Well, all of the surprises are finally over. I am finally at my permanent site where I'll be living during my Peace Corps service in Ecuador, I have met my new host family, and finally am settled into the house I'll be living in for the next two years! As a review, I'm living in a small rural town in the Napo Province outside of the small backpacking town of Tena. On Tuesday August 6th, I officially swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) instead of "Trainee" (PCT). After 10 weeks of training in Quito I was definitely ready to break free and finally set off to my community and get to work! Not going to lie, I was slightly nervous (as all PCV's were) leaving Quito into the unknown of everything at my site. Would I like my host family? Would I like my coworkers? Would I have cell signal/internet? What would my life look like for the next two years?!... As our Country Director Mike told us, have broad expectations so that we would not disappoint ourselves since we had no say in where we were going in the country, or what our lives/sites would be like. So safe to say, I prepared for the worst case scenario, and am very happy to say that I feel as if I've gotten a pretty great set up here in the Oriente region :)
I'm glad to say that after a week at my site, I am absolutely loving it here. My first weekend here was a 3-day weekend- it just so happens that my birthday here is a national holiday- El Primer Grito de Independencia de Ecuador! Over the 3-day weekend my host mom and I went to three different rivers in the area, all which were beautiful! My host mom is old friends with a former tour guide, Don Enrique, who has his own little cabin on a river that we went swimming in. Additionally, we went to a somewhat touristy place on the river called Misahuallí on the Napo River (Rio Napo), which was gorgeous as well and saw monkeys here! And Sunday, my host mom, myself and the girl who lives with us deep cleaned the house, apparently my host mom wasn't told I was coming home with her last week so just had some cleaning up to do :).
Monday, August 12th I started my first full week of "work." Currently my objective is to learn about my community, meet people, and form relationships. One of the things with Peace Corps is that we are here for two years, and they emphasise so much the importance of "integrating" in our community. By having strong relationships with the people we work and live with, we are more likely to have successful projects and have people trust in us. I am working for the "Municipio" or "GAD" which is essentially the local government office of the cantón (country) of Arosemena Tola in the Social Development Department. Within the department there are three different sections that I have the opportunity to work with. First is the "adultos mayores," the club for elders in the communities of Arosemena Tola who come here every day from 08:00-12:30 and have activities. Second, there is the section that works with children and adolescents. I am hoping to work with one of my coworkers on developing an extensive healthy lifestyle/relationship/sex ed program in some of the local schools as there are high rates of teen pregnancy throughout Ecuador and the level of sex education is very basic and just scratches the surface. Lastly, we have two ladies who work with people in the more rural communities (somewhat equivalent to the AK Native Villages in Alaska) with people who have disabilities (cognitive/visual/audio/physical). The majority of these communities are poor and are without resources such as fresh fruit and veggies and basic cleanliness/hygiene practices. Thus my objectives with them will be to bring education to these communities on water sanitation/hygiene (simple as washing hands and brushing teeth) as well as how to create home gardens to grow vegetables since they often only grow Yucca and Maduro (plantains) in the communities as the staple in their diet.
Currently I am working on my Community Assessment that is required for each volunteer to do over the first three months, which we will later on present to PC Staff and our community as well. Essentially I have to survey the community (minimum 100) to extract info on the demographics and the needs and knowledge that my community already has in order to figure out what they need most so I can develop a project specific to help the community where they are lacking. Additionally, as a Peace Corps Volunteer our job is to help bring different organizations in the community together. In this manner I hope to bring my organization (the GAD) to work in the Ministry of Public Health as well as Ministry of Education. Hoping to next week have a meeting with leaders of each organization to come to an agreement on the sex ed program in schools around the community. This is just one example of how we can connect different parts of the community so that they can work together towards one common goal.
Although I've only been here a little over two weeks now, I really love my coworkers and host family and am getting to know people in town. We are pretty much are a town built on one of the main highways in the Amazon region, so it's quite small but super quaint. It's nice to walk down the street and know the local market lady, see people you work with, etc. Everyone always says "buenos días/tardes" to each other even if they don't know you on the street. Although it seems as everyone now knows me or as heard of me (La Saritah they call me) here in our town of about 1,100 people. It's super homey and welcoming :)!
Regarding my day-to-day life, pretty much the weekends have consisted of visiting rivers to swim in and having a big family cook out on Sundays on our patio at the house. In the house, it's mainly my host mom, myself, my 26 year old host brother and a local 18 year old girl from one of the indigenous Kichwa communities who is living with us to go to school here. I go to work M-F from 7:30am to 4:30pm and often attend the nightly bailoterapia (dance workout) class. My host mom is trying to lose weight so I've been helping with a lot of the cooking and we have been meal planning together (lots of veggies since Ecuadorians hardly eat veggies). The local market is one block away and veggies/fruits here are so cheap so it's been so easy to eat healthy, which I was originally worried about since Ecuadorian's love their rice, salt, oil, and fried foods. Thankfully I've been able to be pretty independent here. Most Ecuadorians live with parents into their late 20s and aren't as independent culturally as us Americans, so I was very relieved that my host mom treats me like an adult and gives me a lot of independence!
That's about it for now on my life update, also fun fact: people here like to eat grilled worms (Chonta Kudo's) on a skewer and the indigenous people here do not eat avocados because they believe it makes you "vago" (translates to lazy?). Thanks for keeping up with my blog!
“The content of this website is mine alone and does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or the Ecuadorian Government.”