First Impressions

My last post contained many raw emotions, ones I had not been prepared to sustain. However, as they said to us in a speech just before they handed out sites, its a deck of cards and we all receive one. The cards have been dealt, and I'm here in my tiny indigenous town in the North Country (that is, the Northern Sierra of a country straddling the equator; hardly North Country in the Acadian Driftwood sense).

I met the volunteer whom I will replace in the larger city near our site, and she took me to our town. We spent the afternoon getting to know my home for the next two years. I live with a host family for the initial three months. Yes, they recently put walls on my bedroom. The family consists of a mother, father, and five children (that I've counted so far). The town is tiny. It has many spread out houses, all with their own land and crops. Picture white or earth-colored walls with loosely-placed red shingles slowly growing moss under the rain and sun. The town sits between two inactive volcanos, and overlooks rolling hills covered with family farms. There are three small tiendas and a school in the center of town. I haven't explored much yet, but it seems like that is the majority of the infrastructure. No Internet, so this is my first post via Blackberry.

The current volunteer will be leaving before I arrive for the longevity, so she is tying up many loose ends. I accompanied her to her last community bank meeting, during which she insisted upon collecting the money she had contributed. A reasonable request since she will be leaving. The meeting was held outside of a bank member's house in the intense sun, with chickens running around and women breast feeding whenever the need arose. The only thing accomplished in the two hours we sat on the ground was her money collection. Literally, this took two hours. That, my friends, is the Ecuadorian sense of time.

The entire bank meeting was held in Quichua, a language that is dawning on me in two major ways. 1) It does not sound, nor is it constructed, anything like Spanish, and 2) I will spend a lot of time trying to comprehend it. Yes, everyone speaks Spanish, but Quichua between each other. I really had hoped to become fluent in Spanish, but it may not be the case. Oh well, at least I won't be speaking English.

Besides the language issue, I get a great first impression of this community. The indigenous experience will be very different than anything I know. The surroundings are breath-taking. Having had a previous volunteer to break the ice, the people understand why I am here and are ready to work with me. The climate is perfect: warm and sunny during the day and pleasantly cool at night.

I just had dinner with my new host family. Although they are not as adept at correcting my Spanish as native speakers, they still make a point to speak it with me. We spent a few minutes writing down basic Quichua phrases. If I'm really going to do this, I've gotta start making a concerted effort with my Quichua. To all my readers: buenas noches. To all the Quichua speakers among you: Ali tuta.