Ecuador vs. Uruguay

Even though Guayquil is over 160 miles from here, we were fortunate enough to celebrate its independence day with a day off from work. As some scattered north and west for weekend getaways, the rest of us braved the Estadio Olimpico Atahualpa for the Ecuador vs. Uruguay game. We had been looking forward to this game for about two months, ever since Serena sent an e-mail informing us that the first five people to write her back would claim tickets owned by last year's PDs. Chet, Erik, Krysta, Mike and I were lucky to have read our e-mails first and after a couple of weeks trying to find the receipt, plus two days trying to pick up the actual tickets in Quito, we we're geared up and ready to go Saturday morning. You would probably think that a 5p.m. game wouldn't require us to get there much more than an hour or so ahead of time. However, as we made our way into the stadium around noon, we barely found enough open seats and the crowd was already extremely rowdy.

Me and Krysta (hour one of waiting for the game to start)

The flag that covered our whole section (hours 1 - 5, multiple times)

Erik rocks out, fully-dressed in Ecuador gear

Mike and Chet just before the opening kick off!

Unfortunately, as you probably already know, Ecuador lost 2 - 1 to Uruguay. Before we had enough time to marvel in the glory of scoring the first goal towards the end of the second half, Uruguay retaliated and somehow got themselves a penalty shot within mere seconds of the game ending. Though we were all disappointed, it was an amazing experience and tons of fun, even the five hours of basking in the sun playing cards.

Thanks to some advice from Seth, we'll be attempting to watch Wednesday's game against Chile in the teen center. Although our chances are slim since being pushed down into 6th place with 23 points (we need to be in at least 4th place to qualify for South Africa 2010), we're still hopeful!

Si Se Puede!

- Jackie

Community Clean Up

This past Saturday marked our first Minga of the year.  (Minga |meen-gah|noun: an Ecuadorian word for people coming together to do a community service project)  

Nine PDs awoke at 6:45 a.m. to the smell of brewing coffee and a scramble to collect brooms, gloves, and as many trash bags as we could find.  Though we sleepily commuted into Rumiloma, we perked right up as we stepped off of the bus to find a dozen kids and parents already gathered in front of the library, ready to clean up their community.  As we split into groups to tackle the various neighborhood streets and sidewalks, we found many residents cleaning streets and sidewalks by their homes as well, asking us to borrow supplies.

Our neighbors, brushing up garbage from the drain pipes 

We spent the better part of 3 hours cleaning up around Rumiloma; my main job was to run around making sure everyone had enough trash bags, haul full bags back to the library, label them with kids' names and then weigh them to keep track of which kid collected the most, by volume.  By 11a.m. we had run out of bags (something I never thought would happen given the amount we stole from the house and wiped out of the library stash) and rounded up all of the kids in the library to tally the weight results, which are the following:

Total Combined Kids' Weight: 376.5 lbs 

Total Combined Profe's Weight: 70 lbs (plus Sarah's 2 tires)

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Total Weight: 446.5 lbs 

Team Iori proudly showing off their loot 

A few notes about the weights: the profes had significantly less weight because we mostly helped the kids (we're not lazy, don't worry) and there was an estimate of 60-70 lbs not weighed that were left on street corners, where other residents were instructed to put their trash for pick up.  Though there were only 4 kids who got our grande sopresa, we dolled out lollipops to the other kids who answered our environmental quiz questions correctly and provided other refreshments for the families.  

Mike and Dana haul kids (and trash) from the plaza to the library

Lucia, Shawn, Erik and Bibi weighing the trash

The whole group in front of 450lbs. of collected trash!

Everyone helps throw trash bags into the truck

Some people question the sustainability of such an event, wondering if the streets will simply become riddled with garbage again a week later.  While that reality is more likely than not, clean-ups are a powerful tool for a number of reasons: they bring people together, engage them in a service dedicated to the area where they live, and quite frankly, after participating in something like picking up trash for house, you tend to think twice about dropping a candy wrapper onto the street.  

The event also opens the door for bigger projects.  There are two major trash issues in Rumiloma: burning household trash, mostly out of habit since there are reliable waste haulers now, and water contamination as a result of excessive litter and agricultural/livestock practices.  It is a priority of our environmental program here in Ecuador to tackle both issues in collaboration with USAID, FONAG (El Fondo de protección del agua), and most importantly, local leaders and organizations.   But I'm getting ahead of myself.. you'll have to wait to hear more about that in future posts!

Litter-less and feeling free (not really because quarterly reports are due next week!), 

Jackie