Something Sustainable…Can You Help Us Out?

Our job as Peace Corps Volunteers is to create a sustainable project in the 2 years we are in each community so that when the time comes to leave, the groundwork of the volunteer serves the community for years to come. That can mean anything from organizing a yearly summer camp to helping community members create a small business that will provide them with future income. For TEFL Volunteers that means leaving our schools and teachers with teaching materials, new ideas for the classroom, and a greater confidence in the English language.

When I first arrived at site I did what almost every Peace Corps Volunteer does, I talked to anyone who would listen about the community, its history, and what it saw as the greatest needs. The overwhelming response from the English teachers and school authorities was that they would like to create some sort of English/audiovisual laboratory that would serve the needs of the students as well as other community members. That was almost exactly one year ago. Peace Corps work is slow.

Since about mid-March, the English teachers and I have been working diligently to fill out a 60-page grant application that will hopefully make this dream a reality for the community. But like so many things, we need lots of help. That’s where you lovely readers come in. The community is committed to providing 25% of the total cost of the project. The other 75% of the funding comes from donors. The project plan includes trainings for the English teachers on using music, film, and internet in the classroom. They will also be trained on the operation and maintenance of the new technological equipment. Our main goal as TEFL Volunteers is to help our teachers “see outside the book” if you will. I think this would be a great opportunity for the teachers and of course the students to see that English is so much more than completing grammar exercises out of a book.

If you’re interested at all in helping out with this project ($1 goes a VERY long way in Ecuador…keep that mind ), leave me a comment or a quick facebook message with your name and e-mail address and I’ll get you more details on how to help us out. I’ve included a brief project summary written by my teachers and polished up by yours truly.

“We live in a small community in which the majority of the population works in commerce and agriculture. Taking into account that our community has had little governmental support to improve the local living conditions and is also a local center for tourism, we consider it extremely important to create an English laboratory in our school. We believe that if our school community has access to a fun, attractive, and dynamic way of learning English, they will be motivated to develop communicative and cognitive English skills. Furthermore, this laboratory will provide our community with the resources necessary to communicate with the mostly English-speaking tourists who visit our town and give us the ability to improve our local commerce and economy. The English and technological skills our community will gain will facilitate enrollment in public and private universities, military and police academies, and will give our students the ability to travel to foreign countries without the burden of communication difficulties. This English laboratory will serve as a door to the outside world.“

Market Madness: Taxo

For this week’s market madness, I bring you the taxo, also known as a banana passion fruit. However, I highly doubt that anyone knows what a banana passion fruit is either. Not to worry, I’ll tell you everything you need to know about this little gem found nearly year-round in markets throughout the Andes region.

Appearance: About 4-5 inches in length, the skin is yellow like a banana. Inside hundreds of small seeds can be found covered in a slimy dark orange fruit (similar to a passion fruit or last week’s granadilla)

Taste: Taxos have a tart, acidic taste that makes you pucker just a bit. I recommend eating taxo in the form of juice or ice cream and with lots of sugar. The seeds inside make the fruit a bit tedious to eat raw.

Cost: 3-4/50¢

Preparation: Scoop out the fruit and seeds from the skin, discard the skin.

Juice:

1. For one glass of juice, prepare 3 taxos, 1 cup of milk or water, and 1 tbsp of sugar.

2. In a blender, mix everything.

3. When well mixed, use a strainer to separate the seeds from the juice.

5. Pour into your favorite whiskey glass (just to really show your Ecuadorian-ness).

4. Buen provecho!

Depending on how sour/sweet you like your juice, you can add more/less sugar. If prepared with milk, its best not to leave it set for too long as the taxo is acidic and it will start to separate from the milk.

Market Madness: The Granadilla

Another Thursday in Saquisilí, another market day. This week I bring you the granadilla. According to Wikipedia, it is native to the Andes Mountains of South America and grows as far south as Argentina and north to Mexico. I first saw it in Tumbaco during training but didn’t buy one and try it until a few months ago. I remember thinking it looked like an alien fruit at first sight.

Appearance: Granadillas range in size from that of a lemon to a large orange, they’re usually light orange in color and with a round shape and a long stem. They have a hard outer shell, similar to an egg, with a soft spongy layer to protect the fruit inside. Once you crack one open, there are what appear to be hundreds of black seeds (they look similar to small sunflower seeds) covered with a clear slimy fruit.

Taste: The clear slimy fruit as well as the seeds are what is eaten. It has a soft, sweet, juicy taste and the seeds give it a bit of a crunch.

Cost: 3-4 granadillas/$1

Highly recommended for an easy, non-messy, cheap snack if you ever find yourself in a market town in the Andes.

Out With The Año Viejo, In With The Año Nuevo

One of the first things that struck me as odd upon my arrival to my new Ecuadorian home back in April was the papier mâché masks hanging on the back of the kitchen door. “Those are for New Year’s” I was told when I inquired. So through sheer determination and a curiosity about how the ritual burning of the dolls would go down on New Year’s Eve, I made it to the night of December 31st, 2012.

During the week between Christmas and New Year’s, masks similar to those hanging in our kitchen could be seen in all the stores on the town square. December 31st finally rolled around and people started hauling out the boxes of old papers and cardboard they’d no doubt been saving for the New Year’s festivities.

Monigotes or años viejos (there’s probably about a million different terms depending on where you are) are made and then burned at midnight to symbolize leaving the old year behind and making way for the new year to come. Most people use old clothes, sew the ends up, and stuff them with newspapers, etc. People make signs and write up clever wills for the monigotes. In the plaza across the street, the neighbors had set up a beauty pageant of monigotes, complete with judges and an audience. The masks are put on and everything is set outside the houses on display until the midnight hour. Some are more creative than others, masks of the current President of Ecuador, the Smurfs, famous soccer players, etc. This is the one part of the tradition I didn’t fully understand…details, schmetails.

About 10pm, my host mom called up to me to ask if I wanted to pasear to see all the craziness. First, we drove out to the farm to pick up my host uncle and on the way back down main street, I caught my first sight of the viudas. Basically, it was all the boys from the high school scattered throughout the streets, dressed in fishnets, heels, wigs, and short dresses. They strung ropes across the streets and made all the passing cars stop, watch them do a little dance in their get-up, and then hold their over-sized purses open at the driver’s window for any spare change. I think we drove 5 blocks and probably stopped about 10 times for the viudas. Again…details, schmetails.

We took tío back to the house and continued around town on foot since the viudas had cleaned us out of all pocket change. I knew the dolls were a big deal but I didn’t expect the atmosphere in town. The streets in the center were full of cars and people on the sidewalks. In true Ecua-fashion, reggaeton and chicha music were blaring from homemade stages. People were sitting huddled in groups, at times making it hard to distinguish between the dolls and the real-life, breathing viejos. The Pilsener was flowing, pinchos grilling, dancing was happening, neighbors were greeting each other with the standard “buenas noches” and “feliz año.” I was reminded once again why I’m lucky to live in a small town.

Back at the house, we pulled out the champagne I’d bought (had to have a bit of America in the whole thing) and some fancy glasses my host mom never uses. A few cousins came over and we hauled the boxes of old paper out to the curb. We took the masks off to save for the next year. At midnight the fireworks went off, we lit the matches, and popped the champagne. Then one by one, up and down the street, the fires started burning. I kept thinking of how cool it would be to have an aerial shot of Ecuador at midnight with millions of little bonfires down below. It was without a doubt, one of the coolest traditions I’ve ever seen…definitely a NYE to remember.

And now the masks are back to the resting places, hanging on the back of the kitchen door, waiting for next year’s monigotes.

with the beauty contestantsthe judges monigote fiesta ready for midnight…they’re so scary looking champagne streets ablaze   successful jump

with my host mom

Les deseo un feliz y exitoso año nuevo a mis queridos en todo el mundo desde mi pueblito en Ecuador!

I wish my loved ones throughout the world a happy and successful new year from my little town in Ecuador!

Culture Shock…It’s Real

Anyone who’s ever been abroad or studied culture has probably been told about “the culture shock roller coaster.” Someone explains it during an orientation or training and you sort of pay attention. You are way too excited about your upcoming adventure to take it seriously and you think that even if you experience “culture shock” it won’t be that bad. After all, you’ve jumped through the bureaucratic hoops, your bags are basically packed, maybe you’ve even made it to your destination, you can absolutely handle anything that country X decides to throw your way…farm animals and town fiestas? How charming! Then it starts to creep up on you. You’ve been in country X for a few months and the novelty of buying fruit on the bus and people showing up 30 minutes late for a meeting/class wears off. (Hint: country X=Ecuador:) You start to get angry at the little things you once thought were hilarious. You blame the local people for all the faults you see based on the filter of your own culture. Its a vicious cycle, a downward spiral, that’s hard to come out of. Culture shock is a real thing folks.

For all you visual people or anyone who has no idea what I’m talking about, here’s an illustration I found online.

I was there the last few weeks. The bottom of the bottom, the lowest dip in the roller coaster to date. (According to the handy graphic above, my feelings were right on. If you count 7-8 months in, I would be at Aug-Sept in the picture.) Throughout the past few weeks, I’ve kept trying to get back up the hill but then something would happen to knock me back down again. Every day is a mini roller coaster, I go from feeling excited and inspired to questioning my existence here…all in the same day. It is exhausting.

Sure people understand me, although sometimes I wonder when I open my mouth in Spanish, but no one gets me. No one gets my point of view. No one gets the purpose of me being here, or they think my purpose is different than what I think it is. No one gets why I like to walk by myself. No one gets why I take my work so seriously. All these irrational thoughts and about a million others were running through my head. One of the hardest things for me here is the mental isolation. I’m only 30 minutes from the nearest volunteers and we share excitement, frustration, and just about everything else but I still have lots of time inside my own head. Its been really hard for me to keep perspective and think about the bigger picture; its like a mental vacuum. I knew I was down but I couldn’t figure out how to get back up…something had to give.

So I thought back to all the times we talked about culture during our 3 months of training. We talked about it A LOT and rightfully so. Three months is not enough time to understand any place but I feel like they gave us the tools to deal with the culture at the very least. One of the things I remembered the most were going over culture continuums. I’m the first volunteer in my site and I would venture to say the first non-Ecuadorian my counterparts have worked with. Through no fault of their own, I feel like maybe they weren’t even aware that I might think about something differently. So in the hopes of helping them understand my point of view, I made the continuums into an English lesson. I explained that my job here is to understand their point of view as much as possible and to help them understand mine; my goal is not to change their views but to facilitate mutual understanding. I had them write a “Cultural Guide for Americans in Ecuador,” I definitely learned a lot and hopefully they did as well. By far, one of the best things I’ve done for my mental state here.

Stay tuned for more.

Market Madness: The Chirimoya

One of the best things about where I live is the fabulous weekly market. Every Wednesday and Thursday, the market spills out from the 8 plazas onto the streets and sidewalks. You can find anything from llamas to fresh fruit juice to used clothes to shampoo to meat to pots and pans. Everything necessary in life can be found in Saquisilí on market day.

A new goal of mine is to stop shopping at the supermarket in the next town over. Doing this requires getting over the overwhelming-ness of the market. So in an effort to force myself to get over it, I’m bring you a weekly dose of the sites, smells, and sounds of the craziness that is Saquisilí’s market.

First up…the chirimoya

I first tried this in Tumbaco with my host family during training. I had never seen or heard of a chirimoya before and they thought it was hilarious when I asked them how to eat it. According to wikipedia (don’t judge), chirimoya comes from a Quechua word that means “cold seeds.” Some of you might know it as a custard apple. It grows in the Andes regions of Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia among other high-altitude tropical climates in the world.

Appearance: green on the outside with white fruit and black seeds inside, the texture is similar to an avocado

Taste: vanilla, melon-y

Cost: $2 which means I either got majorly gringa-priced or its much more expensive than I thought…forgot to ask my host mom how much it should cost

Sidenote: when I asked the lady how much it was, she said $2 but there are no worms in it…maybe I paid extra to ensure my chirimoya was worm-free?

Its not my favorite fruit but one of the more interesting things I’ve found at the market.

 

A Passport…Worth Being Thankful For

I have a lot of time to think and I do. a. lot. I think about the mundane things, the intricacies of culture, development, what it means to really help/give to someone and the fact that as Americans we grossly overestimate our qualifications in this area. I think about things taken for granted and how the decisions of one government affect people in places in all corners of the world. These are things I never would have had the capacity to think about had I not chosen to do what I’m doing. The opportunity to think about these things are what I’m most appreciative of and I will be happy if they’re all I take away from this experience (along with some fabulous hand-made indigenous crafts).

The ability to travel to and live in just about any country in the world is a privilege I, and I’m certain many Americans, never really think about. We take it for granted, its almost considered a universal. Then one day something happens and it hits you like a ton of bricks, you have not only one but two (thanks to the Peace Corps) American passports. With those passports comes a whole world of privilege and resources, how did those passports get into my hands?

Even after hearing the embassy tell us during training about the process for an Ecuadorian to get a visa to the States (even for short travel), I didn’t really understand. Maybe there is such a demand that they have to be incredibly strict and selective. Maybe people do cheat the system and to compensate, people trying to get through the system legally and fairly are denied. This week, that something happened to someone close to me and for the first time ever, I really understood the privileges I’m granted just for holding an American passport. This person has tried multiple times, unsuccessfully, to get a non-immigrant travel visa to the States to visit family living there. I sat at the kitchen table and read the rejection letter, written in Spanish and English, and it made my heart hurt. The words are so abrupt and definite, absolutely no room for discussion. Those who apply are at the complete mercy of the person behind the window.

I won’t pretend I understand anything about immigration policies and why they are the way they are and I’m not implying that the embassy should abandon their processes. However, I think its something most Americans never think about. We grow up in a place with cultural influences from throughout the world, we’re used to diversity on varying degrees, and yet the paths people have taken to get to the United States are often forgotten. We don’t think about what’s on the other side of the border, what people have left behind in terms of cultural values and all that comes with that. A major difference I’ve noticed between my version of American culture and Ecuadorian culture, in general, are the views toward family. From my point of view as an outsider, most Ecuadorians place family bonds above most other things in life. What does it mean for an Ecuadorian when they are denied multiple times the right to visit family members? Sure the family abroad could come back to visit, and they do, but why should someone be denied visiting family just because of the country they have chosen to live in? How is it fair that my family can visit me with nothing more than a passport?

Reading the letter and seeing this person visibly upset about being denied once again, I felt completely helpless, helpless in a way I haven’t felt in a very long time. Really, there’s nothing I can do other than share the story and maybe raise the consciousness of someone who wouldn’t have thought about it otherwise.

And so my friends, that is what I’m most thankful for this Thanksgiving, my passports, the opportunities that come with them, and the ability to share the stories of the people and places they have taken me.

10 Months In: The Packing Must-Haves

Somehow I’ve made it to 10 months in this country. About a year ago I was fretting and planning for the ‘big adventure’ which mostly included scouring blogs and deciding what to bring. Since the 109ers will be making their debut in Ecuador in about 2 months, I’ve come up with my very own short list of must-haves.

External HD

Sure you can find just about every movie ever made in a pirated DVD store but there’s nothing like having 5 seasons of Sex & The City or The West Wing readily available when you want to curl up in your concrete room. I also use random clips from movies/TV shows for English lessons with the teachers. Win win situation for everybody.

Ear Plugs

Self-explanatory.

Supply of makeup/deoderant/face wash

Besides the fact that you can only find quality stuff at large supermarkets (read: at least a bus ride from most PC sites), all of this is ridiculously expensive in Ecuador. Bring enough to last a while or have a loving friend/family member send you the goods.

Ziploc Storage Containers

These have turned into my medicine cabinet, drawer organizers, and food containers. Plastic wrap/regular ziplocs are hard to come by (not to mention rough on the environment) so these have come in very handy. They were also great for packing all the little stuff you don’t want running loose in your suitcase/backpack.

Flip Flops

Although I live in eternal fall, I use these almost everyday to go from my room to the kitchen (outside and down the stairs). Also great for hostels and visits to the jungle and coast.

Travel Shampoo Bottles

In 10 months, I have mastered the art of packing for weekend/week-long trips in a small backpack. Travel bottles are absolutely necessary.

Travel Space Bags

Equally important for weekend/week-long packing adventures. Trust me, you want to have the smallest bag/least amount of stuff to worry about when traveling by public bus in Ecuador.

Quick-Dry Towels

Ditto.

Sunscreen

Peace Corps gives you one bottle when you get your med kit but after that, you’re on your own. This stuff is also expensive here, like $14 a bottle! Bring at least an extra bottle and if you’re lucky enough to be placed in the jungle/on the coast, have a supply sent to you. Yes, the sun is brighter on the equator.

Small Zip Wallet

Great for short trips out to the bakery or local tienda. Ecuador is definitely cash-based so don’t expect to use a credit card anywhere. Also large bills are hard to deal with so be prepared to carry lots of coins around.

Over the Shoulder Purse

Unfortunately petty crime, i.e. purse snatching, is pretty common. Its good to have something that goes across your body and can be kept in site at all times, especially on crowded busses, trolley rides through Quito, or nights in sketchy discotecas.

Accordian File Folder

Super handy for the ridiculous amount of paper you will be given during training.

2->3 Prong Plug Adapters

These can be found here but its nice to have them already, especially when you first arrive and haven’t figured out where to find all the little gadgets yet.

And last but certainly not least…

A Spork

You really just never know when you’ll need it. I took it along with my homemade lunch everyday to training for the first few months in country, I used it to eat a quick almuerzo while waiting for a bus at a terminal in Quito, and I’ve used it as a knife to cut random fruit at the market.

Happy packing!

Bailoterapia: A Gringa’s Perspective

Integrate. Integrate. Integrate. It’s all I heard during those glorious first three months known as training before shit got real and I wondered if I could handle this for two years. They say to never EVER say no to an invitation. If its for something you don’t want to do, suck it up sister, you have people to meet and connections to make. For me, this has meant attending funerals, a 95 year-old’s birthday party, a cock fight, countless masses, cafecitos at teacher’s houses, dance parties at school, and biweekly bailoterapia sessions with my host mom.

Dancing is such an integral part of the culture here. No surprise there. I’ve been to parties where instead of sitting out a dance with the babies, a couple will carry them and dance like its no big deal. On Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, random non-holiday days, classes are cancelled and the teacher’s lounge turns into a dance floor. Town fiesta? Let’s dance and drink whiskey at 10 am. Any group of people with access to chicha music? Dancing. A night out with friends? You better be able to at least fake it with some salsa or bachata moves.

So integration and dancing, that’s where bailoterapia comes it. Bailoterapia is literally ‘dance therapy’ but it is so much more than just ‘dance therapy.’ Picture a mirror-filled room with 25-30 Ecuadorian housewives in all their spandex glory breaking it down to every type of music. By every type of music, I obviously mean salsa, bachata, merengue, and rumba. Then picture an awkward blonde white girl, who is at least a head taller than any of the housewives, standing in the backbehind her 60-year-old host mom.

The music starts and its immediately obvious that I didn’t grow up in a culture where my parents danced with me as a baby or that my. hips. cannot. do that. The steps aren’t even that hard. I don’t look at the instructor though, instead I look down at my host mom’s feet since she’s figured out a way to simplify the steps. Just as I get one move down, we’re on to the next one. The cursing under my breath in English begins. After about 20 minutes, I start looking down at my watch wondering how many more moves I have to attempt before the hour is up. The instructor comes and stands next to me and I’m convinced this is how my students feel in English class when I get too close to them. I can’t do this! Somehow the hour passes and I hope I’ve improved just a little bit.

I definitely wouldn’t go on my own but I do it all in the name of integration. I’ve actually had ladies, who I never remember meeting, come up to me on the street and ask me where I’ve been if I miss a week. Plus, there’s always random people that my host mom thinks I should meet. Hopefully after two years, I’ll be able to do more than fake it with the salsa and bachata.

The Last Native Speaker

Last native speaker of Scots dialect dies

By Jamie Hamilton, for CNN

Fri October 5, 2012

The dialect, spoken in the Scottish village Cromarty, appears to be the only Germanic descendant without “wh” pronunciation.
(CNN) — Bobby Hogg, the last native speaker of a dialect originating from a remote fishing village in northern Scotland, has died — and so has the dialect he spoke.

The death of the 92-year-old retired engineer means that the Scots dialect known as Cromarty fisherfolk is now consigned to a collection of brief, distorted audio clips.

It is the first unique dialect to be lost in Scotland, according to Robert Millar, a reader in linguistics at the School of Language and Literature at Aberdeen University.

“Usually minority dialects end up blending in with standard English to form a hybrid. However, this is a completely distinct dialect which has become extinct,” he said.

Cromarty fisherfolk appears to be the only descendant from the Germanic linguistic world in which no “wh” pronunciation existed, Millar said.

“‘What’ would become ‘at’ and ‘where’ would just be ‘ere’,” he said.

It was also the Scots language’s only dialect that dropped the “H” aspiration.

“The loss of Cromarty is symptomatic of a greater, general decline in the use of the Scots language,” according to Director of Scottish Language Dictionaries Chris Robinson. “This should be a wake-up call to save other struggling dialects.”

Ten miles down the coast from Cromarty is Avoch, another sleepy fishing village with the closest surviving dialect to Cromarty fisherfolk, one that may also be endangered, according to Robinson. “It looks more than likely that this will go the same way as the Cromarty dialect,” he said.

The dialect of the peoples who originally resided on the shores of Cromarty — which lies on the tip of Black Isle peninsula, a four-hour drive north of Edinburgh — was directly linked to their traditional fishing methods.

However, during the industrialization of fishing in the 1950s, established working methods were lost and the connection between the way of life and the dialect eroded. In fewer than 30 years, much of the dialect became obsolete.

Millar argues that the decline in Scots language represents a wider global trend.

“Generally, in the literate world, local dialects are suffering. The highly mobile and technologically advanced areas of the world are worst affected,” he said.

There are some 6,000 to 7,000 languages in the world and it is estimated that they are disappearing at a rate of one every two weeks, according to Millar.

Some 96% of the world’s population speak just 4% of the world’s languages, he said. “Most languages are only spoken by a few hundred people,” he added.

Why mourn the loss of a language? “At a banal level, it’s a little bit of color in our lives is gone,” he said. “Any time something dies, it’s lost. Whether it be languages or species, we lose something. Everyone in the world loses something. Diversity surely is a good thing, and we’ve just lost a bit of it.”

Greater communication and interdependence among communities is resulting in “dialect homogenization,” Millar said.

And people tend to abandon their own languages for one of the larger languages for good reasons, according to Anthony Aristar, professor of linguistics at Eastern Michigan University and director of the school’s Institute for Language Information and Technology.

“They want modern conveniences; they want their children to have decent jobs,” he told CNN in a telephone interview. “All this requires being able to speak in the dominant language. So they see little use in preserving their languages.”

But the loss of a language often results in the loss of the stories that were told in that language, and in the cultural knowledge they contained. “Even medical know-how,” he said.

Robinson, of the Scottish Language Dictionaries, maintains that Scots minority dialects like Cromarty have faced other pressures.

“Educationally, English has been the language used in Scotland since the 18th century. Consequently, Scots speakers are not literate in their own language. Also, until recently, Scots has had a social stigma attached to it as a working-class or second-rate language.”

Yet there are signs of improvement for the state of Scots minority dialects. More Scots books, especially children’s books, are being published than ever before. In addition, since 2009, the Scottish government has provided funding for the Scottish Language Dictionaries, which has also given the language a status boost.

The support has been seen as a natural progression from the move by Westminster in 2002 to sign the European Union Charter of Minority and Regional Languages recognizing Scots, Gaelic and Welsh as languages separate from English.

Still, the rate of the worldwide loss of dialects and languages remains consistent.

Robinson said he would like to see more efforts taken to safeguard minority Scots dialects.

“Scots has an amazing literary history, yet it is completely ignored in our schools,” he said. “The books must be made more widely available and read more in schools for the language to survive in the future.”

{http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/05/world/europe/scotland-dead-dialect/index.html}