Riobamba!!!

I finally made it back from my site visit, and all I can say is WOW!!! As it turns out my PC adventure is not going to be quite as rustic as I thought...

The city itself is much bigger than Beaumont, which I know isn't saying too much. However, its crammed in a much smaller area, giving it the feel of a much larger city. It has all the conveniences that I could possibly want: shopping mall, 'super' grocery stores, HUGE daily fruit/veggie/meat market, Internet cafes galore, regular cafes, stadium, restaurants, movie theatre, night clubs, etc... Riobamba is also the old capital of Ecuador and is pretty old to boot, so it has an abundance of colonial government buildings and cathedrals. Nicely enough, most of these buildings are situated around quaint, landscaped parks with fountains and statues. Honestly, I kinda felt like I was somewhere in Europe! So the city is not exactly gonna be the 'living in a mud hut' experience I was prepared for.

And it gets even better!

I finally discovered what I would be doing for my job. I'm going to work at Escuela Superior Politecnica de Chimborazo (ESPOCH or Politecnica or Poli), in the Bienestar department. Basically this department is charged with the wellbeing of the students, of which there are 15,000. Hence, my job is health promotion for college students... I don't have to go out in the field, explain basic hygiene, or deal with children. Instead I work out of an office, give lectures to university students, help with studies and update Bienestar's website. How cool is that?!?

So, yea, my life pretty much rocks!

Except for the fact that tomorrow I have to give a charla over swine flu to the trainees. Apparently I have experience with contagious diseases (hospital work?), so I was pegged to give the talk. Its really not that bad, but I need to make some fun posters or something today so people don't fall asleep, given the inherent boredom factor of the subject. I pride myself on having captive audiences regardless of the topic! Silly games also go a long way.

We have classes all this week and then we leave on Sunday for our tech trip. We're going back to Riobamba for a week to do God-knows-what. So pretty much that's my life in a nutshell!


ps I finally uploaded pictures on flikr, so check it out!




Attention HSLC members: READ! The book is not that long! It would be nice to have the meeting when I get back from the tech trip.