Senor Turista

So Angus wasn't the only one who got involved in the test of the train station tourism group's hospitality. Due to a shortage of people to fill the station hotel's rooms, I was invited along as well. I had to pay $5 for the privilege, but it was a good deal. I got a train trip worth $20, a couple of decent meals, and an overnight stay in a yet-to-be opened restored train station. That's a pretty good deal for $5.

It also made up for the morning I had with the fourth grade. Although I have been doing much better managing them for English class, I was asked to take them all day, and stupidly said yes. I'm not sure why this request came in. I suppose it had something to do with the arrival of the new 3,4,5 teacher, who came today. We sort of made it through English, but when I turned to math, things went to hell in a hurry. That's a long 5 hours.

So Angus and I rode in the back of a Francisco's pick up truck to Alausi, to take the train ride down to the station. As you'll see when I upload my pictures, the trains cars are beautiful restored cars with plenty of lacquered wood to look at. The trip from Alausi across Nariz del Diablo is spectacular, of course. These are the Andes we're talking about, some of the highest, steepest mountains in the world.

The notable thing about the Nariz del Diablo protion of the route is that there are no tunnels as the train drops down the mountain's face. Instead, there is a zig-zag series of switches that takes the train down grade, first forwards then backwards then forwards again, until it reaches the station.

When you reach the station, there is a troupe of folkloric dancers doing dances that none of them knew until they were taught. That is to say, the dances may be folkloric, but they are not something that would have sprung naturally out of Tolte without instruction. One of the Fredi guides is the lead dancer, so when the performance was over, he joined the other Fredi to lead a tour up to Tolte. I was in Mesias' passenger van with the other Fredi, who I thought did a reasonable job of coming up with things to say for the hour or so it took us to reach Tolte, stopping every so often for pictures. By the way, I took a few pics that I will share the next time I have internet access, I hope. I was concerned how Fredi would do, because Angus and I had coached him Sunday, and I think he was pretty good.

Dinner was good when we got back (starving) to the station. Narcisa (the one who's house I live in) had the lead on that, and it involved chicken stuffed with something, rice, and vegetables. There was also a tasty green soup, into which we sprinkled popcorn (not as weird as you might think.) Unfortunately, after dinner, the review meeting began, and there was much criticism from the railway people of the "producto" we were trying to sell the tourist--unsafe vista points, no clear destination in Tolte, etc., etc. I finally gave up in exhaustion at 11, but the meeting went on to something like 2:30 AM Still, some of what they wree complaining about was fair enough. and Angus and I came up with some good "product" ideas as we walked up to Tolte this morning. We didn't make it back in time for school, but I figure nobody worried about that too much, what with a new teacher to abuse. Product ideas include a night tour of the "pueblo abandonado," if we can make it safe enough to satisfy the railway people (who wanted a night entertainment to be part of the tourist package.)

I also got to miss a chunk of computer room time in the afternoon. One of the farmers came in and started asking about his fruit trees, and Angus agreed to cover the room while Daniel and I went down to take a look. It was like Peace Corps days for about an hour, as we tried to figure out what he ought to do. Daniel's plant pathology chops are much better than mine. But there will be panel discussions again on Friday, and Angus has left me in charge of representing AVANTI's opinion on agricultural production. After that, at Daniel's invitation, I'll spend the weekend getting to know Riobamba instead of going to Banos. Banos may be nicer, but I think it will be fun to check out the more ordinary city of Riobamba with local advice. It's only a 36 hour jaunt, anyway.

Maybe I'll have soe pics to show you tomorrow.

Travel Day

Angus is in town for the “hospitality test” at the train station, and Saturday (Sept. 24) turned out to be a big traveling day for us, totally unrelated to the train test. First of all, I wanted to go to Alausi, capital of the canton (sort of like the county seat), to get some cash and buy a few things. I especially needed a pair of jeans, because one of the pairs I brought with me just doesn’t fit well enough to count on. I also needed a towel, something I have been scraping by without since I arrived. You want to know how—okay, in what I regard as the sort of thing people expect me to do, I have been drying off with yesterday’s T-shirt before putting on today’s clothes. Come on, once I said I didn’t have a towel, you knew that’s what I was doing. Angus really needed to use the internet, and I wanted to, because I can’t get used to checking my e-mail only two or three times a week.

Anyway, off we went to Alausi in the back of a pick-up truck, because that’s what people do here when the bus doesn’t come. Sure, it’s stupidly unsafe, but that’s part of the thrill of living in the developing world. We got to Alausi and found an actual cash machine, something that doesn’t exist in Tolte or Chunchi. It didn ‘t work. But there was actually a second cash machine that did. With money in our pockets, the first thing to do was get breakfast, scrambled eggs, bread, and coffee. I get coffee very rarely because I keep forgetting to buy any, and it’s only instant anyway, but I was glad to have some. Then we went to an internet portal we had used a coupe of weeks ago, and it was closed. The reason was that they were doing some kind of transmission maintenance. The electricity has been off from 8-5 every day since Thursday. So no internet yesterday, either.

But I was able to buy jeans, an additional pair of underwear, and a towel. Only the jeans were a bargain at $18. It’s been a long time since I bought a towel, but at $7, I was really sorry I hadn’t packed one. The underwear, at $4.25, were no bargain, but are unquestionably the nicest pair I own. I also bought a children’s book (Aesop’s Fables) for the library. It dawned on me last week that we do not have anything like a good set of graded reading material in our tiny library, which has maybe 50 books in Spanish (and maybe 60 in English) for children. Aesop’s fables are useful at around the third grade level because the vocabulary is a bit bigger than in lower level reading, but everything is very short, so you can finish before you get worn out. I’m also sorry I didn’t bring the children’s books in Spanish from home, but you can’t carry everything. I’ll have to hit a book store in a big city on one of my “weekends out.”

From the bookstore we went to the hospital so that Angus could coordinate, or communicate, with the director of the TB program. There are two or three cases of TB in Tolte, and there is supposed to be a program to make sure that the patients are taking their medicine every day for three months as directed. The medicine, by the way, is free to the patient, to help ensure compliance and TB eradication. Angus got the phone number he needed, so we got lunch ($3 for a healthy plate of chicken, rice, and vegetables with more coffee) and headed back to Tolte, this time inside a bus.

When we got to Tolte, it was almost 1. Mesias, who owns one of the three general stores and a small passenger van, had invited us to a community festival where he had been “invited” to give away prizes to the crowd. Mesias is one of my favorite people in Tolte. He’s unusually short, even by Ecuadorean standards, and built like a wrestler. I think I find him so likeable because he’s really open and affable at all times, and gives the impression of being a genuinely contented family man, with a young wife and four little girls ranging from babyhood to the seventh grade. He’s also a font of information about local history and events.

The civic fiesta was in a tiny place called Toctezimin, a half an hour above Chunchi. And I do mean “above.” In all that driving time, I doubt we moved more than a mile or two east or west. The rest of the distance was all up. Driving is much more three-dimensional here than on Long Island.  Toctezimin has about 80 residents, wich makes it even smaller than Tolte. Farming is a little different, too. The extra altitude means the climate is colder, with even more emphasis on potatoes, wheat, and barley than in Tolte.

The fiesta included food booths, a soccer tournament, and bull fighting, the setting for Mesias’s largesse. Bull fighting here is not much like he Spanish art. It involves bulls being let out of a truck into a make-shift bull ring, where local boys with matador capes try to lure the animals into attacking without getting trampled. Somewhat to my surprise, no one was. Mesias had regaled Angus and me beforehand with stories of fatalities at other civic fiestas, which didn’t sound too festive to me. But people here seem to view risk in a very different way from North Americans. In any case, after the bull fighting, Mesias’ brought out a bunch of stuff an started tossing it to the crowd like a one-man Mardi Gras parade: soda, candy, wine, liquor, all tossed into the air to whomever could grab it. He was a big hit.

After that, the man who invited him to give all this stuff away invited us to dinner. And, as the occasion demanded, dinner was Cuy con Papas, Guinea Pig with Potatoes. Having been sick all week, I wasn’t too enthusiastic with my piece of the Guinea Pig, but I did my best with the accompanying bowl of soup and its lump of pork, and the mote (big kernels of boiled corn). I also risked a glass of chicha (corn “beer”), something I am trying to get someone to teach me how to make. It involved boiling corn meal, adding an appropriate amount of crude sugar, and waiting a few days. More on this as it develops. Anyway, to top it all off, we were given a 12 bottle case of beer (that’s 1 liter bottles, by the way) which we had to find a way to finish off. Fortunately, the Tolte soccer team (there they are again!) had just finished their last game and were able to help us. They also took care of the rest of my Guinea Pig.

By this point, I knew that if I weren’t desperately ill, my stomach troubles were over. And indeed they were. I woke up fine this morning, worked on my laundry, and prepared for that practice run of the train station hospitality test which will happen Tuesday. This test is being run by the train company to determine if the Nariz del Diablo station is ready to receive overnight visitors and handle guided tour experiences into Tolte. One of the particular concerns were to see if our two young guides, Fredi y Fredi, were up to the task. We sort of dragged one seriously hung-over Fredi from his house. The other was nowhere to be found. Also, one of the two people who are supposed to cook told us yesterday that he didn’t really feel like doing it. But we ground ahead with a trip down the mountain in Mesias’ van working on guide patter with the Fredi we had. We picked up some of the cafeteria staff, and rode back up trying to figure out what we need to be ready to go on Tuesday. Weirdly, it seems as if everything is going to be fine. That is, after Angus has sort of an anxious day tomorrow.

I have sort of an anxious Monday, too. It seems that the third teacher really is going to arrive tomorrow, which means that I’ll lose my classroom space. I should be able to set up in the breakfast room or in an open room upstairs in the municipal building. And tomorrow night, I start my classes for adults, which will mostly focus on the train station personnel. As of tomorrow, I’ll have been in Ecuador 3 weeks. I can’t figure out why, but it seems like I’ve been here for months.

Revenge of the Guinea Pig

Well, the cleansing effects of Saturday night's fiesta would not stop, so I have had to resort to Peace Corps protocal: Gatorade, or its equivalent, until things calm down. It leaves you kind of hungry, but it beats spending the entire day circling the bathroom like a vulture. By the way, Stony Brook Travel Medicine was kind enough to provide me with a recipe for home-made Gatorade that is reputed to be effective enough to rehydrate cholera patients: Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 8 teaspoons of sugar to 1 liter of water. Honestly, it tastes just like Gatorade without the bizarre "fruit flavor." And it provides the same salty after-taste.

In better news, a valuable suggestion (offered by Ms. CZ, of Brooklyn, NY) has made an enormous difference in the management of the fourth grade class. The idea was a behavior chart with no more than three rules, so the children could see if they were sticking to them, a daily record of rule-compliance, and a sticker for every three checks for rule compliance. And, of course, a prize at the end of the week for the best behavior (yes, it's an ice cream.) The three rules are: I stayed in my seat, I was quiet, I didn't touch anyone. We started Monday. Today is Thursday. My classroom resembles a fourth grade classroom in the United States. I'm even considering doing the same with my older students, but I'm not sure I can afford to buy all of them off. On the other hand, maybe I can't afford not to.

I've got to say, this is a great advance over the Peace Corps years. I believe that I mentioned the idea of "crowd-sourcing" this project, that is, using ideas from all of my talented friends to do a much better job than I could alone. Back in the Costa Rica days, I had to invent everything I did, which meant that I spent a lot of time doing little or nothing, or doing things of dubious value. So I invite all of you to keep me on track.

So, permaculturists, how many chickens in how big an enclosure constitute a chicken tractor? Tolte is ripe for the concept.

Saturday night in Tolte

Okay, so it's midday on Tuesday, but I thought I'd describe my Saturday night in Tolte. I had spent most of the day walking down to the touristic train station just to have a place to walk to. There are three ways down. Angus took me down the one of medium difficulty and up the easy one, but there is apparently a terrifying thord way that the people who work at the station usually use. I doubt I'll ever try and go that way without rapelling equipment. It's no big deal to them, though.

Anyway, I came back, and played the guitar for a while, but I felt like getting out and seeing what could be happening in the plaza or elsewhere on Saturday night. At one of the little general stores, the soccer team was trying to cleanse their disappointing loss in the semi-finals of a tournament. They had one last year, and were favored to do so again. One of the players, Fredi, helps me in the computer room and library as part of his scholarship grant from AVANTI. So the next thing I knew, I was invited to join in the group attempt to consume all the beer in the store.

The Ecuadorean beer is called Pilsener, and it tastes a bit like washed out Budweiser. It comes in 1 liter bottles (I think), and is definitely of no use for pure beer enjoyment. I was very careful not to consume what the young futbolistas consumed, but I certainly had more than I was used to. Let's just say that, as they hoped, it was a cleansing experience.

Of what good is such behavior, you may ask? Well, the next day I went with Narcisa and Jose to Chunchi, where they treated me to breakfast and I watched Jose sell a sheep.We parted as I went to a a public internet office and they went to do their shopping. After I finished e-mailing, I went out to wait for a bus that would take me to Tolte. There is really only one line that will make that kind of local stop, and I had been waiting a long time when a truck pulled to a stop. And there was about half of the soccer team, who were happy to invite me to catch a ride with them. Of course, I didn't do so by hanging off the back of the truck bed thye way they did--I climbed inside. I feel like I'm too old for that sort of thing. But it goes to show that no social effort is ever wasted in Pistishi.

Well, that's progress

It seems strange how hard it is to keep up with events in a place as quiet as Tolte. There is always something happening. Yesterday, it was road widening. This seems to be a kind of local obsession. Everyone wants wider roads, but there is so little traffic that it is hard to understand why this seems so important. But, because I respect the opinions of those who clearly know better than I do what they want and need, I happily went out to watch and participate in road widening when I had given my last English class of the day. I have to say that, so far, my work day is not as long as the full school day. I expect this to change as I am working with a larger vocabulary and more concepts. By the end of the year, I expect the class that I think is half an hour (but is probably 45 minutes) will last an hour.

So there we were, 50 or more of the 400 residents of Tolte, watching a bulldozer and a grader widen the secondary road. The first notable achievement that I saw was the uprooting of Jose Manuel’s avocado tree, which was greeted with some colorful language by his wife in which the [hrase “hijo de puta” was prominently featured. I think she had a point. The entire additional width came from the land around their house, which reached the road as a seven foot high wall of unreinforced earth. Across the street was a home made of cement surrounded by a concrete and brick wall. Naturally, the earth wall seemed to invite the bulldozer’s blade. And so it went throughout the process, with those who have adobe and earth ceding more than those who have brick and cement. The last phase that I participated in involved the removal of a stone wall that must have taken an enormous effort to build. I’m not sure that taking it down produced more than a couple of meters of additional width. The wall owners did not look as though they felt that their contribution to the community goals was truly appreciated.

At that point, they were almost done for the day. I went to “the other Narcisa,” not the one whose house I live in, for lunch. This is a semi-established arrangement, that outsiders who are living in Tolte can get a hot meal (or more, if they like) at Narcisa’s house for about a buck and a half. Lunch typically includes soup and a plate of rice with vegetables and either an egg or some kind of meat (not guinea pig, thankfully.) It’s also a good place to get some idea of a semi-outsider’s point of view of events in Tolte. Narcisa lived in the States for 12 years, which is not unusual here, but personal issues have detached her a bit from the rest of the community, upon which she now casts a mildly jaundiced eye. So we talked about the road building, and about the behavior of children in school, and I felt slightly more informed, but not in a way that would contribute much to the blogosphere.

For me, the biggest event of the day was attending the first school parents’ meeting of the school year. This meeting was relatively short, as I understand it, at three hours. Much of the time was spent on deciding how much each family should pay for school maintenance supplies (brooms, detergent, whatnot), and whether it should be on a per family or per child basis. There was also the sense that the requested  8 brooms for four classrooms and the bathroom area was an excessive number, and would raise costs unnecessarily. In the end, every family paid 3 dollars, and that was that. Eventually they were kind enough to give me a few moments to report on my perceptions of how school was going. I tried to be gentle, but who knows if my Spanish was adequate to the task. I asked them to give their children a fruit or vegetable to eat during recess, instead of giving them money for candy, both for nutritional and disciplinary reasons. I asked them not to allow their children to bring toys to school. And I asked them to explain to their children that they considered education important, and that the requests of the teachers should be considered a request from the parent. I know I was understood, at least, as the PTA president then reiterated all I had said in very accurate terms. Will Monday be different? One can only hope. But I will certainly be at all of these meetings, especially because the other teachers don’t actually live in Tolte, but return to their own families in Riobamba on Friday afternoons. Still, the prospect of a three hours meeting every Friday is something I will have to be a grown-up about.

A final school related item: I am writing this Saturday morning. I went over to the computer room with the specific goal of making Rosetta Stone 3: English work on the four computers that are still functioning. After much tweaking of controls and testing of headsets, all four are in fact working, an achievement that is certainly near the outer limits of my computer skills. The computer room will now be a more inviting place for adults and high school students, which is good because I am starting English for Adults classes on Monday, Sept. 26. The classes will start at 7:30, last for an hour, and be given every Monday and Thursday for now. If there is a need for more time, I’ll add days and hours. We’ll see how that goes. I confess that I might enjoy teaching adults more than children, or at least in a different, less stressed way. So far, I’m counting on word of mouth to carry the news,  but I hope to gear up more on Monday when the community office is open again.

I am sorry that I cannot write more often. I usually have access to the internet only at midday Monday through Friday, and not every one of those days. By the time I get through my e-mail, I need to open the computer room. But I am told that the office has been closed more than usual lately, and the hours have not extended as late into the evening as usual, either, so things may improve. 

Living on the Edge

Thanks to all, especially James, for suggestions on classroom management. I've decided the first thing we need is a way to keep the door closed from the inside so the children aren't constantly running out of it. That would be a step in the right direction, even if it does sound a bit like imprisonment. You can't teach a fleeing child--though I don't necessarily dispute their instinct. Run, fly, be free!

Today I really toyed with death. There was a kind of fiesta today, thanking some section of the government for providing improved wheat seed. This occasioned much slaughter of chickens and quite a few guinea pigs. I missed the chicken peeling, but did get to see a guinea pig de-haired and cleaned. It brought back the happy days of ninth grade fetal pig dissection, without the nasty formaldehyde smell. Not long after, I was offered a plate of potatoes with what was clearly a guinea pig haunch (considered a major Andean delicacy (and perhaps a test of my commitment), It tastes a bits like dark meat of chicken, though it looks a bit less attractive.

Then, in helpful Dave mode, I offered to help an elderly neighbor and her grand=daughter haul sacks of sand. First of all, these sacks of sand were far heavier than anything I could lift. Second, once I had hoisted a sort of half sack, the place they needed it hauled to was down a frighteningly steep hill. The second load I carried was probably about a third of a sack. I got it down there, but not without slipping and sliding all the way. still, I didn't toally lose my footing. On the other hand, I did feel ridiculous. When the neighbor offered me "refresco," how could I refuse? We'll know by sometime this evening how many amoebas I consumed at the same time. But that humiliation I can bear in private. I am told that, generally, the water is safe, unless there is a pipe break somewhere. I should be a good gauge of the state of the plumbing.

I have to go open the Cuarto de Computacion. A large number of children are watching me type this, knowing that as soon as I am done they can play with Encarta.

Por el Amor de Dios!

This is a phrase that I have repeated several times over the last few days as I contemplated my lack of internet access. I went to Alausi to clear out my inbox Thursday, and tried going to Chunchi on Saturday to do it again because the internet here in Pistishi-Tolte would not cooperate with my computer. The internet in Chunchi (the whole town) was down. Finally, Daniel, the inginiero agronomo, returned today and got me arranged in the municipal network. Here's a sort of double entry I composed while I was waiting. There may be a few pictures, too.

Yesterday, Angus and I made the 6 hout bus trip from Quito  to Pistishi. It turns out that this area is better know to bus drivers as Tolte, one of four villages within Pistishi. Only a few families live in the other three villages, though, so Tolta assumes greater importance. We arrived at night, which made me a bit nervous, because Angus had to sort of intuit the right moment to ask the driver to stop the bus. For future reference, it is shortly after the slightly terrifying drop off the right side of the bus just past Alausi.

We were lucky to get a ride from the Pan American highway into Tolte. It’s not a long walk, maybe 15 minutes, but Angus insisted on carrying my bag, which reached even my sense of shame. I’m not sure what’s in it that makes it so heavy, but it weighs a ton. We were dropped off in the plaza, where the school, the library, the computer room, the municipal offices, and the church are all conveniently clustered together. I met Ruth and Francisco in the office. They both work for the junta comunitaria. Just outside the offices I met Hilda and Carlos, who are just starting college. This is a big step for them and for Pistishi. AVANTI has given them a stipend to do positive work for the community which will help to fund their studies. Part of what they will do is to help me to positive work for the community. For the first time in my life, I have something like a staff. I guess I’d better find some supervisory skills.

We went from the plaza to the house I’ll be living in. It is quite grand, with several floors, electricity, and running water. For the time being, there is no internet service here, and I will have to connect through the municipalidad. But rumor has it that the government will be completing installation of a wireless hotspot that will cover Tolte in the next week or so. Now that’s rural development.

To return to my living situation, I will be sharing the house with Daniel, and agronomist, and Narcisa and Jose, a married couple who look after the house, which everyone refers to as “Narcisa’s house.”. Narcisa works for the touristic railroad that runs up Nariz del Diablo, reputed to be “the 2^nd most popular tourist attraction in Ecuador,” while Jose works for the junta directive. Daniel will be here until December—will find out how much permaculture he can stand between now and then. I’m particularly obsessing about the chicken tractor, as pest problems seem to be a focal issue for farmers here. So far this morning I have heard chickens, sheep, cows, pigs, and a donkey. Plenty of tractor potential, I’m sure.

The photos, if I can run all the connections right, were taken from my bedroom window. Not the topography of Long Island, I can assure you.

Well, now it’s Saturday afternoon and I still have not been able to post this. The internet went down In Pistishi the day after I arrived, and I haven’t been able to get on it since. Today I went to the nearest larger town, Chunchi, to go to an internet booth there, and there is not internet in Chunchi, either. When the internet goes down in Ecuador, it’s like a setting sun. Much access is promised in the near future, but the present is discouraging.

Meanwhile, I did my first two days of teaching—the first as myself, “profe de ingles,” the second as a substitute for Sinia, the grades 1,2,3,4 teacher, who went to Riobamba to request another teacher. Enrollment went from 48 last year to 65 this year, while the number of teachers seems to have gone from three to two (not counting me, of course—I’m the profe de ingles, not a teacher. The first day was fine, more or less. I taught grades 4-7, and the only one that presented a real problem was grade 4. That should have warned me about the next day. Village school students will be amused to learn that 30 little children paid me absolutely no respect or attention of any kind, and quite literally ran wild for 5 hours. By hour four, I had simply decided that all I could do was keep them in the classroom, which I could only accomplish by holding the door closed. Needless to say, I couldn’t really teach from there, but a couple of persistent first graders did get some use out of the day. Even kinaesthetic learning has its limits, I guess, if everything one says seems optional. One of the children clued me in that Sonia writes notes home to parents if there is misbehavior. Her class is still sort of chaotic, but nothing as bad as mine. All I can say is, I hope she got the third teacher and never misses another class.

But other things are going well. I played a child’s guitar yesterday during computer room hours (no, there is no internet access in the room yet, but we’re supposed to get wirless any day now) and made a good impression. I was invited to play with a couple of guys who have the equivalent of a garage band—except it’s not a garage, it’s a small building made of mud bricks. Very atmospheric. I had serious trouble with the rhythms, but seemed to be okay on when to change chords, once I got some help as to what the chords were. Al would have done better. Looks like I’ll have plenty of opportunity to solo in the Aeolian mode.

And today I’ll have a chance to see Manuel make mud bricks. I didn’t see this kind of construction during the Peace Corps years—I’m not sure it’s done in Costa Rica. The newer houses here, the ones built with remittance money, are made of brick, cinder block, and reinforced concrete. But the permaculture influence persists—maybe there are a bunch of permies back in the States who will pay good money for a mud hut, and I’ll be there to supply it, out of the appropriate, locally available materials, of course. On the other hand, the amount of firewood they were cutting when I passed by this morning looked sort of intimidating. I might need a partner.

Oh, I also took a hike with Angus down to the Nariz del Diablo touristic train station. That was way back on Wednesday. It really is quite picturesque, in a mountain extravaganza sort of way. Maybe by the time I get to post this I’ll have a nice picture of Nariz del Diablo to include. From the proper angle, it looks like an elephant. I’ll see if I can get that one for you.

Anyway, this week’s call for advice is, believe it or not, CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT! How am I going to get the fourth graders to behave? I suppose I can threaten o keep them out of the computer room, but not all of them use it. Maybe just the fear of being denied something will get to them. But I’d welcome a more positive solution.

This first picture is a view from the Quito bus station, Quitumbe. The second is a view from my bedroom window. Think about it.

I hope you all will see this someday very soon..

Quito

One would have to be truly shameless to try to describe flying over the Andes. I was going to remark on what a clumsy traveler I am, always one step away from losing my passport. I thought I might mention that flying in an airplane when I should be sleeping somewhere is not good for my brain. But I have looked out of an airplane window and seen the Andes, and nothing else really matters. I have never lived anywhere really mountainous, but I will now. Can one actually bathe in the reflected glory of a landscape? And if one does, does that make one glorious somehow, or at least uplifted?

At the moment, I am sitting in the AVANTI office. Angus and I enjoyed a fine breakfast, where I asked a million questions about Pistishi that I'll have to ask again after I've slept. But the opportunity to do meaningful work in Pistishi is clear, and I know that however long I stay there will be time well spent. And I will get there sometime tomorrow.

All out

This blogging business seems to be good for the economy, if not my finances. Now that I'm blogging, I went out and bought a camera. I haven't owned a camera since I was in the Peace Corps, which accounts for how rare photographs of my children, me, and my surroundings have become. But software is installed, the memory card is in the camera, and I think the camera is almost charged up. Visuals ought to be available any day now. Which is good, because I head to Ecuador tomorrow. It's all almost too exciting--not that my life couldn't use more excitement.

Thanks for all the support so many of you have offered in our parting conversations. Keep in mind that I'm counting on all of you for great ideas that I can use to help the people of Pistishi. No question but that you're a talented lot.