Must be giardia...

We found out our sites! Mine is in Napo province en el Oriente working with marketing and tourism in caves and aiding in the distribution of tilapia production. I will also be teaching the cave guides english. I am sort of replacing another volunteer who has been working with the caves and will be leaving in a month so hopefully that will make my transition smoother! Last week we had our mid-term evals. I am now advanced bajo in spanish and passing training with all 2’s and 3’s. Here is a recap of my visit to my site: The folks heading to Quito first met up around 7:00 am to catch the bus Sunday morning. Once in quito, we split into provincial groups and those going to Napo headed out.. I arrived at my site around 3:30 where my counterpart Luis was waiting for me! The married couple that has been doing some things with the caves were also there and so they took me on a tour of the complex – a pool, waterslide, caves that go for miles, housing for visitors and a sports field. We then watched the Ecuador-brasil futbol game, which Ecuador technically lost, and I went into town with one of the girls to grab some dinner. I got back, hung up my mosquito net as best I could, and went to bed. Monday was super fun. I went into the jungle where Pedro (my counterpart’s father in law??) has some land. He showed me the tilapia ponds beside his house, I met his ‘mujer’ Teresa, who speaks only a little Spanish and mostly kichwa, and we all trekked into the jungle to see all the amazing fruits and see the animal traps he had set up. It was super hot but I got to eat tons of crazy fruits. I got back, had lunch, and Luis took me to the caves! Good thing I have a headlamp that is waterproof. (Thanks bob and susan!) it was super chevere to go caving in Ecuador and know that I can go into the caves anytime I want. The caves go for quite a while and to see them all would take over a day. Luis took me to the waterfall and we went swimming because there is tons of water in the caves. It was super cool caving barefoot, I must admit. I ate dinner and then hung out with the people of the community for a bit. Tuesday, I went back up into the jungle with Luis, Pedro, Ramon and Carlos. Carlos is a recent graduate of UVA with an architecture degree that is serving him better in Ecuador than it would in the states. He had come to Ecuador in January with some friends and met Luis on the cave tour and decided to come back down to help out with the cabanas Luis wants to build in the jungle. So, I have a new English speaking friend who will hopefully be there for a few months. After mapping out and machete-ing and measuring for the cabanas, we had lunch and Luis took us to a place he used to work. It is a super cool hostal/lodge that is made up of about 30 different cabanas way high up on the mountain overlooking the river. You can see three volcanoes from the balcony, and there are hammocks and it is amazing. I will highly suggest that if anyone comes to visit me, they stay there. It was pimp. Wednesday morning I finally gave in and decided to shower. But, surprise, when it doesn’t rain much or the guy that owns the land with the water pipes decides to shut off the water, t here is no running water. So there I was, bathing like an indigenous woman in the cave’s river with my bucket and soap. It was actually kind of fun. I figure I’ll be bathing that way quite a bit, along with washing my clothes in the river. In the morning the other volunteers came to get me and showed me their projects – dry toilets, raising chickens, etc, I met the director of the school, ate lunch in Tena and finally showered in a legitimate shower with running water and everything. It was probably the best shower I have had in over a month even if there wasn’t hot water. I met the missionary family from Ohio that is living in my town and we headed back into Tena to meet up with the other trainees for dinner. I stayed over at the volunteers’ house and caught the bus the next morning! It was a long trip home, but I was glad to get here. Friday morning we had a ‘minifiesta’ in class for making it through half of training. We even got Dunkin’ Donuts. The rest of the day was spent sharing about our site visits and in the afternoon we actually had a session on inter-cultural marriage. I suppose that could be important because so many PCVs marry ecuadorians! Saturday morning we had our first Kichwa lesson. Kichwa is difficult to learn because it has nothing to do with English or Spanish. It’s just its own language. We got a good first crash course on it and will learn more this week. We have one more week of training, a technical trip for a week, another week of training, and then a week in Quito for swear-in before moving to our sites! Sunday I went back into town to pick up a few things and lunch with my amigos. Then my entire family skyped me. Try talking to nine people at once! Apologies for not updating more often, I will probably update next after our technical trip so you will just have to sit there in suspense for the next two weeks. Bahaha. (the picture is of my new pet tarantula, paulina, that lives in my room on my wall...)