And the site goes to....

SITE PRESENTATION DAY!

Today was a very emotional day for everyone, as we all received our sites for the next two years! Everyone was on pins and needles this morning, awaiting the news of our futures. CRAZY! Anyway, we had some sessions and then they split up the Youth and Families group and Health group to present our sites. They had a slideshow prepared for us and on each slide was the name of the site and an indication on the map. Then, magically next to the map appeared the volunteers picture. My name was called second to last...and they did it by region. The agony! Ok so now I have put you all through enough....drum roll please.

I AM GOING TO THE AMAZON! AKA: The rainforest!

I, for some reason, thought I was going to end up in the Sierra region, where it is cold and there are a ton of mountains, but this site totally caught me off guard. I am really, really excited. Super surprised, but in a good way. There are only three of us health volunteers in The Oriente: Me, Chris and Casey. Casey has her Masters in Public Health, so we pretty much knew her site. But she is located in Puyo, quite far from Chris and I. We are both located in the southern most province of Zamora, right on the border of Peru. My town, Yantzaza,* is actually a dual site and will be living there, as well as working in Zumbi. I will be working with the main hospital in Yantzaza, which is the biggest in the province, and doing a lot of sex education, work with community leaders, youth groups and there is even a youth radio program.

I am still quite shocked about it all. I talked to one of the program managers who said that they felt my personality was good for this site, as I seem to like adventure and this is definitely an adventure. Chris is located about 2 hours by bus from me, yet to get to his site you need to canoe.

After the site presentations, they drew out a giant map of Ecuador and everyone stood where they were located. Chris and I were on the only ones at the south and everyone is pretty much clustered towards the Coast and Sierra. I am so stoked though...this will be a great adventure. The weather is supposed to be hot and humid, a nice change of pace from here. We leave Saturday night for our site visits for a week. We need to leave Saturday night because it is a 17-hour trip from Quito! ¡AY YI YI! The one thing they said that could be an issue is loneliness, but I am going to make it my goal to meet as many locals and integrate into my community as much as possible. The site visit consists of us meeting with a current volunteer and then we stay with our new host families in our sites for the rest of the week. These new host families we will stay with our first three months in site, a new PC policy. My host family is actually my counterpart, a Doctora (female doctor) I will be working with in Yantzaza.

Some were not so happy with their sites, but everyone says no site is a bad site---it is what you make of it. AHH! I still cannot believe I am going to the rainforest!!!

*Sorry, I cannot find a map with the town on it, but I am a 2-hour bus ride from the city of Zamora. Oh and it is pronounced YANT SA SA.