Visits to the Sierra, and Christmas without the cold

Last week we had a meeting with the whole of Community Development - it was good to meet those who work in the sierra and coast regions.  We ended up spending a couple of days visiting a project in the mountains - and were cured of our longing for cold weather at Christmas. 

Pichán was much bigger than our jungle communities and we were helping sort out glitches in the system - emptying 10 years worth of mud out of a tank (using buckets and a rope made of stalks) and fixing leaks in pipes a metre and a half underground.

I don’t seem to be so good at blogging when we’ve not had specific trips – I need to get over this idea that when I’m in Shell I’m not doing anything! We’ve been writing up reports (one in English for us, one in Spanish for the communities) about the projects we’re going to be working on in Pastaza. We’ll be doing spring protections in Santa Rosa, Washintsa and Caramá – all small communities fairly close together.  We’ve agreed on improvements to be made to the hospital cistern so these should be done soon.  More research still to be done on treatment processes.

We had a day shopping in Baños (see photo of the market street - lots of earrings, hammocks, leather shops, bags...)

Steph went a bit further out to get some dried fruit from Supermaxi in Ambato so that we could make mince pies. We spent an afternoon chopping fruit and making mincemeat, followed by making mince pies - the lengths we'll go to to have an authentic Christmas!  Mince pies and mincemeat apparently don't exist outside the UK - but so far they've been quite popular with Americans and Ecuadorians.

Christmas celebrations are starting in earnest - the weekend was crammed full of church events, the street stalls are crammed full of tacky goods and santa hats.  We had a youth group Christmas dinner on Saturday - preceded by lots of games (I had to dress up as a fairy and answer questions - they seem to like costumes!)

I managed a second Sunday School lesson in Spanish and managed to remember my lines as Santa Claus in a drama in the evening (more costumes - this time I had a rucksack strapped on my front to make me sufficiently fat)

We discovered 4 bags worth of post in a shop on the high street in Shell - which has now been delivered to the hospital.  So I got several birthday cards about a month late, which was wonderful as I had been wondering where they'd got to.  Words have been had - hopefully now the delivery system should be improved!