One Way United

We arrived in Agua Blanca on Sunday night. This peaceful little village is a short taxi ride away from Puerto Lopez and is home to a mere 280 people and roughly 61 individual families. We were put up in the house of a man named Camilo who is single (but has 22 nieces and nephews!). It’s a modest home much like the others in the area, but the beds are incredibly comfortable, more so than the ones we had at our hostal in Quito I think. And animals roam free around the town as well. Pigs, chickens, goats, horses, bulls, dogs, and one cat; it’s practically impossible to tell what animals belong to who. I’m beginning to wonder if they aren’t mostly communal.

So most days we wake up pretty early. By the way, if you buy into the myth that roosters only crow at the crack of dawn let me tell you: rooster will crow at anytime, day or night, for no apparent reason whatsoever. I imagine the locals are used to it, but I seriously want to wander around with a shot gun and have me some chicken barbaque. Anyways we get up, have breakfast, and then go out to help Camilo in the agriculture section of the village (when I say agriculture I usually mean bananas). This is fun as we often get to use the local all-purpose tool: the machete. If you’ve never used one of these things let me tell you it’s fun. It’s likely swinging a giant sword to chop down whole trees and uproot weeds and all other sorts of stuff. If we could use stuff like this in America I might actually get in to gardening.

After that we teach English to the school children. There is an older class, roughly 3rd to 5th grade, and a younger class. Coming up with lesson plans that actually get the point across but are fun as well is a challenge. I’ve always had great respect for teachers, but I seriously don’t know how they get these little kids to keep still long enough to actually learn anything. It impresses the hell out of me. Sometimes the kids get what we try to teach them (just yesterday we taught them numbers), sometimes it doesn’t seem like anything’s getting through. But still it’s fun especially when the kids participate.

Our time is otherwise spent wandering around the village or swimming in the local thermal lagoon or lounging around in the hammocks. Our primary purpose here was to teach English to the tour guides. So far we’ve done that once as most of them don’t bother showing up for class when it’s scheduled to happen. It’s a little frustrating and hopefully we will be more productive in the coming week. The guides that do show up do seem to really want to learn and pick it up pretty well.

We will stay here probably until next Thursday when we go back to Quito to meet Amanda when she flies down. Also tomorrow we may take a tour to some humback whales too! Love to all.

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