*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 50th Anniversary!
Today was Peace Corps 50th 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 5th 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
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