Will Work For...Work

Right now, as I lay in bed writing, my host mother and her cousin (who doubles as our housekeeper) are in the other room whispering about me. I know they are whispering about me because they were talking in normal voices until my name came up. And by my name I mean Jessica, because my housekeeper just can’t seem to remember Jennifer. So, she calls me any similar (or not-so-similar) name that comes to mind like Janet, Jessica, Julissa, or my personal favorite - Stephanie. Its all good though. She means well and the woman makes a bomb banana smoothie.

Whoa. Lots to write about. I would like to say that I haven’t blogged in awhile because I’ve just been so busy, but that would be a lie. The truth is, for the past two-and-a-half weeks I really haven’t been up to much. The fact that my counterpart was on vacation essentially meant that I was on vacation too. Now, I know what you are thinking, but it really hasn’t been all fun and games. Because me, plus a new place, minus work and friends, times two-and-a-half weeks, equals LOTS of time to think. And thinking isn’t really something you want to be doing a lot of when you are trying to adjust to a new situation. Sure, I got out, went on frequent field trips to the market (of course keeping my distance from the fishermen mom), and walked up and down the main strip in town about 15 times a day, but that would only take up a small fraction of my time. So I was pretty excited when my counterpart called me up on Sunday to say that she was back in town and wanted to have a meeting with me. “Bonanza,” I thought to myself, “I am finally going to get to work.”

After returning from a half hour hunt through the neighborhood for a 13 year-old boy named Sergio, we sat down to talk. The meeting went alright, and we did come up with a few good ideas. Like a small basketball league for the kids in my neighborhood and a children’s festival downtown that will take place in November. I sat there with my pen and paper waiting for her to give me some kind of guidance as to what I should do with the other six-and-a-half days of the week. But she just began to organize her papers and get up as if to signal that the meeting was over. Confused, I asked her when she wanted me to come into the school that she had taken me to on my site visit a couple months ago. “Anytime you would like!” she replied happily, “but I am only there on Wednesdays.” Perfect. So now I had somewhere to be on Wednesdays, a festival in a month, and an imaginary basketball team. Even though the PC told us that much of our work would be undefined and that a lot of our service would depend on our willingness to put ourselves out there to meet and collaborate with new people, I always kind of hoped that my job would be a little more spelled out for me. I got up too, telling my counterpart that I would see her on Wednesday.

Luckily, my counterpart wasn’t the only one to call me last Sunday. While I was wandering around town I got a call from my host mother, Carmen, back in Paquiestancia. I was surprised by how excited I was to hear from her. We talked about the cultural differences between the people on the coast versus the sierra, the kids, and the difficulties with my new job. I was able to talk to Rubi and Flor as well who both wanted to know when I would be back to visit. After I hung up I thought about how much had lucked out with a fantastic host family during training. The day I left the sierra Carmen commented that I was “no longer gringa (a foreigner), but one of them,” and Miguel told me that I always had a home with them and thanked me for my friendship. As I sat by the beach and thought about when I would be able to visit them next, my thoughts drifted to my current living situation.

I haven’t written much about my new host mother because I didn’t want to make any quick judgments. I didn’t have the best first impression of her but after some thought came to the conclusion that we were both under a little bit of stress during my site visit and that we just hadn’t communicated well. My second impression of my new roommate was a little bit better. She is a 61 year-old divorcee, who lives alone (before me), and works long days at the market. She is chubby, short, loves bright lipstick and loud clothing. It took me a couple weeks to realize that she wasn’t always mad at me but that she just yells everything that she says. She is very persistent when it comes to how much I eat, washing my sheets every week, and well, pretty much anything she is feeling passionate about at the moment. The other day it was her movie collection.
“HEY JENNIFER!! DO YOU LIKE MOVIES?!”
“Um, yeah. I like movies. Why?”
“COME HERE. I HAVE SOME MOVIES TO SHOW YOU!”
Aguchita lead me to her room and opened her closet door to reveal dozens of pirated movies.
“LOOK AT ALL OF THESE! DO YOU WANT TO BORROW SOME?”
I browsed her movie collection which consisted of Ecuadorian soap operas, a few titles in English that I didn’t recognize and The Ten Commandments.
“Wow, those are some interesting movies, but no thanks I don’t think I’ll borrow one right now.”
“WHAT? WHY NOT? THESE ARE GREAT MOVIES! HERE, WATCH THIS ONE!!”
Aguchita handed me a copy of some season of her favorite Ecuadorian soap opera, Victoria.
“Ummm…”
“GO AHEAD!! WATCH IT!! IT’S A GOOD ONE!”
I walked out of her room with five movies.

I think that another one of the reasons that we didn’t hit it off right away was because she came off to me as a little bit of a loose cannon. Aguchita proved to me however, that unlike my other initial assessments of her, this one was entirely true.

Aguchita, her daughter-in-law, son, cousin, granddaughter and I were all sitting around watching the family’s soap opera of choice, Victoria. The main character, a 40 year-old woman with relationship issues, finally worked up the courage to tell off her unfaithful husband. I have to admit that it did give me a little bit of satisfaction to see her finally call the man out. I mean, not that I was too into this program, but a repeat of the afternoon episode is on every night at dinner. I can’t help but watch it. Well, triple my satisfaction by about 47 as Aguchita had waited years for this moment. She stood up, stared at the screen in silence, and didn’t blink once. When the woman on T.V. had finished her rant Aguchita began a rant of her own.
“YES!!! ITS ABOUT TIME!!! WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?? WHAT A DOG THAT MAN WAS, YOU WAITED TOO LONG!!!”
I have to mention that Aguchita eats, sleeps, and breathes this soap opera. She has this little T.V. set up at her stand in the market for the specific purpose of being able to catch her show every afternoon. I laughed to myself, even though her reaction didn’t surprise me at all.
“I SHOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME WITH MY MAN!! THEY ARE ALL THE SAME!! WHY DO THEY TREAT US LIKE THAT?!”
The situation slowly began to shift from funny to uncomfortable.
“I DON’T KNOW WHY I PUT UP WITH THAT GARBAGE. WHY!?”
I looked around the room for the appropriate way to react. All of the adults started to shuffle their feet and look at the floor. I looked at the floor too and began to think of good excuses to leave the room next time Aguchita’s show came on.

Though my host mother is very passionate and…uh… animated, she has been extremely hospitable and helpful. And its not just her. Many people in my community have gone out of their way to introduce themselves and let me know that I can go to them with any concern. This really helps on the days where it seems like I will never really fit in here, and although the men can be overly friendly (if you know what I mean), the majority of the people in my new town have good hearts and good intentions.

There is an older man who lives about two blocks away that I see every time I am going to and from my house. Every time I see this guy he is sitting on the hard dirt outside his house, hunched over with a hammer in hand, pounding cement blocks. If I leave the house at 6 am, he’s there. If I get home at 9 at night, he’s there. I have never walked past this mans house at a time when he wasn’t hammering cement blocks. I was walking past the other day when he looked up and made eye contact. I smiled and he motioned that I come over. He introduced himself as Chalito and said that he had been meaning to introduce himself for some time. I told him my name, and just as I was about to walk away he told me to wait, jumped up, and ran inside his house. I sat outside and hoped that he wasn’t about to do something weird because at this point I thought he was a really nice old man. Chalito returned and handed me two bananas. “Welcome to the neighborhood, Jennifer.” He said.

So, besides my lack of actual work up to this point, I can’t complain too much. Except for when it comes to the mosquitoes. I am going to complain about that. The mosquitoes here are faster, smarter, and more vicious than any mosquitoes I have ever encountered before in my life. I have never really been too allergic to mosquito bites, but when I get bit here, I have marks the size of pennies for days. For this reason I have become reasonably paranoid about getting bit. I ALWAYS wear repellent, even in the house because the roof doesn’t completely connect to the walls, so the mosquitoes come and go as they please. And I swear they only bite me. I never see the other family members slapping their arms or looking around nervously. I feel alone in the fight against them. The only place I feel safe from the mosquitoes is inside my mosquito net at night. Well, most of the time. Once in awhile a mosquito will sneak in when I am not paying attention. I have developed a pre-entering-my-mosquito-net-ritual though, in order to prevent them from doing this. You know that thing that dogs do when they have finally decided on a spot to lay down? Yeah, it kind of reminds me of that. First, I start walking around my room really fast in order to throw off any mosquitoes that may be following me. Then, just before going into the net, I rub any exposed skin quickly to make sure there are none planning on hitching ride inside. Immediately after, I dive head first into the net, pull my legs in, and scramble to shut any part of the net that may have remained open. After this, I flip on my flashlight and inspect the walls of my mosquito net. Its white so its pretty easy to detect one if it gets in. If I don’t see any, I breathe a sigh of relief and hit the sack. But, even after taking this many precautions, at least one mosquito gets in just about every night. Oh whatever Eik, you say, don’t spaz about one measly mosquito. Just got to bed! Friends, I wish it were that easy. But getting into a good, deep sleep is nearly impossible for me if there is a mosquito buzzing around my head/trying to bite me all night. So, once I spot the intruding mosquito with my headlamp, I have a few options as to how to go about eliminating it. I can A) just try to slap it. The problem with this is that the sides of the mosquito net don’t provide a surface hard enough to trap the mosquito. So, I usually go with B) scare it off the side of the net and clap it between my hands. I do have some success with this method though as I said before, the mosquitoes here are lightning fast, so I usually takes about 4 or 5 attempts. The last method is the most risky and the least effective but the most satisfying when it works. I can C) sneak up on the unsuspecting mosquito and pinch it between two fingers. I encourage you to try this if you never have before. It is a lot more difficult than it sounds, but let me tell you, there are few things more exciting than when you can catch a mosquito between two fingers. I usually celebrate with a fist pump or by talking some smack to any mosquitoes who may be watching/listening.













The story in the beginning about my lack of work has somewhat of a happy ending. Or more like a “to be continued.” Since my counterpart told me she would only be at the school once a week, I just decided to go on my own one day. Luckily, I ran into the English teacher that had said he wanted to work with me before. He took me around to his classes and even though he kind of left me hanging to teach one of them by myself (I pulled a fantastic lesson about pronouns out of nowhere by the way), I was happy because he reiterated that he would love to have my help and invited me to come whichever days of the week that I had free. From there I went to the main social center in the city and came up with plans to collaborate with the first lady of my town. I have some work now and I think that working with the mayor’s wife will be a great springboard into other projects.
That was long and I apologize. Thanks for keeping up with me. Take care and write soon!

Feel better grandpa. I love you!!!