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Published: April 11th 2011
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Our swearing-in ceremony is in 10 days. In 10 days, I will go from ‘Peace Corps Trainee’ to official ‘Peace Corps Volunteer.’ 10 days from now, I will complete training and move to Zhud. Eee gats, that seems awful soon.
We had another tech trip this entire past week. I was supposed to go on the trip to Arenillas. However, I did not want to go on this trip. I wanted to go on the other tech trip to Bahia. Therefore I used my super savy suavish skills and switched. I do not know how I managed it (though it did admittedly require multiple sessions of begging and pleading with the man in charge), but I am extremely, supremely happy I did.
Our group of 10 volunteers and 3 facilitators left on Sunday morning at 7 am and took a bus all day long to finally arrive in Crucita. Crucita is on the coast, as were all of the sites we visited. Our hostal was on the ocean. When I looked out our window from our room, I was staring at the ocean with nothing between us except a small street and some sand.
The whole trip was
pretty relaxed. I swam in the ocean a few times. We picked up a bunch of trash from some beaches and drank some amazing fresh coconut water. We got to go wading into some muddy mangroves and I got to machete the hell out of a tree that was lying across the path. I love machetes. Everyone uses machetes here. It is one of the few things that the entire country has in common. It is the one multi-purpose tool that everyone owns. I look forward to perfecting my skills with a machete. Big goals so far: milk cows and wield machetes.
After two nights in Crucita, we headed to Bahia. Bahia is also on the ocean. There are 2 volunteers from our group that will be living in Bahia. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel a slight twinge of envy, though I look forward to visiting them in the future. In Bahia, we gave some more pointless charlas to some classrooms full of kids. Charlas are informal talks. The first time I heard the word, I had no idea what they were talking about. Now I hear this word hundreds of times each and
every day and cannot believe that there can possibly be people who exist who do not know the word charla, or that life could have existed without the word charla. CHARLA.
Our hostal in Bahia was not quite as nice as the one in Crucita. There were fleas in some of the beds. Somehow the curtains fell down in both our room and the boys’ room. One of the boys tried to flush toilet paper down the toilet after he took a poop. Disaster ensued and we could hear him gagging through the paper thin walls as he tried to deal with it. All in all it wasn’t too bad though.
The rest of the days were filled with random activities. We planted some plants along side a road near a landfill. I never really caught on to the exact point of this, but I did a damn good job of watering the freshly planted plants. I can tell you that much. We met the mayor of Bahia briefly one morning and were served coca colas in his office at 8 am. We visited a community just outside of Bahia to check out their tree nursery and go
on a nice hike with a few members of the community. One had a shirt on with a huge pot leaf on it. There is an absurd amount of clothing with pot leafs on it here, and all different sorts of people sporting said clothing. I am unsure of whether they are aware what kind of leaf this is or if they just don’t care. I can pretty much guarantee that the vast majority of people sporting this gear do not actually indulge or even condone, so it’s just a bit confusing.
After the hike, the members of the community insisted we stay and paint a large mural, which we did. I am embarrassed. Hopefully they paint over it. We are not artists. We painted everything an American kid goes to when told to draw something: a smiling sun, some clouds, green hills, water, some fish, butterfly, tree, ended with some hand prints… Not impressive, but they asked for it…
We went to some more mangroves on a small island which is set up as an eco-tourism spot. They also boated us around the island to see the incredible amount of frigatas that live there. I am not
sure about the spelling on that, but they are a type of bird with big red throats that inflate and they filled the sky. When we got back to the mainland, they had an activity for us: paint a mural! We all stared in disbelief. You must be joking. As it turned out, they had some professional artists come and we simply assisted in painting already drawn out pictures. Whew. This one looked infinitely better. I painted some leaves that I can say I am not ashamed of. Mission accomplished.
Each night, we were tied up with things to do until between 5 and 7. The rest of the night we were free to do as we pleased. We found some good places to eat dinner as well as some spirits/wine/beer to unwind with. I was with a great group, so we had some good quality hang out time together during these evenings. We played jenga and cards. There is only one card game here. The name is Cuarenta (40). Ecuadorians get way into it and love to cheat. Cheating is an integral part of the game basically. I like it, though constantly looking out for the cheating does
not increase my enjoyment of the game per se.
We left Friday morning to return to Tumbaco. After a long day on the bus and lots and lots of sleeping, we got back around 6. I came home to a house full of people. Background on that: my host mom got really sick a few weeks ago and went to the hospital. Apparently they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her for a few days. Eventually she ended up having surgery on her stomach. I still do not exactly what was wrong, but it was something with her stomach and intestines. She was gone for over a week. Since she has been back, the apartment is constantly full of visiting friends and family. It is overwhelming and I often hide in my room or go out. But she is doing much better now and that is all that matters.
Yesterday I went to Quito for the whole day with a few other volunteers. We went to the mall, an art museum, walked around, and found some decent thai food and even had a little sushi.
Good stuff all around, but then I received some very sad
news last night after dinner. Grandma Hill died. It took me by surprise. My last grandparent. And now all I want is to be with my family to mourn and to celebrate her life. She was one strong woman. But I am so far away. I am glad to know that others are uniting in her honor and hope that they know my heart is there with them. Here’s to you Grandma Hill. I love you.
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Bill Hill
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You were there with us
Hi Hon You'd have been proud of the sendoff we gave Grandma. A 21 gun salute farewell, complete with a Fred Hill slideshow of her life, with no regard for flattery.( You were there too in many of the pictures, and of course in spirit. ) We had some songs by Lise White, a family friend: "Somewhere over the Rainbow" that made more than a few eyes leaky, and "the Waitressin' Blues" which was more in tune with Grandma's prevailing spirit. Lots of very funny stories--You know many of them, not very PC, but true to the person. It was a memorable service. And a memorable time after---nobody went to bed before 2. all talking like mad in the kitchen. Al just left on her long return to the south. We had a very nice time talking together, a good connection. Lots of love to you, Hon Dad