyball, is insanely popular)
Two pools
A snackbar area
Pretty normal, pretty standard. The difference between this pool and a normal American pool were the animals. A white dog guarded the pool and followed us around wherever we went, begging for attention and food. Roosters wandered around on the volleyball court and the grass. Reggaeton music blared out of the speakers.
The water was freezing freezing freezing, but the three year old kept jumping in with her big inflatable duck "Pato" and kept throwing her duck at us. I taught the librarian how to do some kicking and then the three year old mimicked us.
Then we went home, the daughter and I made oatmeal raisin cookies, we listened to the DJ brother's electronic mixes, and the three year old learned how to take pictures, so she ran around documenting her whole life: her mom cooking, her Barbie, her Pato, her uncle. After eating tamales and coffee, they paid for my taxi all the way back to Zaruma, and sent me home with a giant bag of grenadillas (passionfruit) and oatmeal raisin cookies.
What a fantastic day. I can't believe how generous and full of life the people here can be. I want to bottle today up and remember it forever. This is the Peace Corps at its best.
PS. Here is a grenadilla:
So cool.
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