Viva Zhoray!

The last few weeks have been very busy, fun and exciting! The fiestas in Zhoray to celebrate the parroquialization were even more fun than I hoped for. They lasted from a Saturday evening through that Tuesday afternoon and included many sports tournaments between communities within the parroquia and teams from other parroquias, a horse race, a singing competition, live music, lots of dancing, and of course the crowning of the Queen of Zhoray from the high school. Everyone was out in the streets all day and night for the few days, and there was a festive atmosphere in the whole town, helped by the streamers flying everywhere and constant music. Sunday and Monday nights had live artists down in the market, performing well into the night. I spent Sunday hanging out in Suca’s store (which is right on the market), helping with sales and avoiding a few bothersome drunk men. On Monday, the subcentro staff stayed and came down into town for the fiestas, so I hung out with them and the family and we danced until about 2am, having a great time!

After the fiestas, everyone was worn out and there were a few days of downtime before life began to get back to normal. Last week I gave charlas in the school – handwashing to the little kids and sex ed to the older kids. The charlas went really well overall, helped by the fact that all the teachers stayed in the room to help maintain order, answer questions, and be a support in general. The 8-hour training of how to wash your hands during reconnect came in handy because the kids had a lot of fun with the different activities during the charla. The older kids learned from the puberty charla, but had a lot of questions about where babies come from, etc, so there is definitely a need for continued sex ed charlas. It was a good start for my charlas, and next week I have 3 more in the schools in other communities where we will be doing hand washing again.

Nobody showed up for the nutrition charla that I had planned with the women health volunteers, which was a little disappointing, but there is another meeting scheduled for next Thursday with the Ministry of Agriculture, so hopefully they all come to prepare for our garden. The girls group had much more success. About 10 girls came to the first taller, which was about effective communication, and had a great time. The next meeting was with Katrina to teach them how to make wallets out of bottle wrappers and other recycled materials, which most of them came to. Last Thursday wasn’t as successful, but I think the group will continue to be successful now that we will be meeting only on Tuesdays – many of the girls have to help their families get ready for the Friday market, so Thursdays are not a very realistic day for them to meet.  Many of the women are growing interested in the crafts I’m teaching, so I’ve been spending a lot of time sharing with them. The paper beads have been a huge hit, and there is still a lot of interest in the wallets, so I think that will be something I work on a lot in the next few weeks.

It is still very difficult getting much else started, but I’m continuing to try. I think I might try to start a group with kids from the school to meet once a week, and I will be talking with the woman who is in charge of CNH for the kids under 5-yrs-old to see if I can work on health topics with her and the kids during their classes. The garden is a lot of work, especially since the women have yet to show up and Zoila and I are doing everything. There is still a lot to be done before we’re even ready to plant, and we got the bad news from the Ministry of Agriculture that they can’t give us the fencing we need to keep stray chickens out, so we are still looking around for other sources for the fencing. Little by little, however, it’s coming along, and I think it will be great once it’s ready!

Katrina, a Peace Corps friend, came for a tech-exchange visit for a few days this past week, which went really well! We spent a lot of time just sharing ideas and projects, teaching each other various crafts for our youth groups, and just hanging out. She loved the gorgeous view here (hard not to…), and the town loved having her visit, especially my family! They were chattier than I’ve ever seen when she was here and devastated when she left, after just 2 days of knowing her. They are still talking about her, when she’ll be back, if we can go visit her on the coast, etc, so I’d say it was a successful visit. The only part she wasn’t psyched about was the heaping plate of intestines that we got served for both lunch and dinner one day. By now I have learned to eat pretty much anything set in front of me, so I even let her sneak a little bit of extra intestine on my plate when the family wasn’t looking…mmmmm, mmmm, mmmmm. I also got to have the leche colostro from the cow this week because she gave birth to a darling little calf named Catalina. The milk was the first milk from the cow, but then left for 5 days before cooked and sweetened. It was…interesting. Not too bad, but I’m glad that it’s only immediately after the cow gives birth because I won’t be having more any time soon.

Cora is growing quickly, but is still adorable and I am so happy having her. I try to only go to town on Saturdays because Nayeli doesn’t have class and can watch her so she isn’t stuck in the room alone all day. Last time I went and came back Cora barely got up to greet me, so I’d say she had a great time playing with Nayeli and will hopefully be the same way today! I found out that a large company is coming into town soon – potentially this week – to do some sort of electric work. That means that all the workers will be staying in town, and my house is highly sought after. Since they will be renting out the other rooms in my hallway, I will be moving out of my room in Napo’s house and down into another room in Zoila and Suca’s house. The move didn’t happen earlier because the dog isn’t too welcome in the other room, but Zoila has assured me that it will be fine. The new arrangements will have Cora tied out on the terrace during the day when I’m not home, and she can still sleep in my room with me at night. It will probably end up better for her because she’ll have more time outside where she can see what’s happening and have more company from passing kids. I’m happy to move down into their house, the only downside being that I’ll lose my own bathroom, but I’ll be able to deal with that.

Everything is going really well with the family. I work in the garden with Zoila whenever I can, and we recently made a fenced enclosure for all her chickens and our new ducks. I have two little ducklings, a little yellow one and a little grey one. Zoila is very, very handy and can construct almost anything, so the enclosure is really neat and has a perfect little concrete pool she made for our ducklings. If I have a lot of work to do for Peace Corps or the subcentro, I still try to go up to the land with her in the mornings and do my work up there, keeping her company and letting Cora run free. I spend a lot of time in the later afternoons and evenings with Suca and Nayeli chatting, playing Uno, helping with the store and cooking, and just generally hanging out. I really enjoy spending time with them and rarely lock myself in my room anymore – I still laugh when I think of what a big change it has been in the 5 months since I first got here to Zhoray. While I like spending time with my family here, they certainly aren’t my family from home and I can’t wait for my parents to visit! Just 9 days now (not that I’m counting…) before I meet them in Cuenca and get to share my new life with them!  This week will be full of charlas, Peace Corps reports, and everyone’s growing excitement for their visit J.

I hope everyone at home is doing well. Thanks for all the continued support – I love hearing from everyone! I miss you all and hope you’re doing well.

All my love,

Kerry