Born to Capacitar

Capacitar is to train or give capacity to in Spanish and an example of a word that seems like it should be a cognate but really isn’t. Often, you will here volunteers says: We had a capacitation, or I was capacitating. It sounds possibly violent but really just means to train or training. I use it in the title because I absolutely love training. I love sharing what I know with others and motivating them to love everything too!

The Natural Resource Conservation Training Team

Two weeks of pre-service training have flown by. Jay, Mo, Susan I are sharing an amble apartment in Ayora, a small community outside of Cayambe. Ayora is really tranquil and the people are really nice, it has a view of Volcan Cayambe and is surrounding by farms and close to the Panamerican Highway. There is an internet place, a mini-market and one little pizza place. The Women’s Association of Ayora has a meeting house that we use as the training center. It’s really nice being in a small town again after my short time in Quito. Also, this is the first time that I am living without an Ecuadorian host family. It’s the first time in my life living abroad without a host family and I love it. We all get along great, prepare delicious meals and are really a super training team.

At the training center the trainees receive all of their technical, health and safety sessions. The language and cultural components of training take place within the training communities. We currently have trainees in groups of 4 or 5 in 10 communities around Cayambe. The trainees were divided up based on their language skills and spend 2 – 3 days a week in language/culture classes with their language facilitator. It’s so fun to talk to the trainees and help them deal with this experience and remember back to my days in Paquiestancia, my training community. It’s especially fun because Mo and I were both in Paquiestancia and we reminisce about the days when I would ask Mo to talk for me. Her Spanish was so much better than mine and even I would be timid sometimes. Now, they can’t shut me up!

The nice thing about being out of the city again is the easy access to nature. Last weekend Mo and I walked for 2.5 hours up hills and around to another town called Olmedo. We could see the farm and greenhouse spotted valley below us and Volcan Cayambe loomed above the mountains. We passed fields of wheat, cows, old indigenous ladies and little kids. It was so beautiful. Then yesterday we spent the day walking through the fields around Ayora and playing Frisbee.

This Saturday all the language facilitators took their groups of trainees to various cultural spots near Cayambe. Mo, Jay, Susan and I all accompanied a group on their trip. I had the chance to go up to Ibarra. I actually have spent a good amount of time in Ibarra but have only gone to party and hang out. For example, I went there for the superbowl, caranval and a friend’s going away party. I jumped at the opportunity to go to Ibarra as more of a tourist. Ibarra is an awesome city, it’s clean and pretty and tranquil. Turns out it also has some Inca ruins and a cool museum for the Caranqui people, the ancient culture that occupied the Northern part of the sierra before the Incas conquered them. There is a beautiful lake nearby called Yaguarcacha, which stands for blood lake in Quichiwa (aka Kichwa, Quichwa). It is apparently the site of the battle between the Caranqui people and the Incas. The Incas were victorious and beheaded their enemies, leaving their bodies in the lake which consequently turned a deep red, hence the name.

Some Inca Ruins - Not that impressive but the histroy sure is...

The cultural trip started with a visit to the museum and unremarkable Inca ruins (90% were destroyed so only a small part of a rock wall has been excavated, Archeologists were actually at the site when we visited). Afterwards we jumped on a city bus and headed into the hills surrounding Ibarra. The scenery quickly changed from paved roads and city buildings to the campo. Roberto, a currently Youth and Families volunteer that lives in Ibarra and is awesome set up a lunch for the trainees at a woman’s home. We got to the small dwelling and waited for lunch to be served. I made friends with the little kids and was happily enjoying being back the campo.

Sebastion wandering around with a machete, little boy guitar playing and kids in trees.... Then, Roberto told me that one of the little kids had fallen and was in bed crying. I went into the empty home and kneeled down by the bed. The little kid was miserable and his right arm was swollen. A little 3 month old baby was pantless beside him, baby sounds squeeked out of the little one and seemed to comfort the older brother. He held the baby girls hand when I squatted down . I talked quietly to the kid and started to calm him down. The boy´s grandmother sat beside the boy. She couldn’t speak and artfully acted out the fall the boy had taken. The grandmother only spoke Quichiwa before she lost her ability to really speak at all according to Pamela, the older sister of the boy. The grandmother didn´t understand my Spanish so we communicated non-verbally. Then, once she understood the old grandmother left and came in with a little tin of menthol. The boy screamed that he didn´t want the older woman to touch him. She handed me the menthol and shyly she sat by me as I messaged the swollen arm. I had taken her role a bit and at first felt awkward with the older woman peering over me, she seemed to approve though and lovingly comforted the boy. The mother showed up with a stained old ace bandage that I used to lightly wrap the boys arm. I wiped away his tears and kissed his forehead. I whispered that he was fine. The boy remained really calm and even devoured an ear of corn. The mother urged me to eat and shoed me over to the trainees. The trainees were enthusiastically chowing down on guinea pig, potatoes and corn.
Delicious Cuye (guinea pig!)

It was really a cultural experience for the trainees and for me. After serving my whole time on the coast I hadn´t had many highland small town experiences apart from training. The communal style of eating was really special and the guinea pig was delicious. A bucket of juice was passed around with one cup. We all happily ate with our hands and tossed potatoes around the circle. Afterwards we thanked the women who prepared the food and danced around to the highland music. I found myself with the little kids again, taking pictures, throwing them in the air and climbing a tree. The most outgoing of the group, Justin probably age 3, really took aliking to me and begged me not to leave, to stay and play. We took a picture together and then he offered me his bird stuffed animal as a token of rememberance. The language facilitator Pablo was in aw of the situation pointing out “The poor always seem so willing to share what little they have, while the richest guard their belongings behind gates and alarms”. I never knew Pablo to be a philosopher but the moment was the kind that could move anyone to think beyond the material world. The stuffed animal, named appropriately Justin, rests happily on my nightstand next to many other important tokens of rememberance.

Me and Justin... before the bird stuffed animal token of remembering exchangeAfter a short bus ride we were plopped back in the city. We ate the traditional ice cream of Ibarra known as Helado de Paila. The cream is placed in a copper dish that rests on salted ice on top of hay. The ice cream is churned by hand using a big wooden spoon and the result is delicious. We all relaxed in the shade of a big tree in one of the many manicured parks in Ibarra, enjoying our icecream.But, the adventure wasn’t quite over.

Before boarding the bus, the facilitators took us to watch Pelota Nacional or National Ball. Apparently Pelota Nacional is the official sport of Ecuador, yet, I had gone two years without ever seeing it played. We suspiciously wandered out of the main part of the city and found the Pelota Nacional fields. A group of old men, smoking cigarettes and gossiping were watching the sport. At first appearance the sport seems silly. The two teams stand on opposite sides of a long and skinny dirt field. The players have these big paddles that have heavy foam cones on them. The object of the game is to hit the heavy rubber ball back and forth, allowing just one bounce. The team that wins slowly moves down the field for a certain distance to win the set. Sides are switched, like in Tennis and the game continues. Apparently a game can last hours. The old men explained the rules and claimed that women dont play because it is too brutal. I doubted the brutality of the sport and pointed out that two of the men on the field were even smoking cigarettes. The old men dared me to give it a try and explained that the brutness of the sport comes from the difficulty to manage the heavy paddles. The next thing we all knew, Kevin, the other language facilitator had a bunch of paddles and one of the heavy rubber balls. The men sent us to the middle court, in front of everyone and watched as we struggled.

I consider myself pretty athletic and at first swing found myself spinning in a full circle from the weight of the paddle, I wiffed horribly. The trainees tried, they also wiffed horribly. Little by little we started to make contact with the ball; I think we even completed two volleys, back and forth. We walked away from the court with big smiles and sore wrists. Apparently on April 28^th, there is a huge tournament during the fiestas of Ibarra and I am determined to spend the day with the oldies, shouting at the players and smoking cigars. We”ll see.

On the way home I got off in Otavalo to get dinner and some beers with Jay and Mo. We sat outside and watched as the men carried huge loads of textiles on their backs to storage until the following weekend. Otavalo has the biggest market in all of S. America and is known for the bright textiles, sweaters, hammocks, blankets and more. We wondered if the men would accept a hand cart in place of the forehead straps that we customary. Mo asked me why it seemed that I always had the best day of my life no matter what I do and I responded “It´s because I just jump right in a love it”. The strategy has proven to work for two years and I am doing by best to capacitar the trainees to do the same.