Update from the Big Smoke

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Hi
Just a very quick blog to give you a idea of what the week has held for me since I wrote in Canoa. I had a lovely (if very hot and humid) weekend at the beach, with the highlight of the days being the sunsets, which were just amazing. Vocabulary runs out in these situations... but you saw the pictures, so you must have a fair idea what I mean! The bus trip back on Monday was fairly uneventful, with a quick stop-off in Santo Domingo to buy some lunch and get some money. When we got within a kilometer of the reserve the hot, sweltering skies became overcast and the rain began to fall (well they don't call it cloudforest for nothing). As we got out of the bus the thunder began to rumble and the rain began to really get going. The drops were the size of almonds and were heavier than the best power shower I've been under. By the time we reached the viewpoint the path was a river and we were ankle-deep in muddy water, soaked to the skin! We were truly a sight when we got to our house, with us, our shoes, our backpacks and their entire contents wringing wet! The rain continued like that all night and in the morning when we awoke there had been a couple of landslides, part of the steps to our house had been washed away and there were huge metre-long holes in the path up to the main house to try not to fall into.

Over the weekend nine piglets had been born to one of the pigs, so I went over to have a look at them and see how they were getting on. They are all healthy and happy and seem to be getting on fine, which is great. The goats also seem to be doing well, apart from one of the nanny goats (she is now nanny houdini to me) who I found head down in the feed barrel on Wednesday having escaped from her pen, and opened the correct bin in order to feed her face. Gives the lie to the phrase 'dumb animal', doesn't it? I had lots of fun and games getting her back where she should be, especially as her kid ran out to join her at one point! Chasing farm animals should be an event at the farm olympics, I think I would do quite well...

Other than that work for me was just a continuation of the admin work I started the week before. As a break from the routine I went down the hill with another volunteer Richard to take the milk to the dairy truck on Wednesday. While we were there we waited to meet a new volunteer who arrived later in the morning.

As far as planning for the school goes, we are getting a much clearer idea of what we want the school to be, and I will start to write a plan tomorrow based on the discussions we had on Friday about the project we have in mind. Essentially we want to create a nursery for small children in the local area (as this doesn't exist right now), create a small adult education centre (concentrating on the needs of women in the community who could attend when their children are in the nursery), and we want to drastically improve the resources available in the local elementary school, with the idea of developing scholarships to allow local children to attend high school and perhaps even university. I'm really looking forward to getting started with it!

So that about sums things up for the moment. I'm in Quito right now running around doing lots of administration for myself, and a bit of internet research for the reserve, but that's mostly done now so I'll take the bus back soon.

Hope you are all well and happy!

xx A

PS I'll post some more pictures next week!

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Comments

[Steve Candler]

pigs and admin !!
Thanks Anna - great to hear how it is going. Hope all the admin soon starts turning into real plans. Watch those rain storms !! Take care. Steve xx

[Rachael]

Hello
Hello - I've just found your blog again. Glad to hear its all going as well as you hoped. Amazing sunset!! Emily is walking everywhere now - so grown up!