que fue

after being here for a week i realize its not gonna be a vacation. although to be honest i havent really done much work yet, mostly just buying stuff for my place, arranging stuff, and exploring the city. i´ve been surpsrised to discover that it´s actually louder in my tena apartment than it was in my olmedo home. granted, there´s not a bus rolling by 10 feet away from my window every 15 minutes, but there are at least 10 roosters surrounding my apartment waking me up early in the morning and even keeping me awake at night. and then there´s some other bird in my neighbor´s backyard that, no joke, sounds like a baby´s burp for one second and then turns into a baby´s high pitched cry another 2 seconds. that bird croaks at any time of the day, and its loud cuz my walls dont touch the roof all the way around my room for jungle ventilation purposes. and last nite my next door neighbor´s 6month old baby was crying from 4am until 5am. needless to say, with the roosters and the baby crying there was no possible way i could have slept, even had i used my ear plugs. at 4:30 i decided since im not gonna be sleeping, i might as well listen to my ipod and tune it all out, and even though its almost as difficult to sleep with my headphones on, it helped me relax. so thanks for those headphones, dad.

i started to build a futon this weekend cuz i had an extra small mattress and wanted a furniture that i could recline in instead of my two plastic chairs. after searching for a place to get wood, i got two boards about 1¨ x 1´ x 7´, and carried them back home half a mile in the rain. i quickly realized that #1 i would need to buy about 6 more pieces of wood like that at 2.50 a piece and carry them home; #2 sawing thick wood is incradibly hard, and specifying measurements in sketchy spanish to the 12 year old boy that worked at the woodshop wouldnt be easy; #3 i would have to find a way to adhere the two boards together end on end which means i couldnt simply nail them together. so after buying wood glue and sitting on the boards together for an hour failed to to stick them together, i decided to postpone my carpentry efforts until later. the next day, i found out that the mattress i´m using on my bed right now isnt really mine, the volunteer here before me told a friend she could have it, so sometime this week im gonna have to use that spare mattress anyways. so i might just give up on the futon. the same day my roof was leaking a little and got the mattress wet and now its kinda smelly, so im not too upset.

my apartment is fairly big, its got 3 rooms, my bedroom in the back is 14 x 9 ft, then there´s a ´living room´ in the middle that´s 9 x 9 ft, and at the entrance is the . . well, i dunno, its just a room, thats 14 x 9 ft but 1/4 of it is my bathroom. there´s actually a door, wall, and window that separates the living room and my bedroom, except there´s no glass in the window (it doesnt even have an outside view) so i really dont see the point to it. i guess maybe more circulation thru the house. but its def not a bad place to live, esp for being in the jungle. i just wish my neighbors were quiter. sounds like im complaining alot huh?

i still havent worked with the provincial goverment building fish ponds yet, but i have been to a couple meetings of the parkgaurds of the sumaco national biosphere reserve, which spans about half of the napo province and some of orellana and sucumbios to the east. theyre planning to do basically a poverty survey of communities within the reserve, funded by the UN´s cifor project which aims to decrease global poverty. for more info on the project, check here: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/pen/_ref/home/index.htm
basically i hope to go out with the parkgaurds to some of the communities outside tena, which is within the reserve´s limits, and learn about their life and find out what they need. i might also teach the parkgaurds to enter the data on computer if they need help. there´s 2 other volunteers from el chaco and baeza whose counterparts are the parkgaurds so they´re gonna be working on it too. there´s a german guy pretty much coordinating the project, its cool hearing him speak spanish, and sometimes there´s moments in the meeting when there´s english, german, spanish, and kichwa being spoken. we´ll see how it goes and what my role will be. they only survey 15 days a month for every 3 months, so i wont be working on this a lot. but it could be a good way to enter the communities and keep me busy later if i cant find other things to do. but im still gonna meet up with the provincial gov this week.

my tapwater is pretty dirty, i asked my landlady where it comes from and she didnt know, but im guessing its from a river. its not dark brown, only light brown : D so i boil that and drink it, it´s not quite as good as sparkletts. half of what ive been eating is the teddy grahams and granola bars i got from my family (thx) and of course, pb & j sandwiches, which reminds me, i need to start looking for a place to buy pb here before i run out. i havent cooked anything yet cuz i didnt have too many utensils before but now i do so i might give it a try, starting off with oatmeal, of course. the other half of what i been eating is a german-owned cafe with some really good american/european- style food like sandwiches and chili and crepes, and another really really good (in my opinion, or maybe its just that ive gotten tired of ecuadorian food already) italian place that has good pizza and pasta. either way, i cant be eating at those places everyday on a pc volunteer budget, so i think pb & j (and tuna) sandwiches will be staples of my diet.

if i find down-time, i wanna learn to play guitar, theres a place to buy em here, although i havent looked at the prices. i should have plenty of time at night. . plus, it will block out the sound of my neighbors when im practicing in my apt. i also wanna start training for a marathon, well, just a half-marathon to start. there´s one coming up in october and there´s an 8k (5 miles) in quito in july. i have to get new shoes first, my old ones shrank when they got wet. on most nights when there´s not much to do (i dont have a tv and dont plan to get one, but do want to get a laptop to watch movies) i usually do sudoku puzzles (thanks ambdrew/andrer) . . im gettin pretty good at them, last nite i finished a medium puzzle in 8 minutes (i only time the ones im making haste on) , and finished my first ´hard´ puzzle for the first time ever. thats about it for now. hope ya´ll are doin well. peace