The Daily Dose - Ecuador

I receive a daily email update called: The Daily Dose from an online outdoor gear retailer Steep and Cheap. The company has an unusual business model; sell just one item on the site (currently Black Diamond Raptor crampons) for about 25 minutes - or until it's gone. The product are typically deeply discounted (44 percent off the raptors) and the time limit creates an auction style, get-it-before-it's-gone, feeding frenzy.

While many of the products are gnar (just kidding) my shallow Peace Corps pockets keep me far removed from an electronic shopping cart. The daily dose is usually a humorous story or witty observation; today it was incredibly relevant and hilarious.

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I was in Ecuador and there was a warning posted in the airport that people should boil or treat their water before drinking it. The warning was in Spanish and I don't speak Spanish, but my travel companion noticed and told me. Later in the trip we stopped at a farm that grows sugarcane and coffee. The farmer had a small still that he would used to make sugarcane moonshine. For some reason we were talking about the water boil notice, and the guy at the still told me that if I got a stomach bug all I had to do to cure it was to drink a cup of his moonshine and then eat a spoonful of sand. I questioned how this could possibly work, and he told me that the microbes in your stomach all get drunk off the moonshine and then throw rocks at each other. 

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Funny thing is - I think I have been to the same farm.

Cheers against the microbes.

The Baptism

When I pulled my backpack and two duffel bags out from under the bus and wandered helplessly into the hot, humid, night in Santa Clara I could only dream about speaking Spanish, making friends, and fitting into the community. That was the end of April in 2010.

When I heard the big news I excitedly rushed across town for a visit. My host family, Clever, Maria, and their son Steven, had just returned home with a new baby boy. When they told me the new baby's name I was as speechless as the newborn was: Joseph Adrian Huatatoca Grefa. That was February 2011.

When I heard the motorcycle pull up outside of my house I thought it was Rolando coming to hide from his girlfriend/ wife. Pleasantly surprised, I opened the door to greet my host family, but when Clever asked me to do him a "huge favor" I was a little apprehensive. Former huge favors have included: unknowingly moving a box containing a 12 foot boa, overseeing the high school's booth at the town fair, and Giovanni continually asking for a fifty cent loan to buy more moonshine. Clever's question was much different, and one of the best I have heard in Ecuador – would I be his son Joseph's godfather? That was May 2011.

Joseph and his older brother Steven were baptized on June 26^th; the ceremony itself was almost exactly what I expected. As we stood for fotos (Spanish for photos) I couldn't have been more proud. The day was an incredible honor, and when Clever invited my guests Christina, Nick, Rene, and me over for a little lunch we graciously accepted.

A few moments after we arrived at the house the little lunch placidly transformed into a feast of epic proportions. Steven's godparents, my guests, and I were seated at a table in the center of 40-50 guests. I assumed the the first plates brought out containing an entire chicken, leg of guanta (a jungle rodent about the size of a small dog – the annoying yippi kind) and potatoes were to share with the whole table. However, like many assumptions in Ecuador I was wrong – the giant plates were intended for each of the guests of honor with the size of the plate correlating to the responsibility in the baptism.

Just like the plates the party was huge. Claudio was the master of ceremonies and DJ, there was an incredible amount of food, and I was gifted five cases of beer, which I graciously accepted and subsequently (and inline with cultural tradition) re-gifted to the guests around the fiesta. We danced, and danced, and like all Kichwa parties, danced some more. The music, which is an acquired taste, didn't stop until the single digits of the morning.

Despite the improvements of my new language, there was no way I could express the honor and gratitude I experienced that evening. I am incredibly fortunate to call Santa Clara home – even if it is just for eight more months – and know I will always have a home and a special family at that curve at the edge of the jungle.

The Re-Update: Getting back up to speed in SC

One minute I can’t believe I have a whole year left, and the next I can’t believe I only have a year left. April 20th will be my halfway point – although I have technically already spent over a year a few degrees of latitude away from the equator. I am entering the countdown portion of my service and trying to plan out my 2011 and 2012. I realize (and apologize) that it has been months since I have posted anything, so here is an update:

I am still living large in the Ecuadorian Amazon between the cities of Tena and Puyo, in the town of Santa Clara. The population in the town is about 3,000 and we have (nearly) all the amenities I could ever ask for. There are about 5 restaurants, depending on the day, and more than a dozen small shops. There is a store about 2 blocks away from my house that stocks all the Ecuadorian essentials: rice, chicken, and cooking oil. There is an internet cafe (photo) – which I will refer to as the time machine because of its circa 1995 blazing speed - about 5 minutes away which has never been operational for more than 5 consecutive days, but it gets the job done... Has this loaded yet?

I really live the good life here and just need to take a look out my window – before the sawmill opens – to see how good I have got it. I live about 100 yards from the river Llandia and 2.6 miles on my running route from the Piatua, one of the most beautiful rivers I have ever seen. That said, things do get tough and my heart strings are tugged at regularly. Overall I try and keep my eyes on the prize and take the bad in stride.

I moved into my own place back in November and am living it up. I have one of the nicest places in town. Tile floor and running water inside! I bought a huge fridge with two doors, and I just installed an electric showerhead in February. That’s right; I now have a hot shower, in the house. The less than good news: there is a family – let’s call them the squatters – who built their house off my back wall. The squatters have five kids and are always yelling in Kichwa – the indigenous language in my community. Getting woken up at sunrise every morning has gotten old, and I still can’t speak Kichwa, but it helps me stay on an early rising running schedule.

Work has been steady, and remains interesting and rewarding. I have been assisting with some agriculture classes at the high school, and have an English class a few times a week with professors from the three high schools in town – teach the teachers. I wrote a grant proposal for a USAID grant to build a nursery with the students, and am subsequently re-writing that grant. I am really looking forward to the grant going through; if it does I will have more than enough work for the next year. If not I will be looking for money to build a nursery until April 2012.

I am still assisting with Runa, the guayusa tea company that I was assigned as my counterpart organization with Peace Corps. I have since moved from an operational role to an investigative. I am pleased with the change, and am designing experiments to identify the best propagation and cultivation techniques for guayusa trees. Interestingly, there is virtually no scientific information regarding guayusa despite its immense popularity in Ecuador. It is a native tree whose leaves are picked, dried, and used to make a super-power tea. I am hopeful that my work will benefit the farmers by uncovering the problems behind a high mortality rates for newly planted trees.

Closing Comment:

No, I am not German, I am from the U.S.

Yes, I have been told I look German (but that doesn’t make me German).

Seriously, still not German.

Sorry for the Delay – I was experiencing technical difficulties

When I returned to Santa Clara after an amazing Ecuadorian Christmas, I unfortunately arrived at a dead computer. After the initial grieving process, a few giant Ecuadorian beers, and reflecting on how lucky I am to have friends like Tim Johnson – who gave me an external hard drive to back up all the important files as a going away gift – I started trying to list the benefits of life without the cord of a computer tying me down.

I was optimistically day dreaming about all the new friends I would meet at the internet cafe and all the time I would save without the distraction of a computer, when my quiet jungle afternoon was interrupted by my neighbors booming Kichwa music. The sound of the keyboard heavy Kichwa dance song in my American ears resonated one thought: life without a computer was going to be challenging.

Besides the cozy comfort a classic American song can provide, I was also going to miss the accessibility of being able to leisurely try and craft up a witty blog post from the comfort of my hammock. Furthermore, when I was assisting the high school in creating a power point presentation to highlight the work we have been doing over the last year at our local town fair, I was feeling really down on my laptop luck as I carried the desktop computer all over town in the merciless equatorial sun.

With super hero status, William Walker came to the rescue and facilitated a brilliant international life-saving mission: Operation Restore Sanity. I am pleased to report: I am blogging from the comfort of my own computer once again - and all the keys are in the right places... ñç¿?

Whatever snuck in through my window yesterday night and ate one of my pieces of bread through two plastic bags – sucks. As I stared at the ripped bag, trying to deduce what type of animal committed such an atrocity, I was faced with the tough decision eating one of the two remaining rolls, or not. As usually, I was hungry, on a very tight budget, and the bakery is a ten-minute walk through shade-less equatorial sun, so I decided to eat the roll that was furthest from the site of the attack – and hoped that the culprit had a clean mouth.

As I walked in the front door after my early morning run the following morning, I was worried about making the decision to-eat or not-to-eat the remaining mostly intact portion of the only wheat bread in town. Luckily, the thousands of ants marching happily across my countertop carrying away my bread made the not-to-eat decision a whole lot easier.

I have fallen into a pit of emptiness – oh wait, that is just my apartment.

About a week and a half ago I made the decision to move out of my host families’ house. PC’s timeline is living with a host family for three months, I lived with mine for six, but ultimately the decision to move out came down to privacy, not having running water in the house, not having a toilet seat, and my little brother peeing outside my window every morning before school. The host brother thing was actually kind of funny, but only because he is four.

I love my host family, and their pet guanta, and have visited many times since the big move, but I have always been the independent type, and love living alone. I savored the first few days of reading in my hammock without Steven jumping on me, or chasing the guanta around with a broom in his underwear, but as the community gets more comfortable with the idea of the gringo being out in the wild, there has been an increase in random forced-entry visits. Whether it is the neighborhood kids wanting someone to laugh at, or my drunken neighbors wanting to hangout and finish the case of beer at my place, my solitude is quickly becoming as irregular as clean clothes.

I have pretty much nothing in my house wares department, and it is both awesome and depressing. The few items I bought with me, I can’t really unpack because I have nothing to unpack my stuff onto other than a moldy tile floor. I am trying to fix the mold problem, but bleach, vinegar, and laundry soap only prove to be temporary solutions. I am working on getting some serious primer, but it is so humid here that last night the condensation from the roof woke me up dripping on my face.

Hopefully this weekend will win me some comfort. I am promised a mattress from my counterpart agency, three plastic chairs from another PC volunteer, and already have an excellent hand-me-down propane stove and toaster oven. I am treasure hunting like a Somali pirate, trying to commandeer wood to build a bed, shelves, and table. I am also shopping around for curtains to keep out the prying – what is that gringo up to in there – eyes.

Standing up while eating breakfast, sitting on the tile floor reading about reforestation, and trying type in a hammock is cool for a few days, but it is getting old and uncomfortable as we enter week two. It will also be awesome to be able to store food, and protect it from the army of ants longer than 4-12 hours if I can ever afford a refrigerator.

26.2 Miles is 42 Kilometers – 42 Kilometers is really far...

I ran my first marathon today, and around mile 24, I also thought it would be my last. However, like most strenuous physical activity, as soon as I crossed the finish line, I was planning how to do it better, faster, and stronger.

Running in Ecuador has been an adventure worthy of a low budget, made-for-television, motion picture. With the help of some marathon masters from home, I somehow squeezed 18 weeks of marathon training into 5, and prepared to run for about 4 hours in Quito, the second highest capital in the world.

I was very fortunate to meet up Friday night in Quito, and stay with two other Peace Corps marathoners. Kristen and Lindsay are super volunteers – they actually signed up for a third year of service, and great people to hangout with under the impending weight of a marathon. I am very gracious for their hospitality, hunger for baked goods, and humor.

We woke up this morning at four to make it to the starting line by five, for the five-thirty start. A small bowl of oatmeal, two oritos – mini bananas, and a sip of water later, I was off to the San Francisco church starting line. It was a chilly morning – perfect New England running temperature – and we were sent off with a blaze of fireworks, followed by the Ecuadorian national anthem. Running in the pre-dawn darkness is one of my favorite things to do in Ecuador, and I could finally do it without looking crazy – well, looking crazy along with 300 other people.

The first half of the race flew by, but by the third lap of the Parque Carolina, I felt like I was about to celebrate my 125^th birthday. My right quad cramped up so bad I could see my muscle flexing like Arnold in pumping iron – it is the movie about bodybuilding – and I had to get the Gatorade guy to help me lift my foot to stretch my leg. As funny as it probably looked from the comfort of the taxi guy’s drivers seat, I was beginning to wonder how I was going to finish the race.

It turns out my parents, Miss Wiernas (first grade teacher), Miss Lyzack (second grade teacher), and that testudinidae from the tortoise and hare story, all lied to me; slow and steady does not win the race – it just gets you across the finish line. As I lay in the grass, looking up at the clouds above Quito, I reflected on my 26.2 miles road, and my five-ish months in Ecuador; a slow and steady pace will get me to the finish line, but a strong and sustainable pace will bring the trophy home to the jungle.