I have just finished my first successful week at the lodge. And let me tell you, it was no, NO easy task.

The work is HARD, dude. I have never worked so physically hard in my entire life. Every day we do something different, which is good. Tasks have included: clearing underbrush with a machete from plantain and sugar cane fields – I bet a lot of you didn´t know I could use a machete, did you? Well neither did I. I sort of fling it about pretending I do and it seems to work okay. We also spent a day making cement out of clay for an oven they were constructing for making sugar. Lot´s of fun there. But then we come to my favorite task so far: heavy lifting. Now, I bet a lot of you think, Chloe? Heavig lifting? But I´m here to tell you that, contrary to what you might think I...okay I totally suck. While I struggle under the weight of one giant wooden beam which I swear ways as much as I do, stumbling up hills covered with undergrowth, getting stung by horseflies and caterpillars, sweating under the tropical sun, practically falling to my imenent death, the Ecuadorian guys carry three at a time making it look easy as pie. But hey, at least I´m doing it.

Although I DO apréciate being treated as an equal, I honestly COULD do without the heavy lifting. Last week there were only three volunteers, me and two English guys. One is in his forties and is the ex punkrocker type; the other was in his twenties and of the trying-to-figure-out-what-the-hell-I´m-doing-with-my-life persuasion. Similar to myself. He was my homeboy, but elas, now he is gone. Some more people are coming next week though I think.

So besides volunteers there are like six or seven workers that live at the lodge. They are all pretty cool, and none of them really speak English, which is great for me. These guys are hilarious actually. They have a really funny sense of humor, often revolving around body parts – things are the same the whole world ´round it seems – and they spend a lot of their time making fun of the volunteers. The other guys more than me because they don´t speak Spanish. And me, instead of helping my English compadres, just made fun of them along with the Ecuadorians. I´m so bad. But it´s kill or be killed out here in the jungle...

You do have to be quick to keep up with these guys though. And I am proud to say I am managing it rather well. They have made fun of my Spanish accent enough though that I think I might entirely quit lisping rather soon..a little sad but actually it´s way easier to talk without it. We had an interesting cultural exchange where they taught me some Ecuadorian slang, including words for ¨cool,¨ ¨lame,¨and male and female reproductive organs, and I taught them the equivalent in Spain. Very interesting to learn the similarities and differences. They were not, however, that impressed with my booger song, for some reason.

Right now I am the only girl up there and I do enjoy this coveted position. Of not only being the only girl but the only one who can really talk to them. I think they do find me rather amusing. Perhaps this will make up for my startling physical weakness. This weekend I´m staying in Nanegal, and tonight there is a village fiesta party at the highschool, which apparently everyone will be attending. That will be interesting. I hope I don´t get too drunk and embarrass myself. I already stand out enough at it is as the only white girl, I don´t have to become the white girl who got way too drunk at the village party.

But anyway. This place is amazingly beautiful. It has been rather hot in general, but it also has rained some days. It´s quite humid and it´s hard to get your clothes to dry on the line. The other day the older volunteer, one of the guides and I got up at four in the morning to go see the lek of the cock-of-the-rock. Oh stop being so immature, it´s a beautiful, endangered bird. It´s a brightly colored red, and they have a large, flashy round group of feathers above their beaks. Every morning at dawn they gather at this particular sacred place to squeek and squawk for about an hour, impressing the ladies. It was really cool to see. We also saw some little monkeys along the way, though I forget what kind. The sad thing is that even this far away from civilization, you can still see the lights of Quito at night.

Life definitely moves to a different beat out here in the cloud forest. Right now I can hear the oink of the neighbor´s pig outside the window, the cockadoodledoo of their rooster, and across the way I see people chatting in the village square and playing ecuavolley. Interesting cultural experience: last weekend I was here with Andrew, my English homie. We were sitting at the kitchen table, chatting. The kitchen has a giant window with no glass or anything, so of course you can hear everything going on outside. So here we are, talking about something banal like movies, and we start to hear this godawful, terrifying, unidentifiable SCREAM from outside. At first both of us are ignoring it but it keeps going on. Whatt the HELL is that? we think. So I ask the kid who lives here and see says the neighbors are killing a pig. Okay, I don´t have a problem with eating meat, especially in a place like this where it is so practical, and they raise their piggies in nice little pens and they probably lead a quite pleasant life – but for GOD´S SAKE. It took the mothe fucker TEN MINUTES to die. I thought it was dead for a while, but it must have just passed out from the pain, because it quickly came back to life and started SCREAMING again. Eventually it did die though and the rest of the evening we were reminded of the event through the smell of burning hair which wafted its way up to the kitchen where we sat.

Now, I know what you are all wondering – has Chloe made out with any Ecuadorians yet? At the answer is, well no. It certainly would be a fun way to learn the language though. The workers all flirt with me a lot, but it´s totally harmless. This is this one guy named Wilson who I´m pretty sure wants a piece, and he´s kind of cute, but he´s also eighteen. I know you guys all know how much I like the young pups, but EIGHTEEN is a little young, even for me. I do have a crush on this other guy who works there, Edison, who is also younger than me, but not as much. I think he is afraid of women though so I basically just smile at him from afar. We will see what happens at the party tonight though. Eheh.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe where I am. These moments especially hit me when I´m bouncing around in the back of a pick up truck, through the pouring rain, surrounded by rough looking men with machetes, or when I see a toucan fly by out the window of my outdoor shower. Then at other moments, everything seems completely normal. Either way, after a month here I hope that my Spanish will be significantly better, and I think it will be, and I hope to be at least ten pounds lighter, which I very well might be.

So the bus ride from Quito was interesting. I felt REALLY out of place. I just stick out like a sore thumb here. I was THE only extranjera in el autobús, and it felt weird. It was also sad to leave Marissa, because we have become fase friends. She is not just someone who I was hanging out with out of convenience, nay, but actually someone I could jive with. But I want to go visit her at her volcano and she simply must come visit me at the cloud forest. So we´ll see.

I got to Nanegal and I met the woman I´ve been emailing with, Carolyn. That´s whose house I´m at. I just ate dinner with her family and her wee baby. Earlier today I went on a walk around the village to a waterfall. It felt rather odd because EVERYBODY was STARING at me walking down the street. Even the doggies were staring, and I almost got loved to death by one. I guess that´s what happens when you´re the only gringa in a tiny town. All I have to say is thank god I´m not blond.

As I was walking along, I heard some kids giggling behind me, and I was like, hrm, are they making fun of me or what? But I turned around though and smiled at them and I think they were just curious. They walked with me all the way to the waterfall, and then took me up and down all these random hills and valleys where you can find papayas, mandarins, lemons, platains, and avocados growing wild, among all shorts of other things that I have never seen before. The girls gave me this thing they called ¨guava¨ to eat, but it´s not guava like in English. I have no IDEA what it is. It´s like a gigantic pea pod with hard like, nuts or peas inside that are covered with this sweet sort of white fur stuff. Anyway you eat the outside fur stuff and it´s supposed to be delicious, but eh, I thought it was alright. But one of the girls did give me this fantastic avocado she picked up off the ground and we just ate it for dinner. Yum.

But tomorrow I go up the lodge, which I´m looking forward to. I´m not sure what exactly will happen there but we´ll see. I will be happy to get out of this town though because I REALLY don´t fit in, and there is not a whole lot to do besides play ecuavole or watch telenovelas on the TV.

I don´t know when I´ll get a chance to write again now, probably not for a while. I wish I could answer everybody but I already feel sort of bad for using this computer. Also if there are any weird typos it´s because I´m writing this in Word and the language is set to Spanish, so it keeps auto-correcting to random things. For example it changad ¨put a¨to ¨puta¨. If you don´t know what ¨puta¨ jeans, ask your neighbor.

Okay, first and foremost I'm going to have to get used to this whacky keyboard again...

¡Pues! I'm still in Quito. All in all, I have to say that everything, so far, is going swimmingly. Better than I expected or hoped. Things are always easier than I think they will be. That is one benefit of worrying and stressing too much -- you can only be happily surprised.

My twelve hour layover in Miami turned out to be kind of fun after all. Like I mentioned before I ended up randomly meeting this nice girl from Guayaquil near the coast and two dudes from Columbia. I talked to them all for a few hours, which did make the time pass faster indeed. It was good to know I wasn't the ONLY one who had to sleep in the airport. Besides, that was probably the most Spanish I've spoken since I left Spain.
I am actually pleased at how my Spanish is going. I remember more than I thought I would. That doesn't mean of course that my airport friends didn't laugh at me a lot, especially because I used vosotros instead of ustedes. And the lisp. And okay so I mixed up the words for winter (invierno) and hell (infierno) but that doesn't mean you have to keep bringint it up, even hours later. But okay it was kind of funny.

The Spanish here is quite different, but I'm doing pretty well. It's kind of annoying though because I know all these little phrases that the Spaniards use, you know, little fillers that make you speak naturally -- stuff like, anyways, or well, or you know, stuff like that in English. But they use different phrases here, so I sound weird. Or they just plain old don't know what I mean, or think I'm saying it wrong. Plus my accent is different. The lisp is confusing me. I'm using it about half the time, and half the time not. Personally I LIKE the lisp, and I like using it, but I think it might just be confusing. Either way though, I am hoping my silly accent just makes me seem cute. And exótica.

My meeting random friends continued after the plane landed. On the flight there were like five Americans and 200 Ecuadorians. I saw this girl get on who looked my age, was carrying a nalgene and had chacos on. I knew at once she must be a kindred spirit. When we got off the plane she struck up conversation with me. Apparently she had noticed my I Heart Chow Nasty sticker on my nalgene and decided I must be cool. Her name is Marissa and she's from around LA. We started talking and stuff and she's actually doing practically the same thing as I am, but in a different place. She's going to an ecolodge near Cotopaxi, which is the country's highest volcano, and incidentally the point on the earth closest to the sun. I on the other hand am going to an ecolodge in the cloud forest.

So I met my homegirl from Alaska Christina in the airport, and the three of us went off together. I checked into my hostel which is super-cool. It's a totally hip backpacker's hostel, perhaps a little too hip for me, but everybody there is nice and wants to talk to you. Actually I was thinking about volunteering there, but now, I've been in Quito for two days and I remember why I don't like living in cities, so I don't think I'm going to pursue it.
Which is not to say I haven't been having a good time, just that, eh..three days is enough time with all these cars and buildings and people and dirty things. I'm ready to go back to the woods. Marissa and I have been doing most things together, wandering around mostly, oggling at churches and market wares. Of course, of COURSE after being here for like six hours I already bought this really awesome purse, cute sweater, and a hat. But everything is so CHEAP and AWESOME, it's hard to resist. Besides those are things I'll use for sure. The problem really becomes my limited space.

Sunday Christina, Marissa and I hung out for a while, and yesterday we met up with Christina again, along with her fellow Peace Corps volunteer friend Joseph, who incidentally had a serious burn on his hand from stamping out a flaming child he saw on the road when he was riding into work on his bike. So in other words, I am making connections all over the place. Christina is stationed in the Galápagos, and I might go there to spend a Darwin Christmas with her. Joseph is somewhere in the jungle, and I might visit him at some point. And Marissa is in Cotopaxi. This is great.

So let me see, what else. I managed to get the shits within 48 hours of being here. I don't even know how. I didn't eat anything especially weird or dirty. Or so I thought. But today I feel a bit better. Incidentally having the shits is made more inconvenient in a country where they do not always supply toilet paper, or a toilet seat. Still, I have to say that so far the bathrooms are better than they are in Spain. And there's less dog shit on the roads too.

Tomorrow I go off to the cloud forest. Tengo ganas. I hope it is cool. See, I'm still stressing about that because I haven't seen it yet. But..it'll probably be fine. ¡Vamos a ver!