A Day in the Life...

Cave Warriors Marcia, Monica, me and Martha

Indi/Bebe/TROUBLE

Wow. It is amazing how much life can change in a matter of weeks! I am all moved into my new house and I love it. Living in the city made a huge difference. The people I live near are ridiculously nice and helpful and I’ve already made new friends. The new house has an amazing yard so Beso and Nina are content. Beso is still small enough to slip under the fence. After losing her for days at a time I finally got the incredible idea to put some chicken wire so she can’t get out. Somehow she still manages to do it so I’m still working out the details…Nina escaped yesterday and came back a different color. I bathed her and she proceeded to roll in the mud. Thanks, Nina. Last week I worked with my new counterpart, same organization. We worked all day planning projects, investigating resources and learning from each other. Wednesday, the foundation had our weekly minga. We (almost) all headed to the farm in the morning and then went up to machete the weeds around our recently planted yucca. It is always a friendly atmosphere on the farm and I even got to practice my Kichwa. They always forget that I’ve learned how to say ‘you’re about to make me angry’ in their language. It’s fun to whip that knowledge out and surprise them! Being that my hands haven’t had much experience with a machete, I got a blister after an hour and went back to the house to help Mama Teresa with the soup. I ended up not feeling very well, probably from being out in the sun so long. Here, they call this feeling ‘mal aire,’ not to be confused with malaria. They all swore that I would feel much better after a cleansing of yucca leaves. I never think they’re serious about these things and then Papa Pedro walks in with a huge handful of leaves and starts cleansing me of my ‘bad air’ like the shamans do. Honestly, it made me feel better. I don’t know if I just wanted shaking a bunch of yucca leaves to magically cure an illness, or if their ancient beliefs could be compared to modern medicine, like, for real. We may never know. Wednesday night there was a CD release party in Tena. The National Park put out a new CD with songs about the region and since Laurel and Dan work up there we were lucky enough to be invited! The band played a few of the songs and everyone danced and had a great time. We’ve had quite a bit of rain these past few days so washing my clothes has to be planned well. I can’t believe it’s already basically December. I’ve been waiting for this month since February 24th and it is HERE! This means the Eldredge family will be reunited in 22 days. The countdown begins!