These photos are from Lily´s camera, taken by her boyfriend Jeff. We had our swearing-in ceremony this morning, and now we are officially volunteers! We are all going out to dinner and then dancing tonight here in Quito. I am glad to be done with training, but I am nervous about being alone at my site next week. I´ll be emailing a lot! This is a picture of me and my homegirls. From left to right: Michelle, my twin. She´s half-Asian like me, from San Diego, has a boyfriend back home, and is a herpetologist. Then there´s Stephanie, who is super fun and shares my love of dancing movies. Next to me is Lily, who is super sweet and cute. Lily´s boyfriend Jeff is visiting now, and he rented a car, so Lily and Jeff are going to drop Michelle and I off at our sites, which is great because I have a lot of stuff!
This is a picture of the North Squad, Nick, Lily, and Miguel alto (aka Migualto). Miguel loves Wilco and Jeff Tweedy like me and even had his own band in San Diego!
In honor of one of our tech trainers, Dale, 10 of the boys in the group decided to grow mustaches just like him. Some of them look pretty goofy. Let´s see if I can identify everyone: Top row from left to right: Janet Laminack, she´s from Texas and really funny. She is officiallly my first Peace Corps friend. Then there´s Stephanie and Michelle. Next to them is Joseph, who has already agreed to make me an ice cream cake for my birthday. Joseph worked at Baskin Robbins when he was in high school, so I am confident that he can make me an awesome ice cream cake. Or we can just buy one, since there are some Baskin Robbins stores in Quito. My birthday is 2 months away, so I need to start making plans. The next training group is coming to Quito on my birthday, so Joseph and a bunch of other volunteers will come to Quito to welcome them, and we will also celebrate my birthday:) Okay, this is going to take too long. Umm, maybe I will finish labeling this picture later. The swearing in ceremony was at the ambassador´s house, and she is in the middle with the orange jacket. She got really emotional during the ceremony and she even started getting a little teary!
Okay, I will finish labeling where I left off. Top row: to my right, Sarah, Yessary, Nick, Christina Ben Blevins, Miguel bajo, London, Lindsay H., Migualto, Lindsay S., John, Lisa, Miles, Jamie, Emily, Calvin, Ben Lehman, Alex. Bottom row, left to right: Aaron, Lily, Landon, Stuart, Jonathan, Ronnie, Katie, Becca, Zoe, and the most important person of all, Maggie! Maggie and I are going to try to visit each other once a month, even though we are going to be more than 10 hours from each other.
My camera is officially broken, so I now have to borrow photos from other people. The above photo is from Ben Lehman, who helped me set up this blog. He has some amazing photos on his blog:
http://waywardmoot.blogspot.com/. Ben is another Star Wars freak and even has a tattoo of the symbol for Boba Fett on his arm. That is more diehard than me! We are swearing in officially as volunteers on Friday. I am excited about swearing in but I am also sad that I will not be able to see some of my favorite people on a regular basis after this week. That just means I will be traveling a lot! We are in Quito this week, and I have to do some major shopping to replace what I lost, plus make sure I have a nice outfit for when we finally go dancing on Friday. I can't believe I've been here for more than 2 months, and I haven't gone dancing at all. It should be a fun week. I love Quito!
Here are some random photos from two other trips. This first photo is of an odd pair of birds. We visited a wildlife rehabilitation center in Mindo, and these two birds couldn´t find a mate from their own species, so they bonded to each other.
This photo is from a trip to the Cochasqui Ruins, which are pre-Inca ruins, built by the Cara Indians. The ruins are near La Esperanza, so we hired a pick-up truck (camioneta) to take us (Alex, London, Maggie, and me) there. We had to ride in the back, but don´t worry Mom, I had my seatbelt on the whole time!
This is another picture from Mindo, of our hike through a cloud forest. We had to cross the river in this strange and slightly scary contraption.
London and Alex on our way home from the ruins. Alex didn´t stand the whole time, since it was slightly scary (but exciting) when we were driving on the curvy Pan American highway.
Here are some more photos from our trip to Cerro Blanco last week. The top picture is of the little cabin we stayed in. There were 9 of us in 2 small rooms, so I had to sleep on the floor 3 nights in a row. I was a little worried about the scorpions I saw hanging out beneath the cabin, but I was brave (and tired), and fell asleep quickly despite my fears. The next photo is a cool gecko we found on a night hike. Michelle thinks it is a leopard gecko. Oh, and one of the great things about this blog is that you can always click on the photos if you want to make them bigger. Next is a tarantula, I think, which we also found on our night hike. This green butterfly really liked me, and hung out on my shirt for about 20 minutes. I really liked this tree; it reminded me of something out of Middle Earth. The last photo is another butterfly, a fun action shot!
Visits: I thought it might be a good idea to post on my blog when people are planning on visiting me, so everyone else can start planning their trips =) My first visitor will be Cindy, and she is supposed to visit some time after July 21st but before August 5th. Then Pierre is going to visit me for a week, probably August 5th-12th. Sasha and my mom are supposed to visit some time during the second half of August, before Sasha has to start teaching again. Lastly, Rakhi and Carrie are tentatively planning on visiting me for New Year´s, depending on their job and general life situation. Oh, and Pierre will visit again in March of 2007 for about 2 weeks. Let me know when you want to visit me so we can start planning many fun fun activities!
I am currently having difficulties with the memory card on my camera, so I am now trying to get all the pictures off of it. So I will try to organize my photos and add captions. The first picture is a demonstration of how I managed to communicate with my host family during my first weeks in La Esperanza. Rubi (the 12-year-old) and I would look up words in the dictionary so we could talk to each other. The next photo is me, Andy, and his cousin. I don´t remember her name. The photo below that is me and my best bud Rubi in the family garden. Then there´s Andy, the 5-year-old brat who is very cute, even though he likes to squirt me with a water gun under the dinner table. As I mentioned previously, people eat guinea pigs here, so I thought I should take a picture of this sign advertising delicious guinea pigs! The last photo is of my little La Esperanza group, Maggie, London, and Alex. Maggie is my closest friend here, and Alex and London are the only married people in our training group.
Okay, another short post but the girls are done and want to leave, so I am just going to add some new photos and leave. I´m off to see my site tomorrow, and then I will be back on Sunday. I am excited, but also a little nervous. These pictures are from our trip last week to Cerro Blanco, a protected forest in the southwest, near the largest city in Ecuador, Guayaquil. Michelle and I went to Guayaquil for an afternoon and visited the Iguana park in the middle of the city. There were all these iguanas just hanging out in the park. I guess people feed them and they´re pretty tame, and they are just breeding and surviving there. Very cool!
My first post! Today we are in Quito and we are off to our site visits this week. We are not returning to our host communities any more, we will just be in Cayambe or Quito. I really want to post pictures on here, but I need to figure out how to do that!
These photos are from Lily´s camera, taken by her boyfriend Jeff. We had our swearing-in ceremony this morning, and now we are officially volunteers! We are all going out to dinner and then dancing tonight here in Quito. I am glad to be done with training, but I am nervous about being alone at my site next week. I´ll be emailing a lot! This is a picture of me and my homegirls. From left to right: Michelle, my twin. She´s half-Asian like me, from San Diego, has a boyfriend back home, and is a herpetologist. Then there´s Stephanie, who is super fun and shares my love of dancing movies. Next to me is Lily, who is super sweet and cute. Lily´s boyfriend Jeff is visiting now, and he rented a car, so Lily and Jeff are going to drop Michelle and I off at our sites, which is great because I have a lot of stuff!
This is a picture of the North Squad, Nick, Lily, and Miguel alto (aka Migualto). Miguel loves Wilco and Jeff Tweedy like me and even had his own band in San Diego! 
In honor of one of our tech trainers, Dale, 10 of the boys in the group decided to grow mustaches just like him. Some of them look pretty goofy. Let´s see if I can identify everyone: Top row from left to right: Janet Laminack, she´s from Texas and really funny. She is officiallly my first Peace Corps friend. Then there´s Stephanie and Michelle. Next to them is Joseph, who has already agreed to make me an ice cream cake for my birthday. Joseph worked at Baskin Robbins when he was in high school, so I am confident that he can make me an awesome ice cream cake. Or we can just buy one, since there are some Baskin Robbins stores in Quito. My birthday is 2 months away, so I need to start making plans. The next training group is coming to Quito on my birthday, so Joseph and a bunch of other volunteers will come to Quito to welcome them, and we will also celebrate my birthday:) Okay, this is going to take too long. Umm, maybe I will finish labeling this picture later. The swearing in ceremony was at the ambassador´s house, and she is in the middle with the orange jacket. She got really emotional during the ceremony and she even started getting a little teary! 
Okay, I will finish labeling where I left off. Top row: to my right, Sarah, Yessary, Nick, Christina Ben Blevins, Miguel bajo, London, Lindsay H., Migualto, Lindsay S., John, Lisa, Miles, Jamie, Emily, Calvin, Ben Lehman, Alex. Bottom row, left to right: Aaron, Lily, Landon, Stuart, Jonathan, Ronnie, Katie, Becca, Zoe, and the most important person of all, Maggie! Maggie and I are going to try to visit each other once a month, even though we are going to be more than 10 hours from each other. 
