From The Neck Of The Moon

I think that I mentioned a while ago that I joined the recently formed Agricultural Task Force (ATF). Since the group is new, we don’t have any set responsibilities yet. I suggested that one thing we could take on was helping with the training of the non-agricultural Omnibuses. The Peace Corp big shots loved the idea, so last week, five of us went back up to Cayambe to give a 3 ½ hour presentation on agricultural themes. During our training, we received a couple days of health and education training, but the Youth & Families and Health programs don’t receive any significant Ag training. I talked about school and home gardens, inter-program cooperation, and a little about nutrition. The rest of the group talked about composting, value added products, and chemical use and protection. It went really well, and several of the trainees told us that our presentation was the most practical session they had during their training.

The bad news is that the training may be the last function of the ATF while I am here. I talked to my boss the other day and he said that the budget of PC Ecuador is going to be cut by Washington and there is no money to fund our activities. We are going to try to find other sources of funding and we have ideas for cheap projects, but I think we will be limited to training activities and information dissemination. I did just write an article for the Youth & Families Program’s newsletter about school gardening, so I can hang my hat on that.

Last weekend was the Festival de San Juan in La Libertad. The festival was the same as last year except they didn’t do the Maypole dace, so they didn’t need me to act as the pole. The one notable thing was that at Mass on Friday and Saturday, the Priest told the story of John the Baptist. For those of you who don’t know, John was preaching in Galilee and got in trouble with the ruler and his wife. John was arrested and during the ruler’s birthday party he was beheaded and his head was brought to the ruler’s wife on a platter. The Priest told the story twice because after the first time he asked a couple of questions and nobody knew the answers. Then he started an hour long rant about the town. He said that it was improper to celebrate the death of John the Baptist at a party by having another party. He said that most kids memories of the Feast of John the Baptist were, “Dad got drunk and fought with Mom”. Instead of drinking, the Priest said that we should take time to reflect on the past year with our families. Of course this went over well. Most people weren’t paying attention anyway, and as soon as he left, everyone started drinking. I didn’t stay long because of what the Priest said and also one shot of homemade sugar cane alcohol is enough to last me for a while. The thing about that whole situation that strikes me is that these people will not listen to their own Priest and I’m supposed to get anything accomplished here!

The Priest also went on to criticize the town’s leadership for deciding to build a new church without saving enough money to repair the current church (it started to rain during mass and water was coming down on the alter through the giant whole in the roof). Next he jokingly said that he hoped somebody died during this year’s festival so that next year we could celebrate that death AND the death of John the Baptist. It wasn’t exactly at the Fiesta, but a guy from my town did die that weekend. It was Sunday morning after a soccer game and the guy was trying to cross the Pan-American Highway on his way home and he got hit by a car. He was drunk at the time. I’m sure it was from drinking at the Festival till early in the morning and then continuing at the game. I went to the wake, and people were drinking there, I guess the Priest was right next year will be a blast.

I went with my buddy John and a group of 60 High School kids from Latacunga to Mt. Cotopaxi last Sunday. John set the whole thing up and got funding from the US for two buses to pick us up, guides, and lunch. It was great because the kids had never been there and the weather was not very cloudy. We climbed from 15, 090 feet to about 15,944. That’s where the snow line is, so we got to climb around the glacier. I took the Priest’s advice and went off on my own away from the kids for a while. Standing on the glacier, listening to the ice crack and water run underneath me, while looking out at the snow-capped peaks in the distance made me think, “Man, my feet are cold!”. I did learn an interesting fact. Cotopaxi, the name of the Volcano and of the Province that I live in means “Neck of the Moon” in Quichua. Pretty cool.

Finally, congratulations to Jefferson Peréz, Ecuador’s most famous athlete, on his Silver medal in the Men’s 20K Walk in Beijing. This is Jeff’s second medal (and I believe the only ones for Ecuador). I know its not on par with Michael Phelps, but we take what we can get down here. I do feel a little silly though admitting that I watched a bunch of guys walking around in circles for a hour and a half…with interest.

Erradicating Child Labor...By Making Kids Work

I´ve been busy and bored at the same time for the last couple of weeks. With the schools on vacation until September, I have a lot more free time during the day, but I´ve been trying to keep occupied. Even though we are allegedly in the “Dry Season”, the weather has been overcast and it has rained every week lately.

Since I had some time and the weather hasn´t been sunny, I took my laundry to Latacunga last week to wash it at the laundry mat. My buddy John had dropped of the ad we made for the cleaners earlier, so when I showed up, they didn’t charge me. The free laundry was nice, but when I talked to John, he said that he just gave them one copy of the advertisement. The owner assumed that we had handed out a bunch of copies. John said that we would de that, so I had to come back to Latacunga another day to give out the ads. We spent a couple hours going around town giving the ads to all the hotels and tourist agencies that foreigners usually go to. Also, we hung up about 50 copies around town. After we posted a flier, we´d walk away and almost every time we´d look back and see a couple Ecuadorians looking at the ad. The ad was totally in English, so I know they couldn´t understand it, but I guess the novelty of a couple gringos hanging up fliers was too much for them to resist. We even gave out a few ads to people who came up to us on the street and asked for one to take home.

I went into Quito last week to see the new Batman with some friends. The movie was good, and while in Quito I bought a couple more movies and the entire 4th and 5th seasons of “The Office” (All for $14. You gotta love pirated DVDs!!) Also in Quito, I bought a thermometer to use with the yogurt project I´m trying to get started. Out of curiosity, I had some water boiling and took its temperature. It was boiling at only 188° F. At sea level, water boils at 212° F. Living at an elevation of 11,200 feet does some crazy things.

Other than watching “The Office” and reading, I´ve been trying to practice my Spanish a little. I bought a copy of the Instant Immersion CD/CD-ROMs. It said “Advanced” on the package and I though it would help with my vocabulary and maybe get rid of my accent (I´ve been told by Ecuadorians who live in the city that I sound like the Ecuadorian version of a redneck). Unfortunately, my Spanish is above the level of the CDs, so I don´t think that they´ll do me much good.

Another thing that I´ve been doing is working on the gardens around my house. I have two new ones going and I was finally able to harvest some broccoli that I´ve been growing. I steamed some for dinner the other day and I have to admit that it was the best tasting Broccoli that I´ve ever eaten. The problem is that it took almost 7 months to grow. In the States it should only take about 2 ½ months from seed to harvest. The short days, lack of sun, and cold temperatures really screws me here.

I did also get a little publicity for the gardens we are doing near Latacunga. There was a half page story (mostly pictures) on them in the July issue of Social Responsibility magazine. I think the head of the project that we are using to get our contacts in the schools wrote it up using pictures that I had taken. The funny thing is the magazine´s purpose. Social Responsibility has it´s mission statement printed under the title on the front page. It says that the magazine is dedicated to “Eradicating child labor in Ecuador”. Of course, most of the pictures in the article show kids from the schools working in the gardens. I guess a garden can´t count as a sweat shop even if the kids are sweating.

The last piece of semi-exciting news is that JayInEcuador is now the top Google result when you search my name. Finally!