Little Missy No-Name

"Little Missy No-Name" is what my younger sister went by for the first two weeks of her life while my parents argued over what to put on the birth certificate. And this little furball has taken it as her temporary nombre as well.

Meanwhile, I ponder names and sympathize with Anita the original gatita, who begins to suffer from an inferiority complex because of all the attention showered upon this new and indubitably cuter being that has invaded her home. Life just ain't fair, cat.

Rain Rain, I'm Going Away

The rainy season is finally finally finally living up to its name. After a month or more of straight-up hot'n'humid, the floodgates opened. There has been at least one and usually 2-3 rainstorms a week, which also means frequent power outages.

The most violent thunderstorm I have ever been in crashed, crackled, and poured around us two weeks ago as we huddled in our apartment and sipped tea. We couldn't resist stepping onto the terrace briefly to see the damage: lightning struck so close by that all we saw was a flash like we were in a spotlight; the power was out at the megamall; the street below us was flooded with water and spilling over into people's garages. We had left the door open, and a bat winged its way into the apartment, did a lap around the ceiling, and flew out again into the storm as we shrieked and covered our heads.

It's sunny now, however, and time to hit the streets and work on my flip-flop tan. But before I go, tomorrow I leave for Latacunga and will spend the week helping my friend George with a project at his site. He has teamed up with the organization Builders Beyond Borders to build a water system in the pueblo where he lives. You can read more about it here.

I probably won't have internet until I get back, so...until I get back! Cheers.

Menchie's Tsunami-Evasive Tactics

A few weeks ago, after the earthquake in Japan, there were tsunami warnings up and down the Pacific coast. Peace Corps decided that those of us living on or near the coast needed to be evacuated temporarily to be safe and avoid the madness.

So on a Friday morning, they sent us the command to get the heck out of dodge, stat. This process is part of the EAP, Emergency Action Plan, that every Peace Corps office in every Peace Corps country has in place for occasions such as September 30, 2010 and also impending tsunamis.

Step 1 of the EAP is the Standfast phase. So we stood fast until we got word that we were a go for Step 2, Consolidation. That's the part where you pack your bag and go to a pre-arranged meeting spot. In this case, our meeting spot was Quito, and guess who made it into my Emergency Action Plan bag???

Clearly I have my priorities in order during an emergency situation. (Turns out the tsunami didn't hit, and we got an all expenses paid trip to the capital, whee!) Here we are hiking in the gigantic wooded Parque Metropolitano.

A trip to Quito would not be complete without a stop at a certain Indian restaurant. This place has become something of a PCV tradition, a tradition into which Menchie has now been summarily inducted.

Champions of Change

PCVs received a note from the Office of Public Engagement that the White House began featuring 12 RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) as "Champions of Change" on its website, here. These returned volunteers recently gathered at the White House to share their ideas on "how encouraging service can help win the future."

Attention, Google Maps: My apartment is now a destination

Some of the kids know where I live now. So I've been getting lots of phone calls from unknown numbers - public phones - with familiar voices on the end of the line asking Watcha doin', or informing me We're downstairs (the implication being, Let us in!).

We've done homework and manicures, played with the cat, and schemed to buy one of those kiddie pools and put it out on the terrace and fill it with icewater. And we've done quite a bit of baking. It seems this is a new tradition, because when one kid goes home toting a bag of baked goods, the next one inevitably comes expecting the same.

This lovely young lady showed up at my house a couple days ago.
I asked her, What do you want to do?
She announced, I want to bake.

And bake we did.

Earlier that day I had gone to visit her family in the barrio. It's revelatory when I step into one of my kids' homes for the first time. To see the colors, hear the sounds, and feel the rhythms of their home lives allows me to place them in a new context, to see qualities and characteristics that may not stand out so easily in class. Inside some of the homes is overcrowded claustrophobic tchotchke kitsch; inside others, the sparsity of bare wall punctuated by one small frame or calendar page, whose end effect is to draw more attention to the vacant space around it than to anything else. In still others, there are pastel painted walls, sunlight filtering in green-gold through the windows and bougainvillea vines, and abuelito's soft strumming the current that carries his voice, the old-time pasillo melodies, through the house. Usually there are more people than beds, hence not much personal space.

Hence the teenagers showing up at my house.

Which, on the whole, I enjoy. There are days like last Friday where I find myself roped into attending workshops all. day. long. (which frequently turn into extended exercises in Not Dozing Off because, let's face it, if your attention wavers for a moment it is difficult to pick back up again in Spanish) and I want to throw myself down on the floor and kick and scream

,

and then there are days where I revel in the fact that it's my job to be serenaded by grandpa, be fed birthday cake for brunch, to make small talk about the motorcycle propped up in the living room, and then to take my turn at hosting later that afternoon. I feel like a Victorian socialite, minus the corset. Maybe I should get calling cards. Ah wait, I already have some...

...and they're yummy.

National Poetry Month

For those who don't already know, April is National Poetry Month. At least, in the US it is; I'm not so sure about Ecuador. Anyhow, continuing in the tradition of the online poetry collective begun with some fellow NU writers, it is my goal to write one poem a day this month. At the risk of collecting condescension (that's no fun) and critiques (fun? ehhh maybe, but nonetheless useful - so if you have any, don't be shy), I thought I would share one with you. Here goes.

The Park at Noon

Empty but for the play of shadows
on metal swingsets, slides, and one of those
carousels without the horses, slightly off
kilter, now resting from its limping gait.
Ants wind their way through peels of paint the sun's
parched; one by one by instinct filing.
The concrete dais in the corner crumbles
under a solitary Christmas wreath
that dangles in April, sighing O
trailing red ribbons on the breeze. Fronds splay
the dusty underside of palms, and up
stretch a green net of gauze against the sky.
A man comes down the street, his cries the names
of fruit, as if to speak them gives him pain.

NPR's All Things Considered Considers Guayaquil

Last month, NPR did a two-part series on Guayaquil. Check it out by clicking on the links for Part One and Part Two.

Read, take a look at the pictures, and you will get some more concrete details of life in the barrio. As a foreigner, I find it difficult to describe the everyday living conditions of the people I work with, for two reasons: (1)I do not actually live among them in the barrio, so while I do get glimpses here and there, in truth I have not experienced it; (2)I can't help feeling that the conjectures and observations I do make are somehow tainted with negative judgments. It is a constant struggle to differentiate between unhealthy lifestyle practices and practices that are not necessarily unhealthy, simply different, from those I am familiar with.

Unhealthy lifestyle practice: not washing your hands after using the restroom or before you eat. These things I can try and teach to the kids.

Unfamiliar lifestyle practice: keeping your kid cooped up in the house when they're not in school. Obviously this is not the best option, but in many cases it is better than the alternative, an alternative which caused Segunda Ayobi (in the article) to seek out another difficult option, but one that she felt was better for her son: she asked a shelter for street kids to take him in.

The business of improving options - improving the quality of life and the ability of individuals and communities to achieve their own well being on their terms - is not a simple one. Recognizing the steps we take at a (get ready for a buzzword) grassroots level, like the community banks, family gardens, motivational education and training activities with children and teens, is also recognizing we are part of a long and intentionally enduring process.