So I've been here in Ecuador a year now, and man, how the time's flown by... I feel like I've finally settled into life here and my house is finally my Ecuadorian home. With the (awesome) help of William I made a short video of my house so you guys back home can get a better idea of how I live. Its supposed to be a spoof of MTV Cribs,hence all the "hip" music. As you'll see, its not that bad of a place, albeit small. Excuse some of the filming, we only had a small point-and-shoot camera so some shots are rather blurry. So watch the video and if you have any questions, feel free to shoot them my way!
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnh7km3ym6A
On another note, I'm would really like to come home this Christmas to visit, since I wasn't able to make it last year. However, on a Peace Corps Volunteer budget, a flight to the US is a little out of reach. Therefore, I've set up an online account for anyone who would be willing to make a small donation to my travel fund. Any help would be much appreciated!
Donation link:
https://www.smartypig.com/friends-goals/128030fc-ab4d-4f58-b1a8-e4e32656491e
As always, I miss all you back home!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Market Awesomeness!
*Disclaimer: This post is not for the weak hearted or PETA activists
As y’all know by now, some things in Ecuador are a little umm… different… by US standards. Well, this past week I took a trip to Ecuador’s largest indigenous market in Guamote and boy did that reinforce the differences between the two countries.
I’ve heard from other volunteers that the Guamote’s Thursday Market isn’t your typical food market, but I really didn’t know what to expect as I was climbing up the hill to see what it was all about. Upon arriving at the outskirts I knew something wasn’t right by the general disorder of the whole event. There were people walking around selling the weirdest variety of stuff i.e. one man was selling TV remote controls and blender parts. Now this kind of randomness isn’t too unusual, but after fighting our way through the crowd we finally made it to the livestock section.
So imagine a football field filled with pigs, sheep, cows and indigenous people. And I don’t mean spaced out like a state fair. The livestock section was packed from fence to fence with animals tied down to stakes, up to fences, around each other or bound at their feet. It was entirely too packed with people and beasts that I didn’t dare to try and make it to the center of the field. So with all this chaos, you might ask, “How do the vendors keep their animals separate?” Well the answer to that is simple: all you have to do is spray paint their heads and voila, no confusion! In this same area there were also baskets FULL of guinea pigs mixed with rabbits, ducks and in one there were 2 sad puppies. Yes, puppies mixed in with ducks and guinea pigs. Needless to say the ducks weren’t happy and spent the morning trying their hardest to eat the puppies (to no avail).
After leaving the animal section, I decided to see what becomes of those animals and made my way to the meat section of the market. The meat is kept in a separate building (thank goodness!) from the fruits and veggies. The gory stalls outside should have been enough to keep me from wanting to go in since roasted sheep heads, random innards and viscera littered the entrance to the building. However, curiosity got the best of me and I had to see what went on inside. It’s really hard to describe what the meat section looks like if you’ve never been to war, seen one of the Saw movies, or actually puked your guts out. I know what it looks like to kill a deer or pig, but this was an entirely different animal (no pun intended). There were guts, heads, legs, hearts, eyes (with lashes), lungs, and whatever other pulpy, bloody stuff comes out of disemboweled creatures strewn all over the floor. Literally, I had to watch my step or I would have tripped on animal parts. And notice I say “animal” because I don’t really know what animals they were from the way they were slaughtered. So with grisly body parts everywhere, and blood dripping down their counters, the vendors were happily sawing apart their carcasses shouting at us to “buy, buy, buy!”
The thing is, I really didn’t see one piece of meat that looked remotely edible… And that wasn’t because I’m a snob (see sheep soup post), but because they didn’t actually appear to be selling meat. All they had on their counters were random organs, like plates of brains, bowls of hoofs, or heads and spinal cords hanging from hooks on the ceiling. But actual parts of the animal that people eat didn’t seem to really exist there. So without purchasing anything, we left the market, leaving a trail of bloody footprints back home.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
The Best Night EVER!
First, let me apologize to all my readers (although few you may be) about my hiatus from the blog! Life here has fallen into a rather dull pattern and I guess since nothing seems all that “exotic” to me anymore, it was hard to motivate myself to update you guys. However, a week ago, my life received a jolt (quite literally) so I took it as a sign to give you guys a shout-out!
Last Wednesday my work sent me to a three day course over risk assessment, planning and disaster preparation. Overall the course was terribly boring: they went go on and on about the same topics and read straight off of power-point slides because as everyone in Ecuador seems to know, that that’s the best method of teaching. Suffice to say, the workshop was a total bore, but things got a little more interesting on Thursday.
That day they taught about ‘emergency action plans’ and what to do in the event of a natural disaster. It was pretty basic stuff, but I have to say that I did learn a few things. And it seemed especially useful that night when I had the chance to put all my newly-learned info into practice. You might ask, put what into practice? The answer to that would be how to act during an earthquake.
Yes, we got struck by a little earthquake in Riobamba. They were actually just tremors, but to me, at 11:00 at night, it all felt the same. I was sleeping when my house started shaking back and forth (it was really only 4 shakes) which jolted me from sleep. I instantly grabbed my cell and ran to my kitchen doorway and huddled there for over an hour, calling my friends in the area and acting totally freaked out. Maybe people from California think that little tremors like that are not big deals, but I’m from Beaumont, Texas, where you only feel the ground shake at monster truck rallies. I had a really hard time getting back to sleep thanks to the adrenaline and the scared-out-of-my-mindness, but eventually dosed off again after making my peace with God.
The next day I found out that it really wasn’t that big of an event. All my coworkers and the people at the course didn’t seem to think it was that big of a problem since no one died and no buildings were knocked down. I’ve also finally accepted that I live in an earthquake zone and might have to deal with a few more tremors before I return to the States. At least now I know that my instant reaction is the right one!
Last Wednesday my work sent me to a three day course over risk assessment, planning and disaster preparation. Overall the course was terribly boring: they went go on and on about the same topics and read straight off of power-point slides because as everyone in Ecuador seems to know, that that’s the best method of teaching. Suffice to say, the workshop was a total bore, but things got a little more interesting on Thursday.
That day they taught about ‘emergency action plans’ and what to do in the event of a natural disaster. It was pretty basic stuff, but I have to say that I did learn a few things. And it seemed especially useful that night when I had the chance to put all my newly-learned info into practice. You might ask, put what into practice? The answer to that would be how to act during an earthquake.
Yes, we got struck by a little earthquake in Riobamba. They were actually just tremors, but to me, at 11:00 at night, it all felt the same. I was sleeping when my house started shaking back and forth (it was really only 4 shakes) which jolted me from sleep. I instantly grabbed my cell and ran to my kitchen doorway and huddled there for over an hour, calling my friends in the area and acting totally freaked out. Maybe people from California think that little tremors like that are not big deals, but I’m from Beaumont, Texas, where you only feel the ground shake at monster truck rallies. I had a really hard time getting back to sleep thanks to the adrenaline and the scared-out-of-my-mindness, but eventually dosed off again after making my peace with God.
The next day I found out that it really wasn’t that big of an event. All my coworkers and the people at the course didn’t seem to think it was that big of a problem since no one died and no buildings were knocked down. I’ve also finally accepted that I live in an earthquake zone and might have to deal with a few more tremors before I return to the States. At least now I know that my instant reaction is the right one!
Monday, January 25, 2010
What was I thinking?!?
Stomach issues are sort of a given in Peace Corps service, right? Well I have to say that I've had pretty good luck with that since I've been here... Until this past weekend...
It all started when I was SUPER hungry Friday afternoon as I was heading to Guamote for the weekend. When I got to the Guamote stop (which is dirt field and NOT at the terminal), I was ravenously looking for anything to hold me over for the hour long drive. Considering its location, there weren't many options: tripe with mote and ice-cream. Well, since I needed real food, I choose the tripe and mote - which was mistake number 1.
Mote is just boiled hominy, totally harmless. But tripe is animal stomach, and in this case grilled and chopped into bite sized pieces. I have to say it didn't taste too bad going down, but maybe it wasn't the best thing to buy from a street-vendor. Needless to say, that night wasn't too pleasant with the cramps and diarrhea.
The next day I was feeling crummy and hadn't had a thing to eat all morning when William and I decided to go out and find somewhere to get soup. After finally hunting down an almuerzo place, the cook told me all she had was sheep soup. Ecstatic, I ordered a bowl and sat ready for the delicious healing qualities of hot soup to flood me. What I got however, was a veggie stock with a giant sheep jaw sticking out of it. Now I've eaten some pretty 'interesting' things since I've been here but this jaw was definitely the topper. It still had the teeth (with grass) and chin (with whiskers) and was soaking there with little flaps of flesh flaking into the stock. Sounds appetizing huh?
Despite the appearance, I was SO hungry that I removed the carcass piece from the bowl and continued to eat as much of the stock as I could. Since jaws are apparently fatty and 'flavorful' every spoonful was tasted like sips meat juice. Halfway through, I was feeling even sicker than before and went back to William's place and spent the rest of the weekend between the bathroom and the bed.
I'm feeling better as of today, aside from the occasional cramp, and have learned some very valuable lessons such as Don't expect freshness from street-vendor stomach, Jaw juice is better left uneaten and ALWAYS choose the ice-cream option.
It all started when I was SUPER hungry Friday afternoon as I was heading to Guamote for the weekend. When I got to the Guamote stop (which is dirt field and NOT at the terminal), I was ravenously looking for anything to hold me over for the hour long drive. Considering its location, there weren't many options: tripe with mote and ice-cream. Well, since I needed real food, I choose the tripe and mote - which was mistake number 1.
Mote is just boiled hominy, totally harmless. But tripe is animal stomach, and in this case grilled and chopped into bite sized pieces. I have to say it didn't taste too bad going down, but maybe it wasn't the best thing to buy from a street-vendor. Needless to say, that night wasn't too pleasant with the cramps and diarrhea.
The next day I was feeling crummy and hadn't had a thing to eat all morning when William and I decided to go out and find somewhere to get soup. After finally hunting down an almuerzo place, the cook told me all she had was sheep soup. Ecstatic, I ordered a bowl and sat ready for the delicious healing qualities of hot soup to flood me. What I got however, was a veggie stock with a giant sheep jaw sticking out of it. Now I've eaten some pretty 'interesting' things since I've been here but this jaw was definitely the topper. It still had the teeth (with grass) and chin (with whiskers) and was soaking there with little flaps of flesh flaking into the stock. Sounds appetizing huh?
Despite the appearance, I was SO hungry that I removed the carcass piece from the bowl and continued to eat as much of the stock as I could. Since jaws are apparently fatty and 'flavorful' every spoonful was tasted like sips meat juice. Halfway through, I was feeling even sicker than before and went back to William's place and spent the rest of the weekend between the bathroom and the bed.
I'm feeling better as of today, aside from the occasional cramp, and have learned some very valuable lessons such as Don't expect freshness from street-vendor stomach, Jaw juice is better left uneaten and ALWAYS choose the ice-cream option.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Gobble Gobble!
Well that was one heck of a Thanksgiving dinner!
No offense meant family, but honestly, you have to admit you can’t really compete with crystal, servants and bourgeoisie to the max…
So for those of you who don’t know, I was invited to the Ambassador’s residence, in Quito, for Thanksgiving dinner. Residence is really an understatement; I would classify it more as a mansion or compound or algo asÃ. At first I was a little hesitant about the whole affair- I had it in my mind that it would be overly formal and stuffy. But as it happens, the US Ambassador to Ecuador, Heather Hodges (to be referred to as Madam Ambassador) is a big fan of the Peace Corps and is a really cool person to talk with.
As luck would have it, Sam and I were the first to arrive at Eden the residence. The butler greeted us at the door and escorted us to the patio where the Ambassador was receiving her guests. It was nice to get to chat with her for a bit before the place filled up the late-runners. Once people started steadily filing in, a waiter began walking around with a tray of beverages: red or white wine, beer or orange juice. Basically we just stood around chit-chatting, drinking and playing with the First Dog, Rocky. (Great name for a dog!)
After the social hour, we were ushered into the dining room, which was set spectacularly. There were not assigned seats, but the Ambassador did ask that we sit by people we didn’t know. Then she had us go around the table, introducing ourselves to everyone. Of the 20+ people there, about half were PCVs, and the rest were a scattering of Army, and embassy employees. Grace was said and the feast arrived.
The meal was buffet style and can I say that it was the best all-you-can-eat buffet I’ve ever been to. It was the whole shebang: turkey, stuffing, gravy, green beans, yams, beets, rolls, pumpkin, pecan and apple pies and much, much more! While we ate, the waiters continually walked around filling our glasses with wine and water, clearing away our dirty plates, and serving us coffee or tea at the end of the meal. Can I just say that in true Thanksgiving fashion, I stuffed myself to the point of illness!
I’m proud of myself for only committing one faux pax. When we got up to serves ourselves, I didn’t know that other plates were at the buffet, so I grabbed my base plate to serve myself. Of course it was the Ambassador herself that noticed and told me to leave the base plate on the table and use the other ones. Looks like I might not get the invite next year…
Later that night I did get a little homesick, but the exceptional dinner helped assuage that. Hope you USAer had meals at least as half as good as mine!
Tomorrow I’m off to Joy’s site; we are having a going away party for a fellow Cangahüeno who is ETing on Monday. So now that a total of 2 from my training town who left the PC. Dare I say we’re cursed?
BTW, my own personal rebellion to avoid calling the hostess by name and thus never saying the overly pretentious title “Madam Ambassador”
Monday, November 9, 2009
Market Day
For those of you who don’t know, I finally found an apartment! I’m going to give everyone a moment to soak in this wonderful thing.
*5 minutes later*
I could go on and on about the wonders of not living with a host family anymore, but this post is actually about something else. Since we are technically not allowed to move out until later this month, I’ve been slowly but surely buying furniture and appliances for the place. Since the best deals are found in Riobamba’s markets, not stores, I headed off this past Saturday to see what I could find.
And what a shock that was.
The best place to buy house stuff is Mercado Oriental, which is a HUGE open air market that fills up every Saturday and overflows into the adjacent streets. The place was so crowded that street traffic had virtually ceased and I had to squeeze between people just to get around. The vendors spread their wears on blankets and shout at passerbyers to stop while the herds of people inch by. The nicer things were probably freshly stolen, but I know where to get my stuff back if I’m robbed.
So this particular market is loosely divided into sections and I started in the house wears part. It’s not at all unusual to see vendor after vendor selling the EXACT same products, so sometimes you just have to randomly pick one. My personal strategy is to go to one vendor and buy a bunch of stuff so that way I can haggle for a better price and maybe get a free little gift. After honing in on one lady, I picked out the stuff I wanted and then preceded to whine about how expensive her stuff was and gave her the best 3 year old pouty face I could muster. Child-like whining is somehow magical in Ecuador because I got 4 pots, a (nice) Oster blender, 2 blankets and a tupperwear set for $80. She even threw in a pitcher!
After winding through this place, I came upon a few, well, interesting goods. There was one lady sitting on a blanket selling, and I kid you not, random nuts and bolts, piles of keys and small sections of chain links. Another woman was selling old, dirty pots, a broken mirror, dull, used butcher knives and probably the child in her lap if I offered enough. In the animal section there was all the 'usual' stuff: chickens, geese, ducks, cows, goats, pigs... But you could also buy yourself a box of puppies or kittens. Literally, puppies and kittens by the boxful. Some of the boxes were mixed, meaning that 10 puppies and 10 cats are crammed into the same little box, some with just puppies, some just cats, some with all puppies and 1 kitten. So how much does one of these boxes run for? $1 per animal. As you can imagine, you can find anything you want at this place if you’re paying with cash.
So now I have all the basics I need for my pad, minus a $1 puppy. Oh well, I can pick that up when I go back to buy a pile of old keys…
*5 minutes later*
I could go on and on about the wonders of not living with a host family anymore, but this post is actually about something else. Since we are technically not allowed to move out until later this month, I’ve been slowly but surely buying furniture and appliances for the place. Since the best deals are found in Riobamba’s markets, not stores, I headed off this past Saturday to see what I could find.
And what a shock that was.
The best place to buy house stuff is Mercado Oriental, which is a HUGE open air market that fills up every Saturday and overflows into the adjacent streets. The place was so crowded that street traffic had virtually ceased and I had to squeeze between people just to get around. The vendors spread their wears on blankets and shout at passerbyers to stop while the herds of people inch by. The nicer things were probably freshly stolen, but I know where to get my stuff back if I’m robbed.
So this particular market is loosely divided into sections and I started in the house wears part. It’s not at all unusual to see vendor after vendor selling the EXACT same products, so sometimes you just have to randomly pick one. My personal strategy is to go to one vendor and buy a bunch of stuff so that way I can haggle for a better price and maybe get a free little gift. After honing in on one lady, I picked out the stuff I wanted and then preceded to whine about how expensive her stuff was and gave her the best 3 year old pouty face I could muster. Child-like whining is somehow magical in Ecuador because I got 4 pots, a (nice) Oster blender, 2 blankets and a tupperwear set for $80. She even threw in a pitcher!
After winding through this place, I came upon a few, well, interesting goods. There was one lady sitting on a blanket selling, and I kid you not, random nuts and bolts, piles of keys and small sections of chain links. Another woman was selling old, dirty pots, a broken mirror, dull, used butcher knives and probably the child in her lap if I offered enough. In the animal section there was all the 'usual' stuff: chickens, geese, ducks, cows, goats, pigs... But you could also buy yourself a box of puppies or kittens. Literally, puppies and kittens by the boxful. Some of the boxes were mixed, meaning that 10 puppies and 10 cats are crammed into the same little box, some with just puppies, some just cats, some with all puppies and 1 kitten. So how much does one of these boxes run for? $1 per animal. As you can imagine, you can find anything you want at this place if you’re paying with cash.
So now I have all the basics I need for my pad, minus a $1 puppy. Oh well, I can pick that up when I go back to buy a pile of old keys…
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Birds and the Bugs
Would you believe that I haven't written in so long because I've been busy with work?!? That's right, I've been working!!! Mostly helping plan charlas (workshops), going to meetings, giving a health class in English (the easiest and my favorite) and helping organize Bienestar’s plans for next year. It's all really been a welcome change from doing tons of nothing all day!
Other than all that work, I've also managed to squeeze in a little vacationing as well! This past weekend I went to visit Joy in her site, Pedro Vicente Maldonado. Its WAY up north, in the transitional zone, and it took me 8 hours via bus to get there. It's funny how accustomed I’ve become to bus travel; I consider 2 hours a short trip now. It might have something to do with all my free time (or the free time I used to have). Anyways, the transitional zone is the area in between the sierra and the coast, and is also a cloud forest.
For those who are interested, refer to Wikipedia for the specifics on cloud forests.
It was such a magnificent place, and actually one of the best places in the world to bird watch. If I remember correctly, there are more species of birds in those forests than in all of the USA. Really nice, but it wasn't so nice at 4am when 3.675 million birds were singing outside my window. If you haven't gathered, its really kinda tropical, except that the temperature drops at night to make it quite comfortable- imagine the Crystal Beach weather in the winter.
Lucky for me, Joy happens to live 1 hour from a national reserve called Mindo, which is also the name of the quaint little tourist town in the reserve. Naturally, we for a night and I honestly had the time of my life. I would have been just as happy doing some nature walks, because this forest was FULL of butterflies, birds, awesome flora, rivers and mountains covered with trees. I kinda felt like I was walking through Jurassic Park and at any moment a T-Rex would come bounding after us. Of course we decided not to risk a dinosaur attack and did a canopy tour through the jungle. The tour consisted of 10 zip lines, strung throughout the forest, with pretty little walks between the platforms. Honestly, I was scared out of my mind at first because the lines were REALLY high and REALLY fast... But I got over that as soon as I realized that 1) I was strapped in pretty securely and 2) It would be a quick death if I fell. As it turns out, I survived and can't wait to go back and do that again! They also have bird watching tours, which I want to do next time I go.
After the Canopy Tour, we signed up to go to a "Frog Concert" that night, which was supposed to be 3/4 frog tour and 1/4 listening to frogs harmonize/sing/make noises in the jungle. It was a 30 minute hike up a mountain and through the forest to even get to this place. Needless to say it was remote, which raised my expectations for the whole event. I can say that they delivered on the concert part, because, yes, there were about a gillion frogs croaking. I can't say that they lived up to the whole seeing frogs deal though. In the course of 1 1/2 hours, we saw: 1 toad, 1 frog and 2 tadpoles. Whoopee! I think I'll stick to an aquarium next time I want to see frogs...
After we got back from Mindo, Joy and I visited another volunteer, Cindy, who lived way out in the middle of nowhere- the kind of place that's not on any map I've ever seen. She has her own little cabin in the woods, which was really cute. So we hung out there, drinking ghetto mojitos (rum, sprite and bottled mint extract) which tasted more like mouthwash than anything else. The point is, that while we were hanging out a gigantic cockroach flew in through the window. You have to see the picture on Facebook, because coming from Beaumont, I know what a big cockroach looks like. This monster was the largest roach I've ever seen in my life- like it would eat Beaumont roaches for a snack. Anyways, Cindy went on to tell us that they don't really bother her that much, and that this particular species is actually close to being put on the endangered species list. Given my irrational fear of roaches, I didn't care, and proceeded to murder the giant endangered roach anyway. It was freaky, because it took two direct hits with my flip-flop to kill it, and it still didn't look all that crushed. That's one species I wouldn't mind totally extinct!
I had a few problems getting back to Riobamba, but finally made it back here on Monday. I've been working all week and this weekend I'm going to Guaranda for a conference. Don't y'all worry, its in the sierra so there is no chance of monster, iron-plated roach attacks!
Lastly, the zoomobile finally sold! It feels bitter-sweet- I’m happy it actually got sold, but sad to see it go. Oh well, that’s funding for a trip to Peru next year!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
