Tech Trip 2

28 hours in bus, 5 days, 4 charlas, and 2 mosquito bites later, and we’re back to Tumbaco! It was a quick, busy trip to Guayaquil, but it turned out to be great!

First, before we left, I got to spend Sunday evening with Mercy at a lovely dinner in Cumbaya. It was nice to see her again, and I'm excited to meet up with her tomorrow in Quito for a day in the city with her and Elena!

Health Group #1 (my group) left early Monday morning (5:50am, yuck) from Tumbaco. I took a taxi to the bus stop in Tumbaco, a bus from Tumbaco to Quito, the trolley from the bus terminal to the bus station, a bus from there to Guayaquil, then another taxi from the bus terminal in Guayaquil to the hotel. It was a long day of travelling, but everything went smoothly! The second health group arrived to the hotel an hour after us, we split up for dinner, then everyone went to bed early, exhausted from travelling.

On Tuesday we went to the office of the Program Manager of the health program from Peace Corps. There were several volunteers there throughout the day and we got a shortened, intense training in Cuanto Sabes?, a Peace Corps program that capacitates groups of jovenes (teenagers) to teach HIV/AIDS prevention in their schools. The training we received was a 3-day training condensed into 4 hours, giving us a crash course about information on HIV/AIDS in Spanish, as well as skills for how to teach the topic, give charlas, and capacitate youth to teach it themselves. We had a late lunch, then went right back to work in our small groups to prepare and practice presenting our charlas on HIV/AIDS, which my group had to give on Wednesday. The practice didn’t go so well, and everyone left feeling nervous and discouraged. We knew that we had to give charlas in high schools the next day, and nobody felt prepared. We broke for dinner, then went back to the hotel and did a few more hours of preparation and practice with the facilitators, working through some of the glitches. 

The extra preparation paid off because the charlas went great! We presented at an all boys high school in classes of about 40 students, but they were well behaved for the most part (the first class got a little rowdy...), and I think we actually taught them some new things! It's amazing the misconceptions about HIV/AIDS here, as well as the lacking sexual education, so these are areas that we can make a real difference.

On Thursday we went to Colimes, a town 2 hours from Guayaquil, and gave 2 more charlas. My group presented to mixed groups of girls and boys on the differences between sex and gender, as well as gender roles and equality. It was fun working with the groups of jovenes in a country where machismo is so prevalent, but the girls also seem very strong. Thursday night we went back to Guayaquil and ate dinner on the Malecon 2000, the boardwalk along the river Guayas. 

We then left early Friday morning for the trip back to Quito, which ended up taking 12 hours because of bus logistics and general slowness. It was a long day, but great to be back in the dry, cool Sierra! We actually lucked out with the weather and bugs on the coast because it was not too hot and the were surprisingly few bugs, so that was great!

Now I'm using wireless internet in a cafe in Cumbaya with Shannon, where we are loving the internet and frozen coffees! We are making the most of our last 2 weeks in the poshy Tumbaco area before heading for isolation. We swear in on August 17, then head to our sites on the 18th, so everyone is getting anxious and excited for the big days ahead. Until then, we're just loving our time together!

Hello to everyone back home, and all my love from Ecuador!

Kerry