Family Planning?! HAH!

Made my first (somewhat) major gringa mistake. I worked in Zumbi today and after not really doing anything, decided to take the bus back to Yantzaza. Well, not decided but had to. I waited forever and then this bus came, which I assumed was going to Yantzaza. Ususally they yell the destination as people are boarding and usually I ask to verify they are going to that destination, but I was feeling cocky and just boarded without asking or hearing. Whoops. The bus definitely headed towards Loja---a three hour bus ride. I was like AHHH! LET ME OFF! And they did...luckily. I just felt really stupid as I did a walk of shame back to Zumbi.

But I double checked when I got on the Yantzaza bus...the little ecuadorian in the Metallica hat was nice enough to help me out.

This week has been exciting so far. On Monday I worked at the hospital and within 15 minutes of getting there, we got news there was an accident so Monica swooped me up (figuratively, I´m like 3 times her size) and we rode in the ambulance. It was a really bad bus accident; the bus driver tried to pass another bus, hitting a Pilsner (beer) truck and flipped on its side. There was beer and broken bottles all over the street and it was really scary seeing the bus on the side. Luckily no one died, but there were a lot of injuries. I believe they said 11-15 people. The driver of the bus ran away to the river to wash off his blood so as to escape conviction; that´s what Monica told me.

By the time we had gotten there, all of the victims had been transported to the hospital. The whole time we were driving there I was thinking what the hell do they expect me to do? Gracias a Dios I didn´t have to do anything.

Yesterday, on a lighter note, was cool. I went with the Zumbi ladies to two communities they do work with and help set up their new FODI centers. FODI is like a government preschool program that does outreach with families, as well. In the communities they serve, they have to have at least nine children, ages 0 to 5, attend and have a woman in the community serve as a ¨teacher.¨But she has to be attending high school, as well. So the first community, Triunfo, was cool...very rural. I got to do some interviews we are required to do the first three months in site. They are just diagnostic, but a good way of getting an idea of what the community needs. For both communities, it looks like water sanitation, trash removal and maternal health are the greatest needs.

The second community, Tuntiak, is a Shuar community. Shuar is one of the indigenous communities in Ecuador, mostly populated in the Amazon. So we get up there and I couldn´t understand half of what they were saying..later to find out it was in Shuar. This made me feel better. But we met in one of their traditional meeting huts, which was really neat and built with palm-like leaves and wood.

We are like 10 minutes into the meeting and a woman comes in, one of the community members has died and could we postpone the meeting for tomorrow. The coordinator from Zumbi looks at me like, what should we do, and I was like I have no idea! I have never been to an indigenous community before....it was crazy. All of the people in this community, though, looked at me like I was some blonde giant...I felt very much like what Christopher Columbus probably felt like when he stepped into the New World. Many of these people have not had much gringo contact. We resumed the meeting, however.

As I was interviewing these women though, it was hilarious. They were all joking and laughing around, half of them didn´t have their front teeth and all were wearing their guaguas on their backs. One question I asked was if anyone practiced family planning, and you would have thought I said the funniest thing in the world. It was crazy! They all either didn´t know or it wasn´t an option for them. Needless to say, this may be one of my first charlas with them.

Lastly, the FODI girls had to find a new teacher in this community. It was so hard, because all of the women wanted to work yet no one wanted to study and continue in high school. After a lot of stalling and awkward silence, one woman said she would but would have to talk to her husband to see if he would allow her to go to school. I had heard about this happening, but to actaully see it--women asking their husbands for permission--was another thing.