It\u2019s 7:30 in the morning and I\u2019m walking 40 minutes downhill to the closest bus stop on the Panamerican Highway, a 19,000-mile route that officially links Monterrey, Mexico, to Valparaiso, Chile. On my little stretch in rural Ecuador, it\u2019s a basic two-lane road with potholes, pavement wearing thin, and deep drainage channels on both sides.<\/p>\n
From my house, which stands at an altitude of 10,500 feet, la panamericana cuts switchbacks 500 feet down into the river valley, through farm fields and groves of evergreen trees, before curving circuitously back up to the high school where I work. I\u2019m almost at the traffic control booth that marks the edge of the canton<\/i> (town) and my bus stop, when a tiny black kitten walks up to me and fiercely demands to be picked up.<\/span><\/p>\n I live in Andean Ecuador \u2014 a 9-hour bus ride south of the capital city of Quito \u2014 where I\u2019m a Peace Corps volunteer (PCV) in the Teaching English as a Foreign Language program. Due to the way the Earth bulges at the equator, I may be the closest PCV to the sun, but most of the time, it\u2019s chilly and damp like my hometown of Seattle \u2014 not good weather for the survival of stray kittens. I\u2019m the lone white woman living and working in my communities, which has earned me the affectionate nickname \u201cla gringita,\u201d little foreigner. <\/span><\/p>\n The Peace Corps has three goals: to help interested countries train workers; to promote a better understanding of the United States among host country nationals; and to promote a better understanding of host countries within the United States, all with the overarching ideal of building world peace. I work with high school teachers on English and teaching methods for about 30 hours per week, dividing the rest of my time between starting a leadership club for the students, hunting down reading materials for the empty English section of my school library, and rescuing stray kittens.<\/span><\/p>\n Keats, as I eventually named him, was a very dignified 5-week-old with tufts of white fur and yellow eyes. When I couldn\u2019t find anyone to claim him, after going door-to-door with fumbled questions in Spanish, I took the bus home, where I made him kitten formula and worked remotely. <\/span><\/p>\n Keats was on my lap the day the Colgate Bookstore confirmed they could collect the books they can\u2019t sell (advance readers\u2019 copies and editors\u2019 proofs) if I could find the funds to ship them to Ecuador. He was purring on my shoulder when the Colgate Pen Pals\u2019 Club wrote back to me about connecting my leadership club members with college students in the United States. As I write this essay, he\u2019s running around my apartment with the neighbors\u2019 black puppy, his new friend. I have 12 months of grant writing, lesson planning, in-service training, and mentorship to go, and my Ecuadorian good-luck charm will be with me every step of the way. <\/span><\/p>\n