Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Work and Play

Well folks, now more than ever it feels like I am working. First lets back on up to where we left off. I was feeling like there was no hope for my project and just kind of seeing other options in my community. Then, all of a sudden, a very respected person in the community asked me to show him what I had been working on and seemed to like what he was seeing. The very next week I was out on the river in a boat using GPS to determine the rivers length. This may seem all fine and dandy, but I was on the river with guys that had never really been in a boat. It took a little getting used too, not to mention that the river was cascaded in brush and fallen over trees. We had to use the machetes. Oh, and don't worry Peace Corps, I had my life jacket and helmet on. During our adventure we saw a butt load of wild life. I saw giant snakes, a sloth, and iguanas just to name a few. It took us about a week to travel the entire 20km río. We would embark from a random bridges leading to the campo and travel to the next bridge leading to the campo. Every time we saw a bridge, we would stop and get a ride back into town for some lunch. Everything was going somewhat fine, but on the 4th day tragedy struck. We were stuck with a new experienced boat navigator that we had not used yet. I really doubt he had ever manned a boat in his life, because after about 100 meters on the water he ran the boat into a tree and the entire the turned over on its side. So picture this, me and a bunch of Ecuadorians that cannot really swim are stuck in the middle of the river while the boat is flipped upside down. I handed off my life jacket to one of them and started swimming away. I was mostly ticked off that this had happened. I get out and am standing on the other side of the river and watching them struggle to maintain composure. They were going to be ok, they were only like a foot away from the shore. They get out and immediately start to blame me, which is usually how things go around here. The gringo did it, its his fault. Of course, none of them can take the blame. It was all good though. I fired back and pointed out that I was the last one in the boat trying to keep it from flipping. We eventually all laughed about it and got the boat out of the water.

Now, we are standing in the middle of nowhere in someones pasture and have to get a boat and a boat motor to the nearest road, which is about a half a km away. Everyone is fighting about who is going to carry the boat motor because none of them really could carry a motor by themselves and that was going to be the only way to carry it considering our terrain. Well, you guessed it, I did it. I put it on my shoulders and began to walk. It was easy at first, but then two guys that were about a foot shorter than me wanted to help. One got in front of me and one got behind me. They pretty much pulled the motor down towards them and caused me to lift more weight and walk slower. I eventually made it to the truck, but I still had to go carry one half of a boat back, while they 4 people on the other side. It was a sight I can tell you. We made it back to civilization and there were no hard feelings. Mostly laughter and sighs of relief. I am still a little irritated about it, but what can you do. We did finish this part of the project and celebrated doing so, by toasting our progress with beers. These pictures are backwards, so sorry.

El Río

El crew
Juan relaxing while the motor was broken

We did fix it


Some guys posing for a pick and then asking me to help out. haha.

After this long week I took time off and went to the beach. I went fishing and ate delicious food. It was a much needed vacation.
I even caught a pretty big fish.


Now for more work. We now needed to go out to every persons house along the river and explain that we would be around clearing brush and planting new trees. Every seemed ok with this, so that was easy. Every house wasn't so easy to get to.
Work truck

A very sturdy bridge


Work eventually led into carnival and carnival has led into now. Carnival was somewhat crazy, people spraying foam on other and throwing water balloons. It was really fun. As for now, we are clearing the buffer zone of the river of brush and invasive species. This is going to be quite the long process, but we got a team of people helping out. Until next time, I help all is well in the states and I miss everyone. Sorry for such a long post, I am sure there are many spelling errors and sentences that just don't make sense, but thanks for reading.

Monday, January 17, 2011

What?

Yes, I am still here. I have been doing some stuff lately, but with the holidays and everything it has been very difficult to get much done. My day to day is either really boring or jam packed with stuff. I will start off in December.

After Thanksgiving, I was trying to get as much stuff done at the Municipio as possible. I finished making the last corrections to the plan and presented it to the head of the department. He said it looked great. I then had about a week before I was going home to Texas for the Christmas holidays. I asked him what I needed to do until then, and he said find grants. I thought to myself, geeze, I asked yall about seven months ago if yall needed grants to fund this project and I was told no. Oh, well, I gave it a shot. The magnitude of this project could never get done with any grant that I could get from the sources that had been presented to me. So I told them and waited for their counter argument. Well, I never received one and then went home. I figured everything would be the same when I got back.

So I flew out of Quito on the 13th of Dec. at like 7 am. This meant I had to be at the airport at like 5 am. It was a long day. When I left the Quito Airport there were no people speaking any Spanish. This was the most English I had heard in about ten months. The people saying to board the plane, the ticket counter people, the people in gift shops were all speaking English. So I figured this was my first taste of the states. Well, I got to Miami at about 11am and noticed that there were no people speaking English at all. Everything was back to Spanish. Talk about a shock. So I get I almost get through customs ok, but then I was chosen to be searched of course. When I got to the counter the officer kept insisting I was a student and not a Peace Corps volunteer. He kept saying how Peace Corps was part of school. I was confused cause it seemed like he was trying to confuse me or was just confused himself. He then asked if I could speak Spanish, and when I said more or less, he said ok cool. We then continued the rest of the convo in Spanish and I was done with him in about two minutes. Lunch time came around and I decided to get a bit to eat. When I got to the restaurant, the lady taking my order could not speak English and when I spoke Spanish to her, she looked even more confused than the guy in front of my trying to tell her what to leave off of his pizza. She understood me, but I don’t think she was ready to hear a guy who looks more like a lumberjack than a Spanish speaker to give her my order in her native language. Regardless, I got my first bite of America. It was only ehhhh, because I could only afford the cheapest restaurant that I could find. I then took off to Houston.

I arrived at the IAH at about 5 and was greeted by not only my rents, but baby bro too. We then went and got coffee and I visited my bros house to see how the dog, Catcher, was doing. Everything seemed to be good, but I was dying for my Tex-Mex fix. We had to go all out, so we hit up Papasitos. It was probably in my top 5 favorite meals of last year. I got the fajitas of course and a michalada made with a tecate to wash it down. It was a night to be remembered.

While home, I got to see many friends and family. I didn’t see everyone, but there were many to say whatsup to. I think the number question asked to me was “describe your typical day as a volunteer.” Since there is no typical volunteer day, I usual told a short story or something. So there was good talks, video games, music, and beer throughout the holidays. Oh, the beer was magnificent. I just wish someone in this country made a beer other than Pilsener. Don’t get me wrong it is a good beer at a great value, but I long for more. The weather while home was erratic as usual and I even got to visit Austin for a bit. All and all it was a good trip and can’t wait to do it again. Well I got back to Ecuador and a friend of mine, Afton, flew back w me.

I was excited to show someone else my site, and I think she was excited to visit me before she headed to the Galapagos. We had a good time. We spent time at the beach on new years before she headed out to those islands that seem pretty cool.

Now that I am back in the full swing of things, I am not really sure what is happening. The director of my department was gone when I got here and replaced with somebody else. I was told he is only on vacation, but the new guy has told me to not work on what I was working on before. Now, I am just getting the straightened out and trying to figure out what needs to be done. I hope everything turns out well. We will see. Regardless though, I am still very happy to be here and having a good time, no matter what is thrown at me.