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