Tech Trip Adventures

In our seventh week of training, Omnibus 102 packed up and took training on the road! Truly, this was the most fun and informative week of training yet. Each sector divided trainees into two groups, for Youth and Families one group went to the province of Esmereldas and the other group (my group) went to the provinces of Guayas and Santa Elena for a 5 day technical trip.
Myself, 10 other trainees, 3 facilitators: Ines, Lenny and Cisa, the PC language and cultural coordinator, Rolando, and Volunteer, Grace set out Sunday afternoon on the long trek to Guayaquil on the coast, about an 8 hour overnight bus trip (but not before we ate some delicious crepes in Quito for dinner!). Monday morning, we met three Guayaquil area volunteers for breakfast (one who went to Willamette and graduated with me too!) and chatted about their experiences as volunteers. Then it was on another bus, this time much shorter, to the oceanside towns of Salinas and La Libertad, where one of my fellow trainees will be working. In reward for our long trek out to the coast, we ate a delicious marisco- (seafood) filled lunch and headed to the beach to sun ourself and relax. Que rico!!! Later in the afternoon, we met up as a group to go over the objectives and tasks of our technical trip (because we're there to work, right?) and we began the preliminary planning of the workshops that were were going to give during the week with the help of our facilitators.
Our first real day of work took place in La Libertad. We met up with Alexandra, Grace's counterpart, and possibly the sexiest woman in Ecuador! (I'm talking Farrah Facet hair, body hugging jeans, heels, and an attitude and air of sexiness that just doesn't stop!!!) She is a doctor and local politician that has dramatically improved health-care access for La Libertad area. Her two main projects are a community clinic funded by the city, where anyone can go and see any doctor, therapist, dentist, get lab work, whatever for $2 a visit. Wow. Likewise she runs a free clinic at the area High School and does a lot of health promotion with the students, especially specific to sex-education and reproductive health education (and if there is any middle-aged woman who is going to get teens to listen and get on board with safer-sex it is Alexandra!). My group gave two charlas, workshops, in La Libertad; one to a group of 15 and 16 year-olds about sexuality and mainly just getting kids to talk to each other and be open about communication when talking about bodies, sexual activity, and risks. It was super fun, and the kids seemed to break through some of the shyness and start addressing the topic with maturity. The other charla was for a group of young mothers, talking about the same topic, but focused on how families can educate their kids and help them make good decisions about sexual activity.
Besides the workshops we gave in La Libertad we ate super well! We found the most economical and delicious way to eat in the tourist spot of Salinas which was super expensive (well for us as PCVs...) Dinner included: pinchos (skewered beef, chicken, or shrimp and grilled...yumm!) choclos, (sweet corn, either on the cob or in patties with onion and garlic), chelas heladas (cold beer) and plantains 101 ways (grilled and split with cheese, battered and fried, in patties, in balls, and more.) All delicious and a tasty and filling meal for about $3.
The next day we headed up the coast visit some other sites. First we stopped my Palmar, where Stephanie, a girl from my group, is going to be living. Palmar is a quiet, dirty little beach town with a lot of character and an amazing and organized youth base. We met with the coordinator of NeoJuventud, where Stephanie will be the fourth and final volunteer. The youth organization if funded and cordinated in part by CARE International and partners with the local Catholic Church. The group does a lot of peer education and outreach, organizes mingas (community cooperation projects – beach clean-ups, etc), replants the local mangroves, and has various small businesses (a bakery, cyber cafe, and alcohol-free hangout.) I think that Stephanie is going to be working with outreach and expanding the reach of the projects to more rural communities and creating a regional network of youth groups in the area. Very cool.
From Palmar we caught a bus to Manglaralto, and traveled an hour on a cramped bus standing with our backpacks...but we arrived to this sweet, little town, right in front of a beautiful beach. Our hostel had bright-colored hammacks hanging and we gladly occupied them whenever we were hanging out. I was super happy to be in Manglaralto to meet the mythical Carita who had lived with my host-family before me. Just like they said, she is a beautiful, kind woman with the hugest smile and warmest personality. She took us out to small town about 30 minutes in the campo, called Dos Mangos. It is mostly a farming and artisan community; our local guide took us to see the local production of woven hats, bags, and other things made from a special grass in the area, as well as the tagua, translated as vegetable ivory. The tagua comes from a palm-like tree, and the fruit can be eaten when it is young and when it is aged, can be dyed and carved into jewelry. I really loved it, but only found something from my friend, Molly, not for me! So I am on the look out for a tagua treasure of my own!
For dinner, Carita, had arranged for us to all have a group dinner at a little choza (hut) on the beach; the owner was the sweetest man and served us a delicious meal of marlin steaks, rice, salad and patacones (smashed and fried, green plantains – delicious with katsup!)
The following day we caught a bus further up the coast to a community called La Entrada, a town whose local economy as been transformed by the Fundacion Nobis. The local coordinator there had a full day planned for us; we visited fisherman coming in from their morning rounds, played with some still alive octopuses, talked about community entry tools, had a demonstration of their open-ocean oyster farming techniques and we did a workshop with local scholarship recipients about goal-setting. Of course another highlight of our trip was eating once again! There is a parada turistica (a tourist stop) with amazing lunches, for $2 we had one of the best meals we have had in Ecuador with a shrimp soup followed by more shrimp cooked in a white wine sauce that was absolutely amazing; a chef came and gave cooking lessons to the local restaurant to cater to a higher caliber of cuisine and we all think that it was a lesson well given and received! Then for dessert we headed to the famous “Pie Shop.” We all passed around pieces of strawberry cheesecake, oreo cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake, passionfruit pie, and more. Everything was amazing and I finally got to try the famed, real Ecuadorian coffee. Mind you, I have been drinking Nescafe for the past two months, so when I was brought just a cup of hot water I begrudgingly waited for the coffee powder to arrive momentarily. But no, a little silver pot was brought out filled with a super-strong, concentrated coffee, to which you add to your coffee. It is so rich, tasty and strong. And because my coffee addition had not been filled since I arrived, the minute the caffeine hit my blood stream, I was in the clouds with pleasure, and asked where I could purchase some of this blissfully coffee immediately. Which I did. One dollar for kilo of delicious, local, coffee.
When we returned, it was our last night in Manglaralto. I was giving the charla for the next day, and with my two partners we had planned on doing a similar goal setting activity with high school students in Mangalaralto. But there was new twist. Our group had jumped for 25 to 70 participants and our original activity was going to crash and burn with so many students. Jessica, Jcov and I, crash planned a mini-ropes course activity with three main points: communication, team-work and trust. I was super nervous about how it was all going to go, but we pulled it off with flying colors, the students were totally engaged, and at the end of the activity commented that they really liked it and wished it could have gone on for longer (which Carita says they rarely have a commentary about any activity. So our technical trip wrapped up with a success and we spent the next few hours laying in the sun and being pummeled by the barreling waves before heading out on our return trip to the Sierra. It is also worth mentioning that on our way back to La Libertad to catch the bus to Quito, there was a disco-power hour and we had a bus wide sing-and-dance-a-long. In one word: Magical.