more Peace Corps melancholy as we near the end

When we first joined the Peace Corps, they made us write a letter our future selves, to be given back to us at Midservice. I started the cleaning out of my apartment today (a huge undertaking after two years) when I found it.

Hello Future Self,

Right now I'm sitting in my bedroom in my host house in Ayora, feeling exhausted. I just completed my agriculture pre-test, and learned to do laundry (ripping my PJ pants in the process), and I can't believe that there are still eight more grueling weeks of training left. In fact, I can hardly believe that I've only been in Ecuador for 1.5 weeks. It feels like forever.

So here's the thing: I know that you remember this moment, poised at the beginning. I know that right now, as you read this, you are marveling that so much time has already passed. But for me, in the past, I know nothing about you. I don't' know if you are happy, sad, irritated, empty, complete, wishing to go home or wishing to stay, content or frustrated. All I have to say to you is: Have patience. Look how fast time moves, from now to you. We can't slow it down. Life passes blindingly fast. Smile. I don't know where you are, but I hope that you are still thankful.

I don't know what to expect from the coming months, except that I hope to work hard, not get too depressed, and maybe do some good. I want to write, a lot. I want to make compost, dig in the dirt, and relish the only time in my fast-moving life when I will get to be a farmer, when I will get to slow down.

I love you, you know, this future vision of me, working the land and speaking Spanish, skin darker than it is now, hair longer, mind more expanded. I love that you are still doing it, that you didn't give up. I love the dream of you. I am your biggest fan. You are, I believe, better than me. You have grown, of this I am sure. I am so proud of you just for trying, just for existing and being me. I cheer you on, across time. I root for you every day.

Don't forget that you have a duty to yourself, to me, to never give up, and never stop appreciating existence.

Love, Sarah

March 7, 2009



I started to cry, just a little. It's almost like I can feel her, in the past, fresh-faced and excited and hopeful, unaware of what the next two years would bring. She was so desperate to belong; she thought that this would be her great adventure; she wanted to change lives. She still had feeling in her thumb. She hadn't yet seen or lived in La Victoria, she hadn't yet witness true poverty. She hadn't learned to hate Ecuadorian music, or learned how to identify someone's region by their indigenous clothing, or how to haggle. She hadn't yet spent weeks trapped and alone. She hadn't met Old Adam, or New Adam, or Moderately Creepy Teacher, or Julie, or Katha, Natalia, Juan Carlos, Guillermina and Gustavo, Dr. Soria. She was dizzy with Ecuador, with its promise and potential. She loved it.

I didn't give up, yet I feel a little like I failed her. I feel cold and jaded now, angry, bitter, cynical. I never got to be a farmer, I never got to make a difference. If she could see me now, I think she would be sad, and disappointed. I would tell her, it's not my fault, I tried, I really did, and she would look at me with pity, maybe a bit of pride too, and say, well, at least you stayed.

And I did stay. Despite it all, I stuck it out. I stuck it out through loneliness and lack of work and knife attacks and improper medical care and amoebas and fear and irritation and dirty water and loud music and a bad counterpart and every fucking thing Ecuador could throw at me. I stuck it out. I stayed.

That is my Peace Corps accomplishment. Because I stayed, I got to have some amazing experiences. I got to travel a diverse country, swim in the Pacific ocean, raft in the Amazon jungle. I got to discover that my brother and I can co-exist for a month and not kill each other. I got to have my first fling. I got to sit barefoot on my roof with a box of wine and talk to a wonderful new friend for hours. I got to live in a place where it is always spring, next to an active volcano that rains down ash when it feels like it. I got to write more than I ever have, I found fandom, I found Show. I made new friends online, some that I now consider some of my best friends (you know who you are). I took night buses and learned Spanish and navigated a South American country all alone. I celebrated New Year's on the beach, birthdays in Rio Bamba and Quito, Thanksgiving with the Ambassador and in the deep jungle, the fourth of July with Americans and missionaries, Christmas taking long flights back home. I did it. I fucking did it.

I fucking did it.

Someone said to me the other day: "(Peace Corps) shouldn't be known as the toughest job you'll ever love. It's the toughest job you'll ever endure." Exactly. I endured it

I kicked Peace Corps' ass.

And now? Now is the end, finally, and that sweet, brave girl in the past can at least know that her hope wasn't entirely without merit. I didn't quit, and soon I can tuck this experience away in the back of my mind, where it will grow rosier with each passing month, until the sharp edges have been softened into something close to nostalgia and fondness.

Who knows, maybe I'll even cry when I leave this place. Just a little.

"Give me your address," I said,

in my still-broken-after-two-years Spanish, "so that I can mail you cards at Christmas."

The sweet Ecuadorian woman, my quasi surrogate-grandmother here, beamed at me. "Oh yes, and then you can let me know when you get married and I can send you something!"

"Oh, but that won't be for a really, really long time."

"Or not. It'll happen when you least expect it," she said. "It's unavoidable. JUST LIKE DEATH."



MARRIAGE.

JUST. LIKE. DEATH.

for Valentine's day I received...

...a group email from my Ecuadorian counterpart:

"Un abrazo cósmico a todos, rompiendo las barreras del tiempo y el espacio." A cosmic hug for everyone, breaking the barriers of time and space.

A COSMIC HUG, BREAKING THE BARRIERS OF TIME AND SPACE.


A COSMIC HUG, TIME AND SPACE.

A COSMIC HUG.


COSMIC.

Peace Corps 20/20 rant

So in a few minutes ABC's 20/20 is going to be on, with a segment on safety of Peace Corps volunteers. I haven't watched the whole thing, but they have clips online, and honestly, I'm a little aggravated.

It's HORRIBLE that some people have died and more have been sexually assaulted and raped -- that should NEVER happen to anyone. And maybe that particular PC program should have stepped in sooner. But don't blame the Peace Corps as a whole, or make the situation out to be worse than it is.

They say: "Over 900 PC volunteers have been sexually assaulted or raped in the last decade." That's sexual assault and rape put together -- the rape number is about 22 in the past decade. Yes, that's horrible. But let's look at the statistics. There are THOUSANDS of people joining PC every year, hundreds per country all across South and Central American, Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and island nations. There are young women living on their own in a third world nation where they clearly stand out.

Being assaulted can happen anywhere --in the US too. Actually, looking at the numbers, it's practically more likely that you'll get sexually assaulted or raped living in the US. The numbers, all things considered, are as low as they could possibly be, unless Peace Corps placed a guard on every volunteer's back. Shit happens, especially when you sign up to live this kind of life. It's not Peace Corps' fault.

Also, like I said, every program is different. One young woman who was raped said that PC ignored her warnings and didn't let her change site. That is terrible, and that program needs to be looked at, but I know that that would never happen in PC Ecuador. Part of the reason they let me move so fast is that I felt unsafe in my old site. You say anything, ANYTHING about feeling scared or unsafe and they move you immediately, sometimes so immediately that you're not allowed to return to site to pick up your stuff. You're just gone. Our housing safety standards are extremely rigorous, sometimes to the point of impossibility -- your house must have bars on all the windows, can't be located anywhere near a bar or club or hangout, etc. It makes it hard to even find housing half the time. Plus we get weekly updates on possible dangers and the state of the country.

Shit happens everywhere, and it's terrible. A volunteer was sexually assaulted in Ecuador by armed men in a cab, while her male volunteer friend had mace sprayed in his eyes so he was blinded and could do nothing to stop them. I literally went hand to hand with a man with a kitchen knife, and have the scars to prove it. I sleep with a knife under my bed. Ecuador is dangerous. So is Africa, Asia, and the rest of South America. So is the United States. It's a dangerous world; don't blame Peace Corps for not being able to prevent every tragedy.

I genuinely believe that Peace Corps does the best it can with an inherently dangerous line of work. Not even necessarily because they care, which I'm sure they do, but because it's a government organization that is very visible to the public, and it's currently expanding. They can't afford bad press.

So, yeah. Watch the 20/20 segment if you like, I'm sure it's very informative and my heart goes out to the people who have endured such horrible experiences. Just take it with a grain of salt.

PEACE CORPS: TWO YEARS IN FACEBOOK STATUSES

Written for my last edition of the Peace Corps Ecuador magazine. Still unedited, so forgive mistakes.

PEACE CORPS: TWO YEARS IN FACEBOOK STATUSES
(AKA: the recollections of a soon-to-be RPCV via an online social medium)

Facebook Profile

SS Evans

Volunteer at Peace Corps – Studied Writing at University of Pittsburgh – Lives in Patate – From Allentown, Pennsylvania – Born on June 7, 1986

Status:

February 18, 2009: Five days until Baltimore, six days until DC, and I STILL haven't packed.

February 23, 2009: I am joining the Peace Corps tomorrow. Goodbye America.

February 26, 2009: I am in Ecuador! It´s beautiful and I´m having a great time.

The night I arrive in Quito it is lightly raining, warm and lush. On the bus ride to the hostel I sit with my head half out the open window in the rain, listening to the chatter of people around me, hardly able to believe that I am in Ecuador.

When we arrive at hostal San Javier a horde of volunteers shake the bus, whooping and singing. They hand us roses; mine has a strip of paper tied with bright ribbon, that says Don’t Worry, Be Happy. After our very first merienda we sit in the open-air veranda, playing cards and drinking boxed wine. The rain has stopped, and despite the cool city night the sky is sprinkled with stars.

This is the start of something; I just don’t know what yet.

April 3, 2009: I´m a little scared shitless of my site!

The site visit is a disaster. The cluster of houses is perched on the side of a mountain, dirty, without clean water or proper sanitation. The people stare when I pass; already, in the middle of the afternoon, the town’s elderly are passed out drunk in the streets. A toothless woman hollers some unintelligible words at me. My future house is unfinished and lonely, accessed by a thin dirt path through frijole fields.

My landlord’s wife confesses to me in a hushed voice that he beats her. Her very young son is crying; his leg hurts, and when his baggy sweatpants are pulled up from his bare feet it reveals a purple leg, thick and infected from a festering cut, veins like bulging rivers under the skin. I say, this child has to go to a doctor.

Don’t cry, she instructs her son. Boys don’t cry. She rinses it with dirty water and wraps it in dry leaves and an old handkerchief. I beg her to let me take him to a doctor. Gathered in my arms, he is light and smells like a lifetime of dirt and smoke.

At the clinic, the doctor’s young son watches from the corner of the room as the doctor disinfects the leg and gives the boy shots of antibiotics. The difference between the two is startling visible: the doctor’s son is clean and bright, shoulders straight, interested and unafraid. The campo boy hunches his shoulders perpetually, like a dog expecting to be beaten. His skin is much darker, his clothes a mess of filth. My arms and shirt from where I carried him are smudged dark brown.

You saved his leg, the doctor tells me. You probably saved his life.

Two years in this town.

I return from my Site Visit composed, but break down hysterically two nights later, alone in my host family’s house. I wonder, for the first time, why the hell I am here.

May 3, 2009: Of course "your house is completely finished, I swear it´s definitely finished" in Ecuadorian means "you have no door and no lights and it´s filled with trash!" Just as well, means I get to rest in awesome Patate for a few more days.

Patate, the clean and safe town a twenty minute drive from my site, becomes my refuge. I stay with a family while my house is being completed; they become my pseudo-host family, and their house smells like jasmine and the surprisingly pleasant scent of Raid. Even when I move into my site, I take refuge here, staying in Patate for days at a time.

My community isn’t interested in work. They aren’t interested in anything but drinking and harassing me. I find jobs in Patate, retreating there two days out of the week like a dog licking my wounds. At my site, I do yoga, I read, I wander the streets in expensive hiking boots and try to build some semblance of a life. It doesn’t work.

In the middle of the night, a drunk pounds on my door, demanding to be let in. He yells curses at me, telling me that my landlord said he could use the extra room in my house when he has nowhere else to go. He tells me that my landlord has a key and can let him in any time. He asks me if I am afraid.

I leave the community shortly after that.

August 5, 2009: Watching ¨The Mummy¨ in Spanish, going to the weekly market, recuperating from Puyo and planning more fun for this weekend, house hunting, and generally shirking my responsibilities. Just another day in Ecuador! ..and yes, I said house hunting. :-)

I find an apartment in Patate. It’s nuns that help me move, old ladies in their black habits carting boxes and chairs up rocky dirt paths and into the back of a camioneta. They are joined by the one family I have become friends with here: young Estrella with her baby on her back, barefoot children, the cross-eyed grandmother and the mentally disabled brother who can’t speak but who helps carry my heavy dresser with enthusiasm.

We ride one last time down the mountain, the last time I will ever ride that road. I am squeezed in the front seat next to a nun, a fat-cheeked baby on my lap, the sky dusky with the dim oranges and purples of twilight. The lights from far-off cities are already on, the moon bright in a still-blue sky. I feel God in the road, in the moon, the chubby baby, the fading sky. I feel life.

September 13, 2009: Craziest. Week. Ever. As in, ever. As in, my life.

I meet him in a café in Quito. He is from Canada, a world-traveler, scruffy with messy dark hair and perpetual stubble, a silly wide-brimmed Indiana Jones hat, and a frayed rucksack. We talk for hours, until breakfast turns into lunch and lunch turns into dinner and dinner turns into an invitation for him to take me back to my site.

He stays, for a long time. He plays the guitar at night, strumming the same songs with careless ease, playing me “Sister Golden Hair.” We wander through town during festivals with two of the free boxes of vino that are being passed out from huge trucks in the parade. We go to communities and hike winding cloud-forest trails; he helps with my charlas and I help him speak with campo doctors to see if there is any need for volunteers with EMT training.

We make sushi on the floor of my new apartment, barefoot and cross-legged. We roll avocado and hot rice and prawns and crab in paper-thin seaweed, then eat it with our hands. He makes me crepes for breakfast. We take day and weekend trips to different towns and cities, just for the journey itself.

He leaves, eventually. I miss his presence, the displaced air of someone else in this small apartment, but my heart is not broken.

October 31, 2009: The continuing adventures of Sarah and her ridiculous stomach! See Sarah take the utmost precautions in food and beverage and still vomit all night, forcing her to miss the whitewater rafting trip she has been waiting months for! And as an added bonus, see her then have to ride 8.5 hrs on winding, bumpy Ecuadorian roads to get back to her site!

November 29, 2009: I have amoebas. Now that's sexy

I get sick during the big Halloween trip to El Chaco. I spend the night huddled over the toilet, no doubt keeping up my poor roommates, and the next day I bail, crawling onto a bus and desperately praying to get back to my site without blowing chunks all over the bus driver.

Sick and sleepless as I am, the road from Tena to Quito is astounding, and I am sitting in the ‘death seat’ at the very front, and like a movie rolling the credits, a string of Thank You’s wells up in my throat. Thank you for allowing me to be in Ecuador. Thank you for green jungle trees and hot blue sky. Thank you for mountains and winding roads, bridges so narrow and old that you feel thrillingly like you might fall in at any moment. Thank you for yawning gorges. Thank you for water tumbling over rocks and mud, clear, cool. Thank you for letting me be alive, for the blessing that is the sheer act of living.

I don’t know who I am thanking, but it helps. My breathing calms; my nausea subsides. I thank the universe for that, too.

December 31, 2009: Going to cold, cold Guaranda for New Years. Ah well, there's always next year for the beach.

January 4, 2010: Julie and I saw a man give a drowned pigeon mouth-to-mouth. It didn't work.

I watch the pigeon drown while waiting for Julie to show up for our lunch. I’m in a park in Ambato, and I see the pigeon flapping its wings in the water. At first I think it is bathing, but then it starts to sink, and its movements become thrashing and panicked. I wonder what to do. I could climb in the fountain and rescue it, wrap my hands around its disease-ridden little body and lift it out of the water. But I would get my sneakers wet, and then have to walk around in wet sneakers all day.

As I’m contemplating, the pigeon drowns.

A man sees it in its final moments and leaps into the water, sloshing to its side. It’s clearly not breathing. Back on dry land, he pries open its little beak and pushes on its fragile chest while breathing into its mouth. It would be funny, if it wasn’t so sad. He keeps trying, and trying, even after it is obvious the bird is dead. He won’t give up.

Julie can’t hide her disgust. How gross! she says, then looks over at me.

I am crying. I don’t really know why.

February 8, 2010: Attempted to fight off an attacker who had a knife. 12 stitches in my hand, no nerve damage. Stuck in Quito at the doctor's, all my clothing and my shoes covered in my own blood. Can barely type this. So...

February 11, 2010: Finally back in Patate, and determined to let nothing interrupt my well-deserved laziness. Also: functioning without a right hand is difficult. Can't write, or do dishes. Shower with a bag over it. Lighting matches for my gas cooker is abysmal. Wish I had someone who wasn't a fictional character here to cheer me up.

The night of the attack, after my hand is stitched up and swathed in gauze and pounding like, well, like someone just sliced it open with a kitchen knife, Julie and I go to a Happy Pollo, because it is the only fast-food restaurant still open.

It is eleven o’clock at night when we walk in. I am covered in blood, my jeans dyed a deep rust red, my sneakers saturated, splashes still on my face. My hair is wild and unbrushed, my hand a huge bandaged mitten. I can’t feel a huge chunk of my thumb. It is numb, dead, like it is made of wood instead of flesh; later I discover that I will never regain sensation in that part of my hand.

We get a meal and I try to eat it with one hand, but I am not left-handed and most of the rice slips from my fork before I can get it to my mouth. My toes are sticky from the semi-dry blood that has soaked through my socks.

When I finally return to Patate the town festivals are going on, loud and raucous. Music pounds through the walls, the beat shaking the very cement and rattling the windows. I drag my mattress into the kitchen and make a blanket fort with my plastic chairs, the lights burning all night, a knife under my pillow. The locks on my door seem suddenly very flimsy and ineffective. My right hand is still tender and useless, and I try very hard not to be afraid.

This is my lowest point in Ecuador, and it is very, very low.

Things get better, but it takes time. Even in Ecuador, life falls into routine.

March 6, 2010: found a biblical amount of huge, maggot-like worms in her apartment. This is how sexy my life is in Ecuador.

March 20, 2010: For mysterious reasons, no power on my block until "at least Monday." Looks like I'll be spending my time at the internet cafe...

March 22, 2010: has electricity! Woohoo! I feel like I'm livin' large.

March 28, 2010: More worms in my goddamn house! FML.

April 8, 2010: I feel like 95% of my Peace Corps life is sitting on my hands and wondering what I am going to do that day. It is seriously depressing to not have enough work.

April 29, 2010: One year of being a PCV. One to go!

May 1, 2010: The shop next door has been blasting the same 30 second commercial on a loop for the past two hours. Fuck you, Ecuador.

May 4, 2010: Apparently we are now entering monsoon season. I have two options to get the store: swim or canoe. Or a gondola.

May 28, 2010: Volcano Tungurahua just erupted. Roads are blocks because of ash fall. Airports closed. In Quito now, so I might not be able to go back to my site, being that I am the closest volunteer to the volcano. Peace Corps Ecuador: Causing me to type words I never thought I would type.

May 28, 2010: Just confirmed: Am stuck in Quito "until further notice."

I am the closest volunteer to a very active volcano. I have a clear view of it from my room, smoke billowing black out the top during the day. At night, low rumbles like far-off thunder disturb my sleep, and when it is clear I can see red shooting out the top, sparks flying, magma snaking down the sides.

I am in Quito when the big eruption happens. While roads from Ambato to Guayaquil are being cleared of ash I go to Cotacachi and Otavalo with friends, reveling in the unexpected vacation.

At the end of a long day we pile onto the hard bench behind the bus driver, crammed in side-by-side. I am pressed against the window, staring directly over the driver’s mostly bald head. It is raining, but the moon is hanging low, full and fat and yellow, the mountains shadowed like heaped blankets. New friends are packed beside me like they are old friends; I tell them secrets, and I feel like I fit into my own skin for the first time in a long time.

The bus rumbles through a dark night in Ecuador, headlights cutting through the night like beacons, and I am content.

June 5, 2010: Annndddd gearing up for midservice conference. Can´t believe it´s already here. Ten months to go!

June 30, 2010: Sign I've been in Ecuador too long: When, after finding a used condom on the floor of the bus, my first thought is: "Oh great, they're using condoms! Progress!"

July 15, 2010: I am moderately afraid of small children, never knows what to say to them, and finds the constant necessary peppiness draining. So of course, I decide to start working with disabled Ecuadorian kids. Comfort zone, I am now leaving it.

I learn to appreciate small blessings: Finding (after 16 months!) sour cream at the grocery store. One of the ladies at the weekly market saving me the last bag of fresh basil, its scent sharp and poignant. Hot, sunny skies. Running for the first time in a long time, legs sore and feeling like jelly.

I find work at Fundación Manos Unidas, helping disabled children and the beleaguered women who teach them. It’s a far cry from Agriculture, but my main projects never really panned out—lack of interest is my greatest enemy in Ecuador. The foundation gives me a sense of purpose, someplace to go several times a week, people who are happy to have me there.

At first, it’s overwhelming. The children are nervous of this strange, yellow-and-pink newcomer. The teachers don’t know what to make of me. I hover in the background, anxious.

After two months, I have small bodies hanging from my hips whenever I try to walk, clinging to my legs and screaming when I try to leave. They fling themselves at me when I walk in, faces breaking into huge smiles, and I smile too, because it just feels so damn good to be wanted.

One little girl is filthy, as are her brothers and sisters. They are a large family, at least six just in the foundation. They have been abused and neglected their whole lives; they can’t speak properly, they are violent, smacking each other and other children, speaking in cries and grunts, shying away from normal human contact.

This little girl, she sees me hugging another child. She is pretty, delicate, but dirt and snot is caked so thickly on her face that it is hard to see past it. Her hair a wild mess of filth, her clothing torn; she looks like a parody of poverty, a Dickensian archetype with huge, liquid-brown eyes. I smile at her, tentatively, and then she steps closer and wraps her arms around my waist for the first time.

I hug her back, and make a mental note to shower when I get home.

July 31, 2010: Dear God they've started to remix indigenous music. Oh. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse.

August 12, 2010: Woken up by a 6.9 earthquake this morning and didn't even get out of bed. It's amazing what you get used to.

August 13, 2010: Found a dance aerobics class in Patate, only three blocks from my apartment. How did I never know this existed? Looks like I'll be shimmying my hips every night from now on.

August 26, 2010: Must. Study. For. GREs. Must. Not. Waste. All. Day. On. Internet.

August 28 2010: Ah, the life of a Peace Corps volunteer. Running around to give charlas that inevitably no one will show up to. Sigh.

September 4, 2010: Three weeks, bitches, until airplane rides and English-speakers and big family dinners and paved roads and dog/chicken/goat/pig-less cities and clean water and fall leaves and the sweet sweet joy of throwing toilet paper in the toilet. Ya'll know what I'm talking about.

While I am home for my sister’s wedding, there is a police strike in Ecuador. All airports are closed; the president is claiming that subversives are trying to overthrow him. “If you want to kill the President, here he is,” Correa proclaims. “Kill him, if you want to. Kill him if you are brave enough!”

We follow the news on the internet in between setting up the house for the wedding. While white square plates and delicate glass goblets are being carted to the backyard and garlands of fresh flowers are being set around the huge rented tent, Ecuador is rioting, the streets of Quito thick with the smell of smoke and the sound of gunfire. I fold cloth napkins and wrap huge silver bows around flower pots while Correa makes his impassioned speech to the world.

My family hopes that the country will fall into disarray, simply so that I won’t have to go back.

November 27, 2010: I had an amazing Thanksgiving, complete with Jungle turkeys and whitewater rafting. Now time to stock up and bunk down for the census.

November 27, 2010: The volcano, she's a'blowin'

December 11, 2010: Tomorrow starts the long journey of buses and taxis and night flights home. Christmas, here I come!

There is a moment, right before I go home for Christmas, when I am sick and steaming my head to clear out my sinuses. Maybe it’s the illness, maybe the prostrate position, the Christmas music playing softly in the background, but again that strange swell of Thank You wells up in my gut. I move from the pot of hot water to the floor, press my forehead to the tiles, and allow myself to be happy.

December 29, 2010: First bus company I went to was sold out. Second one I tried: Tonight and tomorrow are totally booked, except for one last seat left on a bus tonight, which I snagged. Lucky? I think so. Looks like I'll be celebrating the New Year on the beach! Could my life be any more of an emotional rollercoaster?

January 1, 2011: Best New Year´s of my life. Well, I´ll be damned.

I end the year in Puerto Lopez, sand between my toes, blue sky above, new and old friends showing up when least expected. I have only three months left of my Peace Corps service.

When midnight comes we count down, howling at the moon, fireworks lighting up the sky with red and gold. We dance in the street, gringos mixing with Ecuadorians, feet bare and hair unbound. The munecas burn to ashes, burning the past, leaving the future a clean slate.

I dance. This is the start of something; I just don’t know what yet.

January 1, 2010: I have to say, 2011 is going to be fabulous.

apparently the volcano is in the Christmas spirit

"What is on me?" Sitemate asked as we went running through the mountains today. I looked over; his black shirt and hair was coated with tiny white dots. I shrugged.

"Dunno. It looks like baby powder exploded on you."

We kept running. I started to notice flurries, which quickly picked up, covering my clothes and glasses. But it wasn't snow.

It was volcanic ash.

"So...are we gonna die?" Sitemate asked perkily. My mouth started to taste like grit.

"I certainly hope not. But let's get inside. And, uh, find a mask."

"Instead of running, let's watch Supernatural," he proclaimed. "I want a beer."

I laughed. "Exercise and then beer?"

"I know, I'm bipolar with my health."

"How about box wine instead?" I asked, giving up any pretense of a healthy lifestyle. "We'll make Christmas cookies."

"Deal," he said, as we walked through the gently falling ash, sucking some in with every breath. "God, I do not want to know what the inside of my lungs looks like right now."

things I never thought I'd say

Dude, this volcano is starting to seriously freak me out. The rumble is constant, as is the lava and it sets all the dogs in town howling.

As Sitemate said: "It's gonna blow."

Little nervous, tbqh. Last time it blew all the roads were blocked with ash and the airports were shut down. And that was a small eruption.

This is the volcano:

Only in Ecuador: an illustrated journey

Sitemate and I are running today on this idyllic little mountain footpath, when we round a corner to see a cow blocking the way.

"Oh," you say, "a cow. How lovely, with their moos and their silly udders and big brown eyes."

No. This bitch is pissed. She has eyes of murder.



The path is totally blocked on both sides. There are only two options: Go back, or duck between some murderous barbed wire into someone's private property to go around the cow, then go back through the barbed wire to rejoin the path.

Through the barbed wire we go! It snags on my pants and cuts my skin a little, but I've had my tetanus shot, so no worries!


The cow is watching us with her murder eyes, like: "Bitches, you think you can just go around this fine piece of pissed off bovine ass? I think not!"

And we are like: "Fuck you, cow. Fuck you and your demon stare."

So we find a place where we can get back through the barbed wire, but we have to belly-crawl right under a big spiderweb. The spider isn't in it, but that's almost worse, because then you don't know where it is.



We get back on the trail and yay! Now we can run. But first there is one thing we have to do.

Taunt the cow.



The cow stomps a little when Sitemate gets too close to taunt it with his ipod video recorder going (I have to get a copy of that tape!) and we are both yelling, "Yeah, that's right cow, whatcha gonna do, you slut! Fuck off! We beat you!" I finally call Sitemate back before he gets trampled. And we keep running.

Only in Ecuador.

Something like life

• I’m choosing to forgo a weekend of Halloween debauchery in favor of…sitting around and doing nothing. I know, lame me is lame, but this is Ecuador. The party is an eight hour bus ride one way, and will entail the same thing Peace Corps parties always do: drinking watery beer until people get too drunk to stand. Only difference is that they will be in costume. Hop on a bus for two hours to the nearest city to do this? Sweet, I’m in. Eight hours, having to deal with the logistics of a hostel and navigating my way through mazes of drunk people who I don’t really know? I’ll pass, thanks.

• Speaking of Christmas, I started downloading music! TWO WEEKS UNTIL I LET MYSELF START TO LISTEN TO IT. It’s the most magical time of the year, and don’t you forget it.

• Speaking of the time BEFORE Christmas, my most amazing friend Charlotte is coming right before Thanksgiving! THIS WILL BE EPIC, I AM CERTAIN.

• Twice now Sitemate and I have run into this perpetually drunk Ecuadorian who keeps rambling at us about heroin and AC/DC. I don’t understand. It would be funny if he weren’t so…persistent. Does he think we have heroin? Is he on heroin? Does he want to sell heroin? I don’t know, but it’s awkward.

• I was force fed guinea pig the other day. I wish this wasn't a commonplace thing. PS TMI: guinea pig makes your hands smell really funny for many hours after you eat it.

• I gave an on-camera interview for Peace Corps that might be used for recruitment purposes. That's right kids, my smiling face could be encouraging YOU to join Peace Corps. Somehow, I managed to be really enthusiastic about it. Don't know how.

• I had a meeting with a community the other day that actually went really well! I’m shocked and amazed. We might even start a composting toilet project there, which would be a godsend to the end of my service.

• I worked with the disabled kids at the foundation for the first time today in like a month. When they saw me in the door they freaked and jumped up to hug me. Some didn’t want to let go. It really made my heart grow three sizes. They really are sweet, sweet kids.

And that is my life in a nutshell!

Thinky thoughts

I'm taking my GRE on Saturday. I'm nervous, and I probably (definitely) haven't studied enough, but it's my second time 'round and I think I'll be fine. Biggest thing is getting to Quito tomorrow-- 4.5 hour bus ride, then waiting around until Sunday so that the Peace Corps Ecuador director can drive me back to my site. Why he wants to do this, why he's even visiting my site...I have no idea.

I'm freaking about getting into grad school, of course I am. I realized the other day that I've been sort of blindly assuming that I'll get in to American, or Denver, but there's a good chance I won't. I thought of how depressed I would be to not get into grad school, and how much that would suck to have a whole year of just working and waiting to reapply. And then I thought of a conversation I had with a fellow volunteer a few days ago.

We had both lived abroad before this. She said:

"It's weird, you know, all the places I've lived I have such a desire to go back to, to live there again, but with Ecuador..."

"You want to get the hell out and never look back?" I supplied. She nodded.

"I can't even put my finger on why. It's a perfectly nice country. I like it here. I just... I want to leave."

And all I could say was: "I know exactly how you feel."

I'm not unhappy. I'm not crying myself to sleep or pining away or drowning my sorrows in chocolate. The place I live is beautiful, the people are nice, the work...could be better, but whatever, I have internet and a great sitemate and a hammock. But I just want to leave. I want to board a plane and never come back.

By the end of my time in Spain I was calling it my second home, my second country. Ecuador never was, and never will be, my country. It will never accept me, and I will always be a foreigner, and outsider, a thorn in its side.

If I get into grad school, I will be the happiest girl on the planet, no lie. But if I don't get in...it won't be the end of the world. I'll still be happy. Because no matter what, I won't be living here anymore. I'll be living in the United States, in a big crazy city with water that I don't have to boil and food that won't give me amoebas and people who look like me and speak my language. I'll find a job, and an apartment, make friends, date, go out on weekends, apply to grad school next year. I'll start looking for an agent for my book. I'll be near my family, and see the change of seasons, and just be so wholly there and not here. And you know what? That's all I need.

My life, let me show it to you

People have been all "so what's life like in the Peace Corps?" Let me give you a typical rundown of a day lately.

Morning:

-Drag my ass grumpily out of bed sometime between 8-9
-Make enough tea to water a small army
-Drink all the tea
-Eat breakfast
-Go to the bathroom every five minutes due to all the tea
-Every time I enter the bathroom I do a sweep check for the tarantulas (yes, I do mean that literally) that like to hide out in my shower and eat small children
- Browse the internet
- Realize I have a class I haven't prepared for.
-That's ok. I just grab an old powerpoint presentation and my laptop and figure that if the teacher doesn't have a plan I'll just show that. Also, it doesn't matter because over 80% of the time class is cancelled anyway due to soccer or parties or something.
-Get dressed
-Walk the fifteen minutes to the local high school
-Realize all the students are in some kind of school-wide meeting. Again.
-Run into some teacher/employee/friend who tells me that I've gotten fatter since he last saw me.
-Find the creepy teacher I'm working with hanging out at a store/cafe instead of teaching class. We plan to have class the following week, but I won't hold my breath. Also, his shirt is unbuttoned down to his navel.
-Return home.

Afternoon:

-Internet
-Revise fanfiction chapters and read blogs
-Eat lunch
-Write entries like this
-Write some fanfiction
-Send out a few emails
-Try to convince myself to do something productive
-This succeeds about 25% of the time. Like yesterday, when I wrote an essay for the PC Ecuador newspaper.
-Keep writing/revising/checking livejournal and gmail compulsively
-Maybe study for the GRE's for like half an hour

Evening:

-Talk to my mom on Skype
-Internet
-Go to dance class. This will end in one of two ways.
- 1. I have the class and return home gross and sweaty to take a shower
- 2. I wait around with a couple other people for 45 minutes (like last night) while the instructor keeps saying the class will start "right now" until I finally get fed up and leave
-Return home.
-Cook dinner
-Internet until bed at around 12:00 am.



So basically.

I have no life.

*sigh*

More news on Ecuador

"In a speech to soldiers from Quito's main barracks, President Correa said: "If you want to kill the president, here he is. Kill him, if you want to. Kill him if you are brave enough. "If you want to seize the barracks, if you want to leave citizens undefended, if you want to betray the mission of the police force, go ahead. But this government will do what has to be done. This president will not take a step back.""

Can you imagine the US President ever shouting this to the masses? It's pretty potent. I'd embed the video but I can't find an embed code on the website so you'll just have to go to the website to see him get beaned by tear gas. It's scary.


Also, I don't know why, but I find this funny:

"They are trying to oust President Correa. Wake up the people of the Bolivarian Alliance! Wake up the people of Unasur [Union of South American Nations]! Viva Correa!," Mr Chavez wrote in a message on Twitter.



South American dictators...on Twitter. What is the world coming to?

Luck?

So I got this email this afternoon from the US Embassy:

September 30, 2010

The U.S. Embassy in Quito would like to inform U.S. citizens visiting or residing in Ecuador that a large, nationwide strike by all levels of police, including military police, is developing at this time. As a result, airports in Guayaquil, Quito and other major cities are closed and major highways may also be closed going in and out of Quito, Guayaquil and other major cities.

Due to blockages of multiple roads and tire fires being set by police, the security situation has degraded significantly. American citizens are asked to stay in their homes or current location, if safe. American citizens with immediate travel plans may be forced to put them on hold until the situation improves.



...if the situation doesn't improve by Monday (which it probably will, but a girl can hope, right?) then I might get to stay a few more days in the US. LOVELY.

blonde hair = ho, apparently

So I work with this teacher who I have dubbed "Moderately Creepy Teacher" (MCT) because he is Moderately Creepy. He's never done anything overtly creepy, but....ok, well he did show me that stack of shirtless vacation photos that one time, and he did keep pointing to his wife in the photos and saying: "That's my dead wife." Most of the time he just sits a little too close and wears his shirts a bit too unbuttoned and is just...greasy. Also missing some teeth and overweight and did I mention in his 50s? Anyway.

Yesterday I went up to the school for the first time since the semester started to plan things with him. We were sitting in the teacher's lounge and there were two teachers there who I didn't recognize. One of the asked who I was. The other one said, with kind of a nudge nudge wink wink vibe about him:

"Oh, just another one of his compañeras." Which, you know, roughly translates as friend, but said a certain way...

"No!" I sputtered. "I'm a Peace Corps volunteer! We're giving an Agriculture class together!"

What I wanted to say was: "Okay, so, I get that ya'll think all gringas are like the sluttiest sluts who ever slutted, but SERIOUSLY? You think I'd bang THAT? Have you looked at me? Have you looked at him? Have you noted the age difference? And the missing teeth? Really? Really?"

I don't get it, man. I am so tired of being perceived a certain way solely because of stereotypes of my race.

OH and later MCT invited me to the beach with him and some of his friends. WHAT.

I need to get out of here.

So Much Hate

Guys. It is a festival today. You know what that means? That since early this morning there has been bad reggaton and indigenous music blasting so loudly that my walls and windows are literally shaking. I am wearing earplugs in my own house, and they only dim the music a little. I can't think. I can't write, or work, or study, or sleep. The streets are full of vendors and drunks. There's no escape. I am losing my mind.

I miss...

I miss normalcy, which is strange for a girl who has always craved the strange, the new, the unseen. But Ecuador is no longer new, it's just an endless repetition of useless days and I find myself missing those moments, those early-20s-carefree moments that I'm supposed to be living right now, that I would be if I were not trapped here, in this place, alone.

I miss streets surrounded by tall buildings that aren't made of cement. I miss living in a country where there are not goats and pigs and chickens on buses and on every corner, where it is illegal to go to the bathroom in public, where I am not woken most mornings to the most horrible music my ears have ever had the displeasure of hearing. I miss highways, smooth stretches of road that aren't dirt and stone. I miss being able to walk a street at any point during the day and feel safe. I miss not feeling the need to carry a knife with me everywhere. I miss not assuming that everyone will rob or swindle me because I am different. I miss speaking English, my beautiful language, every day, the familiar words and syllables rolling off of my tongue with ease. I miss being articulate, and not a stumbling child, working her way through an unfamiliar language, slow and stupid.

I miss wanting to look pretty, doing all of those things I used to do: showering every day, blow drying my hair, putting in contacts, putting on makeup, picking out a nice outfit, feeling proud of how i look. Here I skulk in oversized clothes and glasses, my yellow hair tucked under a hat, trying to stem the tide of shouts and whistles that accompany any gringa any time she goes anywhere. I miss anonymity, being able to sit in the park on a sunny day and eat lunch, without some stranger sitting next to me and asking me the same 20 questions I always hear, or having gaggles of young people whisper and giggle and then whisper again. I miss walking down the street and not being a foot taller and ten million shades whiter than everyone else, the comfort of being surrounded by people who look like me. I miss knowing that, when a guy smiles in my direction, it's because he thinks I'm pretty, no matter my ethnicity or where I come from.

I miss being able to go to people's houses and refuse food; the force-feeding is what gave me amoebas in the first place. I miss living in a country where I won't get amoebas. I miss washing my dishes in a sink, not in a tub outside. I miss not having to boil my water and peel my tomatoes and soak my fruit in disinfectant. I miss always having electricity and hot water. I miss throwing toilet paper in the toilet and not in the wastebasket. I miss drying my clothes in a machine. I miss the gym, and taekwondo, the uniform and belt, the smooth movements, the strange korean words in my mouth.

I miss good restaurants, and Thai food, and sushi, and McDonalds, and Indian, and cheap Chinese that actually has flavor, and chain restaurants, and big breakfasts, and free refill drinks with ice. I miss large grocery stores where I can buy fresh ginger, and olive oil, and cheerios.

I miss my friends, the ones who really get me and don't proclaim "You're psychotic" when I nerd out to them. I miss my Char. I miss my family, my dog, my mom's hugs, shooting with my dad, cooking with my sister, laughing at Comedy Central with my brother.

I miss riding in cars. I miss American boys. I miss shy smiles across rooms. I miss taking my laptop to a coffee shop on a cold winter day when the snow is fat and heavy outside. I miss hot dance clubs where the bodies are packed so tightly and I am just one of many. I miss buying wine and getting giggly in restaurants. I miss sunny summer days when the air shines golden as the sun sets. I miss the crispness of fall, the first breath of spring, sitting on green campus lawns and glorying in the sun. I miss riding my bike everywhere.

I miss having a life outside of my house, the internet, a smattering of other volunteers, and the farmers I work with. I miss not being the creeper that Ecuador has made me. I miss having some shred of normalcy left inside of the tattered maze of my brain. I miss having friends that I can touch. I miss touch, human contact that isn't the brief dirt-encrusted handshake of a campesino. I miss hugs, so much that sometimes I enjoy massages just because someone is touching me in a kind and gentle way.

I miss feeling needed, wanted, in work, in life, in love. I miss having a purpose. I miss dates, and butterflies-in-the-stomach, and flirting, and hope. I miss inside jokes.

I miss being the girl I was before, that bright and witty girl with a strong group of friends, who cherished every day and felt indescribably blessed and lucky. I miss that girl. She is not here, and I don't think I will get her back again for a long time.

My, my, my, it's a beautiful world...

I had a lovely weekend. A friend of mine just COSed (Close of Service), meaning her time in the Peace Corps is done and she's heading home. She swung by my area for a few days and we went to a nearby tourist-town, where on Friday we went bike riding next to a beautiful river (and saw the inappropriately-dressed 'Native American' from my previous post). We walked behind waterfalls and got our picture snapped with a boa constrictor wrapped around our shoulders. Saturday was spent shopping in the rain, eating chocolate and Italian food, getting massages, drinking way too much wine, dancing, and just generally being silly and girly and wonderful.

It was the best weekend I've had in a long time, and it's sad to think I may never see her again. But that's what Peace Corps does-- puts people from all walks of life together, then tears them apart. At least now I'll have friends all over the US if I ever do that cross-country trip I've been scheming.

I wonder if I will miss this place when I'm gone. She said I will, that everyone does to some degree. I hope so. I'd hate for these two years to go by and to feel nothing but bitterness when I leave. I'm not that kind of person.

At the very least, I'll have some beautiful memories. And that's enough.

I'm just a sweet transvestite...

There are a few times in life that I think NEVER CHANGE, ECUADOR, NEVER CHANGE. Very few. This is one of them.

Every once in a while, during the obligatory "What state are you from" question, I get a response like the one I had today:

Him: "So what state are you from?"

Me: "Pennsylvania." *blank stare* "It's near New York."

Him: "Ohhh, okay." *pause* "Wow, Pennsyvlania. I've only ever seen that in movies."

Me: "Ummm... yeah I guess there are movies that feature Pennsylvania...?"

Him: "WHERE ALL THE VAMPIRES ARE."

Me: "OHHHH, no, you're thinking of TRANSYLVANIA. That's a country. That doesn't even exist anymore. We don't have vampires. Just cows."

This happens ALL THE TIME. People constantly think I live in a deep dark forest infested with the blood-sucking undead. It's always a shame to tell them the truth. One of these days I should just lie. "Oh yeah, and there's this spooky castle on a hill, and village wenches who go up there NEVER RETURN."

Cultural differences

I don't care that it's a cultural thing, I don't care that things are viewed differently and that here this is not viewed as an insult. DON'T CARE.

It's not okay (NOT OKAY!!!) to have this conversation with the older lady you're friends with:

"Oh yeah, I've started going to this dance class every night so I can get in shape before my sister's wedding."

"Oh really?" (looks at me up and down) "Because you're fatter than the last time I saw you."

"Oh...." (looks at self) "I didn't think i looked any different..."

"Nope. You're fatter."

"...."

NOT OKAY, ECUADOR. NOT OKAY.

:-(

Edit: Clearly she wasn't insulting me. It's not an insult here, and I know that as a culturally sensitive person I'm supposed to accept and understand that. But I can't. American cultural norms are ingrained in my head, and no matter what I tell myself, my inner bitch is yelling THAT'S NOT OKAY, DUDE. NOT OKAY.

Edit #2: This is also coming after a long period of build-up. Gaining weight = happy, to Ecuadorians. So everywhere I go, I am greeted with : "Sarita! You've gained weight!" and after about a year of this, in which my weight hasn't fluctuated that much, I'm just kind of getting sick of it. It's tough, when you eat right and exercise, to walk around and hear every day from ten different sources that you're fat. It just wears you down. I liked it better when I came here and got sick, and everyone was bemoaning that I was too thin. It's like a ten pound difference between now and then, but I guess they can tell. It's frustrating. I'm not even someone who usually obsesses over weight, I don't diet and I'm pretty happy the way I am, thank-you-very-much. But comments day in and day out take a tole, no matter what the cultural meaning is.

Strangely shining moments

...and as I sit in the grass and watch the horses parade in circles, their thrilled and sometimes bewildered riders clinging like velcro to their backs, I play with the dirty clovers and searched for four-leaved ones, like when I was a child and would spend hours combing through a field for good luck. The fat golden retriever with its waving fan of a tail makes me six again, in the summer grass with my best friend and his briar-covered fur. In the distance, beyond the hyacinth and hibiscus, the volcano is topped with ice. The wind is so very clean.

Later, I hold a baby with Down's syndrome in my lap and croon songs to him in English. I haven't held a baby in many years, but it feels good, wide eyes looking into mine, small body cradled against my hip. He is beautiful, pudgy-cheeked, and there is a strange sadness knowing already at seven months that he will never grow up to be what we humans so arbitrarily classify as normal.

One tiny girl is fierce and bright, a shining star; she is here because her toddler sister has Down's. She likes me, I don't know why, and holds my hand whenever we walk. She likes to sit on my lap, and I stroke her long dark hair, and I think, I would like to have a daughter someday.

Here, in this place, I find unexpected moments of beauty.