computer party

Well, after a half hour wait to get on a computer...and then another 20 minute delay in getting any program to work (I hate mozilla, btw) I´ve finally got some time to write and catch up on emails...but I only received one since Friday!!! I´m bummed... especially since it was bad news of the bus accident with the Bluffton baseball team. We saw a short clip on the news here about it but had no idea they were from Bluffton. Very, very sad.

I´m also very frustrated that even though we finally have time to upload some photos, the batteries are just now dead in the camera. VERY frustrating!!! (Especially since our lil´bro just took a funny picture of me washing clothes this morning).

Jeremy has recovered from a brief spell of violent vomiting that hit him suddenly yesterday afternoon. Not sure what made him sick, as we have been eating virtually the same things. I´m hopeful I don´t get the montezuma´s revenge, too. We missed the community dance last night, as a result. It sounded like quite a party...the bass was thumping well into the night... (it sounded more like nightclub music than any type of salsa...) Jer said it lasted until 3! Since Jer was out for the count, I hung out with our host mom in the living room. She was knitting a pretty pink scarf and I was reading a book (I´m almost done with my last book, so I´m hopeful we get our carepacks soon, as I don´t want to have to resort to reading technical manuals to put me to sleep). The t.v. was on and had a hilarious documentary about the science of sexual attraction between men and women.

One of the highlights of this week was the community meeting we went to on Thursday regarding water (and lack thereof). We thought it was going to be about the fact that we didn´t have water that day, as we understand they are replacing some pipes around town. Jeremy and I had taken a walk and saw where they had done extensive excavation work...and one poor soul who was digging part of it by hand. He suggested it would be 15 days until they were done. We were mentally preparing to not have water for a long time...but it turned out the water was back on later that day, thank goodness. Anywhooo....the meeting was very interesting...and touched on a lot of other environmental issues...from littering, climate change, environmental education to the pollution (air and water) from the flower plantations that are all over the place around here. We were expecting a really low key meeting, but instead it was super high tech---with a powerpoint and slick video. The video went into some of the issues the Ecuadorians have with the Free Trade agreements ...there were some pretty powerful images of the protests that went on in Quito. A video showed people carrying a lot of anti-american posters and messages (mostly aimed at U.S. companies like McDonalds and our government). As the local mayor aptly put it to us on Friday, the peasants and the indigenous people who have small herds of cattle simply cannot compete with imported milk produced in Wisconsin that is highly subsidized by the U.S. government. You could fill in the blank with any other type of agricultural product from the U.S. and get the same result. Interesting stuff. Anyhow, at the end of this 3 hour meeting (during which they graciously passed out cheese sandwiches and tea) they handed out a bunch of trees for people to plant. Unfortunately, they didn´t explain how or where they should be planted...or really do a very good job of connecting the dots between water quantity and trees... Some of the big water issues have been caused by people planting potatoes in the paramo, the high grassland areas in the mountains that retain and filter water. That, and the flower plantations are using a ton of water too. Oh, and of course even though it is the rainy season, it has hardly rained at all...thus creating drought-like conditions. They say the weather lately is more like August weather.

The other highlight of the week was planting a garden. Two, actually. We worked with the other guys in our cluster to till up some really hard, dry soil next to the Medical Center which is in the center of town. We got a few people in the community to help, including the town drunk! Although he was clearly trashed at 10 in the morning, he worked pretty hard. We were careful to not give him a rake, rather than a machete or pick ax, just for everyone´s safety. I picked up a bunch of litter around the center and then we cut off the bottoms of the dozens of the plastic coke bottles we found and made little cups to start some seeds---mostly tomato, but also broccoli and zucchini. The women from the community who were there had never tried to grow anything from seed, so it was a learning experience for them. We gave them a bunch of seeds to take home to plant there, too. After lunch we started in on the garden we´re planting at our host mom´s place. She had already did all the hard work of prepping the soil. We just raked it to make it a little more level---which was interesting in and of itself, as they typically plant their vegetables in mounds (which we´re guessing is because it normally rains a lot this time of year and maybe they´re trying to prevent them from being flooded???) Don´t know. Still learning. So, we planted our seeds the gringo way...in a straight line on a super flat patch of dirt. We collected a bunch of popsicle sticks that kids threw on the ground near the little corner store (industrious bunch we are) and used them to mark and label our rows. We planted onion, beet, cabbage, lettuce and zucchini. The big challenge was putting up fencing to keep their chickens out. We had to take the bus to the next town to buy some black mesh fencing material. We pounded some sticks in the ground, then attached the fencing. So far so good. No chickens have got in yet... but they certainly are trying. In the middle of the fence erection process, Jeremy all the sudden got really pale and said he was going to puek. He was out for the count the rest of the day. Thankfully, he´s better today, otherwise our mom was going to take him to a woman who specialized in medicinal plants. Evidentally she cured one of the previous volunteers´ bouts with vomiting. It´s a process that roughly translates to: ¨washing off the bad winds.¨ I guess she literaly washes people with different types of plants and an egg. Our host mom swears by it. I certainly would be willing to try it if I were super sick. Not sure Jeremy would be as open minded about it. I think it is the same thing about all the folk remedies for wart removal. You have to believe it will work.

On a somewhat funny sidenote, this internet cafe is doubling as a party palace for 6 year olds. Yeah, there is a big birthday party for a little girl going on in the back (actually, about 10 feet away). She´s all dressed up; they have a huge cake, balloons, hats, the whole bit. One of the kids just let out an ear peircing scream when one of the balloons broke. Some younger kids are running around seemingly unsupervised. The best part was when, after singing happy birthday to the little girl, someone smooshed her face in the cake and she started bawling. It was really funny...but I felt bad for the little girl. She was pretty ticked. She had a lot of frosting in her eyes. A cybercafe is a funny place for a birthday party indeed.