Let's get one thing straight here... I survived.
I am alive. I am safe and typing this from the peace corps office where now as I take the crazy series of events into perspective I can conclude that this past week is almost pretty funny.
First of all nothing that happened to me this week in the scheme of life is really that big of a deal but
still... but if I don't enjoy the drama a bit it might just bring me down.
Okay, the weather here has been a bit, shall we say..... damp. Floods, landslides, mudslides... damaging amounts of rain have inundated the southern half of Ecuador (ie where I live). Last week I had to travel to Quito for Reconnect (an official Peace Corps meeting) and our bus was in some kind of accident. This accident remains vague because I was fast asleep when we were flung up into the air and came crashing back down into our seats. The bus suffered the most damages ( ask me about my elbow) and we ended up waiting about 4 hours for it to get fixed and then we continued towards Quito... alright long story short not one but two landslides kept us backed up for hours and my 12 hour bus ride became a 19 hour bus ride. But we arrived in Quito. I made it.
After several days of meetings and workshops we were unable to return to our sites because many of the roads had been closed and the President had declared a national state of emergency so PARTY. We stayed in Quito on the Peace Corps tab but being the hardcore volunteers that we are my friend and I used the extra time to plan a leadership conference for scholarship girls.
Well, yesterday on the very crowded trolley to the bus station to buy our tickets back to our sites-- the police came on and arrested a thief. I was like, dang, close call.... However as I was leaving the trolley I realize that my bag has been slashed and my atm card, my ecua-atm card, copy of my passport, my cell phone, and 40 dollars were gone. It is quite something to lose everything you own of economic value in minutes and not even realize it was happening. It is humbling and of course.. you are reading this and perhaps thinking (perhaps not) what the heck was I thinking carrying all my cards and money in one place. I know. Dios mio, I know.
Well... here's to surviving and laughing about it and knowing that in the end none of this is a big deal.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Me and Margarita + 20 hours on a bus + 300 quails= 30 hours
7 hours into our 9 hour trip to Santo Domingo, I’m sweating on a steamy bus with a jammed window that no matter how hard I pull, I cannot open and the more I try the more sweaty I get, so I give up. Surrender to the heat.. Enjoy the brief breezes that sweep in when the bus door opens to let more passengers on or off and little kids selling frozen coco water, oranges and clear plastic bags of skinned slivers of yellow mangos. My traveling companion, Margarita is a member of Neo Juventud the group of young people that I work with here in palmar. We left that morning at 7:30 to make the 9 hour trip to Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas to buy and bring back 300 quails and return that same night. Margarita turns to me and laughs, “Hope it doesn’t rain.”
It began to pour about an hour outside of Santo Domingo. We arrived at the bus terminal in the rain where we caught a taxi with a driver that seemed to kind of sort of know where we were going. He stopped about every block and a half to ask the best looking woman within earshot for directions; 6:30 pm and about 7 curvy ladies later we pulled up to the house of the couple who would sell us our 300 quails. Gringa moment- I expect to walk in, pay the 420 dollars and be handed several boxes of birds so that we can return to the terminal and catch the next bus back to the coast. Rather we were warmly received by the wife who informed us that we would need to go un poco mas adentro, in other words we were going to need to head into the junglish campo and box the birds ourselves. We walked past several large dogs to the office where we sat down and chatted for awhile and the wife let us take refreshingly chilly showers and called us a cab so that we can find some dinner. She offers to go with her husband to box the birds and meet us at the terminal at 10:30pm, we gladly accept as we have not eaten since earlier that morning and at 7:30pm we are starved.
"Shopping" is this mini-mall type complex ( with the best bathrooms- Shoutout to Nick Chan)) that can be found in several cities here in Ecuador including Santo Domingo and Libertad ( the nearest city to my town). Not only is it a bit of the States in Ecuador but it’s also the only place that was guarantied to be open until 10pm, so Margarita and I were both in agreement that the food court would make the best meal. She enjoyed rice and fried chicken from KFC and I got a mini-pizza from some ghetto place called “Ch Italia.” Then we had an hour to waste but the rest of Shopping had closed so we stayed until almost 10 when they pretty much kicked us out.
Okay. Flashback. The volunteer before me had to make this trip once all by herself and I believe 100 birds died because the bus guys made her put the birds below the bus with the luggage and they died from the heat and she had to bring back 200 live birds and 100 dead ones. This was no picnic and I still vividly recall her telling me this story as a humorous warning (with very serious undertones). At the time I was still a volunteer in training and had no idea I was going to be assigned to her site and thus, one day be faced with this arduous task. So I did what any naive newbie would do, I laughed at her tale and comforted myself by telling myself that that would never be me. No way. I would just never try and bring 300 quails back on a nearly 10 hour bus ride. Well, 10 months later I was in line to buy tickets for Margarita, me and 300 quails all the way back to Libertad..
We tried to talk them into letting the birds have their own seats but we lacked a strong defense to the very obvious fact that the birds stunk so instead we asked if the birds could have their own compartment below the bus, away from the heat of the motor and other bags. The bus guys agreed and then tried to charge us 1.50 a box ( we have 15 boxes not including the strange Japanese chickens that the quail couple gave us and a human ticket costs five dollars and you get a seat and everything). Margarita talks them down to a dollar a box and we buy our tickets and are set to leave at 11:30pm. The quail couple kindly waited with us for an hour or so until our bus arrived and helped us load the 15 some boxes onto the bus. After lots of hugging, handshaking, cheek kissing and such, we thanked them for all their help and boarded the bus ourselves.
The 9 or so hour trip back was the coldest I have been since arriving here in Ecuador. Being that I grew up in Wisconsin I fancy that I am fairly immune to what people here, ( a country that is cut in two by the equator) refer to here as cold but dang, it was downright chilly. While this was a bit rough for us and the woman who actually demanded to get off the bus at 2am with her baby, preferring to wait in the rain at a dark gas station for a “warmer” bus it was a blessing for the quails. This whole cold debacle was about the same time that the police stopped us like usual and made everyone get off the bus. I remember when I was new to this country and actually got off the bus, now I play ignorant and hide in my seat. Margarita had forgotten her id and we managed to lay low. The police allowed everyone back on the bus and we were on our way again. I had brought my trusty discman from 1996 ( who needs an Ipod?), I took one ear bud and let Margarita take the other and we fell asleep to the peaceful stylings of Damien rice.
long story a little less long... we made it back in the pouring rain and every single quail (a bit wet) survived ( which might be a quail leyenda). That is my story of the 300 quails.
7 hours into our 9 hour trip to Santo Domingo, I’m sweating on a steamy bus with a jammed window that no matter how hard I pull, I cannot open and the more I try the more sweaty I get, so I give up. Surrender to the heat.. Enjoy the brief breezes that sweep in when the bus door opens to let more passengers on or off and little kids selling frozen coco water, oranges and clear plastic bags of skinned slivers of yellow mangos. My traveling companion, Margarita is a member of Neo Juventud the group of young people that I work with here in palmar. We left that morning at 7:30 to make the 9 hour trip to Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas to buy and bring back 300 quails and return that same night. Margarita turns to me and laughs, “Hope it doesn’t rain.”
It began to pour about an hour outside of Santo Domingo. We arrived at the bus terminal in the rain where we caught a taxi with a driver that seemed to kind of sort of know where we were going. He stopped about every block and a half to ask the best looking woman within earshot for directions; 6:30 pm and about 7 curvy ladies later we pulled up to the house of the couple who would sell us our 300 quails. Gringa moment- I expect to walk in, pay the 420 dollars and be handed several boxes of birds so that we can return to the terminal and catch the next bus back to the coast. Rather we were warmly received by the wife who informed us that we would need to go un poco mas adentro, in other words we were going to need to head into the junglish campo and box the birds ourselves. We walked past several large dogs to the office where we sat down and chatted for awhile and the wife let us take refreshingly chilly showers and called us a cab so that we can find some dinner. She offers to go with her husband to box the birds and meet us at the terminal at 10:30pm, we gladly accept as we have not eaten since earlier that morning and at 7:30pm we are starved.
"Shopping" is this mini-mall type complex ( with the best bathrooms- Shoutout to Nick Chan)) that can be found in several cities here in Ecuador including Santo Domingo and Libertad ( the nearest city to my town). Not only is it a bit of the States in Ecuador but it’s also the only place that was guarantied to be open until 10pm, so Margarita and I were both in agreement that the food court would make the best meal. She enjoyed rice and fried chicken from KFC and I got a mini-pizza from some ghetto place called “Ch Italia.” Then we had an hour to waste but the rest of Shopping had closed so we stayed until almost 10 when they pretty much kicked us out.
Okay. Flashback. The volunteer before me had to make this trip once all by herself and I believe 100 birds died because the bus guys made her put the birds below the bus with the luggage and they died from the heat and she had to bring back 200 live birds and 100 dead ones. This was no picnic and I still vividly recall her telling me this story as a humorous warning (with very serious undertones). At the time I was still a volunteer in training and had no idea I was going to be assigned to her site and thus, one day be faced with this arduous task. So I did what any naive newbie would do, I laughed at her tale and comforted myself by telling myself that that would never be me. No way. I would just never try and bring 300 quails back on a nearly 10 hour bus ride. Well, 10 months later I was in line to buy tickets for Margarita, me and 300 quails all the way back to Libertad..
We tried to talk them into letting the birds have their own seats but we lacked a strong defense to the very obvious fact that the birds stunk so instead we asked if the birds could have their own compartment below the bus, away from the heat of the motor and other bags. The bus guys agreed and then tried to charge us 1.50 a box ( we have 15 boxes not including the strange Japanese chickens that the quail couple gave us and a human ticket costs five dollars and you get a seat and everything). Margarita talks them down to a dollar a box and we buy our tickets and are set to leave at 11:30pm. The quail couple kindly waited with us for an hour or so until our bus arrived and helped us load the 15 some boxes onto the bus. After lots of hugging, handshaking, cheek kissing and such, we thanked them for all their help and boarded the bus ourselves.
The 9 or so hour trip back was the coldest I have been since arriving here in Ecuador. Being that I grew up in Wisconsin I fancy that I am fairly immune to what people here, ( a country that is cut in two by the equator) refer to here as cold but dang, it was downright chilly. While this was a bit rough for us and the woman who actually demanded to get off the bus at 2am with her baby, preferring to wait in the rain at a dark gas station for a “warmer” bus it was a blessing for the quails. This whole cold debacle was about the same time that the police stopped us like usual and made everyone get off the bus. I remember when I was new to this country and actually got off the bus, now I play ignorant and hide in my seat. Margarita had forgotten her id and we managed to lay low. The police allowed everyone back on the bus and we were on our way again. I had brought my trusty discman from 1996 ( who needs an Ipod?), I took one ear bud and let Margarita take the other and we fell asleep to the peaceful stylings of Damien rice.
long story a little less long... we made it back in the pouring rain and every single quail (a bit wet) survived ( which might be a quail leyenda). That is my story of the 300 quails.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
