2010 Wrap-Up.

OK, this is going to be a long one, so bare with me. I’m going to do a little bit of a recap of my year- the ups, the downs, the visitors, the work, the food, the friends, etc.

So, my year started as it usually does, with a birthday brunch at Grandma Bev’s house. It’s not that I necessarily started to feel the weight of what was to come whilst eating my bagel and shmear, but I definitely remember thinking that this was going to be my last b-day brunch with the family for at least a couple of years. I’m not a group movement type of gal, so I don’t remember feeling particularly upset about it, but I definitely took a second to think about the sorts of family events that I was about to miss- birthdays, graduations, holidays, etc.

January and early Feb were spent mostly running errands and trying to get organized for my upcoming adventure. I don’t think I had ever spent so much money on myself or been into an REI quite as many times as I did during that month and a half. Overwhelmed was my perpetual state of mind for those 6 or so weeks, trying to fit in as much sushi, Chipotle, Longshot and 2me as possible. I’m an over packer by nature, so you can imagine what my packing situation was like- especially since I didn’t know what sort of climate to be packing for (Coast- hot and humid, Sierra- cold and rainy, Oriente- hot, humid, and rainy)

February 16 rolled around— as it usually does around that time— and it was time for me to zip up my bags, take one last look at my room, house, and family and board my flight to Washington DC where my whole group would meet for a day long conference and then travel together the next day to our future home: Ecuador.

The first few weeks in country were full of pretests (language, technical, safety and security, etc) and trying to get to know the other volunteers. We were lucky enough to have a week together as a group before we all got split up into our language groups and assigned our training community, so getting to know everyone was relatively easy. After that first week living at this facility that felt like a combination of summer camp and college dorms, we were all divided into groups depending on our Spanish level and assigned our training community. I tested into one of the lower levels, guess I probably should have studied a little bit more before boarding that plane, but we all know what kind of a student I am. My training community was Ayora, a small community whose biggest claim to fame was the dairy factory across the street from the main square. There were 4 other volunteers in my group and we met everyday to work on our Spanish and learn a little bit about this new country of ours. I was the 7th or 8th volunteer that my training host family had, so they weren’t as excited and including as some of the other families in my group, but luckily another volunteer lived with her host family around the corner from me, so I went over there and mooched off her host family for some of the staple training integration activities- eating cuy (guinea pig), hanging out in tiendas (basically the equivalent to gas station convenient stores, where the owners hang out all day), etc.
After 9 weeks of training, we were assigned our sites. I was assigned Guayllapishi, a small community of farmers who had requested a volunteer to help with the business aspect of their various productions- milk, potatoes, cuyes, dried fruit, etc. Although I’ve hit the normal amount of rough patches here in Guayllapishi: small housing crisis, the occasional lack of running water and electricity, lack to work, etc I have come to regard my home here as pretty much as close to an ideal site location as possible. The town is small enough to know everyone by name, the people are incredible, and the way of life is just simple enough to forget about your worries.

The work- I go back and forth on how productive and useful I feel here. A huge struggle for Peace Corps Volunteers is finding enough work to feel satisfied during the 27 months of service. As an Agribusiness Volunteer, I was assigned Guayllapishi with the hopes that I could help with the commercialization of the aforementioned products and to help teach some basic business practices. As you can imagine, it is incredibly difficult to try to come into such a small community like Guayllapishi, take one look at the way the people here operate and try to chime in (in my still choppy Spanish, mind you) with suggestions on how to make everything better. Who am I- a recent college grad with hardly any real world experience (especially in agriculture), a foreigner, a woman- to expect that my suggestions would hold any weight compared to Lucho or Victor who have known no other way of life and have honed and perfected their farming skills since they were old enough to pick up a hoe and start plowing.

Needless to say, my first few months in site were spent trying to get my Spanish up to par, observing the local politics and order of operations, and trying to get a realistic grip on some possible projects that I might actually be able to accomplish during my time here. A couple of months in, a health volunteer was assigned Cebadas (the town next door, where I now live). As soon as she got settled, it was time to get down to business. We started working in the colegio (high school), gave a series of charlas (workshops) on making compost, planned activities for both Global Handwashing Day and World AIDS Day, and have started nutrition and cooking classes to try and diversify the diet around here. I have a few new projects up my sleeve for the New Year and I’ve come to expect that some will fall through, but I’m excited about what is to come.
Now, while it sounds like I do a decent amount of work around here, I still find myself with plenty of down time. In the US when I had this much down time, I usually filled the space with endless hours of reality TV, movies, concerts, etc. Here in Ecuador, things work a little differently. The closest movie theatre is over 3 hours away and although I am becoming more and more confident with my Spanish, I still wouldn’t consider watching TV in Spanish necessarily enjoyable. Instead, I’ve been lucky enough to make an incredible group of friends and have had a couple of visitors with whom I have been able to travel all around the country. I’ve been to the coast, the jungle, in cloud forests, hiked and biked mountains, and so much more.
Alright, as usual I am completely pooped after writing this here blog, so I’ll leave you with some of my New Year’s Resolutions. Of course, I have the customary resolutions: lose weight, be more outgoing, more decisive, blah blah blah. Since this next year will be completely spent in Ecuador, I’ve decided to add a couple of reachable goals for the upcoming months. First, start and finish at least 5 projects- World Map Project, Garden projects, etc. Second, be less intimidated about using my Spanish. I know I am nowhere near fluent, but I also know that I will never be fluent if I am too timid to speak up, so I’m going to try and actually study and use my Spanish more. Who knows, maybe even around other Gringos (Americans/ foreigners). Wait a sec, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, I’ll start with Ecuadorians. Third and final, this kind of goes along with the standard resolutions, but I am going to focus a majority of my efforts on less thinking and more action in all aspects of my daily life. I’m still not exactly sure what that entails, but I am going to try my hardest to accomplish this goal, even if it’s the only one I can actually accomplish in 2011.

Hope you all had a great 2010, here’s to an even better 2011! (picture me raising my Pilsener and toasting you all right there…).

P.S. Shelby knows a blogpost about our trip is expected of her but since she is already back at school, she might be losing motivation so feel free to bug her incessantly until she writes and posts something!