Hard Times

I love Ecuador. I love the community I´m living in. I love the peole I am with in my community and the Peace Corps Volunteers in this area. But I have had some problems recently. Because my bathroom has been under construction, I have had a hard time having some privacy. The family that owns my house actually lives in the house behind my house. The grandfather, Tio Gregorio and his son-in-law, Tio José, are albaníls. I tried to look this word up on Babel Fish, but Babel Fish didn´t know the word. It is kind of like a construction worker, except maybe a bit more skilled. Anyway, Tio Gregorio and Tio José are adding another room to my one room house. This way, I can let kids into the kitchen/livingroom area, without worrying that they are going to go into my personal things. The volunteer before me had two cell phones and a total of $70 stolen from her house. As well as the extra room being constructed, I bought a hot water heater for the shower. And as you read in the last entry, I now have a deliciously hot water shower, but no toilet or sink. And because the family keeps on coming over to fix stuff, I leave the key for them when I am gone to the city or on errands so that they can continue working whenever they get a chance. But as well as this, the family has been consuming a lot of my food, using my plates and silverware, and moving my stuff around. I wouldn´t mind them eating my food if it was easier to buy and bring back to my house, but it is really kind of hard. I have to walk 30 min to the bus stop, ride a bus for an hour, walk twenty more minutes to the local grocery chain, Akí, buy the food, stuff as much of it as possible in my back pack, walk back to the bus stop (20 min), ride the bus (60 min), and walk back to my community (30min). This is entirely too much time and effort to just have someone else eat it. And I can tell they have used my plates because they don´t wash them properly. They are covered with dirty wipe marks, like whoever cleaned them, forgot to rinse them off. And so when I asked the landlady, Tia María Virginia, Tio José´s wife, about the missing food and dishes, she said she didn´t know. That maybe the cat, the one I asked them not to let into the house, might have eaten it and made the mess on the plates. She said that she had only used one of the plates. All these things together are really frustrating me. I want to live in the city and commute to my community. I think that would make my life much easier. That way I could have a private and personal time and space. I feel violated. I have talked to the director of the Health volunteers here in Ecuador, and hopefully he will let me stay in the city of Riobamba and I can commute, or he will change my site altogether. I´ll keep you posted on the progress.
Manisha