Fish For Breakfast and Other Fun Surprises

Welcome poster ft. the largest guanábana I've ever seen

This past week I went on a cultural trip to the coast and also had the opportunity to visit some current Peace Corps volunteers in Guayaquil! Overall, it was a great trip and a little glimpse of what life might be like as a volunteer after training. For the first couple days we stayed with host families in a small beach town/fishing village called Anconcito. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling great on the way down. After 11 hours on buses we finally got to something like a town hall where we met the families we would be staying with. As soon as I got out of the bus I threw up in the parking lot (classic!!) and was then introduced to my host mom as the one who was sick. I felt much better the next day and luckily had succeeded in convincing my family that they didn't need to call the doctor to the house!! Even though I thought this seemed a little extreme, they were such kind and caring people and would have done anything they could to help me (like forbid me from putting hot sauce on my food the next night.) 

Sitting, waiting, wishing for pillows... 

My friend Melissa and I stayed together with the same family in Anconcito and we had quite an adventure... We didn't have any pillows on our beds but we had the best WIFI we've had yet in Ecuador which wasn't a bad trade-off!! On our second, and last night our family tried to get shrimp for dinner, but they weren't able to. They told us we would have shrimp and fish the next day, and because we were leaving at 9 AM the next morning we just assumed we would be having a large seafood breakfast... But later on we found out that they thought we were staying for the entire week. A soon as I told our host mom (around 10PM) that we were leaving the next morning, she told us we were going to go next door to meet her cousin. I already had on my pajamas and we set out for what we thought would be a 5 minute walk next door...little did we know our night was just beginning. After walking around for a long time, we ended up in a hair salon with lots of extended family, but no one was getting a hair cut. Everyone was really interested in talking to us, and one of the guys asked if he could take a picture with me and Melissa. Then everyone pulled out their cameras and wanted individual pictures with us...you could say we felt pretty popular!! We never saw any of the pictures, but they're probably floating around on Facebook somewhere...

P.S: We still had fish for breakfast...

Some highlights from Anconcito: 

-Learned how to make traditional Ecuadorian ceviche 

Homemade ceviche and patacones 

-Spent an afternoon at the beach with some of the kids of Anconcito. They taught us some Ecuadorian games and we shared some games we knew with them. Red Rover was the first game we taught them and we quickly remembered why it was probably banned in most of our elementary school gym classes...

-Got mud on everything (rainy season is no joke)

Mud. Everywhere. 

My friends Melissa, Rachel, and I soaked, but smiling  

-Went swimming fully clothed... and didn't regret it until I realized I couldn't wear my leggings again for the rest of the trip

A somewhat cold pilsener never tasted so good in the heat
 (one of two types of cheap beer you can get in Ecuador) 

After two days in Anconcito, we spent a few days in Guayaquil. Guayaquil is the biggest city in Ecuador, located in the coastal province of Guayas. We met some of the volunteers currently working and living there, and they showed us around and took us to visit their schools! This time of year on the coast is the rainy season. On top of raining every day it is sooo hot and humid. Despite the weather, I had a great time touring the city and hearing about the experiences of other volunteers!

Elementary school classroom in Guayaquil