Que descanse en paz

This has been a trying week, and I have never realized the power of family and community until now.

As most of you probably know, I have been ¨dating¨ an Ecua, Panelita (aka Little Brown Sugar), off and on for the past eight months or so. His father was diagnosed with liver cancer a mere two months ago and then Tuesday night, his father passed away. I had known he had been battling this and Panelita was by his side the whole time. Going to other cities to buy medicines that might help him, taking him to doctors appointments in Loja... Panela was really stepping up to the plate to help his father.

There are seven kids in the family, and Panela is the only male here in the country, the rest are in Spain. Therefore, Panela had to basically take care of everything. His one sister Silvia came back from Spain and was helping out too. It was bizarre because his mother was helping but was definitely in the background, demonstrating the machismo culture that is still strong here.

Tuesday night he called me to tell me that they took him to the hospital, that he was having trouble breathing. And then later that night he passed away. I never thought this would really affect me, but I have been almost haunted by the funeral events.

I attended everything, because not only am I his girlfriend, but I am very good friends with the family, especially his neice Belén who I give classes to in the school.

So that next day, they did the traditional viewing, however it was at their house. They had taken down the door to his room and had put his coffin along with the plastic flower arrangements and fans, to keep the body from decomposing. The heat was unbearable, and normally they have a viewing for three days but had to bury him the next day because it wouldn´t withstand the heat. With the viewing, they set up tents in front of the house and people come to just sit and watch the coffin. I think the idea is to be with the family and comemorate the dead. I went and stayed four hours, just sitting there. It was pretty creepy because the body was just about 10 feet away from me. Belén asked me if I wanted to see the body, as people were arriving, opening the casket and looking inside, and then moving on. I politely declined.

I got to know his dad, he was a surly fellow and had his ¨vices¨ as you could say. Apparently he was a heavy drinker and gambled a lot, especially on roosters which he raised for cock fights. But he was always polite to me, slightly hitting on me everytime I saw him....like father like son.

So after sitting with the family Wednesday night, Thursday they had the mass and burial. I rushed to the mass after giving classes, which was said without any microphones since there wasn´t any electricity. Once it was over, everyone marched with the body to the mosoleum in Yantzaza. Very few are buried in the ground, most are placed in these brick walls they construct. Belén was so distraught, I carried her up the hill. I felt so helpless, I wanted to do something but there was nothing I could do. The whole family was a wreck.

We got to the spot where they were going to put him, and everyone gave one last look. There were tears everywhere; it was really, really difficult for me to be there. I have only been to one funeral, of my grandfather, and this was just as hard if not harder for me to witness. It was harder in the sense that this cancer had gotten to him so quickly, I think many were surprised at what had just happened. Also what really hurt me, was that they tried so hard to keep him alive, only for him to die a mere two months later. They had given him so many remedies, even snake soup which one señora had said cured cancer.

The heat was so great, many people were huddling under what little shade was there. One thing that was mildly amusing, however, was amongst all this grief, the Bon Ice man managed to sneak up and sell his popsicles. Bon Ice are these ice pops sold for 10 cents and you see a Bon Ice man everywhere, in these silly blue jumpsuits. But they had followed the funeral procession and proceeded to sell popsicles at the burial! I was like this is unbelievable.

After the burial, they invited me back to their house for lunch. When someone dies, people give bread and rice to the grieving family. They had received so much food, and had hired a señora to cook for them that day. But there was definitely a lighter air to the house when we got back. It was still really sad and depressing, but in a way I think all were relieved. Relieved that these 36 hours had come and gone, relieved that the dad is no longer suffering and is at peace. But the best part was that we had not even been home two hours, and they were giving away the roosters his dad raised for the cock fights. Those things were SO annoying, constantly crowing and making whole lotta racket. A couple people had come to the house and were taking the roosters away in rice sacks and some in the special cases he used to carry them. Some of the sisters were mad that they weren´t selling them, but Panela said that his dad asked they give them away. Papi wasn´t even buried three hours and they were already giving away the roosters.

I was incredibly exhausted after all that had happened. It was just so much for me to handle, and most of the time I had no idea what to do or how I could help. But in the end I think just being there really helped.

Panela and I are a lot closer now. We spent the day together, went to a motorbike race in Zamora and then the farm animal competition, because the province is in fiestas (56 years of provincialization). But yesterday we were driving around and he just stopped the car and started crying. I realized how much I love this community and its people and in a way, don´t know how I am going to leave them.

It was an experience I would never wish on anyone, and one that I am definitely going to remember for the rest of my life. I am so grateful for the friendships I have, both here and in the US, and most of all for my family that is constantly supporting me.

Halloween Cuenca style

Halloween was great this year! A bunch of us traveled up to Cuenca to experience a crazy night of costumes and well....craziness.

It was a decent turn-out. We got screwed by the original hotel that was going to host us. They canceled on us last minute, and later we found out they stole our idea of a Halloween party and ended up hosting their own party to the public. Some were nervous about trampsing around Cuenca in our costumes, but it turned out to be a lot of fun and luckily Cuenca is a big enough city some people were dressed up too.

It was great seeing everyone and Cuenca is a great city. This was my first time there (it´s a 5-hour trip from Loja). Definitely want to make my way back. Got to see a Panama Hat factory, which Panama hats are originally FROM Ecuador. A bunch of churches as well; there are 52 churches, one for every Sunday of the year. Also got to see the Jefferson Perez statue. He is Ecuador´s claim to fame, their only Olympic athlete, won the gold medal in ´96 I believe, for speed walking...of all things. But the statue is actually really poorly made...poor guy did all this for his country and they made a really shitty memorial of him.

Here are some pictures!

Here we are as Clan MacGregor, a popular whisky brand here. It´s me, Grigs, Chris and Andy who lives in Vilcabamba. We were quite the sight walking around. I was the wench of the group.


Me and Alea, who is from my group. She lives in the province of Manabi, so she dressed up a a Manabita, wearing their traditional dress and a big flower in her hair.


Day of the Dead breads. They make these for the 2nd of November, representing little people. I´m not sure why they make them little people, but they eat them this time of year. I got gifted some yesterday, quite yummy! The tradition is that on the Day of the Dead, everyone goes to the cemetary to visit family members. They paint the tombs over and clean up the cemetaries.

She Wolf

Shakira has hit Yantzaza and has hit it hard. We are now in She Wolf mode.

I realize that this ridiculously addicting song has probably been in the States for a while now, but us down in the jungle are feeling that She Wolf in the armario and letting it out so it can breathe (check out the song if you don´t know what I´m talking about).

Grigs got back last weekend from Quito, where he got a taste of the real world and reality and was able to snatch up the new Shakira CD. I totally underestimated this kid´s ¨great obsession¨ for Shakira. I mean, I´m a great fan...but whoa! Grigs could definitely compete on a MTV quiz show. ANYWAY, he brings this little cd to my attention and it just BLEW ME AWAY! Ha. It´s been a while since I´ve been introduced to new beats...but it´s amazing the ripple effect it has had.

So while we were listening to the new cd in my house, my nosy but adorable little neighbor, Delia, and her friend Stefany, got a hold of it and we just jammed out. They come over two days later, Grigs happened to be there as well, and they had bought the Shakira DVD so we were experiencing the video too! It was a horrible bootleg but great to see the moves Shakira makes, which we quickly imitated, all in hopes of someday being a quarter as sexy as Shakira is.

Side note: Grigs was over in Yantzaza with his guitar, helping me out with a rising rap star. This guy Marco found me on the street and wanted me to help him out with his English, as he is a rapper/reggeaton artist. Normally I say no, because I HATE teaching English, but his story was pretty good and I figured he might have had a good start with English since he knows all the songs by 50 Cent and Eminem. Well, he´s really bad. But Grigs came to jam out and they had a little freestyle session in my apartment which was AWESOME! He also tried to play for lunch money in the park, but people didn´t seem convinced that two gringoes needed lunch money...

So after numerous dance sessions in the cave of Jesús del Gran Poder that is my apartment, I decided to bust out Loba for the girls at my school. On Fridays, I am doing dance and aerobics classes. Friday was my first day, I was kinda nervous but it was so much fun! I was EXHAUSTED after dancing and yelling for 4 hours....it was a great workout. But they all got movin and groovin to Shakira, as well as Daddy Yankee. I need to stock up on more reggaeton...apparently I am missing out on some clutch songs, but I was fairly proud of my collection so far. I am hoping to choreograph a dance, preferrably to She Wolf, for the fiestas of the school in November. Cross your fingers!

And then to top off my She Wolf week, I danced my pompis off to it while at a karaoke with my best friend Sindy.

As Grigs likes to say, we were accomplishing goals 2 & 3 this week (Peace Corps goals of bringing US culture to locals and local culture to the US).

Have a very Happy Halloween everyone! We are off to Cuenca to celebrate, so tune in next week.

A Million Little Hugs

Finally the teacher strike is over and things are getting back to normal. Classes started this week and today was my first day back at Paulina Solis. I was honestly a little nervous, worried I would have ¨lost my touch¨ so to speak as I haven´t given a charla in a while. But as soon as I entered that classroom, it was game time and I was ready to rock and Rizz-oll.

I decided to show some Ecuadorian pride and wore my yellow Ecuadorian soccer jersey to school (there´s a game tonight). As soon as I walked in, all the teachers started hooting and hollering it was so funny. They were all like look at La Cori, she´s Ecuadorian now! Then this one teacher was like, heck she´s been ecuadorian for a while now, she even has a boyfriend! I nervously giggled and shook my head, trying to change the subject. Literally I was saved by the bell (more like tornado siren) and they all scurried off to stand with their classes during ¨morning exercises¨(more like those exercises and calenstetics that really, really old guy does I can´t remember his name...he makes juicers now? anyone? anyone? I know my dad will know who I am talking about).

So I see the Directora, the firey little pitbull of woman, and she barks at me to go to 4th grade B because the teacher´s mother-in-law died so I was going to be ¨subbing today.¨ Are you serious? Since when does being a Peace Corps volunteer qualify me to teach a classroom? Oh wait...that hasn´t stopped them from thinking I know everything before...

I mean, it´s not like it hasn´t happened before but I was so stoked to see all my girls again, and I had a fun lesson planned for today, as well. Plus, the girls from 4th grade don´t know me because I didn´t teach them last year. As all the girls filed up to their classrooms, they all hugged me with their little bejewled arms and white ponytail holders whacking my face. It was really cool because practically every single girl knew me and called out my name.

I get up the stairs and walk into the room. These girls are between 8 and 9-years-old so they aren´t too malcriadas yet. I did my charla, which I think was a little over their heads, and then I was like shit--it´s only 8:45 and I have to occupy them until 1 pm. So we played my token games, which luckily none of them knew so they were all new. And then thank god it was recess so that killed about an hour. In between we drew pictures, I gave out A LOT of stickers, talked about modern physics and why Obama should/should not have won the Nobel Peace Prize. Syke. I wondered what that conversation might be like, considering all their books are covered with Disney Princesses and Winnie the Pooh.

I did do multiplication with them, taught them how to multiply by 11...that was an accomplishment! No way was I going to touch division, that´s just too hard. Then we went on to calligraphy, and I guess they really love writing in cursive, so I gave them a bunch of words to write out like piedra (practice ¨p¨), Lola (practice ¨l¨), etc. As for homework, this was a real curve ball because I didn´t think they were expecting it, I told them to draw a picture with the following five things: a princess, castle, frog, crown, and horse. And apparently I am grading them on that tomorrow. HA!

So that was my first day back to school. The directora wants me to ¨teach¨ them tomorrow...so I´m thinking field trip to the pool. We shall see.

Tonight Ecuador plays Chile, this is our last shot at World Cup qualification. Cross your fingers, it´s supposed to be a good/tough game. Hope all goes well in Santiago!

In the campo

Well it has been quite the exciting 24 hours here in my neck of the selva. Yesterday, Grigs and I ventured out with my Zamora crew to check out some medicinal plants at Alcivar´s finca. Alcivar works with my friend Rumi in the Intercultural Health department, where I spend most of my time while in Zamora. Alcivar lives in a little shuar village, El Kiim, which is about an hour from Yantzaza. It is up in the campo, we had to cross a wooden bridge to get to the other side of the river and up a giant amount of stairs to get on top of this mountain. It was absolutely gorgeous and really fun walking around checking out his finca, or farm.

We were looking for medicinal plants and taking pictures so we can compose a book of recipes for medicinal use. Most of the plants are familiar and used by the Shuar. I had no idea how to differentiate what from what, but it was really cool seeing all the plants and their fruits, as well. I also had no idea there were so many different varieties of bananas! Grigs and I were saying that in the US we think all bananas are made with a Chiquita sticker, but we saw at least 4 different types yesterday (honestly, they all looked the same to me...).

It was a great day, we had lunch at Alcivar´s house, and it was really cool to see this Shuar village. It was a lot more developed then other Shuar villages I´ve seen, too, a lot more production and hard work in the town.

As we were leaving and entering cell phone service, we had received about 7 messages from Peace Corps. They were looking for us because they were performing an ¨emergency evacuation¨ drill. We had to leave immediately from our sites and meet at a hotel in Loja, where we are supposed to meet in case of an emergency evacuation. I was kinda freaking out because I had more stuff to do, but I was the last to arrive, after they had called everyone in my town because I was out of cell phone range. They were all like Corrie! Cuerpo de Paz called you...you need to leave!!! Ay dios. But my whole cluster got to spend a nice night in a hotel, with a great dinner and awesome breakfast. And I got a hot shower!!

Well here are some pictures from the finca:

View from El Kiim (pronounced Kim). It´s a Shuar community of about 17 families, located in the cantón of Yacuambi.


Rumi and Alcivar before going to the finca. (Alcivar is so cute!!! I love the Shuar! The guys were all joking that I was getting to know my future finca...)


Nelson, another one of the health team. His bandana says Arutam, which means God in Shuar. They refer to the waterfalls here as Arutam, since they hold so much power and are considered very holy in Shuar culture.


Nelson showing Grigs how to plant yucca...the Shuar way. Apparently it is different than the ¨mestizo way¨ which involves putting in the roots differently. It was really interesting because they tilled the ground a little, stuck the shoots in the ground, and YA! They were ready to grow. The ground is SO fertile here.


Grigs taught Rumi and Nelson how to arm wrestle. Not sure why they needed to arm wrestle, but Grigs was proud of himself for teaching THEM something...


Nelson, Grigs, Alcivar and me. It was great day in the campo, got to eat some caña on the way back, too. Oh and I dyed my hair, if you hadn´t noticed. I´m looking a little shvitzy but it´s a new look. Not sure if I like it, but I think it´s growing on me. I thought if I maybe went darker, people wouldn´t notice me as much, but it hasn´t worked as well as I thought it would...Let me know what you think!

Ensalada ensalada ensalaaadas!

Things are (sort of) settling down with the strikes of the teachers and indigenous. Yesterday the indigenous met with President Correa, for the first time they noted, to iniciate talks. Nothing has been resolved yet, of course, but they are starting to clear up the road blocks and us volunteers are no longer under house arrest anymore.

Anyway, carrying on, yesterday was a health fair in Zamora, and I had the honor of cooking for it! The nutritionist at the Ministry of Health had to go to Quito, so she had me and the other two guys get everything together (but I was more or in less encargada of it all).

So I woke up at 5:30 am to start cooking. Since I was doing it, and I´m not all that friendly with cooking Ecuadorian cuisine, we made a pasta salad (my favorite), a bean salad and a fruit salad (typical). It was a lot of fun, I was pretty stressed out just because I didn´t want to screw anything up.

But the pasta salad turned out alright, my friend Rumi said my onions were too grueso or too big. Hater. But the bean salad turned out great! It was beans with green peppers, onions and steamed broccoli. The majority of people that came were students from the colegio (they have classes in Zamora) so they got to hear our shpeals on iron and eating lots of fruit and vegetables. I really had to push the pasta and bean salads, they only wanted the fruit. Some kids gave me some really smart answers as to why they didn´t want them....malcriados!

Anywy, here´s a couple pics (sorry, I´d like to put up more but this internet is slower than an old Ecuadorian woman walking...GRRR)!


Fruit salad with yogurt


Luis giving a charla to the anxious and hungry youth. Hold your caballos! You need to hear about the health benefits first!!!

Teachers, Indigenous....who´s next?

After an incredible trip to Peru, I was confronted with reality as I stepped off the frigid plane into sticky, humid Ecuadorian air. Trust me, it was something I was definitely looking forward to, as I found that I had missed ¨Mi País¨ and was ready to get back to work.

However, that has become almost impossible as practically the whole country is on strike!

Before I left, all teachers had gone on strike, protesting their rights and pay among other things. It seemed pretty peaceful and something that was likely to blow over. As of October 1, the strike is still on, indefinitely, and the students have gone a month without classes. So I haven´t been able to start any of my lesson plans with the students, and it doesn´t look likely for a while still. Chris, who´s work totally relies on schools, has managed to help 2 people paint their houses and is accumlating other paint jobs as we speak.

Yesterday I heard that the teachers have until October 14th to straighten things out or they are going to fire everyone and hire new teachers.(My neighbor said they will be on strike until January....that I highly doubt). How they are going to fire A WHOLE COUNTRY of teachers and find new ones, I have no idea. Today the teachers were parading around Yantzaza, banging pots and pans, yelling in protest. I am still not totally clear as to what they are fighting for, but they even have their students involved. On Tuesday I was in Zamora and high school students were throwing rocks at the police barracade that was in the street. For a country that is not too keen with their education, they are sure passionate about it.

In addition to the teachers, the Indigenous are also protesting, what is mining and water laws. President Correa has agreed to talk to them, but things have gotten kind of violent with them, too. So I am just staying put in Yantzaza for a little bit.

It´s amazing to me how passionate people get here about their rights. For the most part they seem pretty passive and easy-going, not necessarily too abreast of the issues or their own rights. But as soon as some movers and shakers start talking, they get the whole country in a frenzy. It´s interesting to see these strikes and see how angry and upset people are getting. Someone told me that with these strikes, he smells a revolution. I sure hope he´s wrong.