3/25/2010

Site visit- Cajabamba!!!


Hola everyone!!! I am currently on site in Cajabamba for a few more days. This will be my new home for the next 2 years. It´s an ok place, it´s not as remote as some places, and one of the organizations I work with has computers and I have access to free internet!! which is awesome!!! Yesterday I went with my counterpart to one of the communities in the mountains that is wanting my help to start an integrated farm (of which I really know nothing about,yet!) it was way up on the top, literally, of one of the peaks, and we spent the morning watching the local people bring their cows and a few sheep in to get vacinations from the gov. it was fun to watch, but I was really wondering what we doing there, and then at 9 in the morning they tell us guests to go into this room with tiny tables for a break. They bring in food for us, which consists of a bowl of potatos, and a slab of cuy rib laid out on top of it. Let me tell you, I was reallllll excited about it!! I forced what I could down, and luckily the cuy slab I got didn´t have much meat on it. After our snack, and some more vacinations, we traveled down the other side of the mountain to their little plot of land they want my help with; all of the men brought their hoes with them, and I was rather perplexed and worried they expected me to preform for them with all my knowledge of agriculture! But luckily, or unluckily, it depends, they all sat down to listen to my counterpart talk to them for an hour in the local language, quichua. Then he turns to me and says, ok now tell them about yourself and what you want to do here. I was quite taken by surprise as I was in the middle of a daydream. SO I said that I¨m Lindsay and I¨m with the Peace Corps and I´m very happy to be here and excited for the work to be done. Then I asked if they had any questions for me (stupidly) and one guy did have a question for me but he took forever to ask his question so that I lost track of what he said, then I couldn´t answer him and my counterpart tried to say it in simple spanish, I still couldn´t answer so I just said I didn´t have the words. I think this experience was the first of many embarrassments yet to come. Yay!!!
SO this all occured Tuesday March 23rd. Today is now the 25th. This morning I had a meeting with my other counterpart and their agency CEDEIN. It is a rather well organized organization. They supplied me with 2 books before I even got there (through Peace Corps) and they are doing so much to help the local people get their products out there and to advertize that they are doing this in an organic manner. They want my help with commercializing some of their products and getting them into more markets. While I am rather excited about this, I really don´t have much knowledge about this either! But this meeting allievated some of the anxieties I have developed being here in my site. I feel like I actually have a chance at being useful here, which is great!!! Well enough for now, more later!! Love and miss you all!! Lindsay
P.S. Above are the girls in my province of Chimborazo. Carrie, Cara, Me, and Rachel

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