Carrie Aqui: So here I am in the Peace Corps

I’m not entirely comfortable with having a blog. But many of you have asked me to keep one, and for the sake of letting everyone know what I’m doing here in Ecuador I’m going to attempt it. If you’re reading this please comment or email me and let me know what you’re up to. Also, I have a cell phone now, so email me if you want the number.

So here I am in the Peace Corps, after all the decision making and paperwork :) I got to Ecuador on February 18th. [Carmita just typed a bunch in here, I’m writing this on my computer at home, she’s 5, loves to be tickled, and has a fantastic laugh. But more about her later.] I’m in a training group of 55 people between my program- Natural Resources Conservation- and the Agriculture program. Some info about the group: most of us are in our 20s with the exception of two women in their 40s. There is one married couple. There are two other people in NRC doing the Master’s International program, which will be nice for me. There are two guys who also graduated from BU- the most people from one college as far as I know :) And there are a few people who know people back home who I know- small world.

We spent one day in DC and then a couple days in Quito for orientation. Then we left for Cayambe and on the way stopped at la mitad del mundo. We are living in Cayambe and the surrounding area for training until the end of April. Cayambe is about an hour and a half from Quito and is also up in the mountains. We spent the first week living all together in kind of a hostel, which was a lot of fun. We had the beginning of language and technical training and sessions on safety, health, etc. And at night played futbol and hung around.

They separated us into groups of about 6 by our language level. I came in at intermedio-bajo which isn’t too bad since we’re supposed to get to at least intermedio-medio during training, one level up. Each group lives in a different community and everyone lives with a host family. The other people in my group are Jessica, Regan, Aaron, Naim, and Lincoln. They are all awesome and we get along really well, which is great since we’re together allllll the time. Our language facilitator is Pablo and he’s also a lot of fun. Most days for these few weeks we meet in our “classroom” at Regan’s house and learn Spanish all day. Mostly just conversation with some grammar thrown in. And we go out to talk to people in the community and ask them questions about various things like the local fiestas. Or go into Cayambe to learn how to use the bank, post office, etc. Needless to say my Spanish is getting better quickly. I can understand what people are saying most of the time, but my speaking skills are coming a little more slowly…

So I hope this first post has been sufficiently long and boring to change your mind about reading my blog :) Also, I had considered “Bob Loblaw Law Blog” as a good title. Couldn’t resist.