A quick blog update for everyone:
Next Friday we´ll find out our final living sites! Things are happening quickly as we´ll have one week with our host families, a week long visit to our sites, regional technical training and then moving into our sites (about a month from now).
Yesterday we had a day of fun including a futbol tournament, a picnic with current volunteers in Ecuador and a Miss Deportista pageant. The futbol tournament was between community groups and our group of all volunteers had some pretty cool uniforms with skorts and lots of pink. Even though we lost in our first game, it was pretty fun. Our representative in the Miss Deportista pageant won the Miss Simpatica sash also; a pretty good showing from the girls of Puruhantag.
It´s been wonderful to be able to talk to family and friends from home this week (thanks to new cell phones from the Peace Corps! and the magic of Skype). Here´s a good topic of conversation people are asking about: food here.
The food has been pretty normal here so far. I eat a lot of chicken and rice (often with other carbohydrates like potatoes and pasta too). Most meals start with a soup of potatoes or pasta followed by a main meal of meat, vegetables and rice. I´ve eaten a lot of delicous avacadoes recently and really good fruit juice. I love that new, exotic fruits and fresh vegetables are very cheap and easy to get here all year round. I have tried some of the typical Ecuadorian foods like empanadas and humitas but have yet to try cuye (guinea pig) or the friend intestines that are sold on the corners in our town. My host family has had a lot of American volunteers stay with them before so they know that I probably won´t want to eat tons of rice nor chicken feet in my soup. My host mother makes me delicious tea from plants in the garden and I have been throughly been enjoying the Ecuadorian ice cream daily.

I can´t wait to tell you all about my site when I learn where it is. Until then, please keep the updates from home coming. I love seeing a full inbox of e-mails!