Due to a lack of updates, I now have much to write about-- read on if you have a lot of time.

All us trainees are now together in Quito for one final week. We’ll be sworn in as real Peace Corps volunteers at the end of this week and then will move to our final sites.

Since my last update, we have left our first host families and have been living out of suitcases for a few weeks. I was sad to leave my family of very generous women I lived with in Puruhantag. My last few days there were during Semana Santa (the holy week leading up to Easter) and during my free days my host family included me in the holiday festivities. One day we made fanesca- a traditional soup Ecuadorians eat for Easter, which includes 12 grains and dried fish. It usually takes all day to prepare (with many peoples’ help) my host mother also took me to see las banderas (dancing with flags, see photo), and on a quick tour of the rose nursery where she works. They were a great family to spend 2 months with- great guides, patient with my Spanish and the two toddlers provided a lot of entertainment and were even good playmates.

After leaving our host families we spent the next 2 weeks on technical training trips split up by program and regions where we’ll be living. Highlights of the trip were days spent in Cuenca, which feels like a very European city. Here we had a lot of good meals, ran a 15km race through the city (which I definitely should have trained more for…) Another fun day was spent hiking in Cajas National Park- a paramo (Ecuadorian grassland) ecosystem. From Cuenca, 7 of us who will be living in el Oriente went to Macas where we spent a fun day hiking through dense jungle and learning about GPS, gave a “charla” (a lesson) at a school with the 7^th graders, saw a presentation of traditional dancing and spent a lot of time eating ice cream.

This week in Quito we had a free day on Sunday so we walked around the historic district and saw beautiful churches. The rest of the week we have full days of interviews, and other logistical presentations. Thursday is swearing in day and Friday we’re off to our lives for the next 2 years!

I am nearing the end of my site visit in Tena. Saturday I´ll be traveling back to Cayambe for a week more. I already love Tena and may never need to leave. It´s been super hot here but other than that I have no complaints. The people here seem to be always happy and very friendly, I feel totally safe and it´s small enough that a bike will be perfect transportation. There are two beautiful rivers in town, lots of nice places to eat outside (this is important) and sections of jungle here and there. This week I´ve been doing a lot of observing of the work at the organization I´ll be working with: The Amazon Partnerships Foundation/Tarpuna Causay. My work will be pretty unique in that I´ll be living in a city but will be traveling to remote Kichwa communities often. This week I got a small preview of life in these kind of communities. Here´s a brief description of The Amazon Partnerships Foundation: They aim to both preserve the environment and Kichwa culture by giving funds to community projects that uphold these ideals. However, these projects are unique in that the actual community decides what kinds of projects they need or want rather than the Foundation organizing and managing them. Some examples are water collection/purification tanks, dry composting toilets and reforestion. Other than getting the word out about their organization, the Foundation has a relatively hands off approach to ensure that projects are responsibly upheld and that they´re actually necessary and desired.

In other news, here´s a quick synopsis about what it´s like to be a ¨gringa¨in Tena. Even though Tena is known to be a touristy city, I definitely stand out as a foreigner and get a lot of stares on the street. I´ve found conversations with strangers in Ecuador are all pretty similar; they usually go like this: 1) Where are you from? 2) What are you doing in Ecuador?/how long have you been here?/do you like Ecuador? 3) How old are you? 4) Are you married? (here´s where they would ask for my phone number if applicable) 5) how many siblings do you have?
So far this repetitive conversation hasn´t gotten tiring yet and I´ve found people are naturally curious about gringos in their towns. All are very welcoming of Americans too. I have talked to a few older men who have told me, after I say I´m from Wisconsin that they too have traveled there. I find this hard to believe but I go along with it.

Ok here´s some exciting news from today:
We found out our final site placements and jobs this morning. I´ll be living in el Oriente region in a city called Tena. It´s on the edge of el Oriente and according to some info. from my brother "a portal city" into el Oriente. I´ll be working with an organization that is working on spreading awareness about global warming to a lot of indigineous Quichua communities. I still don´t know a whole lot about the specific job description and know little about Tena (I do know it´s a town of about 22,000 people and is known to be kind of touristy). Ecuadorians have said good things about it so far though. I´m very happy with my site and job placement and am excited to travel to see some really cool birds.

Here´s what we have planned for the rest of our training:
On Sunday we´re all traveling to our sites for a week solo there. We´ll be meeting or staying with our "counterparts" (the person or organization we´re assigned to work with) and will be gathering some information about the community. After that we have another week with our current host families and then leave for about 2 weeks of technical training in our regions with other volunteers who will be nearby. For the first 3 months at our site after moving there, we will live with a host family and then will find our own housing for the rest of our service.

It was an exciting day here in Cayambe. Tomorrow we have another fun day with our host family appreciation party, complete with 2 roast pigs!

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!

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!

Welcome to my new blog about my Peace Corps adventure in Ecuador. Only a few days until departure now- early Wednesday morning. Other new volunteers and I will have one day of "staging" in D.C. and then we're off to Ecuador! We'll have an arrival event at the Peace Corps office in Quito for a few days and then the rest of pre-service training will be in Cayambe for about two months.
I'll try to write as much as I can about where I am and what I'm doing. Please send me updates about your lives also!