Miscellany

My posts are usually well balanced, comprehensive, insightful word and photo essays on a single topic. This time it is just collection of some recent shots.

I have posted several pictures of the poverty that can be seen around here. I thought I would balance it with this picture of a central courtyard of a nearby mall. When a World Cup game is on the screen, it almost seems to resemble a shrine.

The second shot is an example of something I thought I would have lot more of by now.

The final photo is of a bridge under construction. It will be part of a highway leading to Quito's new airport, which has been open for around a year. Note the little stone bride deep in the ravine.

Congrejos! (Crabs)

On Sunday, Edison and Gladys went to a market in Quito to get 30 crabs. As can be seen in the first picture, they were quite big. The second photo shows them in the rapidly filling bucket. The third photo shows Marguerite with the cauldron they used to boil them, and the last photo shows my plate with the two crabs sitting in the soup/stock in which they were served.

The pot they were boiled in actually contained a sort of soup, with vegetables, spices (but not Old Bay), and onions, etc. You know the crabs are done when they turn orange.

They are served in a bowl of the soup/stock. They are eaten with mallets, but, curiously, no other tools to crush the shells or to extract the meat from all of the little crevices in which you find it. It's just the mallets and your bare, messy hands.

Marguerite and I were reminded why we never do crabs. Some people love them, but for us they are not worth the effort. (Heresy for an adopted Marylander.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

El Chota/Juncal

One of the most informative parts of a recent road trip was in the towns of El Chota and Juncal.  Both towns are populated by AfroEcuadorians with a fascinating history, and some distinctive parts of their culture.

 Their history dates back to the period when the slave trade was still quite active.  A boatload of Africans bound for what is now Colombia was blown off course in a storm, and it ran aground off the coast of Ecuador.  Most of them were able to swim to shore and escape into the countryside.  So, they take pride in the fact that their ancestors were never slaves. 

 They take pride in their communities and look after each other more than is common in the rest of the country.  In other areas, families look after each other.  In this area, the community looks after each other.

 They also have a tradition of dancing which includes dancing while balancing a full wine bottle on their heads.  Some of them can do some moves while that bottle never wobbles.

 The first two pictures are landscapes that show the desertlike terrain this far up in the mountains.  Note the cactus in the foreground.  The second was taken just after dawn.  The third picture shows a little impromptu soccer (futbol) diplomacy with the local kids.  The fourth picture shows a dance demonstration in Juncal.  You can tell by her posture how active her dancing can get.  The final picture shows the bottles they used in Chota. I was particularly interested in how they decorate them.

 

 

 

 

 

Our sites!

We were suprised to learn that we are going to a coastal city. Marguerite will be in Santa Elena, and I will be in La Libertad, the next town west from Santa Elena. The province is also called Santa Elena. If you are looking at an old fashioned map, find Guayaquil, which is the biggest city in Ecuador, and it's a port city. If you look due west, you will see a small peninsula. Our towns are nestled in the base of that peninsula.

High temparatures hover around 85 year round. When I added it to my Weather.com, Jefferson and Santa Elena were both reporting 86. (Santa Elena will presumably be in the 80's on New Years, too.) Surprisingly, it is supposed to be a semi-arid climate. Because of the low altitude, we will have to take malaria drugs while we are there.

Marguerite will be working with a group called Plan Internacional. They want her to work in areas such as teen pregnancy, HIV, gender equality, and human rights in general.

I'm assigned to a school in La Libertad called Escuela Gustavo Enrique Galindo Velasco. I think it's a public school. I'm expected to do some life skills training, enlarge the after school tutoring program, promote reading and literacy, and train the teachers to expand their abilities with things like computer classes, financial literacy, and English.

We have been assigned to a host family, but we don't know where the house is in relation to our two worksites. There is already a Volunteer at my site, and we have been given his name and email address. We will soon be flooding him with questions.

Incidentally, we got our assignments much earlier than other classes. The thinking was to remove the uncertainty, and let us shape our learning with our geography and job descriptions in mind.

They also had the neatest little ceremony for us. Out behind the school, they had created a map of Ecuador with a sign for each province, with flower petals delineating the boundaries. They then read off each name with the town and province and we went to stand in the province to which we were assigned. It was a great way to learn which of our classmates would be near us, and where everyone was being sent. That was a real class act.

Ecuador's Sierra in a single photo

If it's possible to show you the Sierra in a single shot, this one shows you what we see every day here. In the foreground, you have the houses of the hard-working poor. Note the unpainted cinder block walls and corrugated galvanized roofs. We frequently see old tires and broken cinder blocks on top to help hold the roof in place. You also see the wires of all descriptions strung in what seems like any place anyone wants to put them. Trying to get an unblemished view of the mountains with your naked eye is nearly impossible.

In the middle distance, even if you can't make them out, are the usual mix of houses, to include some very pleasant middle class homes up to and including estates with elaborate walls, gates, and security systems. We walk by all three examples every morning on our way to school.

In the far distance, those splotches of white encroaching up the sides of the mountains are some relatively new apartment and condo complexes on the outskirts of Quito.

Rising above all this, in dwindiling, undiminshed power are the peaks of the Andes. I never tire of looking at them.

 

LLoa

On Monday of last week, we visited a little town called LLoa. It's up in the mountains not very far north of Quito. We went there because the town had arranged a celebration of one of the local Volunteer's projects. After a false start and an apparent failure, she managed to get her charges to write a book in Spanish and English, and to do all of the illustrations. Practically every kid in the school can point to some contribution he or she made to the book. It has actually been published, so the ceremony was to celebrate this, and to give each child his or her own copy of the book. It was a great day.

The first picture shows a view I captured from the open window of a moving bus. If the car looks familiar, it was just a freak concidence that I could not resist. That model is actually pretty popular down here. Most of the mountains on the way to LLoa were considerably steeper than the ones in this picture.

The second picture is of the park in the center of town. Any town of any size has a central park, and the local church generally fronts on to it. Municipal buildings or other community organizations frequently face the other three sides. The oncoming rain clouds conceal the mountains in the background.

Our site assignment

We learned a day or two ago that we would be told our site assignments on Monday.  This is earlier than originally planned, because the powers that be wanted to relieve the suspense, and to allow us to  tailor our learning as much as possible to the nature of the site.

Marguerite and I had separate interviews this week about our wishes and perceived strengths and weaknesses to help them make their final decisions. 

So, a drum roll, please............

Hiatus and Illness

The blog has been quiet for a while. There are two causes. First of all, when we just shuttle back and forth between the house and the training center. there isn't much to write about. Secondly, we just spent a week traveling to various towns and cities, and we were told to leave laptops at home. That trip has provided us with lots of material, so I expect to begin posting again soon with all of our sights and stories.

Next topic. The Thursday before last, Marguerite woke up with a sore throat and some other symptoms. In the past, one day of rest would usually let her body fight it off. On Friday, she felt no better, and possibly worse. Friday night/Saturday morning she got much sicker. I won't describe all of her ailments in polite company, but at one time she had no fewer that three afflictions simultaneously. A (nonprescription) prescription from our medical office had her feeling somewhat improved on Sunday, and she was fortunately well enough on Tuesday to go on our trip.

Last night, I started coming down with one of her three problems, and so today was a sick day, and I expect tomorrow to be, also.

We are really bummed about this. The reason is, Tumbaco and the house we are staying in is as benign a situation one is likely to have in this country. When we go to our site, wherever that might be, the situation is almost certain to be worse. We are really concerned that our immune systems are not equal to the challenges that surround us. Many of the challenges come from unclean water and organisms to which you don't build up a tolerance. Certain problems could recur time and time again.

Let me hasten to add that it's not just the old goobers that are getting sick. Plenty of young, intelligent, responsible volunteers are suffering, too. So, we will see.