I am staying with my counterpart and his family. He has three daughters. The oldest is 26 and lives in Quito with her family. The younger two, Valeria, 18, and Connie, 14 live here and are fun girls who are teaching me a lot about the community, from the younger generations’ perspective. My counterpart is the Principal of one of the High Schools and also is a businessman. During the day he has a truck and sells items to tiendas in the surrounding communities. The high school he works at has classes in the evening, so that the students can work during the day, so he is working at night too. He is definitely a busy guy. I have been riding around in the truck during the day and have been getting to know the area and local tienda owners. I have run into another volunteer in the town of San Lorenzo who has a similar assignment, but has been here for a year now. He will be a good resource.
I am happy with my site. I am close to San Jose de Chimbo which is a bit larger community and am a half hour from Guaranda, the capital of the province Bolivar. I am also in a pretty central location for travel :) The house is nice and I have internet access!
Once I get the language down I will be able to communicate better, this is my biggest challenge here. Right now I am introduced as: “Leah, the American, who doesn’t speak much Spanish and his daughters can talk to me because they speak English (they speak as much English as I can Spanish). She is an enginera civil and doesn’t watch TV, doesn’t litter, and reads a lot. She will be here for two years.”
I have to admit that I am frustrated with the communication and cultural misunderstandings, but this is apparently a required part of Peace Corps. I can hear them talking about me in front of me. They just speak faster and quieter. Then my counterpart holds up a lemon and says “LIMON, LIMON, LIMON”, I tell him it is the same in English. Another time we were in a tienda/internet café and I asked if the lady if she knew where I could find a head set with a microphone for Skype, he apologized for me speaking English to her (I wasn’t). The tienda owner insisted she knew exactly what I asked and that I would have to go to Guaranda to buy them. These small exchanges with tienda owners make me happy and I don’t feel so dumb. :)
Today (Wednesday) my counterpart had to go Quito to visit a sick uncle and I said I could stay here and work on my presentation (and blog…).
I finally have posted photos because this is the first time I can connect my computer to the internet…Yay!!
Adiós USA
Cayambe - Week 1
Salinas - Cultural Trip
Training Family, Town and Soccer Tournament
Site Assignments and more Training photos
2 comments:
Well I'm glad you still read a lot and don't litter. I hope tomorrow is better and that you finally get that LIMON thing down pat. :0 I LOVE YOU!
sounds like you need a cushion for that bed so that you aren't sleep on 2X6's. Can you buy one there or should we ship one?
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