Hello everyone!
I´m having a relaxing Sunday here in Purhuantag today so thought I would come write an update. The plans for the day are: cooking lunch for the family, washing my clothes (by hand) and doing some spanish work, maybe a nice walk to explore the city and hopefully receiving some phone calls.
We just got back from a cultural trip to a little town called Salinas de Ibarra, which is mostly a community of Afroecuadorians. We learned about their heritage of mining salt (although now sugarcane and tourism are the major sources of livlihood for them), some community projects they have going like recycling paper and a women´s sewing group and a composting project. I also played in my first Ecuadorian futbol game (soccer for all you Americans).
Salinas is in the northern part of Ecuador, we took a beautiful slow train ride through the countryside to get there. It was hot and there were a lot of mosquitos but all the people were very friendly. We stayed with a host family for the night who fed us more good meals of chicken and rice (for dinner and breakfast). All that was missing from the city was a nice beach or a pool to swim in. Their plan in developing a tourism industry is to hold on to their Afroecuadorian heritage- something that not many people know about including the citizens of Salinas.
Now we´re back at our host families again and have more Spanish everyday. Thursdays we meet up will all the other trainees for security, health and technical training in a town called Ayorra. In a couple weeks we´ll have our first site visit, which means we´ll spend a few days in the community where we´ll be living for the next 2 years. Exciting things in the next few weeks!
Ok I´m off to the market to buy things for lunch!