Damn Travel Blog

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Ok, it looks like Travelblog is back on-line. However, I have lost the last 50 entries or so. If any of you can access entries from Mid-March up until now, please copy the entry or entries to a word document and send it my way. My father claims to have access to all but the last entry: ¨Blanquito and his Vanilla Friend¨ If I only lose this one, I can deal.

Do you all realize the literary masterpiece that may be gone forever. This is like losing the Dead Sea Scrolls or the 10 Commandments or perhaps last week´s Sunday comics. Either way you look at it, I am disappointed, but have only myself to blame for not backing up my data. There is a recurring theme with me - every 6 months or so, computer technology screws me and each time I say, ¨I´ll never let that happen again - I´m backing up everything¨ Then I forget that promise and build up a wealth of data to eventually lose into the deep abyss of Cyber Space.

This past weekend, I built another bed frame. I started at around 12:00 by picking up the wood from the mill, then took a taxi ride back with the wood and starting cutting pieces to size. I also cut wood to make a night stand for Sue. Things were going much better now that I have a circular saw - thanks to our friend Ryan that recently left Peace Corps.

At about 1:00 I went to use my drill - Sue had been using at the new Waorani store and brought it back with her the night before. I was so exicited thinking that I´d have it all built in a couple hours. However, when I opened up the drill case, I realized that she had failed to bring back the drill bits and the hammer. Hmmmmmmmm - my plans were foiled. Sue was at a workshop and her phone was off. So I did what any self-respecting man would do in this situation - I went into the kitchen and baked a carrot cake complete with cream cheese icing, then did the laundry. I also made a big pot of soup. Then I took my ripped pants - the ones I ripped climbing into the window months ago - to a local tailor to see if he could fix them - he could for a grand sum of 50 cents. Granted, he just put a patch on them, but at least I can use them as work pants.

Sue came home around 4:00 with my drill bits, but no hammer. I built the bed in a little over an hour. Manuela, her counterpart, came over a couple hours later with a hammer - ironically, this was not my hammer, it was another one she found at the store. Oh well, I used it anyhow to build the night stand for Sue.

On Sunday, I was supposed to go to FRATES. Umberto is only here for a couple more days. However, I missed the morning bus, so I decided that instead of spending $15 to go there by taxi, that I would remain in town and get some errands done. I also kept getting phone calls from some taxi driver that said he had Umberto´s phone and that he wanted to get it to me. It was very confusing - even Sue couldn´t figure out what was going on. Hopefully, Umberto has his phone, because I called it and left a message for him, that I was not going to make it out to FRATES.

In the afternoon, I went to play Ecua-Volley with Bolivar and Wilmen. We played 3 on 3 and I played horribly. The worst part was getting constant orders from Wilmen. He kept telling me I was hitting the ball wrong - I can normally take this type of criticism, but not from a guy who was making twice as many errors as I was. Oh well, we played for 3 hours and I was pooped.

When I returned to the apartment, Susan had gone to play hoops with the Waorani. This was her second game with them. The first resulted in a black eye - luckily she returned with no injuries this time. We ate some soup and retired to bed relatively early. We were graced with phone calls from Chris and Sarah and then Sue´s brother Joe. Life is good!!!


Peace,

Jeremy

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