One down, eleven to go

Well, we've made it through our first week of being actual PeaceCorps Trainees.

If I can take anything away from the last seven days, it is that I will be learning more over the coming eleven weeks than I realized would be possible.
We are being given a HUGE amount of information, regarding cultural adaptation, language, safety, health, and technical training. Broken down, we will be attending 450 hours of training over the course of 12 weeks (37.5hr/wk, plus our cultural immersion - ie, living with locals), all of which are pounding information into our little heads. For the most part, everyone is taking the brain-squishing in good humor - it's obvious that we're all stressed out, but I think we'll get along just fine.

This past Wednesday we were taken into Quito to pick up our phones and visit immigration. The multiple hours on cram-packed buses was certainly a cultural experience - we were warned that it would be crowded beforehand, and there was no exaggeration! We all, however, managed to make it back without a major incident, which I consider a win. After being out near Tumbaco for a week, the city seemed HUGE, though I think it's technically smaller than metro Atlanta.

Our training is taking place in the Sierra region of Ecuador, which is the highland/Andes region of the country. Our town is in a valley, but surrounded by absolutely beautiful mountains - none of them are incredibly high, but all of them are breathtaking. Over the next few weeks, I hope that a group of volunteers and myself can go walking up some of them! During training, we will also have the opportunity to visit the coast region - I'm looking forward to some hot temperatures again!

My host family is lovely - they're being very kind and attentive, and are generally more worried about me than most parents would be about their own kids. My host dad doesn't chat much, but my host mother, Victoria, and her sister Maria, make up for that. They're very patient with my Spanish (thank heavens), and are even being lovely about my inability to eat the sheer amount of food that is piled onto my plate at every meal. I've learned to make it into the kitchen just a bit before the dishing happens, to lessen the amount of food that ends up on my plate. That being said, the food here is delicious. If it weren't for the desire to make a concerted effort to stay fit/tone la cuerpa, I'd be the shape of a blueberry before too long!

For whatever reason, I'm still coasting in the 'feeling like a holiday' state of mind. Though I'm aware that I'll be here for two years and that the main challenges have yet to really begin, it hasn't hit me yet. I expect that some tears and ice cream shall become a part of my coping mechanism when it does, but for now we're working through everything slowly.