Getting Things Done: After a year in site, things are finally going smoothly and developing quite nicely.  I can’t believe that a year has already passed… Recently I have become a garden master, not bad for a city boy.  I have successfully emplaced gardens in the community schools of Lavadel, Lun, the highschool and health [...]

Riddled with Failures – I now know what the Peace Corps recruiters meant by, “You will experience FAILURE throughout your service.”  Oh no, what happened Mitchy boy you may be asking yourself… Well let me begin with the community bank debacle.  In short, it failed after the first community meeting, the people lacked interest and [...]

The longer I stay in this quiet mountain village of mine, the more I grow to like it. Sometimes I feel like I was placed in the village most equivalent to Austin in Ecuador, due to the funk factor of the festivals here. The last 2 were the 22nd of December and the 6th of [...]

The Double Dose of Comatose – At times I really think that I am blessed living and working in such a diverse country such as Ecuador.  This is most likely one of the greatest places on the planet despite its little nuances.  I am also really thankful for the great, supportive bunch of volunteers, friends [...]

I know that I have been off of the radar for a while….my apologies.  I have been recently riding an emotional rollercoaster that has finally stabilized and now life is very good.  In short, I checked myself before I wrecked myself.  I recently returned from our Peace Corps Reconnect, a week-long conference in which we [...]

The massacre – The local politician invited me to check out the community of Ger so I could get acquainted with the schools and people over there, “Claro que si, quiero ir!” I arrived at the office of the junta parroquial the next morning and couldn’t help but notice very large, armed policemen also there [...]

It is quite difficult to recount all that has happened since my last post a month or so ago. Try my best I will… The goodbye – I went on one last epic horseback ride to the top of a nearby mountain with my host family to search for a lost toro bravo.  The search [...]

So… I traveled to my permanent site on the evening of 19 July to scope it out for a few days and I had no idea what to expect.  From the volunteer request form it seemed that I would be working in an ultra rural town that lacked sanitation and had a tremendous problem with [...]

What else is new? Did I ever mention that my family and extended family is obsessed with bulls?  Well they are.  I have been to a couple of Corrida Del Toros, but the most recent one in the larger city of Cayambe was intense.  The bulls were massive and the arena reminded me of an [...]

Hello again world,  I finally have some free time and an empty internet café stall.  What have I been up to? Well hells bells, I cannot describe everything but I shall give you some juicy bullets. I am currently living on a beatuiful ranch in Cariacu.  My host family has horses, chickens, pigs, milk cows, [...]

My first blog, how exciting…  I am going to try to make these short and sweet so hopefully I can keep interest. I hate to say this, but it finally feels good to be out of Austin.  I don’t know how many more days I could have survived celebrating my departure.  It seriously took me [...]