New refrigerator? Let´s have a party!

This whole week I´ve been in Zumbi working with FODI. It´s been a blast because I´ve been able to go to all of their communities and visit with the families. While doing this, I´ve interviewed the families as part of my first three month assignment...we have to get to know the communities and do ¨diagnostic researc.¨The results are pretty fascinating, like I´m surprised at how many moms use various methods of family planning (as we like to say down here...) and the majority are modern methods, not natural.

Anway, yesterday was a blast. We had a minga or ¨physical labor day¨. Usually this entitles massive cleaning of a building, organization, etc. We all crammed into a pick up truck and they took us to Nanguipa, a 20 minute drive into the campo. It´s the site of one of the FODI centers and was in serious need of a paint job. I´ve never painted a room before, and had actually put this on my list of things to do while in Ecuador. It´s hard work! But it was so much fun. We painted this bedroom a deep Pepto-Bismal color...they asked what color I thought it was and told them Pepto-Bismal but in a Spanish accent...because sometimes if you say a word in English, normally, they won´t understand you. But if you say it with a Spanish accent 9 times out of 10 they understand. But this time it didn´t translate...

We painted over the walls in the bathroom, which were, and I am not kidding, poop brown. I was like why would you a paint a bathroom to look like poop? Even though the pepto-bismal didn´t quite cover it...it was good enough. Ate some lunch, in the tiny kid chairs...I feel like such a giant. One kid kept asking me, seriously, why are you so big? The FODI girls got a kick out of this; they said it was because I ate all of my food. I told him I was really 6-years-old but because I eat all my food I´m this big...he didn´t get it.

After the minga, and covered in paint, we proceeded to San Pablo where they have another FODI center. I was there the day before doing interviews and had played with the kids, so they all remembered me. But the city of Zumbi was giving the center a refrigerator, so the parents and kids threw a little shindig. It was adorable, the 3 to 5-year-old girls all performed a dance, wearing little hoochie skirts and belly shirts and knee high boots. It was so cute! We got food and they served leche de tigre which is basically milk with liquor. GROSS...but I had to drink it.

With a few rounds of leche de tigre down, the parents took it upon themselves to dance. Traditional Ecuadorian beats were played and then the techno came on. They were all like Corrie! This is your people´s music...how do you dance? I was like, um well I´m not Cher but let´s have a go at it. It was hilarious, they were all mimicking me and seriously studying my feet. Total role reversal...little do they know how well I move my pompis to REAL American music.