we did site placements yesterday!  I´m the new RdC logistics coordinator, which means I´m basically Megan´s assistant.  she´s the in-country director of RdC.  I oversee ecuadorian staff and retreat groups and make sure everything´s running smoothly and work with all our sites where we have volunteers so I´ll get to learn more about all the foundations we work with in duran and guayaquil, and I´ll get to know both neighborhoods where we have houses.  I´m pretty pumped about it. 

today we´re learning the buses…by ourselves…which means riding the buses around the city until we find all the places we´re supposed to be able to find and then going to the malecon for fun and surprises. 

oh yeah, and I´ve also eaten pan de yuca, and crap tons of different fruits.  I keep seeing things that look like persimmons.  do they have persimmons here?  como se dice persimmon en español?

I´m in Ecuador!  I´ve been in orientation forever (and still am) so I haven´t had internet or phone access, but am beginning to have free time and have snuck off to a cyber. 

it´s a bit ridiculous.  for the first few days I was so exhausted that it didn´t really all sink in.  at times I still feel a bit like I´m not sure what I´m supposed to be feeling.  one of our first days  here we were walking around with the former volunteers and I noticed that a lot of the houses have pieces of plywood or bark or cane out front painted with the names of their children so I asked the former volunteers why that was.  they told me that it´s for Children´s International or the like, the organizations through which you in the states can pay a dollar a day and help a child in need.  it kind of made me look around and think you know, that´s where I´m living/working.  these kids come to our programs without shoes or clothes that fit because they don´t have shoes or clothes.  they live in invasion communities built on top of trash dumps.  when they ask for an extra banana at snack time, they aren´t being greedy, they´re concerned about their family members at home who won´t get that extra food.  ok, some kids are being greedy cause they´re kids, but in reality this is extreme poverty.  it´s way different. 

that being said, we work in three different neighborhoods in Duran and I live in the most developed of the three (Antonio Jose de Sucre).  houses are  mostly concrete, not cane, and streets are paved.  RdC is planning on closing this house in the next couple of years and opening a new one in a newer invasion community in Guayaquil.  The other place where RdC has a house (Arbolito) is the next most developed, and then we run an after school program in another neighborhood, 28 de Agusto, which is the least.  and by least developed, I mean seriously. 

oh yeah, and food.  we eat a lot of rice and beans and fruit.  I have had jugo de tomate del arbol, and it was good.  interesting…cause it´s tomatoy and fruity.  we´ve also had a yellow fruit which you break open and suck the seeds out of that I can´t recall the name of…starts with a g?  I keep meaning to write it down.  it´s also pineapple season.  heck yes.  and a lot of oranges.  apparently the holy trinity of ecuaadorian cooking is onion, green pepper, and tomato.  everything has those three things in it.  and they cook with a lot of cumin.  we do a bread run every morning to our local panaderia, which only has white bread but we hear a rumor of a close by panaderia that has whole wheat but we´ll have to see if we can afford it.  oh, and we had these potato pancakes that were mashed potatoes, formed into balls, cheese stuffed in the middle, flattened and fried.  basically just like our potato pancakes but with cheese in the middle, so I was pretty much a fan.  and cerviche.  we made that one night with shrimp and lots of lime and onion and tomato.  I took a picture and will post it as soon as I find a safe way to get my pics online.

tomorrow is the big day, the day when we spend all day traveling from cleveland to duran!

we fly from cleveland to nyc to miami to guayaquil.  apparently there’s one flight from miami to guayaquil daily, everyday in the evening sometime (I’m guessing around 5).  we’re supposed to get into ecuador around 9, and I’m told it’s a four hour flight.  cake.

tonight there’s a crazy social in the lounge with doritos and twizlers and m&ms and cheetos and potato chips and american beer.  all the junk foods people will miss…I think the point is to make yourself so sick that you couldn’t face doritos for a year?  I dunno. 

anyway, when next I post I will be in south america, never carrying anything valuable and trying not to look like I have any money, which should not be hard considering that I won’t actually have any.  seriously, rob me and be very disappointed.

soooo yeah.  I’m still at orientation.  but only four more days in the US!  freak out! 

we just had two days of silent retreat at a retreat house in PA.  it was nice, but the grounds were kind of small so I kept running into people.  it was no Gethsemani, where I wandered in the woods for hours and never saw another person (and then worried about tripping and hurting myself and never being found again…) but it was nice and there was a porch with rocking chairs so had a peaceful nice time.  gave me time to transition and put my mind in order and such.  they required us to go to spiritual direction and three talks though, which annoyed me.  I perfer spiritual direction to be optional, and I don’t like doing it with some random person I’m never going to see again.  the first time you go to a spiritual director is usually just getting to know you stuff anyway.  you never get into the good stuff until you’ve established a relationship. 

the rest of this week is practial workshops on counseling and teaching and social work stuff.  should be…not so fun.  I’m ready to get started already.  I hear our house in Ecuador has a porch, btws.

ok so here’s the way it works.  there are two houses, one with seven people and one with five.  I’ll be living in the house of five with four other ladies (found out today).  two different neighborhoods.  we have two different work sites, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  usually the afternoon one is an afterschool program.  we won’t decide specific work sites until we get to Duran and visit the places and such. 

my community members for next year are Kasia, Elyse, Melissa, and Lauren.  I’ll most likely be talking about them, so note the names.