Gualleturo, A Look Into My New Life in Little America

So… I traveled to my permanent site on the evening of 19 July to scope it out for a few days and I had no idea what to expect.  From the volunteer request form it seemed that I would be working in an ultra rural town that lacked sanitation and had a tremendous problem with diabetes.  During the site presentations I was only given a picture of what seemed to be an unimpressive creek.

I arrived in the town of Cañar at 06:00 on 20 July dead broke and sleepy.  I literally had 91 centavitos in my pocket and had to borrow money for my journey because there was a slight error in the Peace Corps wiring-money-into-my-bank-account.  And it was my birthday, it was strange not being amongst all of my closest friends…

I was picked up by my counterpart (she is a very jovial, fun and impressive RN named Eulalia) and we began our journey into the mountains to the town of Gualleturo.   It takes 2 hours to get there on a very bumpy dirt road, but the views are astounding.

One view that I did not find impressive was a dump truck unloading garbage down the side of the cliff, falling thousands of meters into the river at the base.  I also found out that the sewage lines of the town also run into the river…

The town itself is definitely not what I expected, in a good way.  Overall everything is nice and neat, prim and proper.  The houses are large and impressive and the people are INCREDIBLE.  They are very excited that an extranjero will be living with them for a couple of years to help spread education about health.  Many people mistook me for a doctor though and kept asking me to cure them of their ailments… Also, I would say that the majority of the men in my community have worked in the United States for an average of about 7 years, hence the nice houses and Western wear.   This was another thing that I found odd, but it makes sense….There isn’t any work in the middle-of-nowhere mountains of Ecuador.

Anyway, my new host family is very nice and my father (Don Ariolfo) sports a nice curly moustache, reminded me of my good buddy Abe Metz.  Actually most of the men sport impressive moustaches (one man near my house even has a little Hitler ‘stache).  It saddens me that  Iwill never be able to join the crew of moustachioed men.

Also the town’s dress is very professional.  Slacks and button down shirts are the norm for most.  I felt like a street urchen on my stay there.  During the first couple of hours I slipped and slided in my cowboy boots and done dirtied my only pair of slacks.   I had to switch to jeans, this made me feel really akward when the community invited me to march in their parade celebrating the 30th anniversary of their Colegio.  I was literally marching alongside all of the Dons in the second row (the políticos, director and ex-director and special visitors from Quito were in the front with the reinas of the community leading).  And I was dressed in jeans, a polo shirt and a leather jacket with unkempt hair (because the shower was way too damn cold that morning) while the Dons and important people were all wearing nice suits…

How the hell did I integrate so easily?  My father introduced me to all of the Dons and I told them it was my birthday when they asked me how old I was and my easy-going attitude set well with them and of course they took me out for a couple of copitas.  Relationships stemmed from there, I even went on a little road trip with Don Florencio to pick up his grandson who arrived from New York.  I helped out Doña Orfa move her milk cows FAR up in the mountains and in turn she fed me lunch and some homemade tamales and told me to come back whenever I am hungry.   I will definitely be back often.

Que más, I also discovered a little hidden problem in the community during my short stay.  Like every community, not everything is as good as it appears.  I was waiting in the Escuela to attend a meeting my second day in town and the kids were at play durante receso.  One little jóvencito got his finger stuck in the crack of a door while his buddy was trying to shut it.  The little guy’s finger was broken, bleeding and the bone was showing through.  The nurse took care of it, but while she was attending a professor stomped up to one of the door-slammers and proceeded to kick him.  The blow landed on the knee and displaced it, this happened of course while all of the little children were watching, the child was kicked was about 6 years old…  The child and the father left for the capitol of Cañar the next day to show the director of the Ecuadorian schools and to file a denuncia.  The profesor should be out of a job and ousted from the community soon.

What this means is that I will now be working in the topic of domestic violence, which I of course know nothing about.  Other topics that I will be teaching about are nutrition, how to prepare the foods, higiene, sexual education, and much much more…

I have my work cut out for me for the next two years.  Not only do I have to work in Gualleturo but there are alos 12 other communities surrounding Gualleturo (some are VERY far) in which I will spread the good word.  I see the usage of a horse in the very near future…

Cowboy Mitch signing out,