My first Ligo Game

2.17.11

We started today off with Medical Policies & Procedures, fun stuff, ha. The rest of the morning we had Tech Training. Topic: Environmental Education-Basic concepts and Resources for PCVs. Nothing that exciting. Then we spent the rest of the day on our first class of “Community Banks.” A community bank is where people in a community can make money without having to rely on outside resources. For example: This community bank consists of 30 community members. As a whole group they make rules (you must pay back a loan in 60 days or after missing 2 meeting you have to pay an extra $1) and appoint exec positions. The community bank group of 30 people meets once a week. At every meeting everyone has to pay $1. As money builds up people who participate in the community bank can take loans out using the money from the pot for whatever it may be that they need. They then have to pay the loan back plus interest in X amount of days. This is how they make money. This goes on for 1 year and at the 1 year mark the money is split 30 different ways. So they pay $52 throughout the year, but get back $75. There are many other details, but I will spare you. To put this into practice our training group is doing a community bank amongst ourselves for the 11 weeks of training so we can get used to how meetings run and whatnot. We haven’t made rules yet, but we have appointed exec positions. Yours truly was nominated and voted President. Ha, it’s not that big of a deal, really.

                There is some kind of Soccer Cup going on right now, and tonight Liga (the Ecuadorian team from Quito) played Argentina. My family ordered pizza and we watched the game downstairs at my host sisters house. I couldn’t make it through all of it because I was way too tired, but they ended up losing L The pizza here is really good, but unlike pizza in the U.S. there is no tomato sauce on it! Crazy, huh? It’s still really good! I love the dough!

***I forgot to tell you that Tuesday there was a small earthquake, I’m not sure where, but I felt the tremors while I was sitting at the kitchen table doing my Spanish homework at about 7pm. Pretty crazy. It was def the talk of the town on Wednesday, haha!***

Oh and to finish my package story, I ended up getting my package on Thursday because PC went and picked it up for me! How nice was that??? It ended up being a Valentines card from my parents with some heart candies in it!!!! Thanks Mom and Dad!!!

Heather