This past week was our second tech trip to the coast to
learn a little more about the cultural style of the coast (compared to the
sierra we’re already familiar with) and to learn a bit more from current volunteers
about what our sites and time of service could look like. It was a long week
filled with LOTS of travel (taxi, bus, car, you name it!) but overall it was a
fun and educational adventure. As with the first tech trip, once again we were
split up from the Youth and Families group and sent a different direction.
However, unfortunately, they also split some of our CH group up too. I missed
being with everybody all at once like we were before (although the smaller
group of 10 did make things a little easier), not to mention, the other group totally
had the better route!
Our group started about 2.5 hours away in a town called
Santo Domingo. Though I loved the hotel experience we had there and the PCV (Maggie)
we visited (as well as her counterparts) were a lot of fun, I wasn’t so much
sold on the city itself. It was miserably hot (and this coming from a Georgia
girl) and the city itself just kind of had the feeling of grimy and grungy. I
feel we only scratched the surface though before we were in a bus again (this
time for 5 hours) and traveling off to the next city of 24 de Mayo/Sucre (yes,
here they use dates as titles for cities, streets, what have you). This city
was a bit smaller for my likenesses and preference, the experience was complete
opposite from the last place! The town itself was pretty cute (and for whatever
reason didn’t seem as hot) but that hostel was not my favorite environment I’ve been in so far! It was an
interesting set up complete with no air, plenty of bugs, no door to our
bathroom or light inside of it. And of course, this would be the place we
stayed two nights in. It was
definitely an experience! The food in this town, however, was phenomenal and if
I don’t miss anything else about the coast, I’m definitely going to miss that
coastal flavor (in that town at least). One of my favorite parts about my visit
there was meeting a friend of Fatimah (our PCV guide) and chowing down on some
of the delicious empanadas she made us! Usually these little Latin sandwiches are
made with flour (or “harina de trigo” if you will) but these just happened to
be empanadas verde made entirely from green plantains! Such a treat for my
glutard self! I want to learn how to make them (although something gives me the
feeling they aren’t as easy as I’d like them to be).
After a couple days there, we went to a little town called
Jaboncillo about 30 mins away. It appears the further our trip progressed, the
smaller the towns were getting! And this little town was about as “campo” (like
country/countryside) as it gets! Mariah, the PCV who lives there, seems to love
it! Although I personally think I would be bored outside my mind! (One of the
many moment I’ve said a short prayer of thanks for my midsize town of El
Quinche only 1.5 hours from the capital!) In this little town there was a
school, a subcentro (smaller medical center for minor complications), a tienda
or two, a church (that doesn’t even have a regular priest but rather gets a
visit every 15 days from a traveling campo priest who makes his way through the
rural villages). Other than that, there wasn’t much else this little village
had to offer and Mariah said that her grocery shopping had to be done in one of
the slightly bigger surrounding towns (surrounding being about 30 mins at
least) you get to by one of the only 5 buses that travels through in a day. As
for the inhabitants, I believe she said there were about 50 families (or
houses) in the area. We hung out at the school for a bit in the morning but as
this place was so small, there wasn’t even a place for us to stay. So off we
went to our next destination about an hour or so away called Pajan.
The size of Pajan was somewhere in between that of Sta
Domingo and Sucre. There were tons of tiendas all along the artistic streets
(though for whatever reason only half of them ever seemed to be open at one
time, a curious concept that proved to be frustrating at times), an adorable
park (with a giant mural statue thing of a parrot) in the middle of town, and
the sweetest little hostel we stayed in across from it. In this city we learned
a bit more about the political/governmental/municipal side of things and got to
see some great entrepreneurial projects from different groups (Emily Blalock, I
thought of you the whole time). Then on Friday night I had my first Ecuadorian
4th of July. Our PCV guide for this town, Lauren, invited us over to
her host parent’s house for a cookout and even though we didn’t get our
fireworks fix (unless the sparks from the welding project across the street
counts…fireworks are unfortunately illegal here, even sparklers) we still had a
lovely time eating some great “North American” food and hanging out together on
our last night. The next morning was an early 5:30 wakeup call to begin our 14
hour travel day spread across 3 different buses. Always an experience of
course! Overall, it was a lovely week outside of the training center walls
getting our hands dirty (literally and figuratively).
In the Tsachila community
Traditional indigenous dress for the men (worn by our tour guide)
The seeds the crush to make the paint that is in his hair
Traditional indigenous dress for the women. He is playing something that sounds like a rainmaker and a xylophone is in front of him
Kristen trying her hand at the drum
Volunteers?
View from the top of the medical center in 24 de Mayo
The mosquitoes reeally liked my feet...the feeling was not mutual!
A group of entrepreneurial women in the community of Pajan who use these fruits they find in their campo community to make jewelry, bowls, dolls, and other items to try to earn some money for themselves.
They took some painting classes to learn how to make these beautiful flowers.
What's a 4th of July without watermelon?
4th of July feast...Ecuadorian style!
