OMNIBUS 102

My brain is a mesh of Spanglish right now. Thankfully, after three years of college spanish classes and 6 months of living in Spanish speaking countries, my Spanish is starting to improve!! Unluckily, sometimes this means I can´t speak or type English. My deepest appologies for my spelling and grammer on these pages ...

Over the past four weeks, I have been part of a motivated, diverse and very caring group of people. We are OMNIBUS 102. We are 45 individuals from around the US here in Ecuador to serve for two years in two programs - Youth & Families and Community Health. During training, we are divided into ten surrounding communities, based upon language level, to live with host families. I live in a small town, about a 40 minute bus ride from our training site. In my town, there is no internet (hense why it takes me so long to update my blog, and I have so much to say right now!!), one full service restaurant (under my bedroom), several small stores, kindergarden, a primary school, TWO fulbol fields, two milk companies, a mushroom factory and a volleyball court. Most families have cows, they milk twice a day, as well as a variety of other animals (popular ones include: pigs, sheep, dogs and roosters). I live here with three other Peace Corps aspirantes. We complete language, technical and cultural training everday until we swear in as PCVs on August 16th. Between now and then, we will complete charlas (workshops) with the youth and parents in our community, visit our sites (More on this to come!!) and go on a technical trip. During our taining, we get to work with and meet current volunteers, we are evaluated on several competencies, and we get to share our knowledge with OMNIBUS 102.

To back-track a little and update you on my whereabouts since my last post, we got to celebrate the 4th of July!! Now, we didn´t get fireworks, and there was a deffinate Ecuadorian twist to the American Independence Day. Peace Corps held a reiña contest, futbol games and a BBQ for us. For out futbol games, we were divided up by community and each team had a reiña of their community. The reiñas each competed to be the reiña of OMNIBUS 102. They were judged on appearance, team spirit, and by answering the question, ¨Why do you believe you will be a good volunteer for your community?¨ Additionally, the futbol teams competed in a bracket - my team was eliminated the first round 2-1, but the team we lost to won the championship (so we declared 2nd place for our team). For the BBQ, PCVs cooks us hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, fruit salad and guacamole!!

Two weekends ago, my friend John and I climbed on the hills by our houses. We trotted up pipline trenches and followed sheep paths up to a field of wet, long grass. The top was beautiful - we were able to see all the surrounding communities and farmland. Hiking made me miss home for one of the first times. But it also rejuvenated me and quenched my need for a small adventure. I don´t have any pictures to post right now, but I will get some up soon!! I think my photos from the first three weeks here got deleted off my camera :(

My family here has been very supportive and helpful. I have a mother and father (Maggie and Luis), two sisters (Ali, age 17 and Magily, age 12) and a little brother (Leonel, age 3). Right now, the two girls are on vacation until September. They spend their days helping their parents in the family store/ restaurant. Additionally, we have language classes at my house 2-3 times a week, and the family loves to watch us try to speak Spanish. We have Cuy at our house (guinea pig, a delicious delicacy here), chicken on the roof, and a pregnant pig down the street. Ali has one more year of school, and then is going to University. She is going to study law, and will either go into the police service or continue her education to become a lawyer. Her younger sister has an incredible amount of patience for me, will explain things 5 times over, and enjoys ¨taking care of me¨. Leonel enjoys being the boy of the house, he has endless amounts of energy and enjoys playing his guitar with his dad. I know when I´m learning a lot of Spanish, becuase I´m able to understand him. My family enjoys helping me with my Spanish vocabulary and like to learn English words - Leonel´s favorite word is ¨pig¨.

Last thoughts .... things I forgot in my 2 year bag (which is in Quito until August 16th), but I wish I had right now ... my computer charger, duct tape, my french press, bubbles, my Chacos ...