A lot to be thankful for. . .

Cuenca, the 3rd largest city in Ecuador is known as the city of beautiful churches, intellectuals, and great coffee cafes. We bussed down to Cuenca to celebrate Thanksgiving, potluck style, with 13 other P.C.V.´s. Cajas National Park has a big rustic cabin on the shore of a gorgeous lake so that´s where we slept and ate, played cards and listened to American music. The park entrance is at around 3,300 meters altitude and some of the hiking trails go up to 4,000 meters, so it wasn´t any hot tropical paradise but wow, the scenery was spectacular as was the bird watching. We highly recommend this park, high up in the cloud forest but be sure to bring your waterproof hiking boots and rainjacket.
If you wonder, what we spend our time doing at our site these days. . . here is a list: (Lucy is writing this entry and I do love lists) teaching English to 4 different groups, gardening and related activites i.e. the compost pile, repackaging and selling seeds cheap, researching and writing up the milking goat project proposal, planned and performed a skit regarding trash and recycling, chess and other foundation kid activities, keeping our tiny house tidy and functional and knitting socks and hats.
We´ve had a few stomach related health problems but nothing that "remedios" can´t fix. I am very thankful to be in Ecuador. Here is a list of a few things I am grateful for: fresh juicy mangos, kids that know my name and call out to greet me in the street, gorgeous Cajas National Park, the challenge of learning Kichwa, P.C. volunteers, my best friends here in Ecuador, e-mail, knitting shops that carry alpaca yarn, 3 papayas for $1 in the market, a dry day now and then, our Ecuatorian counterparts that are always encouraging and appreciative. We have quite a few family and friends arriving for a visit at the end of December and for that we are especially grateful. Happy Holiday season to all.

Potato Heads

Dear Readers,

As is apparent from some of the photos, we are excited about potatoes. Being the main staple of the Sierra diet here, we want to see if we can plant and grow them organically.

Lucy and I are teaching classes here at the foundation every Monday and Wednesday afternoon. As in the U.S., it is challenging to get young people interested in agriculture. They are more interested in becoming consumers with a 9 to 5 job in urban areas. But we were able to motivate some of the younger ones to climb the steep hillsides with us. Two teen age girls (as is common in the kichwa culture), were proud to show us how much compost fertilizer they could carry. Aside: I am still blown away by the tenderness and care men show toward children, and the physical prowess women proudly exhibit in this culture.

So the potatoes are in the ground in expectation of the heavier rains to come.

A couple of weeks ago we made a trip to Quinche outside of Quito to check on a goat farm we heard about. Carlos, 80 years old, full of energy and still passionate about agriculture, showed us around his impressive farm with more than 100 goats. We came away more determined than ever to initiate a goat project here in San Bernardo. The people here, including our counterparts are starting to warm up to the idea. We are talking about starting with 3 or 4 families, each of which would receive a pair of young pregnant females. The families would have to invest labor and some materials in building a small stable, corral, feeders, and milking stand. The first female offspring would have to be returned to the project to be presented to new families. Currently I'm calling the project, Milk for "Kids". A good buck goat (check out the Chilean bucks in the photo) will be kept for breeding purposes at the foundation.

We are applying to the Peace Corps to be approved as a Partnership Program. This approval would mean we will be listed on their website and people will be able to donate directly to the project there at http://www.peacecorps.gov/. Of course our friends at Farmer to Farmer (http://www.farmertofarmer.org/) will certainly expedite any support for this goat project also.

Yesterday I indulged in a little beekeeping with our counterpart, Jose Pilamunga. At one point he said I was covered with about 1000 africanized bees - which means they are very aggressive but also hardy and resistant to disease. On inspection, one hive needed to be harvested so we took out about 9 liters (worth about $5 per liter here). No stings for me but 2 for Jose. A few of these little buggers waited around 10 minutes until he took off his protective equipment, and zapped him!

Didn't mean to write a book but we are staying busy. Nine of our original training group of 43 have returned home, most because they weren't happy here. Certainly life in a strange culture can be lonely....less so for married couples like Lucy and me. Maybe there's a lesson here about trying to find happiness in external circumstances......

Anyway, may you be happy and know the root of happiness,

Craig

Some Easy Travelin'

Hi Friends. I wanted to write for those who check, to let you know we are live and well. We had a great time traveling with our friends, Marty and Jeri. They spent three nights at our (now) cozy place. I think they were genuinely impressed with the warmth and generosity of the kichwa speaking people at our site. From here we went south to Cuenca, a truly charming colonial city. Cuenca has so much charm that it seems European. I wondered why so few tourists were to be seen on the street-- a few Europeans but no Norte Americanos except us. That made it more appealing to me! We took a little side trip to the very pretty little artesania town (especially jewelry and pottery) of Chordeleg. After that excursion we met up with our two friends in Tena, in the Oriente region of Ecuador. It was great to be on the edge of the Jungle and experience the vastness of jungle and river water, all flowing to the Amazon and the Pacific Ocean. Both Marty and I tasted enough to be wishing we had time to explore a few weeks further down the river and into the jungle.
Notwithstanding time being an artificial human construct, we had to move back up in the mountains to Baeza, shockingly pretty and cleaner than any other town we've seen. It was surrounded by three big ecological reserves (with their own volcanoes). It was great to see so much forest (primary I think) when so many other parts of Ecuador are deforested. Our goal there was to see the goats at a municipal farm in the hopes they might have some good breeding stock for our site in San Bernardo. Turns out they have lots of Saanen, one of our favorite breeds.....and they want to sell them at a reasonable price! They are not up to the challenge of marketing goat milk to a population not accustomed to drinking goat milk or eating goat cheese. They are located several hours at least from any large population. So we are very interested in some of those goats and savor the challenge of commercialization of goat milk in the Riobamba area. A ver. After Baeza we said our sad farewell to our brave friends, Marty and Jeri who went on to Octavalo and home. They lost there son, Roberto, a welder, who fell to his death in May. We hope they found ways to see their son alive in the beauty of the people and natural phenomena of Ecuador.
I promise to update our recent activities within a week. No pics because a virus infected our memory card so we have bought new one today. Will post some pics next post. Love to all.
Craig

Hace 3 Meses Aqui

We have been here in San Bernardo/Sasapud for 3 months now. As expected the newness has rubbed off and we are down to the normal rhythms of life with its usual ups and downs. At first it seemed like things happened without too much effort on our part. Now it seems like we have to really make a strong effort with a measure of thoughtful concentration to make helpful change happen.

We still deal alot with issues of daily life: being with the ever increasing boredom, how to bathe without a shower, keeping warm, how to keep the mice out, keeping the dogs out of the garden, and now, dealing with the dust driven by strong winds. Our best times continue to be connecting with the people and living things in our little part of the world. These photos show a couple of families we visited (Lucy wasn't as sleepy as she looks). One includes a retired pastor who still works for the benefit of his community and asked Lucy to put on a workshop to help the women learn something new. She is going to help them make tapioca pudding as there is plenty of eggs and milk produced here. The other family spins their own wool yarn by hand to make ponchos and handbags. Lots of wool produced in this valley as well. Rosa, the young woman in the last photo is receiving a scholarship from a Peace Corps volunteer committee to attend high school (colegio) as her father died a number of years ago. The animal in the picture is a "cuy", or a guinea pig as Norte Americanos know them. Cuys in Ecuador are a traditionally favorite food reserved for special occasions. We have tried them on twice -hard to refuse as they are offering you their best. But it is very difficult for me to know they are killing one of these little guys in my honor!

Lucy is finding her teaching and cooking skills in big demand. I'm struggling some because my skills seem less in demand. Yet one more lesson for me in patience and letting go of identity. The I Ching says that success usually leads to failure and failure usually leads to success.....two sides of the same coin.

That's all for now folks. If you haven't checked out our friends' in Wisconsin, Farmer to Farmer, at their website, you should. They are doing great work: www.farmertofarmer.org

Craig

Padre Rumi---sacred rock in the paramo

Hi Folks. I'm trying this post for a second time from Ambato as yesterday the electricity went off in Riobamba and my work was for naught. Thought I'd post a few more pics of Padre Rumi, the sacred rock that Lucy and I hiked to (at around 13,000 feet)a couple of hours from our house. Juan and his son Oscar were our guides. As you can see from the photos, this rock is a very strange phenomenon sitting 4 stories tall on the fairly level top of the grass-covered mountains. My favorite of this series is the couple working their steep field with azodones. The women appears to have a baby on her back which is very common here. In this indigenous culture, men and women appear to share equally in physical work as their strength allows. Believe me. These women are strong! Lucy insisted I put up a photo that includes myself, so there's one of the ol' geezer showing off the drip irrigation system I installed just before it started raining almost non-stop. That's all for today. Love to all.

Craig

It's still raining

Alli Chichi friends. I'm in sunny Riobamba again today and thought I would catch you up on what's happening in our lives. Out at our site it has been raining several times every day (all night last night). This is very unusual for this time of the year when usually it is dry and windy now with no rain until September. Perhaps more evidence of global climate change.

Lucy and I are fine. We have been busy. We did a very successful yogurt making workshop in Sasapud attended by 30 women and some of their curious husbands. We were assisted by Crystal, another PCV whom you will see in one of the pics posted today. Now we're getting requests by others to teach them how to make yogurt also.

I had fun experimenting with drip irrigation which I installed in our little garden. This had attracted a lot of interest until about a week ago when it started raining almost nonstop and people are starting to think how they can dry their land out. Lucy and I also started another map of the world on the wall in a classroom in Sasapud. Already were finding it a good way to meet more people up there in that remote town. Lucy is also teaching a sunday afternoon English class in Sasapud which was well attended last Sunday. The Indigenous seem to have little regard for the Spanish language but hold the English language in high esteem. Of course many see it as a way to access more opportunity, both educational and economical.

We also accompanied a couple of people from our community to visit another community south of here that neither had visited before. This was to reciprocate a visit another PVC initiated to our site with a woman from her community (Capulispungo)---A new inter-Ecuadorian solidarity project? Maybe they will actually start helping each other. The other community did make us grateful for where we are. It was even colder there and much windier. The soil is much sandier and in many places was completely eroded away. The people seemed downtrodden---poor not only financially but also in spirit.

You will see here a couple of photos of us trekking up to maybe 13000 feet to visit Padre Rumi, a sacred rock located in the paramo a couple hours from us. As you can see Lucy got a little help from a burro and then a horse. The paramo is beautiful, but maybe endangered as well from to much cattle grazing. As we understand it, it acts as a big sponge for all the winter rains and then slowly releases it to the water table the remainer of the year.

Enough for now. Our thoughts are with those of you who have suffered loss. May peace be with you.

Strange weather here too

I hope this finds you well and happy. Lucy and I have been reading news of home in Wisconsin where the weather has been challenging to say the least (baseball-sized hail and tornadoes). One friend of ours lost her barn. Here we have cold rain 4 or 5 times a day and it has been this way for the last two weeks. The sun rarely comes out and lots of crops are being lost to fungus and blight.

Despite the challenging weather, we're fine. Not to say there are no ups and downs but for the most part we feel we have adjusted. I think the most difficult adjustments are behind us. We have stayed busy with a number of things besides keeping house. Lots of families are trying to build houses when the weather cooperates. We have been helping Jose (notice Lucy with the women helping prepare concrete mix and Jose with his father, Feliciano in the pictures above). We have also been working on a map of the world which the community is now excited about. The last couple of days many have been painting the many countries of the world and asking endless questions (another pic above). The picture of the children is in Sasapud where we just had the luck of connecting with a group of women who want us to lead a workshop on yogurt making. I say luck because because of auspicious coincendences that led a man to be present who helped translate to Spanish for us as these women mostly speak Kichwa.

The last picture is of one of the ¨hungry ghost¨dogs that come by regularly to see if we have any food to share----which we usually do. My heart always goes out to these beings who are lacking in essential nourishment and of course, love.

my this find you well nourished in all that is essential.

Craig