- GOOD TIMES IN THE AMAZON -
Hi all! Well, it's been a whirlwind of events the last week being evacuated from Ecuador back to the United States! BUT lets start with the highs before I talk about the lows. The month of February was an absolute BLAST. Having spent my prior carnaval in 2018 in Barranquilla, Colombia, known as the world's second largest/best carnaval, I was curious to see how the carnaval in Ecuador would be. I swear 2020 has been pure fiesta after fiesta. In January we had the New Year celebrations and Santa Clara fiestas. February, we had Carnaval and Fiestas del Napo. Napo is the province in which I live in (the best, duh). The weekend of February 7th-9th was the start of the Napo Fiestas in the town of Tena, which is the more "urban" town 40 minutes away from my site. Here the population is about 10-13,000 people and it is the capital of the province of Napo. For work on the opening day
of the fiestas, since I worked in the department of "desarrollo social" or "social development" and we were in charge of a lot of the community outreach, so we went to Tena to assist with our parade float representing the cantón of Arosemena Tola. As I may have mentioned before, each fiesta is initiated with a parade called the pregón. So, luckily since we had to go to Tena to help out with organizing the pregón, we were able to watch the dancers and presentations throughout the streets of Tena. The theme of the pregón was cacao, huayusa y leche. Thus, may of the dancers and people in the pregón were holding and dacing with cacao. Before the pregón, our work was chopping up sugarcane that the ñusta, which I'll explain in a second, would throw out while marching in the pregón to the crowd. Yes, instead of throwing out candy, here in the Amazon they throw out sugarcane, which is super yummy to munch on! The word ñusta is the indigenous/Kichwa word for princess or queen. In addition to having the "reina" competition,
there is also a competition of the ñustas, or indigenous queens, in the province. So in the reina competition, there is a "reina" winner as well as a "ñusta" winner, who can only be of Kichwa ancestry. I attended the reina/ñusta competition in Tena, however I thought the one in Santa Clara was a lot better, so didn't stay up til 1am to see who the winner was. A group of volunteers from the Oriente had come down to join the festivities and we all stayed in Tena for the weekend and enjoyed the festivities. Many of which included musical guests from across Ecuador, and of course with music comes dancing and beer in the Ecuadorian culture. Our volunteer friends from el Chaco, a cantón 2 hours North of Tena, actually had a few friends and one of
their counterparts who were musical performers at the fiestas which was pretty cool! During our time in Tena, we checked out another volunteers site in the cantón of Archidona. Here we went to a river spot deep into the communties of Archidona and it was gorgeous! Enjoyed getting to check out a new place, lots of gorgeous hidden river spots around the oriente!
With the fiestas going on, work was a bit more chilled with some extra time off, which allowed for some extra adventures! My site mates Mary, Sydney and I took the opportunity to go check out a new waterfall near the tourist location Misahuallí on the outskirts of Tena. The waterfall we went to was called Cascada la Latas and went early enough in the morning that we were the only ones there. It was gorgeous! And for Valentines Day, my site mates and I went to the "Cavernas de Jumandy," caverns somewhere that had bats and spiders and were cool. Haha, I'm being too lazy to look up the info on this place but it was alright! We got maito (tilapia cooked in jungle leaf) and huayusa (tea from amazonian region) after for lunch and later that night went out to dinner with my host mom and her boyfriend and my site mates and went out dancing, it was a fun night!
CARNAVALLLLLL!!!
In most Latino or Catholic countries, they celebrate Carnaval, which is essentially a 4-day long festive season (party) prior to the start of Lent, the 40 days leading up until Easter. As I was once told, its tradition started since during Lent you are supposed to give something up or sacrifice some sort of indulgence, Carnaval is 4 days of fiestas to indulge in all your desires before you have to give them up for the 40 days of Lent. It normally happens around late February or early March and is celebrated in the streets. Each country celebrates Carnaval differently. Rio de Janiero is world famous for carnaval, samba parades, dancing in the streets, etc. I was excited to find out a bit more about carnaval in the Oriente region of Ecuador as it was getting closer.
So, what is carnaval like in the Oriente (jungle) region of Ecuador like?...
Let me just sum it up in a few words:
Rivers
Water (squirt guns, buckets of water, water balloons, rivers)
Flour (harina)
Colored powder/ink (tinta)
Eggs (yes, eggs- cracked eggs...on top of your head...)
...and of course music, and lots of people!
Basically, in the oriente, each community takes a turn hosting an event each day. For example, one day the community of Puerto Napo held the fiestas, the second day Misuahuallí was holding events and the third day my cantón of Arosemena Tola held a fiesta. In the Oriente, all of the fiestas are held right next to the rivers which makes it super easy for filling up squirt guns and getting buckets of water to dump on people, or even just picking up someone and dumping them into the river. At the fiestas there are often TONS of people, a stage with famous musical performers or at least well known. The big cities in Ecuador often pay super famous people to come, but other medium size towns get at least famous Ecuador artists to come or from around South America. Towns usually go all out planning these fiestas, and that's why they alternate who/what town is hosting which day. During the carnaval event, music is playing and there's entertainment. In the meantime you're trying not
to get an egg cracked on your head or flour rubbed in your hair. Looking at the above list of everything included in carnaval, you're not going to leave clean. It was so much fun though, I thought it was more fun than the carnaval in Colombia. Of course, being the only tall white and blonde person around I was an extra target for getting soaked with buckets of water and tinta rubbed in my face, along with my other volunteer friends who came to celebrate with me. It was fun to feel like a kid again and just "play." The translation in Spanish when people talk about carnaval is "playing carnaval." For example, my coworkers would ask "Saritah, are you going to play carnaval?" or "jugar carnaval." It felt funny to be like "oh yeah I'm on my way to play carnaval," but that's just how it is in their language, and it did feel like playing, it was so much fun! And kids and adults of all ages participated. Definitely a memory I'll forever remember, and glad I was able to celebrate it with all of my host family! Definitely the most fun host family, they are a blast!
So yes, if you are looking for a fun event to experience in South America or in Ecuador, I highly recommend coming down for CARNAVAL sometime! Still hard to believe that I as sit here on my couch in Alaska writing this that it was only just a month ago that we were having such a great time. Never thought how fast things could change and I'd be home right now. But I'm so glad that I was taking every opportunity to enjoy life and experience Ecuador and share time with my host family!
As the celebrations continued, the weekend following carnaval was my host brother, Kevin's 27th birthday! Over the last 7 months in site, my host brother and I have grown super close and are essentially BFF's. My host brother Kevin works in construction as he owns two machines that he contracts out for jobs. He definitely takes after my host mom with how comical he is. Definitely quite the hoot and makes life at home much more entertaining. So, we celebrated Kevin's birthday with a big family meal per usual and went to the river afterwards even though it started raining. The following weekends, I'm thankful that I was able to spend most the time with my host family as I didn't know they would be my last before being evacuated back "home" to the USA. During this time I floated down Río Anzu with both of my brothers Juanito and Kevin as well as my site mate Sydney, which was super fun and took about 3hrs. And lastly we checked out more river spots and just enjoyed time with the family.
- WORK LIFE -
Okay, now you're probably thinking "does Sarah actually work, or does she just river bathe and attend fiestas all the time?" Well, now that I have told you all of the extracurricular activity fun, I'll now tell you about what I was up to during the month of February with work! FINALLY we (Mary and I, and coworkers) were getting our community/scholastic/family garden project up and running. We had picked the small rural community of Flor de Bosque, which I believe I had mentioned in the prior post. The month of February we finished preparing the land to garden on and were able to start planting seeds. We were planting basil, jalapeño peppers, onion, chives, radish, and were going to plant tomatoes and
cucumbers. Each week on Wednesday from 10:30-12:00 we would take the 30minute taxi drive with our workers to go visit the community and meet the kids and their parents to work together in the garden. We had finally made a connection with the Ministry of Agriculture in Tena who was going to help us create a compost and educate the community on composting since the week after planting we realized that the soil needed more nutrients and the plants weren't growing very well. Unfortunately this was cancelled due to being sent home back to Alaska. But instead of planting a second time around, we were able to enclose the garden with fencing so that animals could not get in. During these community visits, I was giving lectures to kids
and their family on nutrition themes such as processed vs. non-processed food, natural foods and portion control (MyPlate.gov). We were going to continue the charlas to talk about rights, however were cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic. We are hoping that once schools open up that we can continue to project, or hope that they as a community are continuing to care for the garden as it is in the community space near their school in Flor del Bosque. We also had planned to create a mural next to the garden, but of course that is postponed as well. Mary is very artistic and was taking ideas from the kiddos for designs that we could use.
In addition to working with the rural community of Flor del Bosque, we were also working with the community of Nueva Esperanza, where Mary lives. We had also worked with these kids on a garden earlier on in December and had completed the sexual reproductive and life skills course with them. Seeing as they were a great group to work with, we have continued to work with the kiddos in 5th and 6th grade there helping out with a little bit of English as well as giving them nutrition charlas. This month of February and March, we finally had started with them a new program called Rainbow Days, which is a drug and alcohol prevention program that we were introduced to with Peace Corps, more of a Youth and Family Program, however we as Health Volunteers are also allowed to help
with "secondary" projects and nonetheless drug and alcohol prevention is a very important health topic. As I have mentioned before, drug use but particularly alcoholism is a very large
problem in the Ecuadorian culture which is further associated with domestic violence. In addition to our Rainbow Days program, one of my counterparts is an indigenous Kichwa speaker and had plans to also teach the kids Kichwa when we were teaching them English (Tri-Lingual class!).
Lastly, I have continued to work with the lovely abuelitos at the senior center on topics of health and exercise. They were all getting very excited to meet my parents, as my parents were supposed to come visit starting April 2nd and we were supposed to have our cantón's
fiestas end of their trip, however all of that is postponed, so I guess the abuelitos will have to wait to meet my parents! My site mates Mary, Sydney and I all collaborated together in organizing part of the event for International Day of the Woman. This was celebrated for us
on Friday March 6th. We held a relay race where women had to write a word that describes women such as "strong, powerful, smart," etc. This was a small part of the bigger celebration. Earlier that day the mayor had given the women who work in the municipal building a small party where we were given cake and wine and danced to music! It was pretty fun, I spent most of the afternoon dancing with my host mom but then had to go help get ready for the event! Never a dull moment!
So, more or less that is what I was up to the last two months at work, projects were finally coming together, but unfortunately had to be cut short due to the coronavirus!
- EVACUATION -
Okay, so yes I said it "coronavirus," who knew that it was going to turn into a pandemic. I remember in January/February seeing memes about coronavirus and in our work office it was often just a joke or something to talk about. I too was guilty at one point of thinking "oh its fine, it's just a bad flu"... but I'm thankful I reached out to my other nurse friends and realized how tragic and serious of an issue it actually was. Before I knew it, it was a pandemic and it was a ticking time bomb before it reached Ecuador. To make the long story short, the numbers around the globe were growing and we (Peace Corps Volunteers) started noticing that other countries with PCV's were being evacuated back to the US. However since South America and Ecuador had such small numbers, we thought we were safe from having to evacuate home. The week of March 8-14 things exponentially changed, and I remember
Sunday night March 15 after coming home from the river, our PCV group chat was blowing up with people saying that PC Panama was being evacuated and that they were sure we were going to get evacuated before the end of the week. Also it was made known that Global Director CEO Jody Olsen of PC was going to make an announcement that night. I was trying to remain optimistic thinking that I was safer in my small rural jungle town than having to fly back home all the way to Alaska. During this same time, it was announced that the Ecuadorian border was going to be closed to letting anyone (Ecuadorian citizens or foreigners) into the country, however flights were still allowed out. Regulations in country were rapidly changing regarding mobilization of vehicles, etc. At 8:30 or so that night we received notification from PC staff that we were going to be put on "standfast" which meant we just couldn't leave our sites for safety purposes. So, I thought okay- they clearly aren't thinking of evacuating us if we are on "standfast," the next step would've been
consolidation where we would have to move to a common location with other PCVs. So, at this point, I was feeling okay about the situation, however didn't have an emergency bag packed in the slight chance that we would actually have to evacuate. Once again, I was just thinking that I am better off here at site in my rural town. Well, lo and behold at 9:39pm I
receive the text message from Safety and Security: "Peace Corps Headquarters have decided to suspend all operations globally and evacuate all volunteers. Programming and training will be calling you in a few minutes." BOOM. My worst nightmare came true, I couldn't believe what I was reading, we had to pack our bags and it was communicated that we would receive a call the next morning but to pack everything and plan on leaving that Monday Morning. I was in shock, denial, disbelief. I had been worried all afternoon and discussing the possibility with my host family of evacuating, however I didn't think that it would be so sudden. I think my host mom and family was as shocked and in denial as I was. As much as I was in denial, I knew I had to start packing. When I was leaving to Peace Corps it took me a whole week to pack my bags, and here I was being informed at 9:40pm that I had to pack all of my belongings and LEAVE the next morning, not knowing when I would be able to return. Safe to say I got about 3 hours of sleep that night then had to wake up to say goodbye to my coworkers at 7:30am that morning. The municipal building decided to close for the week in response to COVID-19 and have people work from home. I then invited all of my extended family and friends over to the house to say goodbye before I headed out to Quito at 11am, where we were told to report to.
This was probably the saddest most heartbreaking experience I've been through in a long time. My host family, specifically mom, and I have always talked about how sad it would be when it comes time for me to leave. But we couldn't even prepare for this goodbye, it just came out of nowhere. And the day before, our poor family dog had died to make things even more depressing. I said goodbye to my host fam and my friends from the local market. I was heartbroken and so were they. My host grandma was even crying and she's a stubborn abuelita with the other family members usually. I am glad that the day before we were able to all spend together at the river. We didn't know it at the time, but it was my unofficial despedida (goodbye). I can't emphasize how much my host family means to me, I'm sure if you follow me on social media maybe you can catch a glimpse of how strong our relationship was, but they really were like family to me and we had such a strong bond. I'm hoping that this will just mean we will appreciate our time together even more when we are reunited, which is hopefully sooner than later.
After arriving in Quito on Monday March 16th we checked into a hotel and were updated by the county director Mike Donald and the US Ambassador who emphasized to us that this was a temporary suspension of PC Ecuador and that they would love to bring us back when they can. Tuesday AM we were woken up at 2:30am to catch a bus to the airport for our 10:00am flight to Guayaquil (GYE). The city of Quito was going to be on lockdown starting at 5am, so we sadly did not get the sleep we were hoping for. We got to GYE around 11:30am and had to wait for our chartered flight that was supposed to leave at 4pm, however due to travel bans within the city, the flight crew had issues arriving on time and we ended up leaving around 6:30pm to Miami. Long story short, made it to Miami and was able to finally get to a hotel and sleep some and from there PC provided us each flights to our homes of residence where we would have to complete 14 days of self quarantine.
I am now currently here in Alaska on day 5 I believe of quarantine. I slept like a baby my first day back and feel like I exhausted all of my emotions from the time I found out that I had to evacuate til the moment I got home. There wasn't much left for me to feel at the moment. It all felt like a nightmare that I was hoping to wake up from. It is one thing to complete your two years of service or know that you are leaving your host family on a certain date, but to essentially have to move your life and say goodbye to your friends and family overnight, is another situation. Peace Corps states that this is a temporary suspension of service and that once the coronavirus is over, we will supposedly have the opportunity to return to our second home in Ecuador and be reunited with our communities. However the situation is changing around the world each day with the pandemic and we will just have to go with the flow. In the meantime I have been in close contact with my friends and family in Ecuador in order to keep in contact with them and lessen the pain of being so far from them. I am remaining optimistic that I'll be back hopefully in the next 6 months. In the meantime I am going to go back to work temporarily as a nurse and when it is time to go back to Ecuador, I'll have been waiting. I can only make the most of the situation and enjoy as much as possibly the beautiful Alaskan summer while I am here as well as time with my family and friends. Thank you all for following my blog and I hope to keep you all posted with finishing my service as much has yet to be lived and accomplished in my small beloved town in the Oriente of Ecuador <3 .
Disclaimer: “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.”