The Blanquito and his Vanilla Friend

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Well, more excitement in Puyo, Ecuador. Susan and I hosted two Peace Corps trainees Sunday and Monday. They will both be in Macas. Ryan and Katie were genuinely nice people and like Susan and I, are trend-setters in the Oriente for Peace Corps. They will be the first Volunteers in their program (youth and family) to be in the Macas area.

They arrived on Sunday and we had them and the other Katie over for dinner at our place. Susan made a fresh cucumber salad and I made, my now famous, burritos with home-made tortillas. They were a big hit. Our new frying pan makes the best tortillas. Katie brought over an apple pie - we had a wonderful feast.

I convinced the two trainees to come out to FRATES with me in the morning. As we got on the bus, we saw the three volcanoes (Sangay, El Altar, and Tungurahua). A couple of them were spewing ash, which was really cool to see, plus a full moon was setting just over El Altar. The whole scene was incredible - the sad thing is that I was on the bus and unable to snap any photos of it. We have been telling people that it is so rare to see the volcanoes (only Sangay and El Altar are visible from our house), however, in the last two weeks, I have seen them almost every day. This must be due to the fact that it is becoming the dry season here - that means it rains a little less I guess. The last two days we have not had any rain - these are the first two days without rain since I have been in Puyo. The days are a lot sunnier now - so that means I´ll need more sunscreen and I´ll probably start sweating more too.

Anyhow, back to the story. We went out to FRATES and had breakfast with Umberto and the workers out there. We then took a hike to Hola Vida - the waterfall. Neither, Ryan nor Katie have a camera that works, so I snapped some photos for them - most of which will be posted on our next round of photos on Shutterfly. We hiked for about an hour and then returned to FRATES. They had a chance to speak with Umberto and listen to all of his ideas and the history of the center. Then, we all went to the community of Vencedores so that Umberto could introduce me and so we could discuss some of the ideas the community has and that we have for community outreach projects.

The community is Kichwa and I have to say that it is the nicest indigenous community I have been in to date. Not that it is fantastic or anything, but there seemed to be some order to it all and I noticed a general lack of trash and litter. The children absolutely loved us (we have many photos of us playing with them). One of the young little boys called Katie Vanilla and then tried to eat her hair - how cute. The meeting went well, but I have discovered that here in Ecuador, you need to have a meeting to talk about having a meeting. We were there for 2 hours and had a meeting with ¼ of the community. Apparently this wasn´t sufficient and we were told that we needed to come back on Sunday to meet with everyone. The irony here is that we really didn´t have much to talk about - I said my part in about 3 minutes. Oh well, you gotta play by their rules.

One of the reasons we were there was to meet with the parents of a young girl who has meningitis. She is going deaf and the parents refuse to get her medical attention. They have little trust for medicine. We brought a guy with us who does traditional healing and believes he can cure her for $5. His deal - you only pay if his cures work. I wonder if we could convince doctors and insurance companies to follow this model back home. Anyhow, the family is baulking, because last year a girl in the community feel ill with a liver ailment. They took her to the hospital and paid a lot, but it didn´t seem to cure her. Then they hired a Shaman to cure her - his solution, he gave her a cup of gasoline to drink - it killed her. Hopefully, the family will do something for their daughter before it is too late. This girl is adorable and a true sweetheart.

We returned to FRATES and were greeted by a wonderfully cooked lunch. Antonio, the young man who is going to run the tourism operation, has proved himself more than capable. At first I had many reservations about him, but one by one he has proven me wrong. It is not often that I reverse course like this, but in this case, it is more than justified. Ryan and Katie were very content to receive two free meals and to have the opportunity to hike in the jungle, see a waterfall, and visit an indigenous community. After lunch, they took a nap and I went for a swim in the river with Umberto. We chatted at length about FRATES. I concluded that we all need to have better direction and better communication if we are going to accomplish anything major out there. It really seems like there is a lot of tension between all parties involved with FRATES and I truly am stuck in the middle. I can´t write more about this, because all of the said parties read my blog as well.

That night, we went to Katie´s to have dinner. Sue made a cheese fondue that was out of this world. The idea was to have it as an appetizer, but it became our dinner, and a fine dinner it was. We all chatted until 10:00 or so and then decided to call it an evening - it was a long day - since we got up at 5:30 to get on the bus to FRATES and hiked a bajillion miles. The next morning I made banana nut pancakes and we said goodbye to the trainees.

At work, I received an invitation to play basketball, or so I thought. Wilmen (one of Bolivar´s friends and a guy I played Ecua-Volley with) called and invited me. The game was at 6:20 at a local high school. I went to the school, but couldn´t find a way in, so I circled the school and the block twice. During this process I came across a young boy (4-5 years old) who yelled out to me ¨tengo miedo¨ which means I am scared. I asked him why and he said ¨tu eres un blanquito¨ which means you are white. I asked him why that was a problem and he replied, ¨mi madre me dijo - no hable con blanquitos¨ - my mother said not to talk to white people. I said ¨y ahora, qué pasa?¨ - and right now, what going on? He just screamed and ran away. What I can´t figure out, is that the whole time he was smiling. So, I guess I am just a scary white guy - not too far from the truth.

I finally found my way into the gym. There were a bunch of teenagers and young men shooting hoops, but no Wilmen. So, I wondered around a bit more and then was motioned over by one of the guys. He asked if I was Jeremy - now I knew I was in the right place. I asked where Wilmen was and they said they didn´t know and that Wilmen was the owner of their team. After a few more inquisitive questions I concluded that Wilmen provides the team with Jersey´s and pays for them to have practice space. Another guy Jorge, who was not there either, is their coach. I started to think that perhaps Wilmen wanted to have me help coach - you know because I am a blanquito that is taller than 95% of the Ecuadorians and since I am from the U.S. I must be a b-ball expert. However, it came out later that this team has 9 players and with me they have 10. So I think I somehow agreed to play for this team. Anyhow, we scrimmaged another team that had 20 people and we only had 5 this night. I played for 1.5 hours straight and it literally kicked my ass. I had a lot of fun and was the worst player on my team in terms of skill, but I was the smartest - so I managed to hold my own by having a knack for being in the right place at the right time. There were a lot of little rule changes from the normal pick-up game rules. For instance, when you are on offense and the ball goes out of bounds, you don´t take it out up top, you pass it in from underneath the basket (like normal basketball). Anyhow, it was fun, but I am super sore today. I am feeling everyone of my 32+ years of age - I am not old, but after last night, I can see the darkness ahead of me.

This morning I had my second ¨magic show.¨ It was crazy. There were 100 kids and they were aged from about 3-7. Not the ideal attentive audience. They were unruly and kept coming down from their seats in mass to grab me or my things as I was doing demonstrations. They enjoyed it though and it reaffirmed my decision to not ever teach in an elementary school - NEVER EVER!!!

Poor Andrea, during her presentation, the kids were even more rowdy and she had to contend with a guy coming in to the room selling ice cream, the highway, which was literally 10 feet from the room , and she had to share the room with a dentist who was drilling away on someone´s teeth. Seriously, we were in a community house (1 big room) we had 100 kids on one half of the room and on the other half was a dentist doing dental work as part of this barrio´s minga. How would you like to be in a dentist´s chair with your mouth wide open and 100 kids peering over at you as you spit blood, saliva, and god knows what into a make shift receptacle? When Andrea finished, the first thing she said to me was - ¨this has got to go into your blog¨ and here it is!!!

So as you can tell, things are perfectly normal in Puyo!!!

Jeremy

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