So what has been the craziest thing you have seen at you site

As of late I am starting to regret this whole Peace Corps thing. I am very dipressed and I want to go home??.yeah I am just joking. Everything is going great. My managers from Peace Corps came to my site yesterday for a site visit. I am supposed to have two site visits while I am here. I didn?t get much feedback but I think I am on somewhat of the right track. I introduced them to the people I work with here at the Municipio. So I am all good on that front. My parents are in Canada or Alaska or something right now and I hope they are having a great time. I received a package from them yesterday. It only took like a month to get it. It had beef jerky in it, I was very impressed.

In the next few weeks I hope to get underway on my cities tree nursery. After many talks with different people, I think I am going to give in and allow them to use bamboo in our reforestation project. It may be invasive, but they need a fast growing plant right along the edge of the river. One of the Peace Corps managers said that bamboo would be great for that. This should be a pretty big project and I am looking forward to getting started on it. I have to write a proposal for the Municipio and get it approved by the higher-ups. Wish me luck.

On a bit of a different not, the 4th of July is coming up and I am in a different country. It is ok though, I plan on celebrating by playing with fire, drinking Budweiser, and eating Mexican Food. It will be different, but I still think I am having more fun than yall. Just kidding, I hope yall are having just as good a time as me. Ok, take it easy, and don?t party too hard this weekend. Later.

Yeah it´s Thursday

Hey dudes. Lately has either been really in your face or a lot of watching movies. By this I mean, I have either been super busy or doing nothing at all. For example, Last Saturday I had to give a charla (lecture) to a group of about 50 adults on the different types of basura (trash). It was my first charla and therefore, kinda scary. In the middle of the question and answers portion, I had to sit down. I was a little nervous/dehydrated. It was all good though, the group I gave the talk to asked me to come back and give them more information on environmental stuff. It is pretty tight. They even said that they would make me some ceviche. That Saturday night was a reina competition. This is basically a beauty pageant to pick the queen of Emplame. I don?t really know what was going on during the whole thing. From what I gathered, the reason they have this event is so people can sell food and beer. I was forced into drinking beer with some dudes til around 1:30 in the morning. The competition wasn?t over, but I was so tired and scared of what might happen if I kept hanging out. It turns out the competition didn?t end until around 4am. Crazy I know.

The next day I went to a town called La Mana that has some cascadas (waterfalls) nearby. I saw 7 waterfalls that day with two of my friends that live close by. It was really sweet. One of the waterfalls was like 100 meters high. I jumped off of it?..just kidding mom. The waterfall I jumped off of was only like 30 feet high. Don?t worry though the water doesn?t have a bottom. I am convinced that it is actually an abyss. Another highlight from this day is that we made sandwiches with cheese that kinda tasted like cheddar. The meat tasted like deli chicken, but was called Jamon de Pollo, which translates to Ham of Chicken. I don?t know really what it is supposed to mean.

Since then I have mostly been watching movies. I finished a bunch of work plans for my counterpart. Oh and I put some dirt in some bags. It was a highlight. Next week is probably going to be crazy. It is my town?s citywide dance. I am not sure, but I think it is going to trump the reina competition. This is going to be tough to do considering the reina competition had a stage similar to a stage you would see at say?.. The Austin City Limits Festival equipped with two giant tv screens on each side, an extremely loud sound system, and a water fountain in the middle of the stage for the contestants to walk around. It is gonna be dope I am sure. The city even made the next day a holiday. They gave the holiday some significance for some famous person, but my counterpart told me it is the day of the hangover. Don?t worry I wont participate in that part mom.

Oh, the fourth of July is coming up. I think me and some of my friends are gonna get together and drink some budweisers. That seems pretty American. Alright, well yall stay cool and I will say wutsup later.

I have been showering lately. Well when I feel dirty.

These past weeks have been full of stuff. I am not sure if it has been productive stuff, but at least its stuff. I don?t know if I let yall know, but I finished all of my interviews in my community like 2 weeks ago. It is kind of crazy because everyone else I have talked to is not even close to being done. Oh well, my counterpart was really eager to get these out of the way.
I have been watching a lot of movies and tv shows lately. I recently went on a spending spree and spent about 30 dollars on media. This may not seem like a lot to most of you, but here in Ecuador this is 30 dvds. It is pretty awesome. I even bought Iron Man 2 like the day after it was released in theatres. So I guess my habits are about the same here as they were in the states. I still watch movies and play video games in my spare time. I am still waiting to get a bicycle and guitar and then things will be almost back to normal.
Also for the past two weeks I have waited for what seemed forever to use the internet here at the municipio (municipality). It turns out I wasn?t waiting on anything. We were just given wrong information and asked the wrong people to use the internet. Anyway, I finally got to use the internet yesterday. I got mucho information about reforestation and have almost finished my general plan for the project. I say general plan, because I know for a fact that I will run into many problems and have to change some of the stuff quite a bit. I hope it?s a sustainable project though. I hope my community isn?t just depending on my to do the project, but they also take an interest and participate in it.

I have been at my site for like a month and a half almost. That means, in another month and a half I will be done with host families. I can get my own apartment. This will be great. I will be able to cook for myself and take care of everything on my own again. I can start eating dinner when I want to eat it. Right now I eat dinner around like 9pm because that?s when my family likes to eat dinner. I won?t have to share my living quarters with an office. It will be nice freedom. I can?t wait.

My parents are planning on coming in October. This should also be awesome. I get to plan what we are going to do. I am also planning on making a trip back to Texas for like a week in December around Christmas. Oh, the thought of eating Mexican Food and drinking Lone Star and Shiner. I will try to keep everyone posted on when I make my return and want to try to see as many people as possible. Also, if anyone wants to come to Ecuador, it is not a problem. Everything here is super cheap. A 10 hour bus ride is like 10 bucks. A hotel room is like 7 bucks a person. It is all good. Meals are between $1.50 and $3.00. There is tons of hiking and awesome stuff to do. Anyway let me know. I miss everyone and will post soon. Luego.

I wrote this like two days ago. I have since had one shower.

Hey yall. So things have been alright lately. Since I last posted I have seen a bullfight. That was pretty intense. The first fight involved three clowns stabbing a bull with long swords. But, they didn?t kill him. The next fight involved a bull that wasn?t too big, but there was a good long while where I was convinced it wouldn?t die. Then they stabbed him in the head. It was gruesome. The last fight was some guy on a horse fighting a pretty big bull. It lasted a good long while, he even had to switch horses cause the first one got too winded. Eventually after a very bloody gruesome fight to the death, the bull died. Then, he came back to life, but then they stabbed him in the head. It was pretty crazy. I don?t know if it was worth 7 bucks. I will probably go again though, cause for some reason I had a pretty good time. Oh, you could also buy beers in really big glasses like at sports events in the states. It was sweet.

Since then, not much has been going on. I finished all 50 of my interviews that Peace Corps said I had to do. All I have to do know is type it up in a report. Yay. On a much grosser note, I have not showered in like seven days. For some reason my family turns the water off to the house. It?s awesome and smelly. I feel really dirty, but I guess I am getting used to that feeling. Lets hope that it turns on today. My video game addiction has kicked back in. I play video games for like an hour or two a day. I know, I have a problem. Whatever. I think I am gonna try to buy a new bike pretty soon and after that I am going to get a guitar. Woo. Well, I hope everyone at home is doing awesome. I am doing fine even though I don?t shower anymore. I sometimes take baths in a dirty bucket, so it?s all good. Alright later.

Lately

Ok everyone. So I havn´t been posting much lately and I have never even posted a picture. So here are a few in no particular order.


This is the view from my office window.

This is me and Mohammed at a hot spring.

This is Jose "aka Tio" and Mohammed at the same hot spring.

This is a crappy view of the sierra. Man it sucks here.

This is me doing my interviews in my community.

Cayambe.

Cayambe from my bedroom window during training.

The Beach.
Yeah, so everything has been pretty awesome lately. I go to work everyday and talk in spanish to people. Some days are better than others, but everday is memorable. Lately I have been interviewing people in my town about environmental education. Peace Corps rocks and makes us interview the community. In most cases this is a good integration tool, but my city hast about 35,000 people in it. So The people I get to know real well are the people at the office. Anyway, I have been living in an old monestary that has been converted into an office with a host family. It is very interesting, but I am enjoying the experience. ¿Que mas? Oh, I can eat fried shrimp dinners in my town for $3.50. Expensive, i know. It is pretty sweet. I think I am about to go to the community landfill. This should also be interesting, because I have no idea what to expect. Wow, I worked in an office in the states and dealt with waste management issues. Now I work in an office in Ecuador and will undoubtedly be working in waste management. haha. Funny how things work out. I am also gonna be doing a reforestation project near the river in my community in efforts to help with their potable agua project. Well I gotta go, I will update soon. I miss everyone and hope that everything is ok. Luego.

ps. the spellcheck isn´t working, so ignore all errors.

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.