Semillas de Mostaza

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from Semillas yet to date. Our latest amusement here has been dealing with a goat that our guard, Andres, seems to like to bring to work with him. (Sir, why do you need to bring your goat to work..) When I taught the adults on Tuesday I got a glimpse of the goat eating a notebook outside. Part of Monday was spent trying to recapture the goat who had then broken into the homework room (not distracting at all) and was wrecking havoc on the desks, chairs, crates of bananas, etc. The goat later came charging onto the cancha during charla (when we would really love 5 minutes to talk seriously to the kids- fail) and had to be escorted off by by Kipp, dragging it by the horns. Plenty of cheering. At least the goats presence has distracted us from that of the killer attack dogs... though perhaps the best conversation I have had with Andres so far involved my kindly asking him not to burn large fires near where the small children are playing. Guard antics aside, I think we are all agreed that Semillas is one of our favorite places in Ecuador. The first picture, clearly, is a pig pile on Christina and Daniel, our ayudante. Normal day. The second is of 5 year old Diego during recreo (if we were to pick favorites...)

More adventure fotos

Weekend(s) Recap

Happy Monday to all!
So, last couple weeks- ready...go! Last weekend was Beth´s birthday so we all slept over AJS for a celebration in her honor. Next morning we headed into Guayaquil for its independence day party and ended up staying in the city for almost 12 hours- nothing like a parade, good food, sail boat tours, fire works, and a free concert to keep a few thousand people entertained. This particular Ecuadorian concert was pretty amusing because the artists and songs switched about every 45 seconds (one would wonder if Ecuadorians have ADD when it comes to listening to music- this was reminiscent of a power hour mix). Perhaps the best parts of the concert were the continual interruptions by the host shouting ¨WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS, MY FRIENDS!¨ outrageously loudly and in English, when this phrase simply had nothing to do with whatever antics were happening onstage. Many audience members found it more amusing to watch us, the gringos (dancing, obviously) than the performers.
The week passed generally normally. I tutored a couple kids who live in the neighborhood (and was fed birthday cake for breakfast- not a bad deal) and had lunch with Lupe, one of our wonderful neighbors. She has informed us that she would like to have a one on one date with all of us to determine who she gets along with best- I asked her if our lunch was like a test and she said yes- no pressure or anything. We finished up our first partial (3 partials make up a quimestre) at Nuevo Mundo so things got a little hectic with grading (one of these days I will learn how to use Excel, but not yet..) This past weekend 6 of us- myself, Tierney, Jon, Christina, Mark, and Tasha- headed to the beautiful beachside town of Puerto Lopez and the national park Isla de la Plata. We got in around 9:30 Saturday morning and were under the care of our guide, Cherry, by 10, meandering through the fish market and stepping over 6 ft. long sharks, swordfish and the like. Just like a fish market at home, right? I was tempted to plop a swordfish down in the seat next to me on the way back to Guayaquil. A few men did end up bringing live chickens on the bus home so next time I must not let animals be a deterent. Anyway the boat ride to the island is about an hour and a half- a complete blast (and for those whose stomachs didn´t love the boat ride in its own right, it seemed the wildlife made it worth the rocky trip). We hiked the island for a couple hours and checked out a few species of birds, including the blue footed boobies, which are native only to the Galapogos and this island. From the boat we saw sea turtles, dolphins and one humpback whale (apparently whale mating season has just ended, so we were lucky to glimpse one). We snorkeled off the boat all afternoon by this gorgeous coral reef (first time snork-ler) and saw a million, as Cherry put it ¨Nemo and Dory fish.¨ Saturday night we ate at a local seafood restaurant on the water and stolled along the beachside bars and shops, stopping to have a beer in a hammock on the beach. Sunday we ate a breakfast overlooking the water in an awesome cane hut at our neat little hostel and spent the day at Las Frailes, famous for being the most beautiful beach in Ecuador. Encased by cliffs on each side, the beach was nearly deserted and we spent the day swimming, snakcing, and hiking a bit. The view from the mirador reminded me of the view from the lookout point at Gay Head (water was warmer, though). We were back by 9 Sunday night. This Monday morning I hung out at our neighbor Francisca´s with all her kids and will head over to Semillas, our afterschool program, soon before tutoring 5-year Jon-Pierre in some English. That´s about all the ¨new¨ stuff here for now, hope everyone has a great week!

Baby´s First Coup

Yesterday morning the opposition party tried to dislodge President Correa from office. He was released last night from the military hospital in Quito where he was being held. There were riots and protests in Guayaquil yesterday and access to the Puntilla and Guayaquil was cut off because the bridges were blocked. I was in Duran all day. One of my adult students in my morning class got a phone call (yes, I let them answer the phone in class) telling us what was going on and so I knew not to go to Mundo. Those who came back from Guayaquil said the streets were hectic with people protesting and burning tires. Everybody is safe; Kipp and Celso picked everybody up from work (only took a few hours..) and brought everyone back home. From where I am it doesn´t seem like we are in the thick of things. Life is going on as usual.