It's Raining Birthday Cards!!!!

3.24.11

HAPPY EARLY 24th BIRTHDAY TO ME in Ecuador!!!!!!!!!!

All of my unopened Bday Cards! I had to take pictures, there were SO many!

We just got back from our site assignment visits, nd let me tell you, the mail lady had a HUGE stack of cards/letters for us. *Side Note: I never get mail. Ever. I always wait around while she calls out everyone’s name thinking maybe one of those HAS GOT to be for me. Never.* Well, today was an exception… She starts calling out people’s names Whitney, Heather Siegmund, Paige, Heather Siegmund, Christina, Heather Siegmund, Heather Siegmund, Jenny, Heather Siegmund, Heather Siegmund, Andrew, Heather Siegmund, Bethany, Heather Siegmund, Christina, Ricky, Heather Siegmund… okay you get the picture. HALF THE STACK WAS FOR ME! I could.not.believe.it. I seriously was in shock. By the time she was done giving out letters/cards I had 18 cards in my hand!!!!!!! Everyone was asking me who they were from and what they were for. This time, everyone was jealous of ME! Not the other way around J

OMG, I received 18 birthday cards in the mail today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn’t even realize that many people knew my birthday was coming up!! Holy moly was I excited! It was like Christmas time!!!!

Special thanks to the following people: Mom and Dad, Amanda, Lauren, Gina and Dave, Mr. and Mrs. Beetz and family, Jim and Maggie, Mr. and Mrs. Warwick, Kathleen, Tony and Jean, Joan and Don, Kara, Mr. and Mrs. Murphy, Rudy and Ella, Debbie, Sue, Frank and Janet, Sue and Gerard and Family, Dave and Joan, and Steve and Debbie!

Special shout outs to:

Lauren- for sending me my first letter!!

Amanda- sending me the first picture!

Steve and Debbie- my birthday card was in Spanish!

Here's what the finished product looks like!

Seriously, thanks again to EVERYONE! My real birthday hasn’t even passed, but I feel like I’ve already had my birthday! What an awesome feeling! Thanks for thinking of me when I’m thousands of miles away! J

Heather

P.S.- If I didn’t mention your name and you sent me a card, I haven’t received it yet. Don’t think I forgot about you!!

Buses

3.23.11

Wow, so it’s been almost a month. I’ve been slacking on my blog updates, I apologize. I’ve been so busy with projects and visiting my new site! I will tell you all about my new site in a different post. Training is pretty much the same all the time… safety and security talks, health presentations over every possible topic from diarrhea to physical assaults , TONS of groups projects, the list goes on forever. But instead of boring you with stories about classes I’m going to fill you in on some of the exciting things that have happened within the past few weeks. Here goes nothing….

Bus story #1 of many I’m going to experience while here in Ecuador:

So, a couple weeks ago our morning classes ended early and we got 2 ½ hours for lunch. A bunch of us decided to go to town and do some errands, use internet, have lunch, try out our new Ecuadorian ATM cards, etc.

My friend Sarah and I decided we wanted to go grocery shopping, get ice cream, and have lunch…. So just that we did, and in style we went…. We begin to walk out of the training center to find that the bus that we take to town is right outside the gate. I instantly start shouting at Sarah to open the training center door and simultaneously start shouting at the security guard in ENGLISH to yell at the bus driver to stop the bus for us. (If we didn’t catch this bus we would have had to wait 30 minutes… so you now see our need to catch this bus bc it SUCKS when you see the bus drive by and you’ve missed it by 30 seconds) To my surprise, the security guard actually opened the large metal gate and started yelling towards the buss to wait. Our security guards do NOT understand English, but I think he put two and two together when he saw me screaming and the bus out front.

So as I’m yelling at the security guard in English to stop the bus we grab our shit and run towards the gate (fastest I’ve ever ran in my life) the bus driver does NOT hit the breaks what-so-ever for us… I don’t think he heard the guard yelling at him to stop. At this point we are so close to catching the bus that we REFUSE to miss it, so we start hauling ass… I catch up to the back door of the bus that is still open, grab the handle with my left hand because that’s the hand closest to the door. *Reminder: I’m running as all of this is going on!* I then realize there is no way I’m going to jump on the bus while running when I’m holding on with my left hand. So I let go of my left hand and reach my right hand across my body, grab the handle on the door, jump in the bus, stumble and trip into the bus and make a huge racket. Every Ecuadorian on the bus turns around to see what the hell the noise was, the other PC trainees who are already sitting on the bus are dying laughing because they’ve watched this whole obnoxious scene from the start. I get up, get ahold of my balance, look around, and in English say, “I made it!”

By the time I got on my feet Sarah had jumped onto the bus as well, but not without an awesome entrance, just like mine! Hahahahaha, best day on the bus yet.

We both find a seat and, don’t worry, all the Ecuadorians are STILL looking at us like we are out of our mind with half grins on their faces. The other PC trainees are laughing so hard they can’t even talk.

…All of this happened in a matter of 30 seconds…

Great way to start off the lunch break J

Slept in, FINALLY! :-)

3.6.11

Last night was the first night I slept well in a week. I slept for 11 straight (for the most part) hours. It was so refreshing!! I didn’t do much in the morning. I updated my blog, did my dirty laundry from tech trip, and organized my room a bit. I keep my room here clean and I make my bed every day, something I never did in the States. Ha.

My family came over for Ceviches for lunch. Ceviches is a typical dish eaten on the coast here in Ecuador. It’s a seafood dish. There are a ton of kinds, but we had shrimp ceviches and clam ceviches. I knew for the beginning I probably wasn’t going to like it because there is a lot of cilantro in the dish, and I do NOT like cilantro. (They put cilantro on everything here L) But I tried a little of it, they mixed the two together. The clam one was a black color and the shrimp one was an orangish color. I tried it. Didn’t like it, ew. The long, black clams grossed me out. So I ate the pieces of shrimp out of it and pushed it away. So I ate a plate of white rice instead. Haha.

My family decided to go to the Metropolitan Park in Quito. We were there for like 10 minutes and then left because it was nasty and rainy. So we went to get ice cream at the Quicentro Mall. They have the best ice cream there! That was my second time having it. I got a scoop of brownie ice cream and chocolate. I wanted strawberry instead of chocolate, but they were out. Whatever, it was still delicious.

When we arrived back to the house everyone sat around the table, chatted and ate the rest of the ceviches, blah! Haha. Then they talked about where they wanted to go tomorrow for another day trip. They decided on a city that I can’t remember the name of at the moment, but it’s about 45 minutes past Otavalo where we were a couple weekend ago. I felt back because I couldn’t go to the coast or the oriente (jungle) because I didn’t take my malaria meds. But in my defense I had no idea they wanted to go there this weekend. We talked about going to the beach for Carnaval a couple weeks ago, but it was never set in stone so I didn’t start taking my malaria meds. I didn’t want to take them for no reason.

My host sister knew I hadn’t talked to my family or boyfriend since I’d been back from Tech Trip so she asked me if I wanted to come to her house and use it and then just spend the night. She is so sweet. So I took her up on the offer. I packed some clothes then off we went. I got to talk Skype my parents, Josh, and chat with my sister for a short bit! It was nice to let them all know I was alive and well.

Heather

Mindo and "Whitewater Rafting!"

3.5.11

So we didn’t end up going to the beach for Carnaval. I wouldn’t have been able to go anyways because I didn’t take my malaria medication, oops, I didn’t even think about it. We don’t have to take malaria medication while we are in the highlands because the mosquitos that carry malaria aren’t up here. And I didn’t really have the money to go, so I am okay with staying here in Tumbaco. I feel like I have been on the go since I’ve arrived here so it is going to be nice to relax. I’m not complaining about constantly being on the go because I really love it here. My host family has been so awesome. They take me somewhere every weekend to show me around Ecuador. It’s been so awesome. Speaking of going places…. Yesterday I got up and thought I was going to get to relax after a long week, then I get a knock on my bedroom door. It was Sebastian telling me I had a phone call. I was like me? Someone is on the phone for me? I was so surprised because it was the house phone. Turns out it was my host sister, Claudia, asking me if I wanted to go on a day trip to Mindo. I immediately jumped on it and said yes even though I was so tired. I may be tired now, but I have all the time in the world to relax when I get to site. I don’t want to miss out on any opportunity that comes my way J

When we were on the phone she told me it was a couple hours away and we were going there to float on the river. So she and her husband, Luis, come to pick up Sebi and I and we are off. It took us 3 hours to get there because of everyone traveling for Carnaval. We ate lunch as soon as we got there. I had trucha, which is a type of fish. It was really good. It came with a tomato salad, rice, and French fries. Then we drove to see the butterfly house. We didn’t end up going inside because it cost $5 and the guy said since it was so cold the butterflies weren’t really flying around. So we moved on to the river.

So I thought we were going to float in the river. It turns out that it was like a white water rafting activity, not floating, haha. But instead of rafts they had blacks tubs tied together. So it was called tubbing. Luis didn’t want to go and Sebi was too young, so Claudia and I went. She really wanted to go, but she was pretty scared. The only thing I was worried about was the freezing cold river! So we got instructions and off we went. There were probably like 8 or 10 tubes tied together with about 6 of us and 2 guides. The whole ride was about 3 kilometers and they said it would take about 30 minutes and that the river was pretty calm. Well, the river was flowing pretty fast and it only took us about 15 minutes or so. I felt like 5 minutes. It was so much fun!!! We were bouncing everywhere and I was dying laughing the whole time and Claudia was screaming. It was great! A definite adrenaline rush! So. Much. Fun!!! Sebi took pictures of us, I can’t wait to put them up!

After we changed into some dry clothes we went to the park and listened to a band play. There were a ton of people there singing and dancing along. Very fun. I ended up seeing one of my friends from my training class there. How ironic! She and her family were staying until Monday. We chatted about our tech trips and then went our separate ways with our family. Claudia ended up getting me to dance with her. I’m so bad at Ecuadorian dancing. I felt like a fool, but I did have a lot of fun. It started to drizzle but that didn’t stop anyone from dancing. And then all of a sudden it started POURING!! So everyone started running frantically for cover. We ran to the car since it was already 6pm. We were soaking we when we got to the car, we were all laughing. It was a lot of fun. It took us about 2 ½ hours to get home. We got home about 8:30, I called my parents to let them know I was back from my tech trip and I was in bed and asleep by 9:30. I was exhausted. I slept like a baby until 8:30 Sunday morning. Best sleep I’ve gotten in like 3 weeks. I’m still pretty tired today, but way better than I was the whole week.

3.6.11 Sunday

I haven’t don’t much today but blog about my entire week and chat with my host mother when she got back from Quito. Her and my sister, Rocio, went to the Quito market to get fish and shrimp for lunch. My clothes are in the wash machine now. I’m hoping they get dry today. It has rained for like 24 hours straight. I finally stopped a few hours ago and I’m hoping it stays that way so my clothes dry. The rest of the day I’m planning on laying around, reading a book I have for class, and going to the internet café.

Heather

Tech Trip 1: Cotacachi, Ecuador

*This starts a series of much needed updates that I haven't been able to upload. Enjoy!*

2.28.11 Monday

We arrived around 11am to Cotacochi, checked into our hostal, and then began our first day. We went to the park and each had to interview 4 local people. The questions were regarding their environmental situation and the Ecological Reserve in Cotacachi. My first 2 interviews were really good. The people were very talkative and interested in what we were doing. The next 2 people were shy and didn’t talk much, oh well.

After lunch we walked to an organization and a lady told us all about uvillas, which is a fruit that is orangish yellow in color and about the size of a grape. After harvesting the fruit they let them dry up and it turns into a raison. She gave us some to taste, they were very good, but super tart. We then took a taxi to the uvilla fields and harvested for a couple hours. It was really fun! We all picked uvillas, chatted, laughed, and bonded.

For dinner we went to a restaurant for typical Ecuadorian food. It was really good, but costed $7.50. Super expensive considering a normal meal costs around $2.50-$4.

3.1.11 Tuesday and PC 50^th Anniversary!

Today was Peace Corps 50^th Anniversary!!! We didn’t do anything special for it though L But we did talk briefly about it.

For a couple hours in the morning we sat through charlas (presentations) about the UNORCAC organization. It’s an environmental organization that does stuff from farming fruits, veggies, and herbs to teaching kids about the environment through eco-clubs.

The rest of the morning we worked in this awesome garden where this lady and her husband farmed herbs and some fruits and veggies. The lady was super nice! She gave us a tour of the whole garden telling us what everything was and what it was used for. Then we just worked in the garden. My job was wheel barrowing rock to the garden to put in the walk ways. I did that for a couple hours and my hands were very tired! Haha. But it was lots of fun. She cooked us lunch then afterwards gave us a tour of how she makes honey wine and collects the honey from the bees and such.

For dinner we went to this awesome restaurant owned by a lady and her husband who are originally from New York. The food was absolutely amazing! We had soup, chicken, beans, mixed veggies with mini brussel sprouts and focaccia bread. We then reflected on the day and called it a night. Before we all hit the sack we hung out in someone’s room and played a game. I have no idea what the name of it was but everyone wrote down 4 nouns on pieces of paper and put it in a hat. We split into two groups. There were 3 rounds to the group. The first round was like catch phrase where you had to describe the word without saying it. The second round was charades and the third was “password” where you could only give a one word hint and your team had to guess what it was. How the game works is you pass the hat and someone on your team has 1 minute to describe as many words and they can. You pass the hat back and forth from team to team until all the words are gone from the hat. Then you move on to round 2 and so on. This game was absolutely hilarious. We were all dying laughing during the charades part. It was great!

3.2.11 Wednesday

This was my favorite day. We hiked around the Cuicocha lagoon in the National Reserve Cotachachi-Cayapas from about 10-3:30. The lagoon is beautiful!! We didn’t hike the whole way around because we were doing trail maintenance as we hiked digging out big rocks on the path, making the trail wider in some spots, digging small trenches so the rain water would run back down to the lagoon, etc. It took us about 3 hours or so to get half way around the lagoon and 95% of it was uphill so we had to stop and take breathers quite often. Because of the altitude you get out of breath real fast. We stopped and ate our lunches we packed and then walked back. On the way back we didn’t do trail work so we made it back in about 1 ½ hours.

When we got back from dinner we were all hanging out in a room and our Training Assistant came in saying that he just got a call saying we had to go to a PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteer) house so she could give us a tour and talk about safety. This was at 8:30 at night. We were kind of aggravated, but it was a good time at her house. We sat around chatted and asked her a lot of questions about her first year of service.

Almost forgot! We went to an awesome restaurant for dinner and had lasagna! SO DELICIOUS! I split a brownie with a friend for dessert, YUMMAY!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA AND RYAN!!!

3.3.11 Thursday

This day was really interesting… We went to a pueblo (small rural town) about 20 minutes from Cotacachi and listened to charlas most of the morning about how people in the town host tourists when they come to the town for vacation. I didn’t understand a lot of it because the guy talked oober fast and mumbled…. In spanish. But after that we went to a lady’s house and made jewelry for about an hour. It was really cool to see how they died the beads (which were seeds from the inside of a fruit) and dried them… and they do this all by hand.

Next, this guy took us to the town’s sacred waterfall where they go to after weddings, on holidays, etc. On the way to the waterfall I stepped on what I thought was dry mud…. NOT! My right foot sank in mud about half way up my shin! It was really funny. Luckily I had my chacos on and was able to wash my leg and foot when we got to the waterfall. Haha.

We all had lunch and then we were split up into pairs and did homestays with families for the rest of the day and slept in cabins where tourists would normally stay. I was partnered with my friend Paige. For the first hour and a half we were with our family we held these lady’s babies while they finished up the dishes from lunch and chatted about the webpage they are creating for advertising their lunch place. When they were done with that we went with our host lady, Gladis, to harvest beans. On our way to the field I had this bout of nausea. It was terrible. I never threw up, but I definitely thought I was going to. This lasted for about 45 minutes then went away, thank Goodness! I don’t know where it came from or why it happened, but it was no good. Some of my friends have been getting this. But they would actually throw up once, and be fine. Who knows. At the field I was eaten alive my mosquitos. And yes, I did have mosquito repellant and long pants on. The mosquitos REALLY like me down here.

At 5:30 we had to meet up with our fellow trainees to prepare for a charla we were giving to a 5^th grade class in the morning. We decided on nocturnal animals because the guy in my group knew lots of games to play on that topic.

At 7 we went back to the cabin and had dinner that Gladis made us. She didn’t sit at the table with us though. We ate with her 10 year old son and her husband. We found out that her husband works in Quito (the capital of Ecuador) about 3 hours away during the week. He has his own landscaping company so he lives in Quito during the week and comes back on the weekends. After dinner Paige and I laid around and chatted then went to bed about 9:30. We were so tired, the week was starting to catch up with us. *Side note: when we were staying at the hostal in Cotacachi it was SOOOOOO loud and the lights from the streets were beaming in our rooms. It sounded like we were sleeping on the street! SO needless to say I didn’t get much sleep the whole week. Its times like this that I wish I was a sound sleeper! End side note*

It was a lot quieter this night since we were in the campo (rural town) with less noise, but I didn’t sleep well because I had like 30 mosquito bites, no exaggeration. I didn’t count all of them, but I didn’t count the ones on my left arm and hand and I had 11.

In the morning, Gladis gave us a hard-boiled egg, oregano tea, and some bread then off we went to teach.

3.4.11 Friday

We gave our charla. It went pretty well. The kids attention span is not very good, but we did an okay job and keeping them on track.

The rest of the morning we went back to Cotacachi to an organic farm. It was really cool! The had a rain water collection system, a compost outhouse (I don’t know if that is the right name for it), a bucket the men could pee in so they could put the pee on the plants. Apparently pee is really nutritious for plants. Haha. Who knew! They had a handmade irrigation system, their own composting piles, seedbeds, and so much more. This has nothing to do with organic farming, but the guy somehow hooked a bike up to the wash machine so that when you sit on the bike and pedal it turns the wash machine and washes the clothes, crazy huh? I have pictures of all of this, don’t worry!

After the tour we headed back to Tumbaco. And that was my tech trip to Cotacachi. A ton of fun!

And last, but not least, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMANDA!!!

Here is the link to the pics from my tech trip: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=15920138&aid=2614463

Heather

Packages UPDATE

I found out today that the weight limit is NOT 2.2lbs, it is 2.2 kilos which is 4 lbs! That's pretty awesome. But still try and make the box as small and compact as possible and be sure to pack the box good so nothing rolls around!

If/When you send a package make up the stuff you put on the claim ticket at the post office, don't say what's actually in it. And make sure to mark "used" even if it isn't. For example, you could be school books, crackers, reading books, cards, notebook.

Also, make sure to take everything that's new out of the package. This makes the items less likely to be stolen if the box is opened up in customs.