Out with the old and in with the new- Here is to a Happy 2010!

Yesterday was what I would call a bittersweet ending to 2009.

In case I haven't mentioned in great detail, over the past several months my colleagues in INFA Centro de Protección de Derechos (my counterpart organization) have been worrying about whether their contracts would be renewed past Dec. 31st. My office is a new project of INFA's so they have been with CPD since its grand opening last November/December and were on contracts to see how the office would go. My colleagues hadn't heard whether they would continue after yesterday, but had been told over and over not to worry. I thought this late in the game, it wouldn't make sense to tell them that they aren't going to continue. Plus they have developed close relationships with many of the families we work with- it wouldn't make sense to take away their social worker, psychologist or lawyer.

Well, I went to work in the morning yesterday and all my colleagues were in a frenzy trying to get their end of the year work reports done. They had been in the office until 11pm the night before and were back again at 7:30am. They were also preparing for evaluations that they were told would happen that morning. Around 10am, the person in charge of the region came in and had a quick meeting with my colleages (must have been about 10 minutes, I was in the other office editing a word document). When they finished their meeting they resumed what they had been doing so I didn't think much of it until I noticed one of my colleagues looking pretty upset.

As it turns out, they were just told to pack up their belongings by the end of the day (after they finish their work reports of course) and they were prohibited from returning after the new year. They would be bringing in new people to start next week. I was shocked! Everyone tried to hold their emotions in, but when it was time to say goodbyes, they began sobbing. And everyone who knows me well, knows that I am an empathetic cryer, so I was crying along with them. It is just a terrible situation for all of my colleagues in the office who worked so hard and such long hours, put up with not getting their pay for 3 months (they finally got it this week), and then are told at the 11th hour that they wouldn't have jobs for 2010. What kind of news is that to give your employees? I guess they think that is a way to keep them working hard all the way until the end. ¡Qué feo!

As a result of all this, I am not sure if I will continue working with this organization. I don't think I can work with an organization that treats their employees like that. Luckily, I am in a large enough community where other opportunities for volunteer work exists. Wish me luck because we have our ReConnect Conference in a week (I will probably be the only person going without a counterpart) and then I have a few weeks to look at other opps. I will go talk to INFA this upcoming week, but again, I am unsure if I would want to continue volunteering with them.

However, Adam and I also had a great end of 2009. One of Adam's friends who practices English and Spanish with him, took us around Loja to show us some of the traditions that Ecuadorians have for New Years. One of the big traditions is to take "muñecas" (often figures of people made out of paper mache) and burn them at midnight. Often they are representations of things that happened in 2009 (families might make a representation of a marriage that happened that year, a car accident that someone might have had, or in my colleagues's case...perhaps they will make something that represents their work at INFA CPD). In Loja, there is also a competition of the best themed muñecas (kind of like Christmas light decoration competitions). We saw some really cool ones and we also saw a lot of Michael Jacksons!

The previous two photos represent something that happened in Loja this year. There was supposedly a haunted house in town and people were hearing wailing and noises coming from this empty building. It became a huge deal and vendors set up shop in front of the building selling food to all th crowds coming to check it out. News reporters were filming and it was all the talk in town. As it turns out, it was a big hoax by this motorcycle riding Lojano named Diego

I am not sure on the whole story of this, but apparently there were a lot of government contracts given to the brother of Ecuador's president and so people were really upset about the whole thing and felt like it was corruption. I think they ended up rescinding the contract to restore faith in the government, but I am not totally sure.

This year Ecuador decided that they would shut down a US military base located on the coast so I am guessing that is what this display is about

And of course Michael Jackson, El Rey de Pop

Another less impressive version

Apparently this year one of the city buses ran over someone in its rush to stay on time. The bus system is called SITU which stands for Sistema Integral de Transporte Urbano...but as you can see from the sign, they changed Integral to Inconcluso...

Not sure what this was, but it was huge and looked cool. Can you imagine it in flames at midnight?

The Hulk manning a cannon at the military base

Another tradition aside from the burning of muñecas at midnight are the "widows" of 2009. Because 2009 is the old year that is going away, men dress up as the "widows" of the old year and collect money for the new year. There were a lot of blockades in the streets, and they wouldn't let you pass until you paid up (5 cents does the trick). Some kids also dressed up in costumes and did the same thing. But gosh, some of the men were pretty scantily clad! Haha.

Street blockades...you have to give money to the widows if you want to pass!

Good looking widow doing a dance for us

Another couple of widows at the next blockade

Other traditions included things like wearing yellow underwear for good luck or eating 12 grapes for prosperity in the new year. There were a ton of vendors selling yellow underwear and grapes in the streets. And of coursebefore midnight we had fireworks going off for a good hour and after midnight the air was so full of smoke from all the burning muñecas and fireworks!

If Adam and I had partaken in the muñecas traditions, I think we would have quite the display! 2009 was a pretty big year for us! We kicked it off in Hong Kong and Taiwan, finished our time working in Orange County, quit our jobs to go roadtripping (yay for our visits to Austin and Knoxville in particular), and took off for the Peace Corps in June. Since then we have been working on our Spanish, trying to do good things with our organizations, and hopefully spreading peace, friendship and cultural understanding in the short 6 months we have been in Ecuador.

Here is to another fantastic and exciting year! Happy New Years! And of course, Happy Birthday Suegra!