July 17th,
2013. Phew. Just got back from Cumbaya/Tumbaco. The graduation ceremony/party
on Saturday was beautiful and fun and I admire the graduate very much. She is
very intelligent and mature and has a lot of very open-minded ideas that she’s
not afraid to express. She’s only seventeen and she’s leaving in 2 weeks to
live in the United States for 6 months in order to perfect her English (which
is already really good!) She’s going to stay with a host family in Long Beach,
CA so I was trying to give her my best advice on SoCal. I already know she’s
going to have such an amazing, life-changing experience, I’m really excited for
her. And of course, the family treated us like one of their own and fed us
delicious fancy food. The appetizer was a shrimp salad in a papaya! SO yummy.
After the party,
we stayed the night in the training center in Tumbaco since we were in the area
and had the summer camp training on Monday. It was kind of eerie but really
cool to be back there. As soon as I walked into the dormitory, I could feel all
the emotions I felt on my first night in Ecuador. But this time I was a lot
more tranquila.
On Sunday Todd
and I hiked on the Chaquiñan (a bike path that leads to a beautiful canyon and
river) and then headed over to Sonia’s house for lunch and a visit. I always
leave their house with such a full heart (and stomach). Visiting with them
makes me feel so much less homesick. I can’t even describe how good it feels to
know that someone in this country truly cares about me. A few other Peace Corps
volunteers headed into town that night also and we met at the mall and ate
brownie sundaes and caught up and reminisced, which was really nice.
Monday, we
started the training and completely went in blind. This happens quite often
here, communication is much more indirect, so there have been countless times
that I walk into a room and have absolutely no clue what to expect. I knew that
it was a summer camp being run by the US Embassy in August, and I was under the
impression that we were just going to be doing a few English classes during the
camp. Wrong. Turns out it’s an English Immersion Camp and we would be spending
the 2 days of training planning, scheduling, organizing, and creating all of
the activities for the camp alongside Ecuadorian college students who are
studying to be English teachers. This is something that I have zero experience
in, but by the end of the 2 days, I decided that this camp is probably going to
be the coolest thing I’ll do this year. All the activities sound so fun and
productive and the college students we were working with were SO nice! Some of
the nicest people I’ve met here. We created a friendship in such a quick time
and I’m really looking forward to seeing them again in August. To be continued.
Monday night I
went back to Sonia’s house for dinner and hot chocolate, it was amazing, of
course. And then Tuesday night we were finished with training so we decided to
get a couple drinks and dinner in Cumbaya (fancy town). I don’t get out too
much here and apparently the other volunteers are in the same boat, so we got a
little crazy, but it was well deserved and not out of control. But I felt so
crappy Wednesday morning when I had to travel back to my site. I was extra
nauseous on the bus with all the curvy roads and I was super sleepy from not
getting much sleep the last couple days. Plus I have to admit it was a little
hard to come back knowing I’ve got a lot to do here and leaving a fun couple
days of new friends and good work. I get on my last of 3 buses and one of my
really good students was sitting in the front row and greeted me with a big
smile and “CHELSEA!” as soon as I got on. Then, she paid for my bus fare
without me knowing and then bought me a bag of mani (sweet peanuts) and had the
vendor bring them over to me. It was the sweetest thing and made coming back to
normal life a lot happier.
Those are my
novedades. No complaints here. Life is pretty rad.
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| Felicidades, Domi! |
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| Chaquiñan |
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| ´In a van! Down by the river!´ |
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