Notes from Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador

Christopher Morriss, Cincinnati-area PCV now serving in in Ecuador, has been a faithful correspondent. Here are his emails, dating back to July 2011 when he was in training.

May 4, 2013

Tomorrow I will be leaving for Quito. I have a checkup with the doctors right before a Peace Corps conference on our Close of Service. That shouldn´t be too painful, trying to explain all the wonderful things I have done to make Ventura a better place could be a littl taxing, but I´ll mudle through anyway.

While I am at Peace Corps headquarters Tuesday I very much hope to have some conversations about how to close out my service and get back to the US in time for med school.

After that I hope to get to Guayaquil to see my godson again, he willk be turning 1 next Saturday. We will meet up, and if all goes well there will be a little bit of spare time to be able to get myself to the beach, finally.

Also, I hope to get to Peru, visit Lima again. This was generally supposed to be a low-stress, friendly visit, but it may turn out to be a bit more utilitarian, in that UC is asking for my Liman transcript, direct from the University, not through Butler, apparently. The Butler Transcript is directly included with the Peruvian one in that document, so they will have everything that Lima can send them, but they are insisting on something from Peru. Well, in that case, maybe if I manage to get to Lima I can work my way to the University again to ask about it.

Goodness, who ever thought that would be necessary? The records are clear about what grades I got from Lima in my Butler transcript.

Oh well.

On a totally unrelated note, I managed to get my hands on some old documents on Ventura, most of little interest, but a few gems, regarding things like the fight to get the government to put in the subcentro, water system, and other infraestructure. Documents from the now-nonexistant town on the other side of the river, documents trying to arbitrate a dispute between farmers cooperatives, written right before Ventura destroyed the other cooperative by force.

Well, I guess I will be going on for now. I hope to write you guys from Quito or Guayaquil next time...

CAM

April 28,2013

Dear family and friends:

Just one note about yesterday. I had the meeting, and the only thing that was really changed was that I will add in a list of the Founders of Ventura, those who entered on January 25 1971 to build Ventura, also the presidents of various committees that people say were important.

But all in all my chapter on Ventura only needs a few more photos added in. I am now unifying my book once again, with all sections and photos, intruction, bibliography, and more. At least as it is now, it is around 107 pages.

Mom said she might be able to have it printed high-quality in the US and sent to Ecuador. This would undoubtedly cost hundreds of dollars, given all the color and how many copies I will want (around 15). Given that she recently felt a little generous toward the third world again, this may not be feasible. If it indeed isn´t, I should be able to have at least some copies printed out in some print shop in Guayaquil that does this sort of thing though not nearly as good quality, but as far as cost I have no idea, and may need to start begging institutions (parish council, the school) for money, which I wanted to avoid. We´ll see.

Well, in the meantime I am pushing through for this final week before (hopefully if PC approves) going on my last major vacation. If all goes well, I first go to Quito, then Guayaquil and if possible the beach, then again if possible to Lima to visit my Peruvian family. I hope to make inquiries as to the feasibility of visiting my Panamanian family just before getting to the US.

Well, much love to all, and I hope to have my exact dates of return soon. There are a few matters that aren´t going to be super easy to resolve, especially if Peace Corps gets persnicketty about when I stop being a volunteer and when I leave Ventura (they have some cause for such, given what my current arrangements may be). In the best of circumstances I will be in the US around the 25th, but that is ever so far from certain.

Well, I´ll be writing again next week,

Christopher M.


April 22, 2013

Hi Everyone:

There are a few new developments that are worth mentioning. Firstly, the Municipal Government of Cañar is sponsoring a chef to teach the preparation of some recipies here in Ventura. I have been coming, though unfortunately she has chosen principally shrimp-based foods, so it is mostly a loss for me, but there have been a few things that interest me. When we conferred about what food we wanted to make, I suggested some low-calorie foods, and eventually we settled on a quinoa-black bean salad, and a spinach-sweet potato and apple salad. The two were fairly popular. Unfortunately there were problems in coordination, and the poor woman ended up in my situation when I first came to Ventura and had nowhere to stay! This time it wasn´t because the person originally assigned to do so backed out, the Venturans planning it simply didn´t select anyone! They just had her come over and didn´t do anything to arrange for her arrival, be it food or lodging! Eventually one of the participants realized that something was wrong, and took her in, essentially as Emperatriz did for me. What a complete disaster that was. She said that she tried to call her bosses in Cañar city to have them pick her up and cancel the whole thing, but luckily she was thwarted in her complain by poor Venturan cell phone signal!
Anyway, after a few curfuffals the series is okay, and will end this coming Friday.

Another interesting development, I was hoping to get some help from the Parish Council in organizing another event for my historical project, and President Lenín and Dr. Jaime, the director of the school in Ventura, got perhaps a tad carried away, and are trying to invite every important Venturan they could think of, even those who are far away, or familiy members of those who are now dead! In all there were about 50 people supposedly invited, some of whom I had never heard of, I don´t know where they will get the money to make it a success, they wanted to feed everyone. I pitched in 20 dollars, which is actually less than what I spent last time when I organized it virtually single-handed. Now that the Parish Council has taken over the event, practically, I have to be careful that everyone who needs to be invited gets invited, just check in that they aren´t assuming I do it. Well, this Saturday the 27th I will be there, I need to prepare a short presentation to give to these people, and make it clear what information is still needed. In all reality, I have what I need to get the work done, in fact the greatest holes are in the peripheral community histories, but those holes may well not get filled, due to various logistical problems. Oh well, at least I am doing what I can.

Another important note: The headache isn´t over!
I will soon be dedicating myself to UC, but unfortunately they (and others if I chose them I believe) are demanding a battery of new requirements. Some are very easy to do, such as reading and agreeing to a code of conduct, some are more complicated. I have to send information on my transcripts, AGAIN, and also have to have a physical exam, and blood titers to confirm immunity and a few other things. This is fairly easy for most people, but it could be complicated for me. I doubt that UC will accept Dr. Mercy giving me a physical, and Peace Corps doctors may sneer at my request for them to do a physical for educational purposes. Peace Corps also did those blood titers ealier for my entrance, I may be able to get those results sent to UC, but we´ll have to see if they will accept them. I am a bit worried about getting this done, partly due to money reasons, I need to check to see that I have the confirmation numbers and words to get my credit card to work...if not I will need help from the US in payments possibly, also for a new background check.

I have recieved no news on payments of tuition, everyone assumes I will fill out FAFSA, and so far they haven´t sent out documentation for the few who do not want loans. I may try to make some phone calls tomorrow to get some of these questions sorted out.

Love to all,

Christopher Akos Morriss


April 15, 2013

Dear Everyone:

I am afraid that the past week has been quite uninteresting in most aspects. Work in the subcentro has been utterly uninspired, with tons of people coming in for doctors certificates that their children are in good health to study, and also people who are coming due to the doctor of the Health Post of Cutuguay´s doctor being on vacation. We are beginning a dog vaccination campaign tomorrow, which may liven things up a bit, but it does nothing for me as a Peace Corps volunteer. Oh well.

I am anxious for schools to start, which will be on May 2. Unfortunately all the schools start on the same day, so it will be utterly impossible to visit them all at the same time. Being able to do my work in the other side of the Parish again will be refreshing, an environment where I am not beholden to the subcentro´s lethargy.

Some good turns, I will have my close-of-service conference relatively soon in May, and hope to take my last vacation in the days following that happy event.

June is looking to be bland, just finishing up what I should be doing as a volunteer. July I finish out, and very much hope to be in the US by the 25th or 26th. I saw that UC begins its orientation on August 5th, and I called and explicitely asked if there was any reason for me to be there earlier, and she didn´t say there was anything before the 5th.

So, that´s that for now.

Christopher A. Morriss

April 7, 2013

Hi Family:

The past week has been fairly quiet, but with a few interesting notes.

One of the big ones is that recently I apparently have sent my ex-grandpa Manuel Loja to one of the biggest specialty hospitals of Ecuador. We have known for some time that he had high blood pressure, and recently got a diagnosis of an enlarged heart. He was coming into the subcentro for checks on his pressure. I was the man available for doing so, and as I took the pressure I noted, more than the pressure, that his pulse was unusually low. I immediately called Dr. Mercy over, and she listened, and when she put on her pulse ox, it took a LONG time to lock onto his pulse, but when it did it was at 36. This was a new development, and it worried Mercy a lot, so the next day she met together with a bunch of Manuel´s children, including my ex-host mom Emperatriz.

Mercy put it rather bluntly, that he was almost certainly suffering from cardiac insufficiency, bolstered by some comments by the kids, such as his not being able to sleep at night. He apparently had an appointment at the cardiologist at the Ecuadorian Social Security hospital, but Mercy said that he needed to be seen earlier, because he was in imminent risk of a crisis due to his various problems.

Apparently they took it seriously, and he went to see a private cardiologist. At first the checks were okay, but then his heart started acting up and he almost went into shock right in front of the doctor. After a long battery of tests, it looks like he is close to getting a pacemaker put in, which in Ecuador, is complicated but possible, even for the rural poor. So, in the next few days he may be get sent to the Eugenio Espejo Specialty Hospital in Quito, one of the few public hospitals where such a procedure is possible. I don´t know any dates, but I am holding him in the light. Emperatriz is, of course, rather worried. So you could either say that I landed him in the hospital, or in a certain way I may have saved his life in noting the bizarre pulse during his blood pressure check.

In other news, we had another patient die on us. Another non-surprise, in that the unfortunate person was Mercedes Naula, a woman who was previously battling tuberculosis, and apparently suffered a relapse. Her adult children were rather wary about sending her to the hospital, but when I saw her her vital signs were all over the place, and eventually Mercy persuaded them. She was sent to La Troncal, our basic hospital, where they began anti-TB treatment, but she deteriorated and was sent to the provincial hospital in Azogues. Unfortunately, as she was receiving surgery to drain liquid from her lungs, she expired. Poor lady, but she was just in horrible shape when I saw her. Yikes.

I am sending some photos of Cutuguay Norte again. This is a district that is mostly farmland, but usted to have more residents, which can be seen in some ruins in the area. There is an abandoned graveyard, cement bathrooms to a now-nonexistant school. It was rather interesting, and will allow me to write a bit more in my history.

Rainy season has been utterly underwhelming still, we have to see if anything interesting will happen. By the way, Ecuador´s tourist train is almost finished, they are sending trains through Ventura and San Juan all through the day and night doing touch-ups. Hopefully it will work, and will one day bring prosperity to Ventura.

Well, hope everyone is well...

Christopher A. Morriss


March 30, 2013

Hi Everyone:

I am at the high school's internet right now, and want to write in advance so that I can save time tomorrow.

We have been with a whole lot of patients recently, Dr. Mercy may have made a subcentro record by seeing 49 patients in one day, the poor woman didn't even eat lunch. But she is evidently one of the most popular doctors that have ever been in Ventura, being a woman certainly helps, especially with her Pap Smear record, which is certainly the best ever.

I have taken advantage of the moment doing some health talks right there in the subcentro to our bored patients, who have to wait hours sometimes to see the doctor. It has gone okay

The interesting thing this week was Good Friday, which this being a mostly Catholic town was a big deal. Thursday we had a community fish soup, called Fenesca, which is apparently very traditional. Friday I got up and had to dress up in a white robe as Jesus, and I carried the cross from Ventura to Santa Rosa, community past Bucay which is around a 4 hour walk. I didn't have to carry it all the way (Simon of Cyrene helped), but it was still pretty challenging. It was't really super heavy, but having to carry a rather awkwardly-shaped piece of wood on your shoulder for around 3 hours that weights somewhere around 30 pounds will end up hurting. I refused help other than the Station fo Simon, people really bugged me to let them help me and I wouldn't let them. I did ask for something to pad my shoulder, because around halfway through it was hurting pretty bad. In spite of problems, we were able to visit 7 churches in Ventura, San Juan, Cumanda, Bucay, and Santa Rosa. I really enjoyed it.

After that I stayed in Cumanda and paid a visit to the first nurse of the subcentro, who I had heard was visiting family there. She immediately recognized me, though we haven't met at all since my visit to her home in June in Biblian. I even showed her the little writing I did based on her testimony of her work, she said I did well. After that I went up to San Juan, enjoyed a special Good Friday dinner, ironically, with an evangelical family, watched part of The Passion of Christ (the disk was damaged and didn't finish), and walked up to Ventura.

There isn't that much news, the rains are still a tad underwhelming, though I went for a walk in my rainsuit during one heavy storm we had, it protected me very well, though at one part I had to wade through water that was around my thighs and that flooded my boots. Otherwise I didn't really get wet.

Last few months, I will be writing a final community report soon, and am working on compiling my book on Ventura and putting final touches so that it can get printed. A lot of people want a copy, at least that part of my presence is valued.

Well, I hope to send you photos of me with the cross tomorrow or the day after, though my computer has had trouble with photos recently...

Much love,

Christopher M.


March 23, 2013

Dear Everyone:

This week has been fortunately quiet. I haven´t had to deal with family troubles as both Tonny and Katty have skipped town. That has given me a very rare respite and freedom within the house to do as I please, even have friends over a little bit to cook, something I can never do normally. That has allowed me to be a bit more calm in my work.

The interesting thing in our work was when I went out with Dr. Mercy to some of our patients. ONe woman who had TB is terribly sick despite being supposedly cured. When we took her vital signs it was clear she was messed up (in keeping with her weakness). She hada pulse of around 110 resting, O2 saturation of arouond 84, pressure of I think 80/60, respirating at around 35 a minute. Dr. Mercy had me hear her lungs, and what was striking was that one heard exhalations and inhalations equally, which was supposedly due to lung damage by the bacteria. She also had some sort of growth on her chest around a clavicle, Mercy wanted to have it biopsied, but the family was sick of going to the hospital, so we are just doing palliative care right now.

In another patient, our oldest resident of Ventura at 101, I was taking his blood pressure when I noticed something odd, I wasn´t hearing all the beats that were supposed to be there. Dr. Mercy asked me what was wrong, and I said something was odd. She had me listen to the heart, and it seemed to have something unusual, when she listened she said he had an arhythmia, which hadn´t been there before. So I managed to find something new, but given that he is bedridden in Ventura at 101 and the daughtor who takes care of him is dirt poor, he will not be seeing a cardiologist in this life.

Another guy, relatively young in his 30s has been sent to Cuenca for a possible cancer, he had a big growth around the neck that was causing him terrible pain. Another one of our serious patients, with a horribly disfiguring mouth cancer, is suffering greatly under chemo, and with diabetes, hypertension, renal faliure, and cancer, is not doing well.

Dra. Mercy also finally went to Cutuguay Norte to visit our patients there. One old man she diagnosed with a kyphosis that was causing him back pain. The kids weren´t too bad, Mercy brought them some food and toys, and some antibiotics for the skin infections they had. Dr. Diego, our subcentro dentist, looked at their teeth, generally in terrible shape, with multiple cavities. Imagine in the US, having a government doctor and dentist coming into your house to check out your kids!

Otherwise things are pretty calm right now. I have been able to make some good food for my neighbors, mostly from Elz´s old recipies that I had copied from her books. I have been enthusiastically baking bread as well. That will all probably end when Katty comes back. On that front, I have no direct communication with her, her phone was turned off when I tried to call her, and Facebook seems to have been deactivated. One person said she had talked with Tonny and he was never going to come back to Ventura ever. Katty´s sister Betty on the other hand said that Katty and Tonny had gone to Tulcán together (where one of her brothers lives), and may, against all my expectations, be effecting another reconciliatioin. I suppose all things are possible in intimate relations.

This week is holy week. In Ventura, given our relative lack of priests, we will not be doing much, though there willbe a procession for Holy Friday. There have been suggestions for me to carry th cross in a respresentation of Jesus, that will be fun, I don´t know how heavy they tend to make it.

Well, I am going to finish, but hopeuflly will have interesting pictures in the next letter...

Question, I am working on Darly with his books, when did I start reading and writing? I have a pretty clear memory that I knew how to write when I started kindergarden, so I assume family taught me. Any memories about that?

Christopher M.


March 10. 2013

Good Morning:

As I look at my emails, I saw a couple interesting notes.

The University of Louisville finally got around to sending me a rejection, I admit I wonder why, they didn`t even offer an interview. At least Case Western went to that much trouble. I guess even having a knock-em dead background (as I in my arrogance claim) cannot impress everybody. Cincinnati and Wright State continue to send me stuff, including Cincinnati`s Second Look event. It is on April 5th and if I could go I certainly would. I am in need for anything that will really push me one way or another strongly, a big plus now that I am not afraid of not being accepted, the environment would be much more relaxed.
Wright State will probably have something similar, again it would be nice to be there.

Sorry to hear about mom`s job instability, hearing her perspective makes me wonder how my career will go. Most people have a consensus that medical school is a completely overwhelming experience.

As said, I am not sure about going to UC yet, but I feel it would be a good idea, given my logistical reality, and I feel that I can get a good education there. I can stay with mom for a time, but how long isn`t clear, I have to feel my way out to find out and ascertain what is best for me.

As far as Ecuador, with school out and rainy season getting into full swing we aren`t doing anything terribly innovative right now. I hope to do a first aid class in San Juan following how I did it in Ventura last year. I will be doing so also in Guayas, where my photos are from from the activity I talked about earlier. I should be going there again this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I will probably be doing more music reviewing, work with Aline and Leah with the women`s group, and then Emperatriz, my former host mother, offered to take me to the beach with her family on a Saturday day trip.

We will also be doing some work today together, as Emperatriz needs to do some work on the computer on a report, but she is pretty computer illiterate, so she wants me to show her the ropes on managing such programs.
Tonny and Katty seem to be at peace, I don`t know what is going on beneath the surface, but currently they aren`t openly fighting. It must be pretty painful for Katty especially, but they are determined to keep the family in one piece.

Not much else right now. In all reality I am kind of coasting to mid July for my leaving. Holy Week might be a good moment to entertain myself. The Close of Service converence is going to be in May for us, so not much time left.

Until later...

Christopher M.

March 2, 2013

Dear Familiy and Friends:


No photos for now, I am afraid computers, and circumstances, aren´t allowing it.


I am in Guayaquil right now, after a trip to several different places I have wound up here again.


Anyway, this past week we did a small meeting of the Old Person´s club, that was okay, though attendance wasont´too great. We talked about Dengue, though the presentations we had ready were foiled by an ill-timed power failure, we had to improvize, but it went okay. We then had a meeting of the diabetics-hypertensives of San Juan, that went well, we had more than just the normals, also a guy recovering from TB, a pregnant woman, it was a full house, and after that, we visited the nursery school. Lots of blood pressures, lots of medicine. we had been behind on that visit, as the hospital took forever to get us some of our most basic medicines, like enalapril, amlodipine, actually acetaminophen and aspirin as well. It was getting rediculous, we had no tylenol pills, but tons of children´s syrup, so we ended up occasionally givine adults five syrup bottles instead of the pills. Well, we´re better now, though we are in full fever season, so even the 2000 odd pills they gave for Tylenol won´t last that long...


One of the more interesting notes of this week was that yesterday I visited another volunteer, my friend Leah Ghitter, native of Columbus, who lives in Manglares Churute, or rather a small community by that park. She works with a small group of women that apparently are in need of blood pressure control, and Leah asked me over there to teach them the basic technique. Amazingly, someone had given them quite a few blood pressure cuffs, but no training to use them. So it wasn´t too hard, they seemed to have captured the basics, but I will have to give a refresher in a couple weeks. They asked if the 15th I could teach first aid. I said I could, but I am lacking in real experience, and Leah and I decided that I should team up with Aline Hefferman, an old friend of ours from training who lives way out in Cayambe, a good 9 hours away in the northern mountains, who was an EMT before coming to Ecuador. I feel the two of us should be able to teach it fairly well, her more than me. Incidentally, I stayed the night in the community, and I stayed at Leah´s counterpart´s household. The husband there, it turned out, is taking piano lessons to be able to play the keyboard for their pentecostal church. But he was dissatisfied with my playing, and was floored by my ability to sight read music, as his ability to do so was still rather deficient. So we spent a couple hours with me teaching him some elements of reading music, and I got to peruse through his sheet music. Many songs were totally unknown to me, or I had heard in Ventura´s pentecostal church (which is of the same movement, it would seem). There were two songs I did recognize, Demos Gracias al Señor, which is a Spanish song I had picked out of Worship in Song to play for fun. The other, that I heard him playing in his somewhat deficient way, was How Great Thou Art, one of the old favorites of Community Friends Meeting. It was heart warming to be able to play the piano, a song I know, there in the middle of a bunch of rice fields (the house was quite nice, with a computer, cement floors, pickup trucks, the son studying nursing). By the way, it was kind of fun to talk medical science with the son and a cousin there, I had to talk about circulation and muscle biochemistry, I wasn´t sure exactly how the calcium channels worked with neurotransmitters, but I think I remembered my UVM classes okay.


After that I came here to Guayaquil, where I made a vegetarian recipe I made with Elz so long ago from that book Mom gave her even longer ago. It came out well, well enough that they ate it, though given that their eating abilities are still off and on (Carmen is working, but not as regularly or with the pay that would be ideal). I have been doing almost all the spending, but any qualms I have of doing so are squashed given the year and a half I have spent in Ventura freeloading off of families far poorer than me. I might as well help out somewhere, and it is my godson after all. It was strange, however, hearing of Carmen describing her father as a man characterized by unbridled and brutal violence, when I know him as a rather sweet old man. I have recently learned that Carmen, and most of her siblings, have barely gone past fourth grade, which is pretty pathetic even by Venturan standards for people of their generation. Some of them, only in their 30s, are illiterate, which is very unusual. They were apparently an even more disfunctional family than they are now. The youngest daughtor, in spite of a couple unplanned pregnancies, is trying to continue her studies late, I hope she can do it, as she is the only one to have gotten as far as 7th grade. She´s got a lot blocking her way...


Also, in my looking around for reasons to stay by Cincinnati I found some videos. Check out the one on service opportunities. I very much imagine mom and-or Ken knows that guy.


http://www.med.uc.edu/StudentServices/MedicalStudentAdmissions/SecondLook.aspx


Thanks, Doug and Kate, for the recipe.


Christopher M.
February 24, 2013

Dear Family and Friends:

This week has been a bit low key. A few visits to patients, one old guy may have a diagnosis of prostate cancer and is currently at home with treatment that I am not sure what it is. He is slowly recovering from hospitalization, is eating and moving around, though has been having some trouble sleeping. Some relatives said that patient in questioni in the old days was a heavy drinker and womanizer, and that his ways are getting back to him. Oh well...

One of the big things that I managed to see was my aunt Dalila graduating from General Antonio Elizalde High School. There were 221 graduates, with a nice ceremony there with uniforms and music. Dalila is the last of 9 children of the Ibarra family, and everyone ws really proud that the Ibarras were one of few families that succeeded in sending them all through high school, many of whom are now professionals. We`ll see if Dalila can keep herself on the right track as she goes to college. The big question is if she can avoid getting pregnant like her sister Betty did, which was the end of her college career.

At the same time as Dalila was graduating said Betty had her 33rd birthday, and Nurse Silva`s little daughtor Nicole turned 7. So a lot of fiesta, too much of that I have to admit gets tiring. There was actually another graduation party on Friday for the son of another Venturan family, but they are quite fond of huge parties that last long into the night. I had to insist on going home at 10:30, as earlier that day I had gone on a hike through a wild part of Sural, in the south of Ventura parish. We went through cow pastures and second growth rain forest to a small lagoon, which was a fun hike. I went with a few adults and group of teenagers from San Juan, Ventura, and Sural. One guy told me he had lived in Spring Valley New York and was studying in high school until he made the unwise decision to go to a party where he drank so much he blacked out. When he came to he was in jail, and before long he was deported back to Ecuador. He said when he saw me he though I was in my 30s, not 24.

After more thought, I am considering more and more going to Cincinnati, for a few reasons. First, more than any other university Cincinnati`s presentation was very good. Although they have an empasis on research, that doesn`t mean that they don`t have good opportunities for primary care, and international medicine. I feel that, to a great degree, I can make my experience what I want it to be in whatever university.
I have to admit I am finding the prospect of coming back to Cincinnati somewhat alluring, I am feeling a tad loath to learn to call yet another place home. Avoiding the immediate hassle of moving to Dayton, I feel, could be a nice advantage.
Just a little introspection, not a definitive move yet, that is still a ways off. I am feeling more and more ready to leave, however.

Making some progress on my history, though there are a few things I have to work on still. One of my collaborators in Ventura, who actually wrote about Ventura but lost her info, was against my writing about the minor communities, she felt it diminished from the central theme on Central Ventura. Given that she is a daughtor of Ventura, however, she is very much prejudiced. I feel if you don`t like the supplementory histories of the communities, you don`t have to read them. She is a help, nonetheless, and gave me some old photos.

Thursday I will be going to Guayas province for some Peace Corps business. Also I will be visiting my godfamily again. A few work projects for the week, but I will be a little anxious for leaving come the 28th. I will be out for about 4 days, and if there is time I hope to see The Hobbit, it would be the first film I see in a theater since Peace Corps training in 2011.

Photos don`t seem to be uploading well. I will try to send them again later...

CAM

February 8, 2013

Good Morning:

Things are going to be slow in the subcentro, and Sunday is going to be tight, so I am using a bit of time this morning to do my internet work.

This week I have been mostly in the closing ceremonies of the schools of Cutuguay and Ventura, and later today the ceremony of San Juan is going to go through. This means that all schools activities that have kept me occupied outside of the subcentro are going to disappear. Oh well, there are some things I need to get done.

One of the most noteworthy topics:

My host parents, I knew, had had problems in their marriage, but they are currently in a bit of crisis, it appears. During the closing ceremony of the school in Ventura I saw host father Tonny smoking and drinking (a real surprise for me), and he came home a disaster, I think that was a real problem. On a couple occasions I have seen Katty crying (alone), and she comlained of "problems". Tonny himself hasn't said anything, but it is clear that something is going on between them. What the root cause of the dischord is, I truly don't know, it is not my place to ask.

For the most part I have been spending time with other friends, that helps shield me from marital problems. I don't know what direction all of this is heading, whether reconciliation or breakup, I will take it as it comes. They seem capable of being together still. Today Tonny went to Cañar city, and this morning Katty was in relatively good spirits. Hmmm.

Carnaval weekend is coming up, meaning people will throw water and other things on us.

Not fun when I want to go shopping.

Mom: Got AAFP article on Latinos as well as the Wright State letter. I looked at my Wright State account, nothing there of interest at all. The article was interesting in that many of the issues mentioned in dealing with latinos, as far as folk remedies, being friendly, language problems, cultural discrimination, are all things that we deal with, both with everyday Venturans and people, as well as with the indigenous. Nurse Silva thought that relationship was interesting as well...

Presidential elections are also a bit more than a week away. I´ll keep you posted on developments, if any.

Love,

Christopher M.

February 3, 2013

Hi Everyone:

Again the internet insists on my sending photos and text separately, so be it.

The past week has been a good one, getting various parts of my work done. Dra. Mercy is hoping to emphasize dengue prevention, with us taking a survey of risk zones in the town. There will also be some closing ceremonies in several schools in the parish, I will be hanging out there. The high school students are in final exams, and soon everyone will be off for the rainy season.

This past Monday I went to Cumandá and got a replacement part for my bike. While I was there they had the fiestas of Cumandá, with various schools and institutions, including the army and a fire truck going through the streets.

Another bit of news: I went through a background check for medical school. I had to report all the places I have lived, and sent them everything, from Cincinnati, Wallingford (Pendle Hill), Vermont, to Peru and Ecuador. Wow. Needless to say, they didn´t find anything.

I also had a meeting of old people about the history of Ventura. I presented my work and asked how they found it. They found it generally accurate, a few corrections or commentaries. The main thing they said is that my work leaves many committee leaders and other such people unmentioned, and I give disprapportionate treatment to other figures such as a catholic missionary of the 90s. I admitted that this was a flaw, but was a simple reality that there was a lot of information available about the missionary (including a life resume, written no less), and nothing available about the vast majority of local leaders, whom I can mention in brief but little more.

But given that the history is nearly done, I can work on creading an appendix of leaders and such, it won´t be hard. We said we would meet again on April 13th, an important anniversery for Ventura, when it attacked and defeated another cooperative trying to sieze the same land.

Congratulations, Elz. I haven´t really been on top of that whole situation, but I hope it works out for you and Lynne.

I haven´t been able to get to the post office really recently, I´ll see if they open later.

The elections for president in Ecuador are really in action. Correa and his challengers are pulling out the stops. Correa actually drove through Ventura last Thursday, though I happened to be out of town at the moment. Oh well, I´ve already seen him.

Much love to all...

Christopher M.

January 28, 2013

Dear Family:

Well I am actually in Bucay today to get a new part for my bike which broke. Given my bike doesn´t work, I can´t go to Cutuguay for the exams, professor Alexandra will have to deal with that on her own.

I meanwhile will take advantage of the day, especially happy as I have recovered the camera!

The story is rather strange.
I heard from one of the professors that she had my camera. It seems that her mother, who owns a small shop in Ventura, had a rather drunken clientel one day and after they left a camera was sitting on her storefront. She didn´t know how to work it, but the daughtor did, and she realized it was mine. How these drunken guys got my camera isn´t really clear, but for once drunkenness works in my favor! Otherwise they would have taken and sold it for sure.

Well, now that fortune has smiled on me in this I have to be triply careful with it, goodness!

Also when I came to the phone place to buy a new one they insisted on trying to fix it. They did the work for 3 dollars, and apparently it works now. A lot better deal than 40 dollars for a new phone, we´ll see if it lasts.

I also got a stroke of luck in that when I was heading down just now I ran into Eduardo Galeas, one of the founders of Ventura again after our conversation a few days ago. He was just leaving, but was able to provide me with a recent portrait photo of himself, a good addition to the history, given he was a key figure in Ventura´s first two decades of history.

Well, all´s well that ends well...

Christopher M.
January 26, 2013

Dear Family and Friends:

We will soon be in February, the first month of 2013 is ticking away. I have managed to get some last-minue health promotion events through, talking about nutrition, mainly. In the subcentro they wanted to give out some powder that has iron and vitamin A to kids up to and including age 7, as well as BMI measurements, and I figured that it was a good moment to talk about proper nutrition, and it seemed to be well recieved. Also gave the same talk in the Ventura nursery school.

One of the more interesting notes on Thursday, I was in the subcentro when one of the health promoters announced that Ecuardo Galeas, the first president of the farmer`s cooperative that founded Ventura, was in town, and was looking for me!

He typically lives in the Amazon region, so I was quite surprised to hear that. Fortunately things were slow in the subcentro and I felt safe in going to see him.

I ended up spending most of the afternoon with Galeas, as well as a couple of other old-timers, and they helped out with a lot of history, a bit advance in really giving color and exactness to my history of Ventura, especially the early part. This week I have to implement my project on a meeting of old-timers so that I can prettymuch finish the history of Ventura.

In other news I have some bad news, unfortunately. On Jan 21 a friend had a birthday and I came to bake the cake and take pictures. I felt fine that night, but woke up with stomach probems. When I started feeling better I went to the subcentro, but then started feeling worse again. I eventually had to just lay down in the bed the subcentro has for observing patients, and soon developed fever and vomiting. I just rested and dozed the entire day and couldn`t eat anything until nearly midnight.
This would just be an annoyance, except that the next day I could not find my camera. I have searched my backpack thoroughly, and just in case my room and all of the subcentro. No results at all, which is leading me to conclude that when I was there resting some enterprising soul entered the observation room and grabbed the first thing of value he saw next to my bed, namely the camera. I of course did not witness such a thing and have looked everywhere in case I just misplaced it but I have not succeeded. Maybe it will show up, but I find it highly unlikely.

On a related note my phone has been damaged by water and needs to be replaced, though my number fortunately will not change.

God damn it.

In other news, I was supposed to go on a trip on Saturday but I apparently misheard or misremembered the time to leave, coming at 4:30 when the bus left at 4:00. As a result I had to just go to San Juan to wash my clothes as normal, and ended up attending thet graduation ceremony of the nursery school. That was a pretty nice ceremony. I also baked some bread for my comadre Veronica and read more of Huasipungo, a well-known Ecuadorian book Veronica has. Veronica herself wasn`t even home, the Parish Council was forcing all nursery school workers to paint the Council building in the hopes that the president and-or vicepresident viists Vetnura tomorrow. Apparently the Council wants to beg the authorities for a paved road, which Ventura very much needs.

A couple other notes: My comadre Carmen, who mom met, is apparently having more health problems. It isn´t clear what it is, but apparently she got a pap smear and something, it´s not clear what, showed up. She is suffering belly pains and headaches, not new symptoms but she is apparently worse. Christián, meanwhile, remains chronically unemployed.

Also, note for Sid, particularly. I mentioned my computer was breaking, and I brought the machine to a shop. He diagnosed the problem as ¨visagra¨, which means hinge. I have an image of it I will try to scan it. It is for a Dell Latitude D630, the right connection is the one that is damaged. I asked him if such a piece was available in Ecuador. He asked some contacts in Guayaquil, and the consensus was that such a computer and, hence, replacement parts, were not available in Ecuador. If you could send me the piece he said he could fix it. Right now the computer is holding out, but I have to hold it together every time I open it up.

So, I will finish up the letter, hope life is doing well, without my cat.

Christopher M.
January 13, 2013

Hi Everyone:

I wasn't able to get the internet in the cafes to work, so I am using the Parish Council's internet, they apparently keep it on constantly. I can only stay as long as my computer's battery lasts, fortunate that I fixed that in the US...

Anyway, life has been pretty good lately. I finished with my series on sex ed in Tomebamba, and this week I should with Cutuguay and Clementina. I am preparing to show a brief video on HIV in Spanish, most of it is boring, but the early bit is good in showing how HIV works in a fairly simple way. If you are curious, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTKccRNN2Es

Otherwise, I went to La Troncal on Friday because there was a small bike ride going through the city, it was a bit too low-key for me, but it was fun anyway. They brought some students in and they helped add bulk to the event, it was mainly to promote physical activity, and they were also trying to emphasize putting up a bike port in the hospital. I went there, and then biked back to Ventura, it was a bit over 2 hours on the highway, but it was actually pretty fun.

I also participated in a Communal Work Crew for San Juan cleaning up the tanks. It wasn't too bad, we just had to shovel off the top layer of sand and then wash it, I worked in carrying water to wash all the mud out of the sand. I unfortunately cut my hand earlier and was bleeding a bit as I worked. Oh well, so be it.

One note on cuy, guinea pig, as Julie was curious. I cannot comment on size, I think the cuys here are larger, as one doesn't want to eat small guinea pigs. The only way I have ever seen cuy cooked is roasted on a spit, people have said that cuy stew and soup is disgusting, but it is probably just tradition.

Soon we will be working a bit more in Ventura, I might take a rest in the south of Ventura for now. It looks like maybe, just maybe, that the others of the subcentro will take health promotion seriously, and it won't be as necessary to go around them to do my work, which is nice as I have to do another work report for Peace Corps. This one may look a tad pathetic, alas...

I am going to try to send photos, but the internet is still not cooperating, apparently...

Much love,

Christopher M.

January 6, 2013
Good Morning Various Contacts,

I won´t have photos for you today, sorry about that, but you will have to wait some more time before I am able to load them up.

Anyway, this week has been all right, we had our New Years celebration, it was all right, it has been raining more and more, so it was a bit hard to have an outdoor dance event, we had to make do by showing up whenever the elements allowed, in spite of whatever the time schedule apparently was. Given that this made things happen late, this often excluded me from much of the activiites. I still am relatively against staying up much past 10 or 11. For new years I stayed out at the event until around 1:20, but I have to admit I didn´t have much fun staying up at all. They had some interesting ceremonies: the burning of the Old Years (figures representing community members, no bad will involved), there were several interesting ones, including the dentist from the subcentro. There was also the Crazy Widows, a rather bizarre specticle of cross dressing where guys pretend to be the widows of the figures burned, it isn´t that creative, but it was still entertaining. Lastly there was the reading of the wills, along the same line it is a long testiment from the burned figure concerning things that have happened over the past year, it can be funny, though sometimes they get a little too silly in order to be long.

The best part, really, is where with the new year everyone hugs one another, that relly felt the most cathartic.

There was actually a mix of birthdays recently, actually Jairo Ibarra had a birthday on January 1st, a little daughtor of Darwin Ibarra had a birthday the second, and of course I had a birthday on the 3rd. I celebrated with the Ibarras, making Dora Wat, that came out pretty well, though I didn´t have all the spices I wanted, one simply cannot get cardamom in Bucay.

Other news: it isn´t a good season for state employees right now. The school may be facing a loss of personnel, and the first person on teh chopping block seems to be Katty. She prettymuch lost her job right as classes started up, due to an anti-nepotism law preventing her cousin-director of the school from employing her, but he seems to have decided to take a stand and employ her anyway and see what happens. As far as i know she is back working, but for how long is anyone´s guess. Hers isn´t the only case.

Nurse Silva is actively seeking alternative employoment in case the Public Health ministry decides to throw her out, which apparently is to it´s benefit because if they employ her for more than 3 years, they have to pay her more and give her some stability. The government, naturally, doesn´t benefit from this.

Otherwise, everyone is pretty occupied with yearly reports, so not much is happening, naturally. One development is that we might be getting a basic system of computerized medical records. I am skeptical, given the trouble they have keeping our computers free of viruses, and with constant electricity now. The investment in new computers, training, and internet (supposedly also coming), would be pretty significant. The Ecuadorian state right now seems to be a strange mix of job instability and high promises on what they will be giving us.

The nursery schools have been going through some uncertainty s well, but Verónica, who works in the nursery school of San Juan, seems to think they will be working this week, and maybe, just maybe, they will pay their workers too.

How this coincides with the Ecuadorian elections coming up in February isn´t clear. Correa clearly seems to think he will win, as does everyone in Ventura. There are other candidates, including various plutocrats and such who at least have money to campaign, but nobody seems to have real traction. Katty, given her recent job troubles, is none too enamored of Correa.

I am going to be helping out Dalila Ibarra in her work, she has an English exam on Dracula, which I fortunately am pretty familiar with. Her English is, unfortunately, not that good, though if she works at it she can muddle through.

Yesterday I celebrated my birthday again with the Castillo family, and got to eat Guinea Pig (I had requested this). It is okay, I like it for the novelty more than anything. I also ended up making a special trip to town to buy some vegetables as well as pineapple, I realized there wouldn´t be much in the way of plants otherwise.

No new news about medical schools right now, just perusing their websites, but not much to give me the guidance I need.

Oh, I have heard about my cat being perhaps in hospice. I give my authorization to euthanize him if it seems to be time. He`s had hils life, his illnesses, his good and bad times, and if life seems to be less enjoyment than moping and being miserable, I would say it is time. I think Kate is prettymuch right, that his behaviour should be helpful in indicating if there´s no point in keeping him going.

Schools will be in vacation in a few weeks, and then rainly season will really kick in, yikes!

I will be buying some new rubber boots for the occasion.

Happy new year to all...

Christopher Akos Morriss



December 21, 2012

Good Morning:

This weekend will be a bit rushed, so I think I will write now, as I have a bit more time.

Most of the photos that I will give are of various Christmas parties that have been in the school of Ventura, that of San Juan, the Nursery School of Ventura, and a visit of the Baby Jesus to Nurse Silva´s house. Also a couple photos of a visit I paid to Mount Cutuguay.

Basically a lot of candy, presents for the children given by various government or private entities to the children of Ventura. I gave fruit during the party at the school of San Juan, everyone thought that was kind of funny, and they ate joyfully along with all the junk other people gave.

Today I baptize Christián Coello, that will be fun to do, though I felt a bit sick last night when the church officials gave us a primer in Catholic dogma. Luckily I can defend myself fairly well, I have been reading a book on that one of the nun in La Clementina lent me, though I mixed up the order of the 10 commandments, and the Catholics modify them (instead of keep the sabboth day holy, they say keep the days of fiestas holy, instead of thouogh shalt not commit adultery, they say thou shalt not commit impure acts, they also play down commandment 1´s prohibition on graven images and false gods).

Well, come January 3rd we will be basically at the end of the fiesta season, thank goodness. And the real celebrations, with mountains of beer and drunks everywhere, haven´t even started. We will be practicing our second dance tomorrow when I get back from Guayaquil.

I need to get making breakfast, so Marry Christmas to all, and hope everyone enjoys the season!

Christopher M.
December 16, 2012

Greetings Everyone:

It is the Christmas season indeed, requests for contributions are flying everywhere, I will need to hand over some money for flowers for the Church, and I am now getting some Christmas gifts for my two godsones Darly and Cristián. For Darly Verónica asked for some kind of didactic toys, and for Cristián I just got him some more diapers and baby powder, practical gifts.

The photos I show are of a Christmas party that we had for the old people of Ventura, Dra. Morales organized us giving a bunch of money for food and gifts, and I wrote a Christmas play on Santa Clause getting old and having to deal with the problems involved in isolation and depression (they only want to see us when I bring presents). It was okay, and the dentist made a great Santa Clause, he really did it well. Dra. Morales was also pretty good even though she had virtually no time to review. unfortunately during the Christmas season she has decided to turn on one of those annoying Christmas music things that repeats at nauseum the same songs.

Otherwise we are fine, but there are problems with getting our nursery school checks done during Christmas season. I have heard that they might end up getting closed, during yet another government restructuring of the system of childcare that may end up hurting rural institutions. But who really knows? Until the elections come (around February), nothing dramatic will probably happen.

I am currently in Guayaquil, hanging out and preparing some things for my two godsons, and specifically for my second godson who I will be baptising this coming Saturday 22. There will be some problems with that colliding with some of Ventura´s Christmas celebrations, but so be it. I may have to go to Quito for another rabies injection, I got bit again last night returning from washing my clothes in San Juan, darn dogs...

I have a few things coming from Ohio, I´ll be looking at the post office whenever possible.

I will be doing another dance on New Years, but given problems with baptism and dogs it will be a little hard to do the practices.

There was a birth at the Subcentro last night, but Emperatriz didn´t get me up as she thought contact with blood wouldn´t be appreciated by Peace Corps. I told her that I definately want to go, so next birth (which there may be soon), not to worry about that, get me whatever hour of the night it may be.

Well, I hope everyone is okay, I have been in a better mood lately, partly it is just willing myself not to be overly sensitive, though yesterday I was in another minga, work crew, for the water system. It was very harsh, we were hauling dozens 100 pound sacks of rocks and sand to put as a filter to our water system (which the workers said we have to do MONTHLY, no way). For real farm boys and laborers it wasn´t too bad, but for me, even with the short distance, it is simply not feasible, especially that I get back pains. I had to say right out that I would not be able to do the work, which is just plain true, I couldn´t do one, let alone dozens. I ended up opening them and emptying them, which in itself was still hard work. I don´t think it is sustainable for us to do work that harsh monthly, not even for clean water, we´ll see.

As for medical schools, I have been warming to the idea of coming back to Cincinnati, but nothing is really determined yet, I am waiting for some materials from Wright State mom sent, and I will still just sit on it for a few months, I have no need at all to rush this.

One last note, one old guy who had been reticent about helping me with the history may be opening up now, I think having the physical book really helps, which is exactly what I expected. He read really slowly, I don´t know if it was bad eyesight, poor education, or both. I came to his house and he was carrying a pale of caocao beans, which he dumped with some others angering a swarm of bees. When I asked about them he said they were killer bees, which do have nests all around he said. Later on he sold a bunch of bunches of bananas and some sugar cane for a grand total of 20 dollars. Not a rich man.

Well, enjoy the photos, and we´ll see what comes next...

Christopher Morriss
December 8, 2012

Hello Everybody:

I can finally get you some pictures, I have some of a sports encounter, a community work crew to dig a trench for our water system, and a community dance.

The sports enounter kind of dragged on, there´s only so much soccer that can be fun to watch, though it was more interesting in that I knew the kids that were playing. Ventura´s big showing was in a multi-kid kind of relay race, which you can see in the photos in which the kids had to balance on a bamboo, do jump rope, jump across the playing field in a sack, come back holding a football between your legs, then walk back on stilts. Ventura actually kind of steamrolled across the other schools.

The community work crew was fun, though a bit difficult. We were digging right by the rail line, as you can see, and my streatch was with a couple other people in front of the old rail station. That meant that we had to dig through a lot of the rocks and gravel that the rail company dumped around there, some of which were huge. We managed to get through a pretty good stretch, and I only got a tiny split on my hand, no new blisters. As usual, it is a good way to spend my morning.

The dance was good, we have been practicing for a while, so we were ready. It was actually a competition, and for a while they were talking as if 7 different communities would compete, but really not that many people showed up, only Ventura, La Clementina, and San Juan were the groups. La Clementina and San Juan had some nice music and were okay, but I think we were a bit more spectacular in our presentation, so Ventura was victorious. But it lated kind of late, and I got a bit annoyed when they wanted to stay around after midnight, but fortunately they didn´t delay too late.

As far as work we´ve been having troubles in that our printer, then our computer broke, and may not be fixed for a while. That paralyzes our work as far as the pharmacy, and other things that were computer heavy. We will be having a meeting with the old person´s group, we want to do a Christmas event, and they asked me for an idea. I wrote a small play about Santa Clause getting old and having to make some healthy life decisions. Let´s hope it goes well.

After this week we will be pretty busy with Christmas events, and it is unlikely we will be able to get much done. I will soon be baptizing the other godchild, though it seems that my to-be second compadres almost had a deadly encounter with some drug addict who tried to kill Carmen in what Cristián characterized as a random attack. Yikes!

I´ve had to deal with a kind of irritability, I don´t know the origin of this mood, but I feel very botherable, and not dealing with frustrations well. I think that it has to do with impending studies, and maybe just small frustrations with work. Maybe burnout. Hard to say...

Wishing everyone the best...

Christopher M.
December 1, 2012

Dear Family and Friends:

I have just reviewed my emails, and Wright State accepted me, bringing my acceptances to 3, from where I probably won´t move, not that I want or need more options at this point. Well, at this point I don´t really know how to decide, how close to home I want to be, how I want things to go, what programs are really different between the institutions.

The program for sending photos isn´t working right now, so you will have to go without.

We had World AIDS Day recently, which went okay. Peace Corp´s program on HIV AIDS is more about political correctness than prevention, but everyone who worked on it mostly promoted the idea of USE CONDOMS AND BE RESPONSIBLE ABOUT SEXUAL BEHAVIOR OR DIE!!!! Which isn´t really what Peace Corps Ecuador likes to hear. There is a medium, I feel, between scare tactics and downplaying how dangerous HIV is. I have heard that Peace Corps-style downplaying the fear of HIV can actually be counterproductive as it legitemizes having HIV, and takes away people´s sense of fear, leading them to feel more comfortable in taking risks, and even openly giving each other HIV.

Other than that, Nurse Silva´s baby got bronchiopnemonia, which they said would probably have killed her if they hadn´t shoved some heavy-duty antibiotics into her (the doctor said a 4th generation antibiotic, which is for serious cases). She´s been in the hospital with the baby almost a week now, and cannot leave since nobody is there to care for the child (the baby is in a hospital bed, not a crib), though they only give out food and hospital clothes for the baby. Needless to say, when I came to visit I ended up in a little childcare while she bathed and ate something.

I am starting to practice a new dance, which as always is fun, though in a week we have our first presentation, a bit intimidating!

I worked on another communal work day, digging a trench for the water system. Unfortunately I cut my hands up pretty bad, but I stayed at it and worked through the pain. We ended up digging a decent trench, but there were only about 12 people, but it was scheduled to be a more limited work crew.

Still no real word on my leaving my current host family and moving to the convent, which is undergoing renovation and isn´t for habitation yet...

Well, I will keep you all posted...

Christopher M.
November 24, 2012

Dear Everyone:

It´s Saturday but I have a little time to write right now, so I do so.

As said, I got back without any trouble. My host uncle Ítalo Ibarra met me, that was really nice, and he took me to his place to stay what was left of the night. The next morning we headed to the bus station, and I was on my way to Cumandá.

When I got there I was able to get my bags up to Ventura with my neighbor´s help, and paid a visit to my godson Darly. He loves his new books.

Mostly in Ventura I have been in the subcentro working on things with HIV AIDS Day, that has been a nice way to reintegrate. I will be heading back to South Ventura in a little while, but I am trying to reintegrate in with Ventura first.

Everyone loved the things I got for them, I will soon be seeing my second godson Cristián and family, hand off things to them, and the giftgiving will be over for the most part. That will be a good thing to get off my mind.

Today is actually the festivals of Saint John, patron saint of the town of San Juan. They are having food and a band, fireworks, dances, and more. I look forward to the festivities, though everything is taking me away from a Ventura work crew, but they were very late in notifying me that it would take place, I had already compromised myself with the San Juan. It is also Darly`s older sister´s 15th birthday, and they want me to show her how to use their new computer.

After that, well I am not sure what my priorities are. I have been shadowing the doctor of the subcentro, something I have never done before, but she actually seemed interested in showing me directy how she works. So far the only really interesting thing was a heart arhythmia, a 15 year old had a problem where periodically his heart wouldn´t have a normal pause, and it was causing him to get tired easily. She is referring him to the hospital so an internal medicine specialist and then maybe cardiologist can evaluate him.

Everything right now, then, is going well. I sincerely hope that everything back in the US is going all right, and I will write you later.

Christopher M.
September 16, 2012

Dear Family and Friends

I am now back in my homeland of Ventura-Bucay-Cumandá, and it is quite nice to be back. The trip from Tumbaco to Cumandá was a tad bothersome, there simply is no good route to take from the training center to the southern bus terminal, but I got to Cumandá at about 10:30pm, and stayed with family of my comadre Verónica in San Juan. Got back to Ventura, which seemed almost completely abandoned in the hot afternoon sun. Unfortunately there has been more robbery in Ventura, and Tonny is having us lock our doors, it is a very negative atmosphere. Annoyingly, he is also locking the perimeter fence, and not giving me a key. Although he doesn`t have one, it doesn`t really occur to him that I should have the right to come and go as I so please without having to jump the fence at any hour I really want (including if that means buying a lock with mutiple copies of the key). Well, my host mom was glad to see me, as were many others.

The Midservice Conference itself was actually quite nice. Although I was rather unenthusiastic about having to be with other Americans, I actually found the whole experience rather nice and refreshing, talking with other Peace Corps people, and helping me to get rejuvinated and motivated to do more better.

Over the next few days, I will be focusing on adjusting myself to the new doctor and dentist of the subcentro, I have so far heard good things about them. Also, normal work, and preparing for mom`s arrival on Thursday. Everyone is now looking forward to her being here.

Tuesday I will have to call the US and get as much done about medical schools as possible. I need to give the ones that are delaying telling me anything a nudge, and apologize to UC about a scheduling problem, which is already fixed, but I feel very annoyed about the pace of things.

Photos: Some are from a family collection of San Juan, the only old photos of San Juan I have found, and which I scanned yesterday. PHotos mostly from the 70s, 80s, early 90s, a great step forward in old San Juan, though no good panorama shots or anything like that. Also shots of the rail line getting some final touchups, various shots of Tumbaco and the training center, a shot of my comadre Verónica´s niece Natalia, an old clotheswashing stream in San Juan, and the celebration of my neighbor Juan Altamirano´s daughtor´s 15th birthday.

Much love to everyone, and I very much look forward to mom´s arrival in a few days!

Christopher Morriss
September 9, 2012
Hello Family & Friends:

Hopefully you aren't all worrying about me for not writing yesterday, I had no real access to the internet. I am at the training center in Tumbaco this week for midservice conference, can't really say how useful it will be, but it is mandatory, so I have to be here and like it. They actually have some computers here, which will be useful, but I somewhat question whether I can skype call us medical schools, which is what I desperately need to do, given that some are STILL delaying on responding to me.

It is quite strange to be here with other Americans, which English as our language, I can feel myself using other parts of my brain. It is kind of nice seeing them again, but I'm already missing Ventura somewhat, and they are actually calling me and saying they miss me, I'm not used to that...

I got a medical checkup and dental checkup, no real things to talk about.

Within the relatively proximate future I will be baptising my second godchild, the official date now is September 21, when Mom and Ken should be in Guayaquil. Officially I still need Peace Corps to okay everything, but my boss Rebecca seemed relatively happy about me being around to show my family Guayaquil, her native city.

In the absence of further news, I will get back to you all later...

Love,

Christopher M.

September 2, 2012

Hello All:

Very soon I start the Midservice conference, where we will be doing, well I´m not sure what. But I need to make a presentation about my work, so I will make a presentation, bring my news articles on health, maybe my first aid project, a few other things. I also will get a medical checkup, though I heard that it is pretty cursery, so not too much to worry about. Also a dental checkup, that will be nice, after so long waiting...

I am working on a couple of history presentations that I want to give this week. One is on September 11th, about which people ask me quite a bit. There is actually a guy in Ventura who was an illegal immigrant in New York at the time, and worked in the World Trade Center before the attacks. I´m hoping he will be willing to give his testimony. I am also hoping to show some video. The school has internet now, though slow, so it might be possible to show them the actual attacks. I figured that given that the anniversery is coming up it might be interesting for the Ecuadorians to hear the perspective of an American, though granted an American who had absolutely no link to New York or the WTC.
The other presentation will be about the Lusitania, that one at the suggestion of the history teacher. She asked if I could talk about it, so I have also been looking for images and video about World War One. A few interesting photos, a short clip from a History Channel documentary, and that will be it.
Also, on Tuesday, Nurse Silva will be giving a talk on taking basic measurements to the new crop of doctors and nurses doing their ¨rural year¨, and wants me to be the guinea pig. We remarked that there are multiple sites for taking temperature, oral, in the armpit (which we in the subcentro use), and the anus, but that all give slightly different readings. We joked that she could put thermometers in all three places to demonstrate the point...

The photos I am sending are primarily from Cutuguay, where a new subcentro was opening. There has been a subcentro there for years, but they didn`t have a good space (the Public Health Ministry wouldn`t build one because the population couldn`t lay hands on the documents of ownership of the actual site for the proposed building). Recently the municipality of Cañar built it. In the photos the guy with the Cañari hat is Belisario Chimborazo, the mayor of Cañar, alongside Hernán Vique, mayor of Cumandá, also visible are Lenín, president of the parish council, and Walter Orellana, director of health of west Cañar (us). After that a lot of food, principally roast pig, a common party food.

One note: I haven`t gotten mom`s food guide yet. I remember talk that the family might send me Doug`s old Blood Pressure cuff and stethescope. I would really like that, I want my own tools so I can use them as I want for my First Aid Class. It would also be cool to have my own tools anyway.

I will have to talk with Cincinnati, Toledo, and Case Western about the whole ¨when I do my interviews¨ problem, because only they have contacted me. Interestingly, Toledo sent in it´s request for the secondary application last, but were almost immediate in inviting me for an interview when I sent in the information.

Grandma, I`ll get you the information on the children in a few days.

Well, talk to you later,

Christopher M.
The other
Aug. 6, 2012

Dear Family and Friends:


I am currently writing this from Guayaquil, a city where one usually is not allowed to go, but Rebecca, my boss, said that this neighborhood wasn´t so dangerous, so I can come.


Anyway, this week we had an interesting episode. The coordinator of the state nursery schools in Ventura had to submit a menu that they were going to feed to the children. Apparently her superiors complained that she had too much fried food. As such they decided to refer the question of food to us, and I worked with the others of the subcentro to design a more healthy offering. I don´t know if they will really use our suggestions, though it is a good idea to try to put a bit more oversight over them, now that they are inviting us to work on it it may be an opening.


Otherwise, Nurse Silva is taking vacation, which might cause problems in doing things, but also lets me have more freedom to carry out my tasks without being distracted.
We had a big problem in the subcentro that the hospital came and evaluated how many medicines we have, and compared it to how much there is. There were a lot of problems, bue the hospital is letting us falsify our records. There was no conversation about how we can improve our accounting. Oh well.


Our garden in the subcentro is doing all right, but with the problem that somebody stole our hose, and the water failed right when we wanted to transplant some stuff. A huge problem, and I will probably have to pony up to buy new hose. Interesting, but a couple teen moms are now participating in the garden. One of the mom´s toddler sons found my machete, which I had lost in some overgrowth. They were just letting him play with it, and he cried when I took it away. Interesting.


There are some championships going on in Ventura for sports. I have to admit I cannot find watching people play soccer 3 games in a row very interesting. I brought a book of mine, which wasn´t that interesting, but better than nonstop soccer.


I´m currently watching the olympics. The US is doing all right, from what little I see. As far as Ecuador, people tell me that in women´s weightlifting, and in wrestling Ecuador has some champions, and maybe someone in running.


Monday we need to work on English, and then an activity on nursing babies. After that, what I want...


See you guys later,


Christopher M.

July 29, 2012

Dear Family and Friends:

Note from my friend Maria who is waiting for me, she would like to meet my mother. She is also envious of the licenciada`s clothes, and would appreciate something for her 2 year old daughtor. She is, however, far too poor for the slightest hope of repayment. Hers is one of the houses I will show mom, it is rather sad, and shows the consequences of having too many children and not getting a good education.

Anyway, a lot of photos to finally send to everyone. I have a bit of everything, including the baptism and the quinceaño party, so I hope you can appreciate the moment like me.
The past week has been a tad slow, the doctor was out of Ventura due to the death of his wife, but he will be back this week. Part of the problem with this is that we have a patient with tuberculosis and we have to give him his pills daily and watch him take them. It was a bit hard to coordinate somebody going out there, because the doctor was always passing through with his car. Oh well, he got his antibiotics, at least.

I went to Guayaquil on Friday, and among other things, my boss Rebecca showed me how to make an artificial vagina for female condom demonstrations. I am kind of anxious how people will react, it is pretty darn explicit, with clitoris, labia menor and mayor, fake pubic hair, and a toilet paper roll for the orifice. Yikes! But it is all in the name of health...

Also that Friday, I found one little factoid in the university of Guayaquil: Apparently when they were building the rail line in 1900 they were based out of Bucay going up the Chan Chan river valley. But it soon became evident that it was too troublesome for everyone to move back to Bucay every night to sleep, so they set up camps along the way. Ventura, with that name, was the first of such camps in the valley. So that is the origin of our town, a rail worker´s camp, then rail station, until 1971 when farmers from the region come barreling down, destroyed nature, and set up farms, like the Zoobooks lamented so many years ago.

Also that Friday, after returning to Ventura parish, I was walking up through San Juan when people say that there was just a robbery and attempted rape on the road ahead, I called Peace Corps, and they authorized me to stay in San Juan. I ended up crashing at my comadre Verònica`s place. Kind of worrying, it isn`t that uncommon for me to walk up the rail line late, and if there is someone going around raping women there, I will have to re-evaluate my cavalier habits.

I have turned in 3 of my secondary applications, to UC, Case Western, and Wright State. I have to deal with a rather complicated application for Louisville, the link to NEOUCOM´s application didn´t work, and Toledo still hasn`t gotten back. Progress, anyway. No notice about interviews, but that will be coming next.

Well, Maria is waiting for me to finish, so I´ll write you all next week.

Christopher Morriss

July 22, 2012

Dear Family and Friends:

The past week has been a tad hectic, mostly because of preparations for the 9th anniversery of the establishment of the ¨Educational Unit Hermano Angel Valverde Jara¨. This is the official name of the school and junior high school at Ventura. 9 years ago, facing possible closure of the junior high due to abandonment of the school by Ventura´s youth (they went to other, more distant institutions in Bucay-Cumandá), they made an administrative move that saved our educational offering up to grade 10. The school is big on fiestas, so we had a big party, with music, sports, and actually, something that actally interested me:

Kind of by surprise, the school director Jaime Medina approached me and asked me, of all things, do be a judge for regionwide competitions in, first, Ecuadorian Biographical expositions, and then drawing.
There were about 10 different schools that had contestants, mostly from 7th grade for the expositions. They basically had to write and then recite a paper describing the lives of various different Ecuadorian personages. I was one of three judges. The other was the director of the school of San Juan, and a professor from a school in the city of Cumandá. We had to judge the students on the quality of the paper, the length of their speech, their speaking quality, and their stage presence. The variety of skills was interesting, though with an unfortunate tendency for students to get stage fright and freeze, and almost nobody was able to speak without awkward pauses. One girl actually dressed up in independence-era dress (think a pompous 1830s general, complete with a sword). The best person, a clear wiinner really, was a girl from ¨Escuela Sin Nombre¨ de María Teresa, literally the Nameless School of María Teresa. I have never been to this community, though I heard it is kind of in the middle of nowhere to the south of Ventura, near a community called Playa Seca (dry beach), near which I have passed. She was basically the only person to move and gesticiulate during her speech (albeit a bit at random), and had only 1 or 2 pauses during her discourse. Just listening and reading I learned about Ecuadorian history.
In drawing it was a bit harder. They were given the topic of ¨Ecuadorian Coastal Environment¨. These were, principally, younger kids, so there was a lot of variety in quality. The one that won was a kid from Piedrero, the largest town in the competition, also to the south of Ventura. Unfortunately there was a drawing that was better, but lost points due to technicalities. The thing was we had to qualify it on it´s relation to the topic, number of elements included, quality of the drawing. There was one kid from Soldado Monge (Soldier Monge, named after some guy called Monge killed in a war with Peru in the 90s) from Cutuguay, near Ventura, who had a very nice drawing. The problem was, however, that it was more of kids playing at the beach, whereas in Ecuador ¨Costa¨ has much more connotations than just a beach, it is banana plantations, houses on stilts, coconuts, farm animals, fish, and this guy, as good as his drawing was, lost points due to his limited drawing.

Oh well, both of the winners will have to go to the city of La Troncal to compete, where they will be facing students from large schools, so they will have to really practice if they want to have any hope of winning.

I also tried to organize a play about nutrition for a fair they had during the event, but the kids would not and would not rehearse. I tried so hard for a week to get them together to practice and they absolutely refused to meet. With the result that it was a bit of a disaster and I looked a fool in front of the health authorities. The kids said their lines, haltingly, but as far as acting there was virtually zero. They really let me down, that´s all I can say.

Today there is Darly´s baptism, Veronica gave me a brief refresher on crossing myself, so that I don´t make a fool of myself when I have to show my religious know-how, actually an important part of baptism. That whole thing was always the troublesom part of the godfather role, I being a nontheistic Quaker and all, a concept that they can only barely comprehend.

I have some photos, though my camera experienced some difficulties, fortunately they fixed themselves. I hope to have some nice shots of Darly and family.

Which actually reminds me. I had a frustrating experience. Yesterday when I came to visit Veronica and Miguel, Darly´s parents, Veronica announced that she was going to stop working. She said Miguel didn´t want her to be distracted from her children and that her working at the state childcare facility in San Juan took too much time from the family. He is somewhat justified, perhaps, given that he only is home once a month or so, and she is the only one at home. He earns a decent income, around 500 dollars a month (more than Veronica´s odd 200 from childcare), but it will be a strain on the family finances. From the way Veronica talked, it seemed clear to me that Miguel made this decision for her, and she was not really in agreement. I felt rather bad about this, given that they do need the money. True, Darly especially has been ill, but I feel that having more money for better food is probably going to be what helps him most (Veronica has Darly with her during her workday). But, I feel it is not my place to question their family dynamic, and in reality making much noise will only make things worse. It does lower Miguel in my eyes, however, as another agent of machismo in Ecuador. Oh well.

I also spent some time with Nurse Silva´s family. Her parents, 2 older sisters, and various nieces and nephews came and visited Ventura. A lot of action, one very hyperactive kid, and lots of rice, as usual.

That´s most of it, I must continue to delay on photos, but I really hope to send some soon, I know you guys love to see what`s going on in my life.

One interesting note: I spoke to one old guy in Ventura, and showed him and his wife my old photos. They loved it, and actually asked me to write the history of the Evangelical Church, as they said someone is trying to steal credit for founding it. I´m perfectly happy to get yet another part of the history previously unknown to me. A few more possibilites of the history still to pursue, and even the parish council was impressed by my photos, in one the president is there as a young boy.

Tonny has his birthday on Tuesday, he turns 34, I think.

I wish everyone the best...

Christopher Morriss


July 7, 2012

Hi Family:

A few notes:

I had a quiet 4th of July with Nurse Silva, whose birthday 4th of July happens to be. In the next few days I hope to do some historical presentations so that people can learn a bit about the US, a part of Peace Corps that I have mostly ignored. We had a nice party, and I made chili, which was a spectacular failure. Oh well, a few people ate.

There have been some questions about our birthing room, a darling project of Dr. Carlos. Mostly concerning whether we can just put materials in our existing building, or if a new building is necessary. Also some issues that the director of county health knew nothing about the whole project because the intercultural health program was doing all of this directly with the subcentro, and not through the hospital. That made the intercultural health promotor look kind of bad. There is going to be some sort of showdown on Wednesday when Dr. Orellana, the director of the hospital, will be coming to Ventura.

There was a work crew on Saturday to help with basic maintenance of Ventura´s water system. I got to see parts of the infrastructure I had never seen before, that was really worth it. People kind of made fun of me however, that I wasn`t capable of doing anything. Somewhat true, given my profound lack of mechanical skills, but I felt insulted anyway.

More importantly, I just got notice that my medical school application has gotten sent to medical schools, and Toledo sent a confirmation that they have it. I don`t know if the others will, but I am now at the next step. Unfortunately, for now I just have to wait some more until I have to do secondary appliations. That may not actually take too much time. It will be reassuring to be on that again.

Next Saturday there will be a Quinceañera party for a local girl, I will be involved with that and hope to take some photos. The family involved is quite poor, and I agreed to chip in to rent the dress, I´ll have to see what I need to do, they say that I am responsible for killing the pig on saturday. Yikes.

Veronica also says that the baptism for Darly will be pushed forward to this month. He has been somewhat sick for some time, and the family wants to get the baptism over with I will probably talk with her about that today.

People have loved my old photos, and there is at least one stash of old pictures I will get my hands on, from the school secretary, who is also quite interested in the project.

Speaking of which, I heard that she, and my host father Tonny, are both going to make serious runs for the parish council in the next elections. That would be interesting.

I have a few things to do, so nothing more. I forgot to bring photos, sorry about that, I will have more next Sunday from various events.

Much love,

Christopher M.

July 1, 2012

Hello Everyone:

Well, I finally got back on Friday, and can now somewhat get back to my normal schedule, as normal as any week is in Ventura.

My first stop was the hospital in La Troncal, where I had a few errands to run, and then went on to El Tambo, where I saw a lot of indigenous women and the market, up in the mountains of Cañar. From there, I went to Ingapirca nearby, as you can see in the photos it was raining and quite cold. Some of the dances were quite interesting, but there was a lot of trouble with the sound system, and I even heard the DJ saying, ¨for the love of god the music please¨.
Going on from Ingapirca I went on to Azogues, where you can see the Virgen de la Nube, as well as the town of Azogues, the capital of the province of Cañar. I was slightly surprised, it really is big, at least as far as towns in Cañar are concerned. One shop I saw advertised sending Guinea Pig, cheese, liquer, and more.
From Azogues I went on to Solano, a town where the first priest of Ventura (1971 to 1987) now serves at 67 years old, I had to go through a bit of a wild area to reach it, the footpath seems to have been destroyed some time ago.
From Solano I advanced to Biblián, a decent sized city a tad north of Azogues. This is the current home of the first medical assistant of Ventura, who served from 1977 tl 1991. She told me some amazing stories about coming to Ventura, which was totally unserved for six years before she and the first doctor showed up.

From Biblián I went on to Cuenca, the big regional city and capital of Azuay province to the south of Cañar. It is reknown for being pretty, but having seen some nice Spanish cities (Doug can vouch for Seville, I think), I was unimpressed for the most part. What was impressive was finding those pictures I sent. I have shown them to a lot of the old and medium aged people of Ventura, and they helped me identify the people there. A few of whom are dead, many of whom are gone, and a few of whom are still around, including my ex mother Emperatriz Loja and her father Manuel, and another woman Sandra Espinosa, who appears as a little girl as cute as a button in the photo. The woman who helped me in the IDs got a tad emotional when she saw a photo of her childhood home in Ventura, a 2-story wooden house raised up on concrete blocks. Also a few pictures of the Tomebamba River and some Inca ruins of the old Inca city, which is apparently the birthplace of the Inca Huayna Capac (father of Atahualpa), and was destroyed in the civil war between Atahualpa and Huascar when the Cañari indians sided with Huascar.

I have made some incredible leaps in my history project, I will be spending the next few days integrating what I found into my history, and there are still some loose ends to tie up.

Now, I will see what happens in the near future. I hope to end up giving a talk on the 4th of July to the students of the school, do a bit of teaching about the US.

Hope everything goes well for everyone. We have restarted our garden in the subcentro, though we still have to persuade participants to join in.

Christopher Morriss

June 24, 2012

Hi Everyone:

My hands are a bit freezing, due to the cold here in the mountains of Cañar. I have been out all day in alternating sun and miserable cold rain out in the ruins of Ingapirca. This is basically the only significant Inca archaelogical site in all of Ecuador. Although it is pretty (photos come when I return to Ventura), I have to admit that next to Peru`s ruins, it is perhaps 3rd rate at best. It is small, and really only one structure that is striking. In Peru you can almost shut your eyes, walk forward and run into some ancient city of the Incas, Wari, Limas, Caral, or any other number of glorious civilizations.

Sorry Ecuador, just a bit short on the ancient native glory side. I guess that´s what comes of only 50 years of Inca rule. In fact next to the tower of Ingapirca there are stones that apparently the Incas were preparing to be able to expand, but were cut short when the Spanish took over. And the Incas themselves had only displaced the Cañaris a few decades before as rulers.

Anyway, my little tour of Ecuadorian archaeology is now over. It was cool, not only were there the ruins, but because it is Inti Raymi, there was some traditional dance and music. I´m going light on souvenier buying, due to space and packing issues.

Tomorrow I have the day mostly off as far as fun things. I am going to try to track down an important fgure in Ventura´s history who may or may not live in the town of Suscal, only a litle ways away from Tambo, where I am now staying.
Monday I go to the south of the province, to Azogues and Biblián. Tuesday forward until my return on Friday I am in Cuenca, reputed to be the cleanest, most orderly and archetectually beautiful city in Ecuador. We´ll see...

In other news, there was a strange episode a few days ago. I was walking home with Nurse Silva from a meeting at the county hospital (in which people were complaining that we have no cleaning staff, answer, no money). She got a call that here nanny was ill. We came home, and found that a), the power had failed in her house, and b) the nanny was in face in really bad shape.

She has apparently had problems before, but this was a crisis. For reasons unknown, she was suffering from agonizing headaches, which were accompanied by hallucinations of someone following her and shadows. If there was a cause-effect relationship, I don´t know. All I know is that all she was capable of saying was I Hurt, Tell Him-Her to go away, There He-Her is. She could respond if we asked if she hurt, if she was cold, what is going on, but only with those phrases, more or less. She also, when saying There He-She is, would indicate, though she kept her eyes closed. We tried alternately giving her shots of diclofenac, spritual cleansing with an egg, and wetting her with holy water, none of which had much effect, besides temporary relief from the diclofenac.
Needless to say, the next day Silva had to take leave from work to take the nanny home for some sort of treatment now out of our hands, and she is finding someone new. Very strange . Virtually any other attempts at conversation or questioning were futile. She would not respond to Do you Know my Name, Where are You, or things of that nature.

Yikes, it sucks to not have a good emergency room anywhere near where you live, let alone an ambulance.

That is basically the interesting news for right now. I hope to have some interesting photos when I finish my trip. Get ready for picture overload...

Oh, mom. Heads up that we talked with the priest about a non-Catholic baptising Darley. He seemed to accept the idea, but said that he simply could not get to San Juan until around September 26th-27th, meaning either you will have to delay your arrival in Ecuador a bit, or miss the baptism.

Sorry, but the clergy is VERY thinly streached around here, it was the best he could do and even so it won`t be easy.

My med school application is in line to be processed, no news on that front for now.

Much love to all,

Christopher Morriss
June 17, 2012

Hello All:

Once again the internet doesn`t seem to want to have text and photos in the same email, alas.

Anyway, I am now working on several projects right now. First of all, I made the beginning of my survey of backyard pigpens. The others in the subcentro, and even the parish council, were unwilling to help me at all. It`s one of those things where everyone is involved, and so even though people want the community cleaned up, they don`t want it to affect them. In the process of the work, I found some interesting things:

The parish council president had been very cool about the pig project, and it seems that he is one of the worst offenders, with he and his brother sporting about 25 pigs right next to Ventura`s old Train Station, the smell of which has been annoying neighbors. One of Emperatriz`sisters was another offender, whose 18 pigs can be heard, and smelled, from the subcentro. For the most part, those who have only 1 or 2 pigs, and clean well, aren`t so bad. It was when people have huge numbers of pigs that you have a problem. Also, people complain that pig farming is a money-losing scheme, as pig-feed is about 24-28 dollars a sack, and a good sized pig will bring in 200-300 dollars. Apparently given the numbers of how much they eat and fatten up, you end up losing. For the most part, people weren`t interested in having huge numbers of urban pigs. One woman, my neighbor actually, said that she views pigs as a bank account. She had some debts that she needed to pay, and so sold a bunch of pigs and had her money. She said that even though you lose money in the endeavor, for her she feels it is a good way to save money. Given the Ecuadorian Banking Crisis of the late 90s, maybe mistrust of bank accounts is justified (a lot of people lost everything, and Ecuador switched to the dollar after a period of hyperinflation).

Otherwise, working as normal, though one interesting change. We will be restarting the garden, probably when I am away in Cuenca and Ingapirca, but that is when the garden people come from La Troncal...

Also, there is a new policy being implementd throughout Cañar province, in that all puestos de salud (health posts) are being shut. Apparently this is based on the logic that concentrating personnel that is overstretched into the subcentros will result in more efficient use of personnel, although accessability will suffer. For us, we will lose the puesto de Cutuguay, in the village of Cutuguay in South Ventura Parish. This will obligate us to plan visits to houses and schools in communities so far away that even I in my explorations haven`t reached, namely Surales, a more indigenous community in the upper transitional zone in South Ventura, way up by the highway. Hopefully we will get a good boost in staff, which is the only thing that will allow us to actually absorb this doubling of our geographic and demographic coverage zone.

By the way, I was able to get my hands on the population numbers of Ventura from the Parish council. The subcentro has wanted this for a while, and I myself also wanted it

Officially, 408 people live in the community of Ventura. Around 300 live in the communities of Cutuguay, San Juan, and La Clementina. The more distant communities of Tomebamba and Surales have a bit more than 100 each.

In total, Ventura Parish contains around 1,600 people, about evenly divided between the north (where I live), dominated by the old train line, and the south, dominated by the Triunfo-Alausí highway.

Also, yesterday we had some festivities for Father`s Day. There was a soccer match between Fathers, which means people older than the usual group. Many were just in their 40s and 50s, though a few guys were in their 70s. There was also a selection of the ¨Father Symbol¨, and a man I invited to run, Arturo Rea, an 88 year old man who scratches by living alone on 35 dollars worth of wellfare and occasional family handouts, won.

Anyway, next message may come from Ingapirca, where I hope to be for a few days.

Also, my grades from Butler University have arrived, and my medschool application is now moving forward.

Love,

Christopher M:


June 10, 2012

Dear Friends and Family:

Hello Folks:

I am working on getting my first vacation off the ground: Ingapirca, the largest Inca ruin of Ecuador, isn´t that far away, and I am hoping to manage a visit for a few days in that region. Also pass south to Cuenca, a famously clean and wealthy city, and other fun things. Might go with some people from teh subcentro, but that isn´t sure yet, at least it isn´t sure how long they will be with me. I may be in Cuenca aone.

One note. I tried, a bit in recognition of my 1 year anniversery in Ecuador, a bit because of my vacation, to cash some traveller´s checks I got with Grandma when I was leaving. Unfortunately, no bank seems to process them, so that money isn´t accessible. I have to rely for now on my savings, which are sufficient, but it will hurt. I may finally get the 100 dollars Malcolm sent through teh Internet, but that still dpeneds on the Ecuadorian system working, which so far it hasn´t.

The big news in the subcentro right now is that we may, actually actually, be getting our birthing room soon. The idea is that they will be sending myself and Nurse Silva to some places where they have such things (they were saying Otavalo, now they say Cotopaxi) in July, and then they will be handing us materials for equipping such a room. We will then have to arrange ourselves to get the word out that there is such a birthing room available, 24-7, and then establish a system such that we know roughly when women will be delivering, and be ready for anything when their delivery approaches so that the birthing room is actually used. It will require unprecedented organization between teh subcentro and local leaders, and internal and external projects, but if it works it will be amazing. I might actually get to see some births, and help out to some limited extent.

Per photos you can see, I was at the birthday of nanny of Nurse Silva´s children. She turned 23. The light failed, but we were able to cook, and I made them a cake. I also made a visit to teh school in San Juan (wading through the river on the way, and running alongside Silva riding my bike) to talk more about nutrition.

A couple other interesting notes: I saw the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa. Alas, Silva had my camera from the health talk and I couldn´t take any photos of him. He talked about uniting, building, advancing Ecuador through his program of The Citizen´s Revolution. He then passed in an open topped car, and he passed within a few meters of me. Really cool.

Also, my history project managed to advance some. I was able to flesh out a bit some elements of my history of Ventura, and I learned a lot about the history about one of the resorts in Ventura, the Luis Antonio. The project is going well, but it will take time to get the real, full history. I´d say another year is very much needed, and I have it.

So, hopefully everything is going well for you. Also, by the way, Mom, I got a box you sent marked as spices and water bottle. I glanced in and I saw some stuff and bungee chords.

The Med School application goes well, my Peru grades will arrive soon at AMCAS, and then I just have to sit tight for a few weeks and then I will hear from medical schools. Then I get to hear about who lets me to the next step, and who doesn´t.

Hasta Luego,

Christopher M.

June 3, 2012

Dear Family:

I am separating my photos and my text, the internet didn´t seem to want to put them together, so I sent them separately

Anyway, this Tuesday I am getting my AMCAS application for medical school launched. There will be a nice long wait for everything to get reviewed, as well as transcripts, etc..

Come July or August I should have the ability to negotiate my schedule for interviewing, I hope October.

Anyway, this week I have been working on a whole lot of nothing for the most part. I gave a talk on alcoholism to the kids at the school, they didn´t seem that interested. I was going to get help from Nurse Silva, but at the last minute some guys came from Ecuador´s Malaria Control program and she had to dash around for that. The dentist was sitting reading a newspaper, but couldn´t be bothered to help out. I think I am just going to do talks with or without people, those at least I can accomplish well enough on my own, though I would really prefer professional input for my work...

Otherwise everyone in the subcentro is working on writing reports, and I have been incredibly bored. I have to do a report myself on my Peace Corps activities, but that is relatively straightforward. That also gets turned in on Tuesday.

A few interesting photos, of the Novena when the virgin came to our house, when I went down to Bucay with Nurse Silva and María Ojeda, a local mother, and some of her children. Also a recent event for Children´s Day, in which teachers acted out scenes from teh popular latino show Chavo del 8. Then went down to the school Cecilia Alvarez, one of the institutions where parents send their children when they have personal disputes with Venturan teachers.

And, 1 year ago yesterday I set my feet on Ecuadorian soil. I spent most of yesterday with my godfamily. Darly is sick, unfortunately, and my comadre Veronica was racing around El Triunfo to get food. It was kind of sad, I was hanging around with her children cleaning things, and I decided to try to make lunch for her when she arrived. I opened the fridge, almost completely empty. There was virtually nothing aside from white rice, plantains and a tiny bit of flour, sugar, salt, and oil. I biked down to Cumandá, bought some vegetables, flour, oil, and eggs, and was able to make some actual food. Veronica subsequently arrived after six hours and we had a nice meal. Kind of strange, her house is kind of nice, and both have jobs, but even still they are short on money...

Otherwise, things are good, though it is always a learning experience.

Much love,

Christopher M.

May 27, 2012

Good Morning:

A somewhat interesting week, which is reflected in my photos, I think. We had a meeting of the Hipertensive-Diabetics of San Juan, it went quite well, though it took some work t get everybody there, as usual. We did a talk on CV risks, took blood pressures, gave out medications, and such.

Also, one of the things going around is the Virgin Mary. Apparently May is a month dedicated to the Virgin, and it is tradition to trade around the Virgin to most of the houses in the community, and every night we pray to the virgin and light candles, and sing hymns. Very Catholic, repetative, but fun. At the end we hand out bread and some drink, or something similar to the faithful. The Virgin recently came to our house, and Katty and I made a quinua shake. Basically I bought a bunch of quinoa, my mother Katty got her mom to donate 10 litres of milk, and we added some cinnamon and brown sugar, and there you are.

Very healthy, protein-rich, and some vitamins and vitamins thrown into the mix, quite healthy. Only we had to put the mix in the blender, and we had to make about 100 servings, with the result that our blender broke, Tonny was bothered, and Katty a bit ashamed, but that`s the way it goes sometimes...

I dropped by the hospital in La Troncal (where I hope mom can visit), and managed to bring in some supplies in my travelling backpack, including a few hundred condoms. I hope to hand out a few to line workers tomorrow giving a talk, as I think I mentioned. There may be some regulatory problems about handing out condoms to people who are not officially in our system, but nurse Silva imagines that as long as we only give out a couple to each guy as an incentive, make it clear that no more will be given outside of the subcentro, we should be okay.

Another interesting item, I went on Friday on a trip through all of Ventura`s rail line. I started north of San Juan, went taking pictures on my bike, arrived in Ventura and went walking taking more pictures. I saw everything, which was good, though at a hostal at the very eastern end of Ventura Parish (it`s REALLY posh), one of the dogs bit me, but was vaccinated so I didn`t have to get an emergency vaccine in Quito. The hostal owner subsequently gave me, and some kids going with me, some fresh orange juice and some really nice ice cream. My knee still hurts me, however.

Yesterday was a rather strange day. My ex-host mom Emperatriz invited me to her mother Hilda`s birthday, which was nice, only that the Ibarras, my current host family, had some family visiting as well. I ended up spanding an hour or two with some, and hour or two with others, alternative rather strangely, but it ended up working. I am happy to have good relations with both families, though it makes for a rather strange situation, in the the Lojas (Emperatriz`s family) and the Ibarras (my current family) don`t always get along.

Today I was around with my godfamily a bit. My godson-to-be Darly is apparently quite sick with diarrea, vomiting, cought, and fever. My comadre (mother of godson) Veronica was out much of yesterday trying to find him care, and spent nearly 100 dollars, she says, on that, money she doesn`t really have to throw away (they are not destitute, but their employers aren`t always good about paying on time). She said, however, that when they get paid they want to get their daughtor Paola a computer, and Saturdays when I usually hand out in San Juan help her learn to use it. I also got to see my compadre (father of godson) Haníbal Verdugo, who was visiting home. As usual a really nice guy, too bad he`s usually working in Quevedo province more to the northwest.

Otherwise things are going smoothly. My premed application will need to be turned in in about a week, if everything goes well. In a few minutes I will do some work on my application, and will try to remember to send you guys a PDF copy.

Much love,

Christopher M.


May 20, 2012

Good Morning:

Things have been paradoxically slow, at the same time that May seems to rush by. I don´t quite understand how this is possible, but it is happening.

As far as this week, vaccination is the name of the game. Needless to say, due to Peace Corps regulations I am strictly banned from vaccinating so I have been shut out of Subcentro activities this week. I have worked a bit on home visits, and a talk to local rail workers on water safety, that was good. I also talked to them abot potentially doing a talk on HIV and doing a condom handout, they seemed to like that. I guess play to your demographic, young male migrant workers...

Next week another meeting of diabetics and hypertensives in San Juan, that will be fun. Hopefully people attend, it will improve people´s health and care quite a bit if they take me seriously. The main problem is that it takes a real commitment by the other subcentro staff to be there, which is always a pretty unsafe bet, especially in vaccination season.

My med-school application is advancing, but more slowly than I wanted. I am going to be working on my extra-curricular activities today, and hope to have a complete draft of my application by the end of the week that I can review and fix up until the turn-in date of June 5.

I think I need a vacation. I hope to take one to some Inca ruins in late June, I feel a certain amount of burnout is to blame for my sometimes feeling down. I haven´t had a vacation at all since Peace Corps, and that, as you all know, came on top of my final months at UVM, which were extremely challenging. Hard to think about a year ago I graduated...

Love to all,

Christopher Morriss

May 6, 2012

Good Morning Friends and Family:

I won´t be able to write highly detailed today, I am a bit pressed for time but I´ll do my best.

This week we had to deal with a possible outbreak of Dengue in the community. A few cases here and there, but there are huge problems with the water system and garbage removal has become impossible, so all Ventura is now a giant breeding pit for mosquitos. my host father, ever the optimist, said nobody was going to care, and that people will just get used to having dengue. Hopefully it is just him being negative.
On a truly negative note, my host grandmother Lucia Barros has pnemonia. She is only in her 50s, and so should live longer, but is in bad shape, getting some sort of steam treatment, and the subcentro doctor put her on Claritromycin, though other doctors changed it saying it was overly strong. She isn´t in good shape, we´ll see how she does, but she needs NOT to go out to the farm adn get rained on, which his what apparently brought on the current problem.

May, apparently, is the month of Maria. As if holy week wasn´t enough the entire month of May a Virgin Mary goes from house to hous with crowds praying the rosary every night. A few nights ago the Ibarra family (my host family) had to have the virgin, and made humas, a kind of corn-bread that is wrapped in the green husks and steamed. Not bad, though milling them is a lot of work. You actually mill the corn still moist, so it comes out as a paste, not a flour.

Other interesting note, I have mentioned the case of Cristián, a child severely disabled due to hydroencepalopathy. He turned 15 yesterday, and there was a nice party for him. I think one of my photos is of him. As usual, the familiy is taking good care of him, in spite of quite problematic finances. The money for decorations and such I think came from disability, which apparently can legally be used for things involving social activities for the person so they aren´t isolated.

I might see about my med school application some more. As you all know, I am working on that, with my newest version of the essay why I want to be a doctor. Take a gander and let me know what you think.

And I am aware that some people have the emails bounce when I send them. I truly do not know what I can do about that, it is a matter beyond my understanding.

Also featured in my photos are things from the train line being built, and school supplies being handed out to local mothers and fathers.

Until later,

Christopher M.
April 15, 2012

Hello Family Members and Others:

Several things have happened this past week of fair import, so let´s try to get through everything, and see where we are going...

We´ve been working slowly on getting our home visits back on track. My sickness from before hurt our schedule and Dr Carlos has been pressuring me to do more paperwork reporting our activities. I am acquiescing to a certain extent, but a am very much intending to stay outside of the subcentro, and clerical work, as much as I can.
This will in part be aided by Nurse Silva finally coming back from maternity leave. Many of the problems we have suffered in the subcentro are due to her absence. The two other health promotors are getting some sort of training in Cañar city, meanwhile, so I am almost on my own.

We are getting schools opened again very soon. Tomorrow there will be handing in of uniforms and books and such, and I get to see everything happening. It will be wonderful working with the school again, though a LOT of kids have left Ventura´s school, many of them going to larger schools in Bucay-Cumandá, apparently largely over fights between parents and teachers.

I have finished my English for now, I will begin working with a couple nearby schools, but I am taking a short break on that. Part of that is because there is also going to be a big transition in that my counterpart Dr. Carlos, it seems has been ordered to the hospital in La Troncal, and we will have a new doctor directing the subcentro. This is going to be traumatic for a lot of people, Dr. Carlos is widely liked in the parish and beyond, whoever comes is going to have big shoes to fill.

I have been hanging out with my godfamily some more, a lot of fun talking to Veronica and her daughtors. That reminds me, I, as godfather to Darley, need to be good to him, and give him stuff. I was wondering if anyone in the US could find kids books in English and Spanish and send them to me, so I can give them to him? He isn´t even quite 2 years old, but I figure you can never start early stimulation too early. I think it would be a wonderful way to interact with them, reading to Darley, because Veronica asked me to lend her one of my books, and she had one she wanted to show me too. Books are not easy to come by in this region.

I have decided that it might be better for me to try to get to the US for interviews more in October, trying to do it in late September and return with Mom and Ken wasn´t going to be a very workable idea, as nice as it sounded. I may or may not try to squeeze a one or two day stop in Panama on the way back to the states. I ever so much want to see my Panamanian family.

I am attaching a full list of the medicines in the subcentro, mostly for Mom´s benefit. I feel that she might be interested in knowing exactly what we have. The names are in Spanish, but any good doctor could probably tell what they are.

We will be going this Friday to La Troncal, where there is going to be a walk in celebration of the Day of Excercize. Dr. Carlos´ departure could disrupt that, he basically got moved on very short notice. It is annoying being a pawn of the Ministerio de Salud Pública, I hope this doesn´t become a disaster with so rapid a departure.

The weather has mostly been behaving itself, rainy season is coming to a close, and hopefully we can have gardens again. That would be so wonderful, though I will really need the help of the other two health promotors in this stuff.

Next priorities, work with schools, nursery schools, survive the transition of doctor, and maybe start cooking again, in spite of Tonny´s unpleasantness.

For the most part, everything else is quiet. Let´s hope nothing else huge comes my way...

2 more weeks, and I start my medical school application (and no mom, there is NO way I could possibly get my backside into a medical school before August 2013).

Love,

Christopher M.
April 8, 2012

Hello Family and Friends:

No photos today, I was too rushed to get everything tidied up in the morning to prepare things. Sad too, because I wanted to have you guys see me with the Castillo family, the Sanjuaneros who have somewhat adopted me, for reasons I still don´t quite understand. They have been very good about inviting me to things, including yesterday. Friday I was passing by San Juan and they said to come by Saturday. I said that I had to wash clothes much of the day, that I was way behind. They said to bring my clothes and wash my clothes in their machine. So, I packed everything in my travelling backpack, and biked down to the Verdugo-Castillo household. While things got washed, I and my godfamily conversed and relaxed much of the day. I think they wanted my compadre (father of my godson) Verdugo and I to get better acquainted. He works in bridge construction and lately has been in Los Ríos province, and I have almost never seen him. He seemed to be a pretty good person, from what I could tell. I hope they felt the same thing.

The big development this week, however, was an unfortunate episode that began on Tuesday. That day, as best as I could tell, I was leaving the community of La Clementina, and a woman offered me some fresh milk. I had gotten away with doing this before, but this time, no. That evening I began to feel feverish, and that night it got much worse. I spent much of the night sweating half asleep half awake, and began to have diarrea and threw up once. The next day I could barely drag my poor self to the subcentro to consult with Dr. Carlos. My temperature, when I got there, was 39.2, I think the equivalent of about 102.4, and he said to just take it easy. The diarrea continued all Wednesday, some of Thursday, and is still not totally better. It was very, very unpleasant.

On another note, as I lay unwell in bed, I watched a Showtime series on DVD I had gotten from another volunteer. ¨The Tudors¨, it is about the personal and political strife that lead to the formation of the Anglican Church, with a good dose of exposé of Henry VIII´s love affairs. The history as far as I know it is passable, though I don´t know if Kate could point out holes. Given the dramatic nature of the series, I wouldn´t be surprised if they were fudging some of their facts, or being a little too fanciful in filling the holes in our knowledge. Their portrayal of Anne Bolynne is rather unflattering, alternately as a tool of her power hungry father, and a whimsical tempermental seductress. Love to know if Doug and Kate have seen it.

Good Friday has been a tad underwhelming. Partly, my illness prevented me from enjoying things, but the lack of a priest also damped down the environment. We do have a few nuns to help out, and a few people dedicated to keeping the church running, so we were able to have some events for Holy Week, I might be able to attend an afternoon mass...we´ll see.

Okay, that´s it for now. I hope to talk to Mom and try to organize about the trip, but my time needs to be in the US are VERY hard to nail down until I have more information about Medical Schools and admissions...

Christopher M.
April 1, 2012
Dear Family and Friends:

I can write as normal now, I haven´t gotten bitten by any dogs, well not entirely so. I have gone through Ventura Central a couple times and dogs have tried biting me, but haven´t gotten through my boots, thank goodness.

Work in Ventura has been okay, various home visits. My ex grandfather insists on not taking pills and doing anything to lower his blood pressure. With the result that he still has blood pressure around 155-160. I also went for another visit to the eye doctor, it was okay though fewer people came than I thought. It was mostly children, and a lot of people were worried about money, and if it is worth it.

The other interesting thing was yesterday, I got invited to join up with a family going to a nearby pool with their disabled child, Cristián. They wanted me to take pictures of them, that they are taking care of him, and when the government comes knocking and asking how he is, they can show photos and say that he is well cared for. I will say, as poor as they are, and as many children as they have, they do take care of him, and love him.

This coming month Nurse Silva is returning to Ventura with her new baby. She will be living in Ventura, and will be rejoining us in the subcentro in a couple weeks.

What else...I am kind of drooling over my medical school application materials, I am SO ready to get started on the application and get ready for my interviews and essays, I will feel really great if I can get that started, but the service online doesn´t open until May...

Well, hopefully I can reconcile with my host family again, my host father, especially, has been quite unpleasant to me recently. I don´t know what is really bothering him, but I seem incapable of doing right by him. Even my host mom has been more irritable lately, I suspect there has been some sort of marital dischord. Ugh...

Love,

Christopher M.


March 25, 2012

Dear Family and Friends:

Wow, so after a brief delay, I can come back to the internet and let you know what has been going on.

Well, first of all, I haven´t written because last week I was bitten by a dog again, and had to make ANOTHER emergency trip to Quito to get a rabies vaccine. What a huge hassle, probably unnecessary, but it is policy, and understandably so.

What have been the highlights so far for me? Well, the rainy season has continued, our plants are mostly gone in the garden, alas. My strong-willedness was insufficient to conquer the elements. Dry season, it seems, will have to be a time fo recovery for me. I will try to invite a local Agriculture volunteer to do what I couldn´t, and give educated advice about gardening well.

Work in the subcentro has been going okay, though with some problems. We are continuing to expand our home visits, for the first time visiting a woman in Cutuguay Norte, the most isolated region our subcentro works with. One home visit I did there took about four hours, and I had to really work to find her home, which is rather isolatd from the road, which itself is in terrible condition, as seen by the photos. Mount Cutuguay, meanwhile, is one of the most wonderful and beautiful parts of the parish, and the hike is an adventure. My ex host mom Emperatriz wants to acccompany me the next time, though she never normally does home visits. I think she is trying to reconcile with me a bit.

That may be for the reason that things have been a bit stressful, and I have been losing weight. Partly it is because I don´t always eat. Normally when I teach English the locals, since I don´t charge, give me lunch. Lately they have stopped doing that. Also, I have been stressed about various things in work and personally, and I have almost no free time to relax ever, it seems. More than anything, I always feel that I am obligated to be with one person or another, which is good, though wearying. Dr. Carlos warned me that I am now with ¨Delgadez¨, a BMI of 19. I am weighing in 113 pounds, which is low. He told me to sleep more, which is actually really good advice. I recently saw an email that another volunteer is abandoning Ecuador, she says it isn´t worth it for her, and is damaging her. I feel that, yes it is challenging in many ways, but all in ways that in the end will make me a better person.

Also in the subcentro we gave a small talk on Tuberculosis, which is something the public health ministry is putting big emphasis on. Ventura currently has no cases that we know of, but our bosses emphasize it. Peace Corps, alas cares nothing about Tuberculosis, so it doesn´t help´me with my appearing productive.
Speaking of productivity, Peace Corps also rejected two articles straight for my series in the newspaper Noticias de Bucay y Cumandá. One on the grounds that my talking about how dirty the water is would offend the authorities, the other, on the rebuidling of trains in the US and Ecuador that it is a distraction from health topics. That really made me angry, but they have veto power, so I won´t be published for a while until I write more articles and can get them reviewed by the country director. Damn politicians.

Yesterday I went out with family to their farm to have a picnic. It was fun, though I, unfortunately, hadn´t slept much the last night and was dead tired all day. We cooked, visited the Chan Chan river, and went swimmin in a nearby stream. Meanwhile, trucks from the Rail Company passed by. They are still working on building the rail line, the roads are almost good now, though they recently stripped the bridges of the planks we used to walk over them, leaving bare metal skeletons. Meaning that Sunday, when I arrived at the road during the evening, had to walk over a bare metal skeleton of a bridge, in the rain, with a backpack full of Sunday purchases, in the dark, over a raging stream. I actually think it was the closest to death I have ever been. A false step could have sent me into the Chan Chan with a 30 pound backpack on my back...I was more scared than I have ever been.

In other news, come May I will begin my medical school applications, that will be wonderful, just wonderful. I am getting a tad impatient about that. My host aunt Dalila Ibarra, who is in her last year of high school at 16, will enter medical school (pending her application and acceptance) next February or so, earlier than me! Makes me jealous. I really like the Ibarra Clan, that´s a big part of why I didn´t want to leave when Tonny threatened to throw me out.

Well, let´s see if this week can be a bit more tranquil. I just need to calm down, and things will go better. Calming down, that´s something I have always needed to do. The return of nurse Silva from maternity leave will be really helpful, as she works largely in what has been my task: home visits, working with the pharmacy, health education. At least we got a nice big shipment of meds, many of which were lacking for way too long.

Okay, hope everything goes well for everyone, and we´ll see what the week brings!

Christopher M.

March 11, 2012

Hi Everyone:

Things are relatively quiet, fortunately. Work, home life, and such hasnt been too enteretaining, though I had to have a serious talk with Tonny and Katty about my staying with them. Tonny is coming apart at the seams in various areas, and little things are setting him off and he isn´t so good at conversing about his needs. Hopefully we can work everything out, it seems okay now. He is probably going to quit as President of the Water Council, he is desperate to lighten his load right now.

One of the more noteworthy things that happened recently, a group of kids handed me a bottom half of a 2L bottle, with some leaves and sticks, and, as they showed me, snake eggs. They gave it to me as a gift, just for fun...

I brought it into the subcentro, and the eggs, surprise surprise, started hatching and we had snakes starting to slither through everything. Worse, these were coral snakes, which are quite poisonous, so Emperatriz dunked them in alcohol, killing, and preserving them. So we now have dead coral snake babies preserved in alcohol in the subcentro, kind of strange...

Oh, one last small note, Peace Corps Ecuador is on a minor level alert due to some anti-mining protests. Some groups are apparently angry at mining damaging water supplies, and are marching against it. Ventura, of course, doesn´t actually react to this at all, we just sit and do everything as normal. We are prohibited, however from moving around too much, which may making my trip to Guayaquil hard...

The landslides shown before are cleared, thank god, but it´s still muddy. My history project is limping along, a few more leads to pursue before I have to beg my previous reticent sources to reconsider.

All for now, I suppose...

Christopher M.

March 4, 2012

Hello Family and Friends:

The internet is proving unstable today, it ate my first message to you all, and I should try to keep this short before it eats this one too...

There was sa huge rainstorm early this week, it severely messed up the roads, and knocked out power for three days. Water is arriving through my host father`s emergency systems, but most services have been in bad shape since Tuesday. The road to La Clementina, which I have photos of, was worst hit, the road to Bucay-Cumandà, and the rest of Ecuador, is okay, though there is a small lake of mud on the road by the railroad.

The other photos are of a trip of the old people of Ventura, well some of them, to the eye doctor, and one girl who also needs glasses. We didn`t have the real machinery used for this, as in tihe US. Instead she had a special pair of glasses where she could change the lenses manually. It was kind of funny, and you can see the photos of that, hilarious. The end result is that the old people MAY get free glasses, if the foundation that promised to pay for them actually has money, which seems a tad questionable right now, alas. A few people had cataracts and need surgery, also supposedly to be payed by the foundation, and one guy has some sort of ocular degeneration and needed some special pill.
The little girl, Lisa Pucuna, got referred to the hospital in Milagro to see a specialist. The optomotrist was worried that a girl as young as her, and with eyes so bad, might have some special problem.

In other news my host father is speaking to me, though mostly to make fun of me. I suppose it`s better than nothing.
My host mom is still pretty weak from the gallbladder surgery, though is slowly getting better. Family finances are, I think, a total disaster right now.

My history project is slowly movoing forward. La Cooperativa, which supposedly has the records of Venturas early days (though some poeple question if they ACTUALLY do, or just say they do and are in fact lying), said they migiht want to have a meeting in which a lot of the old founders can get together and talk about the history. The secretary from the school, Anita Càrdenas, backed me up that they want the history too, and if there was any doubt, that I am NOT a spy. Interestingly, the Cooperativa, and Ventura, had some communist influence during the early days, which caused them problems with authorities, and has made them incredibly paranoid, especially about Americans asking questions such as myself...

So come May there might, just might, be a chance for me to get a good crack at the history. The president of the Cooperativa, Klever Arguello, said that he has wanted to do something like this, even do a movie, and the school is pressing too. There has been so much secrecy, so much stonewalling, I hope they realize that they are killing Ventura`s patrimony before they all die of old age.

Oh well...

Other news,

I may make another trip to Guayaquil to hit the post office, where supposedly Malcolm`s check can indeed be cashed, without charge. I will see how true this indeed is.
Work, work, writing, it all just keeps coming. At some point I need to hold another peace corps-style event, maybe teach the nursery schools what foods have iron in them to prevent anemia.
We still don`t have any metformin or glibinclamida for our diabetics, jesus what a mess that is turning out to be. O, the wonders of Third World Medicine. Here, prevention really is key, because as free as medications sometimes are, they aren`t always there!

Mom´s USB arrived, though the hymnal has not. No recipe books from Doug either. Sometimes things take around a month to get to me, for reasons beyond my comprehension...

Love to all,

Christopher Morriss

February 25, 2012

Hi Family and Friends:

This has not been a good week for me in many respects. The big problem I might have mentioned before, but Katty, my host mom, needed to get emergency gallbladder surgery. On Friday she was a little ill, Saturday bad and went to La Troncal, and subsequently wound up in Guayaquil in one of the big hospitals there where she got the surgery. She has been in recovery for a few days, when I saw her on Thursday she was very weak at her mom´s house in Ventura. The whole mess of the long wait in the public hospital (where the subcentro´s bosses work, actually), going to social security, getting shipped around in old ambulances through not so good roads, terrible. I spent many nights alone as Katty was in the hospital, Tonny was with her, and the daughtors with the host grandparents. Tonny was so stressed out he started shouting at the doctors, and threatened to throw me out for, of all things, eating breakfast early and bothering them. Katty said he was just stressed out and there is no familial agreement that I need to go. I think Peace Corps would be very unpleased about my getting thrown out of a THIRD household. And to think that they are trying to force people to always stay in host families and not live independently. The idea is integration, but it is obviously not working. In the four Ecuadorian households I have had it has been difficult. Hopefully things will smooth out, though Tonny admitted to the fact that there will be financial difficulties for a while, and the apartment they wanted to put in for me won´t be finished in the near future.

My work has gone all right, San Juan is covered, much of Ventura, but our diabetics need checkups, and a few others, and some in nearby hamlets of San José and Cutuguay Norte, where there is a woman we have never visited. Sadly, in the monthly delivery of medicine, we didn´t get any of our diabetes medications (metformin and Glibiclamida). I complained that we are being hamstrung by this, but then joked that it will make the whole diet-and-excercise talk more important...

Rainy season hasn´t been too bad lately, though it has given me a cold, I have felt terrible the last two days, and I have to bike everywhere to get what I need to get done done. Ugh, it is good for me, but biking everywhere can be so taxing...it is impossible to keep my chain well oiled with all the mud and rain that get on it, WD40 is just not good enough.

I am working on a research project for the birthing room we want to put in. Dr. Carlos says we need to have sources, and put in a formal proposal with justification on why a birthing room should be put on. It makes me feel a bit like in College again, but I like it. I will need some help from one of my old contacts for some sources, I don´t have institutional access anymore...

Good luck, Everyone,

Christopher M.

February 18, 2012

Hi Everyone:

I am working relatively well this past week, though it has been a tad stressful, as I will say.

This week I worked on teaching a vacation course on English, and also some work on the Old Person´s and Adolescents´Clubs. The old people are hopefully going to get their eye exams for free glasses on the 29th, and the young people had a group meeting for the 3rd First Aid Class. The next one, hopefully, will have our long lost Dr. Carlos, who, as ever, is busy and cannot help me much.

One good note, I was able to turn in my report on the Birthing Room we want to put in the subcentro. I did a bunch of surveys, analyzed the responses, wrote a project proposal, measured the proposed room, and such, it was really good to have it actually go to the department of Intercultural Health where it will hopefully get funded...

The kids in La Clementina and San Juan are learning English relatively well, I may start planning a health presentation to give to the families, that was the main form of pay I insisted on for people, though my classes are really not during convenient times for people. We will see how I can best reach community members about health...

History project hasn´t made any serious gains lately, I feel like writing what I know now, and eventually get another group to help me. I finally got one Venturan to talk to me, and my host grandfather, who was president of the parish council a few years ago, may help out as well. I have struggled to figure out how to approach the Cooperativa, the founding organization of Ventura which supposedly has a lot of historical writings, to get them to hand it to me. Some suggest some sort of letter, signed by relevant old timers and community members to persuade them. I don´t know...

Right now is Carnaval, I have gotten water thrown at me in Bucay, but nothing really crazy so far, I have been pretty sedate lately. I have some paperwork to get through with Peace Corps, that is always annoying.

Lost my telephone, got a new one, phone number 059281609, just in case. Huge hassle...

No new photos of real interest, unfortunately.

Well, see you all later,

Christopher M.

February 11, 2012

Hello Family Members and Friends:

I am writing this from my actual computer, I think that is a first. I have brought it here to an internet cafe for updates, and in the hopes that I can use it for some other work in San Juan, I use it now for my recordings on my history project. I hope my computer doesn't get destroyed by viruses before I update my antivirus.

So, this week has been heavy as far as home visits. I am, more or less, the first among equals in the group of health promotors, now three of us. The other two, Mariela Marquez and John Lenon (no joke!) are new, locals, but are still timid about doing our work. I am doing my best to get them interested in the home visits, and when school is back in, we will get to work on doing presentations in school. We also have a new dentist. I haven't met him yet, but he seems to be doing good work so far, a lot better than Dr. Vargas, whom nobody liked, myself included, and is now working in Playa Seca (dry beach, a bit to the south). His first act was to put a TV into the dentist office to distract the kids. Seems to work, and he'd had patients.

This week I have started teaching English in the communities of La Clementina and San Juan. The kids for the most part have zero English, though a few teenagers who go to high school in Bucay or El Triunfo have some experience. Classes are going well so far, though with only two of sixteen classes planned, it is very hard to know what will happen. The children are very timid, but I am making them get up, stand in front of the class, and say "My name is", "My father's name is", "his/her name is"...

We'll see if they learn something. Same for the First Aid group in Ventura itself.

In somewhat more positive news, I have made some progress in my history project. In the school of La Clementina, I asked about history of the school, and to my amazement they had an overview of the school's history since the beginning in 1984 when community members built a wooden hut for students. It is quite interesting, though in parts frustratingly sparse. One thing that is clear is that instability of teachers has been epidemic, especially in the first decade. So much so that around 1990 all the teachers left, and the locals resorted to paying local high school graduates to teach. One of those hired is now working for the Parish Council and I know him. I want to ask him about that, and what the crisis actually was.

Tuesday a couple of sisters who have been in Ventura almost since the beginning said they could share their experiences. Don Bolivar, the local historian, is still dithering about helping me, but will eventually get around to it, if his smoking doesn't kill him first. I heard about the possible existance of some more extensive written history of San Juan, in posession of one of the founders of the parish, Manuel Camas. I asked his nephew and other member of the Parish Council, Miguel Camas, for help, and he said he would try. How much he meant it is, of course, anyone's guess. I'll give him some time, and then start bugging him again.

Let's see, what else? Not much, next week should be quiet aside from a trip to Guayaquil. I have several things to do there, not many of which are going to be fun, much more work related, but there may be some good payoff.

Hope everything is going well for you all, and let me know what is happening back in The North.

p.s. I have had a problem of flash drives disappearing. If anyone has spare flash drives anywhere and wants to send me them, that will help me if my last one disappears and my tech life becomes far more difficult (hint hint).

Christopher A. Morriss

February 4, 2012

Hi Family and Friends:

Things are changing, it´s a bit of a transitional period for me as far as my work. I have been sitting in the subcentro for a while not doing anything, and have gotten sick of it. I declared to Dr. Carlos that I will be leaving two times a week and doing other things. Namely, the communities of La Clementina and San Juan have asked for vacational classes of English, and after a little apprehension, I realized that it was a way to get integrated in these communities, do something at least somewhat productive. I have decided that my two days will be Tuesday and Friday. The other days I wil be working with a couple other new people, whose job is very similar to mine. We will be visiting a lot of people who have high blood pressure and diabetes, and other kinds of disabilities. I am also teaching a first aid class, I include a photo of that. Also photos of La Clementina, and Tomebamba, neaby communities that I recently visited. Tomebamba is basically just a collection of houses and a tiny school, where they teach in Spanish and Quechua.
Also had my little sister Yanice´s birthday party yesterday. It is kind of impressive how big people are on parties, when I gaduated, it was rather low key, but these guys, a high school graduation merits killing a pig and dancing. Even when she turned 2 there were balloons, family, cake, and lots of foot. Make me feel very dull.

I won´t write too much as I plan on calling right now. I realized that this internet café allows me to download Skype, even though it doesn´t have it ordinarily.

Until Later,

Christopher M.

January 29, 2012

Hi Everyone:

This cafe might allow me to send lots of photos again, but I haven`t taken any new or interesting ones recently. I want to take some of my host family, but haven`t gotten around to it yet. I hope to take some of Cutuguay Norte, where there have been some landslides and one can appreciate what happens during Rainy Season.

Speaking of Rainy Season, things have gotten a bit slow for us lately, people aren`t that big on coming to events, especially work outside, due to rain. School is out for a couple months, a lot of adolescents are on vacation elsewhere, so our work is getting easier, or harder, depending if you are optimistic or pessimistic about marshalling fewer adolescents with more time on their hands...


Another project I have tried, TRIED working on, was a history of Ventura Parish. I have gotten a lot of lip service on how good an idea it is, but I have asked three of the old-timers with a lot of knowledge, and they say they want to help, they even tell me some, but when i come to really record what they say in detail, they blow me off. It´s really frustrating, because there is some really interesting stuff that happened here, but nobody wants to go on the record saying anything. I need to not get frustrated, but I am getting very little cooperation...

I hope to help my host father on an autobiography, but we haven´t gotten started either. All in all, life is, well, going slowly. On a good note, last Saturday I was able to spend the first Saturday I remember tranquilly in the house. Seriously, I cannot remember the last time I was at home not running around...

Until later,

Christopher M.
January 22, 2012

Hi Everyone:

This week has been a tad packed, with some rather fun and happy events, I will say. The most interesting being that this past Thursday Marcia Silva, our nurse at the subcentro, had her baby! She was born by cesarian section at about 12:30pm, December 19. I wanted to arrive to witness the cesarian, but got there late (they started early, darn them). I decided to see another one of some random woman, and god it was fast! Just cut cut cut, wrenching flesh out of the way, cutting open the uturus (lots of blood), pull the baby out and hand it unceremoniously to the nurse, who takes it away, and sew everything up. Over in 10-15 minutes. Wow.

After that, I went to check on Silva in the recovery room. She was fully awake, and the baby was crying. Apparently she was having some trouble breast feeding (it was kind of funny her pulling out the breast, putting the baby's mouth to it, saying "suckle, damn it (carajo)". She was in good spirits, and had family out there to support her, as well as myself and others from the health team (Dr. Carlos, specifically).

After that I went home, and things have been fairly quiet. Helping people with English for final exams, which has gone well in some cases (tutees succeed), but not others (some dodn't do so well anyway). I am now helping another girl with math, which is actually fun, and reminds me very much of what I did in Burlington High School, where Algebra was a common complaint. The mistakes this girl is making are exctly the ones the students in the US made.

Saturday I was invited by a group of Venturans, mostly professors and students from the school, to go to a water park near the city of Milagro to the west. It took a long time to get there, and we suffered a flat, but when we got there the weather was great, and we had a fun time, except that I cut my toe on a metal grating and was bleeding for a bit, and we stood in line for food for an hour, and there was nothing but rice and chicken (no surprise), and noodles. Trash food, as usual.

One thing that surprised me about the park was the openness of showing female nudity. On various things they had naken mermaids, and naken pirate women. Not in the USA...

We played around for quite a while, and eventually headed back. I played a bit of chess with a couple kids, but was starting to feel sick. To top it all off, there was another breakdown kind of in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately driver Miguel Camas had a spare and the tools, so he fixed it as the night fell. We got back, and I collapsed back home.

That was yesterday, today I have a birthday to go to, and may do some more tutoring. I really want to work with my host mom on her English, we have had a terrible time with that, partly because of my being occupied, but her nearly 2 year old is being very fussy as well.

Rainy season continues, which is a problem as my umbrella seems to have been stolen. Hopefully can get a good rain poncho, there are models for people who ride motorcycles so they stay clean, good for my bike...

Well, I wish everyone well...

Christopher M.


January 15, 2012

Alli Puncha (Good Morning, in Quechua):

So, as hopefully you can all see, I have a camera again! Most of the photos are from Empeatriz´camera, but the few of my host family (Katty, Elizabeth, and Yanice, my host mom, aunt, and sister, respectivelly). Also the photos of me in San Juan with the cat, and my group making an oatmeal cake (torta de avena). Also featured are the ritual purification of Ventura done a few months ago, pictures of my ex host-sister Erika being elected QLueen of Ventura, and I think there are photos of world AIDS day from a different perspective. The dance, with my outfit in feathers, is New Years Eve, and the figure on the motorcycle with one of the Old Years which was subsequently burned.

So, lately things have been quiet at the subcentro, it has been raining some, but not the torrents of rain we got 8 days ago. I can get across the road from Ventura, but have to wade through it, which is now doable with my rubber boots, which are all the fashion here in Ecuador (in the market they said I was becoming a Runa (indigenous person) with my boots on. We have been working on minor projects right now, Dr. Carlos, as usual, has been out on one training, turning in reports, or something, for a lot of the past week. I, more and more, find I have to act independently of the others in the subcentro to get anything done. I want to act as a team, but most of them are gone at some point, and they are busy doing other stuff, usually. But if I act individually, where does sustainability come in???

I still have time to figure it out.

I will be published in Noticias de Bucay y Cumandá again, it will be my third article, so that makes me feel good. Parmer, the country Director, seems pleased with my progress in that area.
Speaking of writing, I am starting a project of a history of Ventura Parish. Alas, this has quickly come up against problems, given teh nature of the area. Ventura has some written records, but not much. San Juan has almost zero, and the other communities probably less. the oral history is choppy, and I will have to take a lot more interview until I get a clear idea of the history, and some idea of dates. There are gigantic holes in my knowledge right now, though Ventura, when I ask the knowledgable people, will probably be filled in without too much trouble. One thing that is clear is that in 1982 apparently there was a major flood that devastated San Juan and Ventura, and annihilated the now nonexistant community of San Jacinto. A lot more to be done, but it is interesting, and people want to talk about it. I hope I can do it justice, and there are people to help me.

I also got Elz´book and the newspaper from Jan 3. I shared the part about the US minimum wage with my family. They are well off, earning about 1000 dollars a month jointly, but they would be considered poverty by the US standards. I asked what they would do if they earned the US minimum wage (I think around double what they get). My host mom said, buy a car.

I will be making a Sun and Snow cake for my host aunt (turning 16), and made an oatmeal cake with a group in San Juan yesterday. Punctuality was a big problem, and I almost lost patience and left, but in the end we all got together and made it, and it worked out. A woman from the nursery school asked about my oatmeal recipe (oatmeal, wheat bran, fruit punch, and milk, wonderful and very healthy). We might be making it this week, pending the director´s approval.

Okay, that is my writing for now, I am doing well, in spite of difficulties. I hope to be able to relax a bit...

Love to all,

Christopher Akos Morriss


January 8, 2012

Dear Family and Friends:

Well, things have been evolving in rather interesting ways, as I can share here and now. I think my understanding of the area will be deepening very profoundly soon, and I will see sides of my community I have not seen before.

So, this past week I witnessed the departure of volunteer Alice Harvey from Bucay. She was the last volunteer really close by, an interesting person, but unfortunately not well known within the community, she tended to isolate herself, exactly what you are not supposed to do as a PC volunteer. Though I don´t like benefitting from her departure, it has been a windfall in the extreme. I, along with volunteers Morgan and Sarah who live in nearby provinces, fell upon her possessions like hyenas on a corpse. We had agreed beforehand on major items, and I came last. Though that would seem to be a disadvantage, it made me free to take anything left. I got a full stove (with a gas cylinder included), a radio, various pots and pans and frying pans, a few mugs, some spices, a map, and more. My host father Tonny had his cousin take his truck to take stuff up, and we payed for the transport, a cost to me of 5 dollars. Given that the value of what we got was easily hundreds of dollars, it was an amazing save.

The day before, January 3, was of course my birthday. I wasn´t certain how to really deal with it, but ultimately I had a larger thing with the health team and some of my better acquaintances in the Ojeda-Altamirano family. All in all it was about 25 people, a record for me as a food-provider. Jessica Altamirano helped me a lot, and almost everything was eaten, so it was a big success. For my cake I made an oatmeal cake, which was wonderful as I have been eating way too much pure sugar lately. Having something with actual food value was amazing, and people actually liked it. I hope to make one for my gardening group in San Juan soon.

Speaking of gardening, I have been doing work with the old people in Ventura and the parents in San Juan to get the last bits of work done in the gardens. The vegetables have been only partly successful at best, alas, but as suggested by everyone who I talked to, the corn and beans are turning out well. So, not the most diverse crop yield, but we have a few vegetables too.

On another front, I got some prize money for dancing in the Christmas and New Years Dances. Peace Corps frowns upon external sources of money, but the combined 90 dollars, divided among around 15 people and also suppy costs had me ending up with 5 dollars, which is what I had spent on teh costume anyway, so I merely broke even. The experience itself was worth it. Photos of me exist somewhere, but nobody at very easy access has them...

Friday afternoon I had another Chess Club meeting. I had the board I have gotten in Ecuador, and the 1 board Jimmy gave me that I got. It was rather interesting, 10 kids showed up, which is enough. The interesting matches mostly involvd my cousin Nathan Sosa. He first went up against Bryan Chavez, the defending champion. Bryan, though a good player, was sloppy and was defeated (Nathan has been playing a lot too). Nathan then went up against Justin Urgiles, who doesn´t practice a lot but had previous experience with chess and is one of the best players. Justin certainly had Nathan in a good position to beat him, but was careless in the end and it ended in stalemate. In the interests of time we agreed to end it with a coin toss, which Nathan won. Nathan then went against Erik Urgiles, and it almost ended in stalemate again but Erik at last managed to outmanouver Nathan, and I admit I showed him the last move for checkmate just to get it over with. So, Erik is the champion right now, we´ll have another meeting in a month´s time.

Last night I was at a bingo. I made a cake as a prize, and even bought one card, it was for a good cause, and I really didn´t care about the prizes. I didn´t win, which is just as well as Quakers don´t gamble. It was organized largely by my host grandmother, who is a very good cook, as it turns out.

Now, the title story...

Having arrived in Ventura during the dry season, it is simply not possible to get a feel for rainy season until it happens. Well, it has started in earnest at last. Over the past month it has been raining more, usually at night. This week we have been having light-moderate rains lasting all day, but Saturday morning and night yesterday we had a real lesson in humility as far as nature. It would seem like the weather gods are ready to flex their muscles and make us pay them heed.
Interesting Saturday morning I had a garden meeting in San Juan. Emperatriz, my ex-host mom and constant naysayer, said nobody would be there. I said, maybe somebody as crazy as I am will come. I biked out, and found quickly that part of the road by the Rio Tigre had flooded. I was able to walk around the flooded part, and biked down to San Juan. It took a while to get a group assembled, but my comadre (mother to my godchild), and a few other families came together, we had about 10 people, and we god done what needed to get done. I then sat in on a group trying to get some pipes put into some houses up on the nearby hills. I didn´t know any of them, and they were speaking a fair amount of Quechua. They want me to be around and help, though I don´t really know what I will be doing. I got back to the subcentro in Ventura, and discovered a spring has sprung up in front of the adolescent´s land plots, flooding the medicinal plants and putting a real stream in front of the subcentro. Fortunately I had been doing some work cleaning out drainage, and I did some extra work Saturday afternoon to help get the water moving, and it is probably good that I did...

The rain had died down during the garden work (why people ended up coming), and we had a relatively quiet afternoon. When we went to the bingo it was okay, but I figured there was some danger and brought my umbrella. It started raining again around 10:30pm maybe, and kept on going while we were waiting for our ride to get down from Ventura to pick us up from Cumandá. Unfortunately, we waited longer and longer with no development, until Tonny said that the car had suffered an accident and was stuck on a bridge (an old rail bridge with planks around the rails so cars can pass). We had to wait for them to send another car from Ventura, rescue the driver of that car (a 1 legged man), and get to us in Cumandá. We left the bingo around 1:30am and by this time it was driving rain. Alas, the vehicle was a pickup truck, and my host mom Katty went in with her baby daughtor Yanice), leaving Tonny, sister Jamileth (8 years old), myself, and another random guy from Ventura in the back. They had plastic sheets, I had my umbrella, but the truck´s velocity, the wind, driving rain got everyone wet and my umbrella was slightly damaged.

It was going full blast a lot of the night, and when I woke up around 8 I saw the road in front of the house had been moderately damaged, and when I went down the road to Bucay-Cumandá I saw that, rather than have part of the road flooded, some of the road seemed to no longer exist, the river having not just leaked through but busted through the rocks and claimed the road as part of it´s normal flow. It is questionable now whether it will be usable at all, though on foot or bicycle I can move around it through the woods. I also passed the car, still stranded, on the rail bridge. I hope they can pull it out, somehow.

Well, that´s a lot that´s going on, and more is coming. I´m writing more articles for Noticias de Bucay y Cumandá, the local newspaper (director Byron Rivera openly complained that locals don´t write), and will be submitting my third article soon, on diabetes.

Much love to all, and I will continue to check the mail...

Christopher Morriss

January 1, 2012

Dear Family and Friends:

First of all, happy new year 2012 to everybody, I have really missed you all, especially when you sent the photos. It really hit home that I won't be seeing you guys for a long time still, though mom's impending visit in September will be nice. The same guy who invited me to the drunken Indian wedding said Mom can come too, though we would have to be careful about the alcohol issue for Ken, obviously...

Christmas was great, the Ibarra family is huge, so there have been a lot of new faces to see. I will be making a stuffed turkey today for New Years Day, that will be good. Yesterday there was a lot going on, we had a procession of the Virgen de la Nube through Ventura, flanked by a couple of Ibarras in military outfit. I made an apple pie also, though not as good as mom's it was passable, the family seemed to enjoy it. I have been practicing a couple of dances with a group here, the first one we did for Christmas, the second we did last night. There were three groups doing dances, one from Ambato, they were professionals and quite good, another from San Juan right nearby, they weren't bad, and us. We went third, it was kind of an Amazonian-style dance with feather loin cloths, paint, a headdress, and anklets with bottle caps sewed on to make noise. The guys had spears, and we did relatively well. We had problems practicing, but people seemed satisfied, though maybe they we too drunk to tell the difference, there was a LOT of Pilsener beer going around. After that we burned figures representing the old year, and danced to celebrate the new year, even I did. But I didn't change out of my native costume, for me it was funny to go around dressed like that, though people thought it was strange, at least because they would be cold in it. I, acclimated to Vermont winters, told them I was fine, which I was.

On the present side, the only new one that I received today was a letter from Malcolm and Akina. I know there are other things coming, but post lady Sonia says there's nothing else, so far...

I might be able to get my hands on pictures other people took, maybe even a video of my dance.

I will probably be able to write more next week, and also, I will be beginning my medical school application (to be turned in in June!).

Christopher A. Morriss



December 18, 2011

Greetings All:

A fair amount has been going on, a decent amount of it good, so I will get to share, fortunately. First of all, the most interesting news is that I have been asked to be a godfather! I was somewhat taken aback, and wasn`t really sure how to react. The other community members said I can`t refuse. Of course I can, but I asked Peace Corps (one of the workers in Language and Culture) what their official opinion was. Bibi, the person in question, said it was okay to do so, though she confirmed what the locals had said, you have a certain financial obligation, though not an overwhelming one. Buy clothes for baptism, and chrismtas and birthday gifts, but not much more. There was the whole thing about parents dying I take care of kid, and I made it clear that wasn`t okay with me. The mother said we could talk in depth next (this) week. I guess I will accept, though I feel a bit strange. The mother, one señora Castilla, is someone I do know and is a nice person, and she said she asked me because she respects me and feels I am working to make life better. Well, I`m glad that is the case.

It is an interesting symbol of community integration, and I get the distinct feeling it isn`t the first time I will be asked.

I have also worked a bit more on the communty garden, which has had some ups and downs. As mom may remember, chickens in the garden is a bad thing, and there are chickens in the garden, and they ate most of my little corn plants, damn their feathery hides. Some of the older people who had plots of land are angry that I have maintained my position that the adolescents and community parents have the right to use patches of land that were unoccupied. They aren`t really in a mood for compromising, it seems they just want to throw everyone else out, and I cannot allow that. I will try to talk with them this week, but it looks like a pretty lost case. They are some of the big shots in the Older Person`s Club too, so that is really unfortunate. But if they are being obstinate and belligerent (which they are), there is only so much I can do, especially if they are not in a mood to negotiate (which they are not). There is only so much I can do, it seems...

Also speaking of doing things, there are a couple projects I am working on. One, I am giving vision tests to schoolchildren in Ventura and San Juan. It isn`t that hard, the schools are very compliant in us dropping in and doing stuff like that. It`s a little hard in that there isn`t a good place to go where there aren`t distractions, I will have to be a little better about that. For the most part the kids have good vision, a few problems, and there have been problems with left and right (izquerda and derecha). To get around that I am having them gesture instead of trying to remember their directions. The state is apparently funding free screening, classes, and even surgery for all those who need it. One little girl came up to me and said her father´s vision is failing and if we could do anything. I said I could give him a preliminary screening (the hospital does the complicated stuff), and if he had an infectioni the subcenter could probably evaluate him. The only answer I really could give.

This week is going to be party after party after party. There were some fiesta in the community of La Clementina, but they were a tad late at night and I wasn`t motivated to be out all night in an outlying community. The 22nd there are fiestas in San Juan, the 23rd in La Troncal (the county capital), the 24th and 25th in Ventura. There is a bit of rest until New Years, and then the fiestas go on until Jan 3rd. Speaking of which, I`m still not sure how to handle my birthday. Various people have been interested in having some sort of celebration, but I don´t want to make a big hubbub about it. I hope to make Dora Watt, though I don´t have all the spices I need. It would be incomplete, but still good. I will see if anyone in Bucay has fenugreek or cardamom, but my hopes are not that high.

Speaking of parties. On the 23rd, Friday, being in La Troncal I very much hope to make a round of calls to the family. It will probably be around mid-day, early afternoon, depending on how long everything takes. The hospital apparently is having a party, and is inviting all the subcenters in it`s region to attend. I will be one of Ventura´s representatives. The dentist might come, also. Dr. Carlos is already on vacation in Azogues, Nurse Silva will be in Babahoyo, and Emperatriz, good campesina that she is, will stay at home.

I have been getting packages at the post office, namely the clothes and the bike stuff and the sheath for my machete. Some of the smaller sized pants are pretty tight. Wearable, but tight. Everything else is fine. My bike, fortunately, has been holding up. I don`t want to have to use the patch stuff, because there is no quick release here, and fixing a bike is therefore a huge hassle.

As I said, I hope to find a place with Skype so I can call on Friday 23rd, so be ready. Hopefully stuff won`t all be closed...

Much love,

Christopher M.

December 11, 2011

Dear Friends and Family:

As we prepare for Christmas coming up, I have been doing a fair amount of work in gardening, especially. That is something that is worrying me, in rainy season apparently plants die, so I am trying to put in countermeasures, but I'm very afraid it will be a disaster, my plants will die, and everyone will be discouraged. But if anyone loses anything, in terms of money and work, it will be me more than the others of the Huerto (garden). Every time there is a minga, a common work project, I am in it. Yesterday I was working a couple hours on my own putting in 10 beds, 6 for corn, 2 for beans, and 2 for other things. Corn, apparently, survives best in the rainy season, if anything will survive.

Well, the people said they will accept it if anything dies, or at least some people said as much.

In other news, Dr. Carlos is now on vacation, and in parting he left me a task: I need to give vision tests to the population (starting with kids), and those who have weak vision will need to get referred to the hospital to get glasses (which, like so much in health now, is free). I am happy to have something really useful to do, since this actually can improve people's quality of life, and it is something I can do that isn't that complicated. I remember always dreading those tests, given how bad my vision is...

Christmas is coming up, I have been asked to help pay for the celebrations, since everything is so expensive that they are doing. I am nervous about paying up, but I don't have that much good to do with my money, aside from getting a new camera, which hopefully won't be too expensive, but I think that may be too much to ask. I may get one for 90 dollars, though it may be poor quality, hard to say. Either way, I hope to have some means by which to send photos again in a month or two, hard to say. All these contributions are draining my purse somewhat...

I am really hoping I am not being hit up as an American. I think it is that people view me as someone with some money, just one of many, like Dr Carlos. I will also be with a dance group, that is going okay, though our practices are at night, and there has been daily evening mass blocking us, and it is starting to rain in the evenings, so practicing is hard. Oh well...

As far as planning for Christmas, the 22nd I will be in San Juan for some fiestas there. The 23rd I will be in La Troncal, the county capital, for a Christmas party at the hospital. 24th and 25th I will be in Ventura. For the New Year, Ventura again. I want some celebrations, and some relaxation, but am hoping there isn't too much drinking or raucous partying.

I think I need more sleep, than anything, I have been promising my time away, too much.

Until later,

Christopher M.


December 4, 2011

Greetings family and friends:

So, a lot has been happening this week, mostly for the good I would say. Firstly, I think, I have now moved houses within Ventura. Instead of my emergency stay with Emperatriz Loja and her family, I am now staying with Katty Ibarra and Tonny Paredes. They are some of the better-off people in Ventura, and the Ibarra family is one of the biggest and best educated in town. Which means that I am now with a family that has the interest, and resources, to host me in a more adequate manner. Katty, the English professor, has been studying with me, and her sister María Elizabeth has been needing help as she is studying Accounting in the University of Guayaquil, and needs to pass English. Katty has also taken an interest in my cooking. I showed her my Peruvian Oatmeal recipe, which I made for Mom and Ken in Lima. I will be making more things, and it is going well so far. I made pancakes this Sunday, and told Katty how it reminded me of Doug´s pancakes during my time there, it was so wonderful to make, they really liked it. It is so gratifying to have someone take interest in that. Katty also made my spaghetti sause recipe to serve her relatives, which was so cool...

I have been working more on gardens, though everyone is a bit nervous about the Rainy Season killing all our plants. I wanted to plant this past Tuesday, but of all things, the Old Person´s Club refused to plant, saying a new moon would kill the plants (I´m really not joking). So we postponed to this coming Tuesday, when the moon will be a bit fuller...
I also am starting a new garden in San Juan, which has not had a community garden before. At first nobody came, but they trickled in, and it is getting done...

The big event is that on Thursday, for the first time in my life, I ¨celebrated¨ World AIDS Day. It was nice, the planning a bit hectic, but the school in Ventura, especially came through beautifully.
Basically, Thursday morning, after a few last-minute coordinating in Ventura, I biked to San Juan, where the first photos are from. I hadn´t managed to get parents or the professors on board to organize, so I came, brought some posters and red balloons, and had them march around town shouting slogans ¨no to HIV (no a VIH)¨, ¨San Juan United Against AIDS¨(San Juan Unida contra el SIDA). Then I gave a short talk on HIV, did some activities, and closed. The professors (2 teachers for a school of 25 kids), though fell through in planning, were very cooperative in letting me do my stuff. The picture of the back hoe, by the way, shows part of the road between San Juan and Ventura right now, due to work on the rail line.

I biked back to Ventura in about 30 minutes, and the school and the subcentro were setting things up. We started out with a march, and after going through Ventura (photo of people posing in photo 808 are Nurse Marcía Silva (7 months pregnant, the one I am naming the baby for), Isabel Chávez, the director of the school in Ventura, Dr. Carlos Gómez, my counterpart, and Angel Vargas, the dentist. We assembled in the main square, had a small competition of posters, and Dr. Gómez gave a talk on HIV, they had a play on HIV. It was called ¨Night Club Las Mijas¨, which translates more or less as ¨Brothel of the Dears (or honies, or some sort of endearing term for a girl)¨. A guy basically gets steered into a brothel by his friends, gets HIV, gives it to his pregnant wife, and both of them end up getting diagnosed with AIDS. I didn´t suggest it, they thought of it on their own. I am actually quite impressed by the reaction my idea for holding a World AIDS Day event got. They really grabbed it and made it their own. After that Dr. Carlos showed off our birth control implant, and people asked me about the female condom. Peace Corps gave it to me, and I gave it to the science teacher to demonstrate it in the school. I guess rural Ecuadorians aren´t as conservative as one might have thought, imagine Walnut Hills holding a very public demonstrationi with condom balloons, a birth control table, and a play about going to a brothel (night club, by the way, means brothel in Ecuador). Heck, when the ¨Johns¨entered the brothel, they moved the sheets around to...simulate action inside. Wow...

Life will be a bit more relaxed with the passing of World AIDS Day. Now gardens are my big work, and organizing the Adolescent´s Clubs of Ventura, and now Bucay, the city where I shop, and where I am now helping at the Centro de Salud. I am also working on helping with the Christmas events (everyone and their uncle, myself included, is getting hit up for money to fund so much stuff), I am also doing a dance. It is wonderful, it makes me think of Doug and his dancing, especially. It is tiring, however...

Okay, that´s enough for now. I really hope things go well for you, life for me is picking up, I am doing better. Computer still with viruses, and camera dead and not going to get fixed, or replaced soon, by me anyway...

The photos of World AIDS Day, are from Nurse Silva´s camera. I may be able to send some this way, until I somehow get a new camera...

Love to all,

Christopher M.


November 27, 2011

Hello Family Members:

A fairly interesting week, in many good and bad ways, I will say. A lot has been going on, and I hope I can get it all mentioned.

So, the big things that have been going on lately are HIV-AIDS day, which is going all right, and the garden, which it is hard to know how it is going. HIV-AIDS day (my PC variation of AIDS day), this Thursday, is being planned mostly by the school. It was a bit strange, I proposed it when I don´t think they had ever done it, and the school planners really picked it up and ran with it, I guess it´s a good thing that they could plan without me, but I was a bit surprised when I went to the planning session, and it was mostly done already. We had a bit of a curfuffle about saying AIDS was the same as HIV, and they treated me a bit coldly after I lectured them on differentiating, but it will go ahead anyway. I may be overextending myself, however, in that I am doing something they have never done in the subcentro before. Typically, when the subcentro has had an event, they hold it in Ventura (the center of the parish, where most things of import are), and invite other communities to come along. I wanted to hold something in the community of San Juan, which is only a bit down the road, to recognize HIV AIDS also. The school and community parents seemed okay with the idea, but the planning is going to be last minute, it may boil down to me giving a health talk to the community instead of what will be happening in Ventura, with theater, a parade, a table for family planning, and more. It will be stressful, but I feel that we should recognize that San Juan has never received much attention from us, and we have to admit not everyone lives in Ventura, we have to come to them.

The huerto is going okay. We will be starting seedlings, with some process they did before that I can only help with, they have to lead it. We have been having some problems as far as organizing what to plant, and how to organize it. Again, I would really like more guidance from other subcentro staff, but that is not huge in coming, though they usually come through in the end. The whole measles vaccination campaign has really tied our hands in getting things done normally. We will be doing it tomorrow, and it will be a lot of figuring it out as we go. That, unfortunately, is how Peace Corps has been for me for the most part.

Other notes: My camera is officially dead. The shop in Guayaquil says to fix it they would need to order parts from abroad, making it economically, and functionally more worthwhile to just buy a new one. I am not 100% confident that I actually have the money for that, however, since...

I am now moving, tomorrow, from Emperatriz´s house. It´s been a tad awkward lately. I know I moved there due to emergency, and that they didn´t have a chance to say yes or no really, and that they have a lot of family, but they haven´t, for at least a month, been doing much to make me feel welcome. I don´t know why this has happened, if I did anything or they just have been anticipating my leaving, or it´s just culture. But I don´t feel I am very welcome, and the only solution is leaving. A lot of people I talked to during Reconnect have had pretty shabby experiences with host families, most of it seems to have been our organizations begging people to let us in, it seems to me. I would kind of like to investigate all my options, and when Rebecca, my boss, comes to review housing, let her approve other places to live just in case.

But, there are a couple things I like about where I will live.

It is semi-independent. A tad like my living with Paige in Burlington, which was a wonderful time for me. I have my own space, but we will be around each other a lot too. More opportunity for constructive interaction, but with some space to avoid friction.

The family strikes me as a tad more open mined and intellectual. This was a problem for my previous family, I think. Emperatriz and the other family members are not curious, and didn´t strike me as very open minded or even intellectual. After the initial curiosity of my person, we had very little to talk about. Tonny Paredes and Katty Ibarra both work for the school, and are pretty well educated, and I feel like are more ¨world-minded¨. We´ll see where it really goes. It will take getting used to, but getting out of the situation I am in right now is paramount...

My bike, unlike my camera, is working okay. It was with a flat tire for apparently no reason, but I got that fixed up, and it´s holding air right now. It actually seems like one tube is presta, the other shraeder, I don´t know why that is...

Well, things have been going okay as far as other items. Still getting friendly support from community members, though not my host family. I didn´t really have any Thanksgiving at all, way too occupied, but when I ate lunch I talked about thankfulness, and yesterday I had a bit of a special meal, though didn´t really call it Thanksgiving.

Also, I wish I had my camera to show all the machinery going around here. They have been digging up all the old rails from the railway for weeks, which townsfolk are enthusiastically stealing and selling for scrap, with the approval of the local work crews. It will supposedly be working in a year, though only for tourists. I wonder if one day they will implement the Peruvian system, where tourists pay one price, locals another. They have been paving a lot arouond here. Well, not paving, but preparing the roads to be destroyed by the rainy season, which we are getting closer to...

I just hope I can get through this week, principally. After Dec. 1, I think things will be a tad more relaxed, though Emperatriz is on vacation, and she is the quiet one who gets a lot of the work actually done. I really hope things don´t get out of hand due to vacations during the holiday season. Only getting my health talks done, backed up by data on efficacy, is gong to get cumbersome...

I´m really looking forward to preparing my AAMCAS (medical school) applications next summer.

Listening to the news, sounds like things are going great, as usual...

Oh, I got my hands on a machete, if Doug and Kate can send the sheath, that would be useful. Chess boards are still a needed item. Clothes appreciated, bike equipment as well. Also, having measuring spoons and a cup for cooking would be useful.

Love to all...

Christopher M.

November 20, 2011

Hello Family Members:

So, I was able to call some of you during my time with internet in the house in Tumbaco. I´m now back to using internt cafes in Cumandá.
In short, the Reconnect week was badly planned and was mostly a waste of time, I felt bad for my host mom that she had to go through that. It could have been useful to get problems between us and our organizations solved, and we did a little projec planning,but for the most part it was a waste. Oh well, at least I was able to stock up o wheat bran. It was also nice to see my comrads from training, and my Tumbaco family was nice. Not able to talk to everyone I wanted to alas...

The return trip was uneventful getting through Quito´s public transport isn´t so hard, but it takes a while. I stopped off in San Juan to get my bike, and ended up walking back to Ventura in the dark, leaving around 7. I dropped some worm Peace Corps gave me in the compost pile, and got home around 8:30. The family was eating dinner, and informed me it was my little brother Ismael´s birthday, which was the first I heard about it..My host father confirmed that they want me to leave largely because of space, I may start the moving process in a couple weeks, hopfully to a permanent place...

I´ve been a tad unhappy lately, maybe its from hitting the half-year mark, maybe work, maybe family, I guess I don´t feel I have much emotional support. There is a lot I am hoping to get done in the next few weeks,and I am getting anemic support from subcentro staff. I may start complaining soon if they keep dumping tasks on me, I neither want, can, or am supposed to act alone with what I am doing (garden, AIDS day, the clubs). I know they have limited time, but we need to organize better so we aren´t victim to circumstances, which we very much are right now.

Well, I don´t want to spend too long writing and this keyboard is terrible.

Until later,

Christopher M.



November 13, 2011

Good Afternoon,

I am going to be heading back to Tumbaco soon for Reconnect, an event with our group in which we share experiences, present on our community, talk about problems and possible projects. Not too necessary for me, but maybe something useful will come of it. I admit I would much rather be planning AIDS day and trying to get our garden in order, but Peace Corps meetings are priority.

The bite and vaccinations, are behind me without anything too terribly painful. I have had a cough for a while, which was annoying but at Reconnect the doctor will check me up. The current theory is allergies, and a medicine Ventolin Expectorante, which has Salbutamol, seems to be helping.

Hopefully I will be able to take pictures again, but my camera´s damaging and repairing have had it out of commision for a long time, my host mom is going to help persuade the people who have it to hurry it back, they have had far more than enough time...

The measle´s vaccination campaign is going well, during my absence we will be vaccinating people up to 15 years old.

Oh, before I forget, something interesting. Giving babies foreign, English names is extremely popular in Ecuador. So much so that the subcentro nurse Marcía Silva asked me to suggest a name for her unborn baby daughtor. I said sure, and though of some rules to follow, and some names. Rules:

Must be a real, legitemate English American name

Must not have a ready translation or equivalent in Spanish

Must be readily sayable, and spellable by Spanish people

Should not be something already taken.

Following some of these rules may be difficult for you all who don´t have the cultural linguistic experience I do. Suffice to say that names with H, J, and G aren´t good due to pronunciation, things with silent Es at the end aren´t good, and double letters are rarely used. A few ideas I have:

Shannon (my favorite though double N will confuse people)
Leah
Aaron
Samantha
Christina (ch, as I know, confuses hispanics, but I have to suggest it)

These are a few, I have others on my computer, but can´t pull it out right now. The baby is due in February, so we have some time. Strange to give a name to a child, never done it before. And talk about cultural imperialism. But she asked me, so it is willing participation in Americanization.

Okay, I may be able to Skype call from Tumbaco, so be aware in the evenings...

Love to all,

Christopher M.

November 4, 2011

Hi Family,

I´m in Cumandá a bit for a visit, I might buy a bicycle, and was hoping to get my camera today though that appears to not be an actual option, darn it. A lot is closed, including the Subcentro and the shop with y capera, due to Día de los muertos, day of the dead. Oh well, I´ve been without photos for a while, I can tolerate it a bit longer now.

I figure I should share my Halloween activities. I dressed up as an amoeba, an all too common microorganism that gives children stomach illnesses since water receives no treatment at all. I bought some bags from an animal feed store, cut holes for arms and legs, sewed them together for a ¨shirt¨and ¨pants¨, and drew cellular organelles on them, and skulls and crossbones. Dr. Carlos actually let me wear it in the Subcentro, and I had fun explaining it to patients, and they seemed amused by the idea. Maybe they will apply it, though right after giving the talk to my family, my host sister Erika (who wants to be a doctor) took a glass and drank the tap water. That took me down a peg or two...
Later that night we hooked up a TV in one of the abandoned train cars and watched a couple horror movies. It took a lot longer than I wanted, the guy hooking it up took his sweet time coming around to do it, and I had a hard time keeping the adolescents around, but it worked out in the end.

I got questions about chess stuff. I would like, if possible, boards and pieces, carving our own pieces would be nice but is too ambitious for now. My main desire would be that they be portable, but with pieces not too small to be easily lost. That has been a headache for me as we often play by the football field during the night, which is a great way for kids to lose pieces, so we have only a couple complete boards now. Larger pieces would be much harder to lose. I´m hoping to have some to use for expanding my reach of Adolescent´s clubs, and start working with the ones in Bucay and Cumandá.

Reminder my address is:

Christopher Morriss
Correo Central de Cumandá
Provincia de Chimborazo
Cumandá, Ecuador

Other things I mentioned: Machetes are universal in the area here, and I would want one to cut weeds, mostly.

As far as nicer clothes, any kinds of long pants are nice, though things moderately durable would be better, a diversity of colors would be nice.

If I actually manage to get my hands on a bicycle today, I may need some kinds of accessories that I am not sure are available here, namely patch kits (the kind with patches with glue on them), maybe a small bike pump (I think presta is used here, or just the type I have never used before), maybe bungee chords to carry stuff around.

Always remember that this stuff should be under 2 kilos or getting my hands on it will be very awkward, going customs in Riobamba, ugly.

The rabies shots went fine. Not painful at all, a normal couple of shots.

I probably should take it easier than I am, but I feel obligated to work as hard as I can (as always), and Peace Corps does say my job is 24-7, never ends. Maybe I take that too literally, sometimes.

I am hoping to send you guys a present, I am preparing it, and will try to mail it out in time for Christmas...

I will write again Sunday and let you know on the bike, camera, and other pending developments.

Love to all,

Christopher M.




November 4, 2011
Hi Family,

I´m in Cumandá a bit for a visit, I might buy a bicycle, and was hoping to get my camera today though that appears to not be an actual option, darn it. A lot is closed, including the Subcentro and the shop with y capera, due to Día de los muertos, day of the dead. Oh well, I´ve been without photos for a while, I can tolerate it a bit longer now.

I figure I should share my Halloween activities. I dressed up as an amoeba, an all too common microorganism that gives children stomach illnesses since water receives no treatment at all. I bought some bags from an animal feed store, cut holes for arms and legs, sewed them together for a ¨shirt¨and ¨pants¨, and drew cellular organelles on them, and skulls and crossbones. Dr. Carlos actually let me wear it in the Subcentro, and I had fun explaining it to patients, and they seemed amused by the idea. Maybe they will apply it, though right after giving the talk to my family, my host sister Erika (who wants to be a doctor) took a glass and drank the tap water. That took me down a peg or two...
Later that night we hooked up a TV in one of the abandoned train cars and watched a couple horror movies. It took a lot longer than I wanted, the guy hooking it up took his sweet time coming around to do it, and I had a hard time keeping the adolescents around, but it worked out in the end.
I got questions about chess stuff. I would like, if possible, boards and pieces, carving our own pieces would be nice but is too ambitious for now. My main desire would be that they be portable, but with pieces not too small to be easily lost. That has been a headache for me as we often play by the football field during the night, which is a great way for kids to lose pieces, so we have only a couple complete boards now. Larger pieces would be much harder to lose. I´m hoping to have some to use for expanding my reach of Adolescent´s clubs, and start working with the ones in Bucay and Cumandá.

Reminder my address is:
Christopher Morriss
Correo Central de Cumandá
Provincia de Chimborazo
Cumandá, Ecuador

Other things I mentioned: Machetes are universal in the area here, and I would want one to cut weeds, mostly.

As far as nicer clothes, any kinds of long pants are nice, though things moderately durable would be better, a diversity of colors would be nice.

If I actually manage to get my hands on a bicycle today, I may need some kinds of accessories that I am not sure are available here, namely patch kits (the kind with patches with glue on them), maybe a small bike pump (I think presta is used here, or just the type I have never used before), maybe bungee chords to carry stuff around.

Always remember that this stuff should be under 2 kilos or getting my hands on it will be very awkward, going customs in Riobamba, ugly.

The rabies shots went fine. Not painful at all, a normal couple of shots.

I probably should take it easier than I am, but I feel obligated to work as hard as I can (as always), and Peace Corps does say my job is 24-7, never ends. Maybe I take that too literally, sometimes.

I am hoping to send you guys a present, I am preparing it, and will try to mail it out in time for Christmas...

I will write again Sunday and let you know on the bike, camera, and other pending developments.

Love to all,

Christopher M.






October 29, 2011

Greetings Family Members,

This week has been rather hectic, starting especially on Wednesday. I was in the community of La Envidia (envy), doing my health surveys. The first few were all right. One household just had kids apparently under the care of a 16 year old girl who seemed to have some sort of mental problem. The second had a woman with almost no education, and one kid withi abominable teeth. The third was a nice family with again little education, but the husband especially struck me as intelligent and insightful. He gave me a papaya, and warned me that if I was going to interview the neighbor, I would need a stick for the dogs.

Well, dogs turned out to be 7 or so extremely aggressive dogs all out for blood, with apparently no owner around to call them off. The stick kept me from getting killed, but one managed to bite me on the thigh. I managed to escape with the help of the last guy, and he helped me clean it a little, but I had to walk an hour to the subcentro before I got to really clean it with good water. After that, I called Peace Corps, and they decided that no risks could be taken, and I had to go to Quito for the rabies shot. So, within about 15 minutes I found a car to take me, threw some clothes in some bags, and started my journey to Quito. After going through the middle of nowhere in the central mountains of Chimborazo due to a traffic accident blocking the highway, I got to Quito around 10. They had made a reservation for me, and authorized to pay for a taxi, thank goodness.

The next day I got the shot, talked with a bunch of people on various topics, and bought some things in the big city. I went back, and was in Bucay by 11, and the next day walked to Ventura. After that, I have been working with my adolescents some more, and dealing with some sort of cold, and a persistant cough. I am planning some Halloween activities for the kids, and also some English, and a traditional dance activity. I am also working on preparing an HIV-AIDS day event for December 1, as well as our gardens. The head nurse of the Health Area said she wanted me to present the results of my HIV AIDS day activities in the hospital during our December meeting. Wow, telling the doctors how it´s done...

So today I get the second shot, and hopefully things will settle down. One a couple notes: I will be having some talks on moving, possibly. Not that I´m really desperate to, but several families have made offers. One at least is inviting me to dinner Tuesday, and might bring it up. We´ll see if any of it goes anywhere.

Uh, there are a few days of break coming up, which will be wonderful. I hope to convince some of the kids to work in the garden during break, and come to my first talk on HIV AIDS on Friday. We´ll see how well I can do at convincing people to do things...

As far as sending me things for Christmas, chess boards will be a winner. Also good clothing will be appreciated, especially good pants. Also, if it is possible to send me my machete and-or my sheath, that would be nice. But be aware of the 2kg limit. That may mean you just send the sheath, but that´s okay. The local nursery school asked me to ask you guys for contributions for the Christmas events, where they give stuff out to the local kids. They are raising money locally, but that of course isn´t the most productive form of financing. Needless to say, I know almost nothing about sending money overseas, maybe we need to ask Malcolm for advice. Western Union?

On a note not directly related to much: In Cumandá there is still a critical shortage of natural gas, it seems. We may be using firewood soon. People are blaming speculators and people smuggling gas to Perú and Colombia. My understanding is that Ecuador heavily subsidizes gas, so people want to sell it across borders illegially.

That´s enough for now, I may try calling at some point again, if I can find a place with Skype, which apparently exists. My camera should be fixed soon, thank god, and my computer is getting purged of viruses, again, this time for a price. God bless the private market.

Love to all,

Christopher M.

October 22, 2011

Hi everyone,

I wasn´t able to write Sunday due to a regional blackout, everything that had power was on generators, needless to say I didn´t find an internet cafe where I could write. My camera is also in Guayaquil right now, getting inspected as it now no longer even tries to work.

Work is all right, though I am working a lot on health surveys. Some questions are interesting, most are busywork, the whole thing just stresses me out. The gardening is going okay, though there have been problems of the kids tresspassing on other´s lots and stealing carrots. I can´t watch everyone, though I am now the point man to be angry at, alas.

Photos are still a bit complicated, and the fight with some virus is still ongoing, alas. Technology is not my friend right now.

I am starting to plan for HIV AIDS day, fulfilling the need to do more on sexual reproductive health over here. Also, we will be hopefully having some Haloween events, though it won´t be easy. I am also desperately trying to vote from Ecuador, but the mail system was much slower than I anticipated, I sent the form in a month in advance, and just got it Sunday. I will try to send it today.

I will say one more thing, I will play in a soccer game with the people from the Ventura school against a Cumandá team, I was asked to be part of the team, and now I need to pay for saying yes. That is why I can write now, as I have a bit of time.

Hopefuly more later...

Christopher M.


October 9, 2011

Dear Family and others,

The week has gone well for me, though with some frustrations as I will share...

We started out the month rather slowly, lots and lots of paperwork for my health team to fill out. I tried to help by writing out schedule for health activities, which I may have to do single-handedly to make happen. Our home visits, meanwhile, are dreadfully behind schedule.

I have been a bit sick lately, mostly just low energy and a cough, which is not that bad but it hurts my productivity slightly. I was able to get some garden work done with the Older Persons Club last week, clearing out weeds, and moving rocks from the garden area. Unfortunately, we have been burning our trash for a long time at the subcenter, with the result that certain areas are full of glass vials and used syringes. Granted, they are old and burned up so not that dangerouos, but still a bit of a biohazard. Clearing up all this trash will be a task, but I can do it if I stay at it.

I went to a birthday party on Thursday, it was fun but a bit draining. I was asked to make a cake for them, and was able to, though they had to bake it as the gas in my host familys house is misbehaving. I made a cake with an orange flavor, chocolate icing, and a souce from the berries they call mora (blackberry, but not very black). It went over quite well, though the kids would not keep their hands away from it as I was icing it and I got angry and shouted at them. I am a bit sorry, but they deserved it, the little imps. I also gave them a talk on washing their hands before they ate, felt I should do something health related.

Friday I went to Jalupata and Chantamarca, an indigenous zone in central Cañar. Lots of Quechua, lots of traditional dress, but given that I was invited to a wedding, a LOT of drinking. The guy who invited me, the promoter of intercultural medicine in Cañar, got quite drunk and got very much on my nerves. I guess I never got used to having to be around people being drunken asses, so I did not have much fun. It was a cultural experience, but kind of disheartening, watching the women also, as they seemed to just accept their men getting plastered. I guess that is culture, for better or worse. At least I got to eat guinea pig, though the very first thing they gave me to eat was paw, and they also wanted me to eat tounge. Also my first dish was pig intestine, which had a liver like flavor, and was very tough, and not good at all. I just had to gulp it down.

So, more work this week, club meetings, and maybe some home visits. Also, my camera may have died. It has been behaving strangely lately, and I dropped it and it got wet in central Cañar, and it has been giving few signs of hope. I may be able to resuscitate it, but I may be without a Camera for a while, a long while unless I can get a new one somehow, which is not too hard, though a bit pricey. We will see.

I hope everything is going well for everyone (besides the crisis in Kates familiy I heard about ), and will try to write again next week a bit earlier.

Love to all,

Christopher M.


October 1, 2011

Good Morning,

I'm writing on Saturday, as was the original tradition, because I will not be in Cumanda tomorrow, for reasons I will explain a bit later. I will go through the week as best as I can remember, as a fair amount has been happening.

The presentation in Azogues was fairly interesting. Azogues is beautiful, I hope to go there again. There was a panel of doctors, a lawyer, and this 17 year old teen mom Rosaura. They all talked about sexual violence, dangers of teen pregnancy (Ecuador has one of the highest rates in the Andean region), and the like. One teenager in the audience (schools apparently sent some of their classes) asked if providing condoms promoted risky sexal behavior. One of the doctors there responded that emphasizing moralitiy was indispensable and should not be forgotten. It seemed pretty well done to me. The ride back was uneventful and quiet.

Tuesday I was at a meeting of the Old Person's Club, which is designed to promote healthy behavior, and is run by the health subcenter, that is, me. I did almost all the work in getting it to happen, and this meeting is 3 months late actually, so I got to feel useful. We talked about the community gardens project they have been working on, possible ideas for the rainy season, a walk outside of town to the river, and also some about nutrition. I had prepared one of my favorites, quinoa tortillas, which are super healthy, and also a new one for me, soymilk (making it directly from soybeans), which I had to give liberal treatment with vanilla, sugar and chocolate to make it not taste like plaster. They seemed happy to meet, we had around a dozen people.

The next day, I had the first general meeting of the Adolescents' Club. We had almost 30 people there, and we talked about what ideas they wanted to do. Number one on their list was the Chess League I have been pushing, that was gratifying. Other winners were English, Quechua, watching movies, having some sort of theater or dance, learning about various health topics, community gardening, sports, probably something else I can't remember. So far, so good. That meeting I held without any help at all from the others of the subcenter, and my host sister Erika, the president, was a little more reserved than I had hoped for.

Thursday there was another meeting about the family in refuge. The theme centered on the need to accept the reality that the family may be in the Convent for some time, we are now talking about half a year perhaps. The paid caretaker will leave this month, and there is no way we will find the money for another, so we aren't entirely sure how to replace her. I think community members can visit some (myself included), but not as much as the psychologist in charge of this mess. Though given that the caretaker has a day off this Sunday, they wanted me to help out that day in a more involved way. I agreed, and talked about it with the family, and I think it will actually go well, the kids are quite nice, and when I came into the convent one of the daughtor's asked me if I had brought my chessboard. I get the feeling I will be playing some of that tomorrow, and make a lasagna. One of my bosses in Peace Corps also offered some art supplies which I will get today, and donate tomorrow.

Friday I had the first meeting of my Chess League. We had maybe 20 people there, and we had a tournament to decide the president. Bryan, who has been one my favorites, won, and we talked about future plans and meetings. I also talked about scheduling an English lesson for a week from now.

Today I will be meeting with a couple others from Peace Corps, whose sites are in Bucay and Cumanda, so locals. Unfortunately they are from much earlier generations and will be leaving in a few months, so I thought we should meet up now if we will, also one of them will be handing me in the donations from Rebeca, the Health Program Manager. I will be making a lot of purchases today, and am a tad worried on how I will get back to Ventura, because the bus doesn't work in the afternoons, when I will return. I can either take a taxi (five dollars), or walk about an hour, which will be a hassle, and a tad bit risky if I leave really late.

So, all in all, things have gone well. I am calling myself the Coordinator of Special Programs of the Health Subcenter now, and have a fairly productive routine worked out for next month. Peace Corps itself, however, may not like that I am fitting into the routine of the subcenter so well, they seem to want me to be afloat, not knowing what I am supposed to do. Some people are like this, but I am happy with a fairly clear schedule, and I am still involving myself with other activities outside the subcenter too.

The family is still wonderful, no complaints. The power failed for a while, and I told my little host brother and sisters some stories, a ghost story, the Viking legend about Thor and Loki's visit to the Giant's Palace with Thialfi, and the African story of Brah Spider, which I learned from the book about Sierra Leone's civil war, A Long Way Gone.

My counterpart, Dr. Carlos, has been around more, thank goodness, though rumors are growing that he will get a new assignment from the Public Health Ministry outside of Ventura. The nurse, meanwhile, who is pregnant and was recently abandoned by her husband (literally), has moved to Ventura with her 5 year old daughtor. My host mom still hasn't had any surgery for her gallbladder, but I think that is slowly getting worked out.

I had a good conversation with Dr. Carlos and the dentist, Dr. Vargas, about medical school. They shared war stories, and I just talked about the looooong process of applying. Apparently in the Ecuadorian system, getting in is just a basic application, and they weed out people later. Boy, my life would have been so much less stressful if that had been the case. They also go directly from high school to med school, which has it's good and bad element.

So, I hope everything is going well for you all...

Until next week

Christopher M.


September 25, 2011

Hello family members,

I am writing not from Bucay or Cumandá, and not even Ventura. Right now I am in Azogues, the capital of Cañar provcince, in the mountain region of the province. Azogues, by the way, is Spanish for mercury (mercurio is also mercury). I am here for a talk on adolescent pregnancies, which will be given at least in part by a teen mom from San Juan, right next to Ventura. She told me a bit of her talk on the bus ride across the province, having no money, pregnant at 15, abandoned by almost everyone, ouch. Well, she seems okay now, or as okay as a single mom can be in rural Ecuador.

The situation of the family in refuge is basically unchanged, I´m kind of helping out with the others in the village, but Peace Corps warned me not to involve myself too intimately, as a foreigner can be an easy target in emotionally charged circumstances. Reasonable enough, especially given that some of the relatives involved are trying to hush everything up and paint the authorities as the enemy, which includes some locals who are afraid. But for the most part, as the government tries to sort thing out, a tense status quo is being established. We´ll see where this goes...

I´ve been invited to a couple birthday parties so far. One was a neighbor who was rather poor, but very, very hospitable (they piece of cake they gave me was about 5 times bigger than anyone else´s). That is pretty much the name of the game right now, hospitality. I also helped out in a communal work project (called a minga) to try to fix the water system. The water, and the electricity fail with fair regularity, so it is a constant effort to replace old piping (they have plastic tubes that channel water from the forest to us, as far as I can tell with utterly no purification). That was fun, and I got to show everyone my blister from doing manual labor again for the first time in months.

I have done some calls, so won´t write too much, other than to say that all is well, and I am quite happy with how things have been going.

Much love,

Christopher


September 18, 2011

Greetings Family Members, and others,

So, things have been changing at a somewhat alarming rate, well, in certain aspects. I will try to get to everything as best as I can.


Firstly, my counterpart, Dr. Carlos, has been at the subcenter off and on. For a while, it looked like her was going to be pulled from the subcenter for a couple weeks to work in the central hospital in La Troncal to work with disabled patients. Fortunately, Dr. Orellana, our boss in La Troncal, realized that having our subcenter without a doctor for two weeks, after his vacation and other problems, was going to seriously damage the credibility of the Public Health Ministry in Ventura. It is so wonderful when he is around, otherwise we are so adrift. I really like Dr. Carlos, he at least talks a good talk about getting things done according to schedule. Our next jobs, which will actually be somewhat involved, are the formation of the Club of Adolescentes of Ventura, a meeting of the Club of Older Persons, more home visits, and starting to think on the second round of community gardens in the subcenters grounds.


In doing all of this, I gave a sex ed talk in the local school. Dr. Carlos says the Ministry is putting huge emphasis on adolescent pregnancy, and so that is a huge part of the Club, and a march we need to somehow organize without funds for the 30th. I include one photo of the talk I gave, it went relatively well. I gave the basic talks on STDs and pregnancy, and the three anticonceptives we have available in the subcenter (for free, as are all things we have here, other things you have to buy in farmacies) the injections, The Pill, and condoms. After all that, we broke out the condoms, broke out the bananas, and had everyone practice putting them on. It went well, except opening them flummoxed some of the kids. Ages 10 to 17, by the way.
Who would have thought, when I started studying Spanish, that I would end up giving such a talk in a foreign language.
The 28th we are having a meeting of the Adolescents Club. That is kind of my own pet project, since a lot of the work has to be done after the workday and the doctor and head nurse leave town after that (though the nurse may be living in Ventura part of the week in a bit). I, among other projects, am working on a Chess Club. That remains rather popular, but the nearest other chess organization that I have heard of is in Guayaquil, about 2 hours away. I will do what I can...


Also, I am getting a slight fame in the Health Area. One, because when the head dentist came to turn in the instruments to our new dentist (who has been getting into trouble with Dr. Carlos for being late), I by coincidence brought a pineapple upside down cake with chocolate frosting. They really enjoyed that, and a few weeks ago I helped out at a Ministry presentation, my host mom, Emperatriz, who is the subcenter Nurse, says they are talking about me quite a bit. Maybe they will want my help in other projects, especially if we get a decent group to come to the anti pregnancy in adolescents march in La Troncal.


So, work is picking up, sort of, though the other health team members are kind of dallying on going on home visits. The next one we need to do is La Envidia, which is an hour walk away, with little chance of a vehicle being available. If the sun is out, we will burn, though the people we visit are often happy to offer us oranges or bananas, or sometimes sugar cane.


Home life, as some have asked, is actually going quite well. Well, the baby (1 year old) has been crying at night, not pleasant, he actually cries a lot. My little host brothers, sisters, and I watched a bit of Chavo del 8, which is a very famous Mexican kids program from the 70s. It wasnt bad. We went out to the river Chan Chan for an excursion for a bit, that was fun. Also may end up doing some yard work with my host father Tuesday. He, by the way, is a watchman at a pig farm. I dont see him that much, but he is a good person. I think it is his salary that is keeping the family going, given that my host mom works without pay, it would seem.


Actually, speaking of money, that situation has gotten a tad complicated lately. Emperatriz, my mom, has gallstones, and actually the day of my sex ed talk had a bad attack, basically rolling in pain. Unfortunately, we have no medicines that help that, aside from anasthetics. Twice she had to go down to Cumanda for medical treatment (Dr. Carlos was out), and they simply did not have the money for paying for emergency treatment (private, not free as the nearest ER is in La Troncal, 1.5 hours away). As such, they asked for help from the one who they knew did have the money, yours truly. In short, they are now 180 dollars in my debt, and my emergency purse is a bit lighter. I told her that if she can repay me at the end of the month, great. If they have to wait for my rent payments to repay this debt (which would take until January), I can wait. I dont want them to have to make sacrifices on food or something vital to repay me. Anyway, I eat what they eat, so such a cut would affect me (actually I eat my own breakfast of oatmeal. If mom and Ken remember, it is the fruit-milk concoction I made in Peru that actually tastes good, and helps keep constipation away, which is otherwise inevitable with the Ecuadorian diet).


Next item, I visited North Cutuguay on Saturday when the Prefect of Cañar visited. They opened a new road to that part, which in my opinion was a pretty sorry looking dirt track, but the people were really happy to have it, saying ¨we lived thrown away and forgotten before¨ and how hard it was for their kids to get to school. Well, let´s see what happens in the rainy seasons, that thing doesn´t look very sturdy. As happy as everyone seemed, during the ribbon cutting there was a strong feeling that we now owe political alliegence to the prefect for helping us, and should vote for him in the next election. Oh well...by the way, during the celebration I met another Christopher, named after Christopher Reeves. Also born in January 1989, it was kind of interesting to talk to him...


Oh, last Sunday evening I spent all day at the Pentecostal Church. I felt it was a good use of my time to see what it was like. Well, mostly what I expected. 2 hours waiting for the preacher, then 2 and a half hours of songs, faith in Jesus, laying of hands, chanting, crying, falling on the floor. There was an awkward moment where the itinerant preacher from the Dominican Republic (a black woman, actually) asked me, in front of everybody, to raise my hands and accept Jesus as my savior. I said I couldn´t. She said what happened if I died and went to hell for not being saved, I said I didn´t have a real answer to that (though in truth I don´t believe in hell). Well, they just gave me a blessing, and we ate dinner after that together, and talked a bit about faith, the disaster in Haiti (she hates Voodoo, and everybody hates Catholics there). They also gave me a Bible, and of course asked me to come again. My host mom, by the way, said I could become confirmed in the Catholic Church, if I wanted...


Last note, the most important, in reality, is something that came out last night. There is a psichologist from Cañar who has been here before, and he invited me to a meeting after the whole prefect thing. To my surprise, it turns out there has been a case of domestic violence in Ventura. Well, the health team already told me that it exists, but apparently the authorities are now getting involved in this one case. Specifically, they are going to move the family (mother and children) out of Ventura, but in the near term they needed a safe place in Ventura, money, food, and people to watch over the situation. We eventually decided on the Priest´s Quarters, which is unused, and all of us (your truly included) volunteered, time, food, and money to keep them afloat for the month they are officially supposed to be there. I, and others I think, are afraid that given the state´s velocity in such matters, this may simply become a status quo and every month we somehow need to find resources again...


So, in short, that is what is going on. I finally can send pictures, some of a little bit of everything.


Much love to all,


Christopher M.


September 11, 2011
Good Morning,
This week has been fairly slow, unfortunately. Dr. Carlos, my counterpart, was gone when his daughter got sick, and then when the Public Health Ministry ordered him to the main hospital on Thursday, so a lot of time without our director, yet more. I must say, I am a bit frustrated with my work so far, for several reasons. First, the health staff that doesn´t live in Ventura (the head nurse and Dr. Carlos himself, and the dentist before he left) arrive late and leave early, by several hours in fact. The subcenter is officially open 8 to 430, but I don´t know if it has ever functioned at that time schedule. Even Nurse Emperatriz, my host mother, generally arrives at around 830, while the others get there around 9. They leave around 2 to 3, Emperatriz around 330. It is frustrating for me, in that it feels like we are violating a promise, and I know some of them live far away and get up very early to get there even late, but I really don´t feel comfortable with it.

Also, there are Health Education talks we are supposed to give, but they seem to make virtually no effort to do so, and just tell people to sign the paper saying they got it. I am going to try to do it, but I feel like I am not getting much support from them, and I don´t know how to call them out on, what seems to me, bordering on fraud.

There are problems, but I know that I have the liberty to do whatever I want. If I want to give talks, they won´t stop me. If I want to go to the school to talk about health issues, they won´t protest. I don´t know how much support, however, I can get.

In their defense, we haven´t had a full staff since I got here. We have been changing dentists, as a new guy is starting his Rural Year here and is just starting out, and Dr. Carlos has had a bunch of things keeping him out, and the two nurses are basically left with the whole subcenter´s running to themselves, general functioning, special programs, even keeping it clean. I don´t know how much I should complain...

In other news, things have been going okay with the family and others in the community. I made a Pineapple Upside Down Cake from a pineapple a patient gave Dr. Carlos, and gave it out to the Ministry officials who came on Thursday to give the new dentist his instruments. They enjoyed it quite a lot, though I am hoping to make healthy things that people will eat, too...

Yesterday I went with the family to Cutuguay where we have a farm. It was absolutely beautiful, we spent several hours harvesting coffee, oranges, and also fishing (I just watched). Unfortunately, when I was harvesting coffee I got attacked by ants, not really heavily attacked, but several bites. It was a fun experience, and a good opportunity to relax.

As far as productivity, on Thursday we went to the San Juan Nursery School where we checked BMI. Unfortunately, about 16 out of 18 kids were underweight. The thing was, they seemed to be getting a relatively good amount of food at the Nursery School, I don´t know if they just aren´t eating, their families aren´t feeding them, or if they are just small and our BMI definitions don´t fit realities (I remember Mom saying our pediatrician was scared that we weren´t getting fed, but we just didn´t grow normally). We will be actually giving some health talks I think, in the school on Tuesday if things go well, and other areas as well. I guess I just have to learn where to insert myself, since I am most useful outside the subcenter, and the nurse is desperate to get back to deal with patients. I can do it on my own, I suppose, though I really hope we can have a full health team soon...

On a totally separate but interesting note, my host mom says she hasn´t gotten paid since 2002, and recently she and other health workers not getting paid won a court case that says they should get paid. She says they should get the money now, in the thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars, but I´m not holding my breath. How long has the Ohio legislature ignored the supreme court about school funding?

Also, I think this cafe allows me to send lots of photos, so next time when I write I will be able to send images of my life, fortunately.

So, life is full of nice things, and frustrations. Not exactly surprising, especially in Peace Corps. I think I am going to spend a lot more time planning health talks, we´ll see what ends up happening...

Love to all,

Christopher M.

September 4, 2011
Hello, Family
I am working as best I can at the subcenter. Unfortunately, if we aren´t going out on trips to the community for visits or giving talks of some kind, I don´t have too much productive to do and end up shadowing, though the nurses are having me work on getting blood pressures, which is pretty nice, though limited. I can´t, per Peace Corps rules, work with anything sharp, so that is crippling my ability to be useful in the subcenter itself. I am tempted to break rules, but I haven´t yet...
On Saturday I did go to La Troncal, the county capital, and site of the nearest hospital. There were a bunch of government ministers there for some sort of meeting among themselves and to hear complaints from the people themselves. I helped the Public Health Ministry with their tabling, and that went fairly smoothly. I did setup, taking down, and after a bit of looking over what we had I helped with the tabling itself. I must say, the nurses and doctors doing the tabling didn´t seem that engaging with people, just kept saying ´come here and get into our electronic system´, without seeming concerned with listening that much. I think when I tabled, I was a bit more engaging, explaining diabetes, some of the services that exist, and things like that. There is still a crisis in Ecuador about alcohol adulterated with methanol. They actual reinstated the state of emergency, and there were posters warning people about certain brands, or even unlabeled alcohol. In Ventura itself, the problem hasn´t come.
I have been doing some more chess, soccer, and apparently the Public Health Ministry is pushing health subcenters, including ours, to form ´Clubes de Buen Vivir´, in which we form groups for particular groups, like old people, diabetics, hypertensives, and adolescents. The adolescent´s club is the newest one, and I will have to spearhead this one, since most of the rest of the health team will not be around to work on it (they leave to go home in other cities around 3, around when teenagers who go to school in Bucay-Cumandá get back). Hopefully I can engage teenagers in forming a club where we can give them health talks. It should be an interesting challenge.
Still having trouble sending photos, will work on that as I can...
For the most part, everything is okay. I have gotten a bit tired of the routine and life, but it passes pretty quick. So far, I haven´t felt depressed and people are still nice, though having to talk to everyone in town as I cross to the subcenter is draining, sometimes.
I am also wondering about cooking. My family cooks for me, but I sometimes try to make my own things. I think I will just make my own vegetables, and add that to what I am given, given my carbs and such are taken care of. I am also doing some baking, that´s something that I can contribute, though they seem hesitant to eat anything I make. We´ll see, I will try some cookies tonight, I think, that should do the trick...
Also, I found the post office in Cumandá. The woman who runs it (and a small shop in the same spot that is much more apparent), says that anything under 2 kg will come right here. Otherwise I have to go to Riobamba to get it, and probably fork over a bundle of money.
Much love,
Christopher Morriss

August 28, 2011
Greetings Family Members,
So, last week I was rather rushed in my letter, so I wasn't able to say much more than the unfortunate situation with my host mom. Well, today I was determined to get myself alone in Bucay so I could be as slow as I wanted, so I can be a bit more thorough in my writings.
Well, so over the weekend I had to spend a fair amount of time finding an alternative location to live in. We identified a series of places, and when the head of the community health program Rebeca came to Ventura, she decided that I would live with the auxillary nurse, Emperatriz Loja. I now have 5 little host brothers and sisters, from 16 to 1 years old. Although I came there in rather rushed and stressful circumstances, and Emperatriz offered her home out of desperation as much as desire (she is part of the health team that I work with, and the only one who lives in Ventura), I am vastly happier in this family than with Bolivar and Soledad. Well, in reality, they actually seem to want me there, and we have gotten along very well. But, with an extra person it is a tad crowded, so come November (when I have the option of moving) they may be happy to see me go. For now, things are great, though, and a certain degree of normality is possible.
Speaking of normality, things have been fairly boring at the health subcenter. The doctor has been on vacation for a while, and I think will continue to be until this Thursday. That bothered me, but if he needs a vacation, so be it. The dentist is also finishing his Rural Year, a requirement for full certification for health professionals, so he will be replaced in the next couple weeks, too. The licenciada (head nurse, of the two we have), wasn't around too much, so we have been rather under-staffed. On the positive side, I was able to be of some help when we made a visit to the nursery school to check the kid's BMI and give them their vitamin A and multiivitamins. I have been observing a lot, also, since that isn't too hard to do. In the subcenter I've seen some interesting things, a lot of kids with stomachaches. Sometimes we give antibiotics if they have diarrhea, which isn't that uncommon, and the dentist, who operates basically as another doctor sometimes, also gave some de-parasiting medicine (there are several they have, parasitamol, and albendazol, I think). Intestinal parasites are actually really common here. Given that I am prohibited from giving injections by Peace Corps, I can't be that helpful, but we also went on some home visits to disabled people (very similar to Mom's job, as I said to the health team, though this is rural third world, where you have to shoo chickens and ducks out of grandma's shack, and nobody knows for sure how old anybody is without their cedula, or ID card). We made 5 visits in Ventura, in which we checked meds, their general situation, any problems, that sort of things. A lot of old people, in the 70s, one woman was 97, and one man, my host grandfather actually, is believed to be 99, to turn 100 in a few months. One kid had some sort of mental disability, is 14, in a wheelchair, is blind, and has very limited control of his body, though he talks and is somewhat aware of his surroundings. Seeing people with Parkinson's in third world conditions, is quite strange. This program, to the best of my understanding, is relatively new. President Rafael Correa, who has a mixed record with press freedom, had made health a priority, and the government is handing out payments to caretakers, with the health people, and peasant insurance, as the enforcers that they are doing a good job, or as good as is possible. The vice president, I belive, uses a wheelchair, by the way.
Also, in the next week we will be doing our monthy action plan. My primary uses are going to be in the home visits, and visiting schools and nursery schools (there are 3 total, I think), as well as doing a comprehensive survery of the area. This is something the health team was doing anyway, and Peace Corps mandates it also. The health team has already done a bit of the community of San Juan, but I will be working with them on covering the rest of San Juan, as well as Cutuguaya, San Jose, and Ventura itself. I will have to make a survery combining my stuff and theirs, so that may keep me busy for a bit. Also, once I have a clearer idea of my uses and when I will be needed, I think they are pining for me at the school. The English professor, of curse, wants my help (I am lukewarm about it, but am willing to play some sort of role in English assistance), the principal seems to generally be enthusiastic for me, and I have offered to try to teach Aikido and the philosophy of the art. Chess is also still going strong with the kids, so if that continues the school may help me start a chess club, but that's still a bit in the future.
The light and electricity are working, so far, but we'll see how long that lasts. I have been doing well as far as my life, though I am kind of happy to get out of Ventura for a bit. I think as time goes on, I will get a bit more stir-crazy, though we'll see how that goes. I am getting a lot of food from my host family, lots of rice and chicken (not even beans, actually). I tried making a stir fry with some whole grain rice and baked vegetables, they hated it. They complained principally about the rice being too tough, and a whole lot of food went to waste, I felt quite bad about it. I'll try something later, but not with brown rice, which I don't think is even available around here.
What else? I have heard things are kind of wacky in the US, with the republican primaries, economy being rather disastrous and such. But all in all, the family sounds stable, which makes me happy. There have been some rumors about internet being put in place in Ventura again, though when that happens is anybody's guess.
Hmm, the photos don't seem to be loading. Some internet cafes are capable of loading large numbers of photos, other aren't. I am going to try to find one that does allow me to do that, but for now no photos, sorry.
Well, I will write a few more letters, and then go out shopping in the market and getting things I need
August 13, 2011

Greetings All,

I am still going to be writing, though the next letter I write will be from my site, and I will no longer be a trainee, but a volunteer. This Wednesday is the coming swearing in ceremony, and Thursday I take the bus to Bucay to get to Ventura. Now, just a few formalities before I am officially let in. Given the way the economy is going, probably good that I have this two year ¨job¨, though who knows what´s going to happen to the government these days. Peace Corps Ecuador just got cut, going from a budget of 3.5 million to 3 million, a nasty loss.

So, my photos, rather garbled in their order, sorry, are rather numerous and varied. First, last Saturday they had some events for Ecuador´s Independence Day (August 10), starting out with a Shaman who purified Tumbaco, and then anyone who came up. Part of it involved smoking a cigar, and also spitting fruit juice in the four cardinal directions (and in people´s faces). Needless to say, I didn´t really want to have fruit juice spat in my face, even though I had to forgo the purification. Later that day I spent some of the afternoon with a few friends, and then back to the celebrations, where they had some puppet theater, and then music.

The rest of the week has been pretty quiet, a few closing presentations, tests, harvesting vegetables from our garden. Wednesday I made food for the Thursday Thanks to Family Day, which came out really well. I made quinua, black beans, tomatoes, onions, it was very healthy, and even tasted good. My family didn´t come, as they were working. They had some dance, theater, showed off our world and Ecuador maps. Lots of fun, though I had to eat cake crumbs to be able to get dessert since everything got eaten before I had a chance at the dessert table (no joke).

I also have been doing some exploring around the area, since we have a three day weekend for Independence Day. There is a fantastic valley right near the training center, which I had heard of but never visited until now. Super beautiful, and I walked around it, and in it, took lots of pictures, dodged the biciclers going down the path. So worth it.

Also visited downtown Quito briefly. I saw a bit of a museum, which was okay though stopped at Independence around 1820. Also walked around the city with a couple Peace Corps comrades. Today I will be going to Cumbaya, a rather wealthy suburb of Quito, which I heard is rather nice. We´ll see what that turns out to be like.

So, in the coming week, I will be spending as much time with friends and family as possible (though family is gone so much, my host mom is in Manabi province on the coast now). Tuesday I hope to make a chocolate cake, and my host grandma some cuy (guinea pig). We´ll see if that happens, and they had better not be expecting me to pay for everything...

Wednesday is swearing in. I actually had to sign an oath Thursday, that really made me angry, as it talked about ¨defending the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic¨, and finished up with a ¨so help me God¨. I complained to the country director, Parmer Heacox, he said he didn´t like it either, but it´s Washington´s document, and suggested I write to Obama (in a nice, not condescending way, I actually like Parmer). It violated my Quaker principles, but my training director basically said I sign it or go home, no discussion. Hmmm...

I may be able to write on Saturday from Ventura, but I would very much expect to be writing on Sundays from Bucay when I will be making shopping trips. It will be a little work figuring out how to get everything done when transport is so annoying, but it will be doable.

Oh, by the way, my mail address in my site, as far as I understand, is

Correo Central
Cumandá, Chimborazo
Ecuador

I am not sure how it works, but somehow I will be able to get letters and packages when I go to town in Cumandá. Be really careful about size, they say if it is anything big it gets held up with huge fees, and I might have to go to Guayaquil or even Quito, which would be horrible. So if anyone wants to send medical equipment, or other things, that´s how it will probably work...

So, hopefully there will be some good photos in the next letter, we´ll see how this week goes, a lot will be happening...

Love to all,

Christopher M.



August 7, 2011

Greetings Family Members,

I am now back from my trip to Guayaquil, the main coastal city and Ecuador´s financial capital. Actually, we didn´t spend that much time in Guayaquil itself, since we spent a whole day getting there by bus (10 hours) and the same amount getting back. Total cost of the bus ticket, 9 dollars, not bad, and certainly less than it would be in the states, but rightly so. I took some photos in Los Ríos province, TONS of banana, all run by Dole (I saw signs, but couldn´t manage to get a picture of their insignia, just banana trees and local houses). There is certainly a lot of monoculture going on, making it quite risky if there is a big disease that kills bananas. I think there are various illnesses hitting bananas, and they are having an effect, which is bad as Ecuador is, indeed, a banana republic (biggest world exporter). A lot of really poor houses, as you can see, houses on stilts with really unsafe looking bridges. I´d hate to be disabled and live there, and it can´t be good for the insects...

Guayaquil itself was interesting, though we saw only kind of the central, really touristy area. I got some shots of the central city and the mail mall (Mall del Sol, not Mall del Sur). Lots of money, obviously. We visited the Peace Corps office in Guayaquil, right next to an organization working on HIV AIDS (Fundación VIHDA). We got some talks on how to work with youths on HIV AIDS or related topics, I think some of their presentations were idiotically complicated, but parts of the model are useful.

We gave a couple talks on STDs and HIV AIDS, to teenagers, and they were rather receptive and well-behaved. We were actually able to be fairly explicit in presenting sex-related topics, though they didn´t have us actually demonstrate condom use. The government of Rafael Correa is pretty liberal in these matters, and Peace Corps is trying to recuperate from Bush-era abstinence-only policies. Fortunately, everybody in Peace Corps is really liberal, so we can give relatively complete information (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condoms, with the addition of Choose your partners carefully). We also had to do some interviews about gender roles, pregnancy, and such things. Though there is still some machismo, at least in certain sectors of society, people don´t have problems with women working, studying, and getting a real career. Nice to know, though teenage pregnancy is still universally common, and addressing it will be one of my jobs in Ventura.

So, after doing these talks and interviews in the nearby towns of Colimas and Milagro, we were able to do a little relaxing in Guayaquil. I, a couple other Peace Corps Trainees (Chloe and Alex), and one of our facilitators (David) went out through some parts of Guayaquil to look at parks, the main mall, other areas. We also visited, several times, the Malecón, a big tourist area that reminded me of Larcomar in Lima. It is a riverside area, lots of nice restaruants, statues, parks, quite safe also. While I relaxed a bit with a few other more sedate Americans, most of the otherse went on a Pirate-themed party boat, where for 15 dollars you get a stupid looking pirate costume, and I think unlimited drinks for 2 hours. Needless to say, I got to bed around 11 (late for me, but I´m trying to relate to my fellow trainees), I didn´t know when the others got there, I think around 2am, super-drunk. Oh well, at least there are a few others who didn´t have any interest in drunken partying...

After a week of work, lots of bus rides between cities in Guayas province, and such, we went back to Tumbaco. The house was empty, as usual, when I got there, though I told Martha and Jhon (sic) that I would be back in the evening, oh well. Martha actually told me this morning that they are being evicted from the apartment on the 22nd, shortly after I leave for Cañar. I had actually known about this when I talked with the landlady a week before. Kind of sad, but my host parents don´t seem to be well-liked by the other neighbors. They have their problems, as I can testify by leaving my so much, but I don´t think they are bad people, and I don´t really know why they are being evicted, maybe they are late in paying, I don´t know.

So, what´s happening today is that Jhon and Martha are looking for a new apartment, and I will be hanging around Tumbaco for a while, there is a big event in the main plaza for the 10 September independence day celebration Ecuador will be having. The next day we will hopefully be going out to Quito, though that is dependent on how today goes for their search. After that, I will have to prepare a presentation on our trip to Guayas province, to be done by Monday (a lot of people complained about that). A few final activities until Friday, which is a day off for independence day.

Note, there is a chance I will go to Manabí province to meet my host mother´s family next weekend, which may prevent me from writing during the normal time. Not certain, but I would like to see Manabí and her family, because I doubt I will go on my own later on.

July 30, 2011

Greetings Family,

First, let me apologize for scaring many of you into thinking I would not be able to contact you at all from Cañar. Even though communication from Ventura itself will not be good, I will probably go to the market every Sunday, and can write from the many cafés in Bucay-Cumandá as I get my weekly supplies. As far as physical mail, that may be more complicated, I will try to investigate that a bit further.

Otherwise, I have had a nice week. Sunday I went hiking with Aline, a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, and some of her family. She isn´t very fit, and had a terrible time of it, but she was very tough and kept going no matter how bad she felt. I have to admit I was quite impressed, and the hike was wonderful as well.

Later that day I made a Sun and Snow cake for Martha for her birthday, but she didn´t seem that enthused, in fact I had to have a talk with my host family last night about our drifting apart, I felt that we have been separating ourselves, never talking almost, and never sharing activities. They seemed to listen, and we´ll see what happens.

I also went to Community Action Day at the Peace Corps Training Center. We invited our host families (mine didn´t come), and had lots of tables on tons of different topics, I focused on nutrition, and had a lot of fun explaining portions, and healthy cooking (we had some papaya bread, oatmeal pancakes, healthy sandwiches, and celery-peanut butter-raisin snacks as examples of things people should eat.

I have been having a good time, overall. Next week we visit Guayaquil, where we will be talking a lot about HIV and sexual health. That will be interesting, but fortunately I won´t be alone. I will be there all week aside from 9 hour bus rides Monday and Friday.

After that, there will be only a little bit more time in training in Tumbaco, I think on August 17 we will have swearing in, and then I move to Ventura, Cañar, for my full time, 2 year service. There will be a lot going on soon, but eventually I will have a new routine, as crazy as that sounds.

Much love to everyone,

Christopher M.

July 21, 2011

Greetings Family Members,

This isn´t my normal time for writing, but this Saturday I may be a bit busy, I think my host mom has her birthday that weekend, as well as my host brother Gregory´s leaving for the US party, and I will try to make a Sun and Snow Cake for them, so best to write when I have time, which is now.

So, there are two parts to my image sending today, the first (though I think the email scrambles the order of photos, sorry) is of Quito´s historic district, which I visited and where I had a lot of fun, though I need to go again. I don´t think I sent you these images, sorry if this is a repeat.

The second, of course, corresponds to my recent Site Visit to Cañar, specifically, the village of Ventura.

Ventura is around 7-8 hours south of Quito, in the extreme northwest corner of Cañar province. To get there, I had to take a bus from Quito to Ambato, in Tungurahua province, and from there catch the bus that goes to Guayaquil, and get off in Bucay, which is in Guayas province. When I got there, it was pouring rain, and I called my counterpart, Dr. Carlos Gómez Niebla. After waiting a while, he arrived with some guy on a motorcycle, totally soaked (I had taken shelter under some shop area, and had an umbrella). We got a cab up the mountain to the village, which is about 20-30 minutes up a dirt and rock road that one wouldn´t really think leads to anything off the neaby paved road.

But it indeed leads to my home for the next two years. Ventura has about 1000 people, is a mestizo community with a few Quechua people sprinkled in for good measure. It is rather warm, especially at midday when the sun is out. My host parents are an older couple, Don Bolivar (though it may actually be Aguilar), and Señora Soledad. Their only daughtor, like many of Ventura´s residents, it seems, is in Spain and visits now and then. Bolivar is a very interesting guy, though I didn´t get to speak with him much. He jerry-rigged his own water sistem so he could chlorinate it and make it safer than the town´s water, which is not potable. This does result, however, in not having a toilet that flushes (fill it with water from a barrel until it flushes itself), and the shower is just a nozzel that empties onto the bathroom floor. My room itself actually has it´s own fridge (from the 60s from the look of it), a couple stools, a chair, a bed, eventually a rack with a few hooks for clothes, a little shelf, a TV, and that´s it, no dresser. I have a mosquito net which drapes over my bed, which is kind of cool.

The town itself is, as you can see, rather small. They have a few tiny shops, a town center that supposedly has internet, which didn´t function when I was there, very limited cell coverage, and only two busses that leave during the day. End result is that any communication with the outside world is not that easy, at least not when I was there. The people there are very welcoming, very nice, and seem interested in my ideas for work. Well, the doctor has plenty he wants me to do:

-Learn basic medical measure taking, such as pb, height-weight, blood sugar, basic injection giving, to aid the overwhelmed current team, both in the health subcenter and on their house visits to see disabled patients
-Help in improving the nutrition at the local kindergarden, where there is a current outbreak of malnutrition. Not surprising, seeing as how chicken and white rice is about 70% of the diet around here.
-Give various health talks to people at the school and at homes. Actually, when I get there they will be having a sexual health fair, because women have kids in their early teens here on a regular basis. I met a woman about my age with two kids, no father in sight, I don´t know if she works or what.
-Work with Club de Adultos Mayores (old person´s club) with gardening, health talks, maybe excercise (I have thought of trying Aikido)
-Other gardening projects

Maybe something else I am forgetting. I mentioned, and he thought it would be interesting, to actually study average age of first birth and stuff like that, which in a community like this shouldn´t be too hard to do, and I have to do a bazillion surveys for Peace Corps anyway. I also talked at the school, and they were interested in my working on:

-English, of course. They have a professor, but even she said having a native speaker helping out would be fantasatic
-Chess. The kids came to my board like a magnet, and the directora of the school said they might have money for boards for a chess club
-Maybe Aikido with tihe kids too. I am not that advanced, so it could be counterproductive, but combining moves with the pacifist, respectful philosophy could help the kids, and give them a positive role model and frame of mind, which the directora said they need more of

I may try to show people in general healthier cooking, a bit more diverse in ingredients. I have Doug´s recipes, some on the computer, if anyone has suggestions that would be appreciated, though nothing with crazy ingredients, we are kind of cut off, though the local stores and market at Bucay down the mountain have more products.

Speaking of which, there is no mail there, or in Bucay-Cumandá. My mail will actually come into Guayaquil, 2 hours away or so, which sucks a lot. In other words, don´t send care packages unless it is something I really want, because it will be a real hassle, and time-money investment getting them.

I haven´t gotten really sick yet, though several people did at their sites. One girl whose site was near mine in Cañar actually left when she saw her site, a little two rustic. But I am happy, this is classic Peace Corps, not quite middle of nowhere, but about as close as one can get in a somewhat developed country in this region. I love the small town atmosphere, because it will really help with integration, and everyone was asking ¿te enseñas aquí? (are you getting accostomed to it?). I certainly was, I can call it home, but it will be a different lifestyle, for sure...

But I am home in Tumbaco now, back to the old training routine, which I hope can stay interesting now that I know where I will be.

As far as other people´s sites, some have rather posh circumstances, especially the English teachers. The country director told us today that because their program is new, they want to start them out in favorable circumstances (i.e. developed areas) to give them the best chance of succeeding. Others are in rustic areas like I am. As far as cool place names, the winner has to go to Jipijapa, pronounced hippie-hah-pah, in Manabí province.

So, that is a lot of it. I felt welcome, and in fact it is the very best Peace Corps could have offered me in the world, I am not joking. I probably got the best place of anyone, at least for my needs. If I am around the doctor as much as I think I will be, I will have an utterly invincible med school application.

By the way, for no real reason I requested my final transcript, and I was ranked 7 out of about 1208 students in the UVM graduating class. Not bad.

In the next few days I may try to call you guys, so be ready...

Much love to all (especially all you with birthdays around now, I must mention),

Christopher M.


July 13, 2011

Greetings,

I won´t be able to write too much, but I wanted to let you know that for the past week more or less I have been in Ventura, in Cañar province, which is fairly close to the center of the country. Ventura, for those who are curious, is a rural community of about 1000 near the intersection of Cañar, Guayas, Chimborazo, Los Ríos, and Bolívar provinces. I literally cross borders to get from my site in Ventura, which is in Cañar, to the amalgamated cities (adjacent) of Bucay-Cumandá, which are in Guayas, and Chimborazo is right there too.

I am working in a Health Sub-Center, as people say here. My boss-counterpart is Dr. Carlos Gómez Niebla, a very nice person who has a lot of cool projects for me to work on. First thing will be nailing down my taking pulse and blood pressure, giving basic injections, and taking blood sugar counts. I will also be helping with house visits that they make, I saw one with a boy who had almost no control over his body and had limited mental function, very sad, but good experience.

So, in short, I am getting a classic Peace Corps experience, with doctors thrown in the mix! It is everything I could wish for.

I will be writing more thoroughly in the coming days, but this is my first opportunity to communicate with you since I found out my site, so I wanted to make sure you knew what was going on.

Much love,

Christopher M.