(Saturday, June 4, Day 348)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."


Phrase of the day: Estas seguro quieres luchar... Are you sure you want to wrestle?

Bad idea.

Mitch, a volunteer who works in the south, came to visit for the weekend. It was interesting to show him the town and what San Isidro has to offer. Thankfully, a decent amount.

We walked around town, ate lots of snacks, and decided to take a trip to the beach with the kids.

We went to the park and hired a car. After an hour or so, we were there. Matal, a nice small beach north of Bahia.
Tourists hadly ever go there, or even know about it, so it's much better for us. It feels safe like being in town.

The kids built mermaids(?)...
Which turned into wrestling somehow!
Jimmy, one of the eldest kids always wants to wrestle me for some reason. We were at the beach, so I said 'yes' for once.
He was strong... but, well, you know how it goes!
We ended with a nap in our hammocks and cold coconut juice.
Not a bad day.

(Wednesday, June 1, Day 345)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."


Phrase of the day: Bailes o Payasos, cual es peor?... Dances or Clowns, which is worse?

Trick question. Clowns are awesome!

Today there were all sorts of events taking place in town. For some reason, there was some sort of dance program at the elementary school. Rimber's son, Brek, had to perform.
He feels just like I do about dancing; hates it.
At the same time, on the other side of town was the Granito de Arena Foundation's welcome party. (The foundation is were Karen and Jennifer work, and provide assistance for children with disabilities).

There was a clown who was pretty hilarious.
The kids certainly like him and his dance-offs.
The reina's from the town were even there with gifts to show their support.
(Who knew they actually did stuff?).

(Friday, May 29, Day 342)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."


Phrase of the day: Viajes a la finca, el mejor Domingo aqui... Trips to the farm, the best Sunday here.

Lots of people seemed to be around today, so we took a trip to the family's farm, "Mono". (They call it that because there are monkeys in the trees sometimes).

As usual, the trucks were packed with anyone and everyone. There must have been over 20 of us going.
We walked around in the forest, eating crazy fruits along the way. This one was like pumpkin and mango; odd.
I was really there with the machete just making sure there weren't any snakes.

Mario found some cool little birds in one of the trees. He made sure I didn't tell anyone about them though. He seemed afraid that someone would eat them or something?
The new bridge over Rio Grande. Is that structurally sound actually??
And we finished the afternoon with a meal. I didn't really do much for the meal besides pick/carry fruit. But they were excited about the picture, so why not.
We ate rice with plantains and a peanut/tomato sauce.

(Friday, May 27, Day 340)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."


Phrase of the day: Usando pintadores grafiti para lo que son buenos... Using grafiti painters for what they're good at.

Painting.

A few weeks ago Javi asked me to come see the bathroom in the high school. I was pretty confused, but I said "sure".

Thankfully when I entered, I knew exactly why he had asked.

There was grafiti all over the walls; something very new for San Isidro. Luckily, Javi already knew exactly who did it.

Lets just say, kids are not the brightest. This group decided to 'tag' "Los Angeles", the name of the neighborhood where they live. Town isn't huge, so only a few kids even live in that neighborhood. Why they didn't write something else, I have no idea?

But nonetheless, Javi wanted them to do something productive with their desire to paint.

And there comes Kasie and her love for painting murals. We called Brent, a volunteer who lives somewhat nearby, and we began. ("somewhat nearby" in Ecuador equals less than 5 hours away).
He, I forget his name, seemed to enjoy helping us.
Everyone did his/her part.
Just mixing the colors was by far my favorite though.
Brent is pretty into art, and he came up with this main image.
The finished product.
Not a bad few hours of work.