Manzanilla

Some facts:
•    I made it!
•    The food is delicious (my host mom is an excellent cook!)
•    There are 25 trainees in my group, 6 men, 19 female.  Everyone is generally around my age and eager to be here.
•    I will be living in Tumbaco, a town 40 minutes from Quito while I am training.
•    I will not be an official Peace Corps Volunteer until the end of training on August 1st.
•    I moved in with my host family Saturday (more on this to come)
•    Training is 8 – 5 Monday through Friday at the PC center, a 20 minute bus ride from my home in Tumbaco.
•    Topics in training: safety and security, health, culture, language, technical skills specific to our programs…
•    Not even a week in and I was sick from both ends and with a fever… yikes!

I have been here for a little over a week, but it feels like much longer.  Last Thursday when I stepped of the plane the smell of Quito was the first thing that greeted me.  Who would have thought that burning trash, sewage, and exhaust could mix to create an aroma that was so welcoming to me.  It brought me right back to when I stepped off the plain 9 years ago.  I felt good getting a stamp on my passport and stepping through the door of the airport not hiding behind braces, bangs, and the insecurities of a freshman in high school.  I felt relaxed, excited, and ready to approach my time in Ecuador with a bit more education, experience and preparedness to deal with uncertainties.

We all hopped on a bus, bustled over to Tumbaco and went to bed in bunkrooms in the training center trying to process the fact that, indeed, we were in Ecuador and would remain here for the next 27 months.  The next morning began the start of orientation to Ecuador, training, and the Peace Corps.  In one of the breaks we were given throughout the day, I took a stroll on the street surrounding the training center.  In rounding a corner, I got my fist real view of Ecuador…  rolling hills, mountains in the distance, everything dotted with small farms and towns.  Nestled into the fold of two rolling mountains sat Quito, in the morning sun the tall buildings looked animated in the distance.  It reminded me of a giant snow globe (one with sparkles instead of flakes of snow).  
 
Saturday I moved in with my host family.  Rocio and Pedro are two of the most accommodating, bubbly people I have ever met and I am lucky enough to be living with them for the next ten weeks.  My Spanish is better then I expected and I can generally hold a pretty decent conversation, which has made the start of this host family experience different from ones I have had in the past.  This came in handy when I was one of the first volunteers to become sick from both ends and with a fever… what can I say, I guess I have a sensitive stomach, or maybe I got a little to excited about trying all the strange and interesting fruits in the market.  Rocio was very worried about me so I kept trying to assure her that I was happy get sick now to toughen up!  I got better in a few days and have been trying to get Rocio to let me help her more around the house.  Last night we made empanadas together… a green and yellow banana dough with a ground beef filling, delicious!

And so now to manzanilla, the thoughtful title of this post.  Manzanilla translates to chamomile, and I am referring to it here in the form that many know it best, chamomile tea.  Manzanilla is what connects in my mind and senses this new and exciting experience I am in to my previous travels to Ecuador.  In the past when returning from a Norfield Ecuador trip, many of us would stock up on a delicious Ecuadorian tea, manzanilla con miel.  Over the years we have brought so much of this tea home, that there where still boxes left in our cabinet before I left for the Peace Corps a little over a week ago.  Sipping this warm, naturally sweet tea over the years in the states has been an act for me accompanied by a small, happy memory of Ecuador.  It is therefore interesting to me that now, when I hold a cup of that same tea in my hands here in Ecuador I feel like I am connected to my friends and family at home in the US.  I guess that word, home, is starting to become more and more fluid.  And maybe for the moment manzanilla represents a feeling of home for me, a cozy, sweet link between my home in the US and what I hope to make as a home for myself here in Ecuador over the next 27 months.  This is what I thought about when I was running every 30 minutes to the toilet, sipping on manzanilla tea in the moments in-between.

I have today off from training because of a local holiday, which is why I have had time to record some thoughts here.  Our training schedule until August is PACKED!  I will do my best to update this in a few weeks and hope to include some pictures soon.