!Bienvenidos!

!Bienvenidos!  We've been getting that a lot this week, and for all of you back en los estados (the states) it means, "Welcome!"




As Brent Musburger would say, "You are looking live at Tumbaco, Ecuador...some 9,000 feet above sea level."  Yea, let that one sink in for a few minutes...we'll come to it later.  Well, how did we get here?




Last Monday night, after an amazing day seeing old friends at Hampden-Sydney, and an hour of ripping through boxes in my storage unit to find out where the OKC movers packed that one specific Under Armor base layer, I began cramming 27 months’ worth into a duffle, a weekend hiking pack, and a conventional backpack.  Peace Corps allows for two checked bags (totally 100 lbs, but no more than 50 lbs in one), and a carry-on (which is to contain clothes and hygiene items for three days).  Considering Tumbaco (a suburb of Quito) has mornings and evenings in the 50's and afternoons in the 80's, everything from Smartwool socks to a bathing suit wound up in one of my three bags.  I also managed to fit a blazer, three pocket squares and matching ties (insert your snarky "yuppy" response here), six pairs of shoes, a tent, a sleeping bag, full-sized sheets, a pillow, two bath towels, a Ralph Lauren Polo quarter-zip (second opportunity for snarky response), AND a laptop!




After a brief wait at the Lynchburg airport, I was off! I think it hit me when I switched planes in Charlotte, but this was my first time with a morning layover in which I didn't have a Bloody Mary.  I figured the funding for that $12 beverage would be better saved.  Yup, we're not quite to full impoverished humanitarian status, but we're most definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto.




So two hours later I was in a Miami hotel ballroom with twenty-nine complete strangers, who would be my strongest support system for the next twenty-seven months.  This is what Peace Corps calls "staging".  It's really an afternoon of Peace Corps 101 with ice-breaking activities.  Most of them are really elementary and cheesy, but I guess it worked because we all left there with a pretty good feel for the identity of our group.  This would be affirmed over the following days, but it's a group of dedicated and smart people who truly have a heart for service and a motivation to impact.  I'm blessed and honored to be working beside them.  Together we are Peace Corps Ecuador Omnibus 111 - or, PC/E OMN 111!  Oddly enough, probably half of the group either came from California or Big Ten Country (aka the Great Lakes states).  There is one guy from Virginia, a Mary Washington grad, but none from Oklahoma.  Fasten your seatbelts OKC, but just for the sake of variety, I may claim you as my own.  After we were team-built out, we hit the hot Miami town Tuesday night...err, well, we went to the tapas restaurant in walking distance from the airport hotel.  Our evening plans may have lacked curb appeal, but it was great to sit with each other and share our first meal of many.  It really is true that relationships are built around the table.







During staging I was designated the group leader for documentation, thus, at the airport on Wednesday morning, I literally held the access cards of thirty brilliant and inspired people in my hands.  Within this yellow envelope were everyone's Peace Corps passport, temporary Ecuadorian visa, and airline tickets to Quito.  As if getting me and my 100 lbs of luggage to the airport for an international flight that would locate my life to another continent wasn't stressful enough, I was responsible for the immediate future of the entire omnibus.  Luckily enough everything went smoothly and, after a three hour wait and a five hour flight, we officially became expats.




Stepping off the plane was strange.  Honestly, I had been on longer domestic flights, but we most certainly were no longer in los estados.  Bibi, our training manager, and Giovanny, our master trainer, met us at the airport and loaded us onto the bus for the 45 minute ride to the training center in Tumbaco, a suburb just east of Quito.  This would be the last happy moment of a night that is easily in the top-3 worst of my life!




After arriving in Tumbaco, everybody was excited to see what our home for the next twelve weeks would be like.  Apparently, my excitement wasn't as persistent as that of mi companeros.  Everything conspired to just smack me right in the face that night.  As I began organizing my thoughts for this post, it was 4am (same time as US east coast, no daylight savings in EC) and I couldn't sleep because the satanic nocturnal roosters in our neighborhoods practice their American Idol auditions from 0100 to sunrise, and beyond.  To be fair to the devil cocks though, it was the dog fight in our complex that actually awoke me from my half-assed attempt at slumber.  The resident lady who takes care of the complex has three schnauzers, and I would like to think they were fighting over who got first crack at putting los pollos out of their misery.  So after a day of stressful international travel, I got about 40 minutes of sleep.  In addition, I also had some serious third world adaptation issues.  Mi companeros thought our accommodations were fantastic (and honestly, I came around after a day or so), but in that moment of entry into the developing world, I thought I had seen better rooms at a $29/nt highway motel in west Tennessee.  Really though, it was perfect for the setting and I appreciate all of the hospitality of the staff there.  Looking back to that night, if having the week that followed was my pay-off, then it was well worth it!  Note to future PCV's: don't let the final month in the U.S. include a VIP week at Bellagio and a weekend tour of the finest restaurants in Washington, and then expect a seamless transition into your new life.  Plus, all of these #FirstWorldProblems were set against the backdrop of legitimate altitude sickness. If Denver, the Mile High City, sets at 5,280 ft. above sea level, Quito is then the Two Mile High City.  Depending on where you stand, it measures anywhere between 9,000-10,000 feet.  For a kid from the Appalachians (approx. 2500-3500 ft.), that poses some major issues.  I couldn't breathe, my sinuses were exploding, my head was pounding, and I was instantly dehydrated.  The symptoms subsided over the next couple of days but to illustrate, everybody had to take breath and water breaks every four minutes when playing basketball one night.  I know most of you watched the NFL Championship Games while I'm typing this, but if beating the Broncos at home is difficult enough, then be glad Tom Brady doesn't have to lace 'em up in Tumbaco.




So that's all of my spoiled yuppy gringo whining...for now.  After just a week in-country, I know a few things for certain: my colleagues are dedicated, our support staff is committed, our training is intensive, and our mission is true.  Thursday and Friday were action packed days.  I had no idea that our support staff was at large as it is.  There are 17 people whose fulltime job over the next twelve weeks is to ensure that we are adequately prepared to go into Ecuador to fulfill our purpose.  I'll fill you in on the in's and out's of our training in another post...maybe this weekend.




One of the highlights of my first week most certainly had to be the trail that we all discovered behind our training center.  Well, first about the training center.  It's a walled compound just north of downtown Tumbaco.  It has a central building, basketball/soccer court, courtyard, and a ton of space out back for agricultural training.  The building contains all of the offices for the Peace Corps staff, the language & culture facilitators, and the Peace Corps Medical Officer (PCMO) quarters, as well as sufficient classroom space and dorms for all trainees (plus some).  The courtyard is filled with some of the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen, the lilies in the courtyard are ginormous, and there is a rooftop that offers a spectacular 360-degree view of the valley.  Okay, back to the trail.  One afternoon after training we all decided to go for a walk on what seemed to be an abandoned railroad path cut through the landscape.  The trail extends for kilometers, from the canyon at the northern end of the town, into downtown Tumbaco, and points beyond.  Entering the trail on our maiden voyage was somewhat intimidating as it looked like walking through the gates of Narnia, and after probably a half-mile walk down a cavernous path, it opened up to the most spectacular canyon!  It instantly dropped hundreds of feet to the river beneath us, and before we knew it, we were walking along this rock face, looking down at a tree canopy that was the lushest I've seen, and looking up to realize that we literally were walking amongst the clouds.  I certainly am very blessed to be living in this part of the Andes, for at least these next three months.




After spending three days at the training center, we all met our Tumbaco host families on Saturday morning.  Understandably, there was some anxiety palpitating throughout the group.  Everything turned out amazingly though, and I'm excited to introduce you to the Hidalgo's in my next post!




Monday morning was my first day commuting to the training center on the bus, and it honestly felt like the first day of school.  Sunday night mi mama walked me to the stop just to rehearse so I didn't get lost, and I awoke on Monday morning with my lunch packed (by mi mama and it was waiting for me on the kitchen counter), my bookbag on, and I was out the door!  The 5-6 km bus ride was, umm, interesting.  I would love to show you a photo, but honestly, I was too busy hanging on for dear life. I am not at all exaggerating (and I'll probably get a nasty email if the Peace Corps safety officer reads this), but I was literally hanging out the door for the first kilometer.  The bus was so packed, that there was seriously only sufficient room for me to get one foot on the bottom step, grab what little real estate was left on the handle bar, and hold on as tight as I could.  After a similar experience on Tuesday, I took a different tact this morning.  Leaving the house fifteen minutes earlier allows me to walk the 4 blocks to the bus stop in sufficient time to catch the "early bus" that is relatively empty, and is only carrying school children.  It was a much more pleasant experience.  The return commute back into town has quickly become one of my favorite experiences of this whole first week. Typically a group of 12-15 of us will set out on that same canyon trail (the opposite direction takes you back to town though) and head home, and that 3-4 mile walk puts to shame any organized team-building activity.  For instance, tonight, we all got to the main cross street in town (Gonzalo Pazzaro), realized we had some time, so we went into the little store, bought a $1 beer, a $.15 croissant, and proceeded to have happy hour.  There we were, a dozen gringos sitting on the curb of some street corner in the Andean town of Tumbaco, Ecuador, without a worry in the world. 




I think this Friday night a big group of us is planning to go rock climbing at a gym in downtown Tumbaco, then to have dinner and a few drinks after our first incredibly stressful week. It's been a helluva week!  There's been up's and down's, laughter and frustration (mostly in the language classes or with the Peace Corps policies), but I'm so happy to be able to have this experience in such a stunning masterpiece of nature, within an amazingly vibrant culture, and alongside the best team I could imagine.  I'm sure there will be tough days.  I'm actually guaranteeing it.  Luckily enough, my digestion issues have been non-existent (all we eat is rice, bread, and fresh produce), and most of my struggle has just been transitioning from my very yuppy lifestyle to broke expat life...and that transition is very slow.  I'll come around though.




I'm pretty sure you can now enter your email address at the top of the page, and be notified whenever there is a blog updated...if you're so inclined.  I should also be adding some informational tabs, along with a very official disclaimer.  Not to worry Washington and Quito, I haven't forgotten.  Stay tuned guys.  It's going to be a helluva ride.




!Chao!


(PS: I have a ton of photos, but the WiFi connection is too slow to handle uploading them.  I'll try to get them up in the next day or two!)