I am looking forward to new things I can do in my community. Like most volunteers I have been asked to teach English. From advice from previous volunteers, I am taking this slowly and not taking on too much. I have heard that people get burnt out quickly and later it is hard to change your course when you have other projects going on.
As for the irrigation project…so much potential work…so much confusion…
My level of Spanish doesn’t help this much. I have done some asking around and found out that it was built a “long time ago” by the Ministario de Agricultura and that “10-16” years ago was modified by volunteer named David (who no one is in contact with). He has a very common last name so the internet is little help. Anyway, David put in a control device and replaced the underground pipes.
The problems seem to range from “not enough water”, “too small of pipes”, “we need a drain here”, “water too dirty”, "only farms on this side of the hill get water", “canal is crumbling because of roots”, and on…
Summer in Ecuador has just started. This means is an increase in temperature by 2 degrees Celsius and much less rain. It amuses me how one week it was “winter” and the next was “summer”. (These words have such stark contrasts to me.) The irrigation system has started working for the season, and I will start surveying people in the community and see what they consider to be the serious problems. This is a required activity. It should prove particularly helpful for me, since I have a project but don’t know what is most important, why it was designed the way it was, and maybe I can meet some new people and learn more about the community.
We also visited Cuenca for a training seminar. This was a great opportunity to meet the people close to our sites that were not in my “Omnibus”. I had a great time, although the benefits were mostly in the friends I made. We visited a museum on the first day. It was a very interesting place with exhibits about the different cultural groups in Ecuador and had Incan ruins outside. They also had a plant and agriculture exhibit and a bird sanctuary. That’s right…toucans!!
This weekend some Volunteers that live close to me decided to go hiking in Salinas. This was an absolutely beautiful day!
And, as requested, here are more bird pictures...
1 comments:
Do you have pictures of the bird sanctuary? If so, post some!
Post a Comment