Santa Elena (on a bus)

Once again, I'd like to start this post by apologizing that it has taken me nearly 2 months to write about the following experience. This trip took place right before the first round of Ecuadorian elections, and we are now in the midst of the second (and hopefully final) round.

Around the third week of February, we had our very first trip of Peace Corps training: the coast cultural trip. We were divided into 4 groups and sent to various places within the "coastal region" of Ecuador. The "Coast" as a region, by the way, does not necessarily mean beachside views. It simply refers to the area of low elevation west of the Sierra (mountains). It's like how anything east of the Appalachians is the "East Coast" even though I was nowhere near the ocean living in Winston-Salem. Some people were so unfortunate as to end up in the Forsyth County of Ecuador.

For the coast trip, I went to the town of Ballenita in the province of Santa Elena. It's a small town right on the oceanfront with only a couple of main paved roads (the rest are more like dirt paths). It kind of reminds me of Ocracoke in some ways, though it's definitely more populated. I stayed with the host family of a current Youth and Families volunteer who is also from North Carolina, so we had quite a time reminiscing about places and food back home. His host niece turned 2 while I was there, so I got to go to a legit Ecuadorian birthday party, with chips passed around individually on trays, a massive pot of arroz con pollo, and a guest list to rival a neighborhood block party. Of course, we waited a good 2 hours for all of the guests to arrive, but that's ecua-time for you. There's also a curious tradition of each and every individual family unit posing for a photo with the birthday girl beside the cake display after singing Happy Birthday but before cutting the cake, so that process also took about half an hour. Naturally, the night ended with all the children being put to bed and the remaining aunts, uncles, and cousins passing around a bottle of whiskey and dancing.

Ecuadorian arroz con pollo: the pot takes up 4 burners.

Piñata time!

It's not over until the uncles dance.

Once that fun was over, we got to spend the next two days being dragged from town to town across the province of Santa Elena by our LCF's (language and culture facilitators, a.k.a. Spanish teachers) in the blazing sun and 90% humidity. I jest; most of my travel companions were wilting under the coastal conditions, but to me it just felt like summer in Jacksonville. Heat, humidity, and mosquitoes are nothing I can't handle. The towns/cities we shuffled between—Santa Elena, La Libertad, and Ballenita—were really fairly bearable as soon as the sea breeze would come in. The main focus of our activities in the area was fishing: We interviewed fishermen on the malecón in La Libertad, went to the fish market, and learned how to knot together a fishing net by hand. There was one afternoon when we also visited the Amantes de Sumpa museum, named for a roughly 10,000 year old pair of skeletons found embracing in their grave, which details the archaeological history of the ancient Las Vegas culture on the coast of what is now Ecuador. Then, we did an interpretive dance about it. This may have been the most interesting activity we endured on the trip.

I don't remember what this move symbolizes, but I do remember
that I was laughing at them when they had to do it.

This saga ends with a somewhat comical adventure involving Ecuadorian elections, Ley Seca, and my birthday, but as I am still under the watchful eye of training staff, y'all will have to stay tuned to hear the rest of the story later on.