And back to the real world (if that is what you call this)....

So I came back to my site for only a few days before I left for a Community Banking Workshop outside of Quito. Community banking is where you have weekly meetings and people pay a dollar (for example) each meeting. Then at the end of each month you can loan out money to anyone that needs it and they pay it back the next month with 10% interest. At the end of a year everyone gets their share of the profits. People ideally can earn almost 20% interest if they just save. Of course, it can get more complicated…which is why my counterpart and I spent two and a half days at this conference to discuss the management of a group such as this and how to deal with problems. This is a photo of my counterpart and I receiving a certificates. (If I haven't mentioned it before...people are very proud of these certificates here.)



On my way out of Quito, I stayed with a friend who was in Peace Corps and left for medical reasons and is now back in Ecuador. We visited the Guayasamin museum. He is Ecuador’s most famous painter. Below is a picture of his self portrait. Check out more of his stuff here… http://www.catalog.artfromecuador.com/Guayasamin.htm



Back in Asuncion, we had our first meeting and decided a time and place to meet but we only had 14 people show. So in two weeks we will have another meeting where hopefully we can get between 25-35 people. Then we will vote on the officers and a name and such.

At my first farmer’s group meeting since I came back, they had their election to vote on new officers. We used a voting method discussed at the Community Bank Workshop. Check out the picture…



They also received 800+ fruit trees (apple, peach, avocado, cherimoya, lemon, and babaco) to divide between the members of the group. This is great; however, I worry that because each farmer has 2-5 of each, some will not survive do to inexperience with a certain species. I think people specializing in a certain fruit will better the economic situation of the community, even though it will create problems with fairness because some fruits produce quicker, produce more, or are more valuable. What’s funny is that I have been stressing that they should diversify crops for months and my counterpart never mentioned the proposal for a large number of fruit trees.

I have decided to stop teaching English at the elementary schools. Instead I am holding two classes on Monday and Wednesday afternoons where people can come to practice English. One is for kids and the other is for high school students and adults. For the first 2 classes, I would go to the class and I wait for 30 minutes then I get up to go home. On the way I pass students who ask if we are having the English class. I tell them that the class was at 3 and nobody came, therefore I left. Be on time next week.

I also taught a class on canal design at the Agriculture High School. This was a great experience. I taught about watersheds and how to estimate the quantity of water flowing into canal (for example), how to read contour maps, IDF charts, Q=VA (Quantity equals Velocity times Cross sectional Area), and Manning’s Equation (and all the fun that comes with that one). I really do enjoy teaching math and sciences and to older kids. Of course, I would prefer to do this in English rather than Spanish. My friend Carrie came to help me out (she grew up speaking Spanish) and she was a great help. Technical words tend to be similar but I need to learn some math words in Spanish, turns out.



I have also been working on the irrigation project. We are waiting to hear from the committee to see if we will receive the money or not.