So it's been over a week since I've posted anything on the blog. Im not really sure what why, I guess you could say I've had somewhat of 'writers block'. The daily routine seems as though it's become too much of a repeat and I in no way intend on boring my readers! I feel as though my life here in Peace Corps as hit a sort of plateau. The hype of everything being new and scary has slowly come to a halt. Not that this is a bad thing. Im becoming more comfortable in my work place, have established a great group of ecuadorian friends, and well, am learning to survive the host family situation (while counting down the days till I can move out).
I often get this feeling of needing to start projects of my own or be more proactive with reaching out to the community. But then I take a step back and take into consideration what Peace Corps told us at the end of orientation; the first three months we are really supposed to sit back and do more observing, just getting to know the people, living the life, etc..Im not sure if that's exactly what I've been doing. I think my situation is a little different because of my work situation. The fact that I am in an institution that has regular work hours and projects that are already started makes it hard for me to just "sit back and watch". But it's very clear that I am in a Latin American country where things happen at their own pace. I've embraced the laid back culture and have actually learned to appreciate it.
About a week ago was my one month anniversary here at my site, Ambato. I was walking home from work the other day and felt as though I needed to pinch myself. Im actually living and working/volunteering in a Latin American country. How long has this been my dream...hmm since I was 16! This month literally flew by, so many new people to meet and new places see. I want to keep growing and keep learning and seeing new things. I don't want to get into any certain routine of 'just living life'. Im not sure if that even makes sense, I mean routine is great and I think I need it in a sense to stay sane. But I want to keep pushing myself.
Im at the point with my spanish where I can communicate just fine, but I want to take it further, with vocab..etc..I want to be able to REALLY express myself. It feels weird saying Im bilingual because I feel like that's a huge accomplishment that I haven't quite achieved. The second language will never be quite like the first but I hope that in these two years I can keep expanding my language. I was with the director of our program the other day and I told him how in college I took portuguese classes. He offered to take me to the dept. of languages and talk to the director to see if I could audit a portuguese class, SCORE! It would be awesome to start up that language again.
So I've got a meeting to go to in about 15 minutes and theres no way that I can update all of the things that have been going on. So I'll summarize real quick. As I said work is going well. We are so close to actually starting trainings for the project with Prevention and Attention of Emergencies! We have a space to start the Addictions and mental health program. The money got cleared to do Survey Monkey and upload our survey. Eulalia and I will actually be giving up our office and moving into a new one (needs to be "built") next to the director. So there are many exciting things going on there.
Family is doing fine. I've gotten into a routine with them where I eat breakfast with them, then when I get done at the gym I go and have some sort of dinner. And that's really about it for family interaction. They do their own thing, I do mine and it seems to work out well. It's such a different family life than I've been used to, probably the worst that I've had in all of my host family experiences, kinda sucks to have to end on this type of note, pero bueno, asi es la vida.
Surprisingly enough I've been watching way more basketball than I have soccer. Basketball is really popular here and the group of friends that I have are on different club teams play a couple times every weekend. It's really fun to learn the different tec. terms in spanish and see what they consider "professional" basketball, lol.
This past weekend I went to Guaranda, a small town where a couple other volunteers are. Rebekah met up with us and we had a good time. Nice to be with Americans but felt weird speaking so much english. Clearly my english going down hill and I apologize for this, my grammar was not the best to begin with and will get progressively worse within these next two years...just a heads up.
Alright enough for now. I'll try to update again soon!
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