More Christmas Cheer

Christmas Day I went to another Pase del Niños outside of Cuenca and then went with my friend Tere and her family to eat carne asado. Early the next morning I headed back down south and had lunch with Ashley and Selena in Machala. Then I spent another three hours on the bus to Zaruma, an old mining town a few hours inland from the coast, where I visited Benito and Sara. There are rolling green mountains and banana plants and old wooden architecture dating to the 1500´s and there is excellent coffee, which if all goes according to plan a few lucky family members of mine will receive in the States. We did a hike in the rain and then I lay in Benito´s hammock and read more John Dos Passos. Then it was back to Cuenca where I met up with Angie, a friend of Risa and Jordan from Quito. She talked me into going out to Cajas National Park to spend the night and I packed my sleeping bag and my heavy winter jacket (Cajas is really high up) , but after a long day of hiking with a lot of stuff on our back, Angie decided to my great relief that really all the time you needed in Cajas is one day and we went back to Cuenca and slept very soundly in my apartment. I thought that I was getting into better shape, but found that hiking at high altitude was really almost more than I could handle. Tonight we have a little dinner party with friends here and hopefully will get to see the New Years celebration in Cuenca.

And the bells are ringing out for Christmas Day

Kirsty McCall and the Pogues have a song..."When you first took my hand on that cold Christmas Eve, you promised me Broadway was waiting for me..."

I don´t have that around here, but I did listen to 2000 miles by the Pretenders about 30 times yesterday.

Friday I had a party where 30 people came. We danced so much that light fixture in the bakery downstairs fell in and we had to pop it back into the ceiling. I´d hate to have to pay for repairs or so I hope it stays. A couple Peace Corps pals came and people from my organization came and mixed a respectable amount. I had guests who came from out of town in the house until this morning, and they were kind enough to relieve me of most of the leftover booze that everyone brought.

On Christmas Eve, they have a big children´s parade on Christmas Day here, people must come in from all over the province, because when I was walking to the parade I saw a family spreading out a big picnic on the grass, while their llamas rested peacefully by the river. You see men in short pants and the traditional hat, and lots of the brightly colored flowered skirts that traditional Ecuadorians in Azuay wear. I saw a lot of the parade, dodging in and out of the floats while I was walking to a Christmas party, there were lots of children dressed in traditional Ecuadorian costume, or dressed up like shepherds, like angels, riding in floats made from a pickup trucks draped in glistening satin. Many of the trucks are hung with crackers, bottles of liquor, packages of cookies, and the effect is dramatic, everything is colorful and abundant and glittery. I went to a Christmas party in a home for women and children in domestic violence situations where I am hoping to do some work in the the New Year. They had a mass and then gave out presents to the mothers and the children. I was pretty impressed by how nice party they had for them during what must be a terrible time, especially here in Ecuador where family is perhaps the most important thing.

Ocean Drive

Sometime its holiday blues, and sometimes its PMS, and sometimes its the neverending roller coaster of living in a foreign country. But it seems important to me to give some airtime to to the darker moments. The time when my way of being awkward, ill-coordinated, impatient, loud, anxious, long-winded, seemingly snobby (although I almost never mean to be), or self destructive (although its never anything grave, mostly gratuitous eating) rear up to form a picture of someone for whom I have little patience or affection. In New York, these times could be attributed to situation, job stress, and press of living in the city. Here, speaking Spanish everyday, doing this thing I had in mind for years, often alleviates these demons. Everywhere is real, palpable evidence that I can extend beyond my boundaries, cultivate relationships across cultures, handle quotidian and existential challenges. And I can laugh at myself and say well this thing or that thing I am just going to fuck up and that will be fine. No harm done. But your brain follows you on your travels, carrying in its suitcase its same learned habits, and screens and filters and occasional downward spirals.

And living outside of your tierra aggravates it too. Just when everything is sublime and wonderful, the tide changes and you can´t communicate with someone when you think you should be able to, or you don´t understand why something works out the way it does, but decide its better not to ask. Today I found myself being extremely new yorkish, first at the cab stand in front of the Supermaxi, losing my patience with a man who tried to take my cab, and then unsuccessfully trying to antagonize my landlady for giving me my power bills at completely irregular intervals. Then I turned my antagonism on myself by going to my first salsa class since April, on the excuse that I am supposed to be going dancing in Guayaquil for my birthday, which opened the field for self-castigation along the lines above.

And I know from long experience that the respite is not hard to come by. Drinks with a friend, a new shirt, a distracting book, a good journal entry all usually do the trick. Sometimes just sleeping it off or letting my hormones readjust makes all the difference. The sun comes out or my period comes and I´m quirky, smart, provocative, and well-travelled again.

We all have little heartbreaks that we never recover from entirely, whether its a family member, or a lover, or a life circumstance that didn´t go the way we wanted it to. And embracing the sadness that sometimes comes from them is, I suppose, part of the fun of it all. Lucinda Williams says, If we live in a world without tears, how would scars find skin to etch themselves into?...How would broken find the bone?

PS. Fabulous Ecuadorian souvenir for the reader who correctly determines the musical reference in the title line!! Anyone can play!

Santa Claus

So yesterday I got three slamming packages, two from my folks and one from Jenny, my childhood friend. The one from my folks had Ivory soap, the Pretenders greatest hits, Paul Mitchel hair product (no product placement here, folks) the Metropolitan Art Book and Desk Calender, which for the first time in fifteen years has something other than "Flowers" or "Impressionists" as its theme. Finally there were all three volumes of John Dos Passos´s U.S.A., which I asked for without realizing it is actually three separate books. I have already read a third of the first one, and its really cool. So much cooler than his rival and one-time friend Ernest Hemingway. OK, I have only actually read books about Hemingway, spedifically how much of a jerk Ernest Hemingway was, so take my commentary with a grain of salt. The point being, if you´re interested in American history or labor history so far this is a book for you.

The other package from Jenny was vintage Monopoly which the kids from downstairs have already discovered and taken full advantage of. Last night found me aggressively pitching to sell two railroads for Boardwalk, to Gabriela, who I think is like twelve, and later in the game I felt bad for taking advantage of her. And later in the game I just wondered when it was going to be over. These kids were way better sports than I ever was. Watching Jefferson, the older brother cheat so that his little sister wouldn´t lose brought back my faith in humanity, or at least kids.

Various

Assorted things I have been needing to blog about, worth mentioning:

• Following the bad haircut that made me cry, I had one completely free from the drama or overpaying, not getting what I wanted to, or having to summon the volition to get myself to a hair salon. The hairdresser that does HIV prevention with transvetite sex workers here in Cuenca was in the office for a meeting and afterwards I noticed he was unfurling an apron to give the secretary´s teenage daughter a haircut in the middle of the office. Dumbfounded, like it was almost too good to believe, I asked him if he could cut my hair too. Not only could he, it turned out he would do it for $2. That was about 4 weeks ago and I´m still savoring my good fortune and very happy with how its growing out.
• Going way back, the first week or so I was in my apartment, I half woke up in the middle of the night because there was a mariachi serenade going on, in what sounded like my guest room. It was basically under my guest room, for the house next door, and I would have thought that I dreamed it, except that I got up and looked out the window and saw them in the street. Mariachis are naturally not the least bit Ecuadorian, but they seem to turn up at festive events now and again.
• Helping the kid whose parent run the bakery downstairs translate three paragraphs on Simon Bolivar from English into Spanish. He has no idea how I cool I thought it was. I found out I know, um, less than your average seventh grader in Ecuador knows about Simon Bolivar. The next homework he needed help with was about water supply, which was nowhere near as interesting. A side note about the state of English teaching here, its absolutely wretched. I can´t think of a worse way to teach a language that to translate it from the intended into the one you already know, but no one is asking me.
• Except in my office, they kind of are. I have taught a couple English classes to them and find that my practice teaching workers in New York was good prep for Ecuadorian and Chilean professionals. The two classes I have come up with stuff that seemed to be surprisingly engaging and fun. The first class I taught Woody Guthrie´s Birds and Ships, set to music by Billy Bragg and performed by Natalie Merchant. For about three weeks the white board on the ground floor had my class notes up on it and said. "Leftist" and "This Guitar Kills Fascists" and then had the lyrics. My soul grows stormy/ and my heart grows wild/My love rides a ship on the sea.

In the jungle the mighty jungle

So last weekend I took "vacation" from my office and took off for San Juan Bosco for Thanksgiving, a little town in Morona Santiago in el Oriente. I started the trip off inauspisciously by buying a ticket on the wrong bus to the wrong town, mainly because I failed to read the email of Dave, the volunteer who was organizing it. Of course I was not able to return the bad ticket and I now have an $8.50 ticket to Macas, which I think is about twelve hours away. I have to use by Saturday. Sad. I don´t think that is going to happen.

San Juan Bosco is 36 miles from Cuenca, but the bus ride is 6 hours, and I couldn´t fathom how this could really be true until we hit a gravel road about an hour after leaving and started to wind through green hills. It was really beautiful and really slow. On hour number four, we came over the ridge of a mountain and a beautiful valley opened up to us, with a tiny shimmer of white in the bottom of it. That is San Juan Bosco, they told us, another two hours from where we were. Once we got to the town, being the the valley was just as stunning, the first morning after we arrived I found myself in blistering sun, surrounded by towering green ridges, one piled up behind the other, covered by clouds. Everything is topped off by the Pan de Azucar, or Sugarloaf, which is this Close Encounters like mountain that stands over everything. The volunteers who lived there had engaged pretty much the entire town in welcoming us, the first night the jovenes cooked dinner for us at the colegio or the high school.

Thanksgiving Day Dave and his family had set up ovens and gas ranges by this picnic site at the fairgrounds along this lovely green river and cooked turkey and comote, a purple root vegetable with marshmellows and lots of vegetables and stuffing. I got suckered into being responsible for making pumpkin pie, only everyone´s most basic and traditional comfort food. No pressure there. It turned out well although I had a couple bad moments carrying around two bags of pumpkin that I packed in from Cuenca. They were starting to turn in the jungle heat, and I don´t think I will ever forget the smell of rotting pumpkin. It was the smell of my social demise during the weekend. I had visions of being remembered as the girl who tried and failed to make that terrible pumpkin pie. Once I finally got the meat into a pan of boiling water, I calmed down and we sat at the picnic table and made pie crusts. It turned out that there was enough for everyone and it tasted really good. Really people made a bg show of how delicious it was, although I don´t think the Ecuadorians really understood the appeal of pastel de calabaza.

Friday Dave´s family roasted a pig for us by another river and we saw them clean entrails out in the river and I saw the creation of my arch enemy, morsilla, as they filled the intestines with cabbage and onions. I didn´t stick around for that though, but took off with some Sarah, who lives in a little city near Cuenca and Zoe to her site in Bomboiza, which is a Shuar community near Gualaquiza. I mean we tried to take off but, as my Zoe said, no one really ever seems to leave San Juan Bosco and it was more complicated than we thought. We had plans to catch the 4:30 bus and got to town plenty in advance only to find that we bus had come early, which of course almost never happens. We sat on the corner of the road to Gualaquiza and made friends with the neighborhood boys. (Digression: I´m reveling in the local color a little here, so bear with me. The whole weekend, I had this sense, this is the real Peace Corps experience, and my life in my pretty, modern, well organized, Cuenca is just a mere shadow of it. The grass is always greener, right?) Eventually we did catch a bus to Gualaquiza, and another bus out to my Zoe´s village, and I when we got off at the road that you walk out to where they live, we were completely floored by how dark it was. As we were falling asleep Zoe said reassuringly that she thought all the tarantullas had been killed when she fumigated, but despite that, I slept soundly and woke up to the light shining through the cracks of the cabin walls.

The Shuar are an indigenous group that live in the Oriente, and I think we had some ambitious plans to visit the cultural center, but we ended up lying around with the Zoe and the other volunteer, Ulla in their lovely homes, making spaghetti and hot chocolate and recovering from the accion de dar gracias. In the evening it was time to get into Gualaquiza to catch a night bus back to home, and we scored a ride with the principal of a school who immediately divined we were Peace Corps volunteers and talked non-stop for the entire ride about how he learned english in Ossining, which was a great relief to not have to make awkward conversation. Ulla gave us a muscle relaxer to split during the night bus, and Sarah and I agreed that we both could have stood to be a little more relaxed. At one point during the night the driver asked everyone to get off so that the bus could get up the hill, but we arrived safely and slept til noon.

Fruitastic

So when we started in the Peace Corps they gave us little tips about shopping in the market, how to bargain, how to ask for the yappa or the extra. I went with my host mother in Cayambe to the market in Ibarra and watched the way she mildly refused to buy anything until it was approximately a third of the quoted price. This is this stuff that Peace Corps does really well, how to go and do all the things in your community that every else does, and not look like a tourist doing it. The advantage of living a ten minute walk from a huge market, is that you can buy things there, and its way cheaper than at the Supermaxi, so off I went yesterday with my little basket willed to me by another volunteer who was leaving. "Use it well" she said to me, "take it to the market."

So there I was in the middle of El Arenal, like any Ecuadorian housewife, with a list of things to get, prepared to bargain for the best price. The trick though is, nobody sells anyone two avocados in the market, so when I asked how much they were, I heard four for a dollar. Not wanting to be cheated I made this face like I was thinking it was "demaciado caro" and couldn´t she give me five? The señora was happy to comply. And I walked off to the next stall feeling very good about myself. You can probably see where this is going. There were mangoes, where a similar negotiation was successfully executed and I found myself with enough of them to feed several families for a week. The thing is though that I got a blender last week and so I have a monton of time on my hands, so every morning I make myself a smoothie. Theoretically most of the fruit I got can be put in a blender with yoghurt, so the plan is to eat it all, but when I got home and cleaned everything and put it away, it became clear I got an extraordinary amount of fruits and veggies for one person.

Here´s a an inventory of everything. I figured when I got home that I spent $5.60.

6 Mangoes
1 bag of blackberries
1 bunch (8) carrots
5 avocados
15 tomatoes
1 bag (20) mandarin oranges
1 bag (20) apples, small
cilantro
1/2 a bunch of bananas

I´m eating.

Homo-sapiens

So, when I found out I was going to Ecuador, my mom ventured most delicately, wouldn´t it end up being hard for me living in a Catholic country? Wouldn´t it be kind of homophobic there? I sort of discounted the concern though, I figured that it would be fine, and really it has been. Because I work with a bunch of people who do sexual health and HIV prevention it hasn´t ever been difficult to find the sexual diversity here. So although everyone in Ecuador thinks of Cuenca as a conservative and rigid place, I managed to find and make friends in the gay community without any difficulty. Maybe its the extranjera or foreigner dynamic or that fact that Cuence is really very small, but its been easier to make gay and lesbian friends here than it was in New York.

All this is leading up to the fact that on Friday, I found myself in a training with a group of wealthy women who are going to be volunteers with new mothers from this hospital for low-income women. And we did the homophobia section of the training. And some of the stuff that the women said was pretty intense. Now, I always catch myself when I find myself marveling at how racist or homophobic people are here, because I know in all honesty that for everyone open-minded forward thinking person in the US, there is someone making the very same jokes about black people or gay people at home that they make here. The difference being that folks from the US, even if they are racist, have a self consciousness or shame about it that I have yet to encounter here. The most racist jokes that I have ever heard, I have heard here, and people never preface them with the evasive disclaimer, "well I´m not racist, but..."

So whatever might have heard from some of las señoras, I know I could probably just as well have heard in Greensboro, North Carolina where I grew up, but leaving that aside, I do have to say that it was striking how ignorant a portion of these women were. Most of them were only a few years older than me, aggressively skinny, with exhaustively straightened hair, and all wearing one incarnation or another of the same black stiletto dress boots and designer jeans. What was interesting was that they were dying to talk about gay people. They had stuff they wanted to get off their chest. The comments ran along the line of: It´s a disease. Anal sex is what caused AIDS. If its not genetic and its not an illness, then what is it? Gay men and lesbians are half men or half women.

This was the first workshop I had been to with this group, so fortunately I was in the role of the observer and I kept my mouth studiously shut through the whole thing. The woman who was facilitating the group was remarkable, and did a great job of responding to and debunking a whole host of myths that would have rendered me speechless in english, much less in spanish. After I awhile I came to the uncomfortable realization that I was deriving a perverse pleasure from the situation. I had the unsettling sense that listening to these women, who by all accounts might feel superior to me given that I am not married, not skinny, without kids, living by myself in a foreign country on a shoestring budget, I was enjoying the feeling of moral superiority over them a little too much. I caught myself eagerly craning my neck to hear the next comment of the most backwards of the bunch. I´m not proud of that, but that´s what happened sitting there in that room, walking through that parking lot and realizing that the fifteen monstrous SUV´s filling the parking lot belonged to these women. I was better than them. I´m a volunteer after all. I´m here to do something good.

And of course I have to admit that they are as well, giving up time with their families to learn how to be volunteers. They all sat in the room through the whole thing, they listened to the facilitator when she tried to challenge them. I can hardly fault them for being products of their culture. I still have the typical New York reaction when someone asks me for money, I freeze and mumble how I´m sorry and walk on by. And when I do give someone food or change, it´s more for me, to soothe my angst about how things are in the world, than for them. It´s all part and parcel of the same thing, more or less.

My Dad Brags

My Pop is rubbing shoulder with the big guns.

"Last night, David Brooks spoke at Guilford and predicted that the moderate era might last for a decade. I got to meet him and he said he hoped my book would be published in time to be part of political discussion in 2008. "

Let´s certainly hope so, as though as I said below, I don´t think that the Democratic success is evidence of the success of moderation, so much as it is a sign of the Democrats finally articulating a position that is markedly different from the right (and thus somewhat to the left) and that strategy appealing to American voters that are sick of stay-the-course-business-as-usual Rove and Rumsfeld shenanigans. Now if Robert Calhoon and David Brooks call the moderation then I like it. But when someone tried to challenge Lieberman on his stay-the-course-business-as-usual Rove and Rumsfeld shenanigans back earlier in the year with a position that is markedly different from the right (and thus somewhat to the left) up in Connecticut, Robert Calhoon didn´t like it so much.

Good news for people who love bad news

So, yeah. It´s an exciting day for most of us. The Democrats have the House and most likely the Senate, after a long time, there is the hope of some measure of accountability and balance of power in DC. I hope we wont just attribute this to luck or chance, but to races where candidates staked out a position distinct from the Republicans (excepting Connecticut, sigh. My Pop must be happy) and the people on the ground that made the phone calls, canvased the houses, and sold the hotdogs. I guess the Republicans helped a little too.

I walked around my office telling anyone who would listen that Rumseld had resigned and the Democrats have the Senate and the House. Now, I guess we have to see what happens now. Although Mark Schmitt counsels against holding them to unrealistic expectations here.

Postal

So props to Jill of jillypickle fame for a real old fashioned letter, complete with office gossip and big news. Shout outs for the next three pals who send substantial items in the mail, this includes you Mom.

I have never been a calm blue sea

OK so the first thing to say is that Fleetwood Mac´s Storms is the prettiest song ever written. It´s a sweet little song, but when you look up the lyrics, you realize its about living through devastating, bone breaking heart break.

Every night that goes between/I feel a little less
As you slowly go away from me/This is only another test
...
Every hour of fear I spend/My body tries to cry
Living through each empty night/A deadly call inside

Today I found myself helping out in a lamaz class in a hospital near the Feria Libre, a big market in the southwest corner of the city. I don´t know the first thing about childbirth so it was pretty impressive watching the girls (all younger than me by at least six years) learn how to stretch and breath. The street between the market and my neighborhood takes you through lots of houses, garages and home repair stores. It´s far from poor by Ecuadorian´standards, but it doesn´t have the seamlessness of the neighborhood to the east of me, which is lined with fancy restaurants where upper-middle class Ecuadorians eat. I couldn´t find the bus that goes from there to my house and I outwalked a huge, black thundercloud on my right, with the sun on my left. There was a double rainbow arching over the cathedral in the center of town, (yes I got pictures.) It seemed to fit with the tune in head, although these days I´m not heartbroken.

Quote of the month, regarding me

"You're so ex-pat and Hemingway and Earlham."

- My friend Erik, who just started blogging again after a hiatus in which he and his lovely girlfriend Ellen had a beautiful son.

Mi Cuenca Canta

It´s the independence of Cuenca and there are big parties everywhere the streets are filled with people going everywhere, and restaurants and bars are all having events. There are gringoes and Ecuadorians everywhere.

My halloween costume was a success, it was fun having thick long hair and wearing big silver hoop earrings. Several people didn´t even recognize me, which I judged to indicate success. There were too many Peace Corps volunteers sleeping in my living room for too many days, but other than that it was fun.

I bought a refrigerator today, as my apartment didn´t come with anything. It´s deceptive here, you have big fancy stores with electronics and appliances on sale, but its still different from home. In order to buy anything of value in Ecuador you have to use your cedula or passport number, and for some reason my passport wouldn´t work in their system so they found a way to sidestep it in the computer. But subsequently they forgot to ask my address and I walked out of the store without giving it to them. When I called them to correct the situation, I found myself in the middle of a six lane road squished between an indigenous family selling tomatoes and a yellow taxi cab yelling my address into the phone over the noise of a local musicians that were performing in front of the big market complex. That´s Ecuador. If it didn´t come tomorrow when its expected, then that will remind me of home though. Deliveries in New York never come when they are supposed to. There it makes me crazy but here I am much more zen about it.

At long last...Pictures

Here is the house where I was living till last week. Sorry its sideways, I´ll work on getting it right side up, right now I´m working with a disk where the pictures are burned so I can´t edit it to change the orientation. Hush, there is nothing wrong with my advantix!

Sideways again, but the hallway outside of my room until last week.

This is the view from the river of the historic district


This is from a little bit outside of the historic district viewing the mountains to the west.

This is from the Parque Paraiso.

Sam

I am going to be Samantha from Sex and the City for Halloween. That´s Tuesday and true to form I started looking for a costume today. I found a wig that I could rent reasonably ($12) and its closer to my actual hair color than to the bombshell blond I was going for but in the end that may look marginally less ridiculous. The wig certainly has thicker, bouncier locks than mine does when its long. Still I am afraid that instead of resembling Samantha I would resemble Claudia in a wig. The HBO homepage provides some advice:

Samantha's high-power lifestyle demands a wardrobe ready to make a statement at every occasion. For work, she gravitates towards body-accentuating suits in bold colors and at night she turns up the volume with racy ensembles that show off her bombshell figure and personality.

I found one skirt that might work, but the drapey yet elegant top I had in mind that would suddently transform me from slouchy Peace Corps volunteer into an elegant socialite was nowhere to be found. Another key thing seemed to be shoes, which for a size ten woman in Ecuador, is no small task. I dipped into savings to buy classic black pumps, rationalizing that a) they were good quality and I would wear them anytime I needed dress shoes for a very good while and b) they were 50% off so while they are high priced for a PCV, were I to find them in New York, they would be a steal.

If the whole thing isn´t too embarrasing, I will try to post some pictures.

Election Madness

OK, so some people might wonder whether since there was a presidential election here this month, whether I might have paid attention to it or have any observations on it. For that type of thing I direct you over to Jordan´s page, especially here and here for excellent gringo analysis on what came to pass and what people say that it might mean.

Election Madness

OK, so some people might wonder whether since there was a presidential election here this month, whether I might have paid attention to it or have any observations on it. For that type of thing I direct you over to Jordan´s page, especially here and here for excellent gringo analysis or what came to pass and what people say that it might mean.

Some Nice Person´s Picture # 2

Here is Ingapirca. The motorcross bike racing was off to the left.

Some Nice Person´s Picture # 1

This is Santa Ana and Las Peñas in Guayaquil. The pastel colored houses are part of a tourist development where they installed nice sidewalks and matching signs in all the businesses. The walk takes you up to the lighthouse from where you can see the whole hot hazy city. You can see to the left the unrefurbished part of the neighborhood which is more like the real Guayaquil.

G-Town and Other Adventures

I just spent half an hour writing a witty entry about all the cool stuff I got to do when my friend Leigh was here in town studying spanish . And then I got all fancy and tried to load some pictures from the internet of places that we went (yes I realize that is cheesy and no I haven´t developed any of my film digitally yet) and then I lost my whole entry. Jokes and all.

So, I´ll try this again, but if its not funny or interesting, just remember, the first draft was better. And it´s lost forever.

The first weekend we went out to Ingapirca to see Cañari and Incan ruins. There was a motorcross bicycle race going on across the valley in the actual town of Ingapirca, so while we were hearing from our tour guide about the daily life under the Incas, the sounds of Don Omar and Daddy Yankee were wafting over into the archeological site. The next day we went to the thermal baths that are outside of Cuenca. There are several places which offer access to thermal baths for a few dollars, but on the recommendation of Marty, a backpacker that was living for awhile in my house, we managed to pick the wrong place where none of the Cuencanos actually go. The dressing room hadn´t been changed since it was built in what looked like 1966. The water was lovely though and I haven´t gotten athlete´s foot yet, although Leigh did cut two fingers on the rocky bottom of the pool.

The next weekend we hopped on a plane and went to Guayaquil. It was the first time I had been to the coast and being in a hot, chaotic, gritty city was really welcome after Cuenca´s preciousness. (I mean I love it, but after awhile you´re just like, yeah, beautiful churches, beautiful mountains, got it. The truth is that I really like big cities, even ones that are slightly rough around the edges.) Leigh and I got locked in a stairwell for forty minutes and nearly got sunstroke walking up and down the Malecon 2000, which is the big fancy waterfront development that is impossibly nicer than much of anything else in the city, but we ate some good ceviche with patacones (green plaintains that are mashed and fried) and menestras (beans and rice) and pollo asado or grilled chicken. We also saw a big green iguana in the park.

I took the bus back from Guayaquil to Cuenca and went through vivid green rice fields and banana plantations, that eventually gave way to brown tree covered hills that precede the Andes. At sunset we were going through a little town, where the front doors of houses opened up onto the highway we were on, more or less and you could see people sitting outside, enjoying Sunday evening. I had one of those moments I periodically have where I feel this peace, this happiness at being here, away from the States, learning new stuff, meeting different kinds of people. The whole world is interesting and beautiful in its own way, just waiting for you to go and learn about it. And here I am.

The tagline say "Real Estate", so...

So i just moved in to my new apartment and out of the house/hostel where I was living before. I had a sad farewell with Doña Cecilia and the family that lives in the house, but living on my own, where a bunch of gringo Peace Corps volunteers aren´t constantly popping up and wanting me to go eat pizza with them, should help out with my Spanish and the ever challenging issue of cultural integration.

So, the apartment: First the good things. It´s down the road from where I work. It has big windows on three sides of the house. It has a big open kitchen and wood floors. It has the built in closets they have here, which saves me having to buy a bureau. It has a balcony. They installed an electric shower, which is way better than ancient, potentially leaky gas powered shower that that was there before, its adjacent to an Olympic swimming pool and a wine store, and I have a guest room. The downsides: It´s on a four lane street, which is a main thoroughfair for buses. It has lots of cheesy eighties touches, like a wooden banister and rather silly tile. It has an ugly bathrom. It has low ceilings. It was when I was weighing this particular desventaja that my friend Julie burst out laughing and told me I was such a New Yorker.

Well, yes.

I remembered that in los Estados Unidos I had mad high ceiling and no room for more than four people at any given time, so I can invite everyone over to my low ceilinged apartment and we can kind of crouch while we knosh over some elaborate spread on the open counter.

Yeah, this is what the Peace Corps is all about. Sacrifice.

Yep, things are as I left them

I am proud to say Starpower is my friend. That girl is funny. I quote

I was so heartened to read the Washington Post article, Three Retired Officers Demand Rumsfeld's Resignation, that, if I were to have published the story in The Starpower Times, I'd have called it Three Retired Officers Starpower Would Kiss on the Mouth. I'd even put up a picture (if they'd let me kiss them, that is). As well as an interactive flowchart of Rumsfeld's ceremonious firing, execution, and speedy descent to his homeland, Hell, to be re-seated at the left hand of Satan.

Honestidad

The day before we swore in, our Country Director told us that the next person who lost their cell phone, or had it robbed from them, might be sent home the make an example to other volunteers on carelessness. Last Friday, I was really pleased to realize that on the way home from the Supermaxi, I had left my phone in a taxi. There was just no other explanation and nothing to be done. When I called my phone, no one picked up, and I just had to resign myself to the fact that it was gone and I was going to have to go through the costly and painful process of replacing it through the Peace Corps. On Sunday I got a message from another volunteer, saying that someone had called them from my cell phone and wanted to return it to me. I should call my phone at noon the next day and be prepared to meet the person in front of the Supermaxi the next day in the afternoon. I immediately started to run a 102 degree temperature. The next day I could barely walk 3 blocks to the bank. The family I lived with went into action and promised to call my phone and go and collect it from whomever might have it. But no one answered when we called and it seemed like my phone might be within my grasp, but not to be returned. I rallied for long enough to go to the Supermaxi on the off chance that that cab driver in whose cab I left it was a) the person who had it and b) waiting in front of the store.

And so it was. The minute we got to the store the lone taxi in front of the stand looked awfully familiar. He had my cell phone and the pen I had been using in the cab and he returned both to me. He did not know how to use it so that was why he never answered it, but his daughter had called someone in my address book. So for a $15 reward, I lucked out big time.

I retired home happily to run another high fever and sing Fleetword Mac songs while curled up in my sleeping bag on the couch. Much better now, though. No fever and walking without a limp.

Returns

Today was election day in Ecuador and they are watching the results in the internet cafe. Well now they are watching a Tommy Lee Jones vehicle. Will be interesting to see the news tomorrow.

fracasada

So this week was a week of irritants, albeit slight, but they kind of added up. I antagonized the secretary where I work, launched breathlessly in the most respectful spanish into introductions with physicians and public officials only to be rebuffed in my request for time and information, lost expensive stuff in taxis, and had my spanish insulted to my face. All in a week´s work here.

Countdown

This week is off to a good start. Stuff to do in the office. My ankle is noticeably better. Other highlights, or things worth mentioning at least, include

5. Cheap pirated DVD´s - You can get pretty much anything you want for $2 or less. I´ve been saving this indulgence for a raining day, but have my sights set on watching the Big Lebowski 15 times during the next year.

4. Election Fever - The Ecuadorian presidential election is in less than three weeks and there are huge posters everywhere you go. Campaign posters are never quite as slick here as they are in the states and I often feel sorry for some of the people who have patently frightening pictures of themselves plastered all over buildings. Also there are truck all over blasting popular pop music draped in the colors of one party or another.

3. Tortillas - Not like Mexican tortillas and not like the little potato pancakes that also have this name here. They are sort of like savory pancakes and you eat them with morocho which is like a sweet milk and rice drink.

2. Flowers - They grow them here and Cuenca has a beautiful little flower market just off the main park in the center. I bought flowers for the family I live with, a ginormous bunch of alstromeria for $2. Once I get my own place I am looking forward to getting flowers every week.

1. Nickname - Growing up I hated most inversions of my name, Claudette, Claudine, and especially Claude. I since mellowed to them and now I kind of like them. I have special Ecua nicknames here, which first I tolerated and now have come to appreciate. My host family in Cayambe called me Claudie, and folks here, the call me Clau. It makes me feel all cute.

UPDATED TO ADD: To be clear, I am still very opposed to Claude.

Haircut

When you are getting used to being in a foreign country I find its the little things that tip the scale and set you off, allowing you to release the tension that builds up from not being able to communicate like you want to and not understanding everything going on around you. When I spent two weeks living with a family in Guatemala, it was the front door and not being able to open it and having to get the son in the family to explain it to me, and him not being willing to do it until he corrected my pronunciation of the verb abrir to his satisfaction.

In Cuenca, it was the haircut.

Despite how exciting the work that my organization does is, it remains to be come exciting for me. So there are several days when I have showed up at the office and done email all day or worse yet, waited for the one computer with internet to become free all day. Everytime I think that I have gotten settled into a project or a responsibility, it evaporates into nothing, so Monday when I got to office to find no one but the secretary there, I decided to walk up the street to get a haircut. The guy was remarkably unfriendly, and didn´t take my requests well. I jumped out of the chair as he was about to blow dry into some sort of dreadful puff on top of my head. The truth is, its not a terrible haircut, but it isn´t quite what I wanted. But I didn´t have that perspective walking back to the office. I just kept tearing up at the frustration of not being able to communicate, not knowing what on earth I was doing here. For the first time, earlier this week, I thought about what it would be like to just go home.

Now despite the fact that work has not taken off, I am lucky to be working with very sweet people. Two of the lovely young women that work in the office saw that I was upset about something and locked themselves in with me and asked me what was wrong. Without me even being very specific about what was making me upset, they guessed the gist and they promised me that I was not inutil, on the contrary I was very util, and said I should think of them like sisters and we would all go out to lunch on Wednesday. (When Wednesday came it was evident that one of them had forgotten and the other was nowhere to be found, but by then I had recovered my equanimity, and it didn´t matter so much whether we had lunch or not.)

It turns out that I am going to help give a workshop on Saturday, so that has had me feeling better all week. Plus its still beautiful here. I sit on the bus and look at the sunset behind the mountains and how the light falls on the river and I think - I live here. I live in this beautiful place.

(Yes Sarah I will get some pictures up soon)

Gimpie

So as everyone knows pretty much, I had a sprained ankle that didn´t take care of back in April which hung on for weeks and weeks and made getting ready to move to South America more than an ordeal than it should have been. That turned out to be fortuitous because when I sprained my other ankle falling on some stairs a couple weeks ago, I took it easy and tried to take pretty good care of it. I went to the doctor, stayed home for a few days, cut down on walking a lot and now its definitely on the mend, although still a little delicate.

Living on 72nd Street

September 10, 2006 is a very important day because on that day 72 years ago in Elkin, NC, my mom, Doris Virginia Abernethy was born. Doris Virgina is someone whom without which I wouldn´t 1) exist or 2) be nearly so smart, interesting, and well mannered as I managed to be.

I was trying to find all the interesting things that happened 72 years ago but it turns out really, Mom coming into the world is pretty much at the top of the list, for those who know her at least.

For example, Roger Marris, home run champ for the New York Yankees, was born. He hit 61 home runs in 1961 and was the American League MVP in 1960 and 1961.

Charles Kurault, whose voice graced our home every Sunday morning was also born on this day. That´s a nice one actually.

Other interesting things that happened on other September 10´s include:
In 1929, Arnold Palmer was born. He won PGA Golfer of the Year in 1960 and 1962.

In 1608, John Smith was elected President of Jamestown colony council, VA. Well thank goodness that happened. Whew.

Anyhow, Happy Birthday, Mommy! I miss you when I am far away.

Me Talk Pretty One Day

So, all in all this week has been pretty exciting at my job. I sat in on a very well-done training on HIV Counseling and learned where all the prostibulos are in Cuenca (prostitution is legal here) . I got invited to a meeting to help plan the first Miss Gay Ecuador, and my offer to find information on domestic violence interventions for a grant proposal was eagerly accepted.

My colleagues are kind, affectionate, respectful to one another, hardworking, and principled. I want all of them to really like me, and they seem to, but the truth is they must get tired of me. I don´t understand jokes until the third telling, miss comments addressed to me, nod and smile when a substantive answer is expected, and use awkward overly formal or insufficiently respectful tones of address on a regular basis. I know I´m only in my third month here, but I miss being able to tell jokes, engage in witty repartèe, and detect 89% of what is going on around me.

Up to lots of stuff

So, on the third day with my organization, I cleared plans organize a series of workshops with a women´s group in Cuenca and got myself invited to three meetings. So work is now off to a pretty good start.

Insides

By the way, I did go back the next day and buy a little carton of figs, and they were pretty delicious. I ate almost the entire thing though, which had a dramatic effect on my digestive system. Is this OK to talk about? I just spent the last two months hearing about 46 Peace Corps volunteers digestive tracts, so my social cues may be sort of skewed. The take home message is that if you eat fifteen figs, plan accordingly.

Viva La Revolución

My first day of official work was yesterday and my initial reaction, despite everything the Peace Corps told me about slowing down and lowering my expectations, I kind of freaked out at the end of the day. I was convinced that they were going to give me nothing to do and I would be sitting at an empty desk reading the newspaper for the next two years. I realize that this is overreacting perhaps but in a busy NGO where everyone has too much to do, it does take some wherewithal to stop what you are doing and find a job for an intern, no matter how lista they might be. So we shall see how that goes.

Today, I went with my counterpart Jorge to watch him give a workshop in Azogues, which is a smaller city down the road from Cuenca. Azogues is, according to Jorge, a socialist stronghold and there are several official posters of Che Guevara and an Avenida Che Guevara. There is also a restaurant called Che, which is dark and subversive looking, (and thus really intriguing, lest I be misunderstood.) It is outfitted with all sorts of posters and memorabilia of Che. When I commented favorably on it, Jorge allowed that it was cool, but pointed out that it did not make much sense, because they serve tacos, rather than Argentinian or Cuban food.

-But are they good tacos?, I asked and Jorge had to allow that they were, however inconsistent with the revolution chic motif they might be.

See below

A post on immigration that I started last week is below, dated August 30. So I have been writing!

A Week in Cuenca

So this week has been sleeping in, walking up and down cobbled streets, cooking for myself for the first time in two months, and generally getting settled in. I do have the same feeling like I sometimes have on vacation, where although I am in a new and interesting place, I still have the feeling that a thousand things are going on under the surface that I can´t see or detect by virtue of being an outsider, the difference being that I plan on sticking around for awhile, so hopefully that feeling will abate.

Tonight my friend Paul and I were walking down the street when we smelled this wonderful smell, and we were both so overwhelmed by it we stopped to figure out where it was coming from. It smelled like how your house should smell on Christmas morning, or the best raisin bread you have ever eaten. In front of a little tienda, there was this huge pot of bubbling, caramel colored fruit, and we asked the woman in the shop what it was. Was it bread we said, and she threw over her shoulder one word - higas or figs. Because we continued to stand there and look longingly at the pot, she came over and offered us one and we agreed it was the most delicious thing we had ever had.

Immigration

The week before I left Cayambe, my friend Marcela asked me for ideas for her husband who is in a big city in the U.S. working. He was working rather, he got laid off from his job in construction, owes lots of money to the people that got him to the states, and was generally feeling despair about having left his family in Ecuador. She was hoping I could help him in some way and I do not know for sure what she had in mind, but about the only thing I could think of was to get her some information on organizations that work with immigrants. It took me a couple weeks, but once I got to Cuenca I pulled up the National Council of La Raza site and found two affliates in the city where her husband is working with job placement services. She seemed pleased to have phone numbers to give to him, but we will have to see if they can get him some connections to work.

Marcela is 23 and has two beautiful kids who are five and one. I met her when my language group attended a nursery school graduation in Cayambe. She came to the little practice charla that we had and she consented to let me do an interview with her that I had to do as part of my pc training. From there we became friends and when my host mom in Cayambe suggested I invite some of my classmates over for a farewell dinner, I asked if I could invite Marcela too. It might have been a social class thing or some proprietary feeling about their gringa, but my host mom did not want to invite some Ecuadorian girl to dinner. I had to explain three times who Marcela was, where I met her, and why I wanted to have a chance to say goodbye to her. I took a little gamble, because Ecuadorian hospitality is sacred, and I figured that once Marcela and her son were in the house, my host mom would make them feel as welcome as everyone else, and that was they way it worked out. Her parents live near Cuenca so hopefully I will get an opportunity to see them again at Christmas.

Madame Ambassador and Two Funny Boys in Tuxedos

It has been pointed out to me that I mentioned a ceremony connected with me becoming a Peace Corps volunteer, but that I did not elaborate upon it or verify that it happened. As it did in fact come to pass, a fine photo of our group and a little press release about us is available here (I am at the top but you can not really see me.) The white tuxedos and handle bars mustaches on the front did not make the write up, but I assure you it was very exciting.

Only a little bit late

Now, courtesy of my good pal Ashley and her digital camera, some fotos de Ecuador. On the left is Cayambe, the volcanoe and on the right is the catherdral in Cayambe.

Gringoland, Ecuador

I´m sitting the Mariscal in Quito looking out at the brightly colored bars and restaurants that make up the tourist district here. It´s raining here and I feel pleasantly ensconsed in Papaya.net with a comfy chair and a cup of brewed coffee, listening to Beyonce. This weekend was devoted to eating a ridiculous amount of food we can´t get in other places in Ecuador. Tapas, argentinean steak, pancakes, and mexican food figured prominently. I also hung out with Jordan, of Pigeontoes fame and went to the best gay clubI have ever been to. People were super friendly and I had like four new best friends at the end of the night. Tonight I head down to Cuenca with my colleagues. Next week looks to be pretty chill because my organization is closed for summer vacation, so I will have sometime to adjust and explore.

Swearing

We are in our final week of activities in training in Quito, staying in Quito in the youth hostel, spending the day in meetings in the Peace Corps headquarters. It's exciting but we are all a little jittery and cranky from the transition, I think. Some of us are also hung over.

Still here

I am sorry that I have been delinquent in keeping up with what I have been doing and what happens now that I am done with training (!!!!) Let me say that one more time, cause that has a nice ring to it: I am sorry that I have been delinquent in keeping up with what I have been doing and what happens now that I am done with training. Yes, we swear in a week from tomorrow. Leading up to that, we have goodbye parties, some boring administrative stuff, and language assessments. It is very exciting and a little overwhelming and we are all sort of giddy and cranky at the same time.

Now here I should say that from moment to moment I alternate from adoring my beloved co-aspirantes here to throwing my eyes up to the sky with ill-disguised impatience with a thousand shortcomings. If I go too long without seeing someone from my group, I get kind of nostalgic and wonder who I can find to go have a beer with me. Then one of them will play New Kids on the Block or the Spice Girls, you know, to take the girls in the group back, and I will be rudely reminded of the fact that when I was moving into my first apartment, most of the people in my group had not yet entered puberty.

Last week though, I was in love with my training group and frankly in love with the Peace Corps Ecuador. On Thursday, we went to a town to the north of us called Mascarilla where the community, which is Afro-Ecuadorian, has started a project of mask making in order to foster cultural identity and create a small business opportunity for the artists. We helped the youth group do a mingha and pick up trash in the town. In the afternoon, we went to Ibarra, also to the north and hung out with the youth in the Cemoplaf affiliate there. (CEMOPLAF is like Planned Parenthood) We visited a big hacienda and saw cuy (guinean pigs raised to be eaten) and a field of tomatoes de arbol, tree tomatos, which are totally different from regular tomatoes. The teenagers did traditional dance that was typical of the area and made us dance with them. On Friday I went with a little subgroup to give talks in a shelter for teenage mothers, some of whom had been trafficked in the sex trade. That was both intimidating and chaotic, but good practice I figure. Saturday I spent with my family and then Sunday we took off again for Mindo, towards the coast, which is a good site for bird watching and has subtropical cloudforest. We stayed in a wooden house open to the forest, that was situated right next to a river. We did do some work while we were there, but lots of time was spent hiking and jumping off big rocks into swimming holes.

So, there is more coming soon, but that is what I have been busy with. So, there is not too much to complain about as you can see.

Timeless

Cuenca is everything it promised to be and I´ve been pleasantly busy in the organization where I will be working. I wrote something in Spanish for them, which was reasonably well received. More detailed updates once I get up to Cayambe, but so far I am off to a good start!

Also a more substantive post in the works. As interesting as my cultural adjustment and stomach problems may be, I feel the need to get in to something more reflective.

Random Music Overheard in the Internet

• What must be Pink´s new song, which is so sad and pretty, and still rocking out in a cotton candy pink pop culture way.
• ¨Don´t be fooled by the rocks that I got/I´m still Jenny from the block/Used to have a little now I have a lot/but I still know where I came from¨ Jennifer Lopez in all her pop goddess glory.
• There is all sorts of Ecuadorean music that I am starting to groove to, but I don´t know what any of it is, so I can´t tell you about it.

Battle Scars

So I came through my first real illness this week. Five days of nausea, stomach cramps, and vomiting. It was fun, especially being saved by the mighty Cipro-man and now I am fearless and I ate lettuce for lunch even though the Medical Officer said not to.

Aside from that, my big news is that I will be reunited with Cuenca. I will be going to work there for the next two years. This begins on Sunday with another trip down there and then for real on September 5th.

Mejor

Yesterday I was the Fussy American, but today was better. We heard all about our sites today. Chances seem to be good I will either be working in Cuenca or on a beach, so there isn´t anything that I can really complain about.

Familia

After the initial charm wears off, being in a foreign country, living with a family who are in fact strangers, and being presented with different and sometimes unappetising cuisine ceases to be difficult and simply starts to be banal and irritating. When you give up independence, privacy, and the delightful aspects of your personality most evident in English, you are left with what? Yes there are green hills bathed in gold at sunset (or some other analog, depending on the topography,) yes there are the moments of fluidity in the language when you hear yourself speak eloquently of your mother or how you everyone should have health care. But there comes a time when nothing is lovely or special, not even your electric shower in the morning. This week I wanted pizza, candy bars, and corona. Anything familiar to counter what can only be described as malaise.

Timeless

We are in meetings from 8 to 6 all this week meeting with counterpart groups, meaning who we will be working with. It is exciting but eats up all my time. Evenings get consumed by host family activities and exhaustion. Over the weekend I had projectile vomitting but am better now and judge myself lucky to not have amoebas, like some of my compadres.

I have not forgotten you all. A real post, and answers to all your email soon!

They are playing that Shakira Hips song again. I may get sick of it, but I am not yet.

Piggie

My family served me pig tripe last night. I´d like to say I was one of the volunteers who eats everything put in front of me to the great delight of he welcoming Ecuadorian hosts. But no. I´m not that girl.

I really tried to eat it, I ate all the filling of rice and onions that was stuffed inside it. (That part was really good.) And I sat there and sat there and tried to put it in my mouth, but I just couldn´t do it. It smelled awful.

Whirlwind Romance

So, at first it was just a modest flirtation between me and her. It began with shy glances and pleasing looks. As the weekend wore on, I noticed aspects of her character and personality that I could imagine coming to feel like home. At the end of the weekend I was wrenched away from her, but in my heart I made a promise to return.

I´m infatuated with the city of Cuenca. She is charming and gracious and accomodating. She offers brewed coffee and Italian food, walks along bubbling little rivers, and the promise of a lovely apartment in the colonial city center. The matchmaking process is still in its early stages. (The matchmakers being the Peace Corps.) But the initial meetings showed promise of an accord that is beneficial for everyone.

Now if this were to work out, this would not be your typical Peace Corps assignment. Chance are that eventually I would have a hot shower and a refrigerator. I have already heard other volunteers scoff at the possibility of someone being placed in Cuenca. (¨That´s a hard posting,¨ someone said this weekend, with disdain.) Hell. I´m thirty-three. I didn´t come here to rough it necessarily. I leave it up to the fates to decide.

OK so for those of you begging for pictures

A lovely photo of me with Jordan and Risa, taken just before the bus came and swept them away on the PanAmerican Highway, which I live on incidentally.

Nostalgia

One of the pains in the ass about living with a family that is not your own is that after a few weeks you start to pick up on the dyanamics that are not so easy or not so cool. One morning you find yourself sitting at breakfast in the middle of some situation or another where one person is being a perfect jerk to another person and it makes you long for the imperfections in your own family, rather that those of strangers.

Also, it hit me this morning. Like a ton of bricks. I miss New York City so much!!!

Here is a top-ten list of stuff I miss about my adopted home:

10. Brewed coffee on every street corner
9. The trash filled subway
8. Central Park
7. New York Pizza
6. Similary, the availability of every kind of cuisine know to man
5. The Y on 63rd St.
4. The way that light slants between the streets in Soho in the late afternoon
3. My friends
2. Gay bars
1. Salsa classes with Frankie Martinez (via Katie B.)

On a brighter note, I should mention that in the mornings when I wake up (much, much earlier than I normally do!) I look out the window at the head of my bed and I see the sunrise over a snow covered volcano. Right on.

Poco Tiempo

It seemed like I couldn´t manage to get to an internet cafe and now here I am with an uninterrupted half an hour and I can´t think of much to write about. This morning I needed to find post -its for an activity and walked through the neighborhood where we work, La Estacion. It´s named so because the old Cayambe railroad station, which is now a nursery school, is located. It´s full of boxy, low-slung houses some old, and some more modern. There are little tiendas with food, or liquor or paper supplies (where I found my post-its). There are roosters crowing and lots and lots of dogs. At noon its hot, and the sun is strong. I got back to our class room kind of worn out. Last Friday I made the mistake of sitting out in the sun during lunch and I for the rest of the afternoon, I was pretty much beat. They are not joking about the center of the world thing.

More San Pedro

Yesterday was the Desfile de Alegria for San Pedro and I was lucky enough to watch the entire parade from the roof of a building. The dancers were really stunning, in bright pinks, yellow, and greens. They were followed by big groups of guitar playing muchachos singing Viva Cayambe at the top of their lungs. There were floats with children dressed up in indigenous outfits and with comely women in evening gowns throwing flowers. My family had a little cafecito afterwards and I played poker with my very patient host father and a couple of my PC companions.

Today Risa and Jordan came to visit me in Cayambe from Quito. That was awesome. I wanted to introduce them to my host family, but it seemed like they were busy working so we just stopped in at the house for a little snack and then I took them for bizcocho, which is apparently only made here in Cayambe. (It turned out that my family was waiting for me to call them or stop into their store, but I didn´t really understand that. These kind of little miscommunications seem to happen a lot between Peace Corps volunteers and families that house them. I just kind of chalk it up to language and cultural adjustment and hope I create enough good will through other time I invest in hanging out with them to make up for little mistakes that I make.)

On Friday, the amoebas will be spreading out through the whole of Ecuador. We take technical training trips to see various Peace Corps sites and I will be going to Cuenca. In the meantime we are busy throwing ourselves onto the mercy of our training community. Our first meeting with a group of mothers is tomorrow.

Fiesta

When you are adjusting to a new place, especially when its foreign and strange, you are often so precoccupied with the details that you can´t really turn your attention to everything going on around you. The little questions and preoccupations of getting settled take away from the larger ability to soak up every thing happening around you.

Today is the festival of San Pedro here and indigenous groups from cities surrounding Cayambe have come to dance in a parade and attend the fiesta. I´m sitting in the internet cafe listening to Andean music playing outside and watching the groups go by in their brightly colored outfits. (Yes, I realize the this is the place where normal, enterprising North Americans would post a beautiful photo, but I´m a dinosaur apparently and didn´t bother with a digital camera. Whatever.)

The PC volunteers in Cayambe move through the city like a big amoeba with lots of little parts floating through the city. When the little amoebas run into each other, they become a large one, moving together tables in restaurants, congregating on the corners, comparing notes.

Foods in Ecuador

They serve popcorn here at the table like a vegetable. I think I am home!

Ole

OK, so I made it through staging in DC, a thousand super excited volunteers meeting us at the airport, a night in Quito at a youth hostel with everyone dropping and sucking down bottles of water to help deal with the elevation, and out arrival and two solid days of meetings at a training center in Cayambe. Yesterday, our small group facilitator-spanish instructor took us to our host families for the duration of our training. Cayambe is beautiful, surrounded by green sloping mountains, and crowned by the a snow covered volcanoe. I´m in training with rural health volunteers who went off to more remote villages, but since I am in the Jovenes y Familias, we are city based. My host family is two parents with one six year old daughter and the parents are close to my age, so that will be nice I think. I felt pretty schlubby yesterday showing up in hiking boots and wrinkled pants, when my host ¨mother¨ was so elegant, and I was happy to unpack and have access to more of my luggage and clothes. I have what would not be considered a typical Peace Corps set-up, it´s a huge bedroom with a private bath and lots of light and space.

Today is the Ecuador-England game, and one of our Peace Corps tareas is to watch it with our family. Pfft. As if I would do anything else.

There´s lots more to say of course, how the arrival event, rather ominously named I think, felt sort of like this elaborate long term camp, how wierd it feels to be here now with all the little details of moving away from New York dogging me to the day before I left the country and now to be here, with limited email access and limited ability to do anything about anything that goes wrong, how good it feels to be here, living in South America, doing this thing that I have been wanting to do forever.

The other thing to mention is that my spanish sucks. It´s a great disappointment given the number of years I have devoted to learning it, but it has to be said. They did a little interview with us and places us in groups, and I was sort of miffed to have been placed in Intermedio Medio, which is exactly in the middle. But a couple hours with my host family verified for me that even though I might attempt a fancy pluscaimperfecto construction and pull it off from time to time, basic past tense conjugations still sometime confound me. Damn it all. I guess that is why I am here.

There are internet cafes here in town, so I´ll definitely get in to check on them every few days. Stay tuned for updates.

Business Casual

The Peace Corps is making a push to make their volunteers dress better so we have had lots of lectures about collared t-shirts and the perils of jeans when we get off the airplane in Quito. I'm surrounded by a sea of freshly scrubbed young adults with alarmingly large piles of luggage. We go to the airport in just a few minutes.

Batten down the hatches

My apartment seems to have been sublet, my cat is deposited in my parents' home, and I've gotten through orientation in a Crystal City, Virginia hotel. We are off to Ecuador tomorrow.

Mad Feline

So one of the major narrative lines of the last few months has been where my cat George was going to go to when I go to Ecuador. When my parents offered to take him as a solution of last resort, I don't think that they actually realized that last resorts were what we were going to be dealing with, but that is in fact what happened. This all sounds well and good on the face of it, but over the years, George has proved to be, how do you say it...terrifying. He is often sweet and cuddly, but there are times when you would swear that you were in a Stephen King movie where the force of darkness have taken over in the shape of my 20 lb. black cat. I usually throw him in the other room and after a little while he goes back to being a normal animal, but it made him a sort of tough sell. Who wants a cat who will only jump on you and scratch you once and awhile?

So, I wasn't so jazzed about my parents dealing with this, but there you are. All other takers and options had exhausted themselves so I called up Mom and Dad to see if they were serious about their offer. It turns out they weren't really, but the nice thing about parents is that it often doesn't matter once the offer has been put on the table.

In this way it came to pass that I was in La Guardia airport with a gigantic backpack and a pet carrier that weighed almost as much. Everything was going fine so far, I had checked him in and paid the pet fee, and was working my way through security. Says the security agent to me, "Put the carrier on the x-ray machine belt and take him out to carry him through the checkpoint."

Is she kidding, I think to myself?

"Are you kidding?" I say.

I can't take him out, I explain. He'll get away and go running through the airport on a busy Friday afternoon. His hair will get all puffy and he'll scratch whoever tries to pick him up. It will be madness and people will be very angry with me. Security agents particularly.

"Speak to the supervisor," she says.

The supervisor is a nice guy who explains that there is no way the cat's bag is going on the plane unless it goes through the x-ray machine. I can send George on the little belt, but they don't recommend it. He offers to help though and takes the bag through for me, while big George, suddenly not so big anymore, clings to me with all four claws as we go through security without so much as a beep.

Viva Ecuador

Aw yeah Ecuador Costa-Rica 3-0

Empty

The apartment is starting to have the empty house feeling. Taking the rug out was the really dramatic step. I also cleared the refrigerator out of any food that I might not be able to eat in the next four days. Decontructing my home and pulling my roots out of the ground is lonely work. And I haven't even left the country.

Sweet sorrow

Leaving somewhere you have loved isn't really sweet or sorrowful, it's jittery and irritating. You have a thousand things to do before you go. Bunches of little tasks that if you somehow omit will have grave consequences for your credit, or your proprietary lease, or at least your good name among your friends. I've had several very lovely goodbye celebrations, some greatly vaunted and some more low-key. Tonight was the goodbye event for the bulk of my friends and lots of people had stuff going on and didn't make it. In some ways it was a relief that it stayed small though and the time that I did have with folks was balanced and intimate. I drank too much Hoegaarden and went looking for dessert in a bakery that was just there a few months ago. Now its a sushi place. A sign that it is time to get going?

FIFA Madness

The truth is that I love the World Cup. I don't understand the rules, but having travelled through Ireland, Holland, Italy, and Mexico during two tournaments makes me realize that the excitement is irresistable. It's so much fun, and way better than the Olympics because people all over the world get crazy about football.

Pigeon Toes provides and on the ground view of Ecuador after they won a game on the first day or the tournament. Hopefully they will stay in the game long enough for me to get there.

Cosas

I have a wierd attachment to stuff. There is nothing like packing up your apartment to remind you of the irrational habits we have when it comes to our personal possessions. I am guilty of keeping little things around, not because I am thrifty or want to avoid waste, but because items that touched someone's hands mean that the person is not so far away from you, even if they have passed on, or moved on. The washcloth that I am taking to Ecuador was purchased for me at the Bodyshop at the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota by my first girlfriend in 1992. I haven't heard from her since 1994, but I still have this thoughtful little thing she bought for me. It has dolphins on it.

So on one hand, I am a little bit of a pack rat. I keep many things around for way too long. Everyone once awhile, I am vindicated when something that I have kept stuck in a box somewhere comes in handy in practical way. The big padlock my father and I bought to move to New York in 1998 sat in my tool box unused for eight years until I produced it to lock my handy storage space in this building, saving, marvel of marvels, a trip to the hardware store. Because I am a packrat, however, I obsess about finding the right home for the most mundane items, and its not just because if people take things away then I have less to carry to the Goodwill store. I want things to have the right home, and to be of use to the right person. People come to my apartment and find they can't leave empty handed. Lately, friends have been departing under duress with salad bowls, spice racks, the microwave, the toaster oven. One neighbor furnished her daughter's kitchen with the stuff I was getting rid of. Whether her daughter actually wants it or not remains to be seen.

Another friend actually wanted my shower curtains and I threw in a couple towels into the bargain. One of the towels was the sky blue one that my grandmother gave me soon after I moved into my first apartment in 1996. It's an everyday item, but I look at it and remember the bathroom in her house in Hickory, North Carolina, which is no longer standing. How it smelled, how the wood paneling in that room looked, how the door scraped against the dropped ceiling when you opened it all the way. I dropped it into box with everything else I was sending her, and let go of that palpable link to my grandmother. It is a bath towel after all.

By way of my neighbor, I also sent the drill to my ex-boyfriend that he purchased jointly with me in a fit of generosity during the long August afternoon when he helped me put up the closet shelves in this apartment. That was 2004. He's recently married now, so I suppose it functions as a sort of quasi wedding present, although really it's half his, so its not much of a gift. Call it a palpable link to me. A drill. A practical reminder of what turned out to be a hopelessly impractical relationship.

Boxes upon boxes

I'm surrounded by piles of things, boxes stacked in the closet, old clothes to be given away thrown behind the bed, my luggage with an assortment of things tossed in so I won't forget to pack them are occupying the bulk of my living room floor. Files that must be left with my family and my lawyer need to be organized.

I run from excitement to panic in one afternoon, hell in one hour.

I'm the Shoe

Yesterday I wrote a post about how transitions make me a little bonkers and I was happy with it because it expressed my state of mind with humor and lucidity. That is until I went back to read it again and I realized it made sound like I was supposed to be on some sort of anxiety medication but had skipped it. So I deleted it, not wanting anyone to think I was a lunatic. Today, I am grabbing the bull by the horns and riding the stress of packing up my life to move to South America. There are barriers and problems to be dealt with. There are eventualities to be planned for. But it is all an elaborate game of Battleship or Risk or Monopoly. I am rolling the dice and seeing what the card I draw from Community Chest tells me to do.

I am queen of my to-do list.

My good humor and even temper impress everyone who come in contact with me.

Well let's not get carried away.

Hammer

My pal Elliott has his very own show in an art museum.

Hope springs

From the NY Times today:

"Fifty percent said Democrats came closer than Republicans to sharing their moral values, compared with 37 percent who said Republicans shared their values."

Probably too early to get really excited, but its certainly optimistic.

Big To Do's

So. I'm moving to Ecuador in six weeks. That's what's happening. If everything goes according to plan (and in this process there have been lots of things that have already not gone accordingly) I will be joining the Peace Corps.

It's very very cool. Because this has been in the works for months and now it seems that it might be happening. Barring unforeseen circumstances, that is. I can't help but add the disclaimer.

Today found me at home, watching The Adams Family and Adams Family Values, marvelling at how much, I love, just love Raul Julia and Angelica Huston because they are both just so attractive. I explained to this a friend on the phone and he kindly observed that I really just needed to get laid.

Indeed.

Big Love

I'm fighting an addiction to HBO's Big Love, just on principal, but so far my efforts to turn off the tv after the Soprano's have come to naught. Despite the fact that I find the premise both problematic and vaguely offensive, the acting is pretty good and the characters interesting enough that I can't quite withstand it. So it is interesting that this week I find myself in Salt Lake City for the third time in recent months, although I have yet to make a trip out here when there is time to do all the odd Mormon activities.

Salt Lake City is beautiful this week, though. Everything is in full-bloom and the mountains are an ever present backdrop. This morning there was a snow storm and the combination of mountain, snow, and flowering trees is stunning.

Sad

I've been dealing with a death in my extended family and have found myself running out of emotional steam early in the evening the last couple nights. Last night found me reeling through Wellspring buying comfort groceries which I ate both on the subway and the couch. This morning I left the house in a totally deflated mood, musing about all sorts of bleak outlooks. But the spring morning and the walk to work were irrestible, and by the time I got to work I found myself in a marginally better mood.

Seen on the subway, a buxom young woman, who might have been Dominican or Puerto Rican, wearing a t-shirt that said:

"I ♥ skinny boys with glasses"

And since I flirted with a skinny boy with glasses that I saw on both the train and then again in home depot just the day before, I had to say I was right there with her.

Again, I come back begging forgiveness

It's been crazy here at the offices of Newyorquina. Aside from the usual self-imposed madness, I am coming up on a big life-shift. It's been in the works for a long time, and I haven't written about it, but now it's on the verge of happening, though still not quite... clear...just... yet.

I'm getting myself to South America, either by way of one large volunteer program or another obscure writing fellowship. They'll remain nameless until I actually get the details worked out, but the timing of both necessitates a decision very soon. There are apartments to be rented, animals to find homes for, interviews to be passed with flying colors, friends to be coerced into taking on large scale oversight of various aspects of my life, power of attorney to be granted. It's exhausting. And thrilling. But right now, mostly exhausting.

There is the moment that I frequently have in the middle of the night, when I wake up with a sudden sense of enormous vulnerability, when I am hit with the certainty that nothing in my life is actually fixed or stable or sure Then I look at my plants and my bedroom ceiling and am comforted by the immutable presence of my home, which provides the illusion of structure. Lately these moments have been more unsettled and more frequent and I think to myself, what will reassure me far from anyone I know in strange land?

Words you find yourself using a lot when writing about Latin America

Ouster. Why is that a noun and not a verb? Is it incorrect to say ousted president? I think it sounds so funny when people say, "Months of protest achieved the President's ouster."

Can we get some ouster action up here in North America?

Why I haven't written lately...

Good night and good luck

In a nice perversion of Patrick Henry's famous line, Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, defended renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act saying, "Civil liberties do not mean much when you are dead."

It's the Constitution, stupid.

Healthcare in New Orleans

This is a harrowing article about primary care right now and the fate of Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

Update

Report on the state of things in Baghdad today, after the destruction of the Askari Mosque, from Riverbend:

"All morning we’ve been hearing/watching both Shia and Sunni religious figures speak out against the explosions and emphasise that this is what is wanted by the enemies of Iraq- this is what they would like to achieve- divide and conquer. Extreme Shia are blaming extreme Sunnis and Iraq seems to be falling apart at the seams under foreign occupiers and local fanatics.

No one went to work today as the streets were mostly closed. The situation isn’t good at all. I don’t think I remember things being this tense- everyone is just watching and waiting quietly. There’s so much talk of civil war and yet, with the people I know- Sunnis and Shia alike- I can hardly believe it is a possibility. Educated, sophisticated Iraqis are horrified with the idea of turning against each other, and even not-so-educated Iraqis seem very aware that this is a small part of a bigger, more ominous plan…

Several mosques have been taken over by the Mahdi militia and the Badir people seem to be everywhere. Tomorrow no one is going to work or college or anywhere."

In World News Today

The mosque that was destroyed today. Guys, this is not good.

Pep Talks

From my Yahoo horoscope:

"A long while ago, you discovered that the best way to make something as ethereal as a dream turn into reality is to tackle it practically and realistically. That means you've got to work very hard now to make your current fantasy come true. You're ready, willing and able, but you may not be entirely confident that you can make it come about. Stop that. You can, and you know it. Doubt is fatal to power. Get going, and don't stop until you're there."

Jeez. I'm working on it.

Enough Said

http://www.scooterlibby.com/

Free beer for the person who can think up the funniest fake spam to send to ol Scoot.

Vie Commenter Vachon (scroll down to comment #12) at The Poor Man.

Nostalgia

In the spirit of the season. Beck at Unfogged provides some commentary on the history of Mardi Gras.

"Mardi Gras changed a lot over the five years I went (1996-2000) and the biggest change was in the culture of flashing. I place the blame squarely on Girls Gone Wild, which emerged in 1998. Before GGW, flashing was just an infrequent eccentric local custom that was part of the bigger party; by 2000, it had become the central focus. What people don't understand is that there used to be a kind of weird etiquette involved that was so oddly chivalrous, sweet, and innocent that I doubt even a priss would have objected."

There's the olympics, and then there is me

I did more weightlifting today. I did squats, sort of. I still can't actually do a full squat without a bench under to sit on, but I lifted some weight. Squats and benchpresses sort of took it out of me though and the remainder of the workout involved me trying not to throw up or pass out. I really didn't leave enought time after lunch before the workout. The trainer, James, was kind to me and swore it would get easier. We'll see.

Fat Camp

Two childhood demons were excess weight and camp. So MTV's Fat Camp (reviewed favorably here) seemed like it would be sort of rough watching. There is the awkward girl, the popular girls, and the insecure, mean boy that somehow snags a cute girlfriend. That said, the kids at Fat Camp are a far sight nicer than the rednecks at Lutheridge, which was not, upon reflection, a very nice place to spend a week for six summers.

Progress

I do feel better after more weight lifting, although my right shoulder is pretty tight and achey still.

I am still retaining mad fluids because I've gained at least three pounds by the scale's estimation. My jeans however, the tight ones that always serve to remind me how much ground I have lost since March 2004 when I was the very skinniest I even was, are looser.

This is good focus as I try to distract myself from the fact that I have no idea what I am doing with my life and everytime I think I might have come to some resolution and made a decision about where I will be living in, oh, June, something happens to upset that assurance.

Achey, Breaky

On Sunday I worked out with a trainer for the first time ever, and I had some stupid request for learning how to do compound movement like squats and the like. The ensuing days have involved the requisite stiff jointed complaints. I'm on day three of not being able to lift my arms over my head, and wondering if really something that makes me feel this way is such a good idea.

I'm going back tonight though. Because to just do it once won't really help me out at all. And I'm not liking the idea of feeling this way for four days for nothing.

The Best Valentine's Day Song Ever

Got nobody to sing it to, but it's still a pretty song, so...

I come to you with empty hands
I guess I just forgot again
I only got my love to send
On Valentine's Day
I ain't got a card to sign
Roses have been hard to find
I only hope that you'll be mine
On Valentine's Day
I know that I swore that I wouldn't forget
I wrote it all down: I lost it I guess

There's so much I want to say
But all the words just slip away
The way you love me every dayIs Valentine's Day

If I could I would deliver to you
Diamonds and gold; it's the least I can do
So if you'll take my IOU
I could make it up to you
Until then I hope my heart will do
For Valentine's Day

-Steve Earle

Me on Valentine's Day

I like Boondocks today.

Nieve

It's been unseasonably mild all winter, so today's blustery storm has inspired the same delight that rare snows in North Carolina once did. The windows sills and fire escapes are all covered and it's still coming down hard. It's a good morning for staying in reading, all curled up in bed.

The cruel reality is that I have a long-planned appointment with a trainer at the Y, but that isn't for hours and hours. So, nesting comences.

No fair

Apparently, I have been tagged by jillypickle, who was tagged by Risa.

4 recent jobs I've held (recent is relative):

Volunteer English Teacher
Foundation Program Officer
AIDS Hotline Lady
Standardized Test Grader

4 movies I could watch over and over:

Breakfast at Tiffany's
Boogie Nights
Fargo
Sunshine State

Note: Not my favorite movies, just the ones I can watch ad nauseum

4 places I've lived:

Richmond, IN
Derry, Northern Ireland
Banner Elk, North Carolina
Durham, North Carolina

4 TV shows I love:

Northern Exposure
Daily Show
Entourage
BBC World News

4 places I've vacationed:

Siem Reap, Cambodia
Panajachel, Guatemala
Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina
Beijing

4 of my favorite dishes:

Macaroni and Cheese
Green salad with avocado and grapefruit
Pad See Ew (spelling?)
Chicken Kurma

4 sites I visit daily:
Google
Talking Points Memo
Baghdad Burning
The Poor Man

4 places I'd rather be right now:

This is kind of a complicated question right now.

4 people I tag:

Erik
Emily Who obviously fixed her blog, after I tried my best to fuck up all the formatting
Chris (Yeah, whatever, you don't have a blog, just put it down there in the comments)
Laure

Voluntario

El Centro, The school where I am a sometime English teacher, has a spiffy new website. I found the photographer!

Our Sarcastic Colleague from Massachusetts

Senator Kennedy said as he pleaded to keep the debate on the filibuster on Alito:

"What's the next measure on the calendar? Asbestos? Isn't that interesting?" he continued. "Anything more important than spending time and permitting the American people to understand this issue? I don't believe so."

Have to give him mad props for trying. The fuckers who voted yes on an up or down vote are worthless. Worthless.

Bad commercials

Yahoo keeps running little banner trailers for "Flight 93," the movie about September 11 that is coming on tonight on A&E. I know that this might be an debatable point, but I do not think the are ready for movies about this. It kind of makes my blood boil, actually. At the end of the day, a TV movie is a commercial venture. People make money off it. The network gets advertising dollars. The advertisers get sales. All the uses and abuses of 9/11 (The terror alert, Rovian claims about Democrats softness on terror to manipulate elections, the war in Iraq, and the disastrous consequences of subsuming FEMA under the newly created Department of Homeland Security following Hurrican Katrina) cheapen the acknowledgements and observances of 9/11 for me. It all, ultimately, feeds into jingoistic bluster. I do believe that the filmmakers took pains to make the film believable and into a worthy tribute to the people who died on the flight, but it is still a tv movie.

I'm just not ready.

From My Daily Extended Horoscope

"There's also a certain someone who's been trying desperately to get it across to you that they'd like some quality time alone with you. Pay attention to those subtle signals they're sending out. If you get together with them -- after you do your chores, of course -- you'll be headed toward a weekend to remember. "

Liars. Liars. All of them. There is no one trying to spend quality alone time with me. They have me confused with some other oblivious Capricorn.

I went to prom in that room

American Idol is in Greensboro, NC, my hometown. They are doing me proud, particularly that guy in the National Guard and the girl who sings like Billie Holiday. I never watch American Idol, but I am totally sucked in.

Catch-ie

Two fun albums:

Madonna's new one. Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah. Gimme some sun.

Ouch

Bedbugs are epidemic in the city. Please. Don't let them come here, God. I can't fucking take it. Just thinking about them makes my eyelids itch.