Is that your fanny pack or are you happy to see me?

Muahaha, shout out to all the Ecuas still rockin´ their fanny packs like it´s 1985!

Ese is going strong and I´m starting to make a little space for myself here. It´s only taken me a month, pfft! After my little fritz last week, I´ve changed my mentality to that of a Peace Corps volunteer, and now I am doing most excellently. Of course work is going to get cancelled, but unofficial work is even more fun! My Spanish has hit a plateau, so get that book out and start studying! Efrén is not going to stop bugging you about English until he learns it, so buy a book and lessons are at 5p sharp! (or after lunch if it´s better, 6?, how about at breakfast, you just let me know).

My counterpart is excited about ideas I´ve got and we´re finally going for them. We had a big meeting for the parents yesterday at 3p. 7 out of 59 parents showed up at 4 o´clock on the dot. We gossipped and discussed all the different kids, then finally got down to business. For Christmas, INNFA distributes gifts and candies, but do they want to have a party? And Sat, Oct. 20 we´re going to take the kids to the river. If you give them permission, we´ll get all the details. Ha! OMG, we had a whole meeting with no details or anything. It was just an interest poll. The only thing certain was that the volunteer from the states wants to teach your kids about sexuality and self esteem, would a group on Saturdays be OK? Everyone nodded their heads warily. At least Maria Jose´s mom was excited.

We visited schools last week and there is tons of opportunity everywhere. It´s too much really, and there´s no time! Well, there is time, it´s just not utilized properly and I´ve yet to grasp how to do it here. At Maria Jose´s school they sell the grossest snack foods to the kids. Empanadas, chifles w/ cheese, ice cream, chips, even corviche!!! (Corviche is this amazingly delicious fried concoction. It´s masa made with verde (unripened plantain) and filled with tuna and peanut sauce. But I´m talking DEEP FRIED, and only for very special occasions. NOT something you give to kids every day!) Just think, parents give their kids $.25 a day to eat junk food. In a week that would be $1.25! A month, $5.00! 5% of their monthly income goes to crap that does nothing for their already malnourished kids. Ah! At the same time, if you could convince schools to not let the vendors in, to have healthy snack bars, or for the parents to send their kids with snacks from home, you´d put so many people out of work! One of our moms sells ice cream at a school, another sells obos on the street. Vicious, vicious cycle you are poverty.

At another school, the kids throw their trash everywhere...except for the garbage cans that are abundant on the campus? When we went at recess there was not a teacher in sight. The kids were all ganged up, some playing little made up games, others trying to start fights, others already recovering from fights. It´s a school that takes kids from one of the rougher areas of town. The bell rang and all the teachers came in from outside, like they had gone to take their own recess! Shit, even the teachers do not want to be with these kids!

It´s all so overwhelming, which sent me into the opposite direction of depression. At first there was no work, now I realize there is just so much work and I´m only one little very underqualified person. Head up! We are not here to change the world. We are here so that Maria Jose´s little sister will come to after school tutoring just because she thinks it´s fun. We´re here so that Gilson, out of nowhere, will actually sit down and read a whole paragraph on a day when we were supposed to cancel class! We are here to answer the million, billion questions that people have about the U.S. We are here with the priviledge of sharing languages. We´re here to ride dirty public buses, eat great food, meet wonderful peoples, and go dancing! It´s all so exciting.

(I say "we" because I´m really depending on you my family and friends. So consider yourselves here with me.)

Social life has been picking up and so I feel connected here too, finally. Things with Efrén and Fernanda are pretty wonderful. We´ve had some really rough spots, but things have been worked out. We all understand each other´s limits and needs. Fernanda has been letting me in the kitchen lately, and that just makes me feel so normal. I made tuna Grandma Ann style the other day and shocked them. Tuna with mayo, apples, and hardboiled egg? Then yesterday I made like 2 lbs of hummus! (I just got so excited!) Nobody understood what I was doing, or how it was going to turn out edible. We made veggie chicken hummus wraps and they gobbled it all up. I´ve never seen Efrén eat so many raw veggies before, maybe he hasn´t. We had some tortillas still left over, so I made ghetto buñuelos. They gobbled those too. I sent tupperwares of hummus to some other volunteers. The kitchen makes me happy.

The gym makes me happy too. Rachel, another PCV, goes too and is teaching me some bikhram yoga techniques. It really is like a sauna in that gym, it´s so hot and humid here. The instructor and his big friend are pretty cute, they make it fun. We went out last night for the first time. Jessi, Rachel, me, and Reggaeton boy with his cousin and friends. Turns out the gym instructors are also bouncers at club Climax! ...so we got in for free. We danced the night away- salsa, reggaeton, trance, hip-hop. My boss, Nelson, was actually there celebrating his 15yrs with INNFA. He was still in his suit and tie from the ceremony we went to that morning! A really cute guy asked me to dance. I said yes because after the first time I said no he looked at me with this pleading face and held out his hand so nicely. Most guys wouldn´t have even asked, they would have just grabbed. Turns out he´s an Ecuadorian marine from Guayaquil, stationed in Ese until next week and they had their first free night out in months. We tried to dance bachata, but neither of us knew how! That´s when I knew he was a nice guy. Who asks someone to dance and doesn´t really know how? Pfft! He said he thought I was from Quito, and so he assumed that I would know how to dance. I´ve been getting that a lot lately: people think I´m from the sierra on vacation, then the states on vacation..."oh, you´re living here and you´re mexican?" That´s how we usually end up.

But yesterday, Peter, FANNY PACK GUY! actually said, " you´re mexican? you are chicana! raza man!" And even though he was babbling nonsense and drunk off his a*, I got so excited that someone recognized chicanismo here. I held up my fist and said "raza!" in the middle of the street.

The people next to me in the internet cafe are making out. So I´m going to end here folks.

Happy happy happy, no worries, God is good. Love!

p.s. to my best friend lauren in senegal (because I recognize that Africa is NOT one country), I explained to Jessi how it´s more fun to make up names for people secretly, and she has agreed! Hence, reggaeton boy (Jair), fanny pack guy (Peter)...I miss you!