October 2, 2011
Hey everybody, I hope that you all had a terrific week. Everything here is pretty much the same. Although I had a meeting last Monday at the hospital in Cayambe and they want me to work at another school as well as the high school and the work with the midwives. An interesting tidbit, my friend Nathan and I were told that I could work with the midwives because Nathan needs time to rest, sometimes it is really hard to be a girl here. I also have to push the shopping cart and I usually get weird looks when I pay and Nathan is standing next to me. So to avoid this I usually give him my money and he pays. But on the plus side people are always trying to sell me stuff and sell Nathan stuff for me.
So tomorrow, October 3, I have a meeting in a campo school. It is about 1 to 2 miles away and I have to walk. The good thing is now I can say well when I was in Peace Corps I walked to school 2 miles up hill both ways. (Yes, it is up hill both ways, they built the school on top of a hill but all the hills around here are rolling so I have to go up and down to get to school.) But the school is kind of neat. Since I didn’t know how to get there, the guy Nathan and I had a meeting with drove up to the school. I think I may be learning Quitchwa as well, the labels on the doors were in Spanish and Quitchwa. So I am going to be learning a language that is only spoken here in Cayambe and nowhere else in the world. And before you say but they speak that in other places in South America, it is a different dialect. And it is only spoken here in Cayambe and the city of Otavalo. Those two cities were the last hold outs of the Incan Empire and were only under their rule for a short time before the Spanish came. So it may not be entirely useful outside of my site it is historically important which is kind of neat.
But other than the meeting last Monday and this Monday nothing really different has happened. I went to the high school and the sub centro and worked. I’m still getting the kids ready for Global hand washing day. It is on October 15 if you would like to celebrate too. I know this is going to be like the millionth time I’ve said this but I am going to email pictures to my mom of both school and the sub centro and ask her to send them out, and I’ll send them to everyone as well. So you can see what exactly it is like down here.
The other day I was sitting in my bed thinking man it is cold, I’m on zero latitude and I’m freezing. And I couldn’t help thinking of the time my family went to go visit my Aunt Kathy, Uncle Joe, Joseph and Nicky and we visited a house where George Washington stayed during the revolutionary war. And the four of us (Joseph, Nicky, Patrick and I) could not help ourselves and were annoying the tour guide. We kept asking how cold it was, it was one of the coldest winters in New Jersey history. And he kept pointing out the fire places saying they didn’t have heat so they used these fire places. We eventually came to a point where the tour guide freaked out saying “No Heat, they didn’t have any heat!” and he kept repeating that over and over again. Well it may not be as cold as the North East in the winter but I don’t have heat. I know a story that doesn’t really have a point but it gave me a good chuckle as I was putting on my sweater.
Well that is all I have to say, I hope you all have a great October.
Love, Aline