Check it out, I´m blogging!

Per requests (from RobHuesca and Griffin), I´ve started a blog!
It takes me lots of time, and $$$, so I´ll only update it once in awhile, but better than you all wondering if I´m alive or not.

First, I would like to say that I miss you all dearly and I heart you!
Second, I heart Peace Corps Ecuador!!! This is the most fantastic place on earth and I thank God I decided to do this. For the time being I´m living in Tabacundo, pop. 25,000, about 2 hrs outside of Quito. It´s really cold here (I sleep with 4 blankets and a sweatshirt) even though it´s ¨summer¨, and we are surrounded by rose plantations. Most of my family works in the rose ¨fincas¨, either in the office or making food for the workers. My sister Cumanda cooks for 220 people daily, breakfast and lunch! Mami Diose runs a clean house, granted there are 13 people in it. Well, really there are 2 in the apartment in front, 4 in the house in back, and then 7 in my part of the house. But she washes the clothes and cooks for everyone. I usually wake up around 6am when the sun hits my window and chickens start, eat breakfast (usually rice and an egg, sometimes fish or spaghetti), and head off to work. Lunches here are MASSIVE, dinner is light.

I did eat the guinea pig 2 days ago. Here they call it ¨cuy¨, because that´s the sound they make! It was awful and when my host mom asked me if I´d eat it again I said, ¨jamás¨. It was actually pretty rude of me, but I had to put my foot down somewhere.

Tabacundo is famous for the Fiestas of San Pedro, which my family dressed me up for. The people wander through the streets dancing and singing to San Pedrinos, beautiful songs of confused lovers. The kids light fires in the streets to open the gates of heaven. They throw in offerings for San Pedro- everything from chocolate to old banana boxes. :)
Peace Corps training is pretty intense. We have a lot of tech training to prepare us for the various charlas we´ll be giving in our communities (HIV/AIDS, leadership, parenting, etc.), how to enter our communities, and how to be an effective development volunteer. They really emphasize bottom-up development, and so I´m absolutely in love with our program.
¨Nothing we have done matters if it is not SUSTAINABLE!¨

I recently got my site assignment and I am sooo excited!
For the next 2 years I´ll be living in Esmeraldas and working with INNFA, Instituto Nacional del Niño y la Familia. My barrio, San Martin de Porres Alto, is on a huge hill right outside of the centro. The population in Esmeraldas is predominantly Afroecuatorian, and the people are poor. Most of my familes live in wooden shacks with tin roofs. The chickens, ducks, and dogs come and go throughout the house which usually consists of a kitchen area and a sleeping area. INNFA provides scholarships for kids to go to school, after-school tutoring, and other supportive services. Many of the kids don´t go to school because they can´t even afford a notebook; others, because they have to work to supplement family income. I´ll be working with Gira, an INNFA promoter, to keep up with families, provide charlas for the kids, help with tutoring, and hopefully start some community banks and youth groups. Work is completely undefined in the Peace Corps which means... OPPORTUNITY for EVERYTHING!

Esmeraldas has a reputation for being one of Ecuador´s most dangerous cities; but I would like to also add that it is fantastically vibrant, absolutely lovely, and full of personality. For breakfast, the traditional dish is encebollado, a fish and red onion soup. People usually eat it with crushed up chifles, or fried bananas. My family is Esmeraldas, which we affectionately call ¨Ese¨ (eh-zee), is really different from Tabacundo. I live with a young couple, Efrén, 41, and Fernanda, 26. They have tons of friends and family, so I feel like my network will grow rapidly. I´m living with them because Efrén´s son, Gorky, 22, is my co-worker at INNFA. I went to visit them last week and we had a blast! We ran all over the city, ate every traditional dish they could think of, partied on the beach, attended a traditional running of the bulls, and mostly sat around on the balcony. Needless to say, between working with INNFA and living on the coast, I think I´m going to love the Peace Corps lifestyle.

WORK HARD, PLAY HARD