Overdue Blogpost

THERE ARE A LOT MORE PHOTOS AT THE END OF THIS POST

Hello dear family and friends, Yes, we should have written by now. Sorry. It's been quite an adventure over the last five weeks. Our days are full - we wake up at 6AM, leave the house at 7:15, walk 15 minutes to a bus, ride the bus about 20 minutes to the Peace Corp training center, and start class at 8AM. Riding the bus is like getting on a wooden roller coaster every morning to start the day - so bumpy and jerky. We have training until aprox. 5 PM, then walk 20 minutes to the bus, ride 20 minutes to town, walk 15 minutes home, and then hang with the family until about 8 or 8:30 PM eating dinner, talking, etc. Then most nights we have some homework, and hit the sack. It's a packed schedule, and most of it is in Spanish! So, it's been a lot to take in.

Whether we feel like it or not, I think we are slowly improving our Spanish. Also, we're learning a lot about the culture not only from class, but from our family. I've been writing down all of the meals our host mom makes, and watching her make certain things (or helping) so that I know what to buy, what stuff is at the market, and how to cook local foods when we are out on our own. We are learning to wash our clothes "on the rock" - yes, literally on a large rock slab out back in the yard, since this is likely what we will have to use once out at our sites. We've been given the opportunity to eat tripe (cow stomach), chicken foot, and worms. Guinea pig is also very popular here but we haven't been served it yet. Our host mom is starting to tease us now that she is going to sneak certain foods into our meals and not tell us what it is until a week later. Very funny! She is also making sure that we really learn how to wash our clothes on the rock. It is her responsibility to do so and she is taking it very seriously! My favorite thing so far was when our host mom was trying to tell us something the other day and when we couldn't understand her she walked into the other room, threw up her hands in the air, and said in Spanish "they don't understand anything I say". We did understand that and said, "we understood that"! It was quite funny and we all laughed. It was all in good humor.

A week ago they split up our team and sent us on "Technical Trips" to either the coast or the Amazon. Cherith went to the coast and Rich to the Amazon. These were not vacations by any means, as we were busy from morning to night working with and visiting existing development projects, some of which are successful and some that are not (so that we could learn from them). Some of the projects were tourism, chocolate farms, coffee farms, a native tea business, some activities in the schools, etc. We stayed in humble housing and were exposed to more of the poverty of the country than we have seen to date. I (Cherith) am definitely getting a better picture of life in lesser developed countries and the reality of it in everything from less variety in food (in the poorer communities), to unclean water, sanitary conditions, and differences in healthcare and access to it.

Now, on to some photos.

REMEMBER IF YOU CLICK ON THE PHOTOS YOU CAN SEE THEM BETTER.

 Our host parents during training.

 Making cheese empenadas that will be sprinkled with white sugar.

 Washing clothes out back on the "rock".

 Visiting a small mountain town that is in a "cloud forest". This town of 300 has a thriving community tourism business where visitors stay in the local's home, do hikes in nature, and the community sells cheese, jellies, handicrafts, and tree seedlings for re-forestation of Ecuadorian forests.

 A cool tree with moss in the cloud forest.

 Must have been a fun day. I think somebody needs a bath.

 On to the coast. Kids playing in the water at sunsest.

 Visiting one of several small coastal communities.

 Rice, coconut shrimp, and fried bananas.

 Some of the coast communities were very rural and no buses went there. So, we used these things, which go and return once a day. If you missed the return trip, you had to hitch a ride with someone. We paid a guy to drive us back in the back of his truck one day when we missed the return trip on this vehicle (I don't know it's name). I actually liked this thing. There was lots of fresh air and the view was great!

 We helped dig some terraces in a creek in the coastal jungle. This will help with water management. We also helped replant trees on the side of a hill this day (to help with reforestation and prevention of erosion). I saw about 5 real taranchulas here. I learned they don't hurt you. One even fell out of a tree onto my teacher.

 We played in this awesome waterfall on the beach. We also swam in the ocean. It was like bath water - awesome!

 Walking back to town.

 Another little community of a couple hundred where we did some activities in the local school.

Main street.

The beachfront of another little coastal pueblo where we visited a new marine reserve they are creating, second only to the Galapagos.

 This was the sign at a successful ecotourism project in the Amazon. And successful means that it was built by the locals, is run by the indigenous people and the money is shared in the community. The  Quechua are the indigenous people in this area.

 

They had lots of interesting animals and only the ocelots were in a cage. This was some kind of ant eater. He followed us around and you could pet him.

These were not for petting.

This guy's name was Lucas. He was quite entertaining.

They had a museum with models of the rafts and canoes, animal traps, blow guns, ritual items, etc.

And here's our group holding a Boa snake. I don't like holding snakes...

So I faced my fears and did this...for a short period of time.

And I made this little friend at a zoo in Tena (a town in the Amazon).