Why Birth Control Matters

Reading: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Washinton and his mother, Magaly

I have never read the Feminine Mystique. Nor did I think of myself as a feminist. Coming to age in the “otts,” my life experience has been limited to a post-60/70s first world – where equality between men and women has shifted into normality. My generation is accustomed to women in the work place, family planning, and careers before marriage. We, or at least I, saw the fervent feminism of our mothers as a thing of the past. The bra burning sexually liberated “hippies” felt as a lost age, a time that no longer applies to my present day life.

Then I came to Ecuador.

Posh Corps

Reading: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Paccha, El Oro

A minor hiccup in my Peace Corps service: I received a site change due to issues with project availability and security reasons. It certainly was not an easy decision to come to after having spent a year in Chimbo and investing so much of myself there.

However, my new site, Paccha, seems to be a more fitting location for me and more feasible as a community to work with Peace Corps. I will be continuing the work of a PCV from an omnibus before me… but more on that after I have been here for longer than two weeks and I have a chance to really delve into things.