Week 2 as a PCV begins

Monday August 30, 2010

Today, I received a call at 8:50 am informing me that the 9am meeting has been rescheduled for tomorrow. This means I have nothing to do all day.
I spent the first part of the day reading the past Baños volunteer’s final report and playing guitar. Then I had spinach and potato soup with Isabel, Pablo and Rosa. After lunch, I felt the need to get out and about. I packed water, my rain coat, my camera and just started walking up the road headed west. I did not have any destination in mind; I like these kinds of walks.
I came to a fork in the road where my “uncle” has a little tienda (shop). When I go with Isabel to gather food for the cuys and get chased by roosters we go to the left past the cemetery. So I figured why not go to the right?
I encountered many dogs just hanging about. The majority of them ignored me, some came up for a sniff and the rest kept their distance and barked.
After about an hour of walking, I came across a man, a wheelbarrow and a dog. He was gardening in a little patch just off to the side of the road. He looked up and was very surprised to see me. I got the feeling white people do not frequent this dirt road often.
We exchanged hellos and he asked me where it was I was walking to. I told him with a smile and a shrug, “I don’t know, just exploring.” He smiled back, waved me on and said enjoy.
The dog never even lifted his head from under the cool shade of the wheelbarrow. Apparently he sees gringos all the time.
When my shadow became long and my legs weary, I decided to head back home. Arrived home some time later, relaxed for a bit before dinner. Rice and chicken! Love it! I am really happy I enjoy rice, or meal time would not be as enjoyable.
After dinner I put on a nice shirt and headed to mass with Pablo and Isabel. I had to make up for skipping out on Sunday I guess. Plus, the church looks really pretty at night.









Credit cards

I have yet to see someone use one, or even a device to swipe them at a store. People here only buy what they can pay for at the time. The only other real option is to get a loan, which from what I understand is not the easiest of things to do.
Looking back I realized I used my credit card for just about everything. But if you were to ask me why I had it I would probably say something like “oh it is for emergencies.”
Building credit is a good thing. But the power we yield in those desirable pieces of plastic also allow us to purchase stuff we do not really need and put us into debt.
I know this sounds a bit preachy, I just want to you, the reader, to try something.
I want you to go a week (or two) without using your credit card. Go to the grocery store with a set amount of cash. Things like that.

Do your purchasing habits change?

Since I have stopped using a credit card, mine have.

Timing Is Everything

Sunday, August 22

I spent today giving speeches introducing myself at three separate mass services. 7am, 11am and 4pm. The mass services were surprisingly short, only 50 minutes give or take. However there was not a seat to be found in the church. There were anywhere between 200 and 300 people in each mass. This was a great opportunity to explain why this gringo was going to be wandering around town trying to teach with bad Spanish for the next 2 years.
Monday
I put on my nice clothes and headed out to the Junta Parochial. The Padre is on vacation the next two weeks and will only be around on the weekends, so I feel a little lost. This is the best place to go, I assume, if I need some work.
I thought right. The president whom I met on my previous visit was very excited to share her plans. She said there is a lot of work to be done. Which is good, I would rather have tons of work than none.
Conversation translated roughly:

“We just taught a customer service class to the local hotel, hostel, restaurant and tienda owners. Can you design a marketing class to teach them?”

“Yeah, I can come up with an outline. How many classes?” I asked, my first mistake.

“Can you design a yearlong plan by Wednesday?”

Eager to please, I smiled and said “si.”

I left the office trying not to kick myself thinking “you dumbass. You know you can’t do that.” After a little internal debate I decided the following points of action. One, I don’t technically work for anyone, I volunteer.
I drew up a plan that came out to 11 classes, about 2 hours each. This could be spread out over a three month period. We will see how it goes. Maybe they will like it, maybe they will not. Or perhaps they would rather learn something else or just say to hell with this gringo.
Tuesday
I did some more work on the Marketing outline. I also read up on the Community Assessment Tools we are supposed to do in the next few months. Still not sure what to do about those, on the back burner they have been placed.
After lunch I decided to venture further up the road into the more rural part of Baños. Not 30 meters out the front door I ran into Isabel (my new host mother). She was about to head up the same way I was headed to buy some herbs. So I thought.
The dirt road is uphill the whole way (like the Manayunk wall but worse). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manayunk,_Philadelphia,_Pennsylvania#Manayunk_Wall_.28Landmark.29 Then we came to a small little town center that looked straight out of an old Wild West film. Big circular dirt patch surrounded by some buildings in a shambles, others not, and a little run down chapel. We continued past the little center then suddenly veered off this little cow path between gardens. We followed the winding path till we hit this patch of what I thought was weeds.
Isabel whipped out her pocket sickle and started hacking the grass and pilling it up. Now I am confused.

“What is that for and what is it?”

“It is kind of like lemon grass. It is for the cuy that we have that I showed you.”

I guess my puzzled expression said what I wanted to say.

“Oh I didn’t show you? Yeah, we have 70 cuy in a house outback of the house, my uncle has 200.”

Huh, yeah, did not know that. She would not let me use the sickle. I guess she figured I would use it as badly as my Spanish and only cause more work. So curiosity got the better of me and I started wondering around the property (her brothers).
As I turned the corner of some kind of building in the middle of the field I scared the hell out of a very large turkey and myself. Oh crap that is no turkey! It was the Godzilla of roosters. This thing was a good two and half to three feet tall of pissed off rooster. So what did I do? I ran. What did it do? It chased me for a good 20 feet.
Isabel thought this was hilarious. There are three official goals of the Peace Corps. We joke that the 4th unofficial goal is to be a source of entertainment to the community. Yeah, check that one off the list.
After that comic relief, we bundled up the grass stuff and walked to the road. I was not looking forward to carrying this the whole way back. But once we hit the road, she dropped her bundle and sat on it. She informed me that would catch a camioneta (truck taxi) back to her house.

Song for today: Sic ‘em On a Chicken http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E4MAqttvgM

Wednesday August 25, 2010

I got to the Junta around 9am for my meeting (mistake number 2, not scheduling a time). So, I chatted with the secretary and found out the President was not in yet. She called every number she had to reach her, nada. Ok, I will stick around for awhile. Two hours later I called it. I will just email her the stuff and ask her a date and time to discuss the class. Lesson learned.
So now what to do with my free time today? Read, write, play guitar and learn some blues??? Sounds like a good plan.

¡Hasta luego!

It is official.

August 18th,
Today is the big day! Weeks upon weeks of language training, health lessons and power points and we are finally ready! I had grown out my beard for the occasion and last night trimmed it up to look spiffy for the occasion. The last Omnibus (group) that came through, most of the guys had crazy civil war style beards. So I was simply keeping up the tradition.
The swearing in ceremony was at the lovely house of the US Ambassador. There were heartfelt speeches given by the US Ambassador Heather Hodges, PC Ecuador Country Director, staff and some people from my group. After which we all took the following oath.
“I, Tristan Schreck, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
Now we are officially Peace Corps. Volunteers! And we were in for a very special treat, apart from meeting the US Ambassador.
Bagels and cream cheese!
After which we all went back to our hostels, changed and headed out to the bbq at the PC headquarters. This was organized on by the VAC which is essentially volunteer government. They act as a liaison between the volunteers and the PC staff.
We also played some football and frisbee.

After all that we went back to the hostal and then to the supermarket to get sandwhich materials for dinner. Then we went to the the health group's hostal for a yet another party.

August 19th,

Woke up shivering and a fever of 102, probably the same number as bathroom visits I had throughout the day too. What a great day one of my official Peace Corps. volunteer career. Shit happens. Luckily I had two important things going for me that day. One, was my purchase of the entire first season of the TV show NCIS for $9. Second were my friends I have made in the Peace Corps. Everyone was quick to ask if I needed anything.
After a whole day of trying to feel better I finally got my fever down and was as ready as I could be to haul all my luggage for a 10 hour bus ride to Cuenca. I sipped Pepto Bismol like a cocktail the whole ride there.

August 20th, 2010
Arrived in Cuenca. Sprinted to first restaurant in search of decent porcelain. Hopped in a cab to Baños. Argued with cab driver about the gringo price. Called host brothers. Moved stuff upstairs. Passed out for 2 hours. Woke up. Unpacked my life. Caught up on e-mails. Ate bread and hot chocolate. More e-mails and skype. Tired. Bed.


Budget breakdown
Living allowance (food, clothing, transportation etc): $347/month
Rent money: $60/month
Roughly $11.50 per day to live off of. So I could buy a Starbuck’s coffee and a Big Mac meal per day on this budget if I lived in Philly. And I doubt that even in the worst of neighborhoods could I find rent this inexpensive. The dollar, for the most part goes a lot further here than back in its country of origin.

Average costs in my town:
Bus rides to Cuenca .25, bus ride to Quito $10, guinea pig dinner $7, bottle of water .30, cocacola .50 for a glass bottle, haircut $1-2, more prices to come.

Things I need to purchase:
Nice clothes for when I work with the Padre and the local government. AC/DC T-shirts and Phillies t-shirts aren’t work appropriate. Pants cost around $15 and nice shirts are the same. So my budget gets that much smaller for this month, and I am sure there are unforeseen costs in future months.
I also need a mirror for my bathroom because shaving by using my computer’s camera is less than ideal.


Me getting my diploma

Health and HIV group

Youth and Families

A view

Chapter 7: in which the author learns to teach sex education and survive illness

Sunday August 1 through Saturday August 7th, 2010

This was our Tech Trip week. We were split into groups of 8 trainees, based on our program. My program is Youth Entrepreneurship. We were also accompanied by three staff members and a third year PC volunteer. Our mission was to visit other volunteers and give charlas (classes, basically) on requested topics such as sex education and self esteem etc. We were provided with manuals that outlined the charlas for us, thank god.
Our travel itinerary consisted of Guayaquil, Salinas and Playas (google them, you will be jealous). Now first things first, food. If you are like me and love to eat good sea food then the coast of Ecuador is the place to visit. It has some kick butt sea food, especially the shrimp.

Ok, now on to the charlas. I gave, or tried to give a nutrition charla to a group of 8 kids around the age of 7. Holy crap, I felt I was the butt end of a joke. It didn’t go so well, in other words. Perhaps it was my bad explanation or my shitty drawing that through them off, who knows.
The basic idea of the charla was to have the kids draw a picture of what they think a healthy person should look like and draw what they should eat.
However one of my group members saved the day with a fantastic never ending game of duck duck goose. Phew!
I have a lot more respect for teachers now. But our work week had only just begun. Next was the sex ed charlas.

We were split into groups of three or two for these. It was interesting trying to control a class room of 30 or so teenagers and talk about sex. When we were able to we had some good answers from kids. Some of the answers were surprising. Especially when the sex ed teacher sitting in on our class interjected to say that masturbation does cause mental damage. Talk about a curve ball. We all stood there unsure whether to try and argue or just shut up and move on. We chose the “just shut up and move on” option. Our Spanish is not good enough yet to argue.
Later that day I was rewarded with a very nice treat. I got to touch the Pacific Ocean for the first time in my life.
The week went on rather quickly. We all got better at giving charlas. I even had pretty good success with the nutrition charla at one school where the kids were angels.
Saturday when we got back, I decided I should take my boots out to a rodeo. Sure enough I fit right in and before I knew I was dancing the night away in the streets for yet another Juan Montalvo celebration.

Monday the 9th of August,

This is the last week I will be living with my Cayambe host family. I must say I am kind of upset to be moving out. They have accepted me as part of their family from the first day and have showed me a lot of love. I am going to miss El Capitan crowing at all hours and our brand new guinea pig babies too!

Tuesday August 10th

Today was a battle. I woke up with a sickness I now call WhichEnd sickness. I woke up feeling like someone dragged me down a flight of stairs and then kicked me in the head. To top it off I was given a charming case of nausea, diarrhea, vomiting and a fever.
WhichEnd comes from when I would run to the bathroom and I wouldn’t know which end of my body to shove in our seat-less toilet. Today, America, I missed you greatly.
Luckily my family (my host mother mainly) was there to rescue her pet gringo. I was only allowed to consume water and some kind of local hot tea remedy that tasted horrible. Around 8pm, after a 12 hour fight, I had finally started to feel a bit better.

Took a chance and ate a bowl of rice. I was starving.

Wednesday, D-day plus one

Much better today!

Side note: I got my boots and they are fantastic! However I keep forgetting to take pictures. Please be patient with the author.