fun in the canyon

I think my favorite group that I've been working with is the family down in the canyon. They're the ones that I've been making shampoo with. First off it's a nice hike down and back (I'm in better shape now so it's actually fun to walk down) and secondly we're just very productive. I think I'm a bit disheartened because nothing is really happening with my official counterpart. We have seeds for family gardens and I keep telling them anytime they want help I'm ready but so far we're not really doing much. But with the family I hike down and we make shampoo or compost and there are no endless planning meetings before things happen. They were very understanding when the first bach of shampoo ended up a little funny. It's just nice knowing that every week or two I'll have a good productive day.
Other than that I gotta admit I've kind of checked out since thanksgiving. I've been doing a lot of hiking and also still teaching english but not much more than that. I think I'm just impatient for going back to the states for xmas.

A most excellent thanksgiving

First off, I hope everyone reading this had a good turkey day. I have to say, mine definitely ranks up there as one of the best. A group of us got together near Cuenca, in Cajas national park. Originally I wasn't planning on going, but after talking to my friends the other weekend I decided to go. The trip down was a bit of a pain, 15 hours in various buses, including a 2 hour delay near Riobamba (which I found out later was due to a bike race on the panamerican highway). I got into Cuenca pretty late and found a cheap hostal to crash at since we weren't getting together until the next day. The next morning I was up early (having gone to bed at 8) so I wandered around Cuenca a bit. It really is a beautiful city with a church every few blocks. I went into a couple and watched the morning mass. I have lots of pictures of the weekend, but unfortunately I seem to have lost the connector thingy so photos will have to wait till xmas. Anyway after wandering around a bit I took a bus to my friends house outside of Cuenca where we were all meeting. Then we headed into the park, which I have to say is absolutely gorgeous. The cabin we were in was really nice too and everyone brought good food. So after munching a bit we headed out on the various trails. The hiking was great if a bit muddy. We were pretty much the only ones in the park so no dealing with stupid tourists and loud drunk campers like in the states. Plus the water for the city comes from the park so the park gets a lot of funding to keep things clean and taken care of. We had a very nice thanksgiving meal out on the porch overlooking the lake and the mountains. Then it was game night with a variety of card and board games. The next morning we did some more hiking and ate the leftovers for lunch, then crammed into the van to head back to Cuenca. I spent the night at my friends' house before heading back Saturday. All and all a great weekend!

Crocheting frustrations

We had another knitting workshop this past week, this time crocheting macrame handbags. I discovered that I don't particularly like crocheting. I was the only one there who had never done it before and it was frusturating trying to follow the teacher as she talked and demonstrated really quickly. We were supposed to make two bags, but I only made one and gave the rest of my material away to other people who were more adept at it. At least it was fun hanging out with all the ladies even if the actual work was a pain for me.
So Christmas is coming up and if any of you out there is in a particularly alturistic mood and want to donate some money I have just the opportunity for you. The local primary school here along with one of the local hostels puts together little goody bags of candy and other things for all the kids, but they're a bit short on funds. So if anyone would like to donate a little bit of money for this that would be great. You can email me and I'll send info on how to go about it. My email is lugess720@yahoo.com. Any help would be appreciated since a lot of these kids don't get much in the way of xmas presents (if they get anything at all) and it's a bit rough when they see all the ads on tv which there are just as many of as in the US.
I know I promised to post pictures but I realized I forgot to pack my connecter cable for my camera. I'm visiting some friends near riobamba for the weekend and had hoped to upload pics but didn't pay attention while I was packing, oops!

day of the saints and bus adventures

This past weekend was the day of the dead/day of the saints. This year was different than usual because there were a lot less people. Usually the cemetary is packed for the mass, but it was pretty sparse this time around. The cemetary is right across from my house so I just hung out and watched the goings on. I took some pictures, but didn't bring them this time around (I'll post them next time). My host family had a bunch of relatives visit from the coast so the house was pretty packed. I ended up cleaning out my storage closet so some of them could stay in there. And of course we ate guinea pig (apparently that's one of the main reasons people come from the coast, to enjoy the guinea pig). The other traditional foods are colada morada (a drink made from blueberries) and this bread made in the shape of a kid. There was also a dance in the evening which I attended briefly (the dances here generally start way past my bedtime and I'm not much of a night person either).
My bus adventure happened yesterday. I needed to go into town to pick up some supplies for making shampoo, so I got up early to catch the 4 o'clock bus. I got to the main square at 5 till, but must have just missed it. So I go back home planning on taking the student bus that takes kids from my town to Sigchos where there is the high school. From there I can catch another bus into Latacunga. I get on this bus no problem but about halfway there we run into a bad patch of road (it's been raining a lot lately) that takes about 20 minutes to navigate around. By the time I get into Sigchos the other bus has already left and there isn't another one until the afternoon. I can't really wait for that one because I have to meet up with my host mom in Latacunga to give her a list of things she needs to buy in town. So I wander around for while trying to see if I can hitch a ride on a truck. I eventually find one which is good, but have to pay a lot more than the bus fare (not so good). But I do make it into town finally, hook up with my host mom and get my shopping done. Luckily this all went uneventfully!

Sex ed

There´s not much to report for the last week, except that I helped out with a sex ed class in the high school. Another peace corps volunteer in the health program came to give a talk on that and also another talk on first aid with some of the guides in town. The sex ed program was interesting as none of the kids had had anything like that before. There were some basic anatomy and sexuality things thta they didn't know anything about. At first they were all a bit uncomfortable but then they warmed up and actually participated. I think I'm going to try to get my hands on some of the materials the health volunteers use so that I can give some of those sorts of talks.
The family garden project is still a little slow getting off the ground. We have the seeds and now it's raining enough that they won't have to water extra, but no one has been at the meetings we've had. This past monday there was a big pta meeting at the school so no one came to our usual meeting (plus it was raining pretty hard which gives everyone an excuse not to come). Hopefully we can get some gardens planted in the next few weeks.

having a heat wave . . .

I just got back from a couple days in the jungle near Tena. It was a lot of fun, especially since I got to go swimming. I stayed at the house of the family of a friend who was working at one of the hostels in my town. The bus ride from Quito to Tena was absolutely beautiful since we were going from snow capped mountains to steamy jungle in 5 hours. There were all these incredible waterfalls along the way too. Then when I finally got off the bus it was like stepping out into a sauna. It actually felt good for the first few minutes until a started sweating buckets. The first day there we wandered around town a bit and went swimming at the river. The swimming wasn´t great at there because the current was pretty fast, but it was the closest spot to the house to cool off in. The next day we went to a better swimming spot which are what the pictures are from. I thought it would just be a couple of us going for part of the day, but it ended up being the whole family. It was a lot of fun goofing around with the kids and just paddling around. We also had a big picnic lunch complete with salad, pork, and yucca. The only downside was that I scraped up my nose when I was doing a handstand and slipped. Oh well! The next day we visited this little island where there is a little zoo and botanical garden. I can't tell you the animals I saw because I only heard the names in Spanish or Kichwa but I think one was a cotamundi and another was a spider monkey. Yesterday I left and spent a little bit of time wandering around Quito and then caught a bus back. I'm already thinking about where I went to go for another little vacation. As long as we travel in Ecuador and aren´t gone for more than 4 or 5 days every month or two we don't have to use vacation days. Maybe I'll go visit the coast and take surfing lessons =)

false alarm

Well nothing really came of all the worrying peace corps was doing about the elections. In my town nobody seemed very concerned one way or the other. In fact the elections coincided with the parties for the town’s patron saint so people were more interested in that than the elections. This also meant that the dry laws might not have been followed exactly to the letter. These past two weeks since I’ve been back I’ve been mostly teaching english (which is going better) puttering around with the tree nursery and playing in the garden.
This Friday I’m looking forward to going to the jungle to visit two friends there. They were managers at one of the hostels here and one of them is from the oriente so it will be fun to get a more insider’s perspective on life there. Plus I feel like I need a little bit of defrosting since it’s been pretty cold and rainy here the past week or so. This whole year the weather has been really strange with a lot more rain than usual and no real summer (which would generally be still happening now). Everyone is worried about their potatoes with all this rain.
Well that’s all from here. Hopefully for my next post I’ll have some fun pics from the jungle =)