My Trip to the Coast

Last week, I got my first glimpse of the Coast of Ecuador and the chance to fully experience the hot and humid rainy season!  

Our Peace Corps Training group was subdivided into 4 smaller groups and we each embarked on our own adventure to learn about the life, the foods, and the culture of the coast in a few different communities. 

Long distance travel in Ecuador is easy aboard these large double decker buses with air-conditioning and movies.

Although Ecuador is about the size of Colorado by comparison, it took us over 10 hours to travel half the length of the country due to rainy conditions and windy roads.  The elevation drop from the mountains (called the Sierra) to the
                                                                                    Coast is drastic and steep.

Along the way, we saw a lot of palm oil
plantations and banana plantations
with Del Monte and Dole
processing plants.  A huge food staple
of the Ecuadorian coast is bananas!

Our group first visited the coastal communities on the Santa Elena Peninsula.  We stayed two nights in a small fishing village called Anconcito. This family welcomed me into their home for a two-night stay. The hammocks were really nice to lounge in on a hot and humid evening. 

Inside was a sweet room of princess bed nets, which was appreciated since
the mosquitos were eating me alive!

Our first activity of the morning was to chat with the fisherman of La Libertad. These (primarily) men explained that there are two 10-12 hour shifts a day in which they're netting different kinds of fish at different times, and in different seasons.  I didn't see many boats bigger than this, and was told that they go many miles off shore.  I asked the fishermen about fishing regulations, and they agreed that laws did exist, but they didn't expand on what they were, or if they followed them.  

Next, we had to find ingredients at the market and practice bartering with the vendors.  
Notice the rain pouring in between the stalls.  We were so wet and muddy 
before this adventure was complete!

Our challenge was to make Ceviche for lunch so
we needed to buy some fish!

At the coast, fresh fish, like this Octopus, is everywhere!

We made Ceviche for 18 people using a fish called Dorado.  After cutting it up, we added boiling water to the pan and lots and lots of lime juice for it to soak and cool in the acidic marinade.  

We also made a traditional dish called Patacones. Bananas- a main food staple at the coast- can be cut up, smashed, fried and salted into little banana cakes.

Some watermelon, rice and fresh lime juice rounded out our wonderful lunch!

Other Adventures in our Day....

The Voice of Anconcito

We met this wonderful community member who decided many years ago that the community needed a system of communication to be able to make public announcements.  So, he put a loud speaker on his roof, and every day, people shout up to his apartment from the streets with news about births, weddings, deaths, or other information for him to announce over the loud speaker.  He even has a different jingle he plays to alert the community to what kind of announcement it will be.  His microphone cord is so long, we watched him drop it down to someone in the street so they could make their own announcement. I was really touched by the importance and the successes of his efforts to keep the people of this little beach community connected. 

We also got to teach and learn some games on the beach with a group of teenagers from the community. We taught them games such as Red Rover, Limbo, and the Human Knot while they taught us games like Hopscotch, Human Tug-of-War, and Cat and Mouse. It was so much fun to laugh with them, and take a swim in the warm Pacific Ocean at the end of our day.

Next stop.... Guayaquil

Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador (population 2.4 million) and I found it to be very modern and beautiful.  Ecuador prides itself with wonderful architecture and public art, and the most beautiful parks with lovely tropical plants, tiled fountains and walkways.

 This is Parque Bolivar or the "Iguana Park"! These prehistoric creatures are free to roam wherever, but they get fed in the park so they are happy to hang out with the tourists and get their picture taken. 

The Malecon is the center of fun along the Guayas River.  Its a wonderful boardwalk with shops, restaurants, museums, art and                   a ferris wheel.                                                               After walking its length, we climbed the hill of Las Penas and enjoyed the views at sunset    from the top. 

In Guayaquil, we met and visited other Peace Corps Volunteers and learned about their year's worth of experiences in the country.  For two days, they showed us their schools where they teach, they showed us around town, and they showed us a lot of fun!  Now, my group is more excited then ever to finish our training and get started on our service somewhere in Ecuador!

A little about Ecuadorian Food...

An Ecuadorian saying goes like this: Eat breakfast like a King, eat lunch like a Queen and eat dinner like a peasant. And so it goes...

My typical breakfast, which my family serves me in my home: Scrambled Egg frittata with onions, peppers, tomatoes and maybe even ham, yogurt, two different kinds of cut-up fruit (apples, bananas, oranges, mandarins, or whatever else she grabs from the large bowl of fruit on the counter. Finally, two different kinds of fresh juice.

Recipe? Squeeze juice into the blender. Add water. Consume in large quantities.  I'm getting very spoiled by the fruit!

Here are some of my favorites to drink as juice!  (Our school set up a tasting bar so that we could learn the names of the fruit... and you can too!)

 


A typical "Lunch of the Day" in a restaurant includes a first course of potato or noodle soup made from the stock and bones of some kind of meat. Then, a second "plato" of meat, potatoes, rice and if you're really lucky, a little bit of vegetables and of course, juice. Cost?  $2.00

A typical dinner, which my family serves me in my house: a "plato" of meat, potatoes, rice, some vegetables and juice.

Basically... starch, meat, fruit, and fruit juice every day.  But it's all so good!


The most unusual dish I've had so far is Yaualocro.  My family translated this black pile of sand on my plate to be blood.  I was shown how to add it to my soup and I ate it.  I found out later it was the chopped up intestines of a sheep.  It was pretty good.

The most amazing dish I've had so far: Crab with shrimp and fish fried rice, and fried bananas. Another crab was served in a soup of green bananas.  Delicious!

I'm learning to drink beer, especially when it is served as a Michelada with the seeds and pulp of a maracuya, and salt is added to the rim.

The most unusual eating tradition I've seen so far:  When someone has a birthday, they are presented with a cake and a "Feliz Cumpleanos" song. After they blow out the candles, then their face is either smashed into the cake or part of the cake is grabbed and smeared into their face.  I've witnessed two birthdays so far, and two food fights. My family gets a little crazy!

Weekends are for relaxing, and when I'm not spending time with my family, I've found a walking trail, I've borrowed a bicycle to explore, and I finally found the open air market in town.  Here are some pictures of that adventure!

This stall had it all... dog food, rabbit food, corn, eggs and brooms to clean your kitchen!

Eggs are sold by the dozen in a rack.  All grains and beans are bulk in large plastic bags.

The head and hoofs of sheep.  It makes a brilliant soup, so I'm told!

This is a pig head and ribs from a cow.  The butcher is portioning a cow in the background.

These dripping sheets of skin are the stomach lining of a cow. 

These farmers were shelling and selling their fava beans.

I recognize so many plants!  Ecuador is a country at the Equator, and one would think that the plants are tropical.  But since the city of Quito is at 9,000 feet, it's like I'm living at a northern latitude on the earth.... just like Oregon!  As I drop in elevation toward the coast, the plants will be much more tropical.

A juice bar in the middle of the market.  He is pouring my tamarinda juice.

These are guabas.  They are a large variety.  I've seen smaller ones hanging from a tree.  I had to buy one to take it home to find out what to do with it.

When you open it up, it has fuzzy seeds inside.  It's this fuzziness or pulp that you can eat. 

Next week, our class is heading to the coast to spend a week learning about that region and shadowing a Peace Corps volunteer in their school.  I'm very excited about seeing a different part of the country!  I'm sure I'll have more food pictures then!

I'm loving Peace Corps Training!

Welcome to Peace Corps Ecuador!

We spend our days in this very lovely training center.  It's a converted house in a lovely part of Quito.  

We don't get many breaks throughout the day, but when we do, we love to hang out in the sun,  and                                       play soccer or frisbee on the court.  But we never forget the suntan lotion!  Sometimes the intense sun feels like it's sizzling your skin.

One of our volunteers offers weekly dance class. I'm learning to dance Salsa and Bachata.

There's a great park nearby for an after class hike among the Eucalyptus trees. 

In class, when we're not learning how to ingratiate ourselves into this culture and stay alive, we are learning a lot. This week we started our "how to teach English as a Foreign Language" classes.  I sat through how to teach reading, writing, speaking, vocabulary and how to manage a classroom of 35-50 students.  My teacher friends will not be surprised by the fact that I have A LOT of opinions about how to do this well, and I spent much of the time interjecting all of our ELD Language Practice Routines into the lessons!  Such routines as Clock Appointments, Talking Stick and Lines of Communication are in the future for our Ecuadorian students!  It's all so much fun for me to teach these future teachers, and to think about how I'm going to tweak these lessons and routines for middle and high school levels.

Next week we get our first look at our future schools as we will shadow a current Peace Corps volunteer.  I can't wait to see what I'm in for!

Our Peace Corps Training

In the past week, I've moved to Quito, met my fellow volunteers, moved in with my family and began our in-country training.  For the next 11 weeks, I will be living with my family in Quito and attending classes Monday - Friday on various subjects including Peace Corps policies, Spanish language, Ecuadorian Culture, safety and security, and teaching English as a foreign language.  I really love my Spanish classes the most, as I'm so eager to finally be able to understand, and be understood, in this beautiful language.  I also really love the cultural classes as the staff is very creative in presenting information to help us learn the do's and don'ts in this country.  Last week they taught us through a series of skits, what to expect from a typical dinner with our family, or workday with our teachers.  These skits were very helpful in getting us comfortably settled for the first week.

Today, they put us into groups and gave us an assignment.  We had four hours to walk around the streets of Quito and accomplish a list of tasks.  First, my group had to find a specific police station.  Easier said than done.  Apparently, each neighborhood has their own police station, and anyone we asked on the street might not have been familiar with the exact location of the police station in that neighborhood.  But since Ecuadorians are very helpful, they would send us in a direction. Then the next person we asked, sent us in another direction.  We walked around for a long time before deciding to get on a bus, which of course took us way out of the way, and then we had to find our way back.  Finally we found the station but it was closed.  Then we had to wait for it to open, so we could present ourselves to the officer and ask him some questions about safe and not-so-safe areas of the city.  After this, we had to find a bank with a secure ATM and talk to a taxi driver about how to call for a safe taxi.  Obviously, we learned a lot about how to travel safely in the city, and how to get help if we need it.  It was a great adventure!  I really enjoyed practicing my Spanish with vendors and people on the streets.

Other training topics have included how to avoid getting Express Kidnapped, or mugged or drugged. We've learned all about skin infections, biting monkeys and how to avoid gastro-intestinal illnesses, and diarrhea - something we all expect to have at some point during our stay.  The Peace Corps gave us a huge medical kit to help us take care of ourselves, but there's a 24 hour doctor (and a security officer) a phone call away if we need more help.  They really are taking good care of us!







37 Volunteers from all corners of the United States represent the 119th group of Peace Corps Volunteers in Ecuador.  After our language, cultural, safety and health training, we will be placed in schools throughout the country to help build capacity and improve English Language instruction.  I'm the second oldest in the group, but I'm so proud to know and serve with these primarily 20-something volunteers. Each day they impress me with their intelligence, positive energy, political and world knowledge, critical thinking skills, creativity and willingness to give themselves to others. We have a great time together and I have been learning so much from them.  Que suerte para mi y nuestra mundo!

Sunday Afternoon...

 A lazy Sunday afternoon.  I found the roof and the mountains in the distance.

A view of the street out front in this large pueblo.  

No room between houses!

I made a new friend today.  This is Thiago, one of the kids I live with and his dog Horacio.  We had an awesome Nerf Gun game in the courtyard and he's teaching me Spanish words.  Thank goodness!

First Impressions

I have arrived in Ecuador!

After two days of "get-to-know-the-Peace Corps", I met and moved in with my new family. They are a fairly well-off family living in a compound of two houses with three generations, 2 dogs, 2 rabbits and some fish.  The doors are always open and although I spend time with the grandmother mostly, her daughter, husband and two kids (9 and 14) all come and go in each others lives minute by minute.  I will refer to them throughout this Blog as my Mama, my siblings or the kids.

Here are some of my first impressions:

Our Daily Bread

It’s a wonderful life when you can walk across the street to buy your fruit, and go next door for some rolls at the bakery.  Your aunt owns the store next to you and she sells all that you might need for groceries and beer, and your cousin is running the store next to that to update your cell phone.  One block down, we bought a piece of glass to repair a coffee table.  Mi Mama needed supplies for breakfast, lunch and then later, supplies for me.  We went shopping three times on my first day here, and never left the block.

For almuerzo (lunch), we crossed the street to buy a chicken.  The heads were cut off, but the bodies hung from the store ceiling by their feet.  Upon returning home, I watched intently as mi Madre made quick work of the chicken. First she cut off the feet and reserved them, and the innards, for a soup later in the week.  Then she cut the rest of the chicken into parts on this tiny cutting board.  As she created each piece, she laid them in a bowl in her sink. Chicken juice was running all over the counter and down the cabinets onto the floor.  When she finished cutting the parts, she took the pieces from the bowl in the sink and put them in a cook pot and proceeded to add warm water and soap to the chicken juice remaining in the bowl.  Then she rinsed the knife and cutting board in this water.  The germaphobe in me was sounding off all kinds of alarms, but when your chicken is probably only a few hours old, raw chicken juice might not be such a problem after all.  Let's hope. 

Chicken Recipe

Blend onion, garlic, chile pepper, cilantro, salt and water, then add to a pot with chicken. 

Simmer for 40 minutes until chicken is done.  Que rico!  (Delicious!)

Fresh Juice Every Meal, Every Day

The kitchen counter is full of fruit! Pineapples, oranges, lemons, mangoes, bananas, kiwis, and many others I can't name yet including a tomato that grows on a tree.  Mi Mama processes this fruit into fresh juice with every meal.  It's really amazing.  

Birthday Party

3:00pm -  Mi Mama tells me we’re going to a birthday party tonight for a relative by marriage

5:30pm -  My sister arrives and asks if we’re ready.  Mi mama says we can’t leave yet because the carpenter is still working on the house. I decide that I should get ready to go. 

6:00pm -  The carpenter finished the project and left.

8:00pm -  We finally leave for the party, which is good because when we arrive, they are just setting up. There is nothing to eat or drink until dinner. We sit at a table and chat over background music, but since I can only hear and understand about 5% of what they are saying, I smile and nod. 

10:30pm -  The hosts serve dinner.  Afterwards, everyone is sitting around chatting and yawning.  I’m wondering when we can go home.  Suddenly, everyone stands up and starts putting their chairs to the side.  I’m thinking we’re cleaning up, and I turn around to find that some people are moving the dining room table and others are rolling up the carpet.  The music gets radically louder and within about 30 seconds, the house has turned into a major dance party with all the guests on the floor. This family of cousins and sibling spent the next few hours laughing and making up silly dances together.  I didn't participate much, but it was fun to watch.

 

Mi Madre y nuestra casa

Equator Bound!

My bags are packed, really crammed full and bursting, but I’m finally in Miami 

and ready to meet up with my cohort and then on to the Equator!

As I stand on the threshold of this new adventure, in 4 inches of fresh snow, I want to pause a moment to reflect on the long and twisting path that I took to finally fulfill my dreams of joining the Peace Corps.

Although I've been traveling this path for many years, in the last year of my life:  I lost my friend of 27 years,  I lost my brother, my favorite aunt, my house, and my mom.  Then, I chose to leave behind my cats (I miss them everyday!), my beloved staff and students at my school, and my 89 year old dad.

Some of you are storing boxes of my memoirs, quilts of my ancestors, or enjoying my art on your walls.
One of you has my grandfathers' buffet; another, a cedar chest made by my dad.
One of you has my skis, another my bike, and another my camping equipment.
Many of you bought my furniture.
Some of you adopted my plants.
One of you bought my car.
All of you provided the love, support and encouragement that got me to this moment today.

Thank you, my friends.  Thank you.


I named this blog "On the Wing Adventures" because I've always been the type of person who "wears myself on my sleeve".  Although, as I've come to realize, this character trait opens me up to the possibility of getting "bitten" from time to time, I'm happy that I am open to all the beauty, love and light the world, and it's people, have to offer.  I wear myself on my wing intentionally, and boldly.

The title "On the Wing", of course, also refers to the incredible metamorphosis that a butterfly experiences in their transformation from the goo of their chrysalis.  I feel my wings forming!  I'm emerging from my goo and am taking flight.  So, "On the Wing" will be a little off the cuff: incorporating my personal journey, my adventure stories, and all my new experiences I will encounter along the way.

Thanks for coming along on my journey.