Just wanted to let everyone know Aj and I are now RPCVs or Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, well I guess we have not returned to the States quite yet but we are now ex Peace Corps Volunteers. Only after 27 months of service! We are travelling to Colombia this saturday and will be heading back to Seattle on May 15 (if all goes to plan). It has been quite the experience here in Ecuador but even as
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Here we are wrapping the walls of bamboo with chicken wire. We will then cement them. The chambers are above ground. The back wall has two large windows to allow for air flow. The windows will be covered with mosquito netting to discourage insects.
I wanted to post this for a few reasons. First, I think its great what Mary and this NGO is trying to do. I have seen Mary in action and she is so good at what she does. She really has a passion for development work and conservation here in Ecuador. So if anything I want people to have a better idea of what kind of work is going on here in the Oriente that is outside the scope of Peace Corps.
Dear Family, Friends, Co-workers, and other Relations,For those of you with whom I haven´t been in touch with in a while, I am writing to you from Ecuador where I am currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer. In addition to my regular community work, I am also serving on a special task force to promote HIV/AIDS awareness. We have recently begun working with a Guayaquil-based organization
These last few months I have been visiting communities and presenting information on dry toilets. Finally two communities were selected where 6 dry toilets will hopefully be built. In order to build these toilets I applied for a Pl-480 grant, a grant provided by USAID. I was approved today of all days! The model we plan on building is a urine separating dry toilet. Essentially its like a latrine
*The song playing during the slide show.....didn´t mean to do that, I must have clicked something by accident
Doing a rainforest activity from Project Learning Tree (Amazing book!)
It’s easy to forget while I am surrounded by the color green that in the northern hemisphere fall is nearing its end and the trees must be looking bare. Here in the Oriente, trees never look bare and seasons do not really exist. The word October loses all its associations I have with it – fall colors, blue skies, pumpkin donuts, cider, trick or treating, etc…. October is pretty much like any
Click here for the official Peace Corps Project page
Click here for the project blog
Please take a look and feel free to email AJ with any questions*
*a complete project outline is available upon request and donations are tax deductible
Our host brothers, Ivon and Andres, recently made a trip to the Oriente. We spent the day with them in El Chaco and made a trip to the San Rafael Falls, the largest in Ecuador. Its a shame that they will be losing half their strength when a new hydro plant comes on-line in a few years.
While back in the US we took our camera (canon rebel)to a camera shop to be looked at. We had started to see lines in pictures and the camera was generally just not up to par. The camera tech guy opened the camera and placed it under a microscope for a closer look. His response: i´ve never seen anything like this. The guy looked like he was about to call the CDC. Apparently the internal
Since I am feeling guilty about not writing on this thing I will give a quick update. Since I last wrote things have been progressing nicely. For the last few months I have been meeting with a group of high schoolers and doing environmental education type stuff. Our worms are flourishing and I have enough manue to feed them for a long time to come. We have gone on lots of field trips and played
Photos from the kids clubs. The photos were taken from our "jungle hike" and our trip to Tena and the zoo. While the zoo was a lot of fun, the kids were most excited about eating pizza afterwards (a first for the majority of the kids).
Our house. Front room and then 3 smaller rooms (kitchen, bedroom and "guest room").
Greetings-
We are currently in the US visiting my family in Seattle. We flew in yesterday and surprised my brother who had no idea we were coming. We will be here for around a week eating large amounts of seafood, drinking foreign beer, and taking long showers. Also, we plan on uploading a copious amount of photos.
In an effort to avoid the unbelievably slow uploading of pictures onto blogger we have decided to try out slide.com. The slide shows should automatically load and if they stop then click the x in top right corner and the slide show should reload. For slower more traditional view click view all images. Also, you can enter an email address to be updated whenever new photos appear on the blog.
The picture of the kids is from the "fiesta de la escuela" where every grade performed a dance routine. The large patch of green in the school garden photo is rice and the plots on the left are medicinal plants.
Our trip to Misahualli where we headed down the Napo river to a local "museum" of sorts that included indigenous traps, tools and clothing and lots and lots of monkeys and other critters running around.
Orchid garden in Puyo - some of theorchids were so small we had to lookthrough a magnifying glass. Kris has achioteon her face.
Lessons learned (learning I should say)
Don’t worry
It’s the little things that count
Enjoy everyday
All very cliché I know but so true….and
There are worse things than amoebas
Things I especially enjoy (in case you wanted to know)
chocolate milk
cuddle time with the dog, cat, and AJ of course
a beautiful morning or evening (when you can see Volcan Sumaco and the Andes)
a good rain storm with
1. Last week we brought Nina with us to the greenhouse at Yvonne's school. After exploring the greenhouse Nina decided she would rather explore the school. Before we knew it she was roaming alone around the school. We followed the barking to the soccer field and soon discovered Nina in the midst of an eighth grader soccer game. Nina had apparently decided to join the game and therefore
The best cocktail bar in Ecuador located along the riverbank in Tena
This is the opposite view from the picture below. This is the main bridge. The photo is taken from the footbridge.
opposite side of the river from the bar. This side has a great pizza place. The island in the middle is a bird/animal park.
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