March 7, 2013. Yesterday, as we were walking home together, I wished the other volunteers “happy Christmas Eve” as we departed to our respective homes. Today was site assignment day! Basically, the most important day of training, when we find out where we’ll live and work for the full 2 years. This is an anticipation that has been building for years for most of us. To finally get a glimpse of what our Peace Corps experience will be like.
There was a huge ceremony in which the training staff dressed up in traditional indigenous garb from each region and announced our provinces in a microphone as they escorted us on our metaphorical first visit to site, a map of the country outlined in rose petals on the soccer field. It was a beautiful event and I really appreciate the effort the staff put into making it special for us. I will admit that I have been crossing my fingers for a site on the coast for a lot of reasons, but it was not in the cards for me and I was okay with that.
I will be living in a small town about 20 minutes outside the city of Latacunga in the Cotopaxi province! I’m so excited! It’s high up in the mountains and very cold but close to some very interesting places- the famous crater lake, Quilotoa, and the Cotopaxi volcano, which I’m hoping to train to climb. I’m so excited! My housing paperwork says I’ll be living in my own small apartment in my host family’s compound. My host dad is a literature professor and host mom is also a high school teacher, they have a 3 year-old daughter and 2 dogs. I’m so excited! Apparently my town is 30% indigenous, Kichwa-speaking people, so I’ll need to learn at least a little of the language. The high school I’ll be working in is an all-boys technical school- that will be interesting. And I guess we have a small artisan market in the town as well. I’M SO EXCITED! Can you tell?!
I’ll be very sad to leave my current host family but it’s really nice that I’m only about 2 hours away from them so I can come visit. My host mom has already insisted that I come on the weekends and she’ll feed me and do my laundry. She is so much like my real mom, it makes me happy. Baby Ayllen’s birthday is tomorrow but her party isn’t for another couple weeks so tomorrow will just be a small family lunch and some cake. I’m going to blow up a bunch of balloons and put them out in the kitchen before they wake up in the morning. She loves balloons! But mostly loves to eat them.
We had a party at one of the volunteers’ houses last night to celebrate site placement, it was a lot of fun, very much like an American party. The last party was a lot of dancing, a lot of Spanish music, and just some chips and cookies, we even ran out of alcohol. This time we had tons of pizza and booze and even did a beer run half-way through. We played King’s Cup, Flip Cup, and Beer Pong, it was so nice to have a little piece of the US, party-style. The volunteer who lives there is friends with some of the local police officers so they were there too and I got to talking to one of them, he practiced his English and me my Spanish. He asked a lot of questions about the US and even learned all of the drinking games. At the end of the party, he asked for my number! He said he wants me to teach him how to surf, but we were already instructed during training that an invitation to the coast means an invitation to bed. I wasn’t interested and I’m not going to go out with him but I was excited because I felt like I was able to communicate well enough to actually get along with a local! Honestly, I have been worried about making friends because it’s such a necessity in my life, but I’m a little bit more confident now.
We’ll be visiting our sites next week to meet our counterparts and stay with our families. I’ll definitely update after.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring. Abrazos y besos.
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