No Earthquake Here

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Just so you know, the Earthquake that hit Peru had no effect on us in Puyo. It was a major Earthquake and Peace Corps put us on an alert for Tsunami´s. I had to chuckle when I got this text message seeing as how the Andes mountains - the second tallest in the world - are between us in Puyo and the Ocean. If we were really threatened by a Tsunami in Puyo then clearly the rest of the world would be screwed. In all fairness, it was a blanket warning to all volunteers - there are quite of few on the coast of Ecuador. Luckily the Tsunami was a reported 10 inches - so no lives were lost.

So, I haven´t written much in the last week - I have been busy - SURPRISE!!! Things are not really going to get any easier until we leave for the States in September. We both will be running around doing workshops, presentations, summer camps, etc. etc. etc. I guess it is better to be busy rather than bored.

To make matters even crazier, my boss at Peace Corps invited/requested that we attend a reception in Quito for the Director of Peace Corps from the U.S. He is coming to visit and evaluate Peace Corps Ecuador. We were picked because apparently, we have fooled Peace Corps Ecuador into thinking that we are model volunteers so they want us there to help impress the Big Bossman. It sounds like a great opportunity, however, this has come at a really busy time for us and we just don´t have much time to go to Quito mid-week. I have a kid´s science camp that starts on the 27th and Sue has a workshop a dentro (in the Jungle) on the 27th. But, we are doing as instructed and will be heading there Tuesday afternoon.

Our friends Matt and Heather are arriving in country on the 24th and we are meeting them for the weekend. So we are headed to Quito on Tuesday, coming back Wednesday night, then returning to Quito on Friday afternoon, then returning on Sunday night. We would have stayed in Quito from Tuesday to Friday, however, we have too much to do in Puyo - we have too much to plan for the following week.

Ah, enough of my whining - you all get the point - we are crazy busy.

This past weekend, we entertained our friend Jeanette, her brother, and her friend. They came in on Thursday afternoon. It was great to see Jeanette. She was in our training group and is a photo journalist. Sue and I really like Jeanette and it was wonderful to see her.

They were all fortunate enough to see a little of my Magic Science show. On Friday, my counterpart, Andrea and I had to do a presentation for the La Prensa (the newspaper). They were celebrating their 1st year in print and were putting on a party in the street. We did out water presentation for the kids. It was support to start at 6:00pm, but being in-line with Ecuador time standards - it was no surprise that it started at 9:00pm - a mere 3 hours late. I was in a bad mood, because we had guests in town, I didn´t want to be there, it was running really late, the setting was not conducive to do all my ¨tricks¨ and….there were a lot of adults there. However, I was pleasantly surprised when it went off really well. People of all ages seemed to enjoy it. Andrea, dressed up as a Frog and had herself all painted up. It was funny. We were introduced as Jeremy and the Frog Advocates for water.

That night we went to El Jardin for dinner. Lucky for us, Jeanette´s 19 year-old brother had his parents credit card and charged dinner on it. Nothing like a free dinner at our favorite restaurant.

The next morning, I made some pancakes for the group and then we headed up to Baños. On the way we stopped at the waterfalls of Machay and took a 2 hour hike. We saw 5 waterfalls, they were…..ok. I wasn´t impressed, but, it was a nice hike. We also stopped in Río Verde (on the way to Baños) and went to the Devil´s Cauldron waterfall - one of the biggest in the area. It was impressive, but the whole area is really touristy. Our hike in Machay was tourist-free which made it better.
In Baños we wandered around for a couple of hours and then decided two hours of gringlandia (my term for a town with a bunch of foreign tourists) was enough for today. We stopped at the local grocery store and I bought stuff to make dinner and I bought - CHEDDAR Cheese. I was so excited to find Chedder - it was expensive, but I wanted to splurge on something good. Sue and Jeanette bought a couple bottles of wine and we were golden. We took the bus back to Puyo and I started to make dinner (my famous burritos) I also made some chocolate chip cookies. We opened the wine and cheese and were UNDERWHELMED by the cheese. How disappointing it was - not that it was bad - it just wasn´t what my tastebuds and memory sensors were expecting.

I also had purchased what I thought was sour cream. It turns out that I bought just cream. Hannah (Jeanette´s friend) said that she would whip it up to put on our cookies or to put on some fresh strawberries. Unfortunately, Zach (Jeanette´s brother) wanted to help whip it up. He started whipping with vigor and ended up overdoing it and making butter - it was good for a laugh and we used it the next morning on some apple cinnamon pancakes that I made.

All said, it was a good Peace Corps weekend!!!

Well, I gotta get some work done. Sue and I came into my office tonight, Sunday, to work!!! I was looking at the Peace Corps manual and I had trouble finding the part where it says to do work on a Sunday evening. We did have good luck though, because Sue´s brother Tom and his fiancée Hannah, called us on SKYPE and we were able to chat with them for 40 minutes.

I hope all is well back in the States - I keep getting reports of hot weather and very little rain. Sounds like the perfect weather to set-up a back yard slip-and-slide.

Peace,
Jeremy

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Comments

[Hannah]

score
sweet made the blog. it was nice chatting for free!