Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo!

Christmas is already here – it seems to have snuck up. It has been a difficult week leading up to Christmas because I miss home much more than I thought I would, but luckily there are a lot of great things happening here in Zhoray to help keep my mind off of it!

The biggest news is that I have a new furry friend, Cora Cavanaugh. The volunteer nearest me, Brittney, gifted me a puppy for Christmas. She is an adorable little thing and so much fun to have around. As much as my family here questions why I didn’t get an expensive purebred, I saved Cora from being poisoned in the home she was in, and I couldn’t have hoped for a cuter pup! She is very young, probably 7 weeks old now, but seems to be doing well.  Her name Cora comes from the Spanish word for Corazon (heart) because she has a black, heart-shaped spot on one side. It has been an exhausting first week with her because she’s still a little baby and cries a lot at night, but she is definitely getting better. It is nice that she’s young because she sleeps a lot right now, so I can leave her in my room to go to work or hang out with the family for little periods at a time and she just sleeps in her bed. In another month she will be able to stay outside more, but she is still missing two rounds of vaccines, so I don’t want her near too many dogs because I know that the dogs here have not had their vaccines. While Suca doesn’t like her and Zoila pretends to not like her, Nayelli is in love with her. Whenever I’m not working, Nayelli is in my room playing with us or taking her to run around in the park with me. She was just the friend I needed to keep me company during the lonely times.

Work here picked up a tad bit, but everything seems to have stopped now for the holidays. I had a meeting with the health volunteers and 7 actually showed up, the most yet. We talked a lot about reorganizing the group and beginning anew with me in charge instead of the doctor. There were many ill-feelings towards the group because it has been poorly organized in the past, but I think they are slowly understanding that I am fully committed and they shared a lot of ideas about things they want to work on and learn. We are only going to meet once a month for now because some of them have to travel so far to get to meetings that it isn’t possible to come more often. Once projects begin, though, hopefully some of them from the center will want to work more. My group with the girls didn’t have quite as much success because not a single girl showed up to the first week of meetings. I knew it was not good timing because it was the week before the holidays, so I’m not too discouraged and will just try to start again when they are back in school. The garden is progressing slowly, but we should be ready to plant within a few weeks!

As far as the holidays go, a lot has been happening. Last weekend was the Christmas program organized by the Cooperativa. I was selected as one of the judges for the Princesita contest there, which is basically a beauty contest. It was an interesting experience seeing these tiny girls dressed up like dolls, but they all won prizes and seemed to have fun. After the Princesita election, we had mass outside at the Cooperativa, then there were sports competitions for the men all day, so people just hung out a lot in the market. I want to mass again that night for the first night of Novena, the series of services leading up to Christmas. We had a little procession up to a house near the subcentro where mass was held. In the last week, I have been to mass 4 times with much more coming tonight, tomorrow and Christmas. The new priest in town is really great and I like his sermons, and the services and music are really pretty in Spanish, so I have been choosing to most of the times when Suca and Nayelli go.

On Wednesday we had the big Christmas fiesta for the entire parroquia (county). The kids from all the schools dressed up as Christmas characters from the nativity and there was a huge procession from where the virgin is to the church. Hundreds of people were in the parade and the outfits were great! There were a lot of “Mary’s” on horseback with babies, live donkeys and sheep, and my favorite were the little kids dressed as sheep! While most people were in church, I helped the subcentro decorate and organize the stage for the Princesita contest (yes, another). The contest was for girls 6-8 years old from the whole parroquia. The contest took a few hours because we hired clowns to come out during “judging” to entertain everyone. The clowns were a huge hit and stayed for a long time. After the Princesita contest, there were tons and tons of little games and contests for the kids. All of the authorities had organized to buy toys, so all the kids who were there received at least 1 Christmas present, which is the only one many of them will get. It was a really fun day and I’m glad that I chose to stay in town for Christmas and see it.

I had a nice Secret Santa exchange and dinner in Azogues with the subcentro staff last night, and we have holiday party for the whole Azogues area next Friday, which should be fun. Not much else has been happening here, just holiday preparations and celebrations.

Wishing you all the happiest of holidays and sending my love from Ecuador!

Kerry

 Baby Cora :)

A Few More Pics

Tis the Season

Hola a todos!

It seems to be a theme now, but wow, time is really, really flying by here! During the month of November I spent a total of 5 days in Zhoray, the rest of the time travelling for Thanksgiving and conferences. I have now been in Ecuador for over 6 months, which is still hard to believe, but I am still loving my time here!

Thanksgiving was incredible. I went to a town called Guaranda, about 10 hours from Zhoray, where two volunteers from Omnibus live. There were about 15 of us from the Omnibus there, which would have made a nice, big Thanksgiving dinner, but then of course an additional 10 Ecuadorians came, so we had a huge, loud, fun feast! We cooked all day on Thanksgiving to end with a dinner of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, apple pie, carrot pie, banana pudding and brownies. It was all the great, traditional food from home with a whole new Peace Corps family! It was also nice to have Wifi in the house, so I was able to Skype with my actually family throughout the day and weekend! Even after suffering from bad food poisoning Wednesday night before Thanksgiving (my own fault – poor choice of street meat…), I was able to enjoy a little of the delicious dinner. Luckily, I also had a repeat Thanksgiving the next day J.

From Guaranda, I went and spent 2 days in Rio Bamba with Orrin and a few other volunteers. We had another Thanksgiving dinner in Rio Bamba on Friday (which was a little more tranquila), then we explored some of Rio Bamba on Saturday. We left early Sunday to go to Quito for the day before heading to Tumbaco for the food security workshop. In Quito we ate some good Indian food, went and enjoyed the Basilica again, and just hung out with some other PC friends.

The Food Security workshop in Tumbaco was excellent. It was only for the Community Health volunteers in my Omnibus and the Agriculture volunteers from the Omnibus before us. There were about 35 of us total, with a lot of different stories and advice to share. We learned all about nutrition in Ecuador, activities we can work on in nutrition, and food security and sovereignty. We learned a lot from the “aggies” about starting gardens, harvesting seeds, etc. Overall, there was a lot of great shared knowledge and new ideas and advice. It was a terrific workshop and everyone left feeling more inspired about projects that can be done in our sites!

My work situation has since been approving and I have been working more independently, building relationships with more community leaders outside of the subcentro. I am currently working on a family garden with my host family on some of the land they have up the mountain. We measured out a 16x30 meter plot (huge!) that we are going to work in and starting digging holes for the posts. Up-coming work includes buying the “maya” or fencing to put around the posts to keep the pesky hens out, getting abono to enrich the soil, building the beds, and planting! I have a great collection of seeds from the Food Security workshop and from packages my mom has sent, so we will be planting lettuce, spinach, carrots, cucumbers, broccoli, green peppers, radishes, beets, and some zucchini, along with a few medicinal type plants. Hopefully there will be some success with the garden, and my family has already said that I can bring other people up to the land to show it off once it’s going, so I can give charlas about the garden and give other people ideas for gardens they can start themselves.

I had another meeting with the health volunteers through the subcentro. Four volunteers showed up to the meeting and it took a while for anything to get going because they are not happy about the organization of the group. Finally I was able to get the point across that I am going to be helping with the group and that I am excited and committed to working with them. I showed them some of the nutrition posters I’ve made and gave a brief little charla, which I think convinced them a little more that I’m serious about working with them. They then agreed to help prepare food for the Feria de Salud (health fair) that we had yesterday in the market. Come January, we will be holding a meeting to reorganize the group, refocus the goals, and start working together. I am still hopeful that there is promise for the group and that we can get a lot accomplished once there is a little more commitment!

The health fair went well. The subcentro staff gave medical attention to everyone down in the market under big tents for the Friday morning Mercado. I helped set up a table with the women volunteers where we put out the food and my nutrition charla display. The food wasn’t entirely nutritious, but it was tasty and went very quickly. Free food must be a universal draw to get people to events! I gave a few little charlas on nutrition, but people mostly just passed by, stopped to read a little bit, and continued on. I got some good ideas for little posters from Chloe and Katrina during Food Security, so even though not a lot of people stopped at the health fair, I think it will be successful for setting up future health charlas.

One of the girls in the community approached me the other weekend to say that she wanted me to teach them “artesenales,” or crafts, so we are starting a group for the girls in the high school. After writing oficios to the director of the high school and president of the Junta Parroquial, we have their support and a meeting space. I held an introductory meeting this week to explain more about the group and see what kind of interest there is among the girls. A total of 16 showed up and they all seemed very excited!  I had planned to have a meeting once a week, but they all begged to meet twice a week, so hopefully their enthusiasm continues! I am going to be giving workshops from a manual called “Como Planear mi Vida,” or “How to Plan my Life,” which includes the themes of communication, self-esteem, decision making, family planning and sex ed, personal values, and dreams for the future. The manual is really neat with a lot of interactive activities, so hopefully the girls like it. Half or our meetings will be the talleres to discuss these themes, and the other half will to be work on the crafts. The crafts I have planned are all from recycled materials found in the community, so there will be a little environmental education thrown in as well. We’ll be making bracelets and necklaces with beads made from magazines, purses crocheted from plastic bags, and wallets made from bottle wrappers, chip bags, etc. I think the group will be a lot of fun and hopefully will offer the girls a safe space to have fun and talk about things they have nowhere else to discuss.

Rebecca, the program manager for the entire Community Health program, came for my site visit on Wednesday. We have annual visits from Peace Corps to check in, see how we’re doing, what we’re doing, etc. It was fun to be able to show here a little snippet of my life in Zhoray, have some projects to talk about, and just have some time to talk with her. She is Ecuadorian, but has never been to this part of the country, so she was blown-away by the natural beauty here in Zhoray, so there was also a lot of photo taking! Unfortunately she is very busy trying to visit all of the volunteers in the country, so she could only stay for a couple of hours, but it was still a great visit!

I am still spending a lot of time with my host family and extended-family in Zhoray, which is a lot of fun. Nayelli, Jerry and I made gingerbread men this week. Nayelli and I also made some banana-oatmeal muffins, and we have carrot cake plans for Sunday. Zoila is helping me with the garden a lot, even though she says it’s mine, but it is nice to have someone to work beside. I’m getting better at helping Suca in the store, so I hang out down there when I’m not doing anything else.

There are a lot of things to look forward to in the coming weeks and months. Christmas is approaching fast and while I won’t have a white Christmas, I’m doing what I can to make it feel like home. Zoila and I put up fun, blinking lights on the stairwell the other day and we think we have found the perfect tree to put up. Nayelli loves the advent calendar that my parents sent for us, so she opens her chocolate every day. I have a cookie cutter from home that I’ll use to make all my favorite Christmas cookies, and the family is planning a big Christmas dinner. There is of course the fiesta before Christmas to crown the Christmas “princesita” from one of the communities, which should be interesting. Then there’s New Year’s, where we burn the dolls of things from the past to prepare for the coming new year. Early January are the semi-annual fiestas in Zhoray, and I think one of my good Peace Corps friends Katrina is going to come for a visit. Then, Mom and Dad visit at the end of January! There is now a good combination of work and play and things are really picking up for me here.

I miss everyone at home and hope you are all enjoying the prep for the holiday season. Enjoy all the snow, it is certainly something I miss here! I miss you all and think about you often.

All my love,

Kerry