December - Already?!?

The weeks just keep coming and going in Ecuador. We´ve been here for 10 months now and are nearing the end of our first year. I´d have to say that everyone at Peace Corps was correct when they told us that our service was going to be an emotional roller coaster. Sue and I have both had our highs and our lows. Amazingly, they rarely coincide with each other - this is a good thing, since we can pick the other one up when things are down.

Last week, we bought an $11.50 Chinese plastic Christmas tree for our apartment. We spent another $10 or so on decorations and lights. So, we now have our very own Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It is not the prettiest tree, but it does the trick and puts us in a festive mood. What we are lacking is our Christmas music. Somehow when I burned all of our cd´s to i-tunes in the States, I failed to burn our Christmas cd´s - so as it stands, we have an Etta James album and that is it. So…..if any of you want to send us music, that would be great. I would especially like the Charlie Brown Christmas album to go with our tree and all.

Sue and I attended a community bank workshop in Ambuqui last week. It was an awesome workshop. If you are not familiar with the community bank concept, I´ll give you the quick run-down. Community banks typically consist of 25-35 people or families. Each week, everyone in the bank deposits money (usually a small amount like $.50 to a $1). Once a month, people in the bank can request a loan which must be paid back the next month at 10% interest. These loans are obviously small loans in the neighbourhood of $50. At the end of the year, the bank dissolves and all funds are distributed equally among members. Then, the community can form a new bank if they choose, or let it die if it was a bad experience.

In Ecuador alone, there are over 600 community banks operating with more than 6 million dollars. The concept is so cool because the community members have complete control, they determine everything from how much to put in each week to who gets the loans. It is a democratic process that provides small start-up capital for people who normally have zero access to traditional sources of funding.

The workshop was sponsored by Peace Corps. My counterpart was supposed to come with me, but he flaked out (this is a SORE spot with me and not appropriate to discuss here). Anyhow, I was the only volunteer there without a counterpart. It didn´t slow me down though and I still learned a lot. I can only hope that I will be able to convince my counterpart help me implement banks with some of the communities we work with.

After the conference, Susan and I decided to spend the weekend with our friend Roger. Kris Pedings came as well. So, our training group from La Esperanza was reunited in Ambuqui. Roger just changed sites to Ambuqui and has been there for a month. Already, he is popular in town and everyone was saying hello to him.

Roger´s site is exactly how I envisioned Peace Corps. He´s in a small town, fairly rustic, extremely friendly, and content as can be. I am jealous of his experience and site. Don´t get me wrong, I love Puyo, I enjoy my work, however, I don´t feel like I am part of a community. Susan and my experience is vastly different from most other volunteers - we work out of offices and live in a city (well sort of a city).

Anyhow, on Friday night the four of us played speed scrabble with our new Spanish version given to us by my brother Bryan and his wife Kelly. We had a blast. We bought some beers, some cheese and crackers, and made tuna noodle casserole for dinner. After dinner, we decided to play cards. Unfortunately, every game we talked about playing, someone in the group didn´t know how to play it. We finally settled on Texas Hold´Em. We used our scrabble pieces as chips and had $1 buy in. Yeah, we are big betters in Peace Corps. Susan ¨claimed¨ that she didn´t know how to play, but somehow she ended up winning it all. I think she was dogging us.

The next morning, we got up, made breakfast, and then headed north to meet with with two other volunteers, Jeff and Crystal. We were going to go to some cave and hot springs south of Tulcan in a town called La Paz.

We arrived before Jeff and Crystal so we left La Paz and took the camioneta down to the caves. When we got there, we realized that it was a religious site run by nuns. There was one cave, it was huge and had a river running out of it. There was an altar with a statue of the virgin mary and rows of pews. One wall was covered with plaques commemorating various miracles that had occurred here. So, what we gathered was that the statue of the virgin mary just magically appeared there one day. So the nuns decided to advertise this miracle and people have been coming here ever since. To increase the draw to the area, someone had an idea to made a couple hot pools from the supply of thermal springs. It wasn´t what I expected at all.

Finally we caught up with Jeff and Crystal. We headed to one of the pools and swam for about an hour. The weather was crappy (drizzle, wind, and cold), but the springs managed to keep us warm enough.

After our adventure in Las Grutas de La Paz (The Caves of La Paz) we headed back to Ambuqui, - Jeff and Crystal came as well. Saturday night was a repeat of Friday night in almost every way. We had beer, cheese and crackers, made tuna melts (a little different than the casserole), played speed scrabble, and then played Texas Hold´Em. Surprise, Sue won again. Somehow she beat Kris in the final hand. He had pocket Aces, she had a 2 of diamonds and a 5 of spades. Kris went all in - Sue - didn´t care and wanted to end the game so she obliged. She ended up with a pair of 2´s and a pair of 3´s to beat his aces.

Sunday morning we got up and all headed back to our respective sites. Sue and I stopped in Quito with Kris to check our e-mail at the Peace Corps office and to try and find an NFL game. Much to our surprise, we were able to watch the Browns game at a sports bar near the Peace Corps office. We planned to watch the first half then leave for Puyo. The game was good and went to the final play - we watched the whole thing, including the Browns catch in the endzone ruled and incomplete pass. Oh well, you win some and you lose some. It was a call that could have gone either way.

After the game we caught a cab to the bus station and hopped on a bus headed for Puyo. This bus was not the comfy bus with fully reclining seats, but it would do. We didn´t want to wait another hour for that bus. Our decision was a good one. We again broke the Quito - Puyo speed record by making the trip in 3 hours 45 minutes. This trip felt safer than the last time, perhaps because I was not in the back row with a lunatic driver behind the wheel. This bus, didn´t really stop to pick anyone up and had the luck of very little traffic to deal with on this Sunday evening.

Monday morning Susan was supposed to head into the jungle in a plane to attend an artesenia workshop in a Waorani village. As usual, things were not planned all that well and the plane was broken. Most of the women went to the community on Saturday by canoe (a two-day trip) while the rest were to take the plane and the food. So, with out the plane, there was no way to deliver the food. Sue was going to try again Tuesday morning and may be boarding a plane as I type this.

The two of us, along with Katie are planning a Christmas get together in Puyo for volunteers who are not returning to the States for the holidays. I sent out an invite yesterday - we´ll see who decides to come to the jungle for the holidays. We don´t have snow, but you can see it on the volcanoes - does that count?

Well, I need to get back to work. Go Buckeyes!!! Go Browns!!! Go Cavs!!!

Peace,
Jeremy

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