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Published: March 10th 2007
Well, this has been a rich week of activity. On Monday, my little brother, Santiago was outside watching Kris and I play Ecua Volley - which is an Ecuadorian version of Volleyball that uses a soccer ball and a net that is about 1 foot taller than a normal net. The court is the same size and its 3 on 3. Anyhow, as we were playing, he was sitting on a small wall, the ball bounced over his head and he reached up to grab it. In doing so, he lost his balance, fell over the wall and landed on his head on the concrete below. Sue saw the whole thing happen. She rushed to him and held him. I came over to play doctor. Both Sue and Santiago were crying. Santi is fine, just a big ole knot on his head. To make matters worse, when it happened, his mother was away at the store. Sue and I left for a walk when we realized that he was ok. When we returned, he had not told his mom what happened - I spilled the beans. In my gringo humor, I told her that the score was La concreta 1 and Santiago 0. The humor was not well received, nor understood. Oh well, some things just don´t translate culturally. The important thing is that Santiago is fine.
The rest of the week, we have been going into Cayambe each day to hear presentations about the different cites that want Peace Corps volunteers. It has been especially frustrating since we see all these places and only two are available to married couples. We don´t really have any choice in the matter. In fact, none of the volunteers really have a choice. Peace Corps places you where they think you will do best. You can tell them your preferences, but it doesn´t really matter. In the big picture, its all good. I don´t care where I go. I´ll make the best of it.
We are fairly certain that we will be in Puyo in the Oriente, which is the rainforest. We find out for sure next Tuesday - the big day. Puyo is a cool town with a lot of things to do. We will do fine there I am sure. We would be working with indigenous tribes most of the time which means learning more languages. Puyo is also very close Baños and Volcan Tugarachi (spelling) which is currently erupting.
My Spanish has hit a little bit of a wall, but I have been told that this is normal and expected. I find myself wanting to say more advanced things and just getting stuck in mid-sentence. The other night I was conversing with my host mother and Susan and just drew a blank for about a minute. It was frustrating.
We did some training today on Forestry and Analogforestry and I have to say it was right up my alley. The only disappointing thing is that the approach to forestry in Ecuador uses a lot of non-native species like Acacia and Eucalyptus. There is also black cherry and walnut here. They use these species, because they grow well and can be harvested for a decent payout. Eucalyptus is quite invasive and has already become a problem near national parks.
This Saturday - tomorrow - we are continuing work on our model garden and that should be a good release of some penned up energy. Then on Sunday we are headed to a small town that has a bar with ESPN 2 to watch some NCAA hoops and hopefully catch a look at the brackets for the tourney. Yeah, I know, life is rough here. We do have to take a bus for an hour to get there though. Hopefully they have plenty of cervezas. About 15-20 of us are going.
Time to sign out for now - take care of yourselves!!!
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Chris Gans
non-member comment
i hope your haveing fun in that place that i cant spell the name for