The new place...

So, I'm now at HOME, finally (well, right NOW, I'm 40 minutes from home in the nearest internet cafe, but that's besides the point). Licto isn't Chicago, but it's my home for the next 24 months. What did I get as a welcome gift when I got there? A whole butt-ton of ash all over my patio, in my bedrooms, and in every crevice of Licto. Overall I've spent over 10 hours sweeping it all up and I'm still not fully done since every time you sweep it up, it gets into the air and settles an hour later. Here are some cleanup pictures and some (nearly) finished product pictures. Enjoy!

My tribute to Tungurahua (T-RAHUA, if you can't read it) written on a mound of volcanic ash cleaned up on my patio (and this picture was taken after I had cleaned up only about a third of the ash on my patio)

Just showing how much ash got inside, even with the door and windows closed. I'm glad I was out of town when it was falling.

The dust on an outdoor surface (even after a day of heavy rain)

The dust I gathered from one of the rooms in my house...yes, that was all INSIDE MY HOUSE.

My bedroom, safe haven. Love it. The bull-fighting poster just happened to be left in Chambo by an old volunteer, ROCK! Most of my furniture also came from that same volunteer.

My kitchen. (Where's the sink?...well, I'm working on it. See the bucket in the bottom left?)

Keep on Keeping on, kids.

Home, Sweet, Home

So, as a brief update, I'm doing really well and I'm really excited to be moved into my new house (and slowly getting it up to code), but I'm not really feeling the internet thing right now, especially since I'm still lacking some integral items in my house such as a sink, fridge, and puppy. But, for now I just didn't want anyone to think I was dead in the Ecuadorian Sierra or anything. Now that I'm actually settled into my place, I figured I would reaffirm what I suspected earlier: My house has lots of space in it and would be perfectly open for visits from friends and family (and it's not too terribly far from Quito), so just keep it in mind. Talk to you all soon!
Ryan

PS - One of my best friends, Jason Lathers, got engaged recently! It's weird to have your friends get married, but I'm still excited for him. God bless you guys, Jason and Amy!
PPS - If any of you have been leaving comments on here, I think the option got turned off at some point or something, so it's probably better just to email for now.

Volcano

So, I'm now sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer (henceforth "PCV"), and I've also got good news to share. My site hasn't been too affected by the volcano and I'll be moving my stuff down to Licto either Saturday or Sunday (26 or 27). I'm thinking it's probably not a good idea to give out my address and/or phone number on the internet, but I sent it out to many of you and you're welcome to email and ask me for it if you'd like it. Take care!

Tungarahua Kaboom!

So, a few of you have been asking "Is that volcano that is erupting near you?"
Well, the answer is yes and no. I'm nowhere near it right now, no big deal. On the other hand, my site where I'll be living for the next two years is sort of near it...not in the danger zone, but there's definitely going to be some ash falling on the city for a while.
As far as I know, I'm still moving into my site on the 26th of August, but there have been rumors that I'll be holed up in Quito for a while until this blows over...apparently the black lung or whatever you get from volcanic ash isn't something that the Peace Corps likes to promote, especially since any health problems I get as a result of my service is paid for by them for the rest of my life.
So that's that, I just wanted to let you all know in case you were wondering. We'll see when I get more pictures up from my trip to the jungle...things are getting busy here as I prepare to move all my stuff down to Quito and then to Riobamba and then to Licto.
Thanks for caring and keep reading, maybe one of these days I'll post something on here that's actually interesting, like a haiku or a limerick.
(PS - I didn't take this picture since I haven't been in my site since the volcano has been erupting. I do hope maybe I'll be able to get some cool volcano pictures before I leave the country, though.)

Mascarilla, Ibarra, Cuicocha, oh my!

Last week we took a couple day trips for 'work.' One was to an Afro-Ecuadorian village where a group of women in the village have done an awesome 'cultural revitalization' project that we checked out. That afternoon we visited a youth group where we were treated to a showing of indigenous dances. Lastly, we went to Lake Cuicocha on Friday. Overall, a fun week, but a lot of walking.

Here's Cuicocha (Kichwa for Lake of Guinea Pigs).
Me, with some flowers in my hair

Again, in front of the lake, this time without flowers in my hair

A rest spot looing over the lake

Steve and Tyson looking tough...or weird

Beautiful view, really blue water

The CEMOPLAF youth group doing some San Juanito dancesMore traditional dances
Imbabura, a big, big volcano

An indigenous youth working on some artisanry

More dancing...

Little kids in Mascarilla

Safe and Sound

So yeah, I'm back from an amazing trip to Mindo, which is considered a "cloud forest." For now I'm having technical difficulties with my photo webpage, so I'm just going to go with a brief summary and maybe try and get like one photo up if possible. Anyways, the cloud forest is basically a semi-jungle. They have hundreds and hundreds of species of bird, tons of butterflies, lots of frogs and other jungle stuff. We got to jump off of some fun waterfalls, float around in rivers, sleep under mosquito nets, and other cool jungle stuff. If any of you come visit, you'll more than likely get to visit this place because they have so much awesome toursit stuff to do like rafting, waterfalls, butterfly and frog farms, rock climbing, rappelling, caving, all sorts of stuff that would be awesome to do (and it's only like 3 hours from Quito!). Anyways, I hope to have time in the next couple days to both put up pictures from some day trips last week and my pictures from Mindo. As I may have mentioned earlier, if you have a snapfish account (or create a free one), you can check my photos out on my Snapfish page at http://www1.snapfish.com/photolibrary/t_=57339740 (my user name is mooreporfavor@gmail.com)

Here's a really cool-looking bridge in the jungle that we crossed to get to some waterfalls.

Some friends crossing the bridge.

More rocking pictures to come...Stay tuned. And drop me a comment or something so I know I'm not making this whole webpage just for my mom and my granndma! (Hi Mom and Gram!!)

Quality Time w/ the Familia

So, one of the big news last week in the house was that our one male pig (they generally keep one male for every 12 females) had hung itself. Rather, it fell the wrong way and couldn't get up and suffocted from the rope around its neck. Anyways, this is me cutting up the pig flesh for selling.

My little "nephew," Jordi, being a stud.

Jordi wearing a babushka that they put on him for laughs.

Jordi looking ghetto

My sister Eva, my sister Doris, my sister-in-law, my nephew

Doris and Jordi goofing around

Pets, Pets, Pets

Well, I've been using my camera a lot lately taking it all over the place (even thought the integral "down" button is now broken). Here's a quick review or some pets I've been taking pictures of this week:

Three newborn kittens. At about 15 days old, we don't know which are males which are females but they are already calling the non-black one 'Garfield'

Garfield is the most playful of the three. If he's a male I may just have to bring him down to Licto with me... (Just to clear up any confusion, that wasn't a sexist remark, I just don't want to end up with a knocked up cat and having to find something to do with a litter or kittens)

Cute kitten picture

My brother Leo's dogs (he doesn't live in the house, and in fact the military just moved him away from his wife and soon-to-be-born child, so he's not going to be around much anymore). Their names are Toby and Soldadito (little soldier)

Soldadito is wonderfully cute...

Sorry about the messed up link thing again...dumb technology...

Family and friends

Make sure you check out the entry below this one with the photos of my new house, but I figured I'd also put up a couple random ones. First is a picture of the lucky ones of us that have been selected for the privilege of learning not only ONE foreign language (Spanish) but TWO (I'm learning Kichwa de la Sierra along with most of the people in the picture, one girl is learning Kichwa del Oriente, and one guy is learning Shuar.) The guy in the striped shirt was my professor, the guy in blue was the Oriente professor and the woman in red was the Shuar professor.
My family (Me, Doris, Eva, Leo, and his wife Ana)

This Old House

So, the moment you've all been waiting for has finally arrived. Well, it's more the moment I was waiting for, but that's beside the point. I went down for a 'site visit' for a week and was able to spend the week living what will be my house for the next two years. Unfortunately, the downside to this is that the house was TOTALLY empty when I arrived and had to buy even really basic stuff like disinfectant, soap, a hose, a pillow, etc. (Many things remain to be bought or built such as a mattress, stovetop, sink/countertop, and more.)

We'll start slow and build up to the best pictures...

A view of a small indigenous community I will be working in from time to time. My community is much more developed (at least WE have TWO paved roads in my community...that's luxury if I've ever seen it).

Another picture of the same area where I'll work from time to time. The people in the community, called Pompeya, gave me an awesome welcome. There were about 90 kids out in the town waiting for me and about 20 parents. They cooked a big plate of potatoes, choclo (sort of like corn), cheese, and a whole half of a cuy...aka a guinea pig. Much better than the first time I tried cuy, so I was pleased. Anyways, it was good to know they were excited for me to be there. Most of the people in Licto where I live don't even know that I'm there.

Lighting up my cigar on my patio...nothing like a Cohiba cigar on a cool sierra night.

With a cigar, a tripod, a camera, and a little bit of boredom, here's what happens...
My bedroom, or at least one of the two bedrooms, and the only furnishings: a bed frame and a straw mat.

The entryway to my house

The old part of the house, which is abandoned and pretty freaking creepy. If the cobwebs didn't do the trick, the open, half-empty bottle of rum certainly adds to the effect.

My bedroom on the left, the living room-ish room, and a hill in the background...I want to name the two hills behind my house...any suggestions?

My shower...I think I'm going to spend the extra $$ and lay some tile in the shower-room.

The bathroom. The sink and toilet are new, so I'm thinking this bathroom would like great with a new coat of paint maybe some tile in here, too (although, the shower will take precedent in terms of $$).

So, that's the grand tour, hope you like it. It's not exactly a sight for sore eyes, but it's my house and I'm excited about it. So, you're all welcome to come visit me and we'll have a grand old time. Just remember that it's will "Under Construction" and will be much cleaner and nicer by the time you get here. If any of you have ever been in my bedroom at home, you'll trust that I'm actually going to clean this place up. This old house in MY NEW HOUSE!!! Rock.

Site Visit

I'm going to keep this brief, but I wanted to make sure you all knew I wasn't dead or anything. I am in the middle of a visit down to my site outside Riobamba for the week. I've been living in my future house, and let me tell you, it's awesome. I've got 2 bedrooms, a living room, and a huge 25 ft by 25 ft patio. Aka, the whole house is mine. Which translates to this: I'm buying a dog. I think I'd go bonkers in this huge house by myself for 2 years with no one else living there. Soon enough I'll get photos and hopefully I'll get dog photos within a month or two. For now, I'm signing off. Take care!