insert favorite bathroom joke here

On Saturday, Jer and I and a handful of our Peace Corps pals participated in a minga where we were constructing composting toilets. We are planning to build some of these in Waoani communities next month, so we wanted to learn more about the process.

Composting toilets are waaaaaay better than standard toilets because their construction is low impact (lowgreenhouse gas production), they are odorless, cheap to build, easy to maintain, and help reduce diarrhea-causing parasites. And, well, you don´t use water (see last post/rant) to flush your crap into the same streams that communities use to dink out of, bathe in, etc.

Here are some action shots from the sponsoring organization, Global Pediatric Alliance:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=62jsk9dd.2tykg7m5&x=0&y=-6o79kw&localeid=en_US

Agua no es yapa. ¡Cuidala!

Happy belated Earth Day blogstalkers! In the spirit of Earth Day, today's post has to do with water. Jer´s coined the phrase, "Agua no es yapa" for the Puyo water campaign. Outside, we have lot´s of water. It has been pouring nonstop for hours here in Puyo. Inside, we have no water. Our apartment has not had water for several days. I did get a short trickle coming out of the faucet this morning before it went out again. We have been filling a bucket at a spiggot near the street in order to take bucket baths, wash our dishes and throw water down the toilet. Speaking of toilets, we are going to be constructing some composting toilets this weekend. They don´t use water. Cuz flush toilets in the jungle generally just flow straight to the streams anyway. With the composting versions, the crap can break down and later be used to fertilize the chambira palm nurseries that we´ll also be constructing... well, provided it is not pouring down rain. So, there you have it, folks: the cycle of water.

Che visits Puyo

Here are a few photos I snapped while walking into town the other day...and these are but a few of the dozens of Che images scattered through town. Top to bottom: Che with President Correa, Che´s taxi service, Che´s online high school, and Che´s elementary school.

4-20

4-20. Obscure drug reference. Best friends birthday. One year anniversary as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I thought I would have some profound thought or reflection on this last year´s highs and lows...but I don´t. I blame the drugs. Legal ones, of course. I took a decongestant to fight off this cold I´m getting and now I have medicine head. So deep thoughts will have to wait for another day and a clearer head.

Happy Campers

I spent the good part of the last week helping out with a camp for Ecuadorian girls which took place in the beach town of Canoa. Peace Corps Volunteers are able to nominate girls from their communities that are between the ages of 15-17 to attend Camp ALMA, a leadership camp. The Peace Corps Gender and Committee, which I am a member (and actually co-prez) runs the entire camp---from planning, finding funds, supervising, teaching, coordinating travel, etc. It is quite an undertaking when you consider that the camp includes girls from all over the country. I was responsible for escorting four girls from the Oriente region of the country to the camp. Without getting into a protracted explanation of the logistics, I’ll summarize by saying it involved getting up at 4 a.m., getting on five different buses before finally arriving at our destination at around 7:10 p.m. One of the girls had travelled a day and a half just to get to Puyo to go with me. Despite having a very sore behind from the looooong bus ride, the camp was really, really cool…and it was at the beach, so what’s not to love!

The girls were really great and represented the cultural diversity of the three distinct mainland areas of the country…at one point I was helping with an activity with three girls: one from the coast, one from the sierra and one from the oriente. Very cool. Some of the girls had never seen the ocean before, so it was really neat to be with them as they got their first glimpses of the beach. Some had never even travelled outside of their province, so this was a huge opportunity for them to see other parts of their own country.

At the start of the camp the girls were really quiet and somewhat timid. But, by the end of the camp the girls all had a dozen new best friends and they cried when they said goodbye. It was really sweet. It brought back many fond memories from when I attended summer camp with my cousin in Michigan, 4-H camp at Camp Palmer, and church camp at Lakeside. Summer camps and day camps are the types of experiences that we Americans take for granted and are part of every other kids’ childhood; yet camps just are not common here, so this was a very unique experience for these girls. We were able to pay for all the girls expenses—including all the bus fares to get to Canoa. We packed a lot of different things into the camp—the activities ranged from information sessions on sex ed, small business, environmental ed, trafficking in persons and immigration…plus activities included hiking in a local dry forest reserve, making jewelry out of tagua (vegetable ivory), playing games on the beach, and doing skits. It was a really rewarding (albeit a little exhausting) experience. I already got a call from one of the girls who attended…she just wanted to say hi…and thanks again.

every which way

Right before Easter I was walking home from the center of town and I noticed a car coming towards me going the wrong way on a one way street. I tried to signal tothem to turn around--that they were going the wrong way. Then I saw another car coming. Then another. I then wondered if maybe there was a street closed and thus they made the one way street a two-way street temporarily. So, I approached a pair of policemen to pose this very question. “No, this is now a TWO-way street.” “Since when?” I asked, incredulously. “Oh, for a couple hours now,” he answered. What???? Yes these are the questions we ask ourselves. Why would the city change the traffic flow at night…especially before a big 3-day weekend??? As I walked, I saw no less than three near head-on collisions, as cars careened downhill on a street that for what I can only imagine was formany years a one way street.

The next day I realized that not only had they changed one of the main streets—which used to be one-way into a two-way street. They also changed some of the other one-way streets into one-way streets going THE OTHER WAY. Who does that??? And who does that without ANY signs or other warnings??? These are the things that make me roll my eyes and shake my head. I want to laugh. But...really, what the &%$?

a day

Today started like any other day. I got up, did some crunches, showered, drank coffee, then biked to the Waorani Women’s Association office. I got a few things done that I needed to do to prepare for the upcoming work trip “adentro” with a group of Duke students and some Peace Corps pals. Around lunchtime I see that the sky is darkening, so I decide to pedal on home in hopes of missing the rain. Yeah, right. About 4 minutes into my ride, it starts to rain hard. Then I narrowly miss getting hit by a bus (more on Puyo traffic in another post). Then I got uncomfortably close to a hitting car because my back brakes are now rusty after the last time I got caught in a downpour on my bike. Then, I see this poor, poor little dog hopping down the side of the road and its front left paw is totally gone and the bone is sticking out and it was gross and just sad and I was helpless to do anything for it. It was truly awful. And I can’t get the image out of my head. When I finally get to the apartment, soaked, and realize I left my keys in my desk drawer at the office. Thankfully my dear husband jumped in a cab and came home to save me from my mini-meltdown by coming and unlocking the door for me, even though he wasn’t planning on coming home for lunch because he had to catch an afternoon bus. I get in the apartment and strip off my wet clothes and go to make some hot tea…and of course there is no water.

Always the optimist, I am trying to find the silver lining in all of this. I guess I should be thankful that I was not in fact hit by a vehicle… unlike my friend Becca who was hit by a truck last week (she’s fine. Just has to do some physical therapy, though).

In other news, I am now on FaceBook. Yes, I know I swore I would never get involved in those social networking site things, and that I thought no one over the age of, say, 27 is into them. And I also swore them off because I was afraid my addictive personality would get hooked. Well, when I was helping with the training of the new group of Peace Corps Volunteers, I was peer (actually “beer”) pressured into joining. And, well, I signed up. And, well, I am sort of hooked. I now have 40-some FaceBook Friends in at least four different countries… including an old boyfriend I had when I was a Freshman in high school, my childhood friend who met her husband online in the mid 1990-s and moved to Germany (WAY before dating online was fashionable), and lots of other totally random people. Well, enough chitchat. Must check my Facebook account to see how many new friends I have. Ciao!

Oh…one last thing: a big shout out to my pals Rick and Melinda who are proud new parents of Kindred Connor. Can’t wait to meet you KC!