Okay so what´s been going on? Well Christmas was kind of interesting. I participated in 7 nights of the novena that the community held, one of which we had at my house. I of course made oatmeal/raisin/chocolate cookies for compartiring. Novenas are kind of boring but I figured it would help with my integration. In a country that´s 99% Christian it´s easy to forget that other religions exist, although I did make potato pancakes in honor of Hanukkah. For Christmas I made a couple of lasagnas which fellow PCV-B Cindy and I ate for like 3 days straight. On Christmas Eve there was a fiesta at Cruz and Segundo´s house just up the road. We danced until early morning while taking shots of whisky and wine, with an occasional beer thrown in, overall not a good mix because on Christmas day I woke up with chuchaqui something fierce (hangover). On Christmas day Viviana, who runs the local tienda (store), made arroz colorado for all her customers. Cindy and I ate, watched a soccer game and talked to our families back home.
Then I was off to Argentina for 2 weeks of vacation. The trip was planned since way back when I was in Bolivia, with my parents taking the plunge into South America for the first time. We had a week in Buenos Aires and a week in Bariloche. Lebo, who´s now in PC Peru was able to make it down for the BA leg, which was awesome. We vented frustrations over our PC transfers and made grand plans for post-PC travels (The Great Worm Crusade is now in the works). Argentina of course did not disappoint, the country is filled with beautiful, friendly and talkative people. It is an amazing country, not least of all because it actually functions as a country. With my parents being there I realized just how much I´ve adapted to life in South America. Things like throwing toilet paper in the garbage instead of the bowl, buses being filled way over capacity and nothing starting when it´s supposed to, all seem completely normal to me. Here are a few highlights from the trip:
Old trains and champagne
The only Kosher McDonald´s outside of Israel
Lot´s of cool grafitti
Good Chocolate and Real Ice Cream
Hiking (or attempting to) with my Dad
Kayaking on the lake with Dad (quite successfully)
Vacation over, back to ¨reality?¨ Well PC reality anyway... When I got back I had to deal with a small ¨security issue¨ that I won´t go into here. I don´t have to change sites or anything but I am out a computer and my morale suffered a tremendous blow for sure. But you know my stubborn ass won´t be happy unless I see this thing through to the end, so here I am, pressing on, pressing on...
Luckily nearby volunteer Clay had something going on in his community shortly after I got back. He invited some volunteers, our AG APCD Nelson and the new (old for Bolivia volunteers) Country Director to visit his site, which happens to be a Tsachila community. The Tsachilas are one of the few indigenous groups that live in the lowlands, in fact there are only about 2,000 of them and all of their communities are here in Santo Domingo. The largest Tsachila community of about 600 people is actually just an hour walk from my site. Clay´s community is just awesome. We were warmly welcomed, given a tour, shown how the Tsachila men paint their hair with the red seeds of achiote and how they paint their bodies for protection with black paint they make from a certain flower 
and we saw how the women weave the colorful skirts that they traditionally wear (it takes up to 2 weeks to make each one)! 
We also visited the local shaman and he performed a quick cleansing for each of us, which for me was much needed. 
They also served us lunch which included BBQ-ed tree grubs, a local delicacy full of protein. In my opinion, they´re actually pretty tasty, as long as you don´t think about what it is you´re actually eating. Clay and Ryan each ate one raw (aka alive) and from their reactions I´m guessing they´re a lot better cooked. 
I tried my hand at making this mashed plantain thing, which was quite good, no thanks to me; I had no idea what I was doing. 
Afterwards, they played some traditional music and we danced around a bit even though we were all sweating profusly from the heat. 
This visit seemed like just the thing to get me out of my post-vacation funk and I´m really looking forward to the big celebration in Ryan´s site for the Tsachila New Year in April. Incidentally, Clay has just gotten his community project up online and is seeking donations for a reforestation project. I know that with the economic crisis money is pretty tight but if you want to check it out and possibly make a donation here´s the link:
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=518-329
It´s a really wonderful and vibrant community that will benefit greatly from this project.
Back in my own community I´ve thrown myself into finding more work and things are starting to pick up. With my help 3 women in the community decided to start making and selling marmalade. We started with pineapple of course and sold it all with requests coming in for more. The profit margin right now is high because we are using materials that they had from the paper project (pots, the stove, etc.) and we´re using the fruit that they don´t sell to the intermediaries who bring it to market in Quito, but eventually we´ll have to make some bigger investments like our own gas tank and nice labels if we want to sell our product in the city. They´ve asked me to help find markets so right now I´m looking at naturalist restaurants that are interested in all natural/organic marmalades. We´re also working with a local business that exports ají to the US (to make Tabasco sauce actually). They are looking for more producers and will give start up seed, technical assistance and provide a market for the product, at what seems to be a reasonably fair price. Cruz and I went to speak with them this week and it seems like a really good opportunity for people to generate some more income, which will be much needed in the year ahead. Also on the agenda are family gardens and a visit to the Politecnica to see what kind of free seeds they want to give me for reforestation in my community. I also hear they have silkworms, lombricultura (worms!) and all sorts of other cool AG projects that I want to check out. Plus it´s a military academy, so probably full of young Ecua men in uniforms and there ain´t nothing wrong with that!
Well, it´s now 6:30am, light outside and still raining so hard that I can´t even hear my neighbor blasting his stereo with fine Ecua music. Maybe the sun will come out this afternoon and we´ll go swimming in the river. Maybe it won´t and I´ll stay home playing cards with the Calderon boys all day. Either way, it´ll be a good day.
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