Whew…that’s over.
Well, sort of. For now at least, the reality show portion of our training is over. We’ve finished the “Experiential Learning” phase where we had to create and execute programs for our respective populations. It was…interesting. We definitely got mixed results. I did six workshops in two weeks, five of them with 14- and 15-year-olds, and one for parents.
The first workshop focused on self-esteem. I framed it in terms of superheroes and superpowers. “What’s your favorite superhero movie?” “What superpowers would you like to have?” “Let’s draw a picture of ourselves as superheroes—but what are our real superpowers? (Think kindness, intelligence, friendship…)” Crickets. They literally refused to participate. I can’t say I blame them too much. I mean, I’m weird. Really weird. I’m old, gray, bald, and hairy. And my Spanish is bad! (Though it’s getting better…I tested at the intermediate-medium level. Thank you to my Mexican Spanish teacher, Angel, who gave me such a great head start!)
This is the exact moment they refused to pick up the markers. I’m looking at my fellow volunteer, Aerin, with body language that says, “What now?”
It did get better from there though. That first session only had five kids, and four were painfully shy. After that we had 9–10 kids and better energy. I adjusted my content to have much more action and far fewer words. I brought candy. If our activities needed teams, I kept the boys and girls separate to lower the shyness level. I worked with Aerin, who speaks very good Spanish, and she was a huge help. It wasn’t easy, but I did learn a lot.
Jenny, on the other hand, was enjoying success after success. She is working in the Health and Wellbeing area, and her population is mostly older adults and the “third age” (that’s what they call senior citizens in Ecuador.) Her attendees were there by choice, not because their parents told them to be. She did workshops on music and dance, healthy eating, emotions, and relaxation. Her final workshop was a health fair at the local community center with young parents. Last Friday night we went to a festival in our little town, and Jenny was like a celebrity, saying hello to all these old ladies she had connected with over the last two weeks. I was so proud of her.
Jenny with Zander and Aden. We don’t yet have any action shots with her community.
Other stuff happened too!
We were in a market in Quito when Argentina beat Egypt in the World Cup. The Ecuadorians are certainly rooting for the only Latin American country left in the tournament.
Also at the market, Ryan volunteered to be “cleansed”, an indigenous practice of purification where she rubbed him all over with that egg on the ground, spit alcohol all over him, then beat the evil out of him with a plant of some sort. It wasn’t gentle.
The author (me!) and two other volunteers had to travel the market asking vendors questions about exotic fruits and vegetables in an effort to practice our Spanish and learn about commerce in Ecuador.
Turn right for groceries, left for herbs, and go straight for tuberculosis.
We finished off the week with a really fun street festival. The tradition is that you buy, for $1, a tub of homemade hot toddy that is similar to a spiked apple cider, but without the apple. Then you drink it out of that little plastic shot glass Jenny is holding. Everybody shares the same shot glass. Some random people bought it for us. A bunch of the young volunteers were there too, whooping it up. Oh to be young.
So, next week will be all about travel. I’m traveling 2½ hours north to the town of Ibarra with two other trainees to visit a volunteer who lives and works there while Jenny will be taking a 12-hour overnight bus ride to Loja, a city in the south of the country. We’ll get to see how volunteers live, work, and relate to their communities. And in a few short weeks we’ll be done with training and moving away from Quito and to communities of our own. We don’t know where that will be, but we will find out in week 8. Stay tuned!
And a special shout-out to our daughter, Ellie, who turns 25 years old today. We love you Ellie!
Is this just a reality TV show?
Dear Reader,
I’ve never been a big fan of reality shows. You know the classic setup: Producers take “fish out of water” contestants and put them in difficult situations where they have to work as individuals or as a team to achieve some objective they’re probably not prepared for. Then, at the end of the episode, some unfortunate soul gets voted off the island.
Well, I’m pretty sure Jenny and I have unwittingly signed up for starring roles in one.
Here’s the premise: Twenty-one gringos, most in their early 20s—but just for laughs, let’s add a Midwestern couple in their early 60s—are dropped into the homes of local families in a small pueblo in a small South American country and told to learn the language in just a few weeks. To distract them from that already daunting task, they’re given mind-numbing classes on history, personal safety, culture, theories of international development, natural disasters, kitchen fires, crisis management, the current political climate, food safety, how to treat in-grown toe nails, child protection, mosquito-borne diseases, and on and on and on and on and on.
Then, on top of that, in their fourth week they’re tasked with preparing, from scratch, four 40-minute workshops on topics like self-esteem, decision-making, and emotional control, and then presenting them—alone—to a room full of shy 14- and 15-year-old kids, all in broken Spanish. All the while, the Ecuadorian staff (the show’s judges?) watch from the sidelines, offering what can only be described as confusing feedback and thumbs ups.
And, we are only in training! When we finish in a month or so we will move to our permanent site. Where will that site be? We don’t know! It could be low in the Amazon basin or high in the Andes mountains. The producers think it will be fun to keep that information secret until the “big reveal” in the 8th week of the production.
And two of the contestants have already left the show. One twisted her knee and didn’t feel she could complete her rehabilitation in-country. The other had gotten married just a week before we left the States and decided she missed her new husband.
Really?
And as if all that weren’t enough, we’re living at 9,300 feet above sea level, and somehow I’ve managed to lose 14 pounds in just one month through a combination of bouts of dehydration, weekly diarrhea, and a day with a 101.9 degree fever. Are we having fun yet?
So yes, it’s been quite a lot, but despite all that, it’s been an amazing, time. We are surrounded by our fellow Peace Corps Trainees everyday, a truly fine set of young people you’d be proud to call your own. Our Ecuadorian host family is a joy to be with, always interested in our day, eager to hear and share stories, and ever patient with our poor Spanish. And we ARE speaking a ton of Spanish every day. Sometimes it feels like I don’t speak the language at all and other times it flows easily, but as they tell us, “poco, poco.”
They say that the training is the hardest part of the Peace Corps experience and we are now ½ way through. Perhaps it’s a little like basic training in the military. That’s probably a bad analogy for a number of reasons, but my thought is that they are trying to throw us into the deep end of the pool to see if we can save ourselves from drowning. Us making fools of ourselves is just a happy by-product.
So we continue on, trusting the process and knowing that this too shall pass, not wishing away the days, and knowing that we are learning and growing from every challenge we face. Which is one of the main reasons we are here, to continue learning about the world, ourselves, each other.
Thanks for subscribing to our blog. It makes us feel a little less disconnected knowing that people are interested in what we’re experiencing here. Please feel free to share the link with anyone you think might enjoy following along.
Am I an NBA prospect?
My friend, John, after seeing some of my photos, suggested that I join an over 50 basketball league, saying I would dominate on the boards and control the paint. Perhaps I would get a glimpse of what it’s like to be an NBA player like 7’4” Victor Wembanyama, but I would probably just end up end up breaking a hip.
Anyway, that’s a cute photo of my Ecuadorian “dad”, (I call him my papasito, but his name is German-like the language) and me on Father’s Day. The kids in the house gave German the sweater he’s wearing and me the poncho. So sweet of them!
Jenny and I made hamburgers and Five Cheese Pasta to celebrate the day. We are the 14th PC Volunteers that the family has hosted, but we are the only old ones who know how to cook, so we’ve been having fun swapping recipes and turns cooking.
This poor little angel must have broken some rules.
Volunteers and PC staff watching the Ecuador/Germany World Cup game.
We found a tiny little restaurant that had a TV and beer where we watched the second half with the restaurant staff. Ecuador beat Germany, 2-1 and advanced out of the group stage. It was such a big deal that the Ecuadorian president gave the country the day off the next day.
We go on a 2.5 hour walk with Marcia every Saturday morning. At the ½ way point we stop and do exercises then climb the mountain back into the town of Nayón. German has lived in this little town all his life and was born into a house with 9 kids and no electricity. His father was a taxi driver (neither German nor Marcia have ever driven a car) and his mother sold fruit on the street, yet 4 of the 9 kids were able to graduate from university.
They have shown us so much kindness and we feel super lucky to have landed in their home. We spend our evenings cooking, talking, and watching World Cup games.
Love to all from Ecuador! Thanks for reading.
Dogs!
And more…
If you know me, you know I’m lukewarm on dogs, but come on—how can you not love a dog in a shirt? It’s funny that people think the dogs will be cold. It never drops below 50 degrees, and the day can be 70 degrees.
You’ll notice that most of these dogs are just wandering around on the street. I’m only taking pictures of the ones appropriately dressed, but there are SO MANY STREET DOGS! Apparently, most of them have homes they go to at night, but their owners just let them out during the day to have at it—dodging cars, playing with their friends…seems like a good life.
The problem is that all the untended dogs do their business EVERYWHERE—especially on the sidewalks! So humans need to be constantly vigilant not to step in it. I see it as a problem, but Ecuadorians seem to roll with it. The only real solutions would be to keep the dogs under control, or have the municipality clean the streets, neither of which seem to be happening.
This, of course, is Apollo, our dog. He’s twice that size now. He stays home and is not allowed to go out into the street.
This is a brave little guy.
This guy is giving me the evil eye.
This one is sporting the team jersey for the Ecuadorian football team.
He had two shirts on.
Beyond taking photos of all the dogs, we’ve been super busy. We’re in training from 8–4 every day. The Peace Corps office is only about 2.5 miles away, but the bus commute takes about 45–50 minutes and costs 35¢. So why not walk? You have to climb a mountain and the road has no sidewalk, so it’s really not an option.
Ecuador adopted the U.S. dollar in 2000 to combat inflation that had reached 96% the year before. German told me stories of prices rising every week, one week you would get 8 pieces of bread for 1,000 Ecuadorian sucre, next week you would only get 7 for the same price. It was terrible. “Dollarization” has been very effective at curbing the inflation rate. The current rate is less than 1%.
Our Peace Corps training is a daily mix of personal safety, health care, SPANISH!, Ecuadorian culture, theories of sustainable development, workshop design methods, role plays, acronyms on top of acronyms, etc. Honestly, it feels like we’ve enrolled in a master’s program in international development. We get home exhausted every night. I’m currently freaking out because in a week I have to present a 40-minute self-esteem workshop to a class of 15-year-olds. It has to be 100% in Spanish, and I have to create all the content. Trial by fire, I guess.
We made a flank steak dinner for the fam. It was delicious, but the cut of beef was super tough. And, by the way, this is not their real kitchen, just an extra stove in a storage space behind the house. The house is pretty nice and very comfortable. Jenny and I have a queen-sized bed and our own bathroom. Some other volunteers came by and were envious of our comfortable environs.
One of our young friends has a rooftop deck where we gathered one night. It’s crazy that you can see 20,000 foot peaks from our houses.
The PC issued all the volunteers a fire extinguisher. I put it to good use by showing Zander how to open a beer bottle when you don’t have an opener. These kids have so much to learn…
This is Zander and Marlee earlier that day learning how to put out a kitchen fire should one occur.
The family took us out on an excursion to see a bit of Quito. From left: Dyana (22 and a bio-tech student), Pamala (25 and working as a clinical psychologist), sweet Jenny, German (65 and a retired architect), and Marcia (56 and our “Host Mom”). We are the 14th volunteers they have hosted.
A view of Quito which is the second highest big city in the world, behind LaPaz, Bolivia. We are almost twice as high as Denver, Co, known as the “Mile High City.”
Some of the volunteers gathered for a yoga class after sessions ended. Marlee (next to Jenny) is a certified instructor and led us all in a wonderful practice.
And finally, I took this picture to demonstrate that this country is not designed for gringos. If I stand up straight in the bathroom, this is what I see. I guess I’m not missing much…
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. Much love from Ecuador!
Week one done…
…and only 117 to go.
It’s been a lot.
Meeting 26 fellow volunteers. Dozens of Peace Corps staff members. Our Ecuadorian family for the next nine weeks. Sessions on safety and security, health care, frameworks for sustainable change, international development — SPANISH! SPANISH! SPANISH!
It’s been a lot, but we’re feeling well and excited for each new day.
Unfortunately, like many places in the world, crime is a serious issue in Ecuador, and gringos are especially vulnerable to pickpocketing and robbery. We learned how to behave in public and on buses, where much of the crime occurs.
In 1990, our Peace Corps office in Saint Lucia was above a hardware store. You walked up a flight of stairs and found three or four small offices and an open meeting area. In 2026 Ecuador, the Peace Corps office feels more like a fortress — armed guards in bulletproof vests, 10-foot walls, and bomb checks on every vehicle entering the compound. Thanks, 9/11, you bastard you.
It’s horrible to see these two despicable faces in the PC offices, but I have to respect the staff’s choice of placement.
Finally came the day we met our host family!
It was a lovely ceremony, after which the volunteers moved into their communities and began learning Ecuadorian culture firsthand. I’m pretty sure Jenny and I hit the family lottery with the Peraltas: German and Marcia, their three twenty-something kids — Pamala, Dyana, and Andre — and their cute dogs, Toby, a 13-year-old poodle mix, and Appolo, a three-month-old puppy. Did you catch that? I said they are cute dogs…that’s saying something.
The biggest green onions you’ll ever see.
We thought we were heading out for a little stroll and instead ended up on a 2½-hour hike with Marcia! She carried a stick to fend off the dogs we encountered once we left the urban center. The city dogs totally ignore you, but the country dogs are much more territorial.
Welcome to South America! The cables are insane! And notice the sign on the restaurant in the background. See the happy guinea pig? They’re not pets here…you get the picture.
We live on the outskirts of Quito in a town called Nayón. It’s known for its nurseries and garden centers. They are beautiful little mom & pop operations all over town.
Welcome to South America part two. Your water is electrically heated right at the spout and the wires are exposed, right near the water flow. It has always freaked me out a little.
And finally, meet Apollo! So cute!
Thanks for reading our blog and mucho gusto!
And so we begin.
After so many months, so many medical forms, so many nights lying awake thinking about it, and so many sweet goodbyes with dear friends and family, May 31, 2026, finally arrived.
We started the morning by saying goodbye to our beloved dog, Herman, which left Jenny more than a little teary-eyed.
We started down our driveway and didn’t make it a tenth of a mile before we were stopped in our tracks by a group of dear friends gathered in the road to wish us a final farewell. At that point, it was my turn to turn to mush.
At O’Hare Airport, we met our first fellow volunteer at the gate for our flight to Miami. She recognized us from the Zoom calls we had attended and, apparently, from our general crunchy-granola vibe.
We arrived at our hotel in Miami for pre-departure staging and began meeting the rest of our cohort. Ours is the 134th class of volunteers to serve in Ecuador. We are the only couple in the group, but there are a few women in their 50s and one man who is 65. There are 21 volunteers serving the full two years and six Rapid Response volunteers who will serve for just one year. A few of them are headed to the Galápagos Islands to do environmental work.
On the evening before our departure for Ecuador, we were lucky enough to meet up with Eduardo and Julia, who happened to be in Miami while searching for a place for Julia to live during her upcoming graduate studies. What a fun surprise!
And by the following afternoon, we were in Ecuador. The months—really, years—of planning and preparation were behind us, and 27 months of a new life stretched out ahead.
Feeling the love…
We gathered with some of our favorite people for a going away party at Molly and Dave’s. Such a fantastic gathering. Thanks to all who came to send us on our way in style!
Let’s do this again.
Our first house in Saint Lucia, 1990.
It was 1989. Jenny and I were engaged to be married and had just returned from our time together in Brazil. I had a scheduled interview with Ford Tractor in Lancaster, PA. Our plan was to get married and then either (A) move to Pennsylvania for the job with Ford or (B) join the Peace Corps.
Ford saw the wisdom of not engaging with me, so in July 1990 we found ourselves on a plane headed for a two-year commitment on the island of Saint Lucia. Jenny worked as a tutor and counselor at a centre for teenage girls, and I worked in the government’s Department of Youth and Sports as a physical education teacher. It was a time of adventure, challenge, learning, and growth.
And we loved it.
Upon our return to the States we knew we would be focusing on returning to school, finding jobs, and starting a family — all good things — but we also talked now and then about our future life. Would we (could we?) do the Peace Corps again?
Well, four kids and 36 years later, the answer is yes! We leave for Ecuador, a small country on the western coast of South America, on May 31 for another two years of challenge, fun, learning, loving, helping, and growing.
Stay tuned…
