Country Mouse City Mouse

So the first time I left the city I went to visit my main chica Conks!
I was so excited to finally get some Campo Living.

Since I've been writing all night I'm now tired and I really wish I had written about this experience right afterward. Our lives are Night and Day! We are Truly Country Mouse, City Mouse. I don't even know how I remember that story! But after that trip I was like, man, our lives are polar opposites.

Her life is my original Peace Corps dream. I know have had to realize a new dream and I do love my life here but the Campo is so what I'm talkin about!

First a little just about this visit. It was so good seeing my girl! I'm so proud of her. She has done such a good job integrating and he Spanish is awesome. She was in the beginners group with me and she was just using verbs ad tenses I had neva heard. I was like you go girl! She lives with the cutest abuelaita and a fam that loves her to pieces. Before when she went to her site visit she was like there is no way I can live in that place. It was a cluster of houses with no privacy, some of the floors were dirt and it was just way campo, way outdoorsy and roughin it. Now she's talking aobut stayin with the family and just moving into a house that's attached to them! I thought that was really awesome and shows tremendous growth. I got to met her youth group, her counterpart, her wonderful family and neighbors. Oh my lord she lives in front of a huge vast bamboo forest!! ITS INCREDIBLE its so beautiful I would be out there aaalll the time. Her family owns that land too. We went to a fiesta until three at night and walked back in the woods and across a bridge that was a single piece of bamboo across to a creek with a bamboo handle bar. So scary but so fun. See this is why I need to have a camera when I travel. I cannot imagine walking N E where at night like that without a care in the world. It was great. We went to a soccer tournament game that was ooodles of fun. She has an aerobics class that she gives in the front yard of a family and all the ladies came and we had so much fun. The men of course were looking out of the windows commenting or making jokes to show off. Men. lol. Def didn't get out of there hammocks or put down the beers to come work. No. They were so funny too. Not like the men here. So let me just give it to you the Country Mouse/City Mouse Comparison list...since I keep making the references....

Let's see...
The Campo has a certain quiet that is sooooo wonderful. I long for quiet all the time. It's soooo loud, and active and even when its quiet at 3 am it's more of a city eerie quiet. Like is someone going to jump out of a bush and stab me? quiet. Usually though it's just loud loud loud noise noise noise. In the campo even when there is music or people talking, all the trees and grass and dirt just pad noise and it's tranquilo. Here one car passing by sounds like it's driving through my room and I'm on the 7th floor! But this concrete jungle echos and carries noise everywhere. So quiet....

Oh Greeeeen, green, green everywhere! And wide open spaces! It's so nice. Again it's just easy on the senses. Of course with Green comes the bugs though right? So that's the trade off there. I long for green though. I do go to the Malecon where there is water to try to touch nature, but it's nice when your back yard is a forest.

The people. I love campo people. You can speak to them, actually it's expected. You can say hi, wave, smile it's all allowed. Here in the mean streets, you get to speakin and smiling and in a block you would probably have a line of men drooling at your heels wanting to know what's up with tonight. No.thanks. It's SO hard not to look at people and smile. I mean I'm from Missouri! I hear its a very New York thing. Get your mean mug face, walk brisk and fast and don't make eye contact. That's why I didn't move there! It was so nice and friendly and of course everyone knows the nice new gringa and it was really refreshing to be able to put my guard down. Having your guard up around the clock is BEYOND exhausting right?

The trade off there though is that she can Never disappear. She was not feeling well and wanted to nap but he fam kept coming to the door to just talk, offer treats, all sweet things..but I know how tired I am and how serious I have gotten about my naps! If I was worried people were going to wake me up I probably couldn't sleep for one and if I was asleep I probably wouldn't be so pleasant waking up. When I go to my barrio, it's a good, day, bad day...whatever. I go, I leave, I come home, and I do what I want. Be it sleep, get up with a volunteer, go see a movie...whatever. I can disappear. I can separate my Peace Corps project life with my personal life. The Campo Vols do not have that luxury at all. Anything she does outside of her house the people she works with knows, he youth group knows everyone... So I try to think of that when I find myself longing for campo life...

Fast friends vs Site mates... in the small campo life it seems like since you integrate you make Ecuadorian friends easier. Here since you're in the city and can't even make eye contact, it's kinda hard to make new friends. However, we are set with a small cluster of Vols living in the same city. How easy is that? Sometimes all you need is someone who knows Exactly what you are talking about. So I'm sure that's something I take for granted to. Just knowing your in the same city as someone is helpful. I want some Ecuadorian friends too though...I'm sure it'll come. Just slower. Maybe when I start my dance classes...

Little things like walking around at night, not worrying about your safety, having a sweet familiy that cooks and loves you is all very sweet and what she has, but she can't get up at 7 at night and go to Pizza Hut like can when she's tired of the comida tipico aqui.

All in all we are totally having an opposite experience and they are just different. One is not better or worse than the other. She lives 4 hours away and the bus ride was easy and peaceful. Translation? We both can have the best of both worlds whenever we want. When she wants sushi, pizza hut and honking cars (she's used to the East Coast and actually likes the hustle and bustle...) she can get it...when I want a piece of that bamboo forest and to feel a love of a fam, I can get it! So in conclusion our lives here in Ecuador serve us up daily challenges, but really our lives are pretty sweet :)

Hasta Luego!