So I have had a rough morning and I thought of writing this blog. I awoke expecting to start my possibly last week of construction. Exciting right? Wrong…No one showed up to work that day. That was OK because I had one more thing to finish before we could start work. Something I thought would be simple but, alas, it is Ecuador. Sometimes the things that seem so simple are the opposite.
I miss Google maps…I’ll explain…I must mention that my town is full of metal working shops. These shops do everything from make guns (what they are famous for in my region), mechanic work on cars, making iron bars for windows (which everyone has), gates, doors, fences, and anything else you can think of made of metal.
On the sedimentation tank we are building we are putting in a valve to empty the tank when it needs cleaned. First we needed a pipe to pass through a meter wide section of dirt. Finding a 2” iron pipe was hard enough, but I did it. And people in my town said that I can have grooves cut into the end of the pipe so the valve can be screwed on. Simple right? I just have to find a metal worker who can do that. Since my town has five of these shops, I took the meter and a half pipe home once I bought it (from the nearest capital city). When I had first asked them about the pipe and grooves they said “I don’t have it”, what I thought they meant, was that they don’t have the pipe. No one mentioned you have to have a certain machine to cut grooves for 2” pipes. They could only do 1” or ½” pipes. My nearest large town was the same. So I had to go to the nearest large city (the capital again) and after being pointed in various directions and asking about twenty (20!) people and two bus rides and 2 miles of walking, all with a 20 pound pipe. All that and no luck. I finally went back to the place I bought it from and they helped me. I should have ignored every suggestion given to me by an Ecuadorian and trusted my gut.
Ugh…so my point. I miss Google maps and phone numbers.
In the states I could have googled what I was looking for then called if I wanted to confirm availability, prices, times, whatever. Here you just ask people on the street for directions. From the same shop I got two different prices on two different days.
I also miss driving. Carrying a backpack, groceries, and a heavy pipe all on a bus and then a truck (I have to ride in the back of a truck to get to my house). How nice it is to go from one place to another without transfers.
Washing machines and dryers. Glorious machines really. For a year and a half I have been washing my clothes by hand. I am SSOOO tired of it. Stuff never feels clean. The first thing I will do when I come home is dump everything into a washing machine. Ummm...The glorious dryer sheet smell.
Internet. I don’t have internet in my house. This means I am traveling everytime I need to do anything online. This is especially difficult when applying for graduate schools. Also reliable internet. I am currently typing this in a coffee shop that usually has internet but at this moment…it doesn’t work.
Living "comfortably", what I mean by this is that right now I am living "poor”. Obviously this is part of the deal of Peace Corps. You can’t go to a rural community in a third world country and live like a king. Everyone will hate you and want money from you. One of my first lessons to my community was that I don’t make more than people there and they shouldn’t charge me more. Which means...No TV, no laundry, no internet, no new clothes, no excessive use of electricity (meaning hot-hot showers and my little space heater) …even cheese is a luxury.
Easy Food…double edged sword there. I know that not having the temptation of “easy food” is good for my health. However, I miss being able to have Jimmy John’s delivered, or microwave a piece of left over pizza. My most simple meal here is sautéing veggies and boiling noodles and then tossing in tuna. On lazy evenings, I just make popcorn for dinner…and not the microwavable kind.
Set prices. I am always on the look out for people trying to scam me out of money. A few cents here, a dollar there. Most people in this country are very honest and don’t do that. But occasionly you'll find a lady in the market charging you more and giving you the ugly veggies. Same with hardware stores, there is one hardware store I refuse to go because when I go with Ecuadorians I get one price, if I ask by myself I get another, much higher price. when I complained, she simply walked away from me and refused me service. Now I refuse hers.
Things I don’t miss…
Processed/hormone-injected meat. It's au natural here. (Although, campo pig still creeps me out, some story about Trigo-something-something…a parasite that eats at your brain…)
No ‘routine.’ I love having different things to do each day. I don’t know if I could happily go back to 40+ hours a week in one place.
‘Spring everyday’. The weather here is a dream.
Mountain views. True…I didn’t get away from the corn…but I did get away from the flat.
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