Ecuador on my Mind

Think of  Ray Charles but replace Georgia with Ecuador.  Yup, that’s me for the last 24 hours.. Ecuador on my mind.  Drove by Phillips today and thought the special was Peace Corps.  I was wrong.  It was Pork Chops. 

Anyway, have a lot to say today and I’m feeling pretty ambitious.  Here it goes… 

First things first, I found the perfect outfit for my arrival in Ecuador.  First impressions are everything and I have a great feeling about this ensemble. 

Secondly, I just got an email today from the Peace Corps informing me about the Big Hermanito/Big Hermanita Project available for Trainees.  As the email states

“The Big Hermanito Project will be a fun way for Peace Corps Trainees (PCT) and Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) to get to know each other prior to your arrival in country. As trainees prepare for the journey to Ecuador, it may help to know there´s a PCV who was once in their shoes and is ready to answer their questions and ease their minds. As such, Hermanitos will serve a mentoring function for incoming trainees joining our family.

Depending on volunteer participation in this initial run, each Hermanito (Volunteer) will be matched to one or two mentee trainees to support them in their transition to volunteer life. Shortly after arrival in country, mentors will be invited to meet the trainees at a barbeque at the training site and have their brains picked face to face.”

I think this is a great resource and having somebody to talk to who has been in my shoes will make the transition a lot easier.  Even if I don’t find my Hermanito to be very helpful, it will be a great way to meet a number of PCV who have already been in country for some time. 

Thirdly, after doing quite a bit of research (AKA facebook stalking), I came across some helpful blogs.  One of the girls in my training class actually just came back to the states from Madagascar where she was serving with the Peace Corps.  Whitney started training in June of 2008 and was sent home by March 2009 because of the political unrest happening in Madagascar.   With her Peace Corps experience in Madagascar cut short, she was given the opportunity to start over in Ecuador with the Omnibus 102 group.  (That is the name of our training class.  We are the 102 group to be invited to serve in Ecuador.)  She has been a huge help to our group since she can answer a lot of questions we have about packing, what to expect during training, etc. 

I also FB stalked another young lad named Ethan who started his PC training in Ecuador at the end of February of this year.  He is now sworn in as a PCV working with the Sustainable Agriculture program in Ecuador until May 2011.  Seeing his pictures and reading about what he is doing, feeling and eating (guinea pig) has also helped me prepare myself.  I always knew that my facebook skills would come in useful someday!

I also realized that I haven't given any background information on what I plan to be doing while in Ecuador.  I will be volunteering within the Community Health Project under the title of Health Extentionist. 

The community health project has three main components: child maternal health, reproductive health and rights, and prevention of tropical disease.  I will be working with at least one of these topics, if not all of them. One goal is to reduce death in children under five by reducing micronutrient deficiencies. In Ecuador, 14 percent of children under age 5 and 18 percent of children between 5 and 12 suffer from vitamin A deficiency. Seventy percent of children under age 5 and 60 percent of pregnant mothers in Ecuador have iron deficiencies. Volunteers also work to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted illnesses (STIs) by training educators, youth workers, health workers, and parents in HIV/AIDS education.  

And lastly, some random facts about Ecuador:

• Ecuador is about the size of Colorado and is divided into 22 provinces, 10 in the Andean Highlands (Sierra), six in the Amazon Lowlands (Oriente), five in the Coastal Lowlands (Costa), and the Galápagos Islands, located about 600 miles west of the mainland in the Pacific Ocean.
  
• The Andes Mountains, with their snow capped volcanoes, divide the generally drier coastal plain from the moist, tropical Amazon Basin region. The wide variety of environmental conditions supports an equally wide variety of plants and animals, some of which are found nowhere else on earth. 
  
• The four main areas of Ecuador have different climates. Because the country is on the equator, the temperature depends on the altitude, not the season. There are only two seasons—rainy and dry.
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