When we first joined the Peace Corps, they made us write a letter our future selves, to be given back to us at Midservice. I started the cleaning out of my apartment today (a huge undertaking after two years) when I found it.

Hello Future Self,

Right now I'm sitting in my bedroom in my host house in Ayora, feeling exhausted. I just completed my agriculture pre-test, and learned to do laundry (ripping my PJ pants in the process), and I can't believe that there are still eight more grueling weeks of training left. In fact, I can hardly believe that I've only been in Ecuador for 1.5 weeks. It feels like forever.

So here's the thing: I know that you remember this moment, poised at the beginning. I know that right now, as you read this, you are marveling that so much time has already passed. But for me, in the past, I know nothing about you. I don't' know if you are happy, sad, irritated, empty, complete, wishing to go home or wishing to stay, content or frustrated. All I have to say to you is: Have patience. Look how fast time moves, from now to you. We can't slow it down. Life passes blindingly fast. Smile. I don't know where you are, but I hope that you are still thankful.

I don't know what to expect from the coming months, except that I hope to work hard, not get too depressed, and maybe do some good. I want to write, a lot. I want to make compost, dig in the dirt, and relish the only time in my fast-moving life when I will get to be a farmer, when I will get to slow down.

I love you, you know, this future vision of me, working the land and speaking Spanish, skin darker than it is now, hair longer, mind more expanded. I love that you are still doing it, that you didn't give up. I love the dream of you. I am your biggest fan. You are, I believe, better than me. You have grown, of this I am sure. I am so proud of you just for trying, just for existing and being me. I cheer you on, across time. I root for you every day.

Don't forget that you have a duty to yourself, to me, to never give up, and never stop appreciating existence.

Love, Sarah

March 7, 2009

I started to cry, just a little. It's almost like I can feel her, in the past, fresh-faced and excited and hopeful, unaware of what the next two years would bring. She was so desperate to belong; she thought that this would be her great adventure; she wanted to change lives. She still had feeling in her thumb. She hadn't yet seen or lived in La Victoria, she hadn't yet witness true poverty. She hadn't learned to hate Ecuadorian music, or learned how to identify someone's region by their indigenous clothing, or how to haggle. She hadn't yet spent weeks trapped and alone. She hadn't met Old Adam, or New Adam, or Moderately Creepy Teacher, or Julie, or Katha, Natalia, Juan Carlos, Guillermina and Gustavo, Dr. Soria. She was dizzy with Ecuador, with its promise and potential. She loved it.

I didn't give up, yet I feel a little like I failed her. I feel cold and jaded now, angry, bitter, cynical. I never got to be a farmer, I never got to make a difference. If she could see me now, I think she would be sad, and disappointed. I would tell her, it's not my fault, I tried, I really did, and she would look at me with pity, maybe a bit of pride too, and say, well, at least you stayed.

And I did stay. Despite it all, I stuck it out. I stuck it out through loneliness and lack of work and knife attacks and improper medical care and amoebas and fear and irritation and dirty water and loud music and a bad counterpart and every fucking thing Ecuador could throw at me. I stuck it out. I stayed.

That is my Peace Corps accomplishment. Because I stayed, I got to have some amazing experiences. I got to travel a diverse country, swim in the Pacific ocean, raft in the Amazon jungle. I got to discover that my brother and I can co-exist for a month and not kill each other. I got to have my first fling. I got to sit barefoot on my roof with a box of wine and talk to a wonderful new friend for hours. I got to live in a place where it is always spring, next to an active volcano that rains down ash when it feels like it. I got to write more than I ever have, I found fandom, I found Show. I made new friends online, some that I now consider some of my best friends (you know who you are). I took night buses and learned Spanish and navigated a South American country all alone. I celebrated New Year's on the beach, birthdays in Rio Bamba and Quito, Thanksgiving with the Ambassador and in the deep jungle, the fourth of July with Americans and missionaries, Christmas taking long flights back home. I did it. I fucking did it.

I fucking did it.

Someone said to me the other day: "(Peace Corps) shouldn't be known as the toughest job you'll ever love. It's the toughest job you'll ever endure." Exactly. I endured it

I kicked Peace Corps' ass.

And now? Now is the end, finally, and that sweet, brave girl in the past can at least know that her hope wasn't entirely without merit. I didn't quit, and soon I can tuck this experience away in the back of my mind, where it will grow rosier with each passing month, until the sharp edges have been softened into something close to nostalgia and fondness.

Who knows, maybe I'll even cry when I leave this place. Just a little.

in my still-broken-after-two-years Spanish, "so that I can mail you cards at Christmas."

The sweet Ecuadorian woman, my quasi surrogate-grandmother here, beamed at me. "Oh yes, and then you can let me know when you get married and I can send you something!"

"Oh, but that won't be for a really, really long time."

"Or not. It'll happen when you least expect it," she said. "It's unavoidable. JUST LIKE DEATH."

MARRIAGE.

JUST. LIKE. DEATH.

...a group email from my Ecuadorian counterpart:

"Un abrazo cósmico a todos, rompiendo las barreras del tiempo y el espacio." A cosmic hug for everyone, breaking the barriers of time and space.

A COSMIC HUG, BREAKING THE BARRIERS OF TIME AND SPACE.

A COSMIC HUG, TIME AND SPACE.

A COSMIC HUG.

COSMIC.

So in a few minutes ABC's 20/20 is going to be on, with a segment on safety of Peace Corps volunteers. I haven't watched the whole thing, but they have clips online, and honestly, I'm a little aggravated.

It's HORRIBLE that some people have died and more have been sexually assaulted and raped -- that should NEVER happen to anyone. And maybe that particular PC program should have stepped in sooner. But don't blame the Peace Corps as a whole, or make the situation out to be worse than it is.

They say: "Over 900 PC volunteers have been sexually assaulted or raped in the last decade." That's sexual assault and rape put together -- the rape number is about 22 in the past decade. Yes, that's horrible. But let's look at the statistics. There are THOUSANDS of people joining PC every year, hundreds per country all across South and Central American, Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and island nations. There are young women living on their own in a third world nation where they clearly stand out.

Being assaulted can happen anywhere --in the US too. Actually, looking at the numbers, it's practically more likely that you'll get sexually assaulted or raped living in the US. The numbers, all things considered, are as low as they could possibly be, unless Peace Corps placed a guard on every volunteer's back. Shit happens, especially when you sign up to live this kind of life. It's not Peace Corps' fault.

Also, like I said, every program is different. One young woman who was raped said that PC ignored her warnings and didn't let her change site. That is terrible, and that program needs to be looked at, but I know that that would never happen in PC Ecuador. Part of the reason they let me move so fast is that I felt unsafe in my old site. You say anything, ANYTHING about feeling scared or unsafe and they move you immediately, sometimes so immediately that you're not allowed to return to site to pick up your stuff. You're just gone. Our housing safety standards are extremely rigorous, sometimes to the point of impossibility -- your house must have bars on all the windows, can't be located anywhere near a bar or club or hangout, etc. It makes it hard to even find housing half the time. Plus we get weekly updates on possible dangers and the state of the country.

Shit happens everywhere, and it's terrible. A volunteer was sexually assaulted in Ecuador by armed men in a cab, while her male volunteer friend had mace sprayed in his eyes so he was blinded and could do nothing to stop them. I literally went hand to hand with a man with a kitchen knife, and have the scars to prove it. I sleep with a knife under my bed. Ecuador is dangerous. So is Africa, Asia, and the rest of South America. So is the United States. It's a dangerous world; don't blame Peace Corps for not being able to prevent every tragedy.

I genuinely believe that Peace Corps does the best it can with an inherently dangerous line of work. Not even necessarily because they care, which I'm sure they do, but because it's a government organization that is very visible to the public, and it's currently expanding. They can't afford bad press.

So, yeah. Watch the 20/20 segment if you like, I'm sure it's very informative and my heart goes out to the people who have endured such horrible experiences. Just take it with a grain of salt.

Edit: Also, PS: There have been zero rapes in Ecuador of PC volunteers. In Georgia, the rape of one volunteer started such an uproar that all volunteers were eventually pulled from the country. Apparently Bangladesh was an incredibly violent place with a huge number of rapes, before the program was eventually discontinued. It just goes to show that every country is different, and every PC program is different.

Edit 2: I'm looking over the comment section for one of the articles, and as I see it almost every single person who has actually served in Peace Corps pretty much repeated my rant above, even those who suffered some kind of attack. We all believe in what we're doing. It's the people who have never served that are bad-mouthing both Peace Corps and international volunteer work.

Written for my last edition of the Peace Corps Ecuador magazine. Still unedited, so forgive mistakes.

PEACE CORPS: TWO YEARS IN FACEBOOK STATUSES

(AKA: the recollections of a soon-to-be RPCV via an online social medium)

Facebook Profile SS Evans

Volunteer at Peace Corps – Studied Writing at University of Pittsburgh – Lives in Patate – From Allentown, Pennsylvania – Born on June 7, 1986

Status:

February 18, 2009: Five days until Baltimore, six days until DC, and I STILL haven't packed.

February 23, 2009: I am joining the Peace Corps tomorrow. Goodbye America.

February 26, 2009: I am in Ecuador! It´s beautiful and I´m having a great time. The night I arrive in Quito it is lightly raining, warm and lush. On the bus ride to the hostel I sit with my head half out the open window in the rain, listening to the chatter of people around me, hardly able to believe that I am in Ecuador.

When we arrive at hostal San Javier a horde of volunteers shake the bus, whooping and singing. They hand us roses; mine has a strip of paper tied with bright ribbon, that says Don’t Worry, Be Happy. After our very first merienda we sit in the open-air veranda, playing cards and drinking boxed wine. The rain has stopped, and despite the cool city night the sky is sprinkled with stars.

This is the start of something; I just don’t know what yet. April 3, 2009: I´m a little scared shitless of my site!

The site visit is a disaster. The cluster of houses is perched on the side of a mountain, dirty, without clean water or proper sanitation. The people stare when I pass; already, in the middle of the afternoon, the town’s elderly are passed out drunk in the streets. A toothless woman hollers some unintelligible words at me. My future house is unfinished and lonely, accessed by a thin dirt path through frijole fields.

My landlord’s wife confesses to me in a hushed voice that he beats her. Her very young son is crying; his leg hurts, and when his baggy sweatpants are pulled up from his bare feet it reveals a purple leg, thick and infected from a festering cut, veins like bulging rivers under the skin. I say, this child has to go to a doctor.

Don’t cry, she instructs her son. Boys don’t cry. She rinses it with dirty water and wraps it in dry leaves and an old handkerchief. I beg her to let me take him to a doctor. Gathered in my arms, he is light and smells like a lifetime of dirt and smoke.

At the clinic, the doctor’s young son watches from the corner of the room as the doctor disinfects the leg and gives the boy shots of antibiotics. The difference between the two is startling visible: the doctor’s son is clean and bright, shoulders straight, interested and unafraid. The campo boy hunches his shoulders perpetually, like a dog expecting to be beaten. His skin is much darker, his clothes a mess of filth. My arms and shirt from where I carried him are smudged dark brown.

You saved his leg, the doctor tells me. You probably saved his life.

Two years in this town.

I return from my Site Visit composed, but break down hysterically two nights later, alone in my host family’s house. I wonder, for the first time, why the hell I am here. May 3, 2009: Of course "your house is completely finished, I swear it´s definitely finished" in Ecuadorian means "you have no door and no lights and it´s filled with trash!" Just as well, means I get to rest in awesome Patate for a few more days.

Patate, the clean and safe town a twenty minute drive from my site, becomes my refuge. I stay with a family while my house is being completed; they become my pseudo-host family, and their house smells like jasmine and the surprisingly pleasant scent of Raid. Even when I move into my site, I take refuge here, staying in Patate for days at a time.

My community isn’t interested in work. They aren’t interested in anything but drinking and harassing me. I find jobs in Patate, retreating there two days out of the week like a dog licking my wounds. At my site, I do yoga, I read, I wander the streets in expensive hiking boots and try to build some semblance of a life. It doesn’t work.

In the middle of the night, a drunk pounds on my door, demanding to be let in. He yells curses at me, telling me that my landlord said he could use the extra room in my house when he has nowhere else to go. He tells me that my landlord has a key and can let him in any time. He asks me if I am afraid.

I leave the community shortly after that. August 5, 2009: Watching ¨The Mummy¨ in Spanish, going to the weekly market, recuperating from Puyo and planning more fun for this weekend, house hunting, and generally shirking my responsibilities. Just another day in Ecuador! ..and yes, I said house hunting. :-)

I find an apartment in Patate. It’s nuns that help me move, old ladies in their black habits carting boxes and chairs up rocky dirt paths and into the back of a camioneta. They are joined by the one family I have become friends with here: young Estrella with her baby on her back, barefoot children, the cross-eyed grandmother and the mentally disabled brother who can’t speak but who helps carry my heavy dresser with enthusiasm.

We ride one last time down the mountain, the last time I will ever ride that road. I am squeezed in the front seat next to a nun, a fat-cheeked baby on my lap, the sky dusky with the dim oranges and purples of twilight. The lights from far-off cities are already on, the moon bright in a still-blue sky. I feel God in the road, in the moon, the chubby baby, the fading sky. I feel life. September 13, 2009: Craziest. Week. Ever. As in, ever. As in, my life.

I meet him in a café in Quito. He is from Canada, a world-traveler, scruffy with messy dark hair and perpetual stubble, a silly wide-brimmed Indiana Jones hat, and a frayed rucksack. We talk for hours, until breakfast turns into lunch and lunch turns into dinner and dinner turns into an invitation for him to take me back to my site.

He stays, for a long time. He plays the guitar at night, strumming the same songs with careless ease, playing me “Sister Golden Hair.” We wander through town during festivals with two of the free boxes of vino that are being passed out from huge trucks in the parade. We go to communities and hike winding cloud-forest trails; he helps with my charlas and I help him speak with campo doctors to see if there is any need for volunteers with EMT training.

We make sushi on the floor of my new apartment, barefoot and cross-legged. We roll avocado and hot rice and prawns and crab in paper-thin seaweed, then eat it with our hands. He makes me crepes for breakfast. We take day and weekend trips to different towns and cities, just for the journey itself.

He leaves, eventually. I miss his presence, the displaced air of someone else in this small apartment, but my heart is not broken. October 31, 2009: The continuing adventures of Sarah and her ridiculous stomach! See Sarah take the utmost precautions in food and beverage and still vomit all night, forcing her to miss the whitewater rafting trip she has been waiting months for! And as an added bonus, see her then have to ride 8.5 hrs on winding, bumpy Ecuadorian roads to get back to her site! November 29, 2009: I have amoebas. Now that's sexy I get sick during the big Halloween trip to El Chaco. I spend the night huddled over the toilet, no doubt keeping up my poor roommates, and the next day I bail, crawling onto a bus and desperately praying to get back to my site without blowing chunks all over the bus driver. Sick and sleepless as I am, the road from Tena to Quito is astounding, and I am sitting in the ‘death seat’ at the very front, and like a movie rolling the credits, a string of Thank You’s wells up in my throat. Thank you for allowing me to be in Ecuador. Thank you for green jungle trees and hot blue sky. Thank you for mountains and winding roads, bridges so narrow and old that you feel thrillingly like you might fall in at any moment. Thank you for yawning gorges. Thank you for water tumbling over rocks and mud, clear, cool. Thank you for letting me be alive, for the blessing that is the sheer act of living. I don’t know who I am thanking, but it helps. My breathing calms; my nausea subsides. I thank the universe for that, too. December 31, 2009: Going to cold, cold Guaranda for New Years. Ah well, there's always next year for the beach. January 4, 2010: Julie and I saw a man give a drowned pigeon mouth-to-mouth. It didn't work.

I watch the pigeon drown while waiting for Julie to show up for our lunch. I’m in a park in Ambato, and I see the pigeon flapping its wings in the water. At first I think it is bathing, but then it starts to sink, and its movements become thrashing and panicked. I wonder what to do. I could climb in the fountain and rescue it, wrap my hands around its disease-ridden little body and lift it out of the water. But I would get my sneakers wet, and then have to walk around in wet sneakers all day. As I’m contemplating, the pigeon drowns. A man sees it in its final moments and leaps into the water, sloshing to its side. It’s clearly not breathing. Back on dry land, he pries open its little beak and pushes on its fragile chest while breathing into its mouth. It would be funny, if it wasn’t so sad. He keeps trying, and trying, even after it is obvious the bird is dead. He won’t give up. Julie can’t hide her disgust. How gross! she says, then looks over at me. I am crying. I don’t really know why.

February 8, 2010: Attempted to fight off an attacker who had a knife. 12 stitches in my hand, no nerve damage. Stuck in Quito at the doctor's, all my clothing and my shoes covered in my own blood. Can barely type this. So...

February 11, 2010: Finally back in Patate, and determined to let nothing interrupt my well-deserved laziness. Also: functioning without a right hand is difficult. Can't write, or do dishes. Shower with a bag over it. Lighting matches for my gas cooker is abysmal. Wish I had someone who wasn't a fictional character here to cheer me up. The night of the attack, after my hand is stitched up and swathed in gauze and pounding like, well, like someone just sliced it open with a kitchen knife, Julie and I go to a Happy Pollo, because it is the only fast-food restaurant still open. It is eleven o’clock at night when we walk in. I am covered in blood, my jeans dyed a deep rust red, my sneakers saturated, splashes still on my face. My hair is wild and unbrushed, my hand a huge bandaged mitten. I can’t feel a huge chunk of my thumb. It is numb, dead, like it is made of wood instead of flesh; later I discover that I will never regain sensation in that part of my hand.

We get a meal and I try to eat it with one hand, but I am not left-handed and most of the rice slips from my fork before I can get it to my mouth. My toes are sticky from the semi-dry blood that has soaked through my socks.

When I finally return to Patate the town festivals are going on, loud and raucous. Music pounds through the walls, the beat shaking the very cement and rattling the windows. I drag my mattress into the kitchen and make a blanket fort with my plastic chairs, the lights burning all night, a knife under my pillow. The locks on my door seem suddenly very flimsy and ineffective. My right hand is still tender and useless, and I try very hard not to be afraid. This is my lowest point in Ecuador, and it is very, very low.

Things get better, but it takes time. Even in Ecuador, life falls into routine. March 6, 2010: found a biblical amount of huge, maggot-like worms in her apartment. This is how sexy my life is in Ecuador. March 20, 2010: For mysterious reasons, no power on my block until "at least Monday." Looks like I'll be spending my time at the internet cafe... March 22, 2010: has electricity! Woohoo! I feel like I'm livin' large. March 28, 2010: More worms in my goddamn house! FML. April 8, 2010: I feel like 95% of my Peace Corps life is sitting on my hands and wondering what I am going to do that day. It is seriously depressing to not have enough work.

April 29, 2010: One year of being a PCV. One to go!

May 1, 2010: The shop next door has been blasting the same 30 second commercial on a loop for the past two hours. Fuck you, Ecuador. May 4, 2010: Apparently we are now entering monsoon season. I have two options to get the store: swim or canoe. Or a gondola.

May 28, 2010: Volcano Tungurahua just erupted. Roads are blocks because of ash fall. Airports closed. In Quito now, so I might not be able to go back to my site, being that I am the closest volunteer to the volcano. Peace Corps Ecuador: Causing me to type words I never thought I would type.

May 28, 2010: Just confirmed: Am stuck in Quito "until further notice." I am the closest volunteer to a very active volcano. I have a clear view of it from my room, smoke billowing black out the top during the day. At night, low rumbles like far-off thunder disturb my sleep, and when it is clear I can see red shooting out the top, sparks flying, magma snaking down the sides. I am in Quito when the big eruption happens. While roads from Ambato to Guayaquil are being cleared of ash I go to Cotacachi and Otavalo with friends, reveling in the unexpected vacation. At the end of a long day we pile onto the hard bench behind the bus driver, crammed in side-by-side. I am pressed against the window, staring directly over the driver’s mostly bald head. It is raining, but the moon is hanging low, full and fat and yellow, the mountains shadowed like heaped blankets. New friends are packed beside me like they are old friends; I tell them secrets, and I feel like I fit into my own skin for the first time in a long time. The bus rumbles through a dark night in Ecuador, headlights cutting through the night like beacons, and I am content.

June 5, 2010: Annndddd gearing up for midservice conference. Can´t believe it´s already here. Ten months to go!

June 30, 2010: Sign I've been in Ecuador too long: When, after finding a used condom on the floor of the bus, my first thought is: "Oh great, they're using condoms! Progress!" July 15, 2010: I am moderately afraid of small children, never knows what to say to them, and finds the constant necessary peppiness draining. So of course, I decide to start working with disabled Ecuadorian kids. Comfort zone, I am now leaving it. I learn to appreciate small blessings: Finding (after 16 months!) sour cream at the grocery store. One of the ladies at the weekly market saving me the last bag of fresh basil, its scent sharp and poignant. Hot, sunny skies. Running for the first time in a long time, legs sore and feeling like jelly. I find work at Fundación Manos Unidas, helping disabled children and the beleaguered women who teach them. It’s a far cry from Agriculture, but my main projects never really panned out—lack of interest is my greatest enemy in Ecuador. The foundation gives me a sense of purpose, someplace to go several times a week, people who are happy to have me there. At first, it’s overwhelming. The children are nervous of this strange, yellow-and-pink newcomer. The teachers don’t know what to make of me. I hover in the background, anxious. After two months, I have small bodies hanging from my hips whenever I try to walk, clinging to my legs and screaming when I try to leave. They fling themselves at me when I walk in, faces breaking into huge smiles, and I smile too, because it just feels so damn good to be wanted. One little girl is filthy, as are her brothers and sisters. They are a large family, at least six just in the foundation. They have been abused and neglected their whole lives; they can’t speak properly, they are violent, smacking each other and other children, speaking in cries and grunts, shying away from normal human contact. This little girl, she sees me hugging another child. She is pretty, delicate, but dirt and snot is caked so thickly on her face that it is hard to see past it. Her hair a wild mess of filth, her clothing torn; she looks like a parody of poverty, a Dickensian archetype with huge, liquid-brown eyes. I smile at her, tentatively, and then she steps closer and wraps her arms around my waist for the first time. I hug her back, and make a mental note to shower when I get home.

July 31, 2010: Dear God they've started to remix indigenous music. Oh. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse. August 12, 2010: Woken up by a 6.9 earthquake this morning and didn't even get out of bed. It's amazing what you get used to. August 13, 2010: Found a dance aerobics class in Patate, only three blocks from my apartment. How did I never know this existed? Looks like I'll be shimmying my hips every night from now on.

August 26, 2010: Must. Study. For. GREs. Must. Not. Waste. All. Day. On. Internet.

August 28 2010: Ah, the life of a Peace Corps volunteer. Running around to give charlas that inevitably no one will show up to. Sigh. September 4, 2010: Three weeks, bitches, until airplane rides and English-speakers and big family dinners and paved roads and dog/chicken/goat/pig-less cities and clean water and fall leaves and the sweet sweet joy of throwing toilet paper in the toilet. Ya'll know what I'm talking about.

While I am home for my sister’s wedding, there is a police strike in Ecuador. All airports are closed; the president is claiming that subversives are trying to overthrow him. “If you want to kill the President, here he is,” Correa proclaims. “Kill him, if you want to. Kill him if you are brave enough!” We follow the news on the internet in between setting up the house for the wedding. While white square plates and delicate glass goblets are being carted to the backyard and garlands of fresh flowers are being set around the huge rented tent, Ecuador is rioting, the streets of Quito thick with the smell of smoke and the sound of gunfire. I fold cloth napkins and wrap huge silver bows around flower pots while Correa makes his impassioned speech to the world. My family hopes that the country will fall into disarray, simply so that I won’t have to go back.

November 27, 2010: I had an amazing Thanksgiving, complete with Jungle turkeys and whitewater rafting. Now time to stock up and bunk down for the census. November 27, 2010: The volcano, she's a'blowin' December 11, 2010: Tomorrow starts the long journey of buses and taxis and night flights home. Christmas, here I come!

There is a moment, right before I go home for Christmas, when I am sick and steaming my head to clear out my sinuses. Maybe it’s the illness, maybe the prostrate position, the Christmas music playing softly in the background, but again that strange swell of Thank You wells up in my gut. I move from the pot of hot water to the floor, press my forehead to the tiles, and allow myself to be happy.

December 29, 2010: First bus company I went to was sold out. Second one I tried: Tonight and tomorrow are totally booked, except for one last seat left on a bus tonight, which I snagged. Lucky? I think so. Looks like I'll be celebrating the New Year on the beach! Could my life be any more of an emotional rollercoaster?

January 1, 2011: Best New Year´s of my life. Well, I´ll be damned. I end the year in Puerto Lopez, sand between my toes, blue sky above, new and old friends showing up when least expected. I have only three months left of my Peace Corps service. When midnight comes we count down, howling at the moon, fireworks lighting up the sky with red and gold. We dance in the street, gringos mixing with Ecuadorians, feet bare and hair unbound. The munecas burn to ashes, burning the past, leaving the future a clean slate.

I dance. This is the start of something; I just don’t know what yet.

January 1, 2010: I have to say, 2011 is going to be fabulous.

"What is on me?" Sitemate asked as we went running through the mountains today. I looked over; his black shirt and hair was coated with tiny white dots. I shrugged.

"Dunno. It looks like baby powder exploded on you."

We kept running. I started to notice flurries, which quickly picked up, covering my clothes and glasses. But it wasn't snow.

It was volcanic ash.

"So...are we gonna die?" Sitemate asked perkily. My mouth started to taste like grit.

"I certainly hope not. But let's get inside. And, uh, find a mask."

"Instead of running, let's watch Supernatural," he proclaimed. "I want a beer."

I laughed. "Exercise and then beer?"

"I know, I'm bipolar with my health."

"How about box wine instead?" I asked, giving up any pretense of a healthy lifestyle. "We'll make Christmas cookies."

"Deal," he said, as we walked through the gently falling ash, sucking some in with every breath. "God, I do not want to know what the inside of my lungs looks like right now."

Dude, this volcano is starting to seriously freak me out. The rumble is constant, as is the lava and it sets all the dogs in town howling.

As Sitemate said: "It's gonna blow."

Little nervous, tbqh. Last time it blew all the roads were blocked with ash and the airports were shut down. And that was a small eruption.

This is the volcano:

Sitemate and I are running today on this idyllic little mountain footpath, when we round a corner to see a cow blocking the way.

"Oh," you say, "a cow. How lovely, with their moos and their silly udders and big brown eyes."

No. This bitch is pissed. She has eyes of murder.

The path is totally blocked on both sides. There are only two options: Go back, or duck between some murderous barbed wire into someone's private property to go around the cow, then go back through the barbed wire to rejoin the path.

Through the barbed wire we go! It snags on my pants and cuts my skin a little, but I've had my tetanus shot, so no worries!

The cow is watching us with her murder eyes, like: "Bitches, you think you can just go around this fine piece of pissed off bovine ass? I think not!"

And we are like: "Fuck you, cow. Fuck you and your demon stare."

So we find a place where we can get back through the barbed wire, but we have to belly-crawl right under a big spiderweb. The spider isn't in it, but that's almost worse, because then you don't know where it is.

We get back on the trail and yay! Now we can run. But first there is one thing we have to do.

Taunt the cow.

The cow stomps a little when Sitemate gets too close to taunt it with his ipod video recorder going (I have to get a copy of that tape!) and we are both yelling, "Yeah, that's right cow, whatcha gonna do, you slut! Fuck off! We beat you!" I finally call Sitemate back before he gets trampled. And we keep running.

Only in Ecuador.

I’m choosing to forgo a weekend of Halloween debauchery in favor of…sitting around and doing nothing. I know, lame me is lame, but this is Ecuador. The party is an eight hour bus ride one way, and will entail the same thing Peace Corps parties always do: drinking watery beer until people get too drunk to stand. Only difference is that they will be in costume. Hop on a bus for two hours to the nearest city to do this? Sweet, I’m in. Eight hours, having to deal with the logistics of a hostel and navigating my way through mazes of drunk people who I don’t really know? I’ll pass, thanks. Speaking of Christmas, I started downloading music! TWO WEEKS UNTIL I LET MYSELF START TO LISTEN TO IT. It’s the most magical time of the year, and don’t you forget it. Speaking of the time BEFORE Christmas, my most amazing friend Charlotte is coming right before Thanksgiving! THIS WILL BE EPIC, I AM CERTAIN. Twice now Sitemate and I have run into this perpetually drunk Ecuadorian who keeps rambling at us about heroin and AC/DC. I don’t understand. It would be funny if he weren’t so…persistent. Does he think we have heroin? Is he on heroin? Does he want to sell heroin? I don’t know, but it’s awkward. I was force fed guinea pig the other day. I wish this wasn't a commonplace thing. PS TMI: guinea pig makes your hands smell really funny for many hours after you eat it.I gave an on-camera interview for Peace Corps that might be used for recruitment purposes. That's right kids, my smiling face could be encouraging YOU to join Peace Corps. Somehow, I managed to be really enthusiastic about it. Don't know how. I had a meeting with a community the other day that actually went really well! I’m shocked and amazed. We might even start a composting toilet project there, which would be a godsend to the end of my service. I worked with the disabled kids at the foundation for the first time today in like a month. When they saw me in the door they freaked and jumped up to hug me. Some didn’t want to let go. It really made my heart grow three sizes. They really are sweet, sweet kids. And that is my life in a nutshell!

I'm taking my GRE on Saturday. I'm nervous, and I probably (definitely) haven't studied enough, but it's my second time 'round and I think I'll be fine. Biggest thing is getting to Quito tomorrow-- 4.5 hour bus ride, then waiting around until Sunday so that the Peace Corps Ecuador director can drive me back to my site. Why he wants to do this, why he's even visiting my site...I have no idea.

I'm freaking about getting into grad school, of course I am. I realized the other day that I've been sort of blindly assuming that I'll get in to American, or Denver, but there's a good chance I won't. I thought of how depressed I would be to not get into grad school, and how much that would suck to have a whole year of just working and waiting to reapply. And then I thought of a conversation I had with a fellow volunteer a few days ago.

We had both lived abroad before this. She said:

"It's weird, you know, all the places I've lived I have such a desire to go back to, to live there again, but with Ecuador..."

"You want to get the hell out and never look back?" I supplied. She nodded.

"I can't even put my finger on why. It's a perfectly nice country. I like it here. I just... I want to leave."

And all I could say was: "I know exactly how you feel."

I'm not unhappy. I'm not crying myself to sleep or pining away or drowning my sorrows in chocolate. The place I live is beautiful, the people are nice, the work...could be better, but whatever, I have internet and a great sitemate and a hammock. But I just want to leave. I want to board a plane and never come back.

By the end of my time in Spain I was calling it my second home, my second country. Ecuador never was, and never will be, my country. It will never accept me, and I will always be a foreigner, and outsider, a thorn in its side.

If I get into grad school, I will be the happiest girl on the planet, no lie. But if I don't get in...it won't be the end of the world. I'll still be happy. Because no matter what, I won't be living here anymore. I'll be living in the United States, in a big crazy city with water that I don't have to boil and food that won't give me amoebas and people who look like me and speak my language. I'll find a job, and an apartment, make friends, date, go out on weekends, apply to grad school next year. I'll start looking for an agent for my book. I'll be near my family, and see the change of seasons, and just be so wholly there and not here. And you know what? That's all I need.

People have been all "so what's life like in the Peace Corps?" Let me give you a typical rundown of a day lately.

Morning:

-Drag my ass grumpily out of bed sometime between 8-9

-Make enough tea to water a small army

-Drink all the tea

-Eat breakfast

-Go to the bathroom every five minutes due to all the tea

-Every time I enter the bathroom I do a sweep check for the tarantulas (yes, I do mean that literally) that like to hide out in my shower and eat small children

- Browse the internet

- Realize I have a class I haven't prepared for.

-That's ok. I just grab an old powerpoint presentation and my laptop and figure that if the teacher doesn't have a plan I'll just show that. Also, it doesn't matter because over 80% of the time class is cancelled anyway due to soccer or parties or something.

-Get dressed

-Walk the fifteen minutes to the local high school

-Realize all the students are in some kind of school-wide meeting. Again.

-Run into some teacher/employee/friend who tells me that I've gotten fatter since he last saw me.

-Find the creepy teacher I'm working with hanging out at a store/cafe instead of teaching class. We plan to have class the following week, but I won't hold my breath. Also, his shirt is unbuttoned down to his navel.

-Return home.

Afternoon:

-Internet

-Revise fanfiction chapters and read blogs

-Eat lunch

-Write entries like this

-Write some fanfiction

-Send out a few emails

-Try to convince myself to do something productive

-This succeeds about 25% of the time. Like yesterday, when I wrote an essay for the PC Ecuador newspaper.

-Keep writing/revising/checking livejournal and gmail compulsively

-Maybe study for the GRE's for like half an hour

Evening:

-Talk to my mom on Skype

-Internet

-Go to dance class. This will end in one of two ways.

- 1. I have the class and return home gross and sweaty to take a shower

- 2. I wait around with a couple other people for 45 minutes (like last night) while the instructor keeps saying the class will start "right now" until I finally get fed up and leave

-Return home.

-Cook dinner

-Internet until bed at around 12:00 am.

So basically.

I have no life.

*sigh*

"In a speech to soldiers from Quito's main barracks, President Correa said: "If you want to kill the president, here he is. Kill him, if you want to. Kill him if you are brave enough. "If you want to seize the barracks, if you want to leave citizens undefended, if you want to betray the mission of the police force, go ahead. But this government will do what has to be done. This president will not take a step back.""

Can you imagine the US President ever shouting this to the masses? It's pretty potent. I'd embed the video but I can't find an embed code on the website so you'll just have to go to the website to see him get beaned by tear gas. It's scary.

Also, I don't know why, but I find this funny:

"They are trying to oust President Correa. Wake up the people of the Bolivarian Alliance! Wake up the people of Unasur [Union of South American Nations]! Viva Correa!," Mr Chavez wrote in a message on Twitter.

South American dictators...on Twitter. What is the world coming to?

So I got this email this afternoon from the US Embassy:

September 30, 2010The U.S. Embassy in Quito would like to inform U.S. citizens visiting or residing in Ecuador that a large, nationwide strike by all levels of police, including military police, is developing at this time. As a result, airports in Guayaquil, Quito and other major cities are closed and major highways may also be closed going in and out of Quito, Guayaquil and other major cities. Due to blockages of multiple roads and tire fires being set by police, the security situation has degraded significantly. American citizens are asked to stay in their homes or current location, if safe. American citizens with immediate travel plans may be forced to put them on hold until the situation improves.

...if the situation doesn't improve by Monday (which it probably will, but a girl can hope, right?) then I might get to stay a few more days in the US. LOVELY.

So I work with this teacher who I have dubbed "Moderately Creepy Teacher" (MCT) because he is Moderately Creepy. He's never done anything overtly creepy, but....ok, well he did show me that stack of shirtless vacation photos that one time, and he did keep pointing to his wife in the photos and saying: "That's my dead wife." Most of the time he just sits a little too close and wears his shirts a bit too unbuttoned and is just...greasy. Also missing some teeth and overweight and did I mention in his 50s? Anyway.

Yesterday I went up to the school for the first time since the semester started to plan things with him. We were sitting in the teacher's lounge and there were two teachers there who I didn't recognize. One of the asked who I was. The other one said, with kind of a nudge nudge wink wink vibe about him:

"Oh, just another one of his compañeras." Which, you know, roughly translates as friend, but said a certain way...

"No!" I sputtered. "I'm a Peace Corps volunteer! We're giving an Agriculture class together!"

What I wanted to say was: "Okay, so, I get that ya'll think all gringas are like the sluttiest sluts who ever slutted, but SERIOUSLY? You think I'd bang THAT? Have you looked at me? Have you looked at him? Have you noted the age difference? And the missing teeth? Really? Really?"

I don't get it, man. I am so tired of being perceived a certain way solely because of stereotypes of my race.

OH and later MCT invited me to the beach with him and some of his friends. WHAT.

I need to get out of here.

Guys. It is a festival today. You know what that means? That since early this morning there has been bad reggaton and indigenous music blasting so loudly that my walls and windows are literally shaking. I am wearing earplugs in my own house, and they only dim the music a little. I can't think. I can't write, or work, or study, or sleep. The streets are full of vendors and drunks. There's no escape. I am losing my mind.

I miss normalcy, which is strange for a girl who has always craved the strange, the new, the unseen. But Ecuador is no longer new, it's just an endless repetition of useless days and I find myself missing those moments, those early-20s-carefree moments that I'm supposed to be living right now, that I would be if I were not trapped here, in this place, alone.

I miss streets surrounded by tall buildings that aren't made of cement. I miss living in a country where there are not goats and pigs and chickens on buses and on every corner, where it is illegal to go to the bathroom in public, where I am not woken most mornings to the most horrible music my ears have ever had the displeasure of hearing. I miss highways, smooth stretches of road that aren't dirt and stone. I miss being able to walk a street at any point during the day and feel safe. I miss not feeling the need to carry a knife with me everywhere. I miss not assuming that everyone will rob or swindle me because I am different. I miss speaking English, my beautiful language, every day, the familiar words and syllables rolling off of my tongue with ease. I miss being articulate, and not a stumbling child, working her way through an unfamiliar language, slow and stupid.

I miss wanting to look pretty, doing all of those things I used to do: showering every day, blow drying my hair, putting in contacts, putting on makeup, picking out a nice outfit, feeling proud of how i look. Here I skulk in oversized clothes and glasses, my yellow hair tucked under a hat, trying to stem the tide of shouts and whistles that accompany any gringa any time she goes anywhere. I miss anonymity, being able to sit in the park on a sunny day and eat lunch, without some stranger sitting next to me and asking me the same 20 questions I always hear, or having gaggles of young people whisper and giggle and then whisper again. I miss walking down the street and not being a foot taller and ten million shades whiter than everyone else, the comfort of being surrounded by people who look like me. I miss knowing that, when a guy smiles in my direction, it's because he thinks I'm pretty, no matter my ethnicity or where I come from.

I miss being able to go to people's houses and refuse food; the force-feeding is what gave me amoebas in the first place. I miss living in a country where I won't get amoebas. I miss washing my dishes in a sink, not in a tub outside. I miss not having to boil my water and peel my tomatoes and soak my fruit in disinfectant. I miss always having electricity and hot water. I miss throwing toilet paper in the toilet and not in the wastebasket. I miss drying my clothes in a machine. I miss the gym, and taekwondo, the uniform and belt, the smooth movements, the strange korean words in my mouth.

I miss good restaurants, and Thai food, and sushi, and McDonalds, and Indian, and cheap Chinese that actually has flavor, and chain restaurants, and big breakfasts, and free refill drinks with ice. I miss large grocery stores where I can buy fresh ginger, and olive oil, and cheerios.

I miss my friends, the ones who really get me and don't proclaim "You're psychotic" when I nerd out to them. I miss my Char. I miss my family, my dog, my mom's hugs, shooting with my dad, cooking with my sister, laughing at Comedy Central with my brother.

I miss riding in cars. I miss American boys. I miss shy smiles across rooms. I miss taking my laptop to a coffee shop on a cold winter day when the snow is fat and heavy outside. I miss hot dance clubs where the bodies are packed so tightly and I am just one of many. I miss buying wine and getting giggly in restaurants. I miss sunny summer days when the air shines golden as the sun sets. I miss the crispness of fall, the first breath of spring, sitting on green campus lawns and glorying in the sun. I miss riding my bike everywhere.

I miss having a life outside of my house, the internet, a smattering of other volunteers, and the farmers I work with. I miss not being the creeper that Ecuador has made me. I miss having some shred of normalcy left inside of the tattered maze of my brain. I miss having friends that I can touch. I miss touch, human contact that isn't the brief dirt-encrusted handshake of a campesino. I miss hugs, so much that sometimes I enjoy massages just because someone is touching me in a kind and gentle way.

I miss feeling needed, wanted, in work, in life, in love. I miss having a purpose. I miss dates, and butterflies-in-the-stomach, and flirting, and hope. I miss inside jokes.

I miss being the girl I was before, that bright and witty girl with a strong group of friends, who cherished every day and felt indescribably blessed and lucky. I miss that girl. She is not here, and I don't think I will get her back again for a long time.

I had a lovely weekend. A friend of mine just COSed (Close of Service), meaning her time in the Peace Corps is done and she's heading home. She swung by my area for a few days and we went to a nearby tourist-town, where on Friday we went bike riding next to a beautiful river (and saw the inappropriately-dressed 'Native American' from my previous post). We walked behind waterfalls and got our picture snapped with a boa constrictor wrapped around our shoulders. Saturday was spent shopping in the rain, eating chocolate and Italian food, getting massages, drinking way too much wine, dancing, and just generally being silly and girly and wonderful.

It was the best weekend I've had in a long time, and it's sad to think I may never see her again. But that's what Peace Corps does-- puts people from all walks of life together, then tears them apart. At least now I'll have friends all over the US if I ever do that cross-country trip I've been scheming.

I wonder if I will miss this place when I'm gone. She said I will, that everyone does to some degree. I hope so. I'd hate for these two years to go by and to feel nothing but bitterness when I leave. I'm not that kind of person.

At the very least, I'll have some beautiful memories. And that's enough.

There are a few times in life that I think NEVER CHANGE, ECUADOR, NEVER CHANGE. Very few. This is one of them.

Every once in a while, during the obligatory "What state are you from" question, I get a response like the one I had today:

Him: "So what state are you from?"

Me: "Pennsylvania." *blank stare* "It's near New York."

Him: "Ohhh, okay." *pause* "Wow, Pennsyvlania. I've only ever seen that in movies."

Me: "Ummm... yeah I guess there are movies that feature Pennsylvania...?"

Him: "WHERE ALL THE VAMPIRES ARE."

Me: "OHHHH, no, you're thinking of TRANSYLVANIA. That's a country. That doesn't even exist anymore. We don't have vampires. Just cows."

This happens ALL THE TIME. People constantly think I live in a deep dark forest infested with the blood-sucking undead. It's always a shame to tell them the truth. One of these days I should just lie. "Oh yeah, and there's this spooky castle on a hill, and village wenches who go up there NEVER RETURN."

I don't care that it's a cultural thing, I don't care that things are viewed differently and that here this is not viewed as an insult. DON'T CARE.

It's not okay (NOT OKAY!!!) to have this conversation with the older lady you're friends with:

"Oh yeah, I've started going to this dance class every night so I can get in shape before my sister's wedding."

"Oh really?" (looks at me up and down) "Because you're fatter than the last time I saw you."

"Oh...." (looks at self) "I didn't think i looked any different..."

"Nope. You're fatter."

"...."

NOT OKAY, ECUADOR. NOT OKAY.

:-(

Edit: Clearly she wasn't insulting me. It's not an insult here, and I know that as a culturally sensitive person I'm supposed to accept and understand that. But I can't. American cultural norms are ingrained in my head, and no matter what I tell myself, my inner bitch is yelling THAT'S NOT OKAY, DUDE. NOT OKAY.

Edit #2: This is also coming after a long period of build-up. Gaining weight = happy, to Ecuadorians. So everywhere I go, I am greeted with : "Sarita! You've gained weight!" and after about a year of this, in which my weight hasn't fluctuated that much, I'm just kind of getting sick of it. It's tough, when you eat right and exercise, to walk around and hear every day from ten different sources that you're fat. It just wears you down. I liked it better when I came here and got sick, and everyone was bemoaning that I was too thin. It's like a ten pound difference between now and then, but I guess they can tell. It's frustrating. I'm not even someone who usually obsesses over weight, I don't diet and I'm pretty happy the way I am, thank-you-very-much. But comments day in and day out take a tole, no matter what the cultural meaning is.

OKAY. I'm walking down the street today, on my way to the fundacion, when this guy stops me in the street. He knows me; I don't remember him. This happens often, mainly because I work in a bunch of different communities and while I stick out here, they don't. He's got to be in his mid-40s. And the exchange goes something like this.

Wait, I can't even transcribe it. It's too weird and filled with me just going "...." or "uh...gracias?" or laughing nervously. But, in a nutshell, he monologued:

"I haven't seen you in so long! Where have you been? You're just enchanting, so beautiful." (He touches my hair in a too-familiar way). "Oh, that blonde hair, blue eyes." (My eyes are green, so...?) "You know, you should stay in Ecuador forever. You've just enchanted me. I have a hacienda (big house with land), and you could come live there are be treated like a lady and never have to leave Ecuador."

This went on for a while, but that was the gist. Plus, I was wearing a black sweater that I had shed on a bit, so at one point he started PICKING THE HAIRS OFF OF MY SWEATER LIKE HE WAS GOING TO KEEP THEM WTF.

Seriously. Ecuador. I'm know I'm gringa. I'm super gringa. I'm like the gringiest gringa who ever gringa-d. But really. YOU CAN'T JUST WALK UP TO PEOPLE ON THE STREET AND DO THESE THINGS. It's creepy. And no, I'm not going to move to your hacienda and be your wife/mistress. Really, I'm not.

...and as I sit in the grass and watch the horses parade in circles, their thrilled and sometimes bewildered riders clinging like velcro to their backs, I play with the dirty clovers and searched for four-leaved ones, like when I was a child and would spend hours combing through a field for good luck. The fat golden retriever with its waving fan of a tail makes me six again, in the summer grass with my best friend and his briar-covered fur. In the distance, beyond the hyacinth and hibiscus, the volcano is topped with ice. The wind is so very clean.

Later, I hold a baby with Down's syndrome in my lap and croon songs to him in English. I haven't held a baby in many years, but it feels good, wide eyes looking into mine, small body cradled against my hip. He is beautiful, pudgy-cheeked, and there is a strange sadness knowing already at seven months that he will never grow up to be what we humans so arbitrarily classify as normal.

One tiny girl is fierce and bright, a shining star; she is here because her toddler sister has Down's. She likes me, I don't know why, and holds my hand whenever we walk. She likes to sit on my lap, and I stroke her long dark hair, and I think, I would like to have a daughter someday.

Here, in this place, I find unexpected moments of beauty.

(x-posted at my livejournal, which from now on everything will be, due to the fact that I've rediscovered how awesome livejournal is.)

Yesterday was the first full, exhausting, useful, fulfilling day I've had in a long, long time. It's a good feeling, this particular type of exhaustion. I had almost forgotten what it felt like (and I'm so tired today that it amazes me to think I used to have school full time + 20 hour internship a week + homework + a strong network of friends and a great roommate to hang out with. I don't know how I managed it. It was the best year of my life, so far.)

I volunteered with a medical brigade that was doing free health checkups and doctor's visits in the indigenous town of Salasaca. They were a group of young doctors and docs-in-training from the States, and most didn't speak Spanish, so I was there with a few other Peace Corps people to work as translators. The turnout was huge-- we were working ALL DAY.

It was awesome! I've found that I love translating. It makes me feel so gosh-darn smart. I played soccer in the morning with the group before the clinic (aka local two-room elementary school) doors opened, and most of the rest of the day was spent with the physical therapists, translating their every question and instruction to the patients.

It was tough, though, because Salasaca is a super-duper indigenous community, meaning...many of them DON'T SPEAK SPANISH. They speak Quichua, a strange, mumbly language that has no connection whatsoever to Spanish. And I don't speak a word of it. (Well, technically I can say brother, sister, child, it's cold, it's hot, and hungover.) Plus, most of the physical therapy people were ancient (I'm talking 80-90 years old), without shoes or teeth, or hearing, or eyesight. AND they were so old/confused/not speaking the language that they would nod and say Si Si to whatever I said, but didn't actually get a word of it.

So most of the day there was a line of translation: the doctor would speak English, I would repeat in Spanish, and some helpful villager would speak Quicha to the patient. But even then, they just wouldn't understand how to do the simplest of things, like sitting up straight or lifting their arms above their head. It would go like this:

"Lift your arms above your head, like this." *Doc and I lift our arms*

*patient lifts them to the side*

"No, up, up, like this." *lifts them up*

*patients holds them out*

"NO, UP, DO EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE DOING."

*patient lifts one arm*

"Okay, but both arms. Look at us!" *waves arms in the air*

*patient holds them out to sides again*

It was like that ALL DAY.

It was also heartbreaking at times, because we didn't have the tools or equipment to really help people who needed help. One man had torn a hugely important tendon in his knee, and couldn't walk, but we didn't have a knee brace, or shoes that fit him, so all we could do was give him some exercises to strengthen the other muscles and send him on his way. One young woman had adolescent arthritis, making her hands curl up like claws, and her feet were severely deformed, making it difficult for her to walk. She needed special shoes and braces for her hands to stop the progression of the deformity, but we didn't have them. The worst thing is, if these people are in pain they can't work, can't feed their families. And the ones we could help, who only needed some physical therapy and to do simple stretches and movements in their home, probably didn't quite understand what to do or will just forget and won't do them in their houses. The people here are notoriously...forgetful, resistant to change.

Salasacaneos (is that how you spell it), are a really cool people, though. They are originally from Bolivia and always wear the traditional outfits: black skirts, white flowy shirts and brightly-colored ponchos for the women, black pants and black ponchos for the men. They are also cleaner than most indigenous communities, which I guess isn't saying a lot, because they are still pretty...well, let's just say that I really, really hope that I didn't get fleas. And one doctor hugged this adorable crying old woman, which was a really sweet gesture, but probably not the smartest idea in the world.

Here, have some google images, because I forgot to bring my camera yesterday:

It was long day of hard work, in which I got to feel super smart with my awesome Spanish, hang out with some really cool people, and help those that really needed/appreciated our help. In short, it was exactly what Peace Corps should be like all the time. I guess that for some lucky people, it is. I'm just glad to have one good day every once in a while, to keep me sane.

x-posted at my livejournal:

I just HAD to record this conversation (and remember this is all taking place in Spanish):

Today I was sitting on a very, very tiny child's chair today at the day-care for mentally disabled children and one of the employees looked at me and said, out of the blue: "Sarita, I like your thighs."

There was a long, long pause, as I tried to sort out what I had just heard. "What?"

"Your thighs."

Awkward smile. "I don't understand. My thighs?"

"Yes!"

I looked down at my jeans. My legs looked like...legs. Normal. "...what about them?"

"I like them."

"You like my thighs. Um. Why?"

She beamed at me. "Because they are so big and round! My thighs are so skinny, it's terrible. I wish I had thighs like yours."

"Uh, thank you? You know, in my country, it's much better to have thighs like yours. Only skinny is pretty."

"Fat isn't pretty??????"

They were truly surprised. Now granted, being huge isn't attractive here, but there is definitely the mindset that a little meat on your bones is a good thing. This is why, when I first arrived in Ecuador, my host family used to exclaim: "Eat more! You're too thin, you look sick!" and months later, when they saw me again and I had gained at least 10 pounds, everyone had to say: "You gained weight! You're mas gordita! How wonderful!" and pinch my stomach.

(And here I'm inserting the obligatory clarification: I am not fat, or overweight. I am a nice, normal size, which in America means I could stand to lose 10 pounds, but in Ecuador means I'm skinny as hell. Except, I guess, for my thighs.)

It's been almost four months since my last update, so thank Gill for bringing that to my attention. Truth is, I don't really know what to post anymore. Things are kind of blurry for me right now, like life is sliding by and I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to grasp moments and memories.

I went to Cuenca in May, for "resiliency training", aka, "how not to ET training." It was (surprise surprise!) boring as hell, but while in Cuenca I got to hang out with some amazing people and see what is truly the most beautiful city in Ecuador.

My birthday was in June, during mid-service (boring, but mercifully short), and some people from my Omnibus surprised me with a chocolate-covered apple, a mini bottle of wine, and a big bottle of vodka, which we all shared. I am in awe of the people in Peace Corps-- I swear it draws the best of the USA.

Big bro came to visit for the whole month of June, but besides saying we went to the beach and attempted to surf (I actually managed to stand up a few times!), I can't get into details here. Maybe next year... but let's just say it was awesome.

I've been writing A LOT. Nothing exciting (fanfiction, doncha know, aka I've developed an obsessive love of Supernatural), but I've realized that writing fun stories is so, so good for me. Not only does it allow me to have fun on otherwise boring days and get some positive feedback online, but it also allows me to percolate on original ideas that are lingering in the back of my mind. My brother actually inspired me during his visit, and now I have the plot for a possible book that is quietly putting itself into place while I write other stories. I'm super-excited about this -- Dangerous People was my one good idea, and now that I've written it I was afraid inspiration wouldn't strike again.

I just got ordained online (apparently I can absolve your sins now), so I can officiate my sister's wedding in a few months. I'm also looking up plane fares online, and will be home for a week at the end of September/beginning of October. Plus, only nine months left of Peace Corps!

As for daily living... things have slowed down... a lot. The volcano erupted, which is kind of cool, but mostly irritating. About 50% of my work was in a town called El Triunfo, and I can no longer go there because I have to go through Banos, and that's off-limits because of the volcano. Also, school is out for the summer, so there goes another 25% of my work. Plus, my community contacts aren't getting back to me, so...you get the idea. I'm trying to plan new things, get involved with new projects, because damnit, I only have nine months left and I want to be able to say that I accomplished SOMETHING in the Peace Corps.

Oh, and I joined the newly-restarted newspaper, El Clima, though exactly what I'm supposed to be doing on it I'm still a little unclear. Hmmm....

What else is new? Spent the forth of July in my apartment, feeling sick, but on the 10th there is a gringo get-together in Rio Bamba complete with picnic food and fireworks that I hope to go to. If that falls through I'll go to a picnic in Cayambe on the ninth. I've (finally) started exercising again. I found sour cream for the first time in 16 months (Wooo!). I'm signing up for the GRE's as soon as they open for registration. I'm getting by. And...that's life in Ecuador.

Went to Mindo the other weekend with some PC people, and had one of those crazy, soul-sustaining times that keep me sane in Ecuador. It's a sleepy little cloud-forest town, where we went zip-lining (one of which was a slightly terrifying bungee-jump-cum-zip-lining mash up) and jumped off of a high (12 meters) rock into water (I hit the bottom) and swam in a river with waterfalls. At night we ate delicious over-priced food and swapped stories and were generally silly. There are good people in PC Ecuador, that's all I have to say.

And now for something completely different...

I'm in a pretty good mood tonight. I finally realized today that if I want a change in my life, I have to make it, and that even something small can make a difference. So I looked up some info/videos online and started teaching myself Parkour/freerunning at a local children's park.

It's perfect for me: the park is ten minute walk from my house, and isolated enough that are no people staring at me as I run (and Patate is perfectly safe, as well, unlike other Ecuadorian cities...please don't let THAT statement come back and bite me in the...)

The park is filled with benches, jungle gyms, swings, tables, tires, slides, everything a beginner runner could want. Parkour, or freerunning (though they are a little different, but at this basic level I think I can use them relatively interchangeably) is essentially running from point A to point B no matter what is in front of you. So you vault off tables and swing over bars. It gets crazy (aka the guy in the opening sequence of "Casino Royale" was a freerunner), but I'm just trying to learn how to roll without hurting myself and vaulting over benches. It is brutal work, and makes my whole body feel like jelly. I feel great.

Work is also improving, and while it is still slow slow slow I am at least getting something accomplished, and that's a relief. A school garden actually succeeded (gasp!), a farmer sought me out to ask my advice, a school I work with made their own Biol, and I'll be teaching honest-to-goodness classes in a few weeks. And as always, the people that I work with are so friendly, I literally don't know what I would do without them.

My biggest thing now is looking to the future: My brother's visit in June (+birthday and midservice), going home for my sister's wedding, Me + Mom = Galapagos, but most especially ending my service in just over a year and going to graduate school. I've been doing my research and have my schools narrowed down (just two now, but they are both awesome), and will be retaking the GRE's/ applying this fall. I am so, so looking forward to that life. I miss school, I do. I miss learning, I miss sitting in classrooms, I miss writing papers in coffee shops on my laptop, I miss living in an American city with American people.

Now that the craziness of February is over and I have some work to do, I am content here. A volunteer who is just about to COS (leave country) told me that the goal of the second year is just to make it to the end, but it goes fast and despite this, is the best year of all. So I'm looking to the future, as always, but content. Maybe I will even miss it when it's over.

This isn't going to be a long entry, as it is still rather difficult to type now, but I figured that I should update after what happened.

A little over a week ago, a friend and I were attacked in a park in Ambato.

This isn't one of those "girl was walking through a deserted street at 3 am drunk and got assaulted" deals. We did nothing wrong. It was the middle of the afternoon on a sunny day, in a park filled with soccer players, families, and laughing children. My friend Julie (another PC volunteer) and I were walking back to her house on an "ecological trail" that follows the river. A young family, with a well-dressed dad, mom, and infant, had passed us several times that day, but we thought that they were just strolling aimlessly like we were. The moment we began to think it was strange and no one else was around, he whipped a knife out.

He grabbed Julie's arm. She screamed and dropped into a crouch because she was afraid that he was aiming his knife at her neck. I lunged at him and he turned on me; when I tried to knock the knife out of his hand he swiped at me and cut my thumb and index finger, then cut the strap of Julie's bag and ran with it.

Luckily, there was nothing of value in the bag except her house keys (she promptly changed the locks), and it gives me a grim satisfaction to know that he went through all of that for a broken bag, lipstick, unusable keys, and hand sanitizer.

I was bleeding to a degree that was frightening. I've never in my life seen so much blood. It pooled in my cupped hands and ended up on my face, all down my pants, and saturated my sneakers to a degree that even my socks were bloody. Some kind hearted lady helped us get to the hospital and gave me an old shirt to staunch the bleeding; it became soaked through with blood. I also bled all over the emergency room floor. I can't imagine the amount you must pour out if you get stabbed someplace serious.

The cut on my thumb is the worst, a deep diagonal gash that took eight stitched to close. The other isn't as bad, only four stitches and it barely hurt at all. The doctor claimed there was no nerve damage, but I still can't feel the tip of my thumb, so....

I go back to Quito tomorrow to get my stitches removed, and I also get to go the following week to talk to the new group of trainees. Poor Julie is jumping at her own shadow and hates the sight of families with children. I'm mainly pissed that I didn't think clearly while fighting (punching instead of kicking, so stupid of me!)

I've already written more than I thought I would, and it sucks to type without a thumb. It just sucks in general. Everything about this month so far, with its drama and huge annoying festivals and lack of work and water balloons (Carnaval) and drunks and too many parades and irritating bottle rocket/fireworks just sucks.

I can't wait for March.

A little late, but here it is:

2009: A Year in Review

January:

-Started the year in Baltimore, watching the fireworks with Gill and her (then-boyfriend, now husband) Ken, freezing our butts off, praying for good things.

-The inauguration of President Obama.

February:

-Road tripped to Pittsburgh and Penn State, for a final farewell of friends and fun.

-Left for Peace Corps, Ecuador. Arrived in Quito one warm rainy night, then journeyed on to Cayambe to begin training.

-Went to Mitad del Mundo, the center of the earth, and stood with one foot in each hemisphere

March:

-My first stomach flu of Ecuador….the first of many.

- Learned to wash my clothes on a big stone, went to Cotacachi, went on big hikes, saw an indigenous sun celebration and was blessed by a shaman, ate guinea pig for the first time, had long days of classes

- Found out my site placement was La Victoria, Tungurahua

April:

-Went on my site visit, and came away from it scared and upset and dreading the future.

-Went on the Tech Trip, which included lounging in a pool and playing soccer and doing yoga in the steaming heat of Puerto Quito, and staring at the stars, buying chocolate, and doing karaoke in Salinas de Guaranda. One of the best weeks of my life.

-Finished my classes.

-Swore in in Quito on April 30, and became an official Peace Corps Volunteer.

May:

-Moved to my site, and had to sit on my hands for three weeks because my house in LV was not finished.

-Finally moved into my house in LV.

-Started planning many projects, many of which would never come to fruition. Ah, PC life.

June:

-23rd Birthday in Rio Bamba!

- It rained all month.

-Thus started summer depression.

July:

- Depressed and stuck in LV alone. It continued to rain. Not a great month.

August:

- Pretty depressed and without work and got sick in Tena… until…

- I got permission to move to Patate. I started looking for an apartment and found one that I absolutely love.

September:

- Moved to Patate

- Went to the grad school fair in Quito, which changed what I want to study and direction my life will take, and, completely coincidently, met Adam

-He followed me home and lived with me for the next month

-Began work with my new counterpart group, Aves y Conservacion, first trip to El Triunfo, and the rest is history.

- Reconnect in Rio Bamba

October:

- More work, good times with Adam

-The El Chaco trip, in which I got way too sick and missed whitewater rafting. Yeah, that sucked.

November:

- Thanksgiving at the embassy

December:

- Christmas, went home, and all of the wonderful times that came with it

-My sister got engaged

A few low points, but all in all, a pretty great year. Here’s to 2010: I can’t wait to see what you will bring me.

I realize that I have lacking in writing in this journal, and for that matter, even in my own journal. I feel like my entries are few and far between and unable to accurately show a realistic portrayal of Ecuador, its people, and my life here.

Recently, though, there has been very little to write. The weeks before I went home were filled with the agony of waiting, and also the desperate rush to finish revising my book before I left (though now I realize that it needs MORE revising. I swear, I will never be done.) Then I returned, went to Guaranda for New Year's, and have spent the remaining days sick in bed and spending far too much time on the internet.

First off:

Christmas was wonderful, and honestly, soul-sustaining. I encourage every volunteer who has even a lukewarm relationship with their family to go home at least once. Sometimes your mind just needs a respite, to be surrounded by nostalgic things before it can keep going.

The big news is, of course, that my amazing, brilliant, wonderful, smart, witty , fantastic sister is engaged, and this is a wedding that I will definately be coming home for. It's tentatively next fall, so I have about another ten months to go, and I am just so happy for her that I could frolic.

I also saw friends, exchanged gifts (Zombie Christmas Carols, anyone?), and generally just basked in love. Oh, and I got a netbook, since my old computer was just about to die on me.

Going to Guaranda for New Year's was not what I had anticipated or planned, but was fun and cold and turned out to be an amazing cultural experience.

A cultural note: In Ecuador, the tradition for New Year's Eve, or Ano Viejo (literally, old year) is to build representations of all of the sins and problems and anger of the year and burn them at midnight. Also, there are transvestites. Lots of them. This is due to a tradition that men dress up as widows of the old year, asking for money, which eventually evolved into simply dressing up as flashy women and doing a little booty-shaking dance for a few cents. Kids also hold cars hostage by stretching a rope across city streets and refusing to lower it until a fee of five cents is paid (or in some cases, until the driver gets royally pissed off and yells at the kids.) It's pretty awesome to see Ecuadorians, usually so strict in their machismo and male/female roles, dress up in glitter and high heels and makeup and hot pants. They are fierce.

The picture displayed is one of my favorite images of the night: A well done, room-sized display of the Simpsons (representing capitalism/US influences/what?) with a masked, smoking transvestite standing randomly at its side.

We (my new friend Katie and I, since the others went to bed early) were literally the only gringos in the entire city, which meant that we were famous, getting our pictures taking by everyone with a camera and dancing around fires with drunk boys and their elderly moms. Still, just to be safe (because though the enviroment was fun it did combine fire, the pent-up rage due to counting all the bad things that happened that year, and massive amounts of alcohol) we were home by midnight, just in time to watch the fireworks from afar.

Oh, and by the way, if you are ever planning a trip to the Ecuadorian Sierra (mountains), the road from Ambato to Guaranda is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, with high paramos and grazing alpacas and huge, snow-capped peaks close enough to walk to.

In other news, I have found a martial arts "academy" that looks legit enough, though it doesn't have straight-up tae kwon do. It's apparently some mix of kickboxing, tae kwon do, jujitsu (throwing), and boxing, so it's...kinda of MMA? I'll have to see, but I'll definately be trying it out! I miss fighting. It gives me a sense of control and action, this feeling of being truly within my own skin, of power, that I lack in my day-to-day life. And hey, you can't beat ten bucks a month.

Things are going really well here, and will improve when I am feeling 100 percent and get my ass out of this apartment and start doing some real work. I'm anticipating that from here on out is when it all begins to take shape...God, I hope so. Once I slide back into my charlas, pick some more communties up, start my anti human trafficking work, maybe start writing some articles, and just, well, put myself out there, I'll feel more like a PC volunteer and less like a lazy ass. We'll see.

A happy and beautiful 2010 to all of you, everywhere.

Here is a quick entry to say that Thanksgiving this year was fantastic.

I went to the ambassador's house in Quito, ate a lavish meal with new friends, hung out with the ambassador and watched "Miracle on 34th street", went dancing, dawdled in a used bookstore, finally bought the end of Battlestar Galactica (and promptly watched it as soon as I got home), drank wine at a cafe and then ate spicy indian food. Everyone from the new PC group that I met were awesome, I felt comfortable and happy, and it really was a great couple of days.

Plus, it's now officially the Christmas season.

Two weeks! PS: I also found out the reason that I've been getting sick so much lately is because I have amoebas, which is actually fantastic because I have a name to put to my problem and it is easily curable. Here's to (hopefully) the end of my stomach woes.

Now that I have internet in my apartment, I've been reading over all of my old livejournal entries from undergrad. It's a bit of nostagia, a bit of self torture: it makes me so, so homesick for Pittsburgh. Flying back to my apartment on my bicycle on a warm fall afternoon, stopping at the farmer's market on the way to browse the stalls for fresh produce and pie, giggling with Char over something completely random, sitting on that little grey couch in that place that felt like home for one brief year and feeling completely happy and at peace. That year still takes the place of the best year of my life, and I miss it with an ache that is almost tangible.

Not that I normally dwell on such things. I am very happy here, in Ecuador, in the Peace Corps. My work is going as well as can be expected, with the usual hiccups and people not showing up/cancelling charlas. There are electricity shortages so every day the power goes out for a few hours and I sit in the dark, surrounded by candles. The bunny continues to be cuddly and poops everywhere.

I just miss speaking my own language, having people in my life that I can really talk to, really be me, not this dumbed-down second-language version of me that everyone here sees. I miss the fact that Light Up Night is this weekend and I won't be there to see it, that my dad is going to make his traditional turkey neck soup on Thanksgiving and carve the turkey with the Thanksgiving bayonet and I won't be there to see it, that those sweet senior-year days are irrevocably lost to me now. I will never live in Pittsburgh again, never be so close to those people I care so much about again. Our culture is to move around, and our country is large enough to stretch our legs in. We scatter across the continent, across the world.

I guess all I want to say is: I miss you. All of you. I have a fantastic life here in Ecuador, I wake in the morning and thank God that I am here, in this place of eternal spring, but I miss you very deeply.

I chose a life that takes me far away, and I wouldn't change it for the world. But that doesn't mean that I can't look over my shoulder every once in a while.

Written on Monday, November 9, 2009

I was brushing my teeth the other day, standing on my roof and squinting in the early morning light, when I looked down and saw…

A bunny.

On my roof.

Really, it has to be one of the oddest things that has ever happened to me. Out of the many things one would not expect to see on a roof, a bunny is very high up on the list. It was (is) fuzzy and white with big floppy ears and giant bunny feet. I’ve named him Ben. I suppose he has another name, but I haven’t asked. I don’t even know if he really is a he. (So far only one friend has gotten why I chose the name Ben. He said, and I quote: "Oh, that's just sick!")

He’s my landlord’s sons’ new pet. They don’t have anywhere to put him right now so they are keeping him on the roof. Which is fine by me, except when he poops.

Plus, he’s an odd bunny. I mean, I’m not an expert in bunny behavior, but I always assumed that they were a little like guinea pigs, always afraid and cowering in a corner somewhere. Not this bunny. This bunny is awesome. He hops around the roof, follows me around, sits in my lap, nibbles my toes, and inspects my rooms. He’s the damn friendliest bunny ever.

So Ben the Bunny is my new pseudo-pet, the way Tilney the Dog was my old pseudo-pet. And that’s about all I have in bunny news today.

In other news, which I won’t really get into because I’m still upset by it, I got sick in El Chaco and was unable to go whitewater rafting. Yeah, it sucked.

Plus, I’m sick now, and have been practically bed ridden for the past four days. Luckily, I had no plans, so was just able to sleep a lot, and drink many cups of tea and eat pudding for dinner.

What else is new? I have a lot of work planned for the upcoming weeks. Adam has left to venture into the jungle, which leaves me relieved and happy to be left alone for a while. All of my Christmas shopping is (finally) done. Over half of my novel is revised. I have friends in town who are actually my age. Things are going very, very well here.

Plus, bunnies make everything better.

5 weeks until I go home! 5 weeks! Gahhh! *flails* I’ve never been so excited for anything in my life.

So the other day Adam and I walk out of the apartment, on our way to Ambato to wash alllll of my dirty laundry, and he stops, cocks his head, looks around, and asks: “Where’s my motorcycle?”

To which I very intelligently said: “Huh?”

“My motorcycle.”

“Are you sure you parked it here?”“Yes.”

“Well….shit.”

We both did long, sweeping evaluations of the street, as if it were going to magically pop up a few doors down from when it was parked. We would have panicked, but it was long gone, and seeing as how Adam hadn’t even locked it or anything, it seemed rather stupid to panic.

Actually, he took it rather well, besides a few scathing remarks about Ecuadorians. I was hurt, because my town is touted on being so safe, the people so nice, and I felt incredibly secure here, and that feeling was now ruined. Plus, I was sure, absolutely positive, that this wouldn’t have happened it he wasn’t a gringo. Shitty Ecuador, I thought. Stupid for me to believe that there would be any decency in this place, or that in the place I call my home people wouldn’t want to rob me blind.

A few days go by. Adam makes a few flyers, advertising a reward for the bike. I tell him, in nicer words, that he can do whatever he wants, but he is being stupid. Really stupid. The bike is long gone, probably sold for parts by now. Making flyers is stupid waste of time. In fact, the Ecuadorians will probably snicker at him behind his back for doing such a thing. Let it go.

He makes the flyers and pastes them around town.

Two days later, I get the call. Someone has the bike.

The story goes: This young guy was going to his work as an ayudante (driver’s helper) on the buses at about 5 am last Monday when he saw a motorcycle in the middle of a back street, bent up and with the shit kicked out of it, but still functioning, only a few things broken. Never one to miss an opportunity, he loads it into the back of a truck and takes it home. A few days later, he spots the flyers and gives me a call. I go and see it: he’s telling the truth. There, in all of its banged up glory, is Adam’s motorcycle.

Well, holy shit.

I’m just…awestruck. Blown away. This is incredible. That anyone, but especially a young man with a crappy job and a wife and kid in this country where it is so, so easy to take a bike to a shop and strip it for parts, no questions asked, would return a motorcycle is unbelievable. Now of course there’s the odd chance that he took it hoping there would be a reward, but that’s kind of silly. Most people wouldn’t have put up a flyer. And honestly, if he was going to be dishonest, he could have made a lot more money stripping it for parts than the reward we’re giving him, which is $200. Adam guestimates that he could have made at least $400 by selling. So this young guy just took a $200 pay cut to do the right thing.

Faith in Humanity = restored.

This whole story just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

In other news, I’m going whitewater rafting with other PC volunteers this Halloween, costume include. (I’m a pirate....arrrrr). I’ve been spending a lot of time in my hammock; during the day it’s a great nap or book revision spot, as long as I have lots of sunblock, and at night there is enough light to read by, so I can snuggle in a blanket with a pillow and a good book.

I am so incredibly content right now, doing my work and having plenty of time to myself as well. My first charlas went fantastically and I have more scheduled for the upcoming weeks. And Christmas….don’t get me started! I’m so excited I can’t even express it. Seven weeks!

Hello all.

It’s been far too long since I updated my blog, but life has been crazy and busy and crazy and busy and fantastic.

I moved out of my previous town and into Patate, which has changed things so completely that I can’t even express it in words. My apartment is amazing, I have work flooding in from all sides, and have been having adventures like it’s nobody’s business. I met a guy, but that’s a whole other story that I won’t be getting into here (he’s leaving soon, anyway.) I’ve been in a cloud forest and traveled around and done so many, many things that I’ll have to tell you all about when I see you.

Memorable moments:

-The grad school fair in Quito was amazing, and totally changed my outlook on what I want to go to graduate school for. My choice now: a dual degree in international relations and journalism. There are several great schools that offer dual degrees like this, including the University of Syracruse, U of Denver, and American.

-I got into the Anti-TIPS task force, a Peace Corps group that fights human trafficking in Ecuador. We meet for the first time next month in Guayaquil!

- I was in my very first earthquake! The whole room shook and things fell off the shelf. I had to run under a doorway to be safe, but it wasn’t that bad so there was no danger. Actually it was all very exciting.

- I have work in several communities, one of which is in a cloud forest. I have almost too much work to do at the moment, and I might have to start turning people down soon. I’m also working with a conservation group, which has taken the place in my life that the Red Cross was supposed to take. They help me and take me to communities and work with me every step along the way. They are my saving grace.

-Reconnect was a long week of lectures, but we had some good times, and at the end of it almost everyone from our Omnibus came to Rio Bamba for the weekend.

-I went to my first Ecuadorian wedding last night, for the daughter of the family that I am very close to in Patate. It was beautiful and very western with the bride in a white dress and a solemn ceremony.

-I AM GETTING INTERNET IN MY APARTMENT. I am officially in Posh Corps. I live in the center of a lovely town, several blocks from a pool, and I’m getting cheap internet in my apartment. So everyone, take note: get a skype account. I will be available to speak almost every day.

-Many things happened that I can’t talk about here, but were all unique and fun and crazy and life changing.

Of course, there are always down sides. I’m nervous with all of this work, facing my first real classes, and worried that everyone is going to find out that I don’t really know what I am talking about. The boy situation has turned sad, as he is leaving soon and I will miss his presence in my life. I am missing my best friend’s wedding in two weeks. I miss home like crazy, which is weird because I am so happy here, but it has just been a long time and I feel the pull of homesickness every day.

This is a beautiful place that I live in. I am happy in Ecuador.

Nine weeks until December 15th!

Okay, so maybe my last entry was a little depressing. Truth is, I’ve been a little depressed lately. It took making myself sick in Tena to allow myself to admit: I’ve been depressed. And I’m okay with that. In fact, isn’t it a right of passage in the Peace Corps, to go through the U-Curve and be a little depressed and culture-shocky for a while before rising up, phoenix-like, stronger than before and able to deal with anything life hands you?

Yeah, I’m choosing to look at it like that. Phoenix Sarah. That’s me.

And it’s ending, because the truth is, life is about to get a whole lot better really soon, and really fast. At the moment I’m still in my house in LV, spending my days alone and marginally crazy, but yes! September, the month of change and awesomeness, is in a few days. And then…

I found an apartment! And it’s been approved! It’s amazing and I love it and I want to give it kisses and snuggles. It is in Patate, perched on the roof of a three story building overlooking the beautiful central park, which means that I will have the whole roof to myself, which also means that I will be able to eat/lay in my hammock/write/watch tv on my laptop/do yoga/mediate/ do anything I freaking want to outside, without anyone being able to see me or stare at me or anything! I am right near the internet café, the central park, the weekly market, G and G’s house (the lovely family who has kept me sane here), the bus stop, the bakery, everything. There is even a gym in Patate, but I have to check it out, because it’s probably pretty skanky.

I will still try and do work in my current community, but there is no reason for me to live here. In fact, it’s even detrimental to my other work, considering how hard it is to get to town and how expensive it is to get a car back. In Patate, there is even talk of my working with women’s groups on things like food production and family gardens, among the million other possibilities that will open up to me once I live there.

Though part of me does feel bad, with thoughts like, “if I had just stuck it out a little bit longer, could I really have integrated? Could I have made this village my own, been accepted into the community, done some real good?” but then I realize that I’ve been giving it my all for four months with no success, and honestly, my mental health needs this. I need this. And even though, or especially because, I’m in the Peace Corps, far from home trying to do some good in this world, I need to come first. This will make me happy. I need this.

(On a side note: I discovered the other day that no one has been visiting me, and simply staring at me from the end of my path, because my landlord has been telling them that they are not allowed to come to my house for any reason! That no one but his family can visit me! I’m heard some really not-nice things about my landlord. I’ve tried to correct this prohibition, but still…chalk it up to one more reason to hightail it out of here.)

So, the apartment is still being fixed up, and will hopefully be ready just in time for the fiestas de cantonizacion in Patate, the festival of the founding of the town. It’s a really big deal, and I think that there will be parades and fireworks. One more great thing about September.

More good September news: On the 7th there is a graduate school fair for international studies in Quito that I’m going to try and go to. Schools like Harvard and Georgetown will be represented, and I’m really excited and curious to hear about what kind of programs and job opportunities are out there for someone who wants to spend their whole life traveling. I still have Goucher’s nonfiction writing MFA as my first choice, but it’s nice to have an open mind.

Also: Reconnect! Sadly, not with the whole Omnibus, but it will be a fun week in Rio Bamba nonetheless.

Also: School starts! Enter Sarah: English teacher of small children (made all the more interesting/scary by the fact that I don’t really like small children), agricultural helper of high schoolers and an elementary ecological club, working side by side with teachers, doctors, Red Cross volunteers, missionaries, and guitar-playing nuns. Life is going to be interesting.

Also: It will be only three months until I go home for Christmas, and I will be able to finally buy my plane ticket and have a set date!

Three cheers for September!

God, I need this.

In other news, when I wasn’t sick, Tena was awesome. What a great cluster. Dan and Laurel = my heroes. Sarah K’s puppy = adorable. The weather = heaven. The city = clean and beautiful.

We went caving at Sarah K’s site. Headlamps, swimming through underground pools and climbing up underground waterfalls, bats flitting about overhead, the air cool and damp: it was an adventure. At one point as we moved onward, Sarah K paused and looked at a massive heap of rocks, musing: “hmmm, that wasn’t there the other day. It looks a whole section of the ceiling just caved in.”

To which we all replied: “WHAT????”

She said: “You guys want to keep going down this way?”

“HELL NO!”

So we went down another “arm” of the caves, one that tourists don’t usually go down, and it wasn’t until we had climbed up a steep, slippery hill to stand on a large plateau that Sarah K said: “Oh yeah, these are the spider caves. There are SO MANY down here. And they are super poisonous too. Kind of spider-scorpions. But spiders. Big ones. Really big. Huge.”

And then, shining a light on the wall, Mike goes: “Oh yeah. Here’s one.”

Dan: “Wow, I can see it from all the way over here.”

Mike: “Here’s another one. And another. Here’s one. Here’s one. Here’s one.”

Someone else: “Wow, there are like ten spiders on that wall alone.”

Me: (Hyperventilating) Have I mentioned that I have really bad arachnophobia?

Sarah K: Okay, now everyone turn out your headlamps and let’s stand in the dark! I want to tell a story.

Me: (Hyperventilating) Have I mentioned that I have really bad arachnophobia?!!!

Everyone: Oh, come on, it’s okay, they’re all the way over on that wall, they’re more scared of you than you are of them, we’ll only be in the dark for a second, etc etc…

Me: (Hyperventilating) HAVE I MENTIONED THAT I HAVE REALLY BAD ARACHNOPHOBIA?????

In the end (and I’m so proud of myself) I turned off my headlamp and stood in the dark, though I have to admit I was prancing around like a nervous horse, lifting my feet in a strange kind of dance to discourage any large spider-scorpions from mistaking my leg for a stalagmite. And I got through it! I’ve come a long, long way from how bad this fear used to be. However, it didn’t help that as we walked back Mike kept looking around and saying, “There’s one, there’s one…”

So I survived the spider caves! I am a brave warrior.

I think that is the theme of this entry: I am a brave warrior. Brave, brave, brave warrior.

One final note: I never mean to upset or scare anyone with these blog entries. Please, my loving family and friends, be assured that I am safe and taking very good care of myself. I am in no danger, not in my site or anywhere in Ecuador. Please, don’t take my rants as a reason to worry about me. I am a brave warrior.

That being said, it’s nice to know that people love me enough to worry. I’m deeply sorry for causing you anxiety, Uncle Charlie, and I hope to see you and the whole family at Christmas. I love you.

I love all of you.

It’s another long day in my community, and I am going a little out of my mind. I haven’t written in this blog for the past month for the simple fact that there has been nothing to write about. Things are not going particularly well in my community, and in fact I just received permission to start looking for a house in Patate.

My community is unreceptive, uncaring, and never in their homes. Doing my CAT tools is practically impossible, because even when I do track down people they tell me it is not a good time, and when I go to their house at the time they tell me to, they are not there. When we set up meetings, and I let the community choose the day and time and everyone agrees to show up, no one does. Not a single person.

Plus, despite the fact that I have been here several months, the whole “fishbowl” effect isn’t waning. If I leave my door open people regularly camp out in their free time at the end of the path facing my house and stare at me. Don’t come to say hello, don’t wave back if I wave, don’t talk to me, nothing. They just stare. For hours, as I sit at my table or do my dishes. It’s unnerving, and I’m getting tired of it.

I hear stories of other communities, where people get invited to houses for lunch or for a cafecito, or to do something with the family, or something. Not here. There are a few nice people but honestly, people either act like I am bothering them or they laugh at me, openly laugh at me to the point that I’ve stopped sitting at the soccer court in the afternoons because no one talks to me or responds to my attempts at conversation but instead just shoots me grins and whispers and laughs in my direction.

So I’m thrilled to start the house hunt in Patate. Patate is beautiful, clean, with openly friendly people who, even though I don’t live in town, invite me to their houses all the time. There is a great family that I am already friends with, and it is safe, tranquil, with significantly less drinking. Most of my work is in Patate anyway, and some might be in Pelileo, the Red Cross is based in Patate, my counterpart is in Patate, and most of my integration is in Patate. All I need to do is find a house for rent, get someone from the PC here, and get it approved. I’m hoping, if all goes well, I can move out of here in maybe two months. We will see.

In other news, I’ve had some good times. Mostly I’ve been under house arrest and blisteringly bored (writing a lot), waiting for this government visit that has never happened. But Joyce came to visit me, and we had a great time just talking and relaxing. Then I visited her in Puyo, which I actually quite like, for its warmth and “jungle town” feel. We went to this little piece of jungle in the city that an American married to a Shuar woman set up, and took his tour where he talked in depth about various indigenous cultures and medicinal plants. It was fascinating. I’m starting to regret that I didn’t ask to be placed in the jungle, where the indigenous cultures are so unique. The anthropologist in me wants to study them.

Josh visited too, this past weekend, which was really fun except for the fact that nothing went right: The “waterfall” hike we went on had no waterfall and wasn’t much of a hike, and then the stocked fishing pond was all out of fish that day! We mostly wandered and talked the whole time, and I cooked a lot.

One of the great things about his visit was, once again, getting to see the sweetness and generosity of the Ecuadorian people. When a group of girls carrying bunches of carnations passed, and I commented on how pretty the flowers were, they gave me some. When we walked by a granadilla farm, the farmer gave us an armful. Moments like this just make me brim with happiness.

We will see where the next months take me. At the very least, I know that when school starts in September and my work revs up, life will be purposeful and less boring. For now, I’m house hunting and trying to organize talks that people will actually show up to. We’ll see how it goes.

PS: Sarah’s book reviews:

Book I Was Disappointed In But You Should Really Read Anyway:

“Confessions of an Economic Hitman” : Fascinating premise, shockingly real, and contains information that everyone in the world should be aware of. It makes international politics and what is happening in the world so much clearer. However, it is poorly written by a selfish, navel-gazing, narcissistic author who muses and justifies with very little exciting action. Still, read it, for the information alone. And don’t feel bad if you think he is a selfish prick. He is.

Book I Picked Up On A Whim And Turned Out To Be One Of The Best I’ve Ever Read:

“Savages” : If you have any interest in ancient cultures, anthropology, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, oil companies, Ecuador, South America in general, or if you just want to read some of the most gripping and beautiful prose ever, pick this book up. It’s about how the fierce and fading Huaroni people are fighting the big oil companies to preserve the rainforest and their culture, and just what exactly oil drilling is really doing to the forest and people of Ecuador. It is sad and shocking and fascinating and makes you want to go to the rainforest yourself and fight this. Please, read it. And then do something about it.

Hasta pronto!

And yes, that is a Declaration of Independence. That´s it: Stop the competition. We win. At life. Everyone else can go home and cry about it.

4th of July in Ecuador/Rio Bamba included: Gringos, Americans, Canadians, English, Volleyball, Hamburgers, Hot dogs, Potato Salad, Fireworks (so close we were peppered with falling debris), Hot Chocolate, Friends, and Love. Just as it should be.

Complete with Declaration of Independence.

Sarah’s Ecuador Lesson #1: Yes You Can fit all of your cash, your credit card, your phone, and your ipod in your bra. It´s safer. And not at all awkward. Except when digging for cash.

Today at the feria I hefted the largest and heaviest zucchini I’ve ever seen in my hand and the first thought that popped into my head was: “I could kill a man with this zucchini.”

Maybe that’s a reflection on my mental state as of late.

I’ve been…not terrible, but surely slipping down the U-Curve, in the typical time of culture shock and adjustment and loneliness and homesickness. I know that it will pass, and I believe that I’m doing better than many would in my situation, in part because Spain toughened me up a lot, but it’s been stressful as of late. I got sick, again; it’s 5.5 months until I go home for Christmas and I miss my mom constantly; my community drives me crazy sometimes; local children harass me constantly to the point of literally screaming; and even those kids that I thought I was bonding with ended up stealing from me. I’d say that now I don’t trust them as far as I could throw them, but I could probably throw them pretty far, so I’m just going to flat out say it: I don’t trust them. I don’t trust anybody in my community. I feel so conspicuous, and when I try and organize something to help them, to do my job, nobody shows up. Plus, school is out for the summer so there goes over 50% of my work, and that also means more kids to pester me all day long. It’s just frustrating, and overwhelming, and I think, what can I really do to help these people? Can they really change? Do they really want to?

These are questions I know that almost every Peace Corps volunteer asks themselves at least once during their two years. I know that it is normal, and that it will pass; that I am experiencing culture shock and adjusting to a new way of life. But knowing this doesn’t make it any less hard.

Besides that, life has been a mixed bag. I had a fantastic time in Rio Bamba for my birthday, where we had pizza and beer on the floor one night and went out to bars and restaurants the next, and when the clock hit midnight and it was officially my birthday everyone sang to me and the waiter put a hat on my head and gave me free chocolate cake. Then that night, back in Patate with this wonderful family whose house I am writing this in right now, I had a home-baked cake with a candle and they sang to me in both Spanish and English. They are my saving grace here; I don’t know what I’d do without them.

Yesterday I went to Rio Bamba again for a Gender and Development (GAD) seminar. It was fun, and moderately informative, and best of all: free food at honestly the best restaurant I’ve eaten at in Ecuador. The whole trip was worth it just for the food. I got to hang out with a great group of people, and speak English, and overall it was a relaxing, amusing day.

Except…I found out that Ana, one of my friends, the girl I hung out with over my birthday and honestly one of the most charismatic people I’ve ever known, got sent home. Plus, three other people dropped out and headed back to the US. If you don’t count Russ (he didn’t go through training with us and really just does his own thing), then Omnibus 101 is down to 35 people. We’ve lost nine, several of them people that I truly considered friends.

Good news: Joyce is coming to visit next weekend, and I have an opportunity to do something for the fourth of July, which I don’t know if I’ll take, but it’s nice to know that the possibility is there. Later in July I’m going to Puyo, which will be my first taste of the Oriente. I’m eating cuy tomorrow with a group of high school students and Moderately Creepy Teacher, which should be fun despite the fact that Moderately Creepy Teacher is Moderately Creepy (he showed me shirtless vacation photos and kept pointing out his wife and reinforcing the fact that she is dead.)

Ecuador continues to amuse and amaze me. I’ve had a stranger tell me I should marry a local British man who I’ve never met and is probably vastly older than me because we both speak English and “No one should have to be alone.” I’ve seen a skinned cow hanging from a tree, complete with skin next to it, like something out of “Silence of the Lambs.” I’ve had an old woman invite herself to my house for lunch and then demand I kill her the chicken conveniently pecking around by my feet (I got out of it by pretending not to understand and walking quickly away). I was given guitar lessons by a group of nuns in their convent. I bought a cheap guitar, which promptly broke. I bought a ridiculously large, hand carved wooden turtle that will apparently bring me luck (but where will I fit it?). I bought a foam mat and started teaching myself yoga in my house. I got birthday presents in the mail in Ambato (NEWSWEEK makes me deliriously happy) and discovered by the post office the best empanadas of my life. I have HOT WATER in my shower. I went to a local fiesta and shuffle-danced with my landlord (and later got sick off the food). I bravely battled with large spiders and won. I’ve met new people and made new friends.

Overall, life is not perfect, but is it ever? In fact, it’s something better than perfect: it’s exciting, and new, and challenges me, and makes me think and change and grow. I appreciate being here, in Ecuador, in the Peace Corps, every day, even the bad ones. Underneath it all, I am a hopeless optimist. I think you have to be.

PS: This entry was for you, Ruben. Now stop pestering your wife. ;-) I love you guys.

I wasn’t going to write again for at least a week or two but I wanted to talk about an incident that happened to me a few nights ago. Two incidents, actually.

To start off, Ecuadorians don’t understand or appreciate a good healthy dose of paranoia, especially in small towns or in the country. No matter how many times you explain to them why don’t want to walk alone at night (I’m a gringa, I’m a stranger, I have a clearly visible bag, I’m blonde, for God’s sake) or why you want more security/locks in your house (I’m a gringa, a stranger, wealthier than all of the people in this community combined, living alone with few neighbors in the middle of a field), they will shake their heads at you. Silly gringa, why are you worried. Nothing happens here. It is muy tranquilla.

If one more person says that I don’t have to worry because an area is muy tranquilla, y no pasa nada, I am going to strangle them.

Also, you have to understand, I am the most paranoid person I know. Not crazy, just with a fierce desire for nothing to ever happen to me that I could have prevented. I like feeling in control, and not placing myself in dangerous situations keeps me feeling safe. In Spain I missed out on fun nights because I refused to get in a car with a bunch of strange guys, or go home with strangers; in Pittsburgh I walked at night with mace and didn’t get into a car with a stranger even to go through a drive through at night when ordering on foot wasn’t allowed. In Ecuador I don’t walk alone at night, I carry my leatherman in my pocket so that I feel more secure, and I instinctively size up anyone I’m speaking to. I’m decently trained in martial arts and have taken an intense self defense class. I sleep with a knife under my bed. I take my security safely.

In Ecuador, this has even heightened. It is a machista culture, where men are men and women are good little subservient housewives, especially in the campo. American women are seen as easy, especially as they speak more openly with men. Men don’t look at you; they leer. Comments are made. You are the butt of jokes you are glad you don’t understand. I love Ecuador, but I could never date anyone from here. No offense. The culture is just too steeped in gender differences for me to take.

The people in my community are pretty tranquillo, hard working, and appear to be even keeled. Except on the weekends, when they drink. Last weekend, in the middle of the afternoon, I saw several men so drunk they were either passed our or weaving dangerously as they walked. I’ve seen people smashed, but nothing like I see here. Also, everyone goes to bed at 8:00 pm, except for the weekend drunks, who stay up a bit later. Even so, 11:00 is usually the latest, because even on weekends there are still animals to care for in the mornings and work to be done.

On Sunday night, a little after midnight, I was sound asleep in my bed when the pounding started on my front door. I jerked away, my hand instinctively going to the knife under my mattress, and just stayed very still. I figured that whoever it was would give up after a minute or two and leave me in peace.

Not so. Over half an hour passed of insistent pounding, and then I saw someone circling the house and shining a flashlight through the drawn curtains in my bedroom window. They circled the house, then began to hit the door again.

Here I should probably insert that my inside door to my bedroom still doesn’t have a knob or a lock on it, so if anyone gets through the front door, I have no protection.

Finally I got up, understanding that the person wasn’t going to go away. I was tired and it was pitch black in the house, but I didn’t want to draw any more attention by turning on a light. So I put my sneakers on in the dark, just in case, grabbed my knife, just in case, locked my drawer with all of my valuables in it, and shoved my phone into my bra with some money. Just in case. I then went to the window and yelled through it.

“Go away, I was sleeping, leave me alone,” I said, in kinda shitty Spanish. It was a drunk man on my doorstep, one I had never seen before.

“Let me in, I just want to sleep!” he yelled. “This is my house, I always sleep here. Don Victor (my landlord) knows this. I usually have a key. Let me in!”

“No!” I snapped. “Please, just go away and don’t bother me. I’m not opening this door.”

He kept arguing with me for a few more minutes, insisting that he often slept in my house and that I was being a bitch for not letting him in. He kept asking me, why not? At one point he asked if I were afraid, but I didn’t answer. I just finally shouted that I was leaving the window and the conversation was over.

Even though there was no noise after that, I was still so freaked out that I was shaking. I thought, what if he was telling the truth and that my landlord would just let this random man have a key to my house? I had visions of drunk man rounding up his friends and returning to my door. I didn’t sleep well all night, my leatherman clutched in my hand in case of any disturbance.

When I spoke to my landlord about this, he had no idea who the man was. He said that no one ever sleeps in this house except for a daughter and sometimes a young son. He said it could have been just a drunk or an attempted robbery. Or worse.

So here’s the moral of the story, what the Peace Corps will already tell you during training: Never open the door for anyone at night. Anyone. No matter what they say, no matter what their reasons. Do. Not. Open. Your. Door.

What could I have done differently? Called someone. Now I know that I can call my landlord no matter what time of night it is and he will come and chase off anyone bothering me. I can also contact my counterpart, who, if the situation is scary, can come here with or without the police. I should also have opened my conversation with the man by saying that either the landlord/police were on their way. That would have chased him off good. As it is, I just had a scary experience that left a bad taste in my mouth the entire next day.

The second incident came the next day. I was in Patate and had stayed too long at the internet café, and it was dark out. Because I was bringing some supplies to the local high school the next day, I had my huge hiking backpack on, marking me clearly as some kind of tourist. To get to the house where I stay, I have to walk to where the road ends and turns into this massive set of stairs that goes up quite a way, and isn’t well lit. I noticed a car slow as I entered the stair street, and then go away.

I am indeed paranoid, especially with a hugely noticeable giant bag on my back at night, and had my knife out and hidden in my sleeve. When I got to the top and started walking to the house, I noticed a car coming up. Luckily the house is right at the top of the stairs, and I opened the gates and stepped inside. As I was doing this, I noticed the car slow to a stop and idle by the side of the road, but as I got inside it sped off. All I could think was that someone had seen me walking up the stairs and driven around to intercept me, but I reached the house before anything could be done. Paranoid? Yes. Possible? Definitely. I made myself and attractive target that night.

Moral? Be inside at night, no matter how tranquilla your town is, and if not, have someone walk with you. You never know what might happen.

These are my stories, and while they are not terribly thrilling, they made an impression on me, and I hope I can make an impression on whoever is reading this. You don’t have to be as paranoid as me, but for God’s sake, take care. Be alert. The last thing you want is for your Peace Corps adventure to end with bad memories, a robbery, or worse.

Really the moral is, don’t be stupid. And carry a knife.

I have a house! And it’s a-freaking-dorable. Honestly, I love it. It’s a little casa de bono, meaning that it was built recently by the government (for the longest time I thought that it was called a casa de abono, meaning fertilizer… like a storage house where they would store the cow poo or something.) It’s not leaky, moldy, smelly, or cold, and has cement floors, a luxury.

It’s painted blue inside and has a little indoor bathroom with a shower, and the kitchen has a nice sink, the little fridge I bought, a plastic table donated by the Red Cross with a bright tablecloth, and gas burners where I can cook and use my campo oven. The campo oven, which is really just a big pot you put over the burners with empty tuna cans inside to rest your baking dish on, works fantastically, just like a real oven. I’ve already made little brownie-cookie things, carrot cake, and roast chicken. I hung my Otavalo hammock from the ceiling in place of a couch, and it’s nice to lie in during the evenings.

I have a comfy bed and a nice dresser in my room, an area to wash my clothes outside, and a stray dog that eats my scraps and wiggles happily whenever he sees me. Though he is not my dog, I’ve still taken the liberty and named him Tilney, continuing with my habit of using last names of Jane Austen characters for animals.

So, what else is new? I’m turning twenty three in eight days (as I write this Saturday night), on June 7th, and I’m going to Rio Bamba for the weekend to celebrate. Around other Americans! Though my time so far at my site has been great, I look forward to speaking some English and feeling, well, like a twenty three year old again. I miss that. After that, on the 10th, I’m going with my sort of adopted family in Patate to the big soccer match in Quito, Ecuador vs. Argentina. I’m thrilled. That was something I always regretted from Spain: that I didn’t get to see a big game in a country wild about soccer.

My work has been going well, though we’re still in the planning stages for many things. There are so many possibilities right now it will be exciting to see, in the end, which ones we actually end up doing. I’m starting the big organic garden with the local high school and also helping to plan an environment “open house” for June 5th at an elementary school in Patate. School lets out in about two weeks, though, so both of my projects will soon be put on hold.

I’ve started my CAT tools…barely. One interview so far, and hopefully more the week after next. The good news is that my community is so small that the interviews shouldn’t take long, not like people who live in towns or cities, who could have 100 families to talk to. I’ll have maybe around 20.

The Red Cross is thinking of starting projects to create large community organic gardens to help get some good food into the people around Patate, my community included. They are also thinking of treating the water to make it safer to drink, and implementing nutrition and alcoholism programs. There is a married couple (a gringa and an Ecuadorian) who live near here and might help me give charlas and possibly implement some form of garbage collection, so the people stop burning all their trash. And there is a pair of nuns who come to my village every Sunday to speak with the children, and I’m hoping that they will be interested in giving talks with me. And I haven’t even spoken yet to the local elementary school near my community, which will also be letting out for the summer soon. There are so many options right now, it’s a little hard to keep track of them all.

I joined a soccer team!...sort of. I don’t know how I ended up in it, but suddenly I was on the court and told to meet some women in my community the next day to travel to another town to play some “indoor”, aka soccer on a cement basketball court with a smaller ball. I sucked, naturally, and everyone laughed at the tall, awkward gringa playing futbol, but it was definitely an integration process. Hopefully I’ll play better this week.

I’ve been writing more lately. It feels good to get back to that part of myself after so long a break, to sink comfortably back into those worlds of my creation. I promised myself that I would finish up my online story first, for the people who have been sitting through it these three long years, but then I’ll finally be able to turn back to my baby, my book, and finish rewriting/revising it. I have a photocopy of the fantastic picture Nicky drew for me on the wall in my room, and I look at it whenever I’m feeling stressed. It feels so wonderfully ironic to be writing that story when I’m in the Peace Corps, like a clash of ideals. My beautiful characters, for all of their insanity, keep me sane.

I should probably stop now, this entry has been long enough. But I wanted to end by saying a huge thank you to Laurie, who left me a beautiful message at the end of my last post. I guess my reverse psychology worked, lol. Honestly, though, if you’re reading this, you made my day. I even read what you wrote out loud to my mom over Skype. I love to think that people are reading this and smiling, and that in some small way, my story is touching someone else out there.

I’ll write again after my birthday! V excited.

Love, Sarah

I have discovered the secret to being entertained when alone at your site, without internet access, TV, or friends. Sure you can read a book, but we PCV’s usually only have limited supplies of books, so if you read all the time, you would run out, and pretty quickly too (especially if you’re like Ecuador and have no volunteer library at headquarters because someone threw them all out, claiming they were taking up too much space.) All you need is a laptop (most of you have those, right?), and a flash drive.

What is the secret to hours of free reading pleasure? Fanfiction.

Yes, fanfiction. Probably all of you who are not giant nerds like myself don’t know what that is. Fanfiction is when someone takes a preexisting story, like a book or a movie or a television show, and expands on it, turning it into a sort of online book and posting it to a website. Yes, it’s nerdy, I know. I write it (and am pretty popular, too, in my chosen fandom), so of course I know. But think about it for when you are bored. Have a favorite book or tv show where you reallllyyyy wanted two characters to hook up but never did? I’m sure you’ll find many stories online about that, no matter how obscure the pairing. Favorite character died and you wish that hadn’t happened? Alternate realities where they live, happily or not so happily ever after, exist in droves. Really hate a character and want them to die? There’s that too. Or maybe your favorite series ended or your favorite book didn’t wrap things up the way you wanted, and you wished it could have gone on a little longer. Fanfiction!

Now I have to be responsible and warn you all: Most of what is out there is utter crap. Serious, steaming piles of poo. Just awful. And there’s porn, too. Lots of it. Oddly enough, there’s a thriving amount of gay porn in the Harry Potter sections. Good news is, you can often sort by rating, from K, which is good for all ages, all the way up to M, mature. On sites like fanfiction.net, the largest (and it is HUGE) listing of all the fanfiction you could ever want, you can even sort by character, pairing, length, and published date. It’s fun. And if you look, and sometimes it takes a little looking, you can find real gems. I have read fanfictions that far surpass most published books I have ever read, that made me laugh out loud and cry, sob actually, or gasp at my computer screen. Some talented authors can take the most trivial, stupid stories (like, children’s anime, or bad 80s movies) and somehow turn them into the most breathtaking works of near-genius. There are also smaller communities where stories are screened for quality before they are allowed to post, so no crap there.

So what do you do? Take a flash drive with you when you go to the internet café, go to fanfiction.net, and start looking up stories. When you find one that’s decently long and the first chapter looks pretty good (proper punctuation, people in character, not too much purple prose or Mary-Suing, though you probably don’t know what that is…) copy and paste the chapters onto Word. It takes only a few minutes. It took me years to figure out that if I highlighted the top of the story, then went to the bottom, held shift, and clicked on the end of the story, the whole thing would highlight for me. Pretty simple, but I’m kinda absentminded sometimes, and spent years highlighting and scrolling through ridiculously long chapters to copy it. This way is a lot faster.

With about fifteen minutes of copy-pasting onto a word document, you’ve got hours upon hours of reading pleasure, and there are more genres and more stories out there than you could ever read. It never runs out, and damn, is it fun. After a while you might want to stave off boredom by trying your hand at writing one. I tell you, there is nothing more fulfilling than posting a chapter and having loyal readers rejoice that you have returned after a six month absence (ahem, I’m not that frequent of a poster), or compliment you on your story, or even offer constructive criticism. It’s fun, and it’s a great stress reliever. I’m finishing up a chapter towards the end of a book-length story now, and am looking forward to posting once again.

So get to it!

I miss you, as I miss the little moments,

sipping tea on the couch with the TV on.

I see you, like the photos in my fingers,

as I´m standing here alone and the whole world feels wrong.

Yes, I still write songs. It´s a nice stress reliever.

I’m writing outside of the house I am staying at, my feet in the sun and a light breeze blowing by. Three cats in varying shades of white and grey, one pregnant (and hopefully I will get one of the kittens when it comes), sleep on top of each other in a heap at my feet. Flowers are in bloom all around me, the air smells sweet, and it is a bright blue sky day in the Sierra.

I’m writing this here, instead of at my village twenty minutes away, because after two solid weeks my house is still not finished. It was supposed to be finished when I got here, but it still has only some of its lights, no door, and is filled with various junk. Truth be told, it’s starting to piss me off just a bit. Luckily the family that I am staying with (the same I stayed with during my site visit) are amazing, feeding me good food and talking with me and just in general being awesome.

We are all fed up with my housing situation, and so on Saturday there will be a Red Cross minga at my house, to clean, install lights, and do whatever needs to be done. We might even put the damn door in. Then Saturday night I am supposed to meet with the town to explain who I am and why I am here; this was supposed to happen twice already, but both times no one showed. Let’s see if Saturday is any different.

With the notable exception of the no-house business, everything has been going surprisingly smoothly, and I have been very content and happy settling into my new life in Tungurahua. The weather is perfect, sunny and mild most days, much better than often-frigid Cayambe. Since I can’t work on my PACA and CAT tools due to the fact that my community is too far away/too expensive to commute to daily, I’ve been getting my other ducks in row. I’ve already been approached by several farmers with questions about going organic, and have seen some of their farms. I’ve met the (fantastic) Red Cross volunteers, a group of mostly young men and some women with whom I will be working for the next two years. We are already discussing plans for the future, including a possible youth camp for two weeks at the end of June, when school lets out.

I’ve also had meetings with a local agricultural high school and a local elementary school. At the moment the plan is to give a full day to the ag high school once every two weeks to work with the students and create a large example organic garden that will showcase all of the various techniques for the community to see (including different types of compost, both liquid and solid, different types of irrigation, companion planting, crop diversity, organic pesticides, tire-gardens, and more). At the escuela I’m all set to give my mornings one day a week to work with younger students on who knows what: hopefully nutrition and maybe a family garden of their own. I think that’s pretty good for my first two weeks, especially without a house and in the midst of buying everything I need for the house, including a fridge, a bed (donated by the Red Cross!), a dresser, and many cooking supplies.

Swearing in was fun, with the ceremony at the Ambassador’s mansion in the early morning, the chilly mist around us and planes roaring ahead every five minutes. That night was the big party, and earlier in the week we had gone to the old part of Quito for a pitifully short cultural trip. However, we did see the newly re-elected president of Ecuador, Correa, the day after the big elections, which was damn exciting. He drove slowly by, hanging out of the front window and waving. I hear that he even shouted to some of us (“Where are you from?” to which people enthusiastically yelled, “Estados Unidos!”), but I didn’t hear that part.

The sad news is that now five of our group are gone, some of their own free will, some wrenched away. At our hostel in Quito, I happened to room with two girls who left, one because she felt the work didn’t suit her, and one because of frustrating beaurocratic reasons. By the end of our stay in the hostel, I went from having two roommates to having none.

So here I am, a real volunteer, just starting off my two years with a little trepidation and a lot of optimism. I just feel so lucky, every day, to be in Ecuador. The people are amazing, the culture different and alternately trying and wonderful, the work intimidating but I think I can figure it all out; if not I have a back-up system of over 100 volunteers all throughout the country. I already feel like I’m getting somewhere—even if my community takes a long time to trust me, I still have my Red Cross work and my charlas at various schools to give. I realized the other day that at least once a day, at least a little and often much more, I have been happy here, and that’s really saying something. I am so blessed, it’s almost scary sometimes.

And Oh! I have an address now. It’s in Ambato, so I’ll probably only be able to check it once or twice a month, but please, anyone out there, even people I don’t know, if you want to send my letters, I will love you forever. Nothing beats the excitement of opening a mailbox to find letters/packages from friends and family far away.

The address is:

Sarah Evans

Casilla 18-01-175

Ambato, Tungurahua

Ecuador

South America

If you send a package, make sure that it is under four pounds, preferably in a padded envelop, and completely wrapped in clear tape to discourage thieves. Also never, ever declare a value. Thanks.

Another Oh! moment: My Gill, my best friend since we were six and practically my sister, is getting married sometime within the next two years, so that means I’m a’comin’ home twice! Lil’ extra money I’ll have to scrape up, but it will be worth it to see her walk down the aisle.

So that’s life in Tungurahua, Ecuador. I’d ask how everything is going in the US, but no one ever seems to answer my entreaties for comments and love, so I’ll just skip it this time. Or maybe I’m using reverse psychology…

Chaito!

I’m going to try and make this a quick post, as so much has been happening. The big events were MY SITE VISIT and THE TECH TRIP, two viages that could not have been more different.

My site is one of the more difficult ones. Ag got all of those; NRC has the tourism, working in caves and on the beach whalewatching kind of sites. Mine is a community way up on the side of a mountain of about 100 people, but about 60 of those people are children under the age of 12 or ancient people with no teeth. It’s small. There are no stores, no bakeries, no nothing. Just a collection of dirty, dirty houses and even dirtier children that go to the bathroom in the grass with the animals.

I can’t really get into it here but let’s just say that some stressful situations occurred during my trip, the upshot being that I may or may not have saved a kid’s leg, or his life. The may not is because later I found out that the hospital the mother was saying she couldn’t afford to take her extremely ill child to is actually free, and she knows it. She was just trying to get money off of me. Imagine how I feel right now about this being my site.

Truth be told, I don’t know how I feel. For a while after my site visit I was very depressed, and convinced I got one of the shittiest sites. But now I’m not so sure. I have a darling little house to live in (and not with a host family, thank god, just with my landlord’s daughter), and an amazing view in what I am convinced is one of the most beautiful places in the sierra. My counterpart, a doctor for the Red Cross, is fantastic. Patate, the city that I live near, is adorable. I’m close to Ambato, Rio Bamba, and not even too far from Puyo in the Oriente. And being that I’m the first volunteer and that the town is so terribly poor and uneducated, there is a lot I can do to help, as long as the people accept me and try to change. I already have a list an entire page long of possible projects. As Russ, the older man in our group who has been volunteering continuously for over twenty years, said: “You’re the one they will remember, the one they will forever compare all the future volunteers to.” So…we’ll see.

The tech trip, for those of you not in the know, is an eight day (it used to be longer) trip around Ecuador to learn technical information that you can use at your site. We spent the first three days in Puerto Quito, in the coastal jungle, swimming in a pool and a river, sleeping in bunk beds and hammocks, hacking with machetes in the jungle, playing soccer, having yoga lessons, dancing at night, and just generally having a blast. In between all of this we had classes during the day, where it was stifling hot and a million insects bit us.

After that we split into three groups, depending on where our sites were: Sierra, Coast, or Oriente. The Sierras went to Rio Bamba and SOME PEOPLE (The NRCers) got to hold baby llamas and sled down a snowy mountain. The aggies went to a farm and got to sit on top of a zebra cow. Seriously. Zebra Cow. Tell your friends.

Then we went to a small mountain town called Salinas, and if you ever feel like getting a piece of Ecuadorian culture without all the tourists and with amazing chocolate and cheeses, go there. They have a million micro-enterprises and we bought so much food and wool products it’s a little ridiculous. We also hiked to some amazing views and to a waterfall, where some brave people (not me) went swimming in the hypothermia-inducing waters.

Today was our last day of class and we spent half of it playing sports with special sport outfits the groups made (our’s was the coolest, naturally). Tomorrow is our last full day in Ayora/Cayambe, and then on Sunday we go to Quito for a few days before the massive swearing in ceremony on Wednesday. I’m so excited. Afterwards we’re going to a big club where we’ll have special handstamps and an entire floor for ourselves and other volunteers. I’m almost a real PCV!

Sunday we’re on lockdown, formally called standfast, and can’t leave the hotel because of the big presidential elections, just in case of any upset or protests. The elections are huge here, propaganda everywhere, and I should really take a picture of it before it all disappears.

Thursday is the day: Moving to my site, the tiny village where I will live for the next two years. And that’s where the adventure really begins.

On another note, please pray for the family and friends of Kate, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin who was recently killed. She is in the thoughts and prayers of all of the Peace Corps volunteers around the world. She is remembered, even by the people who didn't know her.

We are a world wide family in the Peace Corps, and we should never have to mourn the loss of one our own.

I don’t see any comments, dears. I’m disappointed in you. But I love you anyway.

It’s raining, again. In fact, it’s been more or less continuously raining these past few weeks. However, where MY SITE IS it’s not supposed to rain as much. Actually, the weather is supposed to be rather lovely, warmer in the day than it is here (it’s about 600 meters lower, at an elevation of around 2, 450 meters) and cool at night. PLUS I’m the nearest volunteer to Ecuador’s most active volcano, though I’m not allowed to go to Banos, the city right under the volcano, because of it. I’ll probably use that face mask once or twice, though, for the ash.

Ready? Alright. I’ll be spending the next two years of my life in the province of Tungurahua, in a disperse community of about 100 people that I can’t name but is about 45 minutes south of Ambato, a nice big city where I can buy anything I need. According to Lonely Planet, I should be able to see the active volcano Tungurahua from my town. I’m in the Sierra, people! No big ol’ spiders or malaria medication for me.

I’ll be working with the Red Cross to help teach about nutrition and family gardens. I’ll also be (hopefully) helping to create an irrigation system, working with organic fertilizers, and maybe raising small animals such as cuy or chickens. It’s exactly what I want to do, and while it’s scary to be the first ever volunteer at my site, it’s nice to know that I have the Red Cross to work with and give me some stability and supervision.

Overall, I’m extremely happy, but nervous. Tomorrow I leave for my site visit, and I’ll meet up with my counterpart, a doctor who works for the Red Cross. I hope that they take me seriously, youth and blonde hair and bad Spanish included. I hope that this all goes smoothly, and this site turns out to be the right one for me. I’m ten times happier here than I ever was in Spain, and I hope that things keep going as they are, and that everything falls into place.

The days this past week have been pretty chill, except for my computer getting a virus that was causing it to crash and me spending hours at an internet café trying to download antivirus software (as mine conveniently decided to stop working.) I think (think) that everything’s ok now.

Last weekend I went with my friend Gloria to an indigenous sun celebration of the equinox in Cayambe. It was really such a unique experience. We (the crowd) were cleansed by the shaman by having water blown over us, smoke wafted on us, and a rose dipped in water pressed to our foreheads, like a blessing. It was ancient and spiritual and honestly, the kind of tradition and belief system that I love because of its roots and because of its thankfulness to this earth. It calls to our ancestors who worshipped the earth and sun and sky, whether they were shamans in South America or druids in England and Scotland, where I am from. There is a feeling of connection to the past that is just beautiful.

Yesterday the Ag group went back to a farm that we had been to once before, to learn about small animals. We learned how to castrate a cuy (not as bad as you’d think, though the cuy sure wasn’t happy about it), and how to vaccinate baby chickens with drops in their eyes. There are several great pictures of us chasing half-grown chickens, grabbing them, and holding them up to get the eye drops. Those little birds can run, especially when they were all outside and it started to rain (and hail, big ol’ serious hail), and we had to grab them and chuck them into the coop, which they kept trying to escape from. I swear, it was like The Great Escape, chicken style, though not like that weird claymation movie.

At the end of the day, one of the other girls, a facilitator, and I stayed behind to get some fresh produce from him. We stayed for over an hour, talking, eating fresh picked strawberries and getting some amazing lettuce, carrots, beets and beet greens (mmm), elderberry flowers for tea, and more. In the end, despite the fact that his organic farm usual charges more than the average supermarket produce, he tried to give it to us for free. It was a great feeling, this hard working man who struggles to find clients and expand his farm, to do the right thing by growing completely organically, to offer us this as a gift, especially in a country where you are told repeatedly how people will rob you or will charge you a much higher price for goods because you are white. We of course forced money on him, and probably more than the food was worth, but it was our way of saying, thank you for your time and talking us and being so generous.

Alright, I’m running out of time, and I still have to talk to my mommy via skype, post all my photos, finish packing, help cook dinner (with my fresh veggies, to add some kind of vegetables into the diet of my host family), and go over everything I have to have/know for tomorrow. It’s going to be a busy week.

Love to you all,

Sarah

Here, have a photo! That's me in the brown and the hat on the left, hoeing away, at one of the farms we visited. I stole this photo off of Rosa's camera.

I’m writing this in my room, with the rain pounding overhead in a soothing rhythm. It’s been raining a lot lately, so hard that in class yesterday that the sound was too loud to hear anyone speak. I like the rain, but the bad news is I washed some of my clothing four days ago and it’s still wet. Sopping wet. I don’t know how on earth anything dries around here.

So so SO much has been going on, I don’t even know where to begin.

Oh! I finally ate cuy (guinea pig) last night. I have a great photo of it, cooked head and all, but it’s on my camera and I still don’t have the stuff I need to get the photos off of it. It’s really good! I enjoyed it, though it was weird to gnaw on something that still looked like an animal, paws and all.

Last weekend we went on a “cultural trip” to Cotacachi, the “leather making capital of the world.” It has some beautiful stuff for very cheap, but being a Peace Corps Trainee I don’t really need a gorgeous leather bag or high boots. But I did buy a scarf and a big leather bracelet with a sun on it. I know, not exciting to read about, but I’m excited about it. And awe man, some neat stuff happened but I can’t really write about it, so call me. I have a phone now! Ask, amigas, and I’ll give the number.

Note: Go to callingcards.com and you can call me for very cheap. Think about it. I can’t call any of you, my phone doesn’t make international calls, but I can receive them for free.

While in Cotacachi, we visited the site of a volunteer, and her house was nice. I mean Peace Corps-nice, obviously, not normal-nice. She said that it’s an unusually nice house, cement floor, sagging roof, and outside bathroom included. Her garden was beautiful, and it made me excited to start my own.

While in Cotacachi I had a sore throat, which continued into Sunday, but I decided to go on a hike to some mythical hot springs anyway with the people from two different towns. I say mythical because we never found them. It was still a fantastic day, hiking through forests, across a large stream (where I fell in, soaking my sneakers and pants), and up a mountain. I mean UP A MOUNTAIN. All together we walked six and a half hours, and three and a half of those were straight up. The whole time this scrappy little dog named Lassie followed right by our sides. I was dead by the time we stopped; I’ve never exercised that hard in my life. We started at a point where we were sweating in t-shirts, and after 3.5 hours were above the clouds, to a point where it was freezing cold and I was bundled up in my winter hat. When we were up there, past any road or path, just in wilderness, the ground dropped away so sharply right beyond where we were walking into the clouds of a valley. Don’t worry, we were safe; it was mostly the beautiful illusion of loneliness up there, only a few minutes walk from farmer’s fields. Eventually we gave up on finding the hot springs and went back down again. It was AWESOME, even as I was gasping pathetically for breath. I love the people in my group; they cheered me on every step of the way.

Needless to say, my sore throat turned into an irritating, but not too terrible, cold that is still lingering. The continuous rain and cold isn’t helping much, either, and for several days after the hike my legs were very unhappy when walking.

This week we went to Rosa’s (our facilitator) house to cook Ecuadorian food. Mmm, empanadas with cheese and crispy chifles, and more. Cooking is such a bonding experience, everyone helping everyone else; everyone crowded together working with the smells of food and the sound of Spanish music hanging in the air. It was pretty damn impressive, and we all ate our fill. I had even haggled with the woman selling the bananas, and brought her price down over a dollar. Hell no, I’m not paying the gringa price! My Spanish is worlds better than it was three weeks ago.

That day was Saint Patty’s day, and after cooking our delicious food we all made our way back to Cayambe to meet with other trainees for some green beer.

The day before, in the same town, we had inadvertently caught an annual parade that the local elementary school was putting on to celebrate the creation of the school. Tons of little kids in elaborate costumes dancing, with music blaring out of speakers roped to the back of pick-up trucks. It was a total immersion into the culture, and I felt very privileged to be able to see such a thing that usually only the people in this small town in Ecuador get to see.

On a final note: Yesterday we played a quick game of “rock, paper, scissors” to get everyone’s energy level up after a long day of sitting. It was played with the 45 of us, and everyone had to play with someone, and whoever lost, the other person became their “fan”, cheering them on. If they had fans, once you beat them, their fans became yours. In the end there were only two of us left, so I had over twenty people behind me chanting “Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!” as I battle rock-paper-scissors to the death. I lost, but it was surprisingly thrilling, and a great boost of energy.

I find out my site in four days. I’m so excited I can’t even express it. Next time I post, I’ll know where I’m going to spend the next two years of my life. It’s a wonderful thought.

Now I open it to you, friends and family: How are you? What are you all up to during my absence? Tell me! I’m serious about this. You read, you tell. That’s the deal.

Love, Sarah

More things happening!

-We have a garden! -----> That's me kneeling in the dirt. I stole the photo from Sarah's blog, as my camera still doesn't have the right parts...hopefully they will come in a week.

-When I was sick, my host mom rubbed an egg all over me and then had me spit on it three times. It's a shamanism thing, that the egg absorbs all of your bad energy. Apparently I got sick because I went to a graveyard on my first day and I was a stranger, so a bad spirit followed me home and made me sick. Sometimes they rub really sick people with a guinea pig and then kill it afterwards and rub its blood on the part of the body that hurts. You know, the wierd thing is, I did feel better afterwards, maybe it was the stimulation of the nerves.

-There have been two farm trips to learn about composting, the joys of shoveling manure, planting veggies, ect. At one, we watched a cuy(guinea pig) be killed...they crushed its little skull in, I couldn't watch. At the other we ate amazing lasagne and played with an adorable puppy.

- I went to the pool with my host family! It was at this beautiful place owned by my host dad's sister, with a nice pool, lots of mandarin, lemon, and lime trees, which we picked from, and a zip line high above the ground, which I rode. I almost got to ride a horse but they couldn't find the saddle. I'll post photos when I get my camera parts from home. We also drove by a huge lake and ate some strange fruit and fried bread.

-When we drive through the mountains, we are literally in the clouds sometimes. The ground just drops away beneath you. It's so, so beautiful. -I learned how to wash my clothes on a big flat slab outside with cold water, rubbing it into the stone. It's seriously hard work, and it took me two hours to do a few articles of clothing. I've already ripped a pair of PJ pants doing it.

-We've been working a lot in our classes, and in less than two weeks we find out our sites. So much has been going on that I can't even remember it offhand. I've been filling up my journal at an alarming rate. Tomorrow we go on another field trip, so there will be more to write about. Hasta luego!

Ready for the longest entry EVER?

I am writing this in my bed at my host family’s house, in my pajamas at 1:00 in the afternoon on Wednesday, a week after I arrived. As predicted, (and no one is less happy than me that this predication came true), I became horribly, disgustingly sick a few days ago, and haven’t left my bed since. Two days of missed classes when we already only have nine weeks…that’s what really brings me down.

But it’s nearly over now, and if it had to happen, at least it happened and is over with. Besides the days of vomiting, Ecuador has been amazing. I am honestly loving it here. I think I am a good fit for the Latin American mentality; they are very open, and generous with their affections, and I appreciate that, much more so than the “don’t look strangers in the eye or smile” mentality of PA.

Right now I am listening to the roosters crowing outside my window, and let me tell you, whoever said that roosters crow only in the morning was a horrible liar. They crow ALL DAY. Morning, afternoon, night, middle of the night. Earlier today I could hear the pigs squealing, not really so much a squeal but the twisted shriek of demented children. I’ve realized that I am slightly afraid of pigs, from their beady black eyes to their impressive size, horrible squeals, and the disturbing memory of Orwell’s “Animal Farm” popping into my head every time I see them. But I get ahead of myself. Let’s go back to the beginning.

The night I arrived in Quito it was lightly raining, warm and lush. On the bus ride to the hostel I sat with my head half out the open window in the rain, listening to the chatter of people around me, hardly able to believe that I am in Ecuador. I still can barely believe it.

Everyone is my group, Omnibus 101, is amazing. It’s a unique situation where you can look at a group of 45 people and there is not one person that you think is a jerk, or standoffish, or something disagreeable. But everyone seems very open and friendly, and just…good. Good people. The kind of people you would expect to join the Peace Corps, right?

When we arrived at the hostel there was a huge group of volunteers waiting, and they clapped and whooped and shook the bus, handing us roses as we disembarked, throwing flower petals into the air and singing some Peace Corps song that I have yet to learn. My rose had a strip of paper tied to it that said, “don’t worry, be happy!”

My days in Quito were fun: trying a different fruit juice every day, most of which I had never heard of (anyone who has been to Ecuador will tell you that tomate de arbol, aka tree tomato and not really a tomato, is the big thing here); drinking wine out of the box with the other trainees as we sat in the communal space of the hostel, a central villa-like area open to the stars, and played card games and laughed; going to Mitad el Mundo, the center of the earth, and standing on the equator line, the real equator line (as opposed to the fake one that everyone had been going to for years.) At Mitad el Mundo we also tried all of this fruit that I had never heard of, most with seedy, pulpy insides that were either sour or sweet like candy, and included a lemon that was the size of my head.

My community is about one hour as the bird flies from Quito, but driving time is actually more like two. I’m lucky in that it’s the community where everyone meets for technical training (which I haven’t been to yet because of being ill), so I don’t have to travel two days a week like many people do. Some have to ride on a bus for forty minutes each way! I don’t know if I am allowed to say the name of my community; in fact as of this moment I still have to clear this journal before I can post this entry, but it’s near Cayambe. In fact, during my first two days here I went to Cayambe three times with my host family.

My experience in my community began with a funeral. My host mother’s brother had just died, so I was dropped off at the house and had about five minutes before I was whisked away to the church for the tail end of the ceremony; then to the cemetery, where my host mother cried and I awkwardly patted her back, feeling far too tall and white to be standing with this community during their time of mourning; then to a communal area where I helped pass out soup and later plates of food that everyone ate with their hands. I did too, without even washing them first! (gasp!) I’m changing already. I must have looked so strange, this tall blonde gringa passing out food to over a hundred people after a funeral.

Honestly, I stick out like a sore thumb. Everyone here is beautiful, most of the time shorter than I am by about a head, slim with beautiful dark mestizo skin, black hair, and a certain proud, ancient curve to their faces. There are many indigenous in the community too, who wear their calf length skirts with knee socks, flat shoes, shining jewelry and small hats with a feather sticking out of the top. Sometimes there is a baby strapped with a loop of material around their backs, and their hair is long, often braided. They have the strong noses of royalty.

My host family is wonderful. It is a mother and a father and a two-year-old son who can say only Mami, Papi, agua, and moooo (to the skinny cows that linger on the sides of the streets along with the stray dogs). My host mom is amazing, taking care of me when I was sick, even spoon feeding me soup when I could barely eat, and being wonderful even when I accidentally dropped and broke a cup in a half-delirious stupor.

Across a small park lives the rest of the family, where they spend half of their time: grandparents, nieces and nephews, and more. I’m not sure how many actually live in that house or just spend a lot of time there. The grandmother (and pretty much everyone else) keeps trying to push food on me, saying that I need to be más gordita. Putting on weight is a good thing here, it means that you are comfortable and happy, but I still don’t want the “Peace Corps 20” to happen to me. I’m just pleased that they don’t already think that I am gorda.

There are two little girls, one ten and one five, who are just adorable. The ten year old is pretty shy and doesn’t say much, but the five year old prances around me like I am her favorite toy and constantly wants to play a game where I pretend that I can’t find her even though she is standing right behind me. No one in the family speaks any English. I get along, barely, though I’m realizing that my Spanish is a lot worse than I thought it was.

The family works regular jobs but also has a business that makes cheese, yogurt, and raises pigs for slaughter. On my first night here we went to feed the pigs…damn those beady black eyes! They looked like they would eat me if they could.

My host family also has a truck, which not everyone has, so quite often they pile far more people into it than were ever meant to fit and drive them somewhere: across town, or to Cayambe. There is such a sense of community here, everyone helping everyone else, whole families walking with their arms around each other, young lovers embracing openly in the supermarket, children everywhere, more kids than I have ever seen.

And I didn’t even mention how high we are! I’ve never been to such a high elevation. My first night in Quito I could barely sleep due to a strange pressure in my sinuses that felt like it was trying to pop my eyes out of my head, and even now I feel exhausted after walking just a little uphill. I try to breathe in deep but I still don’t feel like I’m getting enough oxygen. We are high enough that even on the equator I sleep sometimes with long underwear under pajama pants, and two sweaters. During the day the temperature can change from hot to pretty damn freezing depending on whether or not the sun is out. I’ve been loading up on sun block like a crazy person, even on cloudy days, the result being that after a full day out I was one of the only ones in the group not burned.

The Cayambe volcano rises over the town, only visible from certain areas, huge and covered with snow; my mouth literally dropped when I first saw it. Despite being high in the mountains, we are still surrounded by more mountains on every side, and the light in the afternoon is different here, whiter and more shining, and to borrow a phrase from Lost, like it scatters differently. The sky seems close enough to touch; at times this is almost disconcerting, like you’ve stepping into one of those paintings of God opening up the heavens.

Aw, I just tried to be serious about it, but after writing those words all I can see is that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. “Stop groveling!” “Yes, my Lord.”

I’ve been writing for an hour. It’s easy to write embarrassingly long entries when you are sick and can’t sleep. If you’ve gotten this far, congratulations.

So I guess it’s time to say goodbye for now. I still feel pretty sick, but at least I don’t feel like I am going to vomit again. I don’t know what else I will do today; probably sleep, maybe watch some more Battlestar Galactica on my laptop. (I’ve turned into one of those people who says Frak! all the time, though only when I’m alone.)

I’ve only been in Ecuador for one week and already it’s had this much influence on me. I’m feeling the beginning of a love affair with this country. I can’t wait to have classes, find out my final site, swear in as a real volunteer, and start farming. I hope that this feeling I have about the next two years is right. I pray that it is.

I miss you all, my wonderful family and friends. I appreciate you more than ever. You are my happiness, and damned if I don’t love you with every fiber of my being. Being far away doesn’t change that; nothing ever will.

-Wednesday, March 4, 2009.

This won´t be a long post, as I apparently need to clear this journal with the head honcho before posting too much more, but I wanted to write and say that I am in Ecuador safe and sound, everyone in my Omnibus is fantastic so far, and I´ve just been having a great time.

I´ll post more when I´m sure that I´m not breaking a rule by doing so.

Love to my stinkbutt sister and mom and dad. When I get my cell phone, you´ll be able to call me from skype on it. It´ll be free for me (not like American cell phone plans), and only 2 cents a minute for you. All right!

Dinner is soon, and mom isn´t answering her skype, so there´s not much need to be on the internet. Talk to you soon!

I'm in Baltimore now, sitting on my sister's bed while her two great dobermans roam around me, and I thought I would finally post my initial address for those of you who have been bugging me for it.

Until I have a permanent site, my address is the Peace Corps Ecuador's post office box at:

My name, PCT

Cuerpo de Paz

Casilla 17-08-8624

Quito, Ecuador

South America

No packages! Nothing over 4 pounds! Letters I will always welcome.

See you on the equator!

Tonight is my last night at home. We spent the day packing, cramming my mountains of stuff into two bags, then taking it all out in a fruitless search for a bikini top, and cramming it all in again. Somehow, despite the fact that I've pared down my items as much as I possibly can, it's still barely fitting. Oh, it'll fit, but it's fighting for freedom every moment in the bag.

I am under the weight limit, though, and most of weight/extra crap is...books. Too many books, but I refuse to leave any of them at home. I even went out and bought two more (an autobiography of a US spy in the middle east, and a Doctor Who novelization because I am a nerd) to add to my Catcher in the Rye, Geography of Bliss, Short History of Nearly Everything (best book in the universe), Cosmos, I Know How the Caged Bird Sings, All Things Bright and Beautiful, two handmade (not by me) journals, a knitting manual, a book on how to play the guitar, and one or two others I can't remember. Then there's also all of the notes and notebooks full of information on my book, and my Mr. Winkle calender.

Right now I'm sitting at the table in the kitchen, with my mom pulling the juice from the big fat juicy amazing turkey that the centerpiece of my final meal. We're having mashed potatoes and gravy, butternut squash, rutabaga, fresh green beans, oh dear I'm so hungry now. A tivoed Sunday morning is playing on the television, my dog is lying curled up on the floor, the fire is going and the cold February wind is blowing outside. The sky is muted shades of blue, purple, and orange, and clumps of today's show shower cling to the ground.

My mom just came up and gave me a kiss with a tear in her eye. We've all been fighting tears(not all of us successfully) for days now. Especially today. I've been pretty good so far, but I nearly lost it when my brother called to say I love you, and I stood with my parents thinking how lucky and blessed I am to have such an amazing, wonderful, unsurpassable family.

And that is what I will miss. Not the things, the showers, the tv shows, the luxuries, though I will have many moments where I'll wish I had those. It's snuggling with my mom on the couch; fighting with my sister for who gets to nap on the dog bed in front of the fire; sitting outside in the summertime with the flowers blooming and watching the three dogs tussling in the grass, my mom sipping her wine cooler demurely; going for long, slow drives with my dad; dancing crazy with my mom in the kitchen; making up dog songs; playing cards; warm hugs; the overflowing rush I love I get when I set foot in this house. We are not a perfect family, but damn do we love, and I wouldn't have us any other way. I will miss miss MISS this place.

Even so, I'm so excited about leaving for Baltimore tomorrow, and then to DC, and then to Quito, and Cayambe. I'm been stagnant for too long, my head to too buzzy with unrealized ambitions, and I need to move on, travel and learn and have adventures and put myself out there. I can't wait to get going, to start doing something meaningful with my time, to really live again. I want my life to be enough so that, when I lay dying old in my bed, I can close my eyes and think, yeah, I lived. Not just existed, but really lived. I had a purpose.

That is what the Peace Corps is for me, right now: A meaning to be. A step to the future. A time in my life when I can someday think, those are the years that started it all.

My next post will be from Ecuador! I love you all.