We had a our swearing in ceremony at the ambassador’s mansion in Quito, complete with moustaches, so now I’m a real volunteer. Congratulations to all of the volunteers in Omnibus 103. Afterward we had a barbecue and stayed up into the late hours of the night. It was a lot like the end of freshman year of college. We know we’ll all see each other again, but it was a pretty quick end to a nice time we had together during training. Suddenly we’re all on our own. It’s kind of scary, but I think all of us were ready to be doing our thing.
So here I am surviving in Chone, land of beautiful women and brave (machista) men. The accent here I just as bad as I remember from my site visit, thankfully my Spanish improved quite a bit over the course of training. On my final language test I scored advanced low! I still have a lot moments where I’m completely dumbfounded, and I need to figure out something other to say that “Si!” when it happens. My listening has improved so much that when I was listening to my music in English the other day, I actually picked out lyrics that I never heard before.
For our first 3 months, Peace Corps wants us to chill out and just get to know our communities, so that’s what I’m trying to do. I’ve taken a fair amount of naps, and I’m getting my exercise routine going again. The other day I went with my counterpart and his friend to Portoviejo and Manta, and we visited malls (called ‘shoppings’ in Spanish) that truly felt like the US.
My host family continues to be extremely friendly, and the house is way nicer than I could ever ask for. They don’t like it when I hang out alone, and they tell me every day “nuestra casa es suya!” so sometimes I hang out on my computer in the living room or watch tv in the kitchen just to make them feel better.
My next goal is to hit the beach, and soon. The legendary waves of Canoa are just a little over an hour away….
