Looking Back

Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World)

Yummy fruit selection we had at lunch, tomatoe de arbol, babaca, large lemons...(once during spanish class I incorrectly called said tomatoe de Abril...these are the daily comedies one goes through while learning another language)

From above a large monument, the city on the equator

Straddling the equator

A lovely meal during our first week of training (I love taking food pics)

Some of us in the dinning hall

In the airport on our way to Quito

Last morning in DC (and the US) for a while

More paperwork, med kit with everything you can think of and a lovely rose given to each of us from the current peace corps volunteers, it says "put your ecua-googles on"

This was a blog I started during training....I will go back and add pictures and more information about our first week in Ecuador in a bit.

February 20th:

^Arrival

Training has begun. I must say I am really excited to get training started and start learning some Spanish! The last few days have been jam packed with traveling, new faces and new places J

Right now I am in Cayambe, which is about an hour and a half north of Quito. We are up in the mountains in a very high altitude. Today we left Quito which is where we have been staying for the last few days and also the location of PC headquarters. In Quito we had a jam packed day full of shots, paperwork, signatures, language skills test, safety….and more! The city of Quito seemed very nice though we were not allowed to leave our hostel, they didn’t want to release the gringo newbies too soon hehe.

So, I am in the agribusiness program and have met about 4 or 5 others with this same job title. Our PC group is made up of 55 in total and about half are agriculture volunteers and the other half are environmental. Within these subsets each person has a more detailed title, which in my case is agribusiness.

This week all of us will be together in “the compound” in Quito. Brings me back to college memories, open door policy is key. Here we will have more information sessions and much more language sessions. We have all been split into language groups of about 5 people and they will evaluate our level after the week. We will then be split into groups of 5 according to our language levels. Each group will be placed into a town surrounding Cayambe and we will all be living with a host family there for training. I was really nervous about having the least Spanish background, but there are a few people who have never studied Spanish before. I’m not really sure where my language level is right now, but either way I am sure I will be learning a ton in the next few weeks/months/years!

Today we went to the Centro del Mundo (Middle of the World), which is where the equator goes through Ecuador. It was really chevere (cool)! We got to see the water swirl clockwise on one side and counter clockwise on the other. Apparently people weigh about 4 lbs less on the equator as well…good to know after these high carb meals! Our guide also did some other really interesting demonstrations and I balanced an egg on a nail and got a certificate! Sweeeet. After that we had a really great meal at the restaurant next door, and got to try some new fruits.