Tumbaco Life

I am realizing pretty quickly that my time here training in Tumbaco is going to be a completely different experience in Ecuador then the time I will have for my two years in site.  For one, I spend the days in training with my fellow Peace Corps Trainees.  It has been fun learning about everyone’s lives leading up to May 16th.  In the morning, the bus I catch to the training center jerks along picking up other local Tumbacians and PC Trainees.  I don’t know how everyone fits, it is like a clown car, we all cling to bars or handles scanning for empty seats slamming into one another the whole time from the rugged stop and go.  So, within a three-week period all of us PC Trainees have gotten very close, both in sharing stories and aspirations, and in understanding a very different concept of personal space.    

Life here has started to fall into a steady routine.   In writing this I am trying to thinking back to a month ago when Ecuador and the Peace Corps seemed like such a mystery.  I had so many questions about what Tumbaco would look like, whom I would be spending my days with, what would I be eating…  Now I find myself shrugging and thinking, of course this is how it would be. 

My Room!  Note, my recently purchased guitar which I have named ‘Blacky’ for its o-so-stylish rendered black edging.  When I asked Pedro if he knew of anywhere I could get a guitar, he wipped out the phone book, we all hopped in the car, twenty minutes later I came home with Blacky.  My days are divided with training and time with my host family.  When at home with my host family this is generally where I hang out.  Studying, practicing guitar, or chatting with Rocio.  She often comes into my room and we talk about our days while hanging out on my bed.  At 7:30ish we usually sit down for some Manzanilla con Miel (Chamomile and Honey) tea, and a snack of rice, chicken, and potatoes.  Pedro is turning me into a major Ecuador soccer fan, and Rocio likes to question me about the strange ways I cook quinoa.  She only uses it in soups, which is the custom here.

  Training Center.  In training we have been doing a lot of traveling to Quito and nearby school to start to get comfortable working with youth in a variety of different social situations.  Training is divided up between technical training and language and in moments in between we are learning about all sorts of crazy illnesses, and safety and security issues.

   

Rocio, Me, and Pedro... on our way back from the hot spring in Papallacta.  The hour drive through the mountains was beautiful, the natural hot springs were delightfully warm, and afterwards we enjoyed a lunch of fish, rice, and potatoes.  All in all, a great day.

Achotillo (left)... I am not sure if I spelled that correctly and I do not know of any english translation.  BUT, this little fruit is my favorite among the many interesting ones I have come across in the past few weeks.  You break open the spiky shell and squeeze the little white fruit into your mouth.  It has a pit like an olive and the texture of a what I can only think of as a hard to chew grape.  Simply wonderful!  Above to the right are tree tomatoes.  Besides blackberry juice, tree tomato juice is my favorite.  Rocio makes it almost every morning.

Quito... Last weekend I joined three friends on a bus tour of Quito.  This was one of our views. 

View on the way back from Papallacta.