The first eight days - Installment Uno

I cannot believe that we only arrived here 8 days ago, so much has happened it feels like we've been here for months which I take to be a good sign.....but here's a summary of the life and times of Liv, AKA Bolivia, AKA Popeye's wife Olive (as some of the kids in the Sectores have taken to calling me)... But here's a quick (haha quick, succinct – me, never!) summary both to fill you guys in and to ensure I don't forget!

Day 1
Monday 27th September
We arrived at silly o'clock in the morning, well I suppose not that silly as by the time we'd got through a mental and not very organised queue for customs in which eight lanes of heavily laden airport trolleys were reduced in a bottleneck to two in which everyone was pushing and arguing to ensure that their luggage got through the scanner machine (I must say that at this point my ingrained English politeness and extreme tiredness from 20 hours travel without any sleep did not help my ability to fight my way to the front to present my luggage in an assertive way to the airport senora who was bravely dealing with feisty Ecuadorians wanting to escape the airport bureaucracy after a long flight) and waiting in another long queue for the passport control, it was already 8am by the time we actually got out into the real world. Karen, an English volunteer for Juconi (www.Juconi.org.ec), who I've since claimed as my current Guru(!) was there to meet us and get us to our flat - the place that will be our home for the next 6 months, well that is unless Juconi folds.....more about that later. Helen, the other Charlotte Miller Art Project (www.cmap.org.uk) Club de Arte volunteer, and I drew straws on which bedroom to have in our new home. I got the smaller one with no curtains and no bed....oh dear! However, after some quick furniture reorganisation we moved an array of mattresses from what was soon to become my bedroom into the lounge, and reestablished the bedframe in my room. Then, after a quick raid of the supplies in her wardrobe, Helen found some pieces of fabric and hung them on some string and eh voila - I had curtains. Then i spent a while with my compass trying desperately to find a direction in which I could put my bed that would be good from a Feng Shui perspective...I failed! Realising it was already 10am and that we'd arranged with Karen that she'd come back at 1pm, despite feeling kind of manic and like I needed to unpack, organise etc, I decided it was time to try and rest. I conked out with no sheets in my clothes and only woke up at 12.55 because I'd remembered to set my alarm.

Karen took us to find some food and to start to give us a bit of an induction into the life of Guayaquil, Ecuador and Juconi as well as orientating us with where our nearest metrovilla stop is (like a fast bus that has it's own lane in the roads....so sort of a cross between a tube and a tram i suppose). We jumped on the metrovilla two stops North to the stop closest to her house and also closest to the supermarkets and malls where we got keys cut and had a look round the supermarket. I think our faces must have been a picture because neither of us could fathom having to go shopping in our respective states of disorientation and sleep deprivation so Karen safely escorted us out, telling us to ensure we took money out of the banks in the malls cuz there are security guards there but robberies are prevalent at ATMs in the city. We'd both been advised, and Karen reiterated, how dangerous Guayaquil is so it was good to have this sort of advice.

After a brief sojourn to Karen's lovely casa in a quieter and seemingly more relaxed neighbourhood than ours with some trees and more wildlife where we sat on the balcony chatting and getting the lowdown and took turns to let people know we were safe using her internet connection, Helen and I independently jumped on the metrovilla back to nuestra casa (our house) for an early night in preparation for the first day in the Juconi office starting a punto (on the dot) at 8.30am the next day.

Day 2
Tuesday 28th September 2010
We met Karen at our Metrovilla stop for the journey to the office. We were not, however, a punto (on the dot) as although Helen's an early bird who doesn't like being late, those of you who know me will know that me and early are rarely used in the same sentence, especially not in the morning! So after stressing Helen out a bit because I was running late and disorganised, we got to the Metrovilla stop un poco tarde (a bit late). Oh and just to fill you in.... even getting to the metrovilla from our house is a bit like running the gauntlet. We have to cross a main road at an intersection. We are trying to get to the middle of the road, where there's a raised section, sort of like a pavement but not, where we and lots of other people are walking in our respective directions generally in single file as there's not quite enough room to walk side by side. However, to get there we have to get across the traffic which is not stopping for anyone and where we cross there is also an intersection where cars are speeding off to join the flyover going the other way....Ah the fun and games of a non-pedestrian friendly society where the driving is pretty mental to be honest! Helen doesn't yet trust my road crossing ability and is much more likely to be seen taking a lead from the Ecuadorian people who are waiting to cross the road than the crazy chica Inglesa who's been schooled in the dodgy road crossing customs of London and Manchester! I wonder why she doesn't trust me...humm ;-)

So, the long and short is that Karen meets us and accompanies us the two stops to one of the Metrovilla stops closest to Juconi and then we get to the office. Karen introduced us to everyone and we start to discuss and organise with karen all the work admin that we need to sort out - budgets for us to live off as none of this got clarified before we left, what the arrangements will be for getting our money (let's just say short and sweet like getting a payment direct to your account every month it will not be in Ecuador!), the budget for Club de Arte, how to get hold of the equipment that belongs to CMAP/Club de Arte....etc etc. We know we're in for our first team meeting at 10am when we'll meet the rest of the team and start to see how things work in Juconi and how our work will fit in but when it starts early it's a bit of a shock as most things Latin American are normally tarde (late) a bit like the "soon come" of Jamaica, lots of stuff is manana manana! However, nothing really prepares me for the shock of having a 2 and a half hour team meeting in Spanish which was pretty god damn hardcore to be honest. Helen and i were put on the spot and asked to introduce ourselves a bit which we do but don't ask me what on earth I said and Yessenia (more to come later) asked Karen how come our Spanish was so much better than hers when she arrived! (Karen and the previous Club de Arte volunteers, Andy and Lone didn’t have so much Spanish on arrival but one of the reasons that H&I  were offered this fully funded placement is because we had a reasonable level of Spanish already and would be able to start Club de Arte immediately as there’s already been a gap since the previous volunteers left.

The meeting only got more full on....the fact that they were discussing the future of Juconi and Yessenia who is pretty assertive and doesn't take any prisoners was apparently encouraging everyone to face up to the elephant in the room (although perhaps not using that metaphor!), i.e. the fact that if Juconi ceases to exist they need to start putting exit strategies into place now with the familiies that they work with in the sectores, meant it was all very tense. However, due to my tiredness, my headache and the whole meeting been in fast Ecuadorian Spanish in which many of the words are cut, I missed a lot of the discussion and had to be filled in after by Helen and Karen. Helen's comprehension is much better than mine as I was getting words but not getting the context and totally missing the point, something i did a lot of working at the Latin American Elderly Project when in London but the fact that apparently my speaking is OK means that people think that they can just chat really quickly at me....like I said, apparently my speaking's OK - I'm not so sure! Later there was a discussion about the camp that they'd had with the younger kids a week or so before and again due to missing most of the language I kept zoning out. In fact, at one point I was feeling my eyes closing and needed some matchsticks to keep them open. It's amazing how listening to a language that you don't understand much of can be so soothing, it sort of lulls you to sleep - eek!

So after the baptism of fire style team meeting we had our second Ecuadorian lunch!  It was like fried eggs with a peanutey sauce and rice (arroz – rice, always rice with everything!) plus Verdes (literally Greens) which is the name for non-fried plaintains I think. It sounds foul and don't ask me what it was called but I liked it! And you know when in Guayaquil you've got to do as the Guayaquilenos do and all that (although I'm sure if you asked my tummy and my head they wouldn't agree as my stomach is still adjusting to the strange food, climate and weird tasting water and hasn’t been a happy bunny in the slightest!)!

And on that note I'm going to end the first installment of an update our first eight days - I haven't even got to the sectores or the attempted coup yet - i'm only up to last Tuesday but more of that to come! I'm off to bed in my womblike bedroom; womblike in that it's so dark with the almost blackout material across the windows but bloody noisy all night long... dogs barking, wind whistling (to listen now to the rooves (plural of roof?! I think I’m losing the ability to speak English!) and windows banging, rattling and house creaking, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were in England on a stormy winter's day, and it seems to be like this every evening. Come 7 or 8pm the wind just picks up and gets stronger and stronger and as we're on the top floor of a four floor house we get a serious battering!) So with the dogs barking and whining (I'd been moaning if I had no garden, never got walked, got no attention and had no outside space to play in!), TVs blaring, cars screetching, police sirens, music playing, people shouting and the constant whistling battering wind, suffice to say hay mucho ruido por aqui todos las noches - there's lots of noise around here in the nights! So I stuff my earplugs deeper into my ear canals until they become implanted in my brain and then wonder why I sleep through all (3!) of my alarms every morning. Gracias a dios - thank God, Helen checks with a loud shout (because apparently i never respond to a knock on the door!) that I'm up.... So I'm off to bed, ready for another manana and another day in the Sectores tomorrow!

Hasta pronto, Liv x