countdown begins

In 29 days, Jer and I will be making the trek from Ecuador to the U.S. of A. to attend my lil' brother’s wedding, take advantage of such things as hot showers…and to party with our pals in C-bus! We have planned some meetups, so those of you whose spamblockers killed my email (or who I inadvertently missed...or for those of you who are blogstalkers) here is the schedule:

September 20: Chilling out to the groovie tunes of CHHF (formerly known as Gruver) at Victorian’s Midnight Café

September 26: Dinner at Taj Majal, then lots of drinks at the one and only Dick’s Den!!!

September 27: (Tentative) Cure our hangovers with breakfast at Northstar Café!!!

Yippy Skippy!!!!

brownie points

Wow...what a busy week. I wish I had time to capture all the great details, but instead, I offer the Cliff´s notes version of some of the highlights:

• Offering my first English class. On Monday, my counterpart, Manuela, learned that NAWE (the Waorani Nation office...which is mostly men) was having an English class. Not to be outdone by the men, she asked me if I would teach the Waorani women English...and start in ten minutes. So...even though I have never taught English, had no lesson plans, and the fact that Peace Corps generally doesn´t encourage us to do it (because it is not very sustainable...plus it is just not the best use of my time....) I of course said, "sure, why not?" It ended up being a lot of fun. The women were really attentive and very eager to learn. I started out with basic salutations, and for the rest of the week I heard "good afternoon" both morning, noon and night. It was great fun. My favorite part was when they asked "¿cómo se dice hombre feo en íngles?" (how do you say ugly man in English?) They all squeeled with laughter when I told them. They kept repeating it over and over...especially when any man walked into the office.
• Hooping it up. Had another fun night of playing b-ball with the Waorani. It was men against women...and no dogs and no major injuries. This weeks adventure was playing on a largely unlit court after dark, which made it interesting. The women were eager to use their newly learned English vocabulary words on the opposing team.
• Mi taller (workshop). I held my first full-fledged workshop with the Waorani women. We brainstormed marketing and promotion activities for the new store (they were mostly my ideas, as marketing is a pretty foreign concept to them), I made some graphs which depicted the highest selling items from the store in recent months (most of them understood the graphs. Only two looked at the graphs sideways or upside down). I brought in some drinks and Jeremy´s cookies, which were a HUGE hit (food is a necessity for any workshop). I then showed them how to do a couple new designs using their traditional materials (chambira palm string). The "new design" was simply a friendship bracelet--the kind I used to make in 7th grade. They all LOVED it and worked the rest of the day on their bracelets. One of the women simply studied the completed bracelet I had brought in and then started making it on her own before I even explained the knot work. She is super pilas (slang for cool, clever). The workshop was a success, and I think I earned some brownie points with my counterpart...no thanks to Jer´s cookies!
• Hanging with Jeanette and Co. One of our friends from our training group came to visit us for the weekend, along with her 19 year old brother and another friend. Good times were had by all. Manuela provided a fantastic (and free) guided tour of the Ethnobotanical park, we took in Jer´s really cool science magic show, we ate at El Jardin (compliments of Mr. Warner...thank you sir!!!) took a really cool hike and explored 6 new waterfalls, we played some mean Spanglish Speed Scrabble (a big hit) and ate a lot of good food, thanks to my hubby, the chef.

There are lots of other side bars I could add, but just don´t have the time to type. We have another big week ahead of us. We will be making 2 trips to Quito. One for official business: We were one of the chosen few who got invited to meet THE Peace Corps Director who will be visiting Ecuador. The second trip is to meet our friends Matt and Heather who will be flying in from Columbus to visit. Should be a blast.

In some ways we have fallen into a comfortable routine here in Puyo. We have our Friday night happy hour bar…our Sunday morning market excursion…our weekday two hour lunch routine, etc. Most Mondays we are rewarded with a very special package postmarked from G-ville. Sometimes it is a Wednesday. Sometimes a Thursday… but whatever day the Ecuadorian postal service arbitrarily decides to deliver our package, it is always a good day.

Once a week, Jer’s mom patiently gathers all her Columbus Dispatch newspapers from the week and meticulously cuts out the Letters to the Editor, Editorial and Opinion Editorial section and sends them to us. It is awesome, because she even trims around the edges of the paper to reduce that silly whitespace…(actually, I imagine to reduce the weight of the package, and thus the postage costs.). So, each days opinion section comes neatly folded into its own rectangle. Jer and I even have a routine of how we read the articles. He reads his selectively…and speedily, and then hands them to me to read, which I do slowly and deliberately and completely…even the cranky conservative columns.

So, this little carepack is my window to the wacked world that we live in…and to the politics of the town that I called home for almost 10 years.

It is interesting to read about what types of pressing issues propel people to write a letter to the editor. I decided to take a look at some of the recent topics covered in the Dispatch…and how they relate (or not) to similar topics here in Puyo…along with my own 2 cents.


Dogs on leashes
Columbus: People are divided on whether Columbus should enact a law requiring dogs to be on a leash in public spaces or be “under control” by the owner, as the law currently is interpreted.

Ecuador: Dog leash? What’s that? Dogs are lucky to have an owner, much less a leash. In my 6+ months in Ecuador, I have seen a grand total of maybe 3 dogs on leashes. And it is not for lack of seeing dogs. I pass dozens of dogs on my daily walk into town; half of them limp or have a disease or deformity. I just saw one dining on dirty diapers it dragged out of the trash. A few weeks ago I saw three dead dogs laid out by the curb beside the trash bags waiting to be picked up by the garbage collectors. In last Sunday’s paper there was an article in the local paper about a dog eradication effort by the health department. They warned to watch your pets, lest they get swept up in the doggie depopulation sting effort. It makes Cruella DeVille look almost nice.

English and Spanish
Columbus: The immigration debate in Congress invited heated responses from Central Ohioans. One angry letter writer, ranted: “People who choose to live in this country, where English is the standard language should be speaking, reading and writing English.”

Ecuador: I choose to live in this country and God help me if this same angry letter writer judged my ability to communicate in Spanish. Despite 4 years of high school Spanish, 3 years of Spanish in college, plus living in a Spanish speaking country for a year (6 months in Costa Rica and 6 months in Ecuador) I can say that my ability to speak, read and write Spanish is...well, not that great. I am sure the opinion by the angry letter writer from suburban Columbus is shared by many in the U.S. But I guess my experiences here in Ecuador make me appreciate the difficulty immigrants face in learning English (which is not an easy language to learn…just ask Mr. Studer).
But what really irks me most about the whole immigration debate is no one seems to be talking about the root issues that drive people to leave their homes, family, and everything they know in order to risk their life to enter the U.S. Wwhere is the outrage for the abject poverty, lack of economic opportunity, hunger, disease, war, etc. that drive people to emigrate?... not to mention the problems created within the families and communities (like many here in Ecuador) left behind. Haven’t read a letter to the editor like that…

Price of gas
Columbus: People in Columbus (and to be fair, all over the U.S., too) write lots of letters to the editor to bitch about high gas prices.
Ecuador: Most people in Ecuador do not have cars…so we don’t hear them bitching about gas prices. They occasionally complain about oil companies that pollute the Ecuadorian rainforest in order to export oil… but they are way more likely to complain about basic food prices, which constitute a large percentage of a family’s budget. Think of it this way, a liter of milk costs around $1 here (there are 3.785 liters in a gallon). Most people make about $1 an hour. I want to say to all the gas price complainers: think about how much you make per hour…then ask yourself if you would be willing to pay that much for a LITER of milk. Then think about that next time you are putting gas in your gasguzzler on your way to Walmart…

I don’t exactly know where I am going with all of this. I guess after reading all the whiney letters to the editor I felt compelled to react. I don’t know if my own rant made me feel better…or made me angrier. A little of both I guess. But it did reiterate to me how fortunate we are to be from a country that has so many opportunities, freedoms, luxuries and conveniences …and that people can expend energy writing letters to the editor (or, in my case, blog entries) to complain about them.

black eye

Highlights and lowlights from my week:

• Going to the town of Shell to serve as "interpreter" for some gringo pilot who couldn´t speak Spanish. I waited around for 3 hours while the Waorani spoke Wao terero all around me, and I had no clue what was going on. The pilot never showed up. We ended up stopping at some missionary airline headquarters and getting an impromptu guided tour of the hangar where they were repairing airplanes.
• Jer makes the front page of La Prensa, the local paper....again. His "magic" show is a big hit. Kids in the street are eager to say hello and they call him the magician.
• Jer made crepes this morning (mostly because we were out of syrup for our usual Sunday morning banana pancakes). Last night he made homemade veggie soup and carrot cake with cream cheese icing. YUM!
• I attended a workshop on the Fair Trade market for artesania. It was put on by the Sinchi Sacha (which means big forest in Quichua) Foundation which has a fantastic new museum in Quito that features the art and handicrafts of all the different indigenous cultures of Ecuador. There were representatives from several different indigenous groups at the workshop. I only had 5 bucks on me, otherwise I would have probably bought a sh·tton of stuff. Beautiful handwoven wool tapestries, intricately handpainted ceramic bowls, super complex beaded jewelry and bags...all stuff I can´t resist...except when I don´t have dinero...
• Being told to pick out two fish....two live fish in a plastic bag...to take home and eat. I like fish. I eat fish. But I don´t like to kill fish or cook fish. I admit I have never done it. I don´t even like to handle live fish. I stuck my hand in the bag, hoping the fish had died a quick, quiet death by suffocation in the plastic bag during our 25 minute ride back into town...but no, they were still alive and pretty pissed (wouldn´t you be???). I picked up the fish the wrong way...was instructed how to pick up the fish. Then I dropped the fish on the dirt road. I picked up the fish (the right way) with my one free hand (the other held another fish) and said goodbye to my friends. I wasn´t quite sure what to do with the almost dead fish in my hands. Jeremy was out at his site for the night, so he couldn´t help me. I waited until the taxi had turned around the corner, then I gave them to our neighbor lady. She was thrilled (I think)... "que rico!" and then she realized that they were alive. She proceeded to drop one (sorry, dude). I then went home and ate leftover pesto pasta, feeling a tad bit guilty about it all. Maybe I should go back to being a vegetarian.
• My biggest highlight of the week was playing basketball with the Waorani. There is a big tournament coming up, and the women are really psyched about "training" for it. They take their sports pretty darn serious. We had an hour and a half meeting to determine: 1) Who would be on the team; 2) What number each person would wear; and 3) what colors our uniforms would be. The room was packed with Waorani women eager to chime in. Since the petroleros are paying for the uniforms, they picked out one of the more expensive ones...with the nice material and that have the logo of one of the French soccer teams. Anyhow, I showed up at the court on Friday night and one game was already underway on the lighted basketball court. One of the women from AMWAE rented a basketball for a buck and she started shooting hoops during the middle of their game. I kind of stood off to the side not wanting to interrupt their game. Soon we were invited to join the game. The court was packed, as I think at one point we were playing 8 on 8. Then, a bunch of little kids started their own half court game on one end...WHILE we were playing. Since it happened to be the end of the court where my team was trying to make baskets, I got a little annoyed by these little twerps interrupting our game. But no one in our game said anything or seemed to react at all. Adding to the obstacle course of the court was a dog. A boxer in fact. The dog liked to lay down near the foul line near our basket and I almost tripped over it several times. The dog didn´t seem to want to move, though. The other interesting part of the game involved the complete lack of celebration after great plays or awesome shots. At the beginning I shouted "¡Eso!" (that´s it!) after one of my teammates made a shot, or clapped. Then I realized no one else was doing it and stopped... As I later was informed, only extranjeros (foreigners) celebrate during the game...and that it is totally normal for people to just walk onto the court and start shooting when it is clear that another game is going on. I explained that I was used to other people waiting on the sidelines and maybe asking how much time is left in the game...but that is not the custom here. Well, it certainly made the game interesting. I succeeded in convincing the players that we should switch ends so that the other team would have the benefit of trying to dribble and pass around the 8 year olds and boxer obstacle course. Despite the distractions, I had a total blast. There were only a couple of good players (and I was one of them, if that gives you any indicator of the caliber of play) and almost everyone was a good sport. Since I was a good foot taller than most of the other women, I was the rebound queen. Somewhere during the game, however, I headbutted with another player going after a loose ball. We both saw stars. I was sure that I would have a big gash. Instead, I have a small scratch...and a black eye. But it was totally worth it, because I had a ton of fun. On our walk into town today, one of my Waorani teammates who I didn´t really know before, yelled to me across the street. We talked about the game and how sore we were and how we want to play again...maybe tonight. I often feel like the Waorani women often ignore me...not maliciously, but they just come off as being somewhat aloof. So, I have to admit it felt pretty cool to be treated more like a pal than just another stranger. So, I plan to hoop it up more often...even if I do have to sport another black eye.

So, about an hour after I read about the bridge collapsing in Minnesota, I find myself on a crazy scary bridge outside of Puyo. My friend Noemi asked me to come check out her family´s farm. It was a beautiful drive through the countryside outside of Puyo. We got to a little town (if you could call it that) where there was a suspension bridge over the Pastaza River. I started to get out, thinking, this is where we need to get out...right? It looked like a pedestrian and horse bridge...but then I find out that that it is in fact a vehicle bridge. It was just wide enough such that the rearview mirrors didn´t scrape the wires that separated us from a decent fall into the river. Obviously we made it over and back without incident, but it wa scary nonetheless.