Jungle Vacation

In mid-January, we took our vacation to the third region of Ecuador: the jungle. Yes, we've supposedly lived in the jungle throughout our two years here, but this was our chance to go "muy adentro"--way far in. We took two days to hike through Jatun Sacha (which means "big jungle" in Kichwa) with our guide, Fabio (not the margarine-eater that's on your romance novels).

Standing in front of a ceibo tree.

Solar Food Preservation

I briefly mentioned my solar dehydrator project in a previous post. Now that this project has been wrapped up, here's a little more detail.

Having lived most of my life in temperate climates, I'm used to the idea of seasonal fruits and veggies, and the need to preserve produce in order to have something tasty to eat in the winter. Sure, NAFTA eliminates some of that need, but preserving food is still an important part of American culture.

During the first few months in Ecuador, I quickly realized that food preservation is very rare here. Before refrigeration was widely available, meat and fish were smoked or dried to extend the bounty of a hunt for up to a month. Now, even if a family doesn't own a fridge, the store down the street that sells chicken probably does. So few people preserve meat anymore.

Although food preservation isn't common, there are some products that need to be dried as part of the processing. Cacao, coffee, and plantain (for grinding into flour) are the most common.

At the school farm, the teachers were experimenting with designs to accelerate the drying of cacao and improve the quality (mold and flies are very common when sun-drying cacao).

Version 1.0 of the solar dehydrator.

The first design they came up with had a lot of good qualities:
-Made from recycled/free materials
-Improved airflow below cacao compared with sun-drying on a tarp
-Easy to use

This is Where Your Trash Goes

Part of our coastal vacation included a trip to visit a fellow Peace Corps volunteer in Esmeraldas. Isaac helped him with a tourist mapping project (that will hopefully be up soon for all to see and use!), and we also got roped into doing a beach cleanup (I say "roped in" only because we thought we were going to see the mangroves, didn't, and ended up stranded on a beach with our guide and a bunch of trash bags--but it was okay!)

I've heard a lot about the Pacific Garbage Patch and the baby albatrosses who fill their stomachs with plastic. I've taught how "all our litter eventually ends up in the ocean" (which is hyperbole, but not really). But I didn't actually GET it until I saw the beach in Muisne.

I don't want this blog to be a giant guilt-fest--there's enough of that elsewhere, and I don't know if it's particularly helpful or healthy. I do want to share some photos and some of the thoughts I had while working on the beach so that you can maybe think my thoughts with me.

Let's start with a pretty landscape of the beach.

Foto Friday: Monos en Misahuallí

Usually foto Friday is just one picture, but there's so many good ones that I can't pick. So you get some yapa this week. These photos are taken in a tourist town about an hour from Santa Clara. If you come visit us, we'll take you there.

Kirstie chasing Golem

If you have ever been around monkeys, you know they are always looking for food...

...Even if it means stealing someone's snow cone.

But they don't stoop to eating logs.

This is probably one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken.

..Isaac..

Foto Friday: The Angry Jungle Goat

Meet Kirstie's friend-goat. He likes to fight Isaac.

Foto Friday: Momotus momota

A blue-crowned motmot (Motmotus momota), also known as a culebrero, near Canoa, Ecuador.

Vacation to the Coast!

We finally made it to the coast! We took about a week and a half off from our activities here in the jungle and made the fifteen-hour bus journey to help a friend with a tourist mapping project (more about that visit in a future blog) and then head down to Puerto Lopez to chillax on the beach.

Snail trails on the beach in Puerto Lopez.

Creepy Crawlies of Ecuador, vol. 2 (Extra Creepy)

Happy Halloween! We thought it appropriate to share a dose of jungle-creepiness with you this year to celebrate. These are some of the more bizarre, terrifying, and weird insects we've snapped on camera during our journeys through the Amazon.

(If you missed it, you can check out volume 1 of Creepy Crawlies here.)

We'll start with one that isn't TOO terrifying. It may look cute and fuzzy, but these furry guys are not for petting. Ecuadorians tell us: "Esos pican." Those ones sting!

Read on... IF YOU DARE!!!

Foto Friday: The Circus!

The one-ring circus came to Santa Clara! And was a bit disappointing... We listened to two and a half hours of very humorless payasos (clowns) and decided to call it a night before we had a chance to see Sharon the Dancing Donkey dance (we saw her outside eating earlier in the week--beautiful girl!). We did get to see a very impressive contortionist and this acrobat, and we wish the best of luck to them!

We were so scared that she would fall to her death...

Making Chocolate

Earlier this year I went to go to a workshop at the Río Muchacho Organic Farm on the coast of Ecuador. Most of the workshop was review for me, but we did get to MAKE CHOCOLATE! Here's a little info about how to make chocolate - old school style.

1. Get the pods off of the tree.You can chop 'em off with a machete or whack them down with a stick.

This is a cacao tree (from Indonesia - can you believe we haven't taken one in Ecuador yet?). These are unripe pods.

Water Conservation Education

One of the main projects I worked on from about November through February was teaching environmental education to preschool through sixth graders at the Spanish/Kichwa bilingual school in town (ages 4 through 13ish). We had ten lessons that focused mainly on water: where does it come from, who uses it, why it's important, and how we can conserve it.

Some of my students. TOTALLY paying attention to what I'm saying...

Foto Friday: Door Frog

Fatty and the Bulgers 2: Ready to Fly!

Well, it's that time again. The kittens have grown to monstrous proportions, are eating us out of house and home, and are ready for new adventures.

UPDATE: Thanks to our friends Bertha and Nancy for helping us find good homes for all the kittens! Humpty's getting cuddled to death by Nancy's kids, and the girls are in their new jungle homes looking for tasty rats to eat!

The Bulgers are watching... UP YOUR NOSE!!!

Foto Friday: Clowns are Scary...

...even if they look as ridiculous as this guy.

Foto Friday: Horses

It's not just us! It seems like everyone in town has caught horse fever!

Germán takes part in the town's celebration.

Carlos and Joesi also take to the ring. They're fast!

Here's Joesi again, getting some help from Isaac during a training day. The high school kids learned some basics of dressage, which is like dancing.

Robinson ("Copy") and Estrella working on some moves. (We should mention that Copy's attire--shirt up over the belly and pants in danger of slipping off--is the style here, for both young and old men.)

 This post is part of the Forest and Farm series.

Happy Graduation!

Congrats to our friends both here in Ecuador and back home who completed their studies this year!

The highschool graduation ceremony was a little different here from what we are used to. Each student was robed and hatted by his/her parents just before going on stage. They then took an oath vowing to use their education in the best service of their country and accepting the responsibility of being a bachiller. Receiving their diplomas, they walked off stage and passed the robe and hat to the next student.

Robinson's (aka "Copy") parents robe him up to receive his diploma.

"Doky" reads his oath to serve his country.

Joanna reads her oath.

Other nicknames of students from this group include Dumper and Whimper. They had no idea their nicknames meant something in English.

This post is part of the Language and Culture series.

English Club 2012-2013

Peace Corps volunteers often talk about "primary" projects and "secondary" projects. Since we're in the Natural Resources Conservation program here in Ecuador, our primary projects focus on the environment and conservation, like our dry toilets project. Secondary projects include activities that Peace Corps volunteers are involved in that don't fit into the main focus of their program. Like many volunteers, we've had a lot of requests for English classes, tutoring, clubs, homework help, and how to otherwise magically transport knowledge of the English language into one's brain.

Helping community members learn English is a great way to become integrated into the community, especially when you've first been plopped into it after training. Unfortunately, most people, after those first few meetings, get tired, freak out, or (for whatever reason) give up--because learning a new language is HARD.

But that's why I put so much effort into my English club.

Practicing pronunciation.

What's a watusa?

Time for a food blog! Today we're introducing two Ecuadorian foods: cuy and watusa, two animals that you might not think belong in this jungle country.

Most people have heard of cuy before. It's English name is... GUINEA PIG! It's really popular in the mountains, and is one of the quintessential native Ecuadorian foods, despite their cuteness.

Guinea pigs.
Photo by Kirstie Bickford.

Arborloos

Speaking of toilets, I just stumbled upon a blog post from our friend Chris Canaday of El Parque Etnobotanico Omaere. Chris was the one who initially trained my counterpart and me in dry toilets. His post shows some of the pictures of the construction of an Arborloo (disclaimer: I have not read the whole book at this link, but his basic idea is really cool). An Arborloo a different type of green toilet, in some ways much simpler than the ones we constructed in our community, and the one we constructed was made from mostly recycled materials (i.e. super duper cheap to make). So, if you're itching for more information about how to poop green, check out his blog! Here's the link:

Un modelo (parcialmente reciclado) de ArborLoo

(His post is in both Spanish and English--scroll down to the blue for English.)

Some Peace Corps volunteers and community counterparts put the roof on the Arborloo. Look at that door!

Finishing the Arborloo.

..kirstie..

This post is part of the Rethinking High Tech series.

Pooping Green

No, we do not have weird jungle parasites that causes our poop to turn green. (Though we probably DO have weird jungle parasites doing other things...) But yes, this is a post about poop. It's even a post about green poop, but we're using it here as an adverb, not as an adjective. Today we'll tell you how to poop in a green (environmentally friendly) way.

This is not a green toilet :(
(C) Bickfords