i bought a hammock for my apartment recently and its awesome. before all i had were 3 plastic chairs to go along with my plastic table. the first day i had it i took a 2hour nap in it. the $12 i payed is probably the best investment ive made here. besides having my wallet picked in a quito trolley in september, ive only lost a few other things. for some reason i cant manage to keep track of sunglasses, umbrellas, or basketballs here. ive lost 2 of each. i bought a cheap bball for $4 and it got a hole in it the very same day. a few weeks later i bought a nicer one (spalding) for $15. so before i had a chance to write my name on it, i took this ball to the gym for a game. an hour later i didnt see it, and searching for it, i caught a kid leaving the gym w/ a ball similar to the one i just bought in his hands. i went up to him and asked if it was his. he said yes, then his mom comes up and shes like, ¨his dad gave it to him¨. i still had a feeling it was mine, so i asked the kid, ¨youre sure its yours?¨, and he said yeah again, so i let it go. but after looking for 5 more minutes i realized id been duped.
there seems to be a lack of good bballs around here, despite the sport´s semi-popularity, which is understandable given the economic conditions and $15 price tag. but i especially cant believe that the mom would lie like that, too. a week later i bought another of the same ball, this time i wrote my name nice and big on it. i took it to the gym again, and it turned up missing again. i was pretty distraught. a week went by and we had another game, and to my relief, a teammate told me my ball was in the storage closet. it may sound petty, but $15 is about 8% of my monthly stipend. so im reluctant to even take it outsie my place now.
as i write this ive been sick for a few days. i think ive got ´bichos´, which is a proliferation of ´bugs´or amoebas in the stomach. i probably got them when i drank 2 bowls of chicha being passed around in a community on friday. they can cause giardia, from bugs living in dirty water, which could have been used for the chicha. giardia symptoms include being constantly bloated, gassy, nauseous, with greyish diarhhea, symptoms i definitely have. i probably had giardia a few months ago as well. i felt so nauseous while eating delicious pizza, i couldnt even finish it, and i had to crash at a hostal 5 minutes away rather than walk the 10 minutes home. i had to use the bathroom once an hour the whole night. i probably lost 10 lbs in those 4 days alone. that was definitely the sickest ive been here because i had a fever too; it was perhaps the worst ive ever felt. its weird how PC vols´conversations tend to revolve around the toilet. there is an over-the-counter medicine called fasogen in tena that works pretty well against bichos. i've been eating a lot of ají, raw onions, and papaya seeds lately, they're supposed to kill bichos, too. and all volunteers get 'deparasitized' after a year of service, so i'm looking forward to that.
speaking of feeling under the weather, the weather is weird here. obviously i expected a lot of rain living in the rain forest. but i expected more or less rainy seasons and dry seasons.so far i would say there has been a wet season and a wetter season. when i got here in spril it was wetter, usually raining a couple hours a day, up until august, whihc was dry, it only rained 4 or 5 days the whole month. the 'dry' season is supposed to go til january, but october was a very wet month, probably the second wettest behind only May. and there were some spectacular lightning storms on display from my 2nd story window. i have a great view facing the east, towards the amazonian jungle. it seems that's where i see most of the storm clouds come from, although i'm not sure about the meteorology around here. i'm assuming that once the clouds from the east hit the andes to the west of tena they precipitate, but i'd really like to see a map of the weather patterns around here (i've yet to see a weather forecast on tv in ecuador).
one day last month, as coworkers and i were about to leave tena to drive north to lago agrio (which is 7 hours away and just 15 miles south of the colombian border), we werehit by a hailstorm. yes, a hailstorm. in the jungle. it began with rain, then the winds picked up, then harder rain and harder wind. sitting in the pickup (fortunately i wasnt in the back this time) we watched as kids walking home from school were soaked by rain and force 2 hurricane 35mph winds. then came the hail, pelting the truck for about 10 minutes. if i hadnt seen it i wouldnt have believed it. after the storm, driving out of tena, we saw several trees fallen, one onto someone's house, and a few roofs blown off. when i got back to tena 3 days later, my landlady told me half my roof (the aluminum sheeting covering the wood) had been blown off. her and her nephew frantically tied it back on , covering my bookcase & clothes with my shower curtain to avoid the deluge. at least my house got a nice little shower while i was away.
a couple weks ago another pc vol moved in tight next door to me, in the same apt complex. mary is a health vol from omnibus 96, the group that came ahead of mine. they arrived in ecuador in june of '06. mary had been living in a community outside of archidona called rucullacta until she couldnt put up with her 'slimeball' landlord that kept hitting on her. my landlady pati offered her an apt, and after getting a relocation approval from the pc bosses, theres another gringo in tena. she is also the owner of yana's first offspring; i first saw mia in march during my first visit when she was just a month old puppy. now she's back for a family reunion, and she looks a lot like yana. at first they didnt get along when mary brought mia over, but now they play all the time, it's pretty entertaining. it's too bad, one of the cats died a week ago he ate some poison left out by the city for the alley dogs that run astray at night. there's a pet population control problem in tena and ecuador and leaving poison out is the usual solution. i'm gonna get yana an injection soon that's supposed to prevent pregnancy for 3 months at a time. but its been cool walking the dogs with mary, despite all the male dogs that follow and bark at us.
another omnibus came in june, 98, and they got to their sites in august after 2 months training. 2 of them are in my 'cluster', or regional group of volunteers, but they live way out in the jungle, 3-4 hours to the east of tena. the health & families vols (ie omnibus 96 & 98) have to live with a host family for at least the first 3 months in site. and i thought not being able to leave the vicinity of our site for the first 3 months sucked. a couple newbies, a married couple a few hours north, were living with their counterparts, the mayor & his wife. apparently, they argued all the time because the mayor & his wife demanded them to work at the clinic 40 hrs/week, even though vols arent personal employees and set their own schedule. theyve now found another place, 'not soon enough' according to the mayor's wife. thank god im not living with fabian, the 20 or so hours/week i work with him are more than enough.
perhaps the funnest thing, or at least funniest thing to do in tena is go to karaoke bars. theres at least 12 here in tena, and every decent-sized city ive been to has at least a dozen, too. what can i say, ecuadorians love to drink and sing. ive been to karaoke bars probably 8 times, and ive sung maybe 10 songs, including 'como te extraño' and 'eres' by cafe tacuba, coolio's 'gangsta's paradise' 'is this love' by marley, and my all-time favorites 'unchained melody' 'ill be watching you' and 'one more night'. the selection of songs in english, aka 'baladas ingles', is very limited here. the bars in tena all have the same playlist, and it's only got about 20 songs in english. and to make it worse, a lot of those are 80's songs, by cyndie lauper or madonna, or are more adult contemporary 'ballads'. i guess ballads are the thing to have, because karaoke here is all about ruing the day one's significant other left and sulking in one's misery.
the first time i went to karaoke with some coworkers, we were plastered from drinking beers and a strong local drink called pajaro azul. when we got to the bar we ordered more pilseners and i sang a couple songs (in spanish, too) without hesitation, and it was a blast. on another occassion, when i was much soberer, i realized that theyre mostly not to enjoy oneself, but to drink til you cant feel your feelings. case in point, there were 2 middle-aged guys at a table downing beers the whole night. one of them starts singing a depressing ballad about a woman leaving, then he's slurring his words, then tears roll down his cheeks, and by the end of the song he's bawling on the table. while consoling him, his friend knocks over a mug with his elbow and it shatters on the floor. dios mio
sábado, 17 de noviembre de 2007
sábado, 10 de noviembre de 2007
habla serio, pues
I havent been able to keep up with my blogs as much as I would like to, so I´´m gonna go back in time with this one. It´s already been 9 months that Ive been in Ecuador. I can´t really say it´s been the fastest 9; the 2.5 months of training were really slow. The last few months have gone by faster, and they say that after the first year it just breezes by. Rather thatn look at it in terms of speed though, in the next 1.5 years I just hope to get the most out of the experience.
It´s been tough, the hardest thing I´ve done. Sometimes not only do I kçnot know what I´m doing, I don´t always know what´s going on and what to expect. And I´m not even in one of the tougher sites. I could be working only with indigenous peoples that don´t like to work or speak much is spanish, like my PC friends Andrew and Sadie are, living out in the jungle. Or I could be in Africa, where I bet the govt is even slower at getting things done. Basically, whenever I feel like life sux, I tell myself, ¨hey, it could be a lot tougher.¨
Back in the summer I taught a couple classes at a kids´ summer program. I showed up the first day without any materials or a lesson plan, mostly cuz I wasn´t sure what exactly they expected of me, but also cuz I´ve never taught before. The director approached me and he´s like, ¨you want to teach environmental ed?¨ and I replied yes, so he takes me to a group of kids around the age of 8 and introduces me as the teacher, turns aroundand tells me to get started, and hurries away to check on another class. Seeing as how I dom´t have a lesson plan, I just resort to introducing myself. ¨Hi, I´m Jason, I am from the US. I come from the state of California, which is located on the west coast of my country. I have 2 sisters, they are 25 and 16 years old, and 2 parents that live in Texas. I also have a dog names Lucy and a cat named Unica. I work with the consejo provincial raising fish that we give to nearby communities. I like listening to music, watching movies, and playing sports like basketball, soccer, and running. Now I want to know your names, age, and a sport you like to play.¨ At this point I call on a kid that doesn´t seem to be able to get past giggling along with his friends, so I call the next kid, a girl whom I can´t hear a word she says, so after a minute of this Iñm just like, ökay, who likes playing soccer?¨, to which amazingly 90% of the class raises their hand. The the directo´´s voice booms out that it´s time for a recess. Saved by the bullhorn.
There were about 150 kids at this camp, running amock in between classes of music, dance, health, safety, crafts, english, and my science/env ed class. The best way to describe it is mayhem. After recesses, the kids were so worn out they barely pay attention. Most times only a handful of the 20-30 kids even attempted a response to questions I asked them. I hear that´s common in schools around here and probably the world for that matter. But hey, I tried. I was a little hesitant to come back after that first day, and honestly, I only came back about once a week. I tauught once about the water cycle, and trying to demonstrate the hydrology, drew the Earth on a whiteboard and got lost on tangents - ¨why is the Amazon a rainforest? why is this area so humid? 70% of Earth is water, and without water there is no life, that´s why we must protect the water we have and not put our trash in it. plants need water to live, just like us, that´s why it´s important to drink at least 8 cups of water per day¨, and so on and so forth. I think the best time I had there though washelping a Canadian volunteer teach english. HE has made flashcards with animals on them, held them up to the class and said what the word in english was. For a lot of the words, though, he didnt know how to say it in spanish, so I helped translate and boosted my self-esteem a little.
I still never said how the govt tourney in Ibarra went. It was cool - they (the consejo provincial de napo) gave us really nice warm-up suits with Napo written on the back, and a couple more jersies. I now have 4! We also stayed at a nice hotel in Ibarra. A lot of times I felt bad for getting hooked-up so nicely, I felt a little corrupt. But i guess most of the funds came from the govt workers´ association. The first day we paraded down to the stadium. All of the provinces were represented except for Los Rios, Bolivar, and Galapagos. Of course, as with every other event in the country, they had to elect a queen from the candidates from each province. I think Ms. Tungurahua won. Ecuadorians love their parades and beauty pageants. They also love to not plan things out, so when they had a schedule of events ready for us I was shocked. We had a bball game later that day vs Cotopaxi at 4. Of course, nobody on my team told me at 11 as we were leaving our hotel to watch our men play soccer to bring our shoes and uniform. So I had to take a bus back and get those, and by the time I reached the gym at 4, my team wasnt even there. We ended up winning by about 20 even though I didnt play that well.
That night, most of the bball team crammed into the hotel hot tub. Not exactly something I expected to be doing in the PC. We went out to eat, and some coworkers, Fabian and July included, went to the local whorehouse. More on that later. . So the next day I watched track & field events, like the 100m dash, shotput, and long jump. I wouldve ran an event, but all they had was the 100 (which I wouldve gotten smoked at) and the 5000m (which I didnt feel like running with my bball game later that day). An 800m or mile wouldve been good. We played Imbabura that afternoon and lost pretty badly. They were the hosting provincial team this year. It changes each year, last year was here in Tena, Napo, and the next year is supposed to be in Esmeraldas, on the northwest coast, which should be cool. I only scored 2 I think. They ended up winning in bball vs Loja the next day. I think if we practice more and get our center to come we could win next year. The girls´ team did better, their full court press got Cañar´s team so upset they that they got 5 tech´s and forfeited in the 1st quarter. And out girls got 2nd in soccer. As a whole, Napo placed 3rd in medals behind Manabi and Imbabura. Supposedly we kicked butt in swimming, playing cards, and chess.
I´ve been doing a little work monitoring rivers in the area, which mostly consists of measuring the width of the river, tying a rope from one end to the other, and at one meter intervals measure with a device with a small turbine on the bottom of it the velocity and depth of the river, grabbing the rope if the current is too strong. Of course, we do this only in rivers where we can reach the bottom, which excludes Rio Napo. Then, we record the dissolved oxygen, temperature, and pH. It´s pretty fun playing in the rivers for work, if not slightly dangerous in stronger currents. And like most instances involving my job, I rarely ever know in advance if I´m going to be doing something particular that day, so I don´t have the chance to wear something on my feet and walking on the rocks sucks. We´ve discovered that the rivers are fairly clean before they get to the city, then they get dirty.
I feel bad that I still don´t know the names of half the people I work with after 6.5 months in Tena. Well, the few people I actually work with I know, but everyone else in the office, 30 or 40, I haven´t remembered their names. I´m sure it´s easier for them to remember the one gringo´s name.
I think the craziest experience I´ve had here so far was taking a jungle hike through mud without boots, at night, without light. It started out as an ivitation that I wasn´t sure if it was serious. Fabian tells me there´s a party that night, that there´s gonna be dancing and food, so I tell him I´m there. He says it´s gonna be at Shitig, the indigenous community that´s the namesake for our project. It´s where the workers for the project live, and itñs fairly isolated in the jungle. So when Fab says to meet at the market at 8pm to go there and to bring my boots, with a grin on his fae, I´m like ´yeah. . ok buddy´. I dressed casually, but didnt bring my boots, suspecting that the party wouldn´t be outside of Tena. A word of advice to anyone thinking of working in Tena: Ecuadorians generally arent sarcastic people. If they tell u something so strange that you don´t think it´s true, then it probably is. That´s why I have no doubt that most of my coworkers are seriosu about marrying my 16 year-old sister. Anyways, I show up at the market and it´s apparent we´re bunching up in the pickup to drive somewhere. To Shitig, I´m told, I´m like ´alright, the project isnt too jungly, I´ll be fine´.
We get to the project and are met by one of the workers with his big waterproof boots on and holding a flashlight. I´m like, great, if HE needs those and he lives IN the jungle, then I´m screwed. So we start on hte path to community Shitig, and by the lone flashlight all I can se of the ground is mud. I leave my shoes at the project, roll up my jeans to the knees, and follow the 5 guys, 5 girls, and 2 kids in our party. Maybe I could have asked to borrow the boots, but there´s no way they would´ve fit. It´s hard to find shoes my size here (I knida like that, though, it makes me feel like a giant), and the Kichwans are already small people. This is great, guys, I´m walking barefoot in mud through the jungle at night with hardly any light, is all I´m thinking. And occasionally when I step on a rock or twig, I talk in english ¨Dammit. What the hell? This is stupid.¨Granted, they told me to bring boots, but flashlights?? Come on people, we´re going to the jungle at night, someone´s got to think of that. I had one at mt apt just collecting dust. Ecuadorians - not the best planners. But that´s just a generalization.
After about half an hour of trying not to slip in the mud or get bitten by a snake, the sound of a river convinces me we´re almost there. We get to the river and I can barely make out a bamboo bridge, maybe one foot wide, with another bamboo pole propped up as a rail, stretched 40 feet across the river. At this point, one of the poor girls, a pregnant intern from the local university, decided to march with her sister through the mud back to the truck. I´ll be honest, I considered returning, too. It was too dark even to see how far below the river was, my guess was about 20 feet, which may have been enough to knock me out and drown me in the river. All I know is that after making the hike there, seeing Gato briskly crossing while carrying one of the little kids over his shoulder, then with another, and then one of the interns crosing, I had to go. The oerfect thing to do with muddy feet. So, one muddy foot behind the other, clutching the one rail, I slowly made my way laterally across the bamboo bridge. Really though, it wasnt too bad, focusing on taking slow, deep breaths, small steps, and not looking down. When I got to the other side, I felt pretty proud. But when one of the girls checked my pulse she said it was doubletime.
After that, we had to walk 10 more minutes up a muddy hill. The party ended up being a baptism party for one of the worker´s sons, around 4 years old. When we arrived we were obliged to shake everybodys´ (30) hand. I was just glad they didnt pass around any chicha. They did have Pilsener though, the omnipresent beer in Ecudor. It´s not that good but I´ve gotten used to it. And they had boxed peach wine. Bleh! I´d almost rather have chicha. They also had aguardiente, aka puro, aka ¨veinte shinco¨. It´s a clear, cane rum that is commonly homemade and sold in shops for 25 (veinte y cinco) cents per cup. I´m not sure why, but whenever I say ¨veinte shinco¨ people smile or laugh. So they had a few people go around with a plastic cup 1/4 full of beer, wine, or a shot of puro for people to drink. After you drink, they go to the next person until they´re out of alcohol. Almost everybody does that here, even in small groups, it´s known among gringos as the beer circle.
They urged me to dance once they got the speakers up and playing some lame kichwa ´pop´ music (which they joke literally sounds like ¨pop-a-rop - a-rop-a-rop¨ (?)). After downing a cup of veinte shicno with about 3 shots in it, I was uo and miving. When Fabian and Gato saw me drink all of it they shouted to me, ¨not all of it, Jason. It will hit u hard.¨ This veinte shinco is hard, strong stuff, but it´s still better than gross peach wine. While dancing my coworker was mcíng, shouting in th mic ¨guests dance, community members dance, everybody dance. Jason, volunteer from California dance¨ over and over. Around midnight, with the baptised boy practically asleep, they were given gifts. Besides a xylophone, what they were I can´t recall, or most of the rest of the night, for that matter. When we headed back to the truck at about 12:30, however, I can remember not looking forward to the hike or crossing the bridge again. When I got there though I wasn´t as nervous as before, the liquor had my blood already flowing, and I crossed quickly and a little unsteadily. To give this hike a little perspective, the handful of workers at the project do it on a daily basis, and I think the same hike at night is ridiculous. Nonetheless, it was a surreal experience.
It´s been tough, the hardest thing I´ve done. Sometimes not only do I kçnot know what I´m doing, I don´t always know what´s going on and what to expect. And I´m not even in one of the tougher sites. I could be working only with indigenous peoples that don´t like to work or speak much is spanish, like my PC friends Andrew and Sadie are, living out in the jungle. Or I could be in Africa, where I bet the govt is even slower at getting things done. Basically, whenever I feel like life sux, I tell myself, ¨hey, it could be a lot tougher.¨
Back in the summer I taught a couple classes at a kids´ summer program. I showed up the first day without any materials or a lesson plan, mostly cuz I wasn´t sure what exactly they expected of me, but also cuz I´ve never taught before. The director approached me and he´s like, ¨you want to teach environmental ed?¨ and I replied yes, so he takes me to a group of kids around the age of 8 and introduces me as the teacher, turns aroundand tells me to get started, and hurries away to check on another class. Seeing as how I dom´t have a lesson plan, I just resort to introducing myself. ¨Hi, I´m Jason, I am from the US. I come from the state of California, which is located on the west coast of my country. I have 2 sisters, they are 25 and 16 years old, and 2 parents that live in Texas. I also have a dog names Lucy and a cat named Unica. I work with the consejo provincial raising fish that we give to nearby communities. I like listening to music, watching movies, and playing sports like basketball, soccer, and running. Now I want to know your names, age, and a sport you like to play.¨ At this point I call on a kid that doesn´t seem to be able to get past giggling along with his friends, so I call the next kid, a girl whom I can´t hear a word she says, so after a minute of this Iñm just like, ökay, who likes playing soccer?¨, to which amazingly 90% of the class raises their hand. The the directo´´s voice booms out that it´s time for a recess. Saved by the bullhorn.
There were about 150 kids at this camp, running amock in between classes of music, dance, health, safety, crafts, english, and my science/env ed class. The best way to describe it is mayhem. After recesses, the kids were so worn out they barely pay attention. Most times only a handful of the 20-30 kids even attempted a response to questions I asked them. I hear that´s common in schools around here and probably the world for that matter. But hey, I tried. I was a little hesitant to come back after that first day, and honestly, I only came back about once a week. I tauught once about the water cycle, and trying to demonstrate the hydrology, drew the Earth on a whiteboard and got lost on tangents - ¨why is the Amazon a rainforest? why is this area so humid? 70% of Earth is water, and without water there is no life, that´s why we must protect the water we have and not put our trash in it. plants need water to live, just like us, that´s why it´s important to drink at least 8 cups of water per day¨, and so on and so forth. I think the best time I had there though washelping a Canadian volunteer teach english. HE has made flashcards with animals on them, held them up to the class and said what the word in english was. For a lot of the words, though, he didnt know how to say it in spanish, so I helped translate and boosted my self-esteem a little.
I still never said how the govt tourney in Ibarra went. It was cool - they (the consejo provincial de napo) gave us really nice warm-up suits with Napo written on the back, and a couple more jersies. I now have 4! We also stayed at a nice hotel in Ibarra. A lot of times I felt bad for getting hooked-up so nicely, I felt a little corrupt. But i guess most of the funds came from the govt workers´ association. The first day we paraded down to the stadium. All of the provinces were represented except for Los Rios, Bolivar, and Galapagos. Of course, as with every other event in the country, they had to elect a queen from the candidates from each province. I think Ms. Tungurahua won. Ecuadorians love their parades and beauty pageants. They also love to not plan things out, so when they had a schedule of events ready for us I was shocked. We had a bball game later that day vs Cotopaxi at 4. Of course, nobody on my team told me at 11 as we were leaving our hotel to watch our men play soccer to bring our shoes and uniform. So I had to take a bus back and get those, and by the time I reached the gym at 4, my team wasnt even there. We ended up winning by about 20 even though I didnt play that well.
That night, most of the bball team crammed into the hotel hot tub. Not exactly something I expected to be doing in the PC. We went out to eat, and some coworkers, Fabian and July included, went to the local whorehouse. More on that later. . So the next day I watched track & field events, like the 100m dash, shotput, and long jump. I wouldve ran an event, but all they had was the 100 (which I wouldve gotten smoked at) and the 5000m (which I didnt feel like running with my bball game later that day). An 800m or mile wouldve been good. We played Imbabura that afternoon and lost pretty badly. They were the hosting provincial team this year. It changes each year, last year was here in Tena, Napo, and the next year is supposed to be in Esmeraldas, on the northwest coast, which should be cool. I only scored 2 I think. They ended up winning in bball vs Loja the next day. I think if we practice more and get our center to come we could win next year. The girls´ team did better, their full court press got Cañar´s team so upset they that they got 5 tech´s and forfeited in the 1st quarter. And out girls got 2nd in soccer. As a whole, Napo placed 3rd in medals behind Manabi and Imbabura. Supposedly we kicked butt in swimming, playing cards, and chess.
I´ve been doing a little work monitoring rivers in the area, which mostly consists of measuring the width of the river, tying a rope from one end to the other, and at one meter intervals measure with a device with a small turbine on the bottom of it the velocity and depth of the river, grabbing the rope if the current is too strong. Of course, we do this only in rivers where we can reach the bottom, which excludes Rio Napo. Then, we record the dissolved oxygen, temperature, and pH. It´s pretty fun playing in the rivers for work, if not slightly dangerous in stronger currents. And like most instances involving my job, I rarely ever know in advance if I´m going to be doing something particular that day, so I don´t have the chance to wear something on my feet and walking on the rocks sucks. We´ve discovered that the rivers are fairly clean before they get to the city, then they get dirty.
I feel bad that I still don´t know the names of half the people I work with after 6.5 months in Tena. Well, the few people I actually work with I know, but everyone else in the office, 30 or 40, I haven´t remembered their names. I´m sure it´s easier for them to remember the one gringo´s name.
I think the craziest experience I´ve had here so far was taking a jungle hike through mud without boots, at night, without light. It started out as an ivitation that I wasn´t sure if it was serious. Fabian tells me there´s a party that night, that there´s gonna be dancing and food, so I tell him I´m there. He says it´s gonna be at Shitig, the indigenous community that´s the namesake for our project. It´s where the workers for the project live, and itñs fairly isolated in the jungle. So when Fab says to meet at the market at 8pm to go there and to bring my boots, with a grin on his fae, I´m like ´yeah. . ok buddy´. I dressed casually, but didnt bring my boots, suspecting that the party wouldn´t be outside of Tena. A word of advice to anyone thinking of working in Tena: Ecuadorians generally arent sarcastic people. If they tell u something so strange that you don´t think it´s true, then it probably is. That´s why I have no doubt that most of my coworkers are seriosu about marrying my 16 year-old sister. Anyways, I show up at the market and it´s apparent we´re bunching up in the pickup to drive somewhere. To Shitig, I´m told, I´m like ´alright, the project isnt too jungly, I´ll be fine´.
We get to the project and are met by one of the workers with his big waterproof boots on and holding a flashlight. I´m like, great, if HE needs those and he lives IN the jungle, then I´m screwed. So we start on hte path to community Shitig, and by the lone flashlight all I can se of the ground is mud. I leave my shoes at the project, roll up my jeans to the knees, and follow the 5 guys, 5 girls, and 2 kids in our party. Maybe I could have asked to borrow the boots, but there´s no way they would´ve fit. It´s hard to find shoes my size here (I knida like that, though, it makes me feel like a giant), and the Kichwans are already small people. This is great, guys, I´m walking barefoot in mud through the jungle at night with hardly any light, is all I´m thinking. And occasionally when I step on a rock or twig, I talk in english ¨Dammit. What the hell? This is stupid.¨Granted, they told me to bring boots, but flashlights?? Come on people, we´re going to the jungle at night, someone´s got to think of that. I had one at mt apt just collecting dust. Ecuadorians - not the best planners. But that´s just a generalization.
After about half an hour of trying not to slip in the mud or get bitten by a snake, the sound of a river convinces me we´re almost there. We get to the river and I can barely make out a bamboo bridge, maybe one foot wide, with another bamboo pole propped up as a rail, stretched 40 feet across the river. At this point, one of the poor girls, a pregnant intern from the local university, decided to march with her sister through the mud back to the truck. I´ll be honest, I considered returning, too. It was too dark even to see how far below the river was, my guess was about 20 feet, which may have been enough to knock me out and drown me in the river. All I know is that after making the hike there, seeing Gato briskly crossing while carrying one of the little kids over his shoulder, then with another, and then one of the interns crosing, I had to go. The oerfect thing to do with muddy feet. So, one muddy foot behind the other, clutching the one rail, I slowly made my way laterally across the bamboo bridge. Really though, it wasnt too bad, focusing on taking slow, deep breaths, small steps, and not looking down. When I got to the other side, I felt pretty proud. But when one of the girls checked my pulse she said it was doubletime.
After that, we had to walk 10 more minutes up a muddy hill. The party ended up being a baptism party for one of the worker´s sons, around 4 years old. When we arrived we were obliged to shake everybodys´ (30) hand. I was just glad they didnt pass around any chicha. They did have Pilsener though, the omnipresent beer in Ecudor. It´s not that good but I´ve gotten used to it. And they had boxed peach wine. Bleh! I´d almost rather have chicha. They also had aguardiente, aka puro, aka ¨veinte shinco¨. It´s a clear, cane rum that is commonly homemade and sold in shops for 25 (veinte y cinco) cents per cup. I´m not sure why, but whenever I say ¨veinte shinco¨ people smile or laugh. So they had a few people go around with a plastic cup 1/4 full of beer, wine, or a shot of puro for people to drink. After you drink, they go to the next person until they´re out of alcohol. Almost everybody does that here, even in small groups, it´s known among gringos as the beer circle.
They urged me to dance once they got the speakers up and playing some lame kichwa ´pop´ music (which they joke literally sounds like ¨pop-a-rop - a-rop-a-rop¨ (?)). After downing a cup of veinte shicno with about 3 shots in it, I was uo and miving. When Fabian and Gato saw me drink all of it they shouted to me, ¨not all of it, Jason. It will hit u hard.¨ This veinte shinco is hard, strong stuff, but it´s still better than gross peach wine. While dancing my coworker was mcíng, shouting in th mic ¨guests dance, community members dance, everybody dance. Jason, volunteer from California dance¨ over and over. Around midnight, with the baptised boy practically asleep, they were given gifts. Besides a xylophone, what they were I can´t recall, or most of the rest of the night, for that matter. When we headed back to the truck at about 12:30, however, I can remember not looking forward to the hike or crossing the bridge again. When I got there though I wasn´t as nervous as before, the liquor had my blood already flowing, and I crossed quickly and a little unsteadily. To give this hike a little perspective, the handful of workers at the project do it on a daily basis, and I think the same hike at night is ridiculous. Nonetheless, it was a surreal experience.
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