The Light at the End of the Tunnel....

I am an official, sworn-in volunteer of Peace Corps Ecuador Omnibus 102!

I can hardly believe how busy the last month has been. I am going to update the last few weeks and after this post I should be able to update weekly since I will have some sort of routine and easier access to the internet.

Week 5 (site visit)
I had a 5 day site visit to Macas in the province of Morona Santiago. I stayed with my future host family which consists of a mom, Piedad, her 21 year old daughter, Johana, and the 2 year old grandson, Daniel. It reminds me a lot of the house I grew up in, full of young, lively women! My room is an addition to the house so it has a private bath, access to the kitchen and laundry room, and its own entrance. So it´s basically an apartment with a host family attached! On this site visit I also met up with 2 agriculture volunteers who will be around during my service. I went to the Special Needs school I´ll be working with but the kids are not in school until September so I just met my counterpart and discussed a 3 month plan. All in all, my visit was a huge success. I love Macas and the people and the future work!

Week 6
Not gonna lie... I don´t remember anything about week 6. I was on such a high from visiting my site and making new connections that it just whizzed by. We finished up our youth group in Olmedo. Over training we had to work with youth in our communities in 6 different areas. It was interesting practice but didn´t quite do the job of preparing me for the tech trip....

Week 7 (tech trip)
We went to the province of Esmeraldas to practice giving charlas (talks) and working in the communities. First, we went to a volunteer´s site (Geoff in Quinnedea) and worked in a garden, gave self-esteem talks to 8 years olds and sex-education talks to 15 year olds, and did some community surveying around town. No amount of previous training could have prepared me for the work we did. For example, during our sex-ed charlas we played musical chairs with words having to do with sexuality. When the music stopped, the students were supposed to write the first thing that comes to mind. The thing about this charla is that it is a topic that we would normally wait over a year before working on it with our youth. It is just not a talked about topic in public. So it was actually really great practice for us to work with the youth and catch a glimpse of what the future will be like. After a few days in Geoff´s site, we went to the beach town outside of Atacames to visit Chris, an agriculture volunteer working in a Cacao project. We didn´t really do much there but swim in the ocean and lounge in the hammocks... exactly the break we needed!

Week 8
Our final week in Cayambe included a lot of post-tests and final interviews. In order to be sworn-in we had to pass the medical test and safety & security test, take our language proficiency exams (I am at advanced medium, the 3rd highest level!), and interview with our program managers to assess our emotional maturity and motivation. I apparently passed all the tests and was cleared for swear-in! We had a family day where I dressed in traditional indigenous clothing and danced. Then we had our omnibus going away gathering, which was bittersweet. It was so nice to loosen up and just have fun with the crew but it was sad to know that was the last night we would all hang out together.

Week 9 (this week)
We moved out of our communities on Sunday. I didn´t think it would be very emotional, considering the lack of connection between myself and my host family, but my senora gave me a traditional top (which cost an arm and a leg!) and I realized that family is family. They will always hold a place in my past and I in theirs. Once in Quito, I spent 3 quality days with "The Fantastic 4"(i.e. Kara, Emmalee, Tiffany, and me). We ate Papa Johns pizza, went to a mall, and had a music/picture exchanging party. Then Wednesday morning we went to the ambassador´s house and took our oaths to become Peace Corps Volunteers! An hour after the ceremony ended we were whisked away to our sites.... not so cool. It was hard to have such an exciting experience of swearing-in then immediately saying goodbye to our closest friends and riding on a bus for 8 hours. When I got into town I met my family and went for pizza (better than anywhere in Ecuador!) and have been unpacking and rearranging my room. I can´t wait to start work on Monday!

So if I had to sum training up in 3 words I would say: friends, skills, and jr. high! Haha. I met some amazing people and made incredible friends, learned tons of skills for my future work, and yet had nothing better to do than get involved in jr. high drama. Now that I´m in Macas, I hope to move on out of that bubble of training and into the ¨real world¨. Let me know what you think and if there is anything else I should include in my blog! Love you all and miss you tons!