Archeologists!

Rubber boots? Check. Machete? Check. Tsa'chila to guide us through the forest? Check. There we were, five men, ready to embark on an extraordinary journey the jungles of the indigenous people of Santo Domingo, the Tsa'chilas. While we were not being chased by Nazis, didn't have a whip, or even a cool hat; the five of us were trying our hands at archeology in the best Indiana Jones fashion possible. Rumor had it that Incan, or pre-Incan, artifacts were easily found in the shallow river beds in the Tsa'chila communities.

Motive or incentive enough for us to lace up the rubber boots and blaze a trail along the river. An hour of searching- nothing. Then, out of nowhere, our guide discovered the first relic. However, this was not about him getting the glory. Our guide already had his own collection of these; it was our turn. More time passed and still nothing. Finally, Ryan, another volunteer, discovered his own piece of history. The goal before setting out, was for everyone to have their own piece of native culture in their hands. Then, luck seemed to turn in my direction. Not one, but two relics in the span of twenty minutes for my personal collection. What exactly did I find? Well, take a look:

 

That's right. Five men were knowingly going out in the jungle looking for penis... statues. You think it'd be easy for five guys to find that? Guess not! In the end, we found a total of six of these types of statues. Why is there an overabundance of penis statues in the river there? We have no idea. If anyone has any information that leads to the arrest, err wait, helps us better understand the meaning of these phallic statues, please send the information my way! Some of the theories presented are not appropriate for my PG rated blog! That pretty sums up my interesting weekend, five guys, six penises. Sounds like the name of the next sensation on Youtube.

Sophomore Year

The college years. Oh, how I missed when Saved by the Bell went to crap. No need to talk about Saved by the Bell, even though I could probably buy the DVDs somewhere in Quito (or maybe some other volunteer already has them). Many times, the different training groups, or Omnibuses (mine is Omnibus 99), are referred to as the different years of college. Makes enough sense. At any given time, there are four different training groups in the country.

Recently, Omnibus 99 completed its freshmen year. Filled with wide-eyed optimism and pledging to all the frats/sororities, we made it to our sophomore year. Good work 99. Omnibus 100 swore in last week, making them the new heirs to the frosh throne. It is easy to see parallels between the excitement, the frustrations, the ups and downs of my Peace Corps experience and college.

While as a whole, college was a great experience, each separate year had its own significance to me. Freshman year was exciting. All these new people and foreign experiences. Learning relatively new cosas. The newness of it all, in both college and Peace Corps. Most people can pretty much relate to the experience (except maybe Melissa). Sophomore year is when things began to get a little tough for me in college. It was then where I began to have most of my doubts. Did I really want to study this? Was I really interested in accounting as a major? Did I want to hang out with these people that were my “friends”? It was a confusing time in my life. I like direction to a degree, and, at that point, didn't know where I was heading.

Here I am, in my sophomore period of Peace Corps Ecuador. Lately, as I've said to many people, I have my doubts. I wonder how I'm going to last through my sophomore, junior and senior years here. Then I see the parallels between this experience and college. I didn't have a major until junior year. Some of my best memories and stories are from the last two years of school. Sophomore year of college was the collective hangover from the previous. I lasted through that year to meet some of my best friends and develop my wonderful taste for different beers! For now, I have my doubts during my sophomore year here, but I'm tough enough to last until the next training group gets here. (Plus I have a cool idea in the works)

That's all for now. I'm looking forward to the awesome shopping cart chairs and Swedish fish/marshmallow fights of junior and senior year. Lageman understands!