All the Potatoes and Soup You Can Eat

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Been missing for a while, but there is so many new things happening. I arrived into Malingua Pamba Saturday the 21st and was greeted by a series of handshakes and enthusiastic introductions. My biggest question was, who are the people who run the hostel I'm staying in, and where is the cook(the two people who I want to keep on my good side). After meeting Paulino and Elvia(the couple who run the hostel) I felt much more comfortable and was looking forward to getting to know this new mountainous region. I explored a little with our driver, Bob, and a couple other team members. After some more handshakes with the locals and staring at the livestock everywhere, it was time for dinner. Throughout the next few days I would REALLY come to understand that potatoes, soup and rice are the staple foods here. The week started and so did our work on the spring box, designed to capture and consolidate the water for the potable water system. Through out the week we enjoyed working with the mingas, which are a group work event to try and better the community. The people here are very excited to work and often crowd the work project in order to simply contribute. The minga offered us a chance to see how the local people worked, some sheep soup, plenty of handshakes and smiles and occasionally (or not that occasionally) aguardiente, homemade whisky. After the week had wrapped up, there were two new plumbed tanks, a plumbed springbox with a new concrete floor and thousands of meters of new pipes. After a week like this, I needed to take a rest and my stomach was obviously telling me that I could slurp no more soup and shovel no more potatoes into my mouth.

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