Last day

Today is our Ultima Día aqui. I have liked being here for a month. It is going to be really strange to start traveling again and just be constantly on the go all the time again. I´ve really liked having my bag unpacked and tucked under my bed and all my clothes piled in a (rather neat) pile next to the bed. Minus the cold showers, having a place to put bathroom stuff has also been nice. And, then of course, it has been wonderful getting to know a city better than the guidebook, to be able to stand infront of the Mercado Central and know which line will take me home.

--side note, a few days ago, Emily, one of the other volunteers and I were downtown a bit later in the evening, around 7:45 and trying to catch a bus home. Knowing that the busses stopped running around 8 or 8:30, I was starting to get a bit more desperate when the lines that I knew took us up the hill weren´t appearing. The rain had started too, adding to my desire to be somewhere warm and somewhere with food. So, when I heard a call out of a bus saying it was going to Vista Alegre, Carmen Alto (which, is where we have been living) I grabbed Emily and jumped on. The first few blocks were the rout known to me, but then we veared away and started climbing unknown roads. After about 10 mintues of slow uphill going, I pushed my way up to the front to ask if it was going close to the casa hogar and from the myriad of responces I got, I gathered we were close but not there yet. We ended up getting off right down the street from the casa hogar and it was perfect. I love helpful people and the ability to get around without really knowing exactly where I am. Ok, end of side note--

Tonight we are going out in the traditional volunteer fashion to get drinks at a new bar that is opening tonight by one of our peruvian friends, and then go dance the night away. I´m ignoring my throught and tired body and will go to, and will just sleep the day away on the bus to Huancayo tomorrow.

All in all it has been a wonderful month here and, despite the occasional sickness and the ever present questions of Am I doing anything worthwile? I know it has been a good thing and I am a little sad to leave!

A lot of pictures

This pictures is from a few weeks ago when stacie and I and our french friend Lila went to the town of Quinoa (yes, like the grain) and saw this giant oblisk that you can see from Ayacucho. We also got to ride horses! It is beautiful country.

We made crepes with the kids to sell in the street. It was a LOT of fun and I felt like i was perpetually in a waiting for a disaster to strike frame of mind, but it was fun and nothing too terrible happened. I think Luis, the one with the big smile on his face managed to ¨accedentally¨ let an egg ¨slip¨ on to the floor... but if that is the worst that happens, I am happy!!

This is Freddy. He is quite possibly one of my favorites. Occasionally, he has a crying fit where he will just start bawling for no reason, but most of the time he is great. He has the best laugh and also loves it when I read to him at night in my oh-so-wonderful spanish! Somehow he tollerates it. I just love sitting there with him curled up next to me before he goes to sleep. So cute!!

Remember when I said that I missed the rain? Well, lately I really don´t as much!! It has turned into spring here. Which, unlike our typical cloudy overcast every day springs, means incredibly HOT days with bursts of showers that are often so strong that the streets get incredibly flooded. I took this picture when we were piled 7 in a taxi on the way back from selling those crepes that I told you about. I think we all had doubts that the taxi was going to make it up the road!!! The streets have no real drainage, so it is really dangerous to be caught in it. And we live on a hill, so all the water just flows down the hill. It is always an adventure trying to get anywhere when it starts to rain.

This is Nilda and Maria Antoinettia, two of the lupes that I get to work with quite often. They are so cute. Maria A is so affectionate and just plain adorible. Unfortunatly, one of the past french volunteers taught her about her name sake, and now she keeps on doing this slitting motion at her neck with a huge smile on her face. I´m just glad she doens´t know what it means....

Nilda is a doll. Quite literally. She is SO small for a 5 year old. The only time she is not laughing or smiling is... well never. I was going to say when you feed her, because she always tries to spit out the food the minute you put it in her mouth, but really, she is smiling through that. She thinks it is a game. I do not, when there is food all over my clothes by the end of it!

This is the other Maria. Maria Jesus. She is pretty cute too, but can have a nasty temper. One time she bit me. I wasn´t fast enough at understanding what it was that she wanted.... oh well. She is still pretty darn adorible! She was helping me make crepes here. And by helping, I mean that we had a bowl that had a little bit of batter in it (like 2 tablespoons) and she kept on mixing it up. The lupes, especially the Marias, love to be involved in the activities that the other kids do.

This is Christopher. Cri-cri. Crrrristo. Whatever. Don´t be fooled by his cute adorible face. He is quite the hand full. Sometimes he is great, but man... when he is in a bad mood... I don´t think I´ve ever heard a kid yell, scream, cry and hit that much. I think he is a little spoiled... being the youngest of all the kids

Last but not least, look who came to visit me for the weekend! This is taken at a really beautiful spot that overlooks the whole city. You kind of just bush wack your way up to it, but once you do, you have a view of the entire place, along with the ravine right below us to the left that kindly helps to block out some of the city noises. It is the most quiet, relaxing spot I have found around here. If you can tell, Ayacucho is the sprall down to the right. It pretty much goes all through the valley to the blue mountains in the back. I think it might be about the same size as bellingham, but with around 500,000 people crammed into it. Personal space is non existant here!

Okay well that is a little snap shot of my life the last month... there are plenty more pictures, and so many awesome things that we´ve done here... but this helps a little anyways. When we get to Lima, I´ll borrow a computer so I can edit and hopefully post some more.

So much love!

A Hora...

Life here in Ayacucho is going pretty much the same every day, but not in that bad same sort of way. I am really enjoying being here. I love getting to know a community- to know when and were to catch a bus, how to navigate the maze of marcados, how to scare the peros (dogs) that rule all the streets up by where I live... it is great. And the great thing about this city, is although I know the center really well and from my house to there, there is always more to explore and more to see.
I think I have mentioned the dogs here in almost every post that I have written. Only reciently has it actually become an issue... 3 of the volunteers have been attacked by them! Not brutally, just nipped at, Casey had her pants torn and Tony had a small bite on his ankle. ....And I don´t have my rabies shots. Haha.... I remember sitting at the doctors office, reading over the list of shots, mentally calculating how much this was going to cost me and deciding that rabies shots weren´t really worth it. So much money for such a slim chance of contact. I didn´t think it would be an issue. And, don´t worry, it isn´t. The doctors and police here say that there have been no recorded rabies outbreaks here. There are just a lot of dogs!

Today I worked in the morning with the Lupes again, taking them to therapy across town with a few of the other señoritas and Papa Gil, the founder of this place. Nothing all that exciting happened at the therapy place, but I had a great conversation with Gil about life here and how this work is his life. He is a quiet, rather reserved man, but when he startes to talk about this place, he gets incredibly impassioned and you can tell that it is not just work for him- it is his life. It was wonderful to talk to him about why he is here and how he considers this his home.
It was very encouraging to me to hear all of that. One of the biggest reasons why I am down here is to see how I handle it all and if I think that living overseas is something that I can see myself doing long term. So far, I have been incredibly happy with life down here. I am finding it easy to feel at home where ever I am and am enjoying the people. I know that the culture shock will set in soon and I will wish that I was home, but for now, while I miss people and home a lot, it is more a dull ache sort of miss than anything else. I´m sure I will when Thanksgiving comes, and then Christmas.... New Years.... my birthday... but I am confident that the life that I am getting to experience here will counterballence all of that in a way that makes it possible for me to continue to thrive here. So here at the 2 month mark (in 3 days) I am happy with life and glad to be here experienceing a true peruvian life style. I know that if I can handle life here, where I have to step around pigs and dogs, where I am constantly struggling to make myself understood (and doing much better at it!) and where I know that I will forever be viewed as an outsider--a Gringa-- then I am happy and excited about the future and what it is going to bring.

Dinner, Comida, Dîner

Tonight I am making dinner for the volunteers. There are 14 of us now, which is quite a lot! Especially when you are trying (aka have to) make the dinner for under 30 soles, which is around 10 dollars. Daunting? No, not when everything is so cheep here. Tonight we are making a curry and rice dish.
We make dinner in pairs, every night 2 different people are in charge of thinking of something to make, going to the marcado, getting all the ingredients and preparing the dinner for 8 in the evening. Today I am making dinner with Lila, a girl from France. She doens´t speak much English, so we communicate in a wonderful mix of french, spanish and a few english words thrown in when I don´t know what the word would be in spanish or french. It was so much fun! At one stall, we were trying to buy a few onions and maybe some other vegetables (legumes) and trying to communicate what we wanted with the Señora at the stand. Trying to explan what curry is to someone who has no idea what that means in a language that is not your own with someone else who is comming at it from another angle is a fun and incredibly hillarious task. I am glad the Señora had a good sense of humor about it all.
At the mercado chicken comes freshly plucked for you. Often, there are whole ones hanging by their feet from the front of the stall. The man we bought our chicken from had some cut up into pieces, luckly for us! I didn´t want to deal with a whole one. Indeed, dealing with parts of one was enough to turn my stomach a little bit and make me wish I was a vegetarian!! We asked for white meat, so he brought out his butcher knife and Wam! Crack! there was a brest of a chicken for us. He only had one chicken that was partially disabled like that so the other two we bought were legs. I am just glad he chopped off the feet before giving it to us. I think that would have been a little too much for me. As is, we had to take back the chicken parts, de-skin them and try to cut them into managible portions. We also decided that the neck was not a delicacy that we wanted to eat this evening. That got put in with the skin and gizzards. Lesson learned? Meat is gross.
So we shall see how this dinner turns out! I am excited and glad that I am here, learning so much and surrounded by people and things that are so foregn to me. Also, my english has gotten a LOT worse since I have been here. I find myself writing and thinking and speaking as I would speak in Spanish. No good. I guess that just means that I am being present in my time here!

Also, I got sunburned a few days ago. Every day here is around or more than 80 degrees at some point. So much sun! There is no way that it is mid november all ready!

Okay, off to cook...

El Día de los Muertos

Today is the day of the dead. I am so glad that I got to be here for it!

We took all the kids from the Casa out to a cemetary where the wife of the guy who runs this place is burried. She died from bone cancer just over a year ago. Seeing the way in which he intereacted with the kids at the site, it was easy to see how much this program means to him. At one point in the morning, all the kids gathered around the grave fence and sang songs and then one by one went in and said a little prayer or something. It was beautiful to witness.

I love the tradion of honoring the dead in this way. All around us, there were families- everyone from babies to grandparents- cleaning the graves, planting flowers, pulling out weeds, re-painting, eating, drinking and visiting with all the others families. They have much respect for the dead, but cemetaries are not a place of mourning or crying. I am sure it happens on an indivudual level, but as a whole, it is a place of community and remembering with joy. I know in the states you could never get away with sitting and eating on someones grave! But here, it is what is done. It is all about the communion with each other and with those who have died. I liked it very much.

We arived in Ayacucho yesterday and are just getting settled in. (I realize it has been a while since I have updated this.... we left Colombia, rode straight through Ecuador and into Peru. We spent 2 days in Trujillo with some friends we made and then got to spend 2 whole days with Joe in Lima! That was amazing and so fun to see where he works and his life there. ) We spent last night in the Casa de los volontarios, but we are moving to a hostel close by. The Casa is really loud (everyone else who is there is a native french speaker!! talk about confusing me!!) and our room was right off the main one with nothing more than a curtain to block the noise. Not good when people like to stay up late and I am tired! Also, the toilet was a hole in the floor and the shower was a hose in the back yard. ...Not saying I couldn´t handle it, but it will be nice to have a quiet space to retreat to after working 6 to 8 hours every day with lots of kids. I know I will need it! And for 150 soles a month, I can handle it (that is roughly 115 USD).

I will hopefully be able to post some pictures soon of where we are living, but it is in a very poor area of town. Dirt, dust and dogs all over the place. But the community is great and I am excited to begin working here. Tomorrow I start working with the Lupes- the 7 mentally retarded children who live at the Casa. They have some incredible stories, you can read them here: http://http//casahogarlosgorriones.org/english/enfants.php as well as see a bit of what we are going to be doing. Mikaela, if you read this, I know you would love it here!

Okay, well I am going to go check on Stacie now. She finally succommed to the travel sickness. I have avoided it so far, but I´m sure that it is closer than I think!
Much Love!

Colombia!

Stacie and I went to Colombia! This is a beautiful city. I like it here a lot.

I don't really have the time to write much, but I just wanted to say thanks for any thoughts and prayers that you have sent our way. We finally got a few positive responces back for working for a month- one here in Colombia and then one in Peru. I don't know what we are going to choose, we havn't had the chance to talk about it yet, but I know that we will be used well in either place!

Until then, we are headed up to Santa Marta, a small town on the Carribean Coast for a few days to relax and be on the beach. I'm excited!

Back in Baños

Well we are back here again, back in Baños. Good thing I like this city. It is nice, quiet, but comfortable. And lots to do. However, we are not here to necessarily be complete tourists, we are trying really hard to get our lives figured out. The place that we were going to be volunteering at here by Baños just fell through, which is really unfortunate. We had been counting on that and had not really set any other plans in to the works, and so now we are back to square one. Which is a sad place to be!! So we have sent out many emails to other organizations, and are trying to get something together. We have had a few responces, but they are not ideal for us. One of them is all the way down in Bolivia and that would be a long time to get there and is only a volunteer place fo 4 hours a day in the middle of a big, rather dangerous city. We are thinking maybe something in Columbia now too. We are trying to widen our horizons to beyond just Ecuador, even though I would have thought that there would have been plenty to do here.

Small victory though: I had two conversations in Spanish with two different people today. That was a great thing. They were pretty basic conversations, but it was still great to actually talk to people and not only know what they are saying, but to be able to chat back! We have been here for ove three weeks now and I am glad that something is paying off.

Okay, well I am off to study some spanish. We are making pictures today of the body, a kitchen, a house, etc and labeling it all and memorizing it. It should be a good practice excercise.


PS if Monica from Work reads this, or of someone from work does, tell Monica that I would love her family contacts in Columbia! I forgot to bring with me the page that had every ones email addresses on it. So maybe someone can email me? My email address is just erikatrott@gmail.com

2 days to Cuenca

So this is just a quick blog update... I wanted to upload the videos that we took, but the computer is being too slow for that. so these pictures will have to do.

We left Baños a few days ago and went down to the town of Riobamba. Not a fun place. So we left there to go down to Cuenca, which was supposed to be better (and is so beautiful!!).

However, with the protests that are going on right now the roads are totally blocked off and it is crazy.

It ended up taking us 2 days, 2 buses, 3 trucks and lots of just hoofing it to get here!













me in the back of a truck, waiting and trying to get throught the blockaids!! Surroundedc by an italian couple, a guy from the UK, someone from Ireland and a couple from France. So fun. And squished. At one point (not this truck ride) i was sitting on a sack of potatoes and there were chickens tied up in a bag next to me.












Some of the blockades. Most of them were tires and rocks burning in the road, but at this point, someone got creative and felled a tree. We also ran across huge sand barriers that completely blocked the road.












Stacie in the back of the truck too. I thought she was going to fall out.

We met some great people through it all and ended up spending the night half way through it in the little town of Cañar, which is ironic, because it is the town that a book I just finished reading was set in (A year in Cañar, a good read if you have the time). And it was great!

Anyways, hopefully we´ll be able to get to a place that will let me upload the videos, because they do a wonderful job articulating this all, and right now I don´t think I´m on my A-game, but that is okay.

We are here, alive and well.
Tomorrow we start language school, which should be great!

so far...

This has been a completely overwhelming few weeks so far here. Stacie and I are tagteaming what we did, so that you (who are both of our friends) don´t have to read it twice.

Also, these keyboards are strange. If i wanted to make a normal smily face :) ...like that, my fingers would instantly go to Ñ). Which doens´t look like anything at all. ...sorry. random thought.

At the moment we are in Riobamba. We came here because we were tired of Baños. Baños is a wonderful, uber touristy town with plenty of things to do if you want to spend a lot of money. Which we didn´t. So we spent a lot of time hiking around, we went on a 40+ km bike ride with these two guys we met who were biking from Vancouver CA to Tiera del Fuego. They were great. We also went into the hotspring pools, which was great. So relazing and amazing feeling.

One of the best things so far about these travels has been the people that we have met. To be honest, we havn´t met a lot of locals, mainly because of the extreme language barrier that exists right now, but we have met a lot of other travelers. We traveled a few days with this couple from Isreal that were great. (Check stacie´s blog stacieduvall.blogspot.com for those adventures) We stayed with them at this isreali hostel in Baños one night and ended up having an amazing conversation with an isreali guy (my guess would be around 20) and this woman from Chile who taught South American woman´s literature in Memphis at a university. Thi Isreali guy Gil was talking about the war in Iraq and how it was a good thing that America went in there and this woman from Chile (never caught her name) got incredibly fired up about how America was behind so many overthrows of democratic governments to dictatorships becaus ethey had leftist leanings. I really can´t do the conversation justice, but it once again reminded me of just how big the world is and how other contries view what our country has done. And how quickly everyone is to ask me what I think. As if I am any authority on anything.

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Also, the protest that are going on rigt now are making things a little difficult to get around. Right now, there is a television on behind me that is broadcasting pictures of the protests. I doubt they will be well adverstized in the staes, but there are a lot of road blocks up and it makes it a little difficult to get from A to B. They are all pertty peaceful, just a lot of tires burning, people in the streets, and rocks in the road. And LOTS of police everywhere in riot gear. But don´t worry (mom) everyone is really nice, and the one blockade that we walked through was totally fine. :) Ecuador has sold the water rights to the indigenous peoples and is trying to make them pay for the water they have always had and has lowered waiges for teachers. So they are both protesting. All over the country.

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So now stacie and I are in this waiting period. We have three weeks until we start working in this indigenous community up in the Andes and not a lot to do. Right now we are headed down to Cuenca and going to finally do some language school. That will be good. It is hard getting by on tiny phrases and lots of ¨No comprende¨all the time. :) I know that we can both use thoughts and prayers about how we are doing emotionally and physically. We are both tired of being ¨tourists¨and want to be doing something. Pray that we can find joy and excitment in just doing what we are doing as well as solidify everything for the future.

We are Here!!

We have made it safe and sound. Our flights were no problem at all, and we met some interesting people. On the first flight we sat next to this woman from Columbia who was in her mid 70s and was visiting her 8 children and 50 grandchildren all around the states. She was super nice, speaking to us in broken english, showing us words in spanish and always saying how important it was to learn spanish. I liked her a lot!

We got in at 11.30 about and were met at the airport by a guy who worked for the hostel we stayed in last night. It was so surreel leaving the airport and finally getting the picture. We are going to be here for so long!! I was all kinds of nerves. Actually, still am. Casey and Ethan were welcome faces at the hostel. Ethan heard us comming and stuck his head out of the door right as we pulled up. It was such a strange and wonderful site!

Today we are headed out to this volcano by Quilatoa and community surrounding it. We are going to for their carnival for the day too! Casey and Ethan has prettymuch planned everything for us for the first few days. It is a nice break from it all. I feel like I have done so much planning to get to this point, and now I am here and I don't need to do any planning for the first few days and I am LOVING life. We will be back Saturday or Sunday.

Okay well I am off and going to go explore a little more of this strange new life that I am starting.

With love.
E

Guess We're Leaving!

Leaving in the morning!! I hope I have everything together. It has been kind of crazy trying to get it all together, but everything worked out in the long run. I keep glancing around my room trying to make sure that I have everything together, but I think at this point in time, there is nothing more I can do. I just need to shut down my brain for a few hours and get some sleep, because we are leaving super early in the morning. With a flight that leaves at 8(ish) am, getting there at 6 means that we leave the house here around 5:30. So that is fun.

And with that, I sign off... next time I write anything, I will be in Ecuador! Keep us in your thoughts and prayers these next few days... I know we will need it and appreciate it!

With Love,
E

8 Days...

8 Days till I leave the country for the first time in 6 years.

It is hard to believe that it is almost here, but I am so ready and excited for it. Right now I just wish it was now! I can't really do any more planning than I have and just really want to go. There is no good in worrying over the things that I have been worrying about anymore, I'll just have to take it as it comes.

Stacie got back from Beyond a few weeks ago and in the short time she was here (before she visited Ohio and family) we got to sit down a few times and really talk about what we were looking to get out of this trip and it made me feel so much better about things. We had talked about the trip before she left, but I didn't buy our tickets until she had already left for Beyond, so this entire trip has been planned long distance. But she is a good reminder to me that we are going with open minds and we purposefully have not planned very much of this trip because we want to be open to what comes. Even so, we are lucky enough to be meeting up with our friends Casey and Ethan the first 5 days of our trip. And then a friend of mine knows some translator women who live in Quito who will be able to show us around too. We are being provided for before we even leave!

Okay, off to buy myself a watch...