The Gringo: A Memoir (2 page)

CHAPTER
3

F
irst they brought us to Washington, D.C., for “staging,” beginning a seventy-two-hour whirlwind that ended in a tiny town high in the Andes. Spending my final hours in the country in D.C. made it a bittersweet hello-goodbye to the city where I’d gone to college and lived four of the last five years.

I arrived on a Monday, and the next day, forty-five of us were herded into the banquet room of the Holiday Inn in Georgetown. I saw people in teary-eyed cell phone conversations with parents. I saw young women lugging giant rolling bags you’d expect to see at the loading dock for a spring break cruise. I saw cargo pants and vests and shiny new hiking boots. I saw brand-spanking-new water bottles that looked sturdy enough to survive a nuclear blast. I saw happy faces, excited faces, scared faces, friendly faces. I saw name tags stuck on breast pockets of REI shirts.

We were all introduced via several icebreaker activities and a crash course in what it meant to be in the Peace Corps. I found out that we weren’t yet “volunteers,” because you had to make it through training and “swear in” to earn that label. After we landed in Ecuador and up until the point of swearing in, we’d be known as “trainees.”

In an awkward turn of events, the emcee—a returned volunteer from Morocco (her service was “incredible”)—took a few moments at the end of her final session to say something along the lines of, “Now, if you’re having any doubts, if you think this might not be for you, well, then here’s your chance to say, okay, you know what, I think I’ll pass and head back home.” She paused, standing at the front of the room and waiting in silence as if she actually expected someone to get up from one of the eight circular tables and say, “I’m outta here.”

All of us soon-to-be-trainees kind of glanced around the room at one another to see if someone would actually get up and skulk out. The silence probably lasted thirty seconds, but it felt like several minutes. The head of staging then clapped her hands together in front of her the way cheerleaders do and said, “All right! You guys are going to have the time of your lives.”

I kept scanning the room for anyone who indeed wanted to go home but who found standing up alone in that room more terrifying than whatever lay ahead of us in Ecuador. It was tough to tell. (In fact, scanning the room for the terrified and confused was something I’d do nearly every day during our two months of training to amuse or inform myself, or both.) I didn’t find out until afterward that earlier in the day someone in our training group had indeed arrived at the hotel in D.C. only to turn around and go home hours later.

The rest of the day consisted of even more icebreakers and skits designed to teach us about several Peace Corps policies. Writing a blog? We had to notify administration so it could get reviewed for content. Taking a vacation? Not in our first or last three months of service. Feeling sick? We’d be given medical kits upon our arrival in Quito, the capital city. And so on.

For one of our activities, we were handed a notebook full of questions to ask one another. Some called for facts, such as what year the Peace Corps was founded (1961!). Others were more open ended, such as, “What did you do in preparation for your service?” Most people took this question more literally and said things like, “I sold my car,” or “I said all the proper goodbyes.” But one guy, walking around the room in hiking boots and a fleece vest, told us, without irony, that he’d “found inner peace.” For the next two years, everyone called him Inner Peace Mark.

Later in the day, I found out that the Peace Corps had the wrong address for my home of record and had been sending critical information to a random address in Northwest D.C. for the previous ten months. One of the former volunteers helping with our staging said she’d take care of it, no problem. It would take them over a year to correct this.

We woke up early Wednesday morning and they shuttled us to the airport. Our flight landed late that night at the Quito airport where the Peace Corps country director and other office personnel met us. From then on, we were known as Omnibus 101. I still don’t know the reason for the term “omnibus,” but all it meant was that we were the 101st group of trainees to arrive in Peace Corps Ecuador.

CHAPTER
4

F
or the next nine weeks, I lived in Olmedo, a tiny village tucked in a lush valley underneath the snow-capped Cayambe Volcano, which towers to nearly 19,000 feet. We were all sprinkled about in groups of four or five across various communities that surrounded Cayambe, the city where our training sessions took place.

One of the first things we did was take language exams. After getting grilled over the phone for months on end about my transcript and language classes, I was really sweating it, thinking that my four semesters of college Spanish would be the worst in our group and that I’d be laughed out of training. On the first day, it became clear that at least a dozen trainees had no Spanish background at all.

Training was a mixture of chaos and bureaucratic battles among program managers, program officers, program specialists, training specialists, training managers, logistics coordinators, and volunteer trainers. I’m still not sure what any of their specific roles were. They all desperately wanted to seem in charge and be taken seriously. Some tried extra hard to let the trainees and volunteers know that they “got it.”

And it should have come as no surprise that somewhere in there was an acronym bonanza of epic proportions. It was only a matter of time before things like COS, CD, PTO, PCMO, ET, PCPP, EFT, PCV, PCT, AO, PM, EAP, and CBT actually meant something to us. (And you must make the decision very quickly whether you want to be the type of volunteer who gives a shit and uses these terms on a regular basis.)

A gaggle of maybe a half-dozen language trainers were each assigned to one of our training communities. Their job was to not only guide our daily Spanish lessons, but also help integrate us into Ecuadorian culture. Some of these guys turned out to be jokesters and I became friendly with a few of them. One trainer enjoyed teaching us dirty jokes and swear words and giving us insights into the complicated nature of Ecuadorian women. On the latter subject, he pointed out that no women—and certainly no men—enjoyed using condoms. It was, he said, like eating a candy without taking off the wrapper. A few months down the road, after training ended, he told me with a shrug that he was a new father.

During the initial days, the head training manager informed us that during our free time (which was either weekends or the few hours after training sessions ended each day), we were not allowed to congregate in groups of more than six. In addition to that rule, she explained that we’d have to be on the bus back to our homestays
immediately
after training sessions ended, which equated to a curfew of about 6:15 p.m. If we thought we could meet up with other volunteers at the bars or, god forbid, do so in groups of greater than six, we were sorely mistaken.

ALSO NEAR THE BEGINNING OF
training, we got our inaugural visit from Nurse Nancy, head of the Peace Corps Ecuador medical office. Nurse Nancy was a rail-thin blonde who chain-smoked and ate lunch every day at the Quito McDonald’s. She had a high-pitched voice and looked at us with wide-eyed, faux enthusiasm. From our vantage point, enthusiasm was hard to come by when the topic was a (stomach-turning) STD slideshow or a speech on the possibilities of stomach viruses and intestinal worms.

About a month later, she showed us a video interview with a woman who’d been raped the night of her swearing in as a volunteer in Quito. Following that was an ’80s-era documentary featuring a half-dozen volunteers who’d contracted HIV/AIDS during their services. It was unsettling. Each session ended with Nurse Nancy clapping her hands, shining a spooky smile, and saying, “Are we excited or what!”

Early on, she conducted one-on-one interviews to get to know each of us personally. When my turn came, I went over and sat next to her on a bench outside the Quonset hut–looking building where our training sessions took place.

“So, how we doin’?” she said.

“I’m fine, thank you,” I said. For some reason, every time I met new Peace Corps personnel, I felt compelled to come across as well as possible, as if I were still in the interview process.

Nurse Nancy then asked me a battery of questions, such as how I was feeling, how I dealt with stress, and if I was “gay, straight, or
other
, hehehehe.”

We arrived at what I assume was the auxiliary portion of the get-to-know-each-other interview, and Nurse Nancy scrolled her finger down the page as if she were looking over the highlights of an intelligence briefing for the real meat of the information.

“Well, well, well, I see here it says you’ve had some counseling in the past,” she said. Even though it was clearly information I had provided them, I couldn’t help but sense a bit of a
gotcha
tone.

“Yes,” I said. “Nearly five years ago.”

“Is there anything you’d like to talk about with me?” she asked.

“No, that’s okay.”

That wasn’t all. Nurse Nancy’s finger scrolled some more. Then it flipped over to the second page, and then flipped again back to the first too quickly for me to see what was there.

“It also says here you’ve had some dealings with depression,” she began. I raised my eyebrows in anticipation of the next words that could possibly come out of her mouth. “You know,” she said, “we have options for counseling and that sort of thing, so you can always tell us what’s going on.”

“That sounds nice,” I said. And she nearly interrupted me with what was on the tip of her tongue.

“Because, you know,” said Nurse Nancy, “we don’t want you out there in your site in the middle of nowhere getting all depressed and then thinking to yourself, ‘Hey—there’s a tree branch, I think I’ll go hang myself on it!’” She let out something between a giggle and a hiccup and managed to smile.

I just looked at her.

“You know,” she said.

Possibly sensing the awkwardness in the air—but probably not—Nurse Nancy said a few moments later, “And, well, since you’ve had some, uh,
problems
, in this whole area, we’re putting you on doxycycline for malaria prophylaxis, instead of Lariam. Lariam sometimes makes people have psychotic episodes.”

Actual doctors back home had told me as much, so I nodded in agreement. She added that since I’d “dealt” with some of the “problems” she mentioned, my Peace Corps file would be labeled such-and-such. (Here she quickly rattled off a combination of letters and numbers that undoubtedly corresponded to some government code for people who’d once succumbed to teenage angst and consequently been prescribed one or several antidepressants.)

“What’s that classification mean?” I asked.

“It’s just, you know, the way we’ll mark you—I mean your file.”

“Do other people see this?” After my application ordeal, I’d become somewhat of an expert on the medical privacy laws of the United States, so this piqued my interest.

“No need to worry,” she said. “It’s just a classification on your file.”

“I understand that, but should I be concerned about who can see that and find out my medical information?”

“Oh, no, sweetie. And—whoops,” she said, looking at her watch in a grand gesture, “time’s up!”

Somewhere during that conversation, I surmised that keeping the medical office completely informed about my health might be a high-risk activity.

CHAPTER
5

B
efore leaving for Ecuador, a friend back home introduced me to an older man who’d been a Peace Corps volunteer in Central America in the ’80s. In addition to serving there, he’d later lived in Ecuador for several years. One night in Boulder, we sat down over beers and he told me about his experience, including the horrors of what training was like in those days. He described a hard-core boot camp–like affair the Peace Corps used to weed out the weak. It even took place on a military base where they could see soldiers doing their own training on an adjacent field. (In those earlier days, training was held inside the United States, and upon swearing in, the volunteers flew to their country of service and went directly to their sites.)

In preparation for building latrines or digging wells in Central America, Peace Corps trainees had to rappel down three-story buildings, take aerobic endurance tests, and do simulated drowning exercises. It was almost as if the Peace Corps’ intent, he said, was to get as many people to quit as possible. It was literally survival of the fittest.

When they weren’t being timed in the mile run or learning jujitsu or whatever else was included, trainees were constantly monitored by a team of psychologists. Holding a clipboard, they would come up to a trainee, stare at him or her for several seconds, jot down a few notes, then walk away.

Some trainees cracked. Perhaps they couldn’t take the physical endurance or maybe it was the psychological scrutiny, but in the middle of an exercise, they would announce that they’d had enough and it was the last that anyone would see of them. Most, however, passed. They made it through training, swore in, and departed for their country of service, where they practiced a grand total of zero of the martial expertise they’d acquired in the several weeks prior.

With that in mind, I went into training prepared to kick ass. In a matter of minutes, however, I discovered that training in the
twenty-first century
Peace Corps had about as much in common with boot camp as did a chapter meeting for the local Cub Scouts. The gradual pussification of the Peace Corps in recent decades had caused a 180-degree turn that took training from a genuinely rugged ordeal to something like college orientation, only lamer.

So, here we are in the giant concrete building for our training sessions, where we sit on campfire-style benches and start the day off with a group sing-along.

Here we are treated to a puppet show explaining what we should do in the event of a volcanic eruption (a serious possibility in Ecuador, which has had notable eruptions as recently as the late ’90s). Trainees laugh and clap and take pictures while the trainees-cum-puppeteers show off their best Elmo voices. Raucous laughter continues as a gang of talking sock hands describe how quickly we might suffocate on ash or lose our legs to highly viscous molten rock. It’s a real gas.

Here’s a series of interpretive skits to illustrate what we should do preceding an evacuation scenario (the exact type of event, in other words, that had led to my being there instead of in Bolivia). Inner Peace Mark demands that we sing our script to the melody of Billy Joel’s “The Longest Time.” (We absolutely nail it.)

Here we are in small groups breaking into song and dance again to present reports of the mini projects we’ve done in our training communities. (The winning group got to perform in front of the ambassador.)

Here we are treated to an impromptu crazy dance party, before 9 a.m., and our language facilitators dress up like clowns and spray us with confetti and glitter. (I later find out this is somewhat of an Ecuadorian tradition, but still.)

Here we are standing in a large circle for a diversity session and taking turns explaining what makes us
different
. One trainee says, inexplicably, “I am Hispanic, though I have the good fortune not to look it.” Luckily, the Ecuadorian language facilitators don’t hear it, but the few Hispanic Americans in our training group do (and will remain perplexed and offended by the comment, even over a year later).

Here we are beginning the day with a game of Simon Says and the loser has to get up in front of the group and sing.

Here we are playing a version of hot potato for an information session on human trafficking.

Here we are making not an actual composting toilet, but a scale model of one, using nearby sticks and twigs.

Here we are baking cake with our language facilitator.

Here I am asked to dress in feathery chaps and a cowboy hat to help with an indigenous dance routine for a session on Ecuadorian culture.

And eventually: Here we are having our names pulled out of a hat and announced like we’re contestants on
The Price Is Right
. Here we are running over rose petals and through a tunnel formed by human arms. Here we are getting handed an envelope with our names written decoratively on the outside and our site assignments written on the inside. Here we are bursting through the tunnel toward a sign that says, “How Far Will You Go?” Answer: ten feet away toward a giant map of Ecuador taped to the floor where we stand on our corresponding part of the country. Here we are catching our breath and brushing off the rose petals as we find out where we’ll spend the next two years of our lives.

I would be heading for the coast, which in Ecuador referred not just to the beaches, but to the entire western third of the country—a humid flatland squeezed between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean.