And the emails continue...

July 20
Well, I have another good story for you all.
It starts with Paquiestancia having a super huge five day long festival celebrating the founding of the town. There were parades, fireworks, booze (the Ecuadorian favorite, Pilsner), and, of course, bull fights. The people of Paquiestancia got together to build a bull fighting ring on the lush and beautiful soccer field in the middle of town. The only store in Paquiestancia that sells beer and has tables to sit at installed a post where all the drunk men could tie up their horses. On Saturday, there was an amphitheater set up in the gigantic patio of the elementary school. All of the big folk singers from Cayambe came to sing. But it was more like they were doing high tech karaoke. There were colorful lights wildly flashing from side to side on the stage. Also, on one side of the patio, there was a stand selling the box wine that came with the obligatory tiny plastic shot glass. In Ecuador, when you have alcohol, you share it with anyone and everyone. And you all drink from the same cup. The box wine comes in two flavors: peach and apple. Trust me, peach is less gross. As well as this, there was homemade alcohol. It was somehow made from the sugar that is made locally from sugarcane. And if we know anything about homemade alcohol, it is strong! It was not even sweet. And the weirdest part was that it was hot.

But anyway, the next day i went to the bull fights. It was pretty awesome. Four people and a couple of dogs got rammed. There was even one guy who got his pants torn from hip to knee. And everyone could see that he wears thongs. It was pretty hilarious. I was sitting next to an Ecuadorian woman who saw that I was with all of the gringos (Peace Corps peeps). She and I talked to each other. And then when I got up to leave, I was missing my phone. I went looking for the kids who had sat on my lap to confront them. But neither of them had odd rectangular bulges on them. Then i remembered that the lady I was sitting with had asked me two now peculiar questions. Back to back she had asked me if I have a phone and if I have insurance. I had thought that she had meant life insurance. But looking back I understand that she meant insurance on my phone. So I was pissed and wanted to knock her out and search her pockets. But she had family there and if I was wrong I would have felt dumb.

So I told Peace Corps head people what happened and they told me to file a report. I had to go to the Ecuadorian police station in Cayambe to do it. Because we had classes from 8am to 5 pm on Monday I couldn´t go then. So on Tuesday I got one of the official Peace Corps drivers who happened to be my friend to drive me to Cayambe in the morning during class. He was going into Cayambe anyway to buy snacks for the day. So he dropped me off where he was buying bread. I went to the Municipio and asked the man at the counter where to go and he told me to go upstairs. The lady upstairs told me to go out of the building and take a left and that is where I would find the Comisario de Policia. The uniformed dude around the corner told me to go down the street more and go to the thrid floor. There was no third floor where he said I needed to go. So I went into some place that looked like a doctors office and the lady in the waiting room told me to go around a couple more corners on the same block. So I did, and came upon a very decorated uniformed man who i assumed would know something. He ask me my life story and then told me to go to the blue door where a lot of uniformed men were loitering. So i told my story for the millionth time that day and the man I was telling told me that i didn´t need to file a report if I didn´t know who did the crime. So I had to explain being a US citizen and Peace Corps volunteer before he would let me in to the building that did not say anything about Comisaria de Policia to fill out a report. When I told the dude filling out the form that I needed three copies of the report, he gave me the original and told me to go to the store across the street to make the copies. Then, when I finally came back and had him sign them and wen to meet my driver friend, I saw the driver disappear around the corner. So I chilled there for 20 minutes waiting for him to come back, moving away from people who were invading my bubble in the Ecuadorian way, until another car with diplomatic tags happened to come by with another Peace Corps person in it. So I made it back to class.
But somehow, Peace Corps head honcho, Susanna, twisted my story into me being negligent and now I´m going to have to pay for a new phone. The thing that makes me angry is that another person simply lost her phone and is lying, saying that someone stole it, and she isn´t going to have to pay. Oh well. I know to lie my pants off to Peace Corps from now on.
Next week I will find out where my site is! Yay!

Let me know what is going on with you, whenever you get a chance!

Hasta Luego!
Manisha

July 26
As the governement enjoys doing, they dragged out the process of letting us Trainees know where we were going until the last possible moment. All last week we met all of the community contacts from all of our potential sites. Then on Friday afternoon we had interviews with the Trainers to let them know where we wanted to go. Yesterday we found out where we are going.

I am going to Mercedes Cadena. It is a small town in the privince of Chimborazo near Riobamba. It is in the Central Sierra at 2900 meters above sea level. Really, the nearest town is Guamote, 10 miles away. And to get to that town, I have to walk for a half hour from my site to the Pan American Highway and then catch the bus that comes only a precious six times per day. Riobamba, the real city that I will probably visit more often, is an hour bus ride once I get to the PanA (anyone who knows the Pan American Highway in South America calls it the PanA).

This Sunday we are all going to the sites we have been assigned for our site visit. I will be staying with the volunteer who is already there, Kristy Romeo, for a few nights. And then I will stay with a family across town to get to know different people around town. Altogether, I will be in Mercedes Cadena for a week. My primary activities there as a Volunteer will be:
Giving nutrition and cooking classes
Family Gardens
Educate community members in family planning methods
Teaching in the local school and kindergarten
Working with traditional medicine and medicinal plants
Conducting AIEPI activities (AIEPI-atención intergral de enfermedades prevalentes de la infancia= Integral Attention to the Preventable Diseases of Infancy)
General hygiene and health education
Mercedes Cadena is an indigenous town of about 800 people, of which about 70% are Catholic and 30% are Evangelical. Today I learned that here the main difference between Catholic and Evangelical is forgiveness. I find it hard to believe that Evangelical people forgive everyone while Catholics do not. But, as well as this, Catholics drink alcohol, listen to music, and dance while Evangelicals do not. Anyhow, the people of Mercedes Cadena speak primarily Quichua. And while many also speak Spanish, I am getting a crash course on Quichua today through Friday in order to impress and dazzle the people when I meet them. I am really enjoying it so far because I love learning new languages. But as well as that, the sentence structure is very similar to Hindi and there are a few words that are the same in Hindi. I feel like this sort of supports the theory that the Native Americans were actually Indians and Asians who crossed the Bering Strait thousands of years ago.

And I talked the head honcho into giving me a phone for free, so I will be getting that before I go on my site visit. I think that is everything for now.

Keep in touch!

Hasta luego!

--
Manisha Devasthali
Pictures: http://photos.yahoo.com/msdevast
Websites: http://fannypackrocksmyworld.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/msdevast
http://www.unc.edu/~msdevast/Manisha%20Devasthali.htm
Mailing Address: Cuerpo de Paz, Casilla 17-08-8624, Quito, Ecuador, South America