¡Que Viva Alausi!

Happy November!!  I can’t believe Thanksgiving is NEXT week…and then only 3 weeks until I come to the states! I’m actually really excited to visit.

These past several weeks have flown by.  I thought I’d give you an update of how my projects are going.

Community Youth Group

A quick side trip to the Lakes in Atillo after a workshop

This is the group I’ve been working with basically since the beginning.  They are still really eager to keep working in the communities even though they have no budget.  I’ve been working a lot with them individually teaching them how to use excel to set up budgets and also helping them write formal letters to organizations like UNFPA, the Consejo Provincial (which would be the equivalent of a state level organization), the Ministry of Economic and Social inclusion and the town government.  They are learning a lot about how much work actually goes into planning an event that only lasts a few hours.  Our first big event will hopefully be some kind of coordination with the Hospital in Alausí for World Aids Day.

Youth Group in Alausí

Since World Vision is pulling out of this area, and starting this fiscal year (which began October 1) has practically no functioning budget, there hasn’t been as much work for me.  I had spoken to the director of UNFPA a while ago about starting a youth group in the town of Alausí, and that is finally starting to get underway.  I’ve started working with one of the doctors at the hospital, Dr. Nancy Pachacama.  We are now in the process of collaborating with ALL of the colegios in Alausí to get some youth leaders and to get them school credit for their work with us (a little incentive for them to participate).  I’m really excited about it and Dr. Nancy is really helpful and motivated—albeit SUPER busy…which is almost kind of nice because she doesn’t really have time to do a lot of the organizing so I get to plan EVERYTHING the way I want to.

Colegio Classes

At the river near the colegio

I am still working in Huanca Pallaguchi (pronounced Wonka Payaguchy just FYI).  I go every Thursday this year.  So far this year it’s been mas o menos. The kids are now really comfortable with me, which is great.  When I have their attention, I feel they learn and we have a lot of fun.  However, that also means that they treat me like every other teacher, not a special guest.  That is to say, they are no longer always on their best behavior with me.  Recently we’ve had some discipline and class cutting issues.  The problem is that the director and the other teachers don’t care.  When the kids don’t show up to class, great! That means a free hour of not having to work for them.  There is no kind of accountability by either the teachers or the students.  If they learn, they learn; if they don’t, oh well.  This attitude is really hard to fight.  I almost understand where the teachers are coming from.  They travel 6 hours everyday to and from work.  It’s freezing cold and rainy.  The road to get to the school makes everyone car sick (including me) it’s so curvy—worse when it’s covered in mud and landslides.  The students don’t care and really don’t have the foundation of education from their infancy to be stellar students, so teaching and getting them to understand is often a struggle.  No doubt, working in a community colegio is hard work, but it’s not impossible.  These kids deserve a quality education and they deserve someone to inspire them to finish school.  I just did an activity with them asking them about their dreams in life.  The kids who had worked with World Vision basically just regurgitated what World Vision tells them to dream, but when I asked them what that meant they had no idea.  The kids who have never worked with World Vision, however, didn’t even understand.  Even when I made it as simple as “What’s one cool thing you want to do in your life?” They just stared blankly.  No one has ever taught these kids how to dream.  No wonder they get pregnant at 14 or 15.  They are taught that life just happens and you take it as it comes, not that they have the power to choose the path they follow.  I’m hoping that poco a poco I can change maybe a few ideas about this, especially with the girls. There are a few girls that I’ve gotten really close with, so hopefully they will take some of what I teach to heart.  Only time will tell though.

I am also still working with the Colegio Alausi.  I go once a week and work with different groups of around 20 kids at a time.  So far, we have just talked about stereotypes and breaking social constructs of what certain types of people should and should not do…which again is hard.  The sex ed stuff is easy.  It’s basically straight biology.  The self-esteem building and behavior change work is an entirely different game.  But I am enjoying it.  And like I said, there is no possible way that every single student is going to change their ideas and behaviors, but maybe a few will and hopefully even more will at least be able to step up and start protecting themselves against unplanned pregnancies and STIs.  Again, only time will tell.

Anita was a pro at rolling balls of dough

English Classes

Pati learning to make dough

I talked about this a while ago, but I’ve been giving English lessons at the VP of COCACH’s house on Monday evenings.  It’s a group of about seven 11 and 12 year olds (and some little ones who really just come to be with their older siblings).  I basically just make up English lessons as I go and sometimes I help them with their homework.  Although, they’ve realized that I won’t just do their homework for them, so sometimes they don’t ask anymore.  It’s fun. We sing and play around a lot more than we learn, but the kids keep coming and are excited about it, so I keep teaching.  I really wasn’t sure how much the kids were actually learning, but then the other day when we had class, quarterly grades were out.  All the kids told me that they were failing English before they started class with me, but now they have the equivalent of what would be a C on our grading scale.  Not great, but still an improvement!  They also really want to try American food, so a couple weeks ago we made tacos (which I know is technically not American food, but it’s a foreign concept to them).  They LOVED it.  Even the boys were cooking.  At first one of the boys said that they boys couldn’t help because only girls cook, but I told him that the boys couldn’t eat unless they helped cooked, so that attitude quickly changed.  They were tortilla making machines!  They also couldn’t believe that you could make an entire meal without using a boat load of oil and lard (a major part of Ecuadorian cuisine and a huge contributing factor to the malnutrition here).  So not only did we have a delicious meal, we did some English stuff (i.e. “Gladys, What are you doing?”  “I am mixing flour and sugar”) and we also fit in a little gender equality and nutrition lesson. 

Daniel, Enrique and Trancito rolling tortillas with empty vodka bottles--we didn't have a rolling pin

Fiestas!

This is also fiesta time in Ecuador.  The first week of November is All Saints Day, All Souls Day and the fiestas of Cuenca, which are celebrated on a national level.  So basically, 5 day weekend!  For All Saints Day and All Souls Day, they make this drink called colada morada which is basically a think juice type drink made from blackberries and the Ecuadorian version of blueberries with chunks of pineapple and cinnamon in it.  It’s delicious.  Last year I helped make it, this year I just helped drink it—and a lot of it.  You eat it with bread in the shape of babies, called guaguas de pan, also incredibly delicious.  The point of this tradition is to share it with loved ones (past and present, you even go to the cemeteries to remember the dead with your colada).  Before leaving for the long weekend, I shared this delicious drink and bread with a couple of different friends in the communities, with the people I work with and with my good friend at the hotel.  I didn’t know she had it, but when I showed up to hang out (aka catch up on the town gossip) she had some waiting for me.  It’s such a nice tradition and I’m really glad she thought of me when she was sharing her colada.   

For the long weekend a couple of friends and I went backpacking in Cajas National Park which is just outside of Cuenca.  The ride down was…interesting to say the least.  Since basically the whole country wants to go to the fiestas in Cuenca (they are pretty awesome I do have to say), the buses are packed…not even standing room.  Several buses passed me by because there was no more room to even stand.  I ended up getting a ride in the back of a truck with about 5 other women who were headed to the town of Chunchi.  In the back of the truck we were chatting and it came out that I work in Sexual and Reproductive Health.  They instantly had so many questions for me.  We spent the next 45 min. having a makeshift sex ed lesson.  It was pretty cool.  I’ve actually since run into a few of the women who continue to ask me questions when we see each other.  In Chuchi I had to beg my way onto a bus.  In Ecuador, if you really want something, you have to get this whiny voice and suck up hard core.  It’s incredibly annoying and I generally don’t do it (hence why I usually get ripped off). The begging and whining I did to get onto this bus would have made any Ecuadorian proud. “No sea mailto.  Porfis, solo soy unita.  Tenga la buendad.  Haga el favorcito. No sea mala gente.” Finally, someone let me on their bus.  There was barely enough room for me to even stand for the next 3 hours.

Trail across the river next to an beautiful lake

From Cuenca, Kellie and I set out early to get to the park.  We started on the far end of the park—at about 4500m in altitude.  It was pretty cold, but we had good weather (for once!!).  Supposedly, it even snows in Cajas, so we were prepared for the worst.  The sun was shining, making the views of the lakes that kept popping up over the hills absolutely breathtaking.  We were still pretty high when we set up camp that night.  We had been hoping to meet up with some friends who had set out a day earlier, but we didn’t quite make it.  The next morning we set out early and found our friends around 9 am.  We spent the entire day hiking.  We had to trek through some pretty intense mud, brush and trees for a while, then dropped about 1000m or so very quickly from the high paramo (moors) down into the valley below.  The trail was pretty steep and involved some shimmying down trees (which is Needless to say, I’m glad we hiked DOWN the mountain, not up.  We ended up in the most gorgeous valley I’ve ever seen, complete with a river running through it and a quiet lake at the end with a dock.  Probably one of the most perfect views there is.

The group--I'm the tiny one in the lime green jacket

Camp in the valley next to the river

Me and Kellie standing in paja--by far our favorite type of terrain*

*That is a joke.  Paja is AWFUL to walk through, but we always manage to find it on every hike we do.

This last weekend was also fiestas in Alausí.  191 years of independence (here they celebrate the independence of individual cities, not the country as a whole). I spent the weekend dancing the night away with friends here, eating delicious foods, watching the bulls (because no fiesta is complete without a bunch of drunk guys playing with angry bulls) and catching up with people I haven’t seen in a while.  Saturday night, there was a meeting for all of the indigenous churches in the area.  I’ve never seen so many indigenous people together in one coliseum before.  Their bright colored ponchos and baetas (the traditional clothing) filled the stadium.  I saw a lot of people I knew there and some of my kids from the youth groups sang for everyone.  It was really cool.  After that, my site mate (I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it or not, but a new PCV just came to Alausí so we hang out sometimes) and I went to a reggaeton festival at the chauffeur’s union.  Quite a contrast from the indigenous event we had just been at, but still fun. This year my organization wasn’t in the parade, so I just watched.  But it was great to see a lot the people I know from Alausí in the parade. 

I’m not quite sure what my Thanksgiving plans are, but I’m really hoping Turkey is involved.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!