These past few weeks have been full of goodbye parties, dealing with nonsense at work and feeling rising pressure for this upcoming transition period in my life. I have been procrastinating in my job hunt only responding to four offers so far yielding nothing so far. If I don’t get my act together soon I might find myself out of a job until september. That said I would not waste my time lamenting myself but rather take advantage of this “free” time to go back to europe for a much needed friends & family visit. My good non peace corps gringo buddy who got married with an ecuadorian girl went back to the States and I got to see him quite a lot his last week here. We had some good times together but did not see each other that much over the past two years especially while I was living in Lita and he suddenly got married. With my mounting frustration with the Awá Federation office I took the freedom to go with my buddy to the Peguche waterfalls next to Otavalo and making a late appearance at work. He wanted to go fishing to the San Marco lake but we were too underprepared for that so we opted for the easy close-by excursion. I had never been to Peguche and was impressed by the site which has been well developed for tourism without hindering its intergrity.
Later that week was my omnibus 99 north squad despedida party and welcome of the 103 group. Perhaps I had a bit too much fun there as I got emotional to see so many great friends together at once. Some of the new volunteers must think I’m a bit eccentric and will probably blame it on my frenchness. My good sicilian friend Mauro showed up at that party which contributed to my european side to reveal itself more. I felt bad for the party hosts who are quite formal and politically correct. It was a great night however and I apologized to the few people I might have offended the next day…no harm done. The following week I made it clear that I would no longer support the Federation with any proposal writing. The natural resources coordinator asked me to help her but I told her I was busy designing a new brochure for Awá handicrafts. They let me down during the USAID proposal writing which clearly demotivates me to continue supporting them. It might sound immature or even unprofessional but with my imminent close of service they need to get used to not having me around.
Then semana santa came along so I visited my ecuadorian family in Tabacundo for a couple days helping them out on the farm. Edwin confirmed that he would come to Baboso with me end of april for my last day of work with the Awá and in Ecuador for that matter. Many other friends are coming which should make it an amazing although eclectic minga. After that quick visit to Tabacundo me and Mauro went to Guayaquil and the southern coast. I had never been there in my 26 months living in Ecuador and it would have been a shame to leave the country withouy checking out its most important city. I only stayed two days there and one on the beach but it gave me a good feel for the place whcih is radically different from the rest of Ecuadorian cities. Guayaquil is very neo-liberal and commercial. Surely it os the most important harbor of the country so it has access to many more products that other areas. The most strinking aspect of the city is the super expensive work of the art malecon that they inaugurated in 2000. This project cost over $100 million. Many parts of the city still don’t have roads or clean water and it seems odd that they would invest all this money to give the false image of prosperity.
The people love it though. They might have lousy schools and hospital and very dangerous barrios. The malecon is the pride of the city. Mauro had several local friends so we got a chance to discuss different issues regarding the city and how they only seem to invest in the rich minority. The girls we were with were obvious beneficiaries of the local political system and praised the mayor for his work. I wish I had more time to visit the real Guayaquil but it is a very dangerous city and you have to know where you are going. The beach was beautiful and extremely relaxing. It wasn’t as busy as I feared mainly because the new school year was about to start which forced coastal families to save money. I was looking forward to a tranquilo time in the sun and I got what I was looking for. In two weeks my Peace Corps service officially ends so I am wrapping up everything I need to do before then. A lot of paperwork is waiting for me in Quito and I want it to go as smootly as possible.
