An Amazing Occurrence

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Mark your calendars - make a mental note - remember where you were today when you read this. The strangest thing happened today to me in Puyo. I got up early and went for a run at 6:30am (first time I have done this). I knew something was amiss when everyone that I passed had on jackets and pants - as if preparing for some ice age. Being the Ohio boy that I am, I was in my shorts and t-shirt - I couldn´t have been more comfortable - it was about 70 degrees and overcast. I guess in the jungle 70 degrees is dangerously cold.

Anyhow, as I was running, I saw my breath. Yes, you read that right, my breath. I couldn´t believe my eyes, how was this possible? As the left side of my brain was going through calculations of the saturation point of the air and trying to assess the ambient temperature and relative humidity. The right side of my brain was wondering if what I was seeing was more related to the strong onions I had eaten last night. This had some validity since the night before I brushed my teeth 3 times trying to get rid of the onion taste from my dinner and I woke up this morning feeling like I had been sucking on raw onions all night.

Strong as the onion taste was in my mouth, I realized that it was folly to actually think I could ¨see¨ onion breath - smell it yes, see it no. Alas, it was cold enough in Puyo to see my breath this morning. How incredible a sight it was! Global Warming - I think NOT!!! This temperature anomaly was welcome to me, though it did not keep me from sweating profusely during my run - that I am afraid will continue to happen while I am in Puyo.

Today, I went with Bolivar to the FRATES facility. On the way out there we had a lively conversation. Bolivar has been studying English and wants to try out all of his new words on me. I was doing well with my Spanish and we had a good exchange. It is the first time that I really felt comfortable talking to him. I found out that he is headed to the States in December for a meeting with the FRATES board. When he told me this I just laughed as I looked at the jacket he was wearing to fend off the Puyo chill. I told him that he better buy 3-4 more of those jackets to take to New York in December. He asked how cold it was and I told him to expect freezing temperatures. As I said this, you could see the warmth leaving his skin and I think I detected a shiver. If 70 degrees in Puyo is ¨cold¨ to him - he´s screwed when he goes to New York.

He asked if I wanted to go with him, but I said no - it cost too much - and I´ll be home in September. Then he asked how far New York was from Ohio. I told him that it would take 10-12 hours to drive there and that it was far. Now it was his turn to smile at me and laugh. He told me that in Ecuador that was a short trip, like walking to the corner store. I laughed and we both agreed that people from the U.S. are wimps when it comes to long trips.

He also asked me why some universities in the States are University of ---------- and others are ---------- University. In Spanish it is always Universidad de ----------. I told him that it was because we like to make things as confusing as possible in English so that nobody else can figure it out. We did that with a lot of our words - It is all part of our plan to rule the world. He looked at me - with a serious and worried look - then burst out laughing.

We finally made it to FRATES and I did my best to take photos of the place. The only problem was that it was pouring and the camera lens kept getting drops of water on it. So....I think I have 5 decent photos out of 100. We are headed back next week, so I´ll try the photo thing over again and see what happens.

Unfortunately, the place seemed worse than when I was there a month ago. I went to check out some of the sleeping rooms and was greated by 5-6 moderately friendly bats. I say ¨friendly¨ because they didn´t try to land on me or bite me and ¨moderately¨ because, can a bat really be friendly? Who do you know that has a bat as a friend?

Anyhow, the paths and gardens seemed overly cluttered with debris. It was obvious work was being done out there, but I am not sure how effective it was. The house was the only part that appeared to be very clean. As I thought about what needs to be done out there I came to an enlightening realization - my idea of clean and tidy and very different from Guillermo´s (the care-taker) idea. I certainly am not in a position to tell him what to do, but I do plan to discuss things that he could do to make the place more appealing to tourists.

I now think that it is going to take a good 2-3 weeks of solid work to get the gardens, trails, and buildings cleaned up and looking good. I may send out an e-mail to some of my Peace Corps pals to see if any of them want to come to Puyo for a day or two of hard labor in July when Umberto is here. This just happens to coincide with the end of our 3 month PC lockdown in our communities - so I think some volunteers will be ready to travel and it is amazing what the promise of a beer and some Reese Cups can do to PC volunteers.

We also met with the carpenter that is going to be working out there. He has a good arrangement. He gets a facility with all the tools he needs, FRATES buys the wood and materials, he builds stuff, and the profits are shared between him and FRATES. This guy was top-notch and I think he will do an excellent job out there.

We spent about 2 hours out there and then drove back into Puyo. On the way back, Bolivar and I were chatty and this time we talked about golf. He was floored that people actually pay money to play. I tried to explain the intricacies of golf and how much it cost - then I succumbed to his way of thinking and said you are right - people are crazy - why pay good money to put yourself through a 5 hour emotional rollercoaster of a round?

I returned to the office at lunch time - everyone left and I decided to stay. This way I could get a few minutes of uninterrupted internet time. I caught myself up on e-mails - though some of my friends may question that as they notice I didn´t send any to them. I also did a little research for yet another new project of mine.

Katie and I (maybe Sue too) have been asked by the local newspaper to contribute on a weekly basis. As it stands now, we will be putting Science and Environmental information in the Kids section of the Sunday paper. The editors at La Prensa basically said we could do whatever we wanted and if we want to write articles for other parts of the paper we could do that as well. Katie did the lead work on this and I am more than happy to let her lead this project. For my part, I am going to do a ¨Did you Know?¨ section each week with fun facts relating to the theme we choose for that particular week. This Sunday the theme is Planet Earth and I am including all sorts of amazing stats about the Earth. For example: Did you know that the Earth weighs 6,585,600,000,000,000,000,000 tons and it travels through space at 66,700 miles per hour. It is stuff like this that a science geek like me really enjoys - I hope the kids do too!!!

I´ll keep you posted on how the newspaper thing goes. Me on the internet is one thing - me in print is an entirely different thing. Puyo BEWARE!!!

Peace,
Jeremy

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