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Published: August 5th 2007
Well, the good news is that my tooth problem was not related to the tooth that had previous problems. In fact, it appears not to a tooth problem at all right now. I have a large space between my last molar and the gum - this creates a welcome home for bacteria and all sorts of nasties. Thus, I had an infection that felt more like a toothache. It is getting better. The bad news is that the last molar is slowly being eaten away so if I can not reverse this problem, I will probably lose that tooth. I now brush 3-4 times a day and am starting a more rigorous flossing regimen.
On to more interesting things….Señor King´s Magic Science Show made its debut today. Part of the Campaign for Water that my counterpart is working on involves programming in each of the 19 barrios (neighbourhoods) of Puyo. It just so happens that currently the Municipio is engaged in a series of week-long mingas in each barrio. A minga is an organized work party for adults where every family has to participate to help with public works projects. While these are occurring, there are activities to keep the kids occupied.
CODEAMA jumped at the chance to use this as an opportunity to present information about the campaign for water and watersheds. For my part, I am doing a science ¨magic¨show with a bunch of eye-opening experiments and demonstrations. Most of them related to water in some way shape or form. So I did my show and after the show when the kids were totally pumped, Andrea did a presentation on the campaign and watersheds. It is refreshing to know that even when your Spanish stinks, you can still use science as a universal language - water molecules and fire don´t seem to care what language you speak - they behave the same way every time.
The best part was that I got to use Sue´s grandmother´s vintage bright-orange suitcase to put all my ¨magic¨ tricks in. It even looks like a magic bag. I received many comments just about the suitcase. Anyhow, each week for the next 15 weeks I get to present the show. It takes about 45 minutes and the kids absolutely love it. I have to give credit where credit is due. One of my mentors while I was teaching at CHS, John Karg, was the inspiration for my show. He used to do something similar for his chemistry classes on the first day of school.
After the work in the barrios is done, I plan to take my show into the schools - expanding it to include more cool demos and using it as a segway to promote better science and environmental science education.
Sue and I are in the process of uploading photos that include my science show, so be expecting those in the next few days.
On another note, my work at FRATES still continues to grow. It looks like they found someone to run the tourism part for now, so that will allow me to focus more on programming for the communities. We are going to be starting a model organic vegetable garden this weekend that we will use to train the community members. The hope is that I can get them to grow a wider variety of vegetables to improve health and that I can get them to do it by composting and using no chemicals. Right now the working idea is that the communities help make the model garden, in return they get free technical training, free seeds, and a small garden plot for their own garden. They will also have access to fresh compost and organic pesticides (made from local plants). They can choose to have a garden at the FRATES center and/or gardens at their own house/community. We have a big minga this Saturday to break ground for the model garden - so Sue and I are headed out there early in the morning.
Our landlord recently removed all the exterior lights at our apartment complex. So now at night, it is pitch black and you have to fumble around with your keys trying to put them in the lock to open the door. It is annoying!!! Sue confronted him about it and he claimed that having two florescent lights (only used when people come home at night and flip them on) was costing way too much money to operate. He literally removed the light fixtures themselves. He then complained when he saw that Sue and I had an incandescent light bulb in our kitchen. Sue reminded him that he promised the day we moved in, to bring us more florescent bulbs - she also reminded him that the florescent bulb he removed outside of our door was ours and that it had my name on it (remember the previous story about the neighbour stealing ours). Now that I think about it, both of the bulbs he removed were ours - since the one by the neighbors was mine to begin with. Anyhow, he promised to bring the bulb back - and he did today.
Sue and I are not really happy with Fabian, our landlord. I plan on doing some calculations to see how much a florescent bulb would cost to operate 24 hours a day 7 days a week and offer to pay that much extra each month just so we can have it there. The ironic thing is that most of our neighbors have tv´s, stereos, washing machines, computers, one even has a dryer. Sue and I have a toaster oven, an ipod, and a blender. Somehow, I doubt that Sue and I are the energy drain - though I do kick ass with the toaster oven.
Because of Sue being ¨tough on light,¨ she now has a cool relationship with the landlord. To make matters worse, one of the neighbors was broken into the other night and the Police think it was a former tenant. Apparently this former tenant helped to build our building and has keys to all the apartments (including ours). In Ecuador it is not common practice to change locks with new tenants. So guess what Jeremy is going to be doing in the near future - that´s right - installing new locks. I don´t even want to ask the landlord to do it or pay for it - I´d rather be the only one with keys - well I guess that I´ll give a copy to Sue as well. It would be the kind thing to do - though somehow giving the keys to her means that our relationship is getting more serious - oh wait, she´s my wife - yeah its ok.
If anyone has access to a bajillion gigawatt light bulb let me know. I´d like to install it in my apartment and leave it on 24/7 just to piss off my landlord. Well, that´s the news from Puyo. Tooth problems 4 - Jeremy 0.
Peace,
Jeremy
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Hannah
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Wedding entertainment
Jer, Maybe you should bring your cool science demo to the wedding for halftime entertainment. It would be awesome for something to explode just as the first dance is commencing. Hmm something tells me removing lights from the exterior of a building is not the way to get rid of burglers.