It's official---now we are Peace Corps Volunteers

April 23 Lucy and I were sworn in as volunteers at the Ambassador's residence last week. It was an uplifted atmosphere with everyone dressed up. There were some terrific speeches and one of the volunteers even composed a song for the occasion. Lucy had to wear sunglasses because her eye was very red from a broken capillary. I wore them too in solidarity. The view from the residence was astounding with a valley leading out to Volcan Cayambe. This was the first day in weeks that the sun was shining and it wasn't raining. After we swore allegiance to our country and to the values Peace Corps stands for, we were lucky enough to receive a tour of the Ambassador's residence from the Ambassador's husband. Lucy and I and a couple of other volunteers are meeting with the ambassador near our site in a few weeks. The ambassador is retiring soon and is being replaced by another woman. There's a photo here of me with our beautiful language teachers.....Cisa, Teresa, Carmen, Alexandra, and Silvana. Chevere!

Presently we're studying Kichwa with Jose who you will see in later photos. Lucy's eye is looking better so we are going out to our site to live at the end of this week. We are feeling both anxiousness and anticipation for our life in San Bernardo/Sasapud. It will be a challenge to live there we know, but we also know the people are resilient and generous. We'll keep you updated.

kaya kama,

Craig

Photos from Chimborazo.

Here we are with our Agriculture Program director. The next photos in order are: vicuna (ecuatorian deer that live in the highland paramo), an alpaca or is it a llama?, two photos from a cacao processing plant.



They gave us a free sample of chocolate (pasta de cacao) and we used it to make no-bake chocolate cookies for our host family in Tabacundo. Yumm
We leave for Quito to swear in on the 16th. Then we will be in Quito for one more week of Kichwa language training. On the 24th we leave to live in San Bernardo, which will be our site' south of Riobamba for the next 2 years.
Thanks for your comments. We look forward to more. Overall we are very happy but at times feel lonely for all of you.

April 1-4 training trip Rio Bamba

Craig and I are in Rio Bamba this week with 10 other "aspirantes". We are staying in a nice hotel and during the day we go out to various agricultural sites or farms and learn ag practices. On Monday we went to one of Craig and my sitios, San Bernardo. It is 1 and a half hours from Rio Bamba.
It´s beautiful, very rural, very little traffic and the air is clean. The things that are worrying us a bit are the steep slopes for farming. They are hardworking people and our counterpart is a great hardworking go getter Kichwa man, well respected in the community and also he´s by Kichwa teacher. The paths going up to the little fields were steep and slippery cuz it had rained that morning. It was challenging getting up and down and fortunately we paused often to catch our breath.So that is one worry, getting up and down those slopes without falling !!
The first few months we are supposed to live with the family of our counterpart. I didnñ´t go in the house but it looks kind of on the small side. We´ll see how that goes. I am a bit tired of living with a family but I´m sure it will help us integrate and all that. So then we get our own house. The young guy we are repalacing livied in a shack and he climbed a ladder to get to it and his bathroom was down the ladder in the community building below.
We will not be living there thank goodness. There is a house (very run down) that our counterpart has bought with the idea of fixing it up for us to live in and for his family to use somehow in the futur5e someday. It looks very rundown to me. Another possibility is that there is a clinic in the town with a few rooms to rent and I heard that that is rather new and nice but we didn´t have time to go and see it. There aren´t any stores or tiendas in the town so we will have to walk 1/2 hour or take a bus to Rio Bamba to buy things. The former volunteer went to Rio Bamba almost every week. So I guess the site looks like it will take some time to get used to. We certainly won´t be in the most comfortable site.
The people seemed very friendly and warm. On a sad note, a 13 yr old boy from the community was hit by a truck on the highway (out of San Bernardo 45 min.) I´m not sure what he was doing out on that highway . He was with a friend. So now the whole community is mourning cuz he died.
They just got hooked up to internet in that community and the P.C. volunteer before us and his sister in the U.S. have helped the people have a web site so see if you can find it on line. It would be something like www.sanbernardo.com or maybe you need to say ecuador too. I´ve got to go. We are all going out to dinner somewhere. RioBamba is great. Lots of places to eat, some museums, great markets and shops and yes there is a touristy, scenic train where people sometime sit on the roof. Chimborazo mountain is in site when the clouds go away and it is awesome!!!! Love, Lucy

March 20, 2008 Semana Santa

Lucy and I finally got an afternoon off from training. Last weekend we went to visit our former exchange student, Miguel, and his family in Ambato. We had a great time and were welcomed as family. On the way back from Quito Lucy had her backpack slashed on the bus (nothing taken as we took precaution not to take many valuables with us). This week we went with our fellow aspirantes to a volcanic lagoon about an hour north of here and hiked for nine miles around it at an altitude of over 10,000 feet. It was probably the most beautiful lake I've ever seen. Now everyone is preparing for Easter. The special food is already being served. Tomorrow will be a grand procession imitating the coming of Jesus into Jerusalem on a donkey and being adored by the people before he is executed. We heard quite the sermon on this (last week outside of Ambato) from a priest who is a friend of Miguel's family.
Saturday we head to Puerto Quito for more training at a finca over there. I'll try to load some pictures of the vistas from the house we are living in here in Tabacundo. The snow-covered volcano is Cayambe and the equator runs thru it. There are also pics of me with Miguel and another of Lucy and Miguel's brother and mother. Tenga una linda fin de semana.
Craig

February 29, 2008 in Tabacundo

Hola to everyone! Craig and I have been in Tabacundo, Ecuador for three weeks now. We are living with a fantastic family the same age as us. They have a 16 year old son. We have enjoyed a lot together so far . . . cooking pancakes, pizza, dancing in the living room, doing Yoga and LuJong every morning at 6:30 a.m. and long conversations about this that and everything. Our Spanish is improving, I think, even though somedays it seems to go backwards. Also, I am learning Kichwa, a native american language that is spoken widely in Ecuador.
This is my first attempt at starting a blog. One of our fellow Peace Corps aspirantes told me to just go to the site and follow the directions and it would be "easy". We´ll see.
Training here in Tabacundo is full-time, Monday to Friday and sometimes includes weekend excursions. At night, we converse and eat with our host families and we also have other homework assignments. Truthfully, it is exhausting. They say that once we get to our sites (April 15) that we will be wishing we had more to do. We´ll see about that too. At any rate, the training is excellent and valuable for our success as Peace Corps volunteers.
Today, the highlight was a visit by the U.S. Ambassador to Ecuador. She spoke very eloquently about U.S. involvement in Ecuador over the 3 years that she has been here. Then there was time for questions. Craig and I questioned her about WHINSEC and expressed our concern about this School of the Americas. Her opinion was not in agreement with ours but rather that the school is of benefit to Ecuador and that they currently have 20 or 30 students there. At any rate, expressing our concerns brought the topic out and many of our fellow aspirantes spoke to us gratefully afterwards.
Well, this is my first entry. I will try to bring some photos soon and see if I can get them onto this blog. Hasta pronto. -Lucy