We won´t be hippies in a mud hut- but we will be Lojanos!!

We are back from our site visit to Loja! No, we won’t be living in a mud hut without running water and electricity. Instead, we will be living in a totally cute town in the southern part of the country (a very looong 12 hour night bus from Quito).

Although the population is fairly large, Loja feels like a really big town. Loja has 2 universities (which we didn’t see), several museums, a movie theater, a Supermaxi (think Albertsons) and a lot of surrounding barrios that we will be able to work in. There are two rivers that run through Loja, and the temperature is pretty mild. The surrounding area is super lush, green, and mountainous. There is a Mexican restaurant and a Cuban restaurant, as well as a cute café run by some Australians with pretty good lasagna and cheesecake. There will be two other trainees (Liz and Lindsay) who will be living within a few hours from us. Since they are in more rural sites I think we might be seeing them on some weekends when they come in to do grocery shopping and visiting the bank.

One of the parks in Loja in the evening

Streetview in Loja

Adam hanging out with fellow trainee and future Loja neighbor Liz (she´ll be one hour or so north of us)

The neighborhood we will be living in during the first month
Inside our host mom´s living room- where we will live for the first month

Overall, I think Adam and I will have an interesting experience working with our counterparts. Adam’s counterpart works at CASMUL, which is part of the Municipio that runs some of the social work programs (community banks, prevention programs, etc.). When we were hanging out with the staff, we got to visit some guardarias (daycares) and a rehabilitation home for recovering alcoholics. Adam also spent one morning playing soccer with a bunch of kids that are part of the Municipio’s summer program. The INNFA Centro de Proteccion de Derechos (CPD), where my counterpart works, does a lot of work with domestic violence, children’s rights, and youth outreach programs. I did a lot of house visits with the folks at CPD in the surrounding barrios (some that are about 1 hour away) which was interesting.

The office that Adam will be volunteering
One of the families that we visited in Loja-cute kids!
Making origami with Eri and Marco at the Centro de Proteccion de Derechos
The huge pool run by the Municipio in Loja

Another thing that happened during our site visit was that Adam ended up having to go to the hospital. Luckily there is a PC approved clinic that was literally 2 block from where we were staying. Adam had been fighting a terrible cough for almost 2 weeks and during our site visit, he spent one night coughing the entire time. So the next morning he checked in at the hospital and they wanted to test him for swine flu. The PC doctor wouldn’t let them so they did a blood test on Adam and discovered that he had a bacterial infection. Loaded with a bunch of drugs and a shot to the butt, and he is now doing tons better!

I do have to say that the site visit had some incredibly awkward moments and I am soooo glad that Adam and I are together. I cannot imagine doing this on my own! From eating at the formal dining table while the rest of our new host family ate upstairs to meeting the president of CASMUL and having absolutely nothing to say, let’s just say we’ll be looking forward to getting past all that awkwardness and feeling totally comfortable.

One awkward moment occurred when I was with some of the employees from CPD (where my counterpart works and where I will be doing my primary projects). We were heading out to a barrio outside of Loja to visit a family. During our VERY bumpy ride in the INNFA truck, Isabel, one of the social workers, asks me (in Spanish, of course):

“So, are you able to play with kids?”
“Of course! I love playing with kids!”
“Oh good. What kind of games or activities have you done with kids before?”
“I’ve done some volunteer work with arts and crafts, computer games, story time, and sports. Things like that.”
“Oh that is good. I like working with adults better.”

We then arrive at the house that we are visiting and say our hellos to the family. Isabel introduces me to the family and tells them that I am going to be playing with the kids. Isabel then turns to me and asks:

“So how much space do you need for your 2 hour activity with the kids?”
“Uh…wait, what?”
“How much space do you need for your game with the kids?”
“Oh. Um…I’m sorry…I don’t have anything planned.”

Then, I made awkward arms in my head. Thank goodness Isabel had a DVD with her! She told me it was ok and we ended up watching Fighting the Giants and then talking with the kids and the moms about being positive and having good attitudes and communicating. In the future, I’ll have to always have some kind of activity ready to go (probably will need to be bringing a backpack with paper, markers, books, games, etc.).

Now that we are back in Puruhantag, it’s starting to hit us that we really only have 2 more weeks left to spend time with our host family! Next week we will be gone on tech trips (Adam is going to Guayas province and I will be going to Esmeraldas…both on the coast so I gotta watch out for mosquitos) and then our last week of training is in Quito. I really love our host family and I’m going to miss them.

Magy´s birthday cake!! I don´t know what happened to my picture with Magy and her cake...next time...Lol.

Tomas and Pacha dancing the salsa

The dirt road that we walk along every day...to the left are greenhouses where they grow all the roses and flowers that they ship to the U.S.

Other than that, here are some interesting things that we’ve seen while in Ecuador:

1. Women taking their cows for a walk in the morning on the street
2. People selling ice cream cones, comedy acts, vitamins, etc. on the bus
3. Bus drivers sitting in lawn chairs…on the bus
4. The cats at our house trying to drink milk from the dog
5. Broken glass bottles cemented to the top of walls as a form of home security
6. Cows, sheep and a pig tied up in front of the church on Sunday morning
   
7. Peace Corps dance party at 9 in the morning (this was after our site visits and we were all coming back together)
8. Old men passed out on the grass or the side of the street after a long night of drinking and dancing as part of the festivities that happen every weekend in this area

Not much else to report. We leave for technical trips this weekend. They are for one week, and Adam and I were assigned to different trips. Sadness! Lol. Other than that, eat some good Indian, Thai, Chinese, and sushi for me!!

Updates and....OUR SITE!!!

Last week was a bit rough but this week has been good...I´ve been sick and also found out I was having a bad allergic reaction to my bites from Mascarilla. I had bad, totally gross blisters all over my body filled with fluid and weeping all over the place. uckily I made a trip up to Quito yesterday and met with a dermatologist to find out what was up. I´m now on some medication and feeling much better. It was a very nice medical center and the day in Quito went smoothly. I traveled by myself on the bus but then spent the day with people from the PC Office. I found out that the doctor for the PC lived in Ann Arbor last year...Go Blue! He said he loved going to the Brown Jug. Lol.

Funny story related to my blisters. I had a huge one on my arm and it was filled with fluid. We made a visit to the bombero (fire station) 2 days ago and I was up on stage as an actress... pretending to choke and such. The fireman grabbed my arm, and in doing so, put pressure on my blister. Fluid from the blister went spurting out into the audience (it was just two language groups, so it was about 10 people)... but literally like a squirt gun. Adam, Tiffany, Jason and others were totally laughing and hollering and my facilitator Fernanda had to fan herself and go outside. And of course I was mortified and grossed out. Apparently while I was in Quito for my doctor visit, that was the story of the day. Lol.

In addition, today was the BIG Site Placement Day so guess what....we found out our sites!! What a great way to celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary! Adam and I will be living in Loja, Ecuador for the next two years!! It is known as the Music Capital of Ecuador with a population of 180,000. It is in the Sierra (Andes) and is at around 2100m with a temperate climate. According to the US Ambassador in Ecuador, Loja also has great coffee. Since a volunteer I met in Quito (she is finishing up her service) is gifting me her coffee maker, it sounds great to me!! Also, it has 2 major universities and is next to what appears to be a beautiful national park. And, no mosquitos!! I have also heard that it is muy tranquilo and la gente habla muy claro y despacio (the people speak clearly and slowly). Yay!! If you want to find out more about Loja, check out http://www.lojarural.com/loja-city.html and of course, wikipedia.

We will be going this weekend to visit our site for a week and to meet with our counterparts and the agencies we´ll be working with. We have to take an overnight bus because it is 14 hours from Quito, approximately. Adam is very excited about that (or not). In terms of what work we will be doing, I´ll be working with the Instituto de la Niñez y la Familia (INFA): Centro de Proteccion de Derechos (Center of the Protection of Rights) doing workshops on life skills, sexual health, drug and alcohol abuse, etc. and also promoting community service and human rights education, as well as doing home visits to eradicate domestic violence. ç Adam is working with the Centro de Apoya Social Municipal in Loja training youth in IT, income generation projectsand leadership. He´ll also be promoting and conducting workshops on drugs and alcohol abuse, as well as working with community banking. This is just general things that we will be working on, but it might change once we get to know the community. We are very excited and hope that many of you will come to visit!!

Here are some pix from the internet of Loja:

Loja is in the south of Ecuador, closer to Peru

Miss you all and more pictures and stories to come!!

Lots of photos!!

Happy belated 4th of July from Adam and Emily!!


Everything is going great with Adam and I so far. This week our training was a mixture of language, security, health and technical training. During our language training, we went out to the bank and to the post office to ask questions in Spanish. We found out that it costs $2 to send out letters...so I might not be sending out too many during the next 2 years! Sorry about that! We also went with our language facilitator to the market and we made a traditional Ecuadorian almuerzo (lunch) that included tortillas (not the burrito kind, but essentially potato pancakes with cheese inthem), rice, and beef cooked with garlic.

Our facilitator Fernanda chopping up carrots with Mica and Pacha

During our technical training, we learned about giving charlas (workshops) for youth and we actually gave one! Adam and I were in a group with 3 other aspirantes and we gave a workshop about gender stereotypes. It actually went pretty smoothly. Other kinds of charlas that we might give in the future include self esteem, goal setting, nutrition, etc. Luckily there is an entire handbook that has sample workshops, so it actually isn´t too bad. Our tech training also includes different kinds of activities that we can do in our communities...so this week all of us had to carry little eggs with us (our bebe huevos) everywhere we went. Adam and I had gemelos (twins) that we had to take with us on the bus and to all the training sessions. We were lucky that we didn´t get ours eggnapped by the facilitators or squashed in our pockets (like John below).


This week we also had some volunteers who came and shared some of the community projects that they have done. Adam and I learned how to make cleaning disinfectant from a volunteer who works with local women to make and sell the disinfectant.

Mixing the disinfectants in the buckets

We ended the week with a fun 4th of July celebration. The PC staff and volunteers cooked up some burgers, hot dogs, kabobs, coleslaw, potato salad and guacamole. I think that it was a really nice change of pace for everyone! During the celebration, we also had soccer competitions between the different communities. If you can believe it...our team from Puruhantag actually made it into the final round. We didn´t win but we did play 4 games...and at this elevation, man did it make us beat. Also, all the teams made shirts this week. Our shirts said ¨Vamos a bacilar in Puruhantag.¨The story behind that is during language training last week, our facilitator was teaching us some slang. When she was explaining the phrase ¨Vamos a bacilar¨we thought it meant ¨to go hang out.¨ It turns out that it is a phrase that teenage boys say to each other when they are bored and want to cruise for some girls to make out with. Needless to say, I won´t be wearing this shirt any other time except to go to bed. Lol. We also had to have a ¨madrina¨to run for queen in the community pageant. Thankfully Tiffany was willing to be Srta Puruhantag.

Tom, Fernanda our language facilitator, Tiffany, me and Adam

Tomas and Adam enjoying the beauty pageant

Two teams playing some futbol

The winning team that kicked our butts

Yesterday Adam and I went to a chifa (chinese restaurant) with two of the older volunteers in our group, Mary and Nancy. Nancy was the woman we visited in Minnesota and we were going to visit Mary in North Carolina but didn´t get a chance to. It wasn´t bad for $3.25 per person. Also, I am able to upload pix today because Adam and I went to the Grand Aki (a large store) in Cayambe and bought a CD-RW. No viruses for us!! Also I have added more pix to the other posts as well.

Today Adam got a haircut for $2 and we made picadillo for our family. Not sure how they liked it with the black beans, rice and tostones. It was a little off because tomato sauce tastes a bit different here...but overall it wasn´t bad! Other than that, did some laundry and had a lazy Sunday!

And now for all the other pictures that I didn´t get a chance to upload before.

Our matching watches from Wal-Mart

Our current bedroom which is very comfy...we are starting to get used to the hard bed!

My arsenal of anti-itch remedies... it´s only sort of working.

Our totally cute hermanitas, Micaela and Pacha

At one of the many fiestas every weekend. People actually built bonfires out in the street and dozens of groups walk by singing and dancing and drumming along.

Beautiful view of Ecuador