January 23 – 29, 2006
Emilia says she’d like to switch apartments with us, sometime after March, which means we would move downstairs by the patio area. She has offered to throw in an office next to the bodgea at no extra charge. The apt. downstairs is as big as the one we are currently in, with 3 bedrooms.
We’ve been doing some home improvements—fixing screens, shower rod, gardening, etc. Claudia from Germany finally arrived last week. She got stuck in Quito, first because her camera was stolen and she tried to get it back, and second, because of the strike no buses were going anywhere for a few days. I got help from her and Vicky updating the volunteer manual. The Scots are leaving this week, a week later than expected, but there was no conflict of schedules as the next new volunteer is not scheduled to arrive till Feb. 15th.
Unfortunately, I managed to get a rib injury which left me kind of incapacitated for a few days—and just when it’s raining! I could hardly do anything without being in pain, especially in the process of lying down or sitting up, or breathing too deeply. I can’t think of anything too out of the ordinary that I did to cause it, but the pain is in the same spot where I had an injury a few years ago. I went to the doctor who said it may be a packet of inflamed vascular/nervous tissue under the ribs, and recommended no physical activity, and lots of medication! I’ve been doing what I can though, as it was driving me crazy not to be doing anything. It is slowly getting better day by day.
But nonetheless, with the volunteers help, we got a good bit a work in. They cleared the trail in El Bosque that goes to the bottom outlook, which was in need of maintenance. A little boy who lives in the area helped them pick up the trash and line the trail. All the underbrush on top of the highest hill has been cleared by someone, and there’s a big hole where they fixed the broken water main that we had discovered a while back.
The new plants at Maria Piedad and Inter-Americano were watered and shaded as necessary, and we did another small planting at the former. We did a second planting at El Bosque Encantado, with Blas’ help as well, which made it go a lot faster. I got the contract signed for the Barrio La Cruz site that I mentioned last time as being in Marianita Jesus. The owners consider it more as being part of La Cruz so I’ll stick with that. Flor Maria is having some dispute about her land with the Municipio so we can’t do any planting on it till that’s cleared up. I’m still trying to get at least one convenio signed for the area we went to in El Toro. Do you think I should go ahead with the left side (going up) if I can’t find the owner?
The km 8 sites were watered, Jorge Lomas is now fine on it’s own as it hardly needed any water to begin with, and now it’s been raining.
In the greenhouse we transplanted more trees, cut bottles, and sowed Jaboncillo and Guasmo seeds. It’s such a relief to see all those little trees coming up finally with the onset of winter. We had a problem with the hose and got it fixed.
I attended a meeting with the community leaders about the schedule for EcoWeek in February. It’s nice that a wider section of the community is involved in the planning now, and meetings are at the Municipio.
Hasta luego!
Heather
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