Wildlife and a birthday BBQ

Hi everyone!

Last week flew by! It’s funny how in a place where the pace is slower, time seems to move faster. Work has been interesting, I am really getting into the swing of my job and I love it. I went out to Community 10 de Agosto with the two interns and our Peace Corps Volunteer, Lindsay, on Wednesday to survey indigenous farmers for our community needs assessment. We went along with the harvest field technicians and while they bought the freshly picked guayusa leaves from the farmers, we conducted interviews.  The community is located about 2 hours away from Tena, so it was a long trip out there on the back of the pick up truck and an even longer ride back on the bus. Although I won’t always have time to attend the community visits to conduct surveys (Lindsay and our interns will be doing a lot of this work) I really enjoy talking to community members and learning about their lives.

Look what I saw coming home from work last week, it’s a tapir! There is a zoo/wildlife reserve on the island in the river across from our house... looks like it was out for a stroll! 

 

This weekend we celebrated Cass’ birthday with a barbecue on our roof terrace.  See how nice it looks with the hammocks?? 

 

There were more than 30 people there and we ate delicious guacamole, grilled vegetables, steak, sausages, and an amazing chocolate cake! Above Helen, Lindsay (our Peace Corps Volunteers) and Robin (a friend from Quito) are preparing food and below Ester, a friend from Tena, is watching the grill.

Here is a picture of me, Lindsay, Cass and Helen at the BBQ. 

The tradition here is that the birthday girl’s face is pushed in the cake so here is Cass with cake on her face!

My housemates built a pingpong table for the house. Here is a picture of my housemates, Nick (no he doesn't always have that mustache...) and Juanjo working on it.

 

I know I owe you pictures of the rest of my housemates, I will try to take one soon!

I’ll be off to Quito later this week to register my visa… Hopefully it doesn’t take too long! 

Have a great week!

A