bienvenidos a tena y entrenamiento parte dos

i´m finally here in tena for the next 2 years after 10 weeks of brutal training. no, it wasnt that bad. i forgot to go over the logistics of training for anyone who cares. when we first got to quito we stayed the first night together in a hostel near the airport. the next morning we briefly visited the pc office in quito, learning rules, filling out forms, and taking LPI tests (language proficiency interviews). then we took a bus up to cayambe where we stayed for 2 nights, going over more pc policies and learning some ecuadorian culture and basic survival spanish. we learned where we were going to be for our training, based on our preferences of if u like a big family or small family, if u like animals, kids, and if ur willing to live in ´rough´conditions. i answered big, yes, yes, and yes. it was also based on ur language level, they tried to place volunteers on the same level in the same town. . there´s 9 levels: low beginner, medium beginner, high beginner, low intermediate, and so on up to high advanced. none of us were high advanced, the highest people were low advanced. i tested at high beginner, but i really didnt like the way the interview was designed. but after 10 weeks of training we had another interview and i tested out at low advanced.

it was kinda weird that 3 people from wisconsin (who all went to the univ of wisconsin) were in my training site of olmedo. im pretty sure the trainers put them together on purpose though. the wisconsinians were really cool though. our main trainer, i suppose the training coordinator, was dale who has decent spanish language but is funny to hear speak cuz hes from east texas and has a bad accent. we would always imitate the way he said ¨entonces. . ¨ and ¨cosas asi. . ¨. his title was actually ´duty officer´, and during one of the personal health lectures someone asked who we´re supposed to give our stool samples to if the nurses werent available, to which the answer was ¨the duty officer¨. other ´dale quotes´ we found amusing were ´lo siento, mi español es basura´, ´this slide is basura´, ´hell, i thought about goin home 10 minutes ago´, and my personal favorite dale-ism, ´hell, anything can kill ya¨. maybe theyre not quite so funny to people that werent here. if ur reading this dale, u are awesome.

so in all 9 of the cbt (community-based training sites) there was a ´training facilitator´(all native ecuadorians), who came to help us with our spanish and cultural integration a few times a week. and on fridays we would all go into cayambe to have technical training in habitat conservation, agriculture, health & safety, community integration skills & culture, and small business development. the first 5 weeks went by pretty slow cuz none of us knew exactly what site we were going to, and we mostly just stayed in our communities. but then in the 6th week they finally told us where we were going and then we spent a week going to the site, then another 10 days going on a technical trip into the jungle learning about habitat and agriculture there. so the last 5 weeks went by a lot faster.

the way they chose our sites was based mostly on our skills/education and partly on our preferences. during he 2nd week of training the program directors, basically our supervisors, interviewed us on our aspirations and skills, and our preferences of whether we prefer small or big towns, if we have a fear of bugs, rodents, snakes or anything like that, and then if we preferred to go to the oriente (or jungle, which is where i am), the sierra (which is where i was for training) or the coast (which i havent been to yet). i answered the oriente, cuz im fascinated by the rainforest and the biodiversity here, plus i already knew there was an aquaculture project here, plus the climate is nice if not a little humid. then in the 4th week at which point we still didnt know to which site we would be assigned, they brought in counterpart agencies from ecuador whom solicited the service of peace corps volunteers. we had a full week of hearing about 20 presentations (they divided the volunteers into our respective programs of habitat and ag., which have about 20 people each) from the counterparts regarding their site and the kind of work that could be done there. during that week we were to tell our supervisors, and perhaps at their suggestion ´bribe´- j/k - them into which site we wanted to go to.

even b4 the presentation of tena by my counterpart i already had it as my highest preference cuz thats where the aquaculture project was, and the presentation just solidified it. but there were a few other sites, on the coast and in the oriente, where i would have been happy with going to as well. so yeah, the week after that they presented all of our sites and i was definitely happy cuz i got my first choice. . most people got the site they wanted except a few people. . but i dont think any1 was devasted by their site. omnibus 97 (which is our entire group of volunteers who were assigned to go to ecuador at the same time, dont ask me why its ´omnibus´, i dont know why. . and 97 cuz we´re the 97th group to come to ecuador since pc started here) began with 45 people and now we´re down to 39, split almost exactly evenly between habitat and ag volunteers and between male and female. the reasons for people leaving our various such as family probs, lack of desire, and lack of discipline, to which i wont get into the specific details of in this blog cuz i might be censored by my boss and cuz this blog is already pretty long. but everything here in tena is going well so far, i love it here and can easily see myself staying here and working here for the next 2 years. so if anyone happens to be going thru ecuador and needs a place to stay drop me a line in tena. . it´s niiice.

entrenamiento

hola norteamericanos,

i´m still alive, not so well, here in ecuador. after my last blog it sounded like i might have scurvy, which the peace corps nurses doubted cuz they said it takes some serious vitamin c deficiency for over a couple months. but it´s still possible. . i always wanted to have scurvy. but that problem went away a couple days later. actually i´ve been doing really well health-wise the last 3 weeks or so, up until 2 days ago. i started getting a fever, and i got bloated and burpy, and then the runs. i think it´s giardia, which is pretty common among the volunteers that aren´t used to the bacteria-infested water here, at least 5 others have gotten it. the symptoms include having gross poo, feeling like poo, and having burps that more or less smell like poo. but its not fatal and its getting better lately. unfortunately on my two excursions to the jungle so far i didnt get to try chicha (the fermented yuca saliva) or have my head shrunken by a shaman.

when i was in tena the first time ´working´ with the provincial government, they drove me out there so i didnt get to hike 1.5 hours. sorry, the chronology of this blog is gonna suck, i think its the lack of food in my body from the giardia. so i guess im gonna live in an apartment in tena, i was gonna live right below another volunteer, but he ended up going home a year early cuz his mom was really sick. so im actually gonna live in his place on the second floor (it seems like i always get those places). for peace corps standards i would say its pretty fancy, it even has running water and an indoor bathroom (but no hot water). i forget if i described it last time, and if i didnt i´ll describe it more in my next blog. sorry, i didnt get pics of it yet, but i will when i actually get there in a week.

yeah, so really looking forward to getting out of olmedo/cayambe and the cold/high sierra in general and into the hot/humid, oxygen-rich world of the jungle in tena. we (all of the habitat conservation and sustainable agriculture people, = 8 volunteers, 2 language facilitators, and one technical trainer) took an awesome 10-day tech trip out there to the oriente, not exactly tena, but about an hour east along the rio arajuno just 4 days after we got back from our solo site visits. damn, the internet cafe is closing soon. . gotta wrap it up. anyways, we´ll be in quito for 6 days next week beginning tuesday, wrappin up our training and then finally swearing-in as official volunteers. k, gotta go, chao