It´s over

Hey, so it has been a super long time since i have posted anything on here. Don´t worry I have excuses for doing so. I went on a two week tech trip on the coast and didn´t have any access to the internet and then i spent a week in Quito being super busy. So, my tech trip was pretty awesome. First, we went to Cotacachi to see a botanical garden. The garden was cool, but what was even cooler. We saw three ecuadorian kids playing with a cross in the park. It seemed harmless at first, but then they tied one of the kids to the cross and tried to lift him up in the air. I know it sounds pretty awful, but they were just kids and I couldn´t stop laughing. It was by far the funniest thing I have ever seen. We spent the first two nights with the entire Natural Resources Conservation group in a monestary just outside of Quito. It was pretty weird, but I think we made the best of it. We learned about an environmental education program called esculas verdes. This would not have been so bad, but we went over about an hours worth of info stretched into 2 days. It was so repetetive i wanted to strangle a small animal. After two days of being there the sierra and oriente groups (I am in the coastal group) went to Quenca to do god knows what. My group was lucky enough to spend an extra night in the monestary and we were supposed to board a bus to San Vicente at 7am.

Well we got up early even though we stayed up until about 2 and headed to the bus station. Guess what, our bus was delayed for 3 hours and we could not leave until 10am. Talk about bummer. We screwed around quito and did about as much stuff you can do early in the morning and went back to our bus. As soon as I got on the bus I passed out. I woke up about an hour later to the sounds of the movie Human Trafficing. We got to witness the trilogy of this movie on the bus ride and we finally arrived in San Vicente around 6 am. Finally, the beach. Immediately we did what any gringo would do in this situation, we bought a jaba (12 pack of giant beers). We spent the next two days going on hikes and chilling by the pool and going on a canoe trip through mangroves.

Next, we went to a small town near Pedernales. We stayed in a giant hippy house in the middle of a dry forest. We even had composting toilets fully equipped with giant spiders. It was quite the treat to see these spiders on a late night trip to the bathroom. Here we learned about permaculture and socio-bosques. Every night we were there around 4am we would here the craziest howling noises in the middle of the night. It was just howler monkeys, you know, the usual. It was so hot at this site and thought I was going to melt. I sweated for 2 full days.

Finally, we went to Same, Esmereldas. This is a beach resort near Atacames. I spent four days chilling at the beach and eating fried shrimp dinners for 4 dollars. Talk about an awesome time. The waves were strong and were constantly knocking me around. This was by far my favorite part of the trip. We learned alot about conservation and different types of schools. It was a real awesome time.

We came back to Quito after our tech trip and spent 4 days doing paperwork and last minute lectures. Then came the best part, we got to swear in. I am finally a volunteer. We had swear in at the ambassadors house. It was pretty formal, at first, then I was supposed to give a speach. I kinda changed the course of things for about 5 minutes. Luckily another volunteer prepared a much more serious speech for the Ag program. After swear in we went back to the Peace Corps office and ate giant American Cheeseburgers. Oh, we also through ourselves a little party that night.

Now, I am at my site in the northern part of Guayas. It is a little weird being the only American around. I feel somewhat lost. As soon as I got to my site I called my counterpart and he came and met me. He took my to my house, I live at a center for youths and adolescents. We walked into my room and realized that it lacked everything. There was no bed, no nothing. Well they took me to a store and bought me a bed. We took it back to my room and realized that nothing fit together. In the states I would have taken the bed back to the store. Here, they just pulled out a hack saw and started cutting things until it sort of fit. Well I mostly unpacked and sat around for the remainer of the evening. My new family made me dinner and then I slept for like 10 hours. The next few weeks, months, years are going to be interesting. I look forward to sharing everything with the readers of my blog. Anyway, talk to everyone later. Chao chao.

Holy Canoli its Holy Thursday

So I have the next four days off until I go on a technical trip. I was at my Site last week. It was pretty awesome. There are a few Volunteers close to me and its really hot. Everyday is like houston during the summer. I am gonna be working on a reforestation project near a river in town. It should be very interesting. Not much has been going on since I got back. One cool thing, guns n roses are playing in quito tonight. It would be really sweet to go. I won´t have internet for like 2 weeks because of my trip, so there will be some hiatus from this blog. I gotta go though. Later.