Milk for Kids is a GO!!

Greetings to all.   Lucy writing this time.   We just learned today that "Milk for Kids", our project that we spent so much time researching and writing up last fall is fully funded and we can begin bringing it to fruition.   Thank-you, thank-you to our numerous friends that have made donations and also to those that helped tell others about it.    Our upcoming blogs may very well have photos of goat stables in progress, a training workshop, and GOATS!

        Since school has been in recess, our activity has slowed a bit also.   However, using our creativity we have found a variety of things to do.   One, we hired a local metal worker to make us a small wood stove to heat our house in the chilly evenings.   Folks from the community have been stopping by to see it and they all want to know how much it cost and who built it.  One comment from an older man was, "Wow, that would work great for roasting guinea pig"  (translated from his Kichwa/espanol).   Now we have the additional job of hauling and splitting firewood.  I´ve included a photo of the outside of our house . . . maybe you can see the tall smoke stack.

       In the upper remote village where I taught English every Monday morning, we have organized Monday afternoon "educational game" time for all ages.  We teach all ages to play checkers, chess, puzzles, and read numerous picture story books in Spanish.  This has turned out to be very popular and the school classroom where we hold the session is full.   A few adults, as well as teens and many elementary kids are attending.   We may try sneaking in some environmental activities in the weeks to come.

      The Foundation that serves youth and their families has been in a bit of recess also for the summer but a small group has been building an earthen block building for housing laying quail.   The market for quail eggs is good in Ecuador.  They say they are cholesterol free.  So, Craig and I have gotten involved in the construction and I´ve included three photos.  Can you find me, hoeing the dirt and water mix?   Notice the two men up in the mold for the rammed earth block.   Fun to watch them jumping and dancing up there.

     Another photo is of "Marta", with her Mom, little brother and Craig on the day of her graduation from high-school.  She was one of two girls to graduate this year thanks to scholarships they were awarded by the Gender and Diversity Commitee of Peace Corps.  Craig and I nominated 6 girls for scholarships for the upcoming school year and all 6 were accepted!  It really is a boost for them and their families.

     Craig has been hauling his drill all over town, to drill a hole for the L.P. gas line so families can get their gas tank outside the house.  He also has been using the drill to help install kitchen shelving.  He is often thanked for his effort with a bag of potatoes, "oca" (a potato like root vegie),  "habas" (lima beans, I think), and once we received honey.

      Craig wants to add for all interested in his last entry about the small mystery animal that he identified it as a member of the wolverine family. . .  "tayra" in English and "cabeza de mate" en espanol.

Sadness and Joy

Hi folks. It's been awhile hasn't it? Memorable events here for me have been: 1)moving into another house which has running water (usually) and more room for visitors to sleep, 2) a fantastic 2 day bike trip of more than 100 kilometers with our son Louis thru Sangay National Park, and 3) the arrival of a yet un labelled animal caught by a member of our community.

Life here is like life everywhere I suppose in that it (if you are truly alive and somewhat awake)often feels like you are standing under a shower with two simultaneous streams, of joy and sadness. The genuiness and resilience of the people here are a constant source of joy for me. At the same time there is sometimes and ignorance and even cruelty sometimes exhibited towards nature and things wild. One example of this was the capture of the yet un-named animal in the photo. When I came across it, it was hanging on exhibit in a tiny cage on the grounds of the foundation we work at. It was suffering greatly from thirst and fear, nearly dead. I naturally took it and put it in a bigger more comfortable container and tried to get it to drink. It drank a little and revived a little. I noticed a lot of blood in the water and found out later that those who had captured it had beat it with sticks, struck it with stones, and cut part of its tongue off. For this reason, by the next morning its tongue was so swollen it could hardly breath or drink and died a few hours later.

Somehow the death of this little (but feisty) animal became symbolic of all that humanity is doing to our planet. the sadness for me was all encompassing and I could hardly sleep. I told community members that only humans are truly capable of killing for diversion, to see another being suffer. Somehow this combination of ignorance and agression is killing us all. I still cry to think of how that little animal suffered. May we all cry for the thousands of beings that suffer in the same way each day.

In the photos you will see a couple of the bike trip. The "animalito" in the photo is now dead and stuffed. Carmen along side accompanied me in caring for the animal before it died and along with a number of other village members, was quite saddened on hearing it had died.

The last photos are of orchids in an orchidea garden we visited in Puyo (near the fast disappearing rain forest). We were honored to meet the man who started this wonder of nature. 30 years ago he bought desnuded and compacted cow pasture and started planting native trees and plants of all kinds. Now the beauty and biodiversity of this refuge is indescribable. Nature is totally in balance in his refuge and was an inspiration as to what one person can do to reverse the process of specie destruction and monoculture humans are inflicting on our sacred planet. May the Great Eastern Sun be victorious!

A year's gone by

Hi Readers,

I know we've lost many of you since we don't update this blog regularly. We've been at our site in San Bernardo, Ecuador for a year now. Our son, Louis, is now living in Ecuador too. He's teaching English at the IndoAmerica University and living with Miguel, our former foreign exchange son who lived a year with us in Glenwood City. The picture of Louis and me above is with our tennis partner, Nelson and his girlfriend on the court in Riobamba.

Below that is a group of young people who went out with Lucy and I to collect trash and recyclables on the streets of San Bernardo. The kids really got into it. Now if we could only motivate the adults!

The two bottom pics are of the composting toilet we built with funding from Farmer to Farmer. We are using it and really like it. After every time we go to the bathroom, we add a measure of wood shavings. As you can see, the composting takes place in the plastic barrel in which all the waste drops into. Obviously, when the barrel fills up, we take it out and replace it with an empty one. We got the idea after staying at a luxurious (by Ecuadorian standards) eco-lodge called the Black Sheep Inn: www.blacksheepinn.com Check them out!

The upper right picture is of a very sweet older Kichwa couple who have a great little farm and are very proud of it. This picture of them in their corn shows their pride and dignity.

The one year anniversary of our arrival in this Kichwa community is this week. We have learned to be comfortable here and look forward to one more year. Our garden is producing amazing red, Romano, and some head lettuce, swiss chard (a favorite of people here), cilantro, carrots, leeks, arugala, cabbage and brussel sprouts. Some WOOFERS from Alaska that we met here came out and stayed with us 4 days and helped to build a fence around the garden. What a big improvement to the garden to not have dogs fighting on top of the plants and it has kept the pig out too! We would love to have more of you visit in the upcoming year. Our service ends in April of 2010. Love, Craig and Lucy

Nothing happens and we report it

Well now. It might seem like a long time since we updated this blog, but really, time is a construct of our minds. On thing is certain: all phenomen are impermanent; hence the title. Christmas in San Bernardo was interesting. Living in a evangelical community we thought no one danced. But we were wrong. As you can see in one of these photos they take their dancing seriously. It had a good beat and was very energetic as I can testify to.

At new years they have a tradition of burning dummies representing people they might want to speed up their impermanence. So in the spirit of things we made a dummy of George W Bush who only had a few weeks left in office. We entered the dummy in a competion and won! Before burning the dummy at midnight, we had George read a letter that bequeathed a number of his legacies including the war in Iraq to the Peace Corps and his ranch in Texas to the people of San Bernardo. Needless to say this was a popular move. In the photo George Bush is the dummy on the far left.

In the next photo is a ¨dinamico¨ or skit that Lucy and our counterpart put on with some kids from the foundation we work with. It demonstrated how to use the new recycling and garbage containers the foundation is installing at different locations including this school. This was a direct result of groundwork we laid for a community clean up committee that took off after our initiative. Now we can just hang back a bit and help when needed. We are anxious to get started on the dairy goat project but are still waiting for Peace Corps approval.

The next two pics were taken at the amazing Warrior's Assembly we attended in Chile. Lucy was an attendee and I was on staff (having taken this program back in 1997 in Colorado). This is a program intended to stimulate personal and societal transformation, started by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Trungpa wrote ¨Shambhala:Sacred Path of the Warrior¨ and brought Tibetan Buddhism to the West in a fresh and accesible way. For more info on these programs and practice centers, you can go to http://www.shambhala.org/ Next post I shall share more of our experience in retreat and travelling a short time in Chile. Besides the picture of Lucy and I as the program was coming to a close, there's one of me with Richard (Director of Practice), and Ivan (program coordinator). Chao.

Craig