Well, here we are in December. It's pretty incredible to me that I'm still hanging on to this country- my site really doesn't have too much work, the people don't really want to work at anything and look for me to create new projects which is exactly what Peace Corps doesn't want us to do (it usually isn't sustainable), and I haven't been well supported by my managerial staff. However, I have set the goal to get myself through this whole thing because I know that I will walk back into the United States with a much more productive outlook on life, much more flexibility and respect for co-workers, and the appreciation for people who schedule meetings and then are on time.

It seems like not too long ago I was just arriving at my site (the end of April); then I was waiting out six weeks straight of rain (half of May and all of June); then I went to Quito to shake off the rain, enjoy the sun, and enjoy the bluegrass band and BBQ at the Ambassador's house on July 4th; the month of August was spent out in the middle of nowhere interviewing and getting to know people within the biosphere reserve I live in; September was a month of reunions, as it brought Trinity to Ecua-land (finally I had my best friend back) and re-connected all of my training group back into one space; as well, I got out of my depression based funk as I went to the coast and facilitated in an Enviro Ed workshop and remembered exactly why I came to Ecuador. October brought work to my site with the implementation of organic fertilizer workshops and training that had been planned since July (and finally happened!!!) and the promise of work in the future. I also found the ability to relax and travel a bit, heading down to the south of the country for a few days and then to a rafting competition in El Chaco. And then we were in November, a month which I passed much of my time with Trinity either in Quito or in Baeza. I also saw the most over qualified Peace Corps volunteer I knew (and my co-chair for the E-Commerce workshop we had planned out since September) be asked to resign because he 'wanted to get married to and Ecuadorian to early in service' [the guy is 28 years old, I think he can handle his own emotions], which was by far the lowest moment in my service so far. My spirits were lifted by an incredible Thanksgiving dinner put on by the director of USAID for Trinity, myself, and two other volunteer friends, followed by my completion of a half-marathon from Quito to Mitad del Mundo (it was cool, the race ended on the equator). And I finished 226 out of 1065 of my age division!

And then we hit December... here we are at the end of the year. The next few weeks will be spent focusing on projects at the Baeza high school with organic fertilizers, going to a baptism at my counterpart's house in the jungle (that will be a three day excursion most likely), and doing more GPSing of the park boundary line. The second half of this month will be spent in Colorado with the people I love and miss far too much (if anyone who reads this didn't know, I'll be back in Boulder Dec 19 and visiting family, friends, and skiing thru Jan 8). I can't wait to be home. It's hard thinking that I still have two weeks to wait, one and a half of those being in Baeza, and then the following days being in Quito getting Trinity to the airport, getting my teeth cleaned and making sure that I don't have too many worms or parasites before I go back to North American bichos.

By the time I get back to Baeza, I will be looking forward to a rafting/kayak fest in Tena, and getting ready to summit two big mountains in Ecua-land (Sumaco is for sure [and not too huge, a little under 13000 feet] and hopefully Antisana as well [a big ol' lady, 19005 feet, hard approach, sketchy ice fields up high]).

For now however, I'm just going to wait out my next two weeks patiently for my flight back into the snowy northern hemisphere, and into the arms of the ones I love.

REQUEST OF THE MONTH: Financial help when I'm back in the states. I am going to be BROKE I'm afraid... and in shock with the prices. Buy a brother a cheeseburger and a beer!

And again. OK, I think we're all caught up now!

SO, the rafting.

Trinity and I showed up around 930am to the banks of the Quijos River just on the eastern outskirts of El Chaco after our fantastic bus ride back from Quito. We were greeted by beautiful sunlight hitting the tree tops on a nice beach on a slow meander of the river where the river run ended. As we climbed over some of the small boulders to access the sandy section of the beach, we ran into about 15 volunteers from Peace Corps, as well as a few other groups of USA vols who are working as teachers in the Quito area. The DJ got the reggaeton pumpin' around 11am, when registration was supposed to end, and by the time registration DID END at 1230pm, we had already cracked a few beers and were really enjoying ourselves in our beach party setting.

There were 36 teams, and the format was as follows: Every team was guaranteed one run and one run only. Now, this isn't much of a run, this is only a 2-3 minute time trial. After this, the top 18 teams went on and did a second time trial; from there, the top 12 went on and did a 40 minute section (where the 2005 Int'l White Water Championships took place, coincidentally)in two heats the following day. Well, needless to say, there was lots of waiting around because there were 36 teams going in three boat heats. We cheered on our Peace Corps friends in the first heat, waited around, and went down in the fourth heat. We finished second out of three boats in the heat, but we knew that we could have done better. After resting on the beach, laughing a lot and introducing my PC friends to my El Chaco and Baeza friends, the results were final: We had placed 13 out of 36, with a time of 2:07.18 and were into the next round. The next round started immediately, and, yet again, we opened some beers and watched. The first three heats came down; and then it was our turn.

The team knew we needed to kick it up a notch, and we were looking for a piece of flair to really get our spirits together. Well, without explanation, we put on Bon-Ice (a brand of Popsicle) shirts and pants that some people had rented for Halloween, and changed our team name from the Dragonflies to Bon-Ice. It doesn't seem like much; but sometimes that's all that you need. On the beach, we could all feel the energy- we were so ready to get into the finals. We had to improve our time by (at the absolute minimum) 3 seconds to get into the next round, which was going to be hard because the river had been going down all day and times had been slowing by the cfs. We took our places on the line; the countdown from 10 started; TRES, DOS, UNO, GO! And we were off running as fast as we could to our raft. Everyone jumped in, we got a great push off from the shore, and we were GONE. I mean, we hauled ass. I get an adrenaline rush just thinking about it right now, writing about this experience that happened a month ago! To make a long story short, we crossed the finish line WAY out in front of the other two boats, and I was so enthused that I threw a corked front flip off of the front of the boat. We got the boat to shore and waited for our time to officially be posted. It cam in:

1:56.46

AND WE FLIPPED OUT. We had not only improved our time by three seconds, but by 10! It was the biggest jump of time in the entire competition. We celebrated by throwing ourselves a little beach party until even the DJ wanted to go home. We headed into town, took showers, took naps, ate dinner, and went out to dance it up. Trinity and I made it back up to Baeza around midnight, slept until 8am, and were back down in El Chaco at 9am. In our heat of six boats to do the long section of water, we had competition of the fastest boat from the day before and the other Peace Corps group. It was to be a challenging stretch. The beginning of the race was through flat water into a tight bottlenecked canyon. This was the hardest spot: the bubble line (the fastest current) was hard on the right, but the canyon was a touch shorter river left. We aimed straight down the middle (the only boat to do so), and ended up second out of the canyon. Now, it's always hard to be the first boat in a river race, or the first runner in a 10k or marathon, so I was perfectly happy being second. With hard strokes and continuous arm movement for about 15 minutes, we made a few runs at boat number one, but our VERY hungover guide made several crucial errors, and at one time threw us all the way back into last place. But we kept it together as a team, and my teammates didn't let me lose my temper too much at our guide (who at times I was telling where to go). I'll skip to the end, as the middle was just pure aerobic workout. To the point where I felt like puking. We rounded a curve after our largest section of white water, and found ourselves staring at a ten boat length gap between us and the first place boat. All seemed hopeless, we were so tired. Then Trinity shouted out, “Hey, this is the sprint section! This is where we knocked off 10 seconds yesterday, let's do it again!!!” Her words worked like magic. Through the flat water at the beginning of the sprint section we gained slowly and steadily on the first place boat. They didn't even see us coming... it was too good to be true. They thought they had it won hands down! Then, one of their members looked over their shoulder and shouted and they started pulling harder. I yelled at the top of my lungs at the team to dig full force, and we all worked together like a well oiled machine. It was a photo finish, people running down to the edge of the beach to cheer the two teams on, us gaining on the first place boat, 4 lengths, 2, 1, and then we were next to them! And then we were ahead by a nose, and then they slipped back in front, and then we hit the rapids which meant that the race would be over in less than a minute. Only one more obstacle to overcome, the big hole in the middle right of the river. The river was running fastest to the high right of the hole, and OK to the left, and we would lose time going through the middle. I knew all of this and was prepared to pull the boat to the left side if necessary (we were on the left side of the other boat), but I took my eyes off of the river to make sure that no one caught a paddle in the face from the other boat, and before I knew it, we were in the hole. The other boat skirted around to the right, and again had a boat length on us, and then we surfed the hole, and they had two lengths. There was nothing we could do... BUT WHAT A FINISH!!!

We ended up in second place overall and took home a 200 dollar cash prize. It was more fun and a better rush than anything I've done since leaving the states. I can't wait to repeat next year, and hopefully jump to a first place finish!

Really quickly; a few other things I did this month:

-Witnessed Ecuador slaughter Peru 5-1 in World Cup Qualifiers in Quito

-Went to Thanksgiving at the USAID director's house (and it was awesome!)

-Completed a half marathon (finished 226 out of 1065 in the 19-29 division with little training and at 9,000 feet, not bad!)

-Played Ultimate in Quito 4 times

-Witnessed the most over qualified PC/E volunteer being asked to resign because he wanted to 'get married too early in service' (wow, the crap that a country director can come up with when they don't like someone)

-Had great conversations with the 2nd in charge in PC/E about PC/E. It feels good to have a boss who listens... At least one of 5.

And again...

Well, I just got back from the most ridiculous non-Peace Corps week that I could have ever planned out. It was awesome.

Starting on Monday the 29th of October, I headed down to Quito to hang out with Trinity for the day and to wait for my night bus to Cuenca. Every Halloween in Ecuador there is always a huge get together down in the south of the country in the city of Cuenca. Cuenca is 9-10 hours from Quito by bus and about the equivalent of driving from Ft. Collins to Pueblo, but through mountainous terrain. Around seven in the morning Tuesday I rolled into Cuenca, victorious yet semi-sleep deprived. I actually slept for about five and a half hours and was quite proud of myself. Now, anyone who knows anything about Latin America knows that there is no store that is open before 8am. So what does one do while they are in their destination city but they have nowhere that they can go? Well they wander aimlessly of course! And so I roamed the streets of Cuenca, searching out all of the big, beautiful churches and large, clean parks that lined the interior of the city. What a beautiful city. It's architecture is supposed to be pretty famous- it has the feeling of Castillian Spain, with a touch of post Gothic arches and Corinthian pillars caps. It's fun.

Around 8am I started calling people to try and find out where I needed to be. I was in search of the hostel where I had a room booked, but none of the cab drivers knew where it was. I finally raised the cross streets from a friend who was already there, and headed off to drop my things, shower, and get some breakfast. There is a little Colombian restaurant about a block and a half from the hostel which has the best chorizo that I've eaten in Ecuador. One thing I miss is a nice spicy kick in my food. Well, I found it. I just have to eat in a Colombian restaurant to remember the delicious, “wow, watch that stuff, it's spicy” taste in my food. Oh man, it's good. My friends and I ate, and went touring around more of the city. They had been in the night before and already knew the good spots. We headed down to the central park (which is gorgeous) and sat in the middle of the plaza listening to the classical music which was soothingly oozing from the speakers placed so acoustically correct around the yard that they created a complete surround sound system. The huge Catholic cathedral to our West rose vertically 10 stories and cast shadows across the courtyard to confront the large Supreme Court building on the Eastern edge of the square, and I felt as if I was sitting in the middle of the battle to be fought between church and state.

We wandered over to the top of a set of steep stairs leading down to a big, green park, and decided that we needed to get back to the hostel to get my frisbee. It was a good choice. We had good space to throw the disc, which felt good since it was my first time to practice my throws since September. After a long, satisfying hour, we headed back to the hostel to nap. I was tired. I slept for about an hour, reminded myself that I would have plenty of time to sleep when I got back to my site, and got up to greet other people as they rolled into the hostel. I met up with my friend and co-volunteer Zac to talk business for an hour or so; we decided that before the debauchery of Halloween that we should be serious. We are co-chairing Peace Corps Ecuador's E-Commerce network, and have our first meeting next week in Quito with the big bosses. Before we get there we wanted to have all of our ideas outlined and ready to make sure that we didn't step on each other's toes in the meeting. We had our meeting over lunch, again, at the Colombian restaurant. Again, it was delicious.

Around 3pm I got onto a bus with a group of friends and traveled two hours south to the site of another volunteer friend who had invited about 15 people to bbq it up. This evening was one of the most relaxing I've had in all of my peace corps experience. To be able to enjoy the company of friends and not worry about how I was feeling about my work situation back in Baeza, my lack of US Government funding to continue my projects, and my lack of family close by was something that I hadn't previously been able to get completely off of my shoulders. It was so good. We ate good food- we cooked burgers and hot dogs and chicken, as well as made mashed potatoes, coleslaw, guacamole and salsa, chocolate and carrot cake, and other things that have since slipped my mind. We drank our way through 8 'habas' as well (which equivocates to 96 beers, or 6.5 beers per person, and these are 22 oz beers), so that shows just how good of a night it was. In the morning we made some awesome breakfast burritos, cleaned up the house, took a stroll around the volunteer's community, and hopped the next bus back to Cuenca. When we arrived in Cuenca, I found out that many more people had arrived at the hostel, and it took about an hour to get through the lobby to my room because I couldn't stop saying hi to people! It was awesome. I headed back out with a group of people to walk around and throw the frisbee again, and then headed back to the hostel to rest. I ended up playing cards (eucher, the greatest card game ever... maybe?) for a few hours, and by the time the card players assimilated with rest of the people downstairs it was time to start getting party oriented. I changed into my costume: cleverly disguised in a t-shirt and pants and shoes, I combed my hair so that it was pretty straight and went as Shaggy from ScoobyDoo along with two other girls who were Daphne and Velma. We looked good. I said “Zoinks” a lot. I also cut my friend Jason's hair into a SWEET rocker mullet. And the best part is, no Ecuadorians think that it looks funny! Just us Americans. Mullets are so common down here I have stopped counting.

Well, I'll skip most of the party details, but it is important to note numbers: 75 peace corps volunteers showed up along with quite a few Ecuadorians, and we went through 15 liters of aguardiente, 35 habas (420 22 oz beers), and several assorted bottles of other liquors. There were also three beirut (or beer pong) tables, and two ice luges. The people who set up the party are very good at what they do. It was silly. I actually didn't drink too much because I ended up DJ'ing almost all of the night and didn't really have time to drink which was a good thing because I DJ'ed until 5am. Ah Ecuador, the country where everyone loves to dance forever.

The next morning after taking a quick tour through the arts and crafts festival down in the central park (it was the beginning of the festivals of Cuenca and I was told it was worth missing my flight to stay and see... but ya right), I hopped on a plane back to Quito to save myself another 9 hour bus ride. This is where things got interesting. Flying from Cuenca to Quito is a staggering 40 minute ride directly north on the Andean Corridor, but it ended up turning into a 3 hour trip when the Quito airport was shut as we were on final approach. I mean, we were there! I know for a fact that we were less than one mile from the airport when the pilot 'hit the jets' and pulled up back into cruising altitude. And then, after flying 440 km north from Cuenca, we flew 415 km back south to await the passage of the nasty Quito weather in Guayaquil. From being able to see my girlfriends house as we flew over it in Quito (elevation 9000 ft), to sitting in the tarmac in Guayaquil, a 2 minute drive from the ocean, was not very expected. And so we sat for as long as it took to refuel the plane and double check the electronics, and we were off. Instead of landing in Quito at 4pm, we landed at 7pm.

WELL. There I was in Quito, and it was cold and miserable. Trinity and I had originally decided to hop on a bus for the three hour trip to Baeza that night after she got done teaching, but after talking with quite a few friends in the Oriente who told us that it was down poring and that there were landslides everywhere, we opted for a 15 minute bus ride to Trinity's house, and to get up VERY early to head East in the morning.

It was a good choice- on the bus ride over, during which I slept almost all of the time, Trinity woke me up to point out the MOST BEAUTIFUL site in Ecuador. As we rounded the last curve going up and started dropping down into the Papallacta Lake valley, we were witnesses to the clearest morning that has been in the last 8, nearly 9 months of my existence. Volcano Antisana sat there in all it's raw power, glistening in the sun, it's 19,001 foot snow capped crown towering over every other point within view. And to add to this never before seen vista, the rest of the valley as far as the eye could see sat crystal clear, straight out of any postcard that you have ever wanted to place proudly on your refrigerator as if to say, “There? No, that's paradise. You could never go THERE.”

After passing 10 new landslides, Trinity and arrived in Baeza, grabbed my rafting things, and hopped into the next camionetta to El Chaco to join the rest of our team for our rafting excursion. For length's purpose, I'm going to stop here and leave the rafting for the next entry.

I finally got around to writing something a long time ago... and finally posting it!

Things seem to be turning for the better here in Ecuador for me! I like being enthusiastic about the future and well, here I am NOT PRETENDING to be enthusiastic anymore. I'm just plain old enthusiastic. There is talk in Peace Corps and in every volunteer organization which sends you abroad where you will have the cliché of “peaks and valleys” within your time away from family, friends, and all else that is familiar to your senses. I am pleased to mention that after only one therapy session and two huge, successful projects, I feel as though I am nearing the halfway point out of my valley. I plan to summit this peak just before I leave for the states to visit Colorado, and stay on the summit for the period of December 19-January 8 while I am at home enjoying things like sunshine, snow, family, non-bland food, Subarus, my CSU and Ft. Collins friends, REAL BEER, and college bowl games. After that, it is inevitable that I will have to leave the summit of my peak as I head back into the valley that is my reality to find the next peak to be summited. And to hopefully not get too wet when I head back into the jungle for a second wind.

***This live journal was going to be about the great time I've had in my site over the past week and a half, but instead it turned into joking about how everyone here knows English. Enjoy.***

ANYWAY. I had a really nice week here in Baeza. I spent a lot of time with particular people whom I've found that I can not only work with, but work well with. My neighbor Ricky is a great guy. He has a wonderful wife (who has finally started openly talking with me after the Kichwa shyness wore off), and two of the cutest kids that have ever existed... And his immediate family (all 6 brothers and sisters, his parents, grandparents, etc) live within about five minutes of walking from my house. It's a great community to have around me. WELL anyway, Ricky and I are working on English a bit together. He is doing university work at distance, so he hired me FOR FREE, WHAT A BARGAIN to help him with his English. Did you know that English is the hardest language on earth to learn? I've been told this many times; Ricky has proved the whole method wrong. He actually understands that the vowels are different, accents are not always placed on the second vowel, that you don't always roll the 'r', etc. In other words, he's really good. Most people in this country will never achieve this level of comprehension. The English teaching in this country overall is horrible; therefore that is why most students leaving high school can only say “good morning teacher” (not important what time of day it is or whether or not you are their teacher), “hello, what is your name”, and “tank you berry much”. And I mean that is ALL. And if you respond and try to have a dialogue as complicated as “my name is Elliot, what is your name?” you will only get scared looks that you can tell are thinking “SHIT! Why didn't I study? I might be able to talk with this Gringo!” So I just say a few things about what I think about them in English, then I tell them that I was talking about them in English, and if they want to know what I said, they'll have to figure out what to ask me in English so that I will tell them. Then they usually cuss at me in Kichwa, and when I tell them that wasn't very nice in Kichwa, they looked shocked to hell. I love it. So, let's wrap it all up into a sample conversation so that you at home can get an idea of my daily routine when I pass the high school. Every day. With a different kid.

STUDENT 1 MEETS 'EL EXTRANJERO'

A short scene

by Elliot Cooper

As we enter the scene, we see a group of meddlesome looking teenagers who are so deeply involved in whistling and hissing at girls passing on the other side of the street that they hardly notice “El Extranjero” (the foreigner) passing by the high school on his way to work in a garden nearby. The kids are all wearing matching blue dress pants, a white collared button-up, and a blue V-neck vest over the top as their school uniform. DIRECTOR'S NOTE: Make sure kids have at least one liter of wood glue in their hair so as to represent the amount of hair gel that Ecuadorian children use. Imagine the mental picture created by these words to represent what you create: Mullet grease heavy slick sticky smelly, Top Gun meets Blossom meets Zac Morris from Saved by the Bell but with more hair gel, ahh! Is that a spider on your head? Yuck!

Student 1: (yelling as loud as possible, not sure as to whether or not the Gringo is deaf, or just an idiot for walking past the high school yet again) HELLO! HELLO TEACHER! GOOD MORNING TEACHER!

Gringo: Hi! Do you speak English?

S1: (with much hesitancy, as if to say they have absolutely no idea what the Gringo just said. Make facial expression like in process of crapping pants) Ehhh... Yes?

G: Oh, that's a relief because I was just wondering if anyone in Baeza spoke English. Can you please give me directions to the closest panadería, I really want some bread so that I can plug my ears so that I don't ever have to listen to you talk again.

S1: What is your name?

G: Elliot, you know that silly. It's pronounced El-EE-Oh. What is your name?

S1: Where are you from?

G: I'm from the United States. Do you know where this panadería is please, I'm sick of looking at your greasy hair and I want to put bread in my eyes too. Maybe I could just get a bread bowl so that i can cover my whole head and call it good.

S1: I speak English!

G: WOW! I DON'T BELIEVE YOU! DO YOU ALWAYS SHOUT!

S1: Habla serio loco, de que habla usted? Realmente no entendi nada.

G: Claro, pero I think that you should really learn how to speak English because then I would be more than happy to talk with you. Why pretend if you don't have clue what you're talking about? Don't waste my time.

S1: Mande?

G: Te dije que pienso que debes aprender Ingles si quieres conversar conmigo. Yo tengo feliz para hablar contigo si no seas mentira del idioma muy importante a mi loco. No me gastas mi propio tiempo. Y tu pelo mirada estupido. Que paso cuando leventaste esta manana?

S1: Hatunsiki caricana. Isma.

G: Cari ulluma mallicuna. Ali micuna.

From this point on there are no words from the students, just visual signs of shock and defeat. After a courteous “Shipunshagama! Hasta luego!” 'El Extranjero exits down road to continue to his work. The high school students ask each other how many girls they have slept with, lying in response to impress their friends.

END SCENE

Well, what did you think about my scene? If anyone out there can understand Kichwa, sorry about the vulgar language that the student used. How rude. If you don't understand, HA! I'm one up on you in the world of “you will never ever hear this language, so don't worry about it.” But it is cool, and the culture is amazing.

Question of the day: Do singers who sing negatively about other nations really know what those countries are like, or are they just making assumptions based upon stereotypes?

I mean, it's not really important, but I take it from some of the things that I hear in these singer's songs that if they got out and met more people from around the world, they'd probably feel more comfortable about the USA; and more “honestly patriotic”. This is a big can of worms, the word patriotism, and I think I might someday write a paper about the semantic value of the word and it's incredibly elastic tangibility here in the states, but for now I'll just let it marinate in the heads of those who read this.

Well, one more thing. Here's an excerpt from a WAY above average book, Three Cups of Tea, written about the climbing junkie turned educational extentionist Greg Mortenson. The book was penned by David Oliver Relin, but because of the books heavy referral to the author through first person quotes, Mortenson's name is also on the cover as having authored the book. OK, here we go- this quote is quoted from Syed Abbas, supreme leader of northern Pakistan's Shia Muslim population, as he made a dedication to a school (that Mortenson had built) in a section of northern most Pakistan, not too far from Afghanistan. September 14, 2001.

“Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahin,” he began, “In the name of Allah the Almighty, the Beneficent, the Merciful.” “As-Salaam Alaaikum,” “Peace be upon you.”

“It is by fate that Allah the Almighty has brought us together in this hour,” Syed Abbas said. The stage he stood on, invisible about the crowd in the crush of bodies, made him seem to float above the crowd in his black cloak and turban. “Today is a day that you children will remember forever and tell your children and grandchildren. Today, from the darkness of illiteracy, the light of education shines bright.

“We share in the sorrow as people weep and suffer in America today,” he said, pushing his thick glasses firmly into place, “as we inaugurate this school. Those who have committed this evil act against the innocent, the women and children, to create thousands of widows and orphans do not do so in the name of Islam. By the grace of Allah the Almighty, may justice be served upon them.

“For this tragedy, I humbly ask Mr. George and Dr. Greg Sahib for their forgiveness. All of you, my brethren: Protect and embrace these two American brothers in our midst. Let no harm come to them. Share all you have to make their mission successful.

“These two Christian men have come halfway around the world to show our Muslim children the light of education,” Abbas said. “Why have we not been able to bring education to our children on our own? Fathers and parents, I implore you to dedicate your full effort and commitment to see that all your children are educated. Otherwise, they will merely graze like sheep in the field, at the mercy of nature and the world changing so terrifyingly around us.”

Syed Abbas paused, considering what to say next, and somehow, even the youngest children among the hundreds of people packed into the courtyard were absolutely silent.

“I request America to look into our hearts,” Abbas continued, his voice straining with emotion, “and see that the great majority of us are not terrorists, but good and simple people. Our land is stricken with poverty because we are without education. But today, another candle of knowledge has been lit. In the name of Allah the Almighty, may it light our way out of the darkness we find ourselves in.”

Well, if that doesn't move your soul, or make you think about the value of many people who we attacked with words and actions so viciously after 9/11, you're an idiot.

Just my opinion, not that of Peace Corps Ecuador.

Well, it seems as though I've had my second Peace Corps super success, and I'd thought I'd write about it because they are so far and few between.

The first super success I had (by the way) as I see it was getting a chance to work as a facilitator at a Leadership Workshop. This event was organized and put on by a wonderful volunteer who works to the north of Quito in Ibarra, a pretty decent sized city with a pretty Sierra feel. She, and a youth group whom she is working with, pulled together a total of 35 kids from 5 different communities in northern Ecuador. Every community except for one has a PCV, and all came to the workshop as well. Now the catch about the workshop was that it was put on out in a beautiful beach town on the northern coast of Ecuador, called Same, or Punta Same. This meant that my travel had to be approved by my bosses, and thank God it was, because as I left for the beach in the very early morning the day after my 24th birthday, I realized that I had just hit the low point of my time in Ecuador having passed the worst, most lonely day of my life. On my birthday. So I decided to make up for in out on the coast, by having a blast. And I did. Everything that we did felt like we were at a summer leadership camp. The other facilitators who where there were awesome, the location was breathtakingly wonderful, the kids wanted to have a great time, the kids wanted to learn, the kids wanted to be directly effected. We as facilitators walked into a situation where, as long as we put on a decent show, could not lose. And instead of losing, we won big. I had more fun than I had had in my previous 7, almost 8 months. I forgot about all of the bullsh#t in the office, all of the bullsh#t in my town, all of the depression and downer thoughts that were slowly killing my will to stay in Ecuador. It was even better therapy than my therapy session (which ironically I had on my birthday)! I felt in my element for the first time in Ecuador.

As a facilitator, I led a few ice breakers, some 'mind stretching' games, low ropes style initiatives, and almost all of the processing. And the best thing was that ALL, and I mean every last one of those young adults ate it up. I had my favorite closing of all time (outside of the time when Suz and I had about 20 college students crying on the CSU course one day), and IN SPANISH NO LESS! I walked away feeling like a new person. Well... feeling like myself again. Which was a relief.

And- I realized that Peace Corps training mentality had been killing me. I went to the coast, forgot all about Peace Corps, and just did my own thing. And I had kids coming up to me and thanking me and giving me hugs, and I felt refreshed and rejuvenated; and when I went back to my site, I took those feelings with me. “Just do it for yourself” is my new mind frame. I was so hyped up to look great on paper with Peace Corps that I forgot that you can't look good on paper if, at first, you don't buy the paper! Take the metaphor and run with it- as it can change so quickly for every person, I believe that this metaphor is most commonly expressed along the lines of “you can't paint a picture without first defining the blank canvas.” I had been essentially been trying to paint a beautiful picture on someone else's canvas which already had a picture painted, and it was just distorting their work. I needed to start over new, and stretch my own canvas onto my own frame, therefore creating my own boundaries and limits and rules. Wow, this has turned into a really good metaphor.

I came back to my site from the workshop with a new vigorous work style, and immediately went to talk with the people I needed to get my organic fertilizer workshop planned. For a day, I got the same answers about everything that I had gotten before, BUT the second day back... I went down to the Granja Intergral (Integrated Farm) where there's a guy who knows just about everything about organic fertilizers. He's awesome at teaching adults and kids, and he's also super patient (something very rare in this country). I was talking with this guy about my vision for organic fertilizers, and he was agreeing with what I was saying but not committing to doing anything, when up walked another super smart, organized Ecuadorian. Mr. H as I will refer to him confronted me with the air of “why in the heck hasn't this happened, I keep on waiting and it keeps on getting pushed back and I don't want to wait anymore!” Now, this is very rare in Ecuador. Usually people can wait for YEARS. And here this guy was, after the idea was originally brought up in a meeting with him in July, telling me he wouldn't wait anymore! How cool! Someone broke through 'ya mismo'!!! So, I calmly turned to Mr. H and had the following conversation, not wasting a moment of real, actual, semantically correct “ya mismo” (which truly means “right away”):

PCV (Elliot): So H, when do you want to have this workshop, because I don't know how quickly people can get together.

H: Soon. I'm tired of waiting, and so is everyone else. How about this coming weekend?

PCV: DJ, what do you think about all of this? Can you help out with this workshop?

DJ: I would be happy to do the whole thing. The Municipio can provide all of the ingredients, I have a few organic fertilizer liquids that are ready to be applied right now, and then we can make new ones.

PCV: Really? Wow, that's generous of you. I mean really fantastic! H, can you and R get together people from all over the county and surrounding counties to come in for this workshop?

H: Absolutely! I'll get people to be here on Saturday. Is that ok with you DJ?

DJ: Perfect. We'll start at 10. We'll talk about worm beds, compost, bioles, teas, fruit based fertilizers... what else?

PCV: I'll talk about associated cropping, integrated pest management, and R will talk about flower propagation and a few other things. We'll need two Saturdays.

DJ: No problem. Just bring the people, I'll provide the space and the ingredients.

H: Sounds good, I'll bring the people if you type out the invitation.

PCV: OK guys, I'll do the invitation, H, you and R bring the people, and DJ you provide the space and the ingredients. Sounds good.

Yes, the conversation that up until this time had not happened because of the laziness and stubbornness of the people (PCV Elliot included) had just happened in less than two minutes. Today we completed our first of two consecutive Saturdays at the Granja. We had 35 people out of 50 invited show up, and besides the three who had previously arranged appointments later in the day, everyone stayed. It was one of the greater successes ever put together in the county (we had leaders of all of the women's groups and agriculture groups [and all Baeza barrios] in my county and 5 people from surrounding counties), I was told by the mayor. From here, we have one more Saturday (this coming the 13th), and then when I get money from a PC grant, I will go out to communities with backpack sprayers and 55 gallon specialized tanks to give to the communities who were present at the workshops. I'll help them make the fertilizers that they want to make, help them build greenhouses, help them plant, fertilize, assess problems, and harvest. I've got a year's worth or work ahead of me, which sounds really nice after doing nothing, well, nothing for five months.

As Yogi Berra would say: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

OK, good enough, I feel like a beer. Time to go across the street to the only dance club in town and deafen myself in the name of success. I finally don't feel numb!!!

Request of the day: Advice on building chicken coups, I actually convinced my landlady to put her chickens in coups so that we could plant a garden in my backyard. She even went out and bought the wood when I told her about all of the benefits of chicken coup living.

Well, here we are in September... Actually, getting toward the end of September! I haven't had much time to write in my blog lately, things have been pretty hectic. I haven't been in Baeza, my 'site' per say, very much, and that is usually the only time I get to type. But, here I am, finally in the midst of a down day. So, where have I been, what has been happening... Many a story have come and gone over the past month since I put in a blog entry. I guess I'll start with every day life, and then get to the unusual.

BUT FIRST, an excerpt from Living Poor, by Moritz Thomsen. Read this book if you want to know what the Peace Corps is like in Ecuador. The book was published in 1969 (he was one of the first generations of volunteers in the country, let alone in the world, and wow, things have not changed at all.

“Well, I came back down the river about a week later and, by God, there they were sitting on the bank fishing, the father and his little boy, both of them smoking their pipes and looking at the river. When the man saw me he rushed into the water to embrace me, weeping, crying that whatever he had was mine, his whole life was mine. Goddamn, he almost dumped me in the river with his kisses.”

Swanson again a few evenings later: “They're a lazy shiftless bunch here on the coast, the worst in the whole country. I guess the worst in the whole world. The living is too easy. A piece of fish, a dish of rice, a platano, and their goddamned hammock, they don't want anything else. You're not going to change them; you're not going to change anything. They'll love you to your face, boy, but they'll hate you to your back.

“You know what's going to happen here the day after you leave and go on back to God's country? I'll tell you what's going to happen. They'll take all those nice chickens you've promised to get them, and they'll have a big party, and they'll eat the sons of bitches. Yessir, a month after you've gone, nobody will ever know you were here.”

(pg. 48-49)

The month of August was an “incuesta” month, where we (the park guards of Parque Nacional Sumaco Napo-Galeras and fellow volunteer Jeff Brown) went out into the JUNGLE JUNGLE to do a brief survey with the residents of selected towns located in the Reserva Biosfera Sumaco, which is a one million hectare biological reserve in the middle of the Amazon basin of Ecuador (and my exceptionally cool backyard). We are the part of a surveying project within the scope of the Poverty Environment Network (PEN) funded by CIFOR, a United Nations branch. We complete socioeconomic and work habit surveys which tell us more about what the people do for work, more about their families, and more about what defines the level of “normal living” in the area. This might sound silly to some people, but it really is interesting to find out what the word “poor” really means 1) in a 3rd world country; and 2) in the area of this 3rd world country with the lowest income/family. The thing that I've come to realize is how easy going life is here. Now, this is not to say that it is necessarily easier to live in the Amazon rain forest than in other parts of the world, but it is to say that the standard of life is completely different. Instead of people worrying about 'what they don't have', as I would categorize we do in the modernized, urban world we live in, the people out in the areas we are studying care only about the things that they already have. In looking for improvement in their lives, they don't worry about buying another TV or Nintendo Wii, saving money for the future of their families (although most have a small savings in their house), or even about buying food to supplement their diet (which I will get to in a second). They tend to look for time to relax with their family, have monthly meetings to plan parties, find time to come together and work together in 'mingas', or community workdays, to better their community.

Of course, there are many opportunities that are lacking out in the jungle. Many of the communities with whom we are talking are really far out there. For example, to get to one of the communities that I was in two weeks ago, I had to go three hours by bus on a paved highway (east), two hours by car on a horrible dirt road (southeast), one hour by canoe up and across the Rio Coca into the middle of nowhere, and from there one hour more walking/hiking. Needless to say, it would be a pain in the ass to get electricity out there. Although they managed to get the railroad through the Rocky Mountains, so I guess anything is possible.

One of the sadder things that I witness happening out in the jungle is the cutting down of HUGE trees. I mean trees as big as the redwoods in northern California. The people in the communities only recently (within the last 20 years) started to cut down the trees. With the introduction of chainsaws entering the Amazon, it is now easier to cut down trees that before could have never been conquered by hand. Sometimes the men of the village will go out in groups for weeks at a time to find good trees to cut down in the future. Even after only 20 years these trees are becoming scarce. Frankly, that scares the shit out of me.

So, why do the people cut down the trees? This is a huge part of our survey, since it's a new thing in this part of the jungle to be cutting down huge trees. Very rarely this wood is used locally in the community. Because of the lack of sealing and proofing of the wood (with water sealers and carpenter ant repellents, etc. which are available in the States but never heard of here), the beams cut from these gigantic trees are virtually useless for anything less than firewood. Usually giant bamboo is used because nothing eats it, and it grows like a weed here. So, the “tablones” are cut out (~ 7'x1'x6” board of pure heartwood) and put onto a raft made out of bamboo and floated downriver to the nearest big city to be sold at 2-3 dollars apiece. This money is used for one thing, and one thing only: to buy liquor. Yes, the Western society of drunkenness has entered the Oriente as well.

And the craziest thing is how that same board will be sold for a small fortune in Europe of the States in a month or two. I believe that I priced the board that saw being sold for two dollars in Coca on the internet (at an unnamed, large homebuilding supplier's website) being sold for $55. Well, as you can see, it's really a fiscally silly investment to sell these boards to the people down river to sell again to buyers in the States at 400% interest (and then to sell to the final buyer with another 850% added on top), and that the producers are getting ripped off first hand. However, the thing is this: they don't care. The only time, like I mentioned, that these communities are taking out the wood are doing it just to buy the drink, and therefore they don't need much money.

Well, I'd say I just got WAY off topic. What else has been eating up my life?

Last week I went up to Cayambe, the land of my training, with my counterpart for a week long conference/workshop to try and improve communication, plan for future projects, etc. The idea was to be able to pull us out of our work environment and into a facilitated, structured environment. This was a good idea, because getting my counterpart to focus on the topic at hand is like trying to get a baby to look at the camera while you're taking a picture. So, we spent a few structured day talking about the vision of our organic fertilizer workshops that seemed to have gone spinning off into the world of “ya mismo”.

If you have ever lived in a Latin American country, you might have experienced the nature of high context society, which means that it is more important to stop and have a five minute long conversation with your neighbor to see how they are doing, how their corn is growing, and give them a few tips on what would be a good crop to intermix for advanced nitrogen fixing, than it is to get to your meeting on time. It's become a hard time for the people of this epoch as the faster paced, work oriented low context society of Western Europe, Eastern Asia, the UK, and the USA has started to creep town by town into even the farthest reaches of the Amazon basin. So now it has become important to people to show up to meetings on time, get to work at a specific hour, etc. And guilt tripping just doesn't exist here because the phrase “I'm sorry I'm late” just doesn't exist. When people show up, it's more of a “I had better things to do, relax and be happy that I'm here” attitude.

Before I get too far off of topic again, I just wanted to mention that in most of the organizations where I've lived in Ecuador, if they have monthly meetings or regularly scheduled trips, etc, there will be a 'multa' or fine if you are late. I actually really like this idea of people showing up on time because of my low context upbringing (as is the same for all of the people from the USA). I thought I'd really like the idea of living in 'ya mismo', but it's a pain in the arse when a group of people wants to turn an idea into a project, but no one cares enough to lead and create movement because of the idea that 'everything will happen when it happens.'

So, this brings me back to where I was two paragraphs ago. Without the ability to say 'ya mismo' and walk away from discussion, my counterpart and I got on the same page and really planned out our vision, our dream, for this organic fertilizer project. This was very cool. We are going to start with a small group of facilitators who will walk through the process of how to make fertilizers, do a comparison of which are better, a comparison of what it looks like without fertilizers, etc, and then that group will be able to go out to communities in the Province and teach the people who live there what, why, and how. This is a sustainable way to produce results, and I am finally really excited to implement this project like I was a few months ago. And this time, instead of saying “I will try” I am saying “I will do” and taking the final step to walk into my OS*M.

I was invited to facilitate/teach at an environmental education workshop on the coast, so I head to the beach tonight on an overnight bus. I'm really excited, because I haven't been to the beach yet, and because I'm going to working with teenagers (my favorite age group). I just hope that I can keep up with their sarcasm in Spanish. Other things I have to look forward to are: learning and starting the data input process for SPSS, a statistical analysis program which I will be using to correlate results for our “incuesta”; community leadership facilitator training (which I don't know much about, but sounds cool [being put on by the Ministry of Environment]); the climbing and summiting of Volcan Sumaco (not too big at 12870 ft, but it does rise 10000 ft over 2.5 miles, WOW); Halloween in Cuenca (supposed to be just ridiculous); a rafting competition at the beginning of November in my valley; an International Park Guard conference here in the Oriente with Park Guards from Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile; the third round of the “Incuesta” immediately following that; and immediately following the third round, I go home for three weeks.

Keeping busy is the only way that I would survive in this society.

It's my birthday! 24 years on this Earth has been pretty fun. Thanks for reading this blog.

Trinity comes in 8 days!!! Woo hoo!!! Anyway, back to official business.

You know, I really don't think that my basketball teammates don't have brains. Or our “coach.” Yup, pretty much straight off the short bus.

I was really excited about getting down to Tena this past Friday to play some basketball with my team, because I couldn't play with then last Wednesday (I had gone into Quito for a quick trip with Park Guard Carlos to pick up some painting supplies for a workshop that he was coordinating in Baeza. That's another story in of itself. He also lacks any kind of memory/thought processor.) and got stranded until late. When I came back, I was only there to support the team for the last quarter as they pulled out a miracle win over a decent team. However, going to Tena on Fridays is big news; we have been invited to represent our county essentially, and to play versus all of the other counties in the provincial championship. This ain't small beans. So, where as every other team in the province is having practice daily, 5 days a week, I can't get my guys to come out to practice at all. They don't seem to get why, every time we play, I am the only one inside rebounding, and for some reason I don't get every single rebound. It's not because I'm tired, no. It's because I'm lazy.

So, I got up to the micromercado which is owned by the president of our team to wait for our charter bus to pick us up. Yes, the provincial government is also picking up that tab, not a bad deal to have free, spacious transportation. And it cuts about an hour off of the trip because there is no stopping! When the bus finally showed up, 30 minutes late, I had already posed the question several times of “where is everybody from the team?” to some of the other people who usually watch and don't play. When the bus finally showed up, the response from the people about where the other players were was, effectively, “Looks like they're not coming.” OK, thanks captain obvious. I don't know if you feel stupider for answering me like that, but I feel stupider for ever having asked you any question about anything ever.

So where were the boys? Where was my team? Mauricio, our exceptionally short, exceptionally good outside shooter walked out of a restaurant across the street with Marcelo, a muscle built, stocky guy about 5'10” and the second tallest person on our team. “Well, three is better than 1,” I thought to myself. But we really should play with 5. Yah, that would be a good idea, since the other team is going to be playing with 5 guys who are all my size or bigger and practice all the time and run set offenses and three different zone D's. Yah, at least five of us would help alleviate the situation of being humiliated. To make a long story short, we made it down to Tena with SIX players, and were even able to sub out for a minute or two during the game.

The game was ugly. Well, in all honesty, we started out hot, and were on top at the end of the first period, and tied at half time. The refs were TERRIBLE. They didn't seem to notice anything that happened down low unless I had a pathetically small touch foul as I went up to D someone going hard to the hole. Granted, they were fouls, but they weren't calling them on anyone on the other team or on anyone else on our team. I happen to be really good friends with most of the guys on the other team, and at halftime, when I already had 3 fouls, one of the players on the other team asked the ref to call a fair game. That was really nice; but the ref continued to pick on me. I don't know what I did, but to make a long story short, I got called for THE ONLY reach-in foul to ever be called in Ecuador for my fourth with 3 minutes left in the third quarter. Because I was really tired and wanted to rest, I decided to sit out the fourth quarter. With 3 seconds left, I hacked the crap out of my friend Jeff Brown (we were playing against the team from El Chaco), flicked off the ref, and walked off the court because it was my fifth foul and therefore could not play anymore.

That's where things started going downhill for our team. I guess when there's no one big inside to box out on rebounds, and NO ONE else on my team has ever once come inside to help, we are guaranteed to get schooled. And we did. We were losing by 7 at the end of the 3rd period, and without anyone working inside, and El Chaco with an entire team of guys as big as me, the little Baeza kids lost by 25 points. It was bad; it was one of those games that I wanted to end early just to stop the embarrassment. But I was too pissed off at the refs to even do anything constructive. I was not a constructive teammate during this time.

I have always tried to explain to my team how rude and unprofessional it is to walk away from the court immediately after the game as well. In no other country (well, I don't think so at least) will you hear the final buzzer, look up in the stands to find your friends, look back at your bench and see the other team already gone from the court. That's what it's always like for the team playing versus my team. And again, they all just ran off, faster than kids jumping at candy falling from a piñata. It's just sad. I shook hands single handedly with the El Chaco team, thanked them for schooling us, and headed back to the bus where I found my team waiting for me to return to Baeza. I gave the guys there a piece of my mind about their lack of sportsmanship and professionalism, and about how it wasn't anything new... and got the same old blank stares back.

I bet from writing that it sounds as though I am the more selfish player on the team, but the whole fouling out thing is not like me. I usually play with a very team oriented attitude thanks to Ultimate, one of the few sports where you can not win by yourself. It's literally impossible, intentionally. In baseball, you can win the game with a home run that your teammates have nothing to do with. In soccer, you can run the whole field without passing and score a goal. In basketball, the same. However in Ultimate you can't run once you've caught the disc therefore limiting your ability of self-reliance. I wish we could have that in basketball here somehow.

This has really just turned into a 'venting' blog. I'm gonna wrap it up by saying that I love my neighborhood. Every time I walk down the street to my house, I am attacked by kids giving me hugs and asking to play with them. It's wonderful. I get so lost in the positive nurturing from the kids that I feel all better.

REQUEST OF THE DAY: Site change to El Chaco, move in with Jeff and have a roommate. I'm freaking lonely out here by myself!

And here I am, another day wasted (so it seems) sitting in the office. Doing nothing. It's really quite interesting how the Park Guards can just walk away for hours at a time. Javier is stuck in Guacamayos because of a huge land slide in between his house and here, and Carlos walked over to the other side of town to drop off a package nearly two hours ago. Round trip, that is usually about 25 minutes. The guys don't understand that if they want the biol workshops to actually happen, they need to sit down with me and write out the end of the proposal!

Maybe I feel this way because it's raining here, and it's been raining for the past three days, and yesterday was the coldest day I've experienced in Ecuador. I shivered almost all day; I mean, it was COLD. I hope to never live in a place again where it rains and gets down to 'seeing your breath' cold. 'Yuck' is the only word to describe how I felt yesterday.

Moving on, the rain has passed (mostly) and I'm sitting in the office with some girls who are here with a study program from their university in Quito. They are in the “Eco-tourism” program, which I have gone ahead and let them know is not actually Eco-tourism at all, just tourism that happens to coincide with nature. Eco-tourism principles are pretty specific with regard to how the tourism industry caters to minimal impact and giving back to the environment; the people here unknowingly misuse the title to use it as a “this covers everything that has to do with tourism in the forest” heading. I hope that is fair to say, that people are 'misusing' the title- it is not that they are intentionally using the title, but it is also not fair that they use the label for the industry that they are talking about. It's interesting because of how much we touched on “what is Eco-tourism” and how to refer to it, and how it doesn't yet exist in Ecuador as anything as a buzzword. But all through training, no one said anything about how huge public organizations like public universities can offer degrees for ECO-TOURISM without actually teaching a damn thing about conservation! That is ridiculous to me.

When things like this happen, I have to throw my hands up in the air, and say my favorite Ecuadorian phrase (which probably goes for most of Latin America) “Asi es.” This unofficially translates to “well, ain't nothin' you can do about it, so shut up!” It also doesn't help that I'm reading Al Gore's new book The Assault on Reason. As if I needed more reasons to be thoroughly pissed off at our academic state with respect to the government. Wow, how embarrassed should the people who voted for GW a second term be! Do you all remember Clinton's war on Kosovo right before his midterm in his second term? That was Iraq for GW. What crap. How dare you kill millions of people just to kick out the dictator your father hated and secure oil prices for the United States.

Oh, by the way: THIS WEBSITE DOES NOT IN ANY RESPECT REFLECT THE FEELINGS OF THE PEACE CORPS NOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.*

So, with that thought, I'll close it out for the day by mentioning that I have been in Ecuador now for 6 months and one week. Almost a month to my birthday... crazy.

REQUEST OF THE DAY: Wood paneling in my house so that it was warmer (emotionally and physically) and so that I could put up pictures and posters easier.

*By saying that my thoughts don't represent the US government nor the US Peace Corps, it doesn't mean that they don't represent the thoughts of nearly every single peace corps volunteer. ZING GEORGE W!

And here I am in Lumbaqui working with the park guards in the Sucumbíos Province where I swore to Peace Corps that I would never go. Sucumbíos is probably the most dangerous province in Ecuador because of it's large boundary that it shares with Columbia- there is a lot of drug movement on the border, as the US Narcotics officers push the FARC (the Columbian guerrillas) farther south out of Columbia and accidentally into Ecuador. So, it's pretty intense thinking about being only about 30 miles from the frontier of Columbia in a town that does a lot of oil production and refining (which is also high risk business because most of the oil companies are American owned... and the Ecuadorians don't like that very much.

Lumbaqui, like I mentioned, isn't a bump on the road; it's a town of about 6,000 people who live on the Quito-Lago Agrio road, which is a huge highway for petroleum. Tanker trucks loaded with heavy crude, refined petroleum and pipe (to build more ducts to dig deeper) pass both directions on the road about every 2-3 minutes every hour. It's pretty sad to think about how much of that oil is being exported to the United States, and about how no one in the States even knows about it. Ecuador's number one grossing export is oil; and it's number one buyer is the States. However, this isn't leading anywhere near where I wanted to go. Back into the jungle...

We didn't stay very long in town, just long enough to sleep and eat and get out into the field. We were going to places WAY in the middle of nowhere- from Lumbaqui it was about 2 hours by car to the south east on a ratty dirt road, then about another half hour or so by canoe down the Coca River. All in all, the trips were pretty intense and AMAZING. The wildlife is very pristine here. In many places that we went, the trees still lay untouched by anyone other than the people in the communities. That's rare- usually out here, people have been “scouting” for good wood to buy for their companies in Quito. They pay the people about 3 dollars per 'tablon', which is a board that is 2m x 1 ft x 4 in. They are HUGE. If you were to buy one of these in a lumberyard in the States right now, you would probably pay about 25-30 bucks a pop. So, when the lumber companies aren't looking for wood and the people want to sell the wood anyway (they usually sell it before they have a fiesta in their village so that they can buy booze, and I mean LOTS OF IT), they sell the 'tablones' for about 2 bucks a piece. It's pretty cool living in and seeing a place that works on non-capitalistic principles. Everyone is happy if they have food to eat, time to relax with their neighbors, and a little bit of booze. My kind of world.

So, why are we out in the middle of nowhere in the jungle? We are out in Lumbaqui because we are comensing the second round of the “QUEST: FOR INFORMATION.” As I like to refer to it. We are representing the United Nations PEN project for the country of Ecuador by going out in our sector (Reserva Biosfera Sumaco) and reissuing questions from a questionnaire that we presented to the people of certain communities three months ago. We will return in the next quarter, and again in the final quarter to examen exactly what the people are doing in respect to land usage; and we are making a comprehensive GIS pointed map with GPS points of people's farms to see how they change over one year's time.

So- to get to Lumbaqui yesterday is where the real story lies. I'll keep it short and sweet because this post is long enough as it is...

I made it down to El Chaco to crash at Jeff's house Monday night at 8pm after a (FINALLY) productive basketball practice. It's fun being the tallest person in my community; I am a basketball god. I recorded my first ever triple-double two weeks ago with points, rebounds, and BLOCKS. Yes, I am Karl Malone. I crashed out pretty hard and fast after drinking some tea knowing the unfathomable time that I would having to get up- 2:30 am. “Elliot, why would you ever think about getting up that early (or late, depending on how you look at it)?” Well, good question, let me tell you. The idea was to be IN the first community at 9am to start our interviews. That means that we would have to leave Lumbaqui at 7am to be in San Pedro fashionably late, which is perfectly acceptable. So, two and a half hour bus ride to Lumbaqui from El Chaco, breakfast in Lumbaqui, and then 2 and a half hours into the jungle by 930am put us on the bus leaving El Chaco at 4am. The only problem was that no one knew if the bus came by at 330 or 4. It seems as though no one had any idea. So, Jeff and I decided that it would be good to get up earlier than later to be ready for the 330 time. We woke up at 230, I made coffee (duh), got out lives together, and were out the door walking down to the main road in town by 305. Good start- we made it just before 330 to wait for the bus which would pass with in the next half hour or so. The only problem was this- the bus never went by. Finally, at 415, a bus came down the hill on it's way out to Lago Agrio. This was an Occidental, which means that it was coming from Guaraquil (which would have already been a 13 hour bus trip). The bus didn't stop, because that company doesn't stop unless there is a bus terminal. Shortly after passed a Loja (which means that the bus was coming from Loja, which is almost on the frontier of Peru to the south, almost at 21 hours of travel so far), and that driver didn't stop either. So, then we were straight up S.O.L. There was one more chance, as a company (Putumayo) who always stops for people in El Chaco came cruising through at 5am. This driver gave us the “nope” finger shake as he went by, which meant that his bus was already packed... So, we had been awake for 2.5 hours already, waited in the freezing cold morning with a nasty biting wind for a stupid bus to take us only 100 kilometers down the road. At this rate, we could have walked about 20 kilometers if not 30.

SO, what do we do? With Jeff's counterpart Rojer, we walked up the road to the park guard office, and crashed out until about 6am when the next bus would pass. 550 am hit, and we all got ready to get on the 6am bus. Then something VERY un-Ecuadorian happened: the bus passed almost 10 minutes early. We all heard it, looked out the window, and were just able to see it go flying by. Now there was no bus until about 7am. We were speechless. We were supposed to leaving Lumbaqui to go into the jungle and we were still in El Chaco... So, we started making phone calls. First, to my park guards to find out where they were. They were headed down to Lumbaqui on their motorbike (not the safest or best option because the thing is a piece of shit), and when we called them, they happened to still be about 10 minutes up the road from us because they had already blown out a tire and had to wait for a repair shop to open to fix the tire. So, they made it down to where we were, stored the moto in the office, and we all went out to wait for the next bus. We called the park guards in Lumbaqui, and they let us know that it wasn't too big of a deal. Just be there sometime during the day and we could go out into the field to find the people to do interviews. When we finally got on the Baños bus that passed at 730, we were 4 hours late to the minute. To make things worse, the bus parked at the lower end of El Chaco, a minute or so after we had gotten on the bus, to eat breakfast. The buses are required to stop every 4 hours, and this was their stop. It just so happened to suck for us, yet again. At this point, all bets were off on whether or not we would get to Lumbaqui EVER. We finally left El Chaco at 8am, and made it Lumbaqui at 1030am. Being only 7 hours behind schedule, we headed into the jungle immediately without hesitation to see if we could still find the people to interview.

To make a long story short, we got to our destination, completed all of the interviews, and were back out to Lumbaqui by 430 pm. Yes, we officially kicked ass. And drank a lot of Chicha.

The next day we went out to another community farther in, completed the interviews really quickly, drank a lot more chicha (which is why I have a really bad case of the runs right now), and went on a tour of some other amazing protected areas out in the boonies. Good stuff- sleeping in the park guard office in Lumbaqui on chairs in a (thank GOD) air conditioned room, nursing an infected ingrown toe nail. I'm actually back in Baeza now, a day early, because of the toe nail. I just started antibiotics for it, because there was some infection starting to spread... So I called the nurses and got some medical advice. It was nearly impossible to walk on, really inflamed, really gross, and now I'm taking the day off to rest my foot. I can officially say that I've never had to that before. It's all good.

That's enough writing from me.

REQUEST OF THE DAY: A clipboard sized white board to show my basketball team where their movement should go.

So, it has been a while and I haven't thought about writing in the journal for many moons. The primary reason for this is that when I was asked to join my county's basketball team, I didn't realize that I would be having a game about every three or four days. It's been pretty crazy- we're playing in a league within the county which is comprised of 10 teams, and we're also the team representing the county in the province wide tournament. SO, last week, I went to Tena with my park guards on Monday and Tuesday, had a visit from the Peace Corps nurses on Wednesday to check out my house and make sure that I was doing ok, was in Quito Thursday and Friday morning, and made it back to Baeza to leave with my basketball team and go back to Tena and play that night. It was ridiculous- we were supposed to get to the coliseum at 7 pm to start things up, and when we got there, literally no one was there, nor was there any organization. It was awesome. Very Ecuador...

Things started getting moving around 830 when we finally got ourselves together and paraded in to the coliseum. There was a selection of a queen of the tournament of course, because there ALWAYS has to be a queen in the democratic society of Ecuador, and then the games started promptly at 9. Now, explain how they figured this all to work out- four games were to be played, two women's games and two men's games, and they wanted to get done by midnight. Hmmm...

Luck of the draw had our team in the dead last game, which means that we had to wait around and watch all of the other games, which definitely wasn't a bad thing, but it was plain boring. My friend Jeff played with the El Chaco team in the first men's game, and lost to a very strong opponent who will probably end up winning the whole tourney (of four teams, mind you). Jeff played well, but his team had a lot of throw away stupid turnovers, and usually blamed him for not playing hard enough. The Ecuadorians love thinking that they know everything about basketball. They don't.

Too make a long story short, we ended up getting on the court to play around 1130. It was late. I was exhausted and cold, my muscles tight, and all of my energy which had been really high was gone. We put up only a weak fight to Jason's Tena team, and lost to them by 20 points. I played well, but as my “coach” pointed out, I could have had more rebounds. When I went over the log book at the scorer's table and showed him my 22 rebounds in comparison to the rest of my team's 7, he told me to go for 30 next time. In English, I told him to go do something else.

I had a workshop in the gym Monday evening this week to work on offensive movement, and had two other players show up. It was disappointing, but again, I have to lower my expectations. I have to remember that where they would be kicked off of the team in the states, here it is socially exceptable to not ever show up for anything. Usually The two players who showed up are the two main ball handlers on the team, so I did some walk throughs and run throughs of cutting drills and give and go movement from underneath to the outside, and got their mind moving to how they must follow their shot to get the rebound. I think my point got across... I was laughing with them and smiling when we left.

REQUEST OF THE DAY: Basketball nets to give to the communities where we play. Especially the chain nets that we could put up in outdoor courts.

And here I am in Tena again. Because no one was in the office at the beginning of the month to meet with the Park Guards, it was necessary to get together at the end of the month. However, here we are, having been together for nearly two hours, and we are still talking about how the day is going to start. So I'm going to write about the weekend... One of the best weekends of my life.

Friday night, after returning to Baeza from a day out in the jungle with my park guards, I had a basketball game. Like all things in Ecuador (good or bad), the scheduled time for the game was completely null. I got to the coliseum in Borja (a half hour down the road), by 830 to give some warmup time before the 9pm start. To make a long story short, the game didn't start until about 1030 because of two other games that didn't start on time. I had all of my stuff ready to go down to El Chaco for a weekend of rafting and touring, where Jeff and I were to help translate for a group of English speakers. I got to Jeff's house around 1am, and crashed hard after recording the first ever triple-double of my life. Yes, I am a GIANT in this country... 11 blocks on top of 16 points and 12 rebounds. And we won the game with ease running a 2-3 zone. I was proud of my boys.

Jeff and I woke up around 8am, made some breakfast and a LOT of coffee, and were down at the Water Dogs Tours office at 9am. The group was supposed to arrive around 930, but of course, didn't show up until 1030. I got the group oriented to where they were, did a guide introduction, and we got the group moving. We went to the Orchid Farm down the road to check out over 120 species of orchids, had some lunch, and started a hike into the slot canyon/cave of the Rio Negro Pequeno (I think that's the name of the river). A great hike in to the river lead to a ton of river crossings, walking through dense cloud forest, interpretive guiding techniques (these guides are good, and getting even better), and finally, the mouth of the canyon. This is where it got really exciting. We had to drop one by one into the river to wade through waist deep river water in the canyon as the walls slowly got closer, the current stronger, and the daylight faded. We got everyone in, headed through the canyon (with everyone speechless because of the beauty), went through the other side, and hiked up and out of the intensely beautiful valley. It was AMAZING. We got back up to the road by 3pm, hopped into our transportation, and dropped down into the Rio Malo valley to walk in to see the falls. I'll have to copy pictures of this, because we have some really good ones. Everyone in our group went all of the way in to the falls, and many of us crossed the river high and close to the falls and went behind the water to watch from a group of rock. It was a great spot to chill at, and I think that the group was really thrilled with the whole experience.

We headed back to Chaco, tired yet satisfied, got the group to their hostel, and reflected on the day. Everyone was stoked about the day, and we talked about the rafting scheme for Sunday. After talking, Jeff and I headed over to the Chaco coliseum for Jeff's basketball game. His team is really good- they run a great zone as well, and have very productive offense. They easily beat the team visiting from Archidona, and Jeff himself had a double-double. We had talked about going out with the guides for some beers after the the game was over, but by the time the game ended and we had walked back to Jeff's house and cooked some dinner, it was nearly midnight. Time to sleep.

The next morning, we met at 830 to get the rafting gear ready. The guides already had the rafts out to heat up in the sun, and Jeff and I went around and filled them up to nearly full. As the group slowly arrived, we got wet suits and splash jackets on people, and headed toward the river. It was a great day- class III and IV water all of the way for 3.5 hours, good weather, played some games on the water, and had an overall GREAT day.

The weekend more or less wrapped up there, with us heading back to the office and saying goodbye to the group. I'm looking forward to working a lot with those dudes in the future, and I'm going to try and go back to work on my kayaking skills one day every week from here out. Vamos a ver.

That's all for now... I left tired and VERY satisfied for Tena after stopping through my site to say hi to all of my friends and family there. And here I am, waiting for something to happen. Like usual.

REQUEST OF THE DAY: For my counterparts to call me and let me know what they were doing. As well, for everyone in this country to have an affordable cell phone plan so that they wouldn't even think twice about staying in touch.

I had visitors come down to my neck of the woods this week. It was really good stuff too, because not only were they great people, but they came with really open minds ready to see what was not only happenin in my site, but to also go check out new tourist destinations with Jeff and me to get ideas of what tourism looks like in our zone.

Stephanie “Mama Bear” (along with her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend who came down for a vacation) and Anna Banana, a good friend from my group who is living south toward Cuenca, came over to my site on Monday night late and are heading back to Quito today. Tuesday we went down to San Rafael, the biggest waterfall in Ecuador, and then to Rio Malo, which also has a HUGE waterfall. We couldn't decide which was cooler- we loved the vast size of San Rafael: a double cascade which drops from the river to a big pool about 50 feet below, and then plummets over 300 feet to the valley floor. The valley is cut out in a gigantic, nearly perfect cirque with beautiful marbled walls covered with vines and mosses of all colors. However, it did cost two dollars to enter, and that was after arguing that we were locals. If we would have paid the “extranjero” price, we would have paid 10 a person. Rio Malo didn't look like to malo of a river when we first encountered it. It was small with pretty, emerald green water, and not too heavy of a current. We pulled off to the side of the road, and Jeff (who had been there before) led us down the trail. It started off as a pretty wide trail, and we could tell that people had driven in pretty far at times before. We rounded a bend, and through lots of thick mud, found ourselves on a beautiful, sandy bank of the river. We took our shoes off and headed in deeper, wading in shin deep water up around another corner to where we could hear the waterfall. It was a deep rumble, and we knew that it, like San Rafael, was huge. At this point, we were also observing the trees and brush quite a bit because of the diversity of wildlife. More birds than I had heard or seen before were everywhere; we even saw a monkey run off of the trail before we could get the camera out.

The coolest thing about Rio Malo's waterfall is how close you can get to it. We literally could have walked under the waterfall had we wanted to; but the sheer force and velocity of the water gave us a bath as we were still 50 meters away. It was cool. I will post pictures when I get a hold of Jeff's camera tonight.

More to come on the week later, I have to run to catch a camioneta to get to Chaco.

REQUEST OF THE DAY: Basketball shoes. Shoes size 13 in general.

Well, here we are at July 23rd, which means that I am officially 3 days out of Peace Corps probation. Peace Corps Ecuador has started this new thing where all volunteers have to stay in their sites for the first three months. This is silly, because site by site there are very different requirements, necessities and expectations. Of course no one could see that when I was out of my community over the last few weeks and months that I was actually working, and so I have already had the reputation put on my shoulders of being out of my site all of the time. My boss Pablo came to visit me last week (he was in my site Wednesday, in El Chaco with Jeff on Thursday, and then we went to Tena on Friday), and now I hope that everyone understands exactly why I am out of my site so often! Pablo got a full tour of offices, communities outside of Baeza that I'm working in, and the main offices down in Tena. After having a really productive meeting with one of the Tena jefes, Pablo and I had a great talk as we drove back up the valley to Baeza. Pabs even talked about how he is going to argue that I should get per diem (MONEY, BABY!) when I am out of my site down in Tena, because of how important it is to get the connection stronger and stronger between the Park Guards and the bosses in the office down in Tena. The communication between the park guards and their bosses has been horrible, and everyone knows it. To try and alleviate the situation, I have elected myself as the go-between guy, the honest to god middle man. That's what will have to happen, because the guards don't like to communicate with the bosses on a regular basis, and the bosses would always be having to call the 20 some park guards to get the information that they require. ANYWAY.

I just got back to Baeza, and thought that I'd write some more. The weather has been beautiful here- blue sky mornings, HOT middles of the day, and thunderstorms in the afternoon to cool everything down again. It's great sleeping weather; not being like May or June, when it was ridiculously cold and wet. All of the time. This is more of a relief, like a true summer month. I am happy again.

What else? I have friends coming to visit tonight! Mama Bear (Stephanie, she's 48, and she's the mom of our Omnibus), Anna, and Steph's daughter are coming up to go to the water falls and do some hikes with me. I'm REALLY excited. It will be good to have visitors, and to take people on tours. I'm using this time to get the park guards out as well, and to see how to take people on an interpretive tour doing things that tour guides here usually don't do- talk with the people, acknowledge their existence, etc. We'll see how that all goes. I hope that it goes well.

Thursday, it's back down to Tena for a meeting with all of the jefes, and a super big jefe from Quito who will be giving a speech about something. All that I heard was “oh, and there will be free food after...” and I was sold.

REQUEST OF THE DAY: Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese. People, do NOT take this item for granted. Also, some really good grapefruit juice. You'd think that they'd grow grapefruit here, but no! Sad for me.

Well, it's been a little bit harder than I thought it would to get my grant together. SO, I'm writing this grant to the US GOV to try and get money to do an organic fertilizer workshop. Everything is done, except that now that we (my counterparts and myself) are getting closer to the workshop dates (mid-August, that's not really that close), more and more communities are interested in learning about what we have to teach. Many of the communities here are fed up with the use of chemicals in their food, and about how sometimes they will have stomach aches a half hour or so after they finish eating breakfast or lunch. That stomach ache almost ALWAYS comes from tomate de arbol, (a fruit that grows really well where I live and is pretty good) and is produced with heavy usage of pesticides. So, they want to know how to improve the quality of their food and the quality of their health. The coolest part is that we haven't even told anyone that we're giving the big plastic tanks for free, and that we will be coming back every three months to work with them on correct propagation of their plants.

Our workshop, which was originally 20 people from three communities has expanded to two workshops, one to the north of Baeza, and one to the south. Each workshop will include three communities, and around 50 people. That's one hell of an expansion. It's changed my original grant from 600 dollars to about 2500. It's really good to know that people care.

Of course, it has been a learning experience. Learning to work solo, learning to 'swallow your pride' and ask for help (again and again), learning that the people who are supposed to help you out are the people who question what and why you are doing what you're doing. It's silly to talk about Peace Corps management, because I think you can probably get the idea: there are about 170 volunteers in Ecuador. WOW, that's a lot. However, I have been in the Quito office to do research because 1, it doesn't cost anything to print, make copies, or use the internet (and I can check my mail at the post office while I'm there), 2, some of the best resources in the country (my specialty program directors Pablo and Carolina and APCD for Agriculture Nelson) are at my disposal nearly every day in the office. It really helps when I have questions about things I know nothing about! 3, I have to get bids from companies (for materials for the project) within my area, and Quito is by far the cheapest venue in my area. SO, now that I have justified why I have been in Quito a bunch, I admit that I have fun while I'm there. I have friends who live in Quito, and after I spend as much time as I can possibly imagine in the office getting my work organized and done, I like to go out, go for a run, throw the frisbee, and get some good food and drink with friends. It's kind of a cop out because I am escaping the rain and cold in Baeza, and I'm away from my community for a night, but the other 6 nights of the week I'm with my friends up in the cloud forest. And it is nice to dry out for a day every now and then.

Anyway, I'm up in Baeza taking a break from putting the finishing touches on the PL 480 grant, getting ready for some basketball later this afternoon with a group of dudes who live around town. Of course, if it rains like it did yesterday afternoon, there will be no basketball, but let's hope for the best. Everyone keeps on saying that the rain lets up in mid-August, and I sure hope that they are right! I'm having trouble staying dry.

REQUEST OF THE DAY: Appliances. Vacuum cleaner, W/D, TV. Or a TV tuner for my computer that was adapted to USB2, that would be really easy to use. And an external hard drive.

So, a good week has ended even better. I sat down yesterday with the park guards and the head of the department of agriculture and scheduled a meeting to head up to Cosanga today (Friday the 13th!) to get things planned out for out organic fertilizer workshop we're going to do in a month. And the crazy thing is: EVERYONE SHOWED UP ON TIME! I said, “please be at my house at 9am to pick me up, since I'm the closest house to Cosanga.” AND, everyone was there at 9am. It was great. We headed up to Cosanga, had a very productive meeting with the presidents of the women's groups and the president of the Junta Parroquial, who are all very excited about the product that we have to offer. Then, they asked us how much the tanks would cost, and we told them that they would be free, and they almost leaped across the table and hugged us. And then we told them that we would bring in experts to show them the best ways to make it, we'd throw in the plastic to make greenhouses AND EVEN pay for lunch during the work days, and I thought that they were going to lay red carpet down for us all of the way back to Baeza. They are so enthused.

The good meeting ended with Romolo, the head of the department of agriculture showing the park guards and me around the greenhouses that he has already established in the area. He does some really good work; I took some photos, and put a picture of him with some HUGE broccoli above. You can't actually see the fruit of the broccoli because the leaves are so healthy and huge. He has been using a 'low tox' chemical to spray his lettuce and broccoli, because of beetle problems, but besides that, all of his products are natural organic. 'Low tox' is the way that people here refer to using a natural alternative chemical that really isn't organically derived. The mix that he is using is a spray of water, ají (aka really spicy little pepper), a little soap (so that it the mixture will stick to the leaves), and urea. The urea is natural, but it's in an unnaturally high concentration. Therefore, the people refer to it as unnatural. I like the fact that they understand the difference- they probably have a much better idea of what they are putting onto their crops than people in the States.

We all headed back down the hill to Baeza in the rain (which is exciting when you're three wide in a small pickup truck and there's no passenger side window), and I headed into my house to re-write the grant that I had worked on for about a week already. It rained almost all day, and around 3pm, the sun decided to come out. I stopped writing for a while, deciding to leave my house and enjoy the sunshine. I visited all of my neighbors, walked up the hill to some friends whom I hadn't seen in a while, and then headed over to the Old Baeza area to sit at my favorite restaurant and chat with the owner and her husband. A few gringos who are doing research up the road in the Yanayacu research station stopped by for some Mora juice on their walk back from a store, and we had a good cross-cultural exchange with some locals, explaining about ourselves, and how even though we were all “white as snow”, we were all from different parts of the world (USA, England, France, Germany, Finland), and all natively spoke different languages.

Speaking of which, why is it not required for us to speak two languages while we are in school? EVERY other person sitting there with me could speak English, Spanish, some German, and some French. I was told by everyone except for the French girl that they were required to speak English during grade and high school. In Finland, it is mandated from age 9-16, Germany, from age 10-18. I mean, I know that until some other country kicks us out of the “most powerful country in the world” boat, we won't have to worry about any other language than English, but couldn't we at least make more of an effort? Thank god for bilingual educators in the United States.

A good tangent, BUT ANYWAY. We watched the sunset, which was pretty nice, and I lamented with the girl from Colorado (yes, a fellow Coloradan!) about how much we missed the Colorado sunsets... good ol' purple mountain's majesty. I headed back up the hill to the other side of town, and descended to my house. On the way, I ran into my neighbors out on the street. The high school had graduated earlier in the morning, and there were tons of parties going on. So then I got the party tour. We walked around to the parties of about five graduates in my barrio, whom I all knew, and they all offered me food, cake, and whiskey. Then we went back to (the same neighbor's) his bar, and we drank a beer, and the bar slowly got SUPER packed with high school graduates. However much fun it was, I decided that it wasn't my scene, said my goodbyes and headed across the street to my house. While the party raged on until about 3am, I dropped in and out of consciousness thinking about organic fertilizer. That's disturbing.

SO. Today has already started off being really pleasant. First off, when I woke up, it wasn't raining! It rained so hard last night, I feared that my roof might fall in. I could not believe the rain. Ridiculous. I dragged myself out of bed, walked down the hill to the track/soccer field, set my Ipod to some WSP, and rocked out for 45 minutes. I did about 30 minutes of continuous aerobic with 15 minutes of springs and kinesthetics. I ran across town, over to the Old Baeza area and did the 60 stair section twice, the second time running off the backside and down around to the road. Then I walked up the road back to my house. I met with my neighbor on the street and talked a little bit about the biol workshops that we are going to do. We had to move them from July to August because of a lack of time and money. We have the grant approved from the US Department of Agriculture, but we still don't have the money. They said it would be a one week turn around, but being bureaucratically based, I guess I should have added about 3 weeks to that. SO, we have our date officially set for a weekend toward the end of August. Vamos a ver.

A family across the street and one house over had a death in the family. The brother of the father of the family was killed in a car accident on the other side of the country, and so the parents of the family went to Riobamba to be with family and go to the funeral, and left the kids alone. This is pretty typical; except for the fact that the oldest girl is barely 12, and there are three other rambunctious children. Needless to say, I kind of took the family under my wing. I would check in on them every few hours, but not too much to be annoying, and helped the oldest girl cook lunch and dinner. She's already really good at cooking soups! It's pretty amazing what she can do at her age. And the way that she manages her family is incredible as well. I guess when you have 'necessary leadership' put on your shoulder, you will either succeed with great success or fall hard. I'm glad to see that she didn't fall.

ANYWAY, this morning, after I finished my chat with my neighbor about bioles, the little girl from the family I had been watching came running over. She presented me with a bag of pasta and a bag of rice in thanks for helping them out. Now, this is one of the poorest families that I know in Baeza. What should I do? I ran into the two faced problem of either saying accepting the food and feeling guilty about taking food from these people who probably needed it much more, or not accepting the food at all costs, and them feeling insulted. So, in the States, I could have bullshitted my way out of taking the food. That's what working at a summer camp that does not accept tips trains you to do. But here, I decided to do the Ecuadorian thing, and take the food. I took it, like all Ecuadorians would do full of gratuity and graciousness. It was a really nice gesture, and I appreciate the family for thinking about me. I guess maybe I did play do a lot more than one dollar's worth of work, but it's still hard to take a compliment for something that felt so... natural.

ANYWAY, I just finished a really big cup of Earl Grey Tea, and some bread with strawberry jam, and now I'm off to the office. Carlos, the other Park Guard who resides in the Baeza office, and I are supposed to head up the hill towards Cosanga to talk with the presidents of the women's group and the Junta Parroquial to talk about when we are going to do our biol workshop there. We're hoping to do a group workshop in Cosanga, because it's the middle location of Baeza and Guacamayos, and it would be completely feasible to ask the people to pay 50 cents to come into town for the workshop... And then we would go to specific locations in the communities and do a more in-depth workshop later on. Una vez mas, vamos a ver!

REQUEST OF THE DAY: More Earl Grey Tea. I wish I could buy it here, but no one has it! Dang Brits, keeping their product out of the South.

-This picture was taken at the top of the Gondola which goes up above Quito. These are a whole bunch of friends, book ended by my friend Megan's parents. They were AWESOME.

So I just went to the panadería, or bread store, and bought one of the most delicious breads I've ever bought. It's shaped like a croissant, has the body of some good challah, and has the perfect amount of cheese in the middle. I might have to say it's my favorite bread ever. OH WOW THIS IS GOOD. But they are a little pricey at 15 cents a piece. The normal bread that I buy is 10 cents a piece, and when I'm poor (at the end of the month) I buy the 8 cent bread. Most families wait for the wholesale guy to come around with really cheap (product and price) bread, and I've thought about buying that stuff... but then I remember that there's no way that I could put down 50 pieces of bread in 2-3 days before the mold set in. So that would be silly.

In exciting news: I'm working with a grant called PL480 from the US department of Ag. I'm pretty excited, because with the money, we will be able to complete my vision: an organic fertilizer workshop within Baeza, Cosanga, and Guacamayos. So Peace Corps Volunteer Elliot, what does that look like? Well, I'm glad you asked. We will be doing a workshop that is more or less 3 stages: first, teach and produce biol, which is a liquid organic fertilizer with the communities. Second, during the time when the biol is fermenting, help the communities construct plastic greenhouses to better regulate direct rain contact, bugs, as well as regulating a higher humidity and heat content to create faster growth. Third, after the period of fermentation, show how to apply the biol to the trees and plants in a manner that will affect the trees positively. Most people here really don't know how to apply the liquid correctly and end up burning the leaves of the trees. Fourth, go back every three weeks and check in with the people to see how the stuff is doing! And hope that they are now firm believers in organics.

So that's good stuff. Now the news and life of my barrio. Yesterday was the finals of the soccer season. This was a REALLY fun day. My two teams, were both playing for the win, with Andia Lucia (the team with whom I'm gonna play basketball with starting this Saturday) playing for third and Quijos playing for first. And they both won their games, in very exciting fashion. I saw one of the best goals I've seen in non-pro soccer with the best player of Andia Lucia hitting a perfect upper right corner bender from about 35 meters out. It was officially ridiculous. Then Quijos scored their only goal on a sweet corner kick to header to the back of the net. And went on to stop their opponent from doing anything at all. At the end of the final game, there was a big trophy presentation, and they shot off a whole bunch of fireworks and confetti bombs. I then headed over to the Integrated Farm with a group of gringos here to study ecology. Of course, it was a great experience for them to see the Farm, which is a working example of what things used to look like in the Quijos cloud forests. As we headed in, the director of the farm was on his way out. We stopped to talk, and he excitedly told me that there was a brand new baby Tapir born. This is a pretty rare thing, and to be able to see a baby would be really cool. He lead us down to where the Tapirs live, and there it was- it looked a lot like a baby ocelot, which is the Tapir's natural enemy. It was cool to see how the animal had adapted to camouflage itself from it's predator. And it was pretty darn cute. I took some pictures, which I'll hopefully post. At some point in my life.

After giving the tour to the group, I headed back to my house, and hung out with my group of kids for a while. I really like them. We decided to head town to the waterfalls the next morning at 9am, and headed off to our homes. I stopped into the bar across the street where my soccer team was celebrating, drank a beer with them, and went back home to sleep.

The next morning, I finally gathered all of the kids by about 930 and headed down to the waterfalls. It was a really nice day, and the kids made the trip really fun. They listened surprisingly well, and we made it down to the falls in record time. Down in the valley, I slowly turned our hike into an eco-walk by mentioning some things about the trees, and how important it was to stay on the trail, etc. When we sat down by the higher falls, we had already been talking about trash in the area, and how gross it was. So, I turned it all into a competition of who could pick up the most trash. The kids ate this up. They found more trash than I could have possibly imagined to be in the area! It was great! We got back up the our barrio, dumped the trash, and I took them all out for ice cream. It was a really nice morning, a great way to start off what looks to be a really long week. Other things that happened yesterday: Taught English for 3 hours, shopped for plastic water barrels for my organic fertilizer project that I'm putting together, met with the director of the Municipio's environmental board, and went down to the Integrated Farm and fed the baby Tapir. A good day, no?

REQUEST OF THE DAY: My cleats. If someone could please get them out of the trunk of my car... The Nike cleats, with the silver bottoms, not the white bottoms. And the camouflage rain gear that's in my car too. I wish I would have brought that. And my car, why the hell not.

I have decided that Ecuador is almost as cool as the USA during 4th of July. We were short on good beer, good bbq, American football and some iced tea, but we did have awesome shish kabobs, good wine, good brownies, cotton candy, blue skies, three legged races, an air castle (it is a ton of fun to go into the air castle when you know that you're too big cause then the kids think that you're a giant and it's fun to throw them around), basketball, and good company. Add in the completely clear view of volcanoes Cotopaxi to the south and Cayambe to the north, kentucky blue grass under our feet, and some good ol' down home blue grass pickers in our ears, and I could say that we were pretty damn American.

A lot of Ecuadorians were there as well, being an inclusion of American Embassy workers. It was really fun to share with them a good piece of what I like to consider some of the best things that America has to offer- I mean bluegrass music, bbq, silly games... good stuff.

I also got to get in and meet a lot of really important people, a good amount of face time with the Ambassador and her husband and kids. As well, I met the Marines that guard the embassy, their bosses, and some guys who work with my Environmental police at a road checkpoint really close to me.

All in all, things were great. My friends and I left the Ambassador's house and walked over to an over look to watch the sunset turn Cayambe into purple mountain's majesty. It was a great day; one of the best 4th's I've ever had.

Happy July 4th to all... This is probably one of those days that I really, I mean REALLY want to be in the states. I mean, it's such an American thing, obviously, but not just the date. The culture of the whole thing is so wonderful. I miss being a kid on July 4: Bike parades around the neighborhood, setting off fireworks in the street, walking up to the top of the Mesa above the Hollyberry neighborhood to watch the big fireworks down in Folsom Field. Good stuff! Also from this time of year, I miss the hiking most of all.

A number to think about for the day: 4.5

During the 5 weeks of rain that I wrote about above, the river in my valley rose 4.5 meters. That's 15 feet.

Think about that.

Request for the day: BBQ and bluegrass. Good thing that will be happening at the Ambassador's mansion at 330 this afternoon, and I AM INVITED!

Well, the park guards are down in Tena, and so am I. This is actually a really good session: They are participating in a Ministerio del Ambiente sponsored leadership training course here at the main park office talking to “how to solve conflict.” This is something that is very interesting, because there are so many approaches to 'solving conflict', and so much of it is personal choice. However, the whole thing is different here then in the states: Here, the word “compromiso” does not literally translate to “compromise.” It's more of a 'let's make a deal' sort of a phrase, but there usually is no middle ground reached. AND, even if there is some kind of agreement, there are not established boundaries with the whole deal. So here we are, sitting in a meeting discussing what and why people should compromise. The guy who is leading the session is REALLY good. It is amazingly reassuring to see an Ecuadorian doing the things that I thought I an supposed to be doing. I know that now, if I should stumble upon a time where I would need to put on my 'facilitator facilitation' shoes I would only really need to be observing, and adding pieces of insight, and listening to the dialogs. This guy's got it under wraps, AND he works for the Ministerio del Ambiente. And he said that he'd be happy to work with everyone's specific situations if they should come up. I haven't seen leadership like this since leaving the states. And that includes my Peace Corps headquarters leadership.

What else? I saw Volcan Sumaco today for the first time. This meeting is happening on the 4th story of the Ministerio's RTS buidling. Regulacion de Tierras y Catastro ( I have no idea why there is an S at the end of that). It's a beautiful volcano- a perfect cone that takes off out of nowhere. It's only about 40 kilometers N/NE of here, and it is almost always covered by a thick blanket of clouds.

So, this guy just did the “connect nine points with only 4 lines” think outside the box trick. And then he brought it all back to the relevant conversation... I'm gonna get along really well with him. That's one of my favorite mind tricks from facilitator land, but I haven't seen it used as well as it just was.

I’ll probably post again when I head into Quito for a July 4th picnic at the Ambassador’s mansion. BBQ and a bluegrass band? Sounds like heaven to me.

Well today is June 24th which means that I have been in Ecuador almost five months. It's pretty interesting; for the small area that I know really well in Ecuador (the Oriente from my region south to Tena, Canton Cayambe, and Quito), I feel really comfortable. It's finally starting to feel like home.

I returned from Quito yesterday (I went back to Baeza, then back to Quito after two days to give my ‘don’t walk alone at night in Quito’ story to the new group who had just arrived) after being delayed in return because of landslides closing the road Friday. I was really excited to get back from the big city to the little countryside milking community of Baeza. It was refreshing to walk down the hill to my house, passing the high school, the basketball courts, the hospital, and all of the houses and stores that I know so well. As I finally saw my house in the distance, I heard little voices screaming and yelling, and making quite a fuss, and then saw my group of kids that I play with running around and playing with the new puppy from across the street. I had already had a big smile on my face because 1. I was happy to get out of the smoggy, high altitude suffocation of Quito, and 2. it was not raining and the sun was out; but when I saw the kids, the feeling of satisfaction hit me. I was SO ready to be back. I put my stuff down, cooked up some quick lunch (Kraft Mac and Cheese, ok, that's God's gift to man. As the Barenaked Ladies say “Macaroni AND cheese.”), and got out to play with the kids. By this time, they had moved on to playing in the pile of sand that my neighbor is slowly mixing as concrete to add on to his bar. But OH MAN, that is some sweet sand. We had a lot of fun and I really felt like a kid playing in the sand and dirt, the whole ideal of the kids of my era. We dug holes to bury the puppy in, (of course he didn't want to be buried so it was more fun, and then he would run away and the kids would chase him, and then he'd chase the kids, it was funny), built ramps and jumps for cars, and used our imaginations to build a little city. It was really fun. At the end of the soccer game that was going on, a whole bunch of people walked by heading back to their houses, and it was good to say hi and talk a bit with them. It was probably also a good idea for them to see me in the neighborhood, since I've been either out in the field our in Quito so much lately.

I told the kids I'd return, and headed down to the soccer field to watch the next game, which happened to be my barrio's team (they asked me to play next year. Huh.) versus the association of camioneta drivers. The camioneta drivers are hilarious: they are known as being the drinkers and gamblers of the town, but they're also everyone's friend, and are always making people laugh. The mothers and wives of my barrio's team are probably the most vocal women I know. They yell at their sons and husbands the entire game. An English translation:

“RUN, YOU IDIOT! WHAT DID YOU DO? THAT, THAT! DO THAT! THAT WAS GOOD, FINALLY SOMETHING! OH MY GOD, YOU CAN BE SO STUPID, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? PASS IT TO HIM... RUN, RUN, RUN!!! SHOOT, NO CROSS IT, NO, GET BACK, GOALIE WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT OF THE GOAL OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT THIS IS HAPPENING RUN AND CATCH HIM AND DON'T LET HIM SCORE WHAT IS HAPPENING GET THERE GET THERE GET THERE, JESUS... HE MISSED THE GOAL, WHAT AN IDIOT!”

And so on. For 45 minutes, and then after a 20 minute pause, for 45 minutes more. I want to bring them to an American Football game to see what would happen. I wonder if when some guy from the other team gets creamed and can't get up, and they have to help him off of the field, if the ladies would yell “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DID YOU DROP THE BALL, YOU IDIOT!!! YOU HAD BETTER WORK HARDER NEXT TIME!!!” Yes, even though their team is only 6-7 for the year, I go just to laugh... I mean support the team with the women yelling. I love it.

I came back after the game and hung out with my kids again, this time we went into my house and played some computer games because I had promised them that we could do that. They are hilarious with this, because they're still a little overwhelmed, and have pretty varied reaction of how to use computer controls. All of them have used computers in school, and one of the boys has a computer in his house, but their reactions are still delayed. The little girls are, contrary to what I would have thought, worse then the boys. It seemed to me that the 'fine touch' kind of games would inherently be easier for them, but maybe that whole “boys are better at football and girls are better at volleyball” or “boys are better at manual labor and girls are better at housework” paradigm is dissolving itself. Or maybe it could be that because the girls here do just as much work in the fields if not more than the men... Interesting, the Peace Corps has turned me into a student of anthropology, genetics, and economics, thinking about my new interests that I really didn't think too analytically about before. I hope that statement didn't come out sounding sexist, it wasn't intended to be.

Ok, this is getting long and I'm getting way out in left field. The moral of the story: when it doesn't rain for almost 5 weeks straight, I love my site. It is a blessing and a curse to come from a state like Colorado: 300 days of sunshine a year has really turned me into a semi-bipolar creature, but it also gives me moments of extreme high to play in the light with my kids.

PS- Wow, my parents sent me some coffee, I mean REAL coffee, and the first day I had a caffeine buzz that almost made me have to sit down and mellow out. Crazy.

PPS- Anyone who is by chance doing research on computers, my counterpart wants to buy something, and is looking for the best deal between 800 and 1000 dollars. So, give a hollar at my email, elliot_in_ecuador@yahoo.com

PPPS- Quick add on from Monday's events: My counterpart yet again didn't call me. I grow increasingly frustrated at the way they expect progress with our relationship but don't ever communicate. I even bought his a phone card and still get nothing. I guess I should get used to it. We're going to Tena tomorrow with all of the park guards to participate in conflict resolution course. Everyone from President's Leadership is laughing at me right now, because I used to teach these kind of active facilitation courses at CSU... Vamos a ver que pasará mañana.

Well, I've had a good amount of time to think about what happened this past Saturday night, being robbed at gunpoint and all. And it's really come down to this: I wasn't doing anything wrong, it just so happened that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Eso es. It's an interesting thing, being robbed. I actually wasn't scared at all through the whole thing; just really disappointed. There is a huge racism here versus black people. It's just a joke for most people, because where I live in the Oriente, there are only 3 black people. Therefore, the darkest person on the community is nicknamed “Negro” and little boys who are darker than their parents are called “Negritos.”

Now of course this is all in fun. But, when there are black people who come through town to sell things, or are passing through to go to Tena (the bus always stops in Baeza for food/bathroom break), I always see store owners watching a little closer and people moving more cautiously. It's kind of like the 'Old West Syndrome' when some foreigner walks into the bar through the swinging doors- the piano player stops, all conversation stops, the mean muggers in the corner spit on the floor and drag harder on their cigarettes... Well, the same thing really happens here too.

So, what is the relevancy to all of this? The guys who robbed us were black. I woke up with tears in the morning; but not out of fright. It was out of the fact that I knew someone in my community would ask me IF they were, and I would be honest and have to say yes. I hate having to encourage such an unfair stereotype, but I guess that because I live in a world with it, I will have to just observe and live with it.

I have to go back to Quito tomorrow to give my 'horror story' to the new group that just arrived today. I remember listening to the volunteer who had been robbed tell me the same story, and thinking 'nah, this will never happen to me.' Yet, here I am, reflecting on something that happened... and I will remind the group that listens to me exactly what I heard, and exactly what I thought. And to not think the same thing.

I'm back in Baeza right now, where it stopped raining yesterday long enough for the clouds to open and show the beautiful, green, rolling mountains. The amount of rain that happens here in the Quijos Valley of Ecuador is ridiculous; I honestly can say that there is more rain here than there is anywhere in the States. Over the last week (we keep records here at my office of the Ministry of the Environment) it has rained 105 cm. That's just one week. And it rains like that for the entire two month period of June and July. I miss the sunshine of Colorado so much. Even though it so damn hot there right now, I'm pretty sure that I will take hot and dry over cold and wet anytime.

OH MY GOD, THANK YOU FOR THE COFFEE!!!! Delicious. Now if someone could figure out how to send me some Sunshine Wheat or some Chocolate Stout...

I was talking with the rafting guides, and it looks like we're going to start doing safety classes with everyone at the beginning of August. There is too much water to be on the river right now. Compared to what the river looked like a month ago, I can barely recognize it. It has turned from a 3000 cfs, rocky, fast moving, dark blue snake into a milk chocolatey, 8000 cfs, “I brake for no one” monster. Even the guides who know every turn of the 35 km section from Borja to Reventador won't touch it.

Well, as it turns out, Quito isn't quite as safe as I thought it was. Last night, I went out in the Mariscal district with a group of friends to hear some live music, eat some good food, and have a few drinks. To make a long story short, they all wanted to stay out late, I wanted to go home early, but decided that I would hangout a while longer to walk the girls home. We left the bar we were at around 2am, and headed out of the Mariscal. A block and a half from the Hostal, two guys with knives and a gun jumped us, took our cell phones, and the money from one girl. And my belt, which is interesting because it's not a very good belt.

They took off running, got into a car around the corner and were gone. All of this took about 45 seconds.

We are all fine, physically, although a bit shaken mentally. It really sucks that this happened, and obviously in the future I will make different choices (take a taxi, don't be out so late). Of course, everything is so different here, but I still feel really safe in Ecuador. In comparison to the States, the crime rate is really different- much less homicide, much more robbery.

OK, that's me in a nutshell at the moment. I have to stay in Quito another night to wait out tommorow to talk with my bosses about the situation.

And here I am in Quito with some friends, and it is dry and warm, and I did laundry!

SO. Don't worry about me, I am doing fine. I might help out with some sound engineering at a concert tonight as well, that will be fun.