The Schools and Otonga

Greetings again from Ecuador! My travels have brought me back to Quito yet again. We have spent the last week visiting a half dozen or so schools in the small villages between Quito and Santo Domnigo. We were Giovanni´s messengers with an officail letter and all sent to take photos of the kids and gather their information for him. He uses the information to try and find donors in the US and Europe to help pay for the children´s further education. It was a lot of fun. We generally arrived at the school around 8:30 or so and got the kids information and took their pictures. It was pretty hetice and sometimes unorganized with 30 really excited kids running around, but it was fun. We then spent an hour or two teaching the kids english. Most of the kids were actually really receptive and loved it! We had a blast and learned a little bit too along the way. We were then almost always offered the school lunch of rice and tuna before playing a little soccer with the kids before school ended around 12:30 or 1:00. We visited schools in Toachi, Santa Rosa, Las Damas, Malton, and La Pradera. In the end we did a lot of travelling and walking between towns. The people in every community were so kind and welcoming. It always amazes me how freindly everyone is. In La Pradera, nearly everyone we talked to offered us their home to sleep in and insisted we have dinner or at least a snack with them. On Friday we had planned to visit the final two schools in Galapagos and Naranjito but unfortunately when we arrived in the monring to the school in Galapagos the teacher told us that they did not have school because all of the students were in Las Pampas to receive government issued uniforms. As usual in Ecuador our plans changed on us rather quickly. We decided to visit the Otonga reserve nearby. The main focus and work of Br. Giovanni´s Otonga group is to purchase land to preserve the natural rainforest in the area. Over the nearly 30 years he has lived in Ecuador he has aquired a lot of land and it has become the Otonga Nature Reserve. We then tried to hunt down a friend of Giovanni´s named Ceaser Tapia who lives in the area. Giovanni recommended him as the best and most knowledgable guide for the reserve. Ceasar offered to show us around for the day. After about a 2 hour walk we entered the reserve. The rain forest is an amazing place. The forest really appeals to all of the senses. You can see and feel the thick fog of the cloud forest settle in the tress. We saw numerous exotic trees and flowers that Ceasar would stop and explain their uses to us. We saw all kinds of frogs, spiders and hummingbirds. Even what Ceasar assured us were puma tracks! We heard the calls of Tucans close by as well. The forest was amazing. It also made me realize how much land nearby has been cleared to grow sugar cane or use as cow pastures. I have attached some photos although it is immpossible to really capture it all in a picutre. In the end we were exhausted. By the time we reached a place to stay back in Las Pampas we had walked about 7 hours for the day and were pretty well covered in mud! Today we stopped in Toachi and had lunch with Giovanni before returning to the mission in Quito. He showed us our next project for the upcoming week. Through the Otonga group, he has people who work in nursery type centers to grow native plants that can be reinstated in the area. It sounds like we will be working with them next week in Union Toachi, just outside Alluriquin. As always, it should be interesting and an adventure. The following week the three of us plan on taking a trip down the coast of Ecuador before Kyle heads home from Gyuaquil and Nate and I head to Peru for 10 days. We are in the homestretch of our trip now and I am really excited for the next few weeks. As always I miss everyone back home and can not wait to share my experiences with you all. I hope all is well back in Dayton and the rest of Ohio. Hope to talk with you soon.... Until then

Adios