Monday was my birthday and we had to clear a stream of leaves and plants so the water would flow better. It was quite hard work but rewarding to see the progress we made. In the afternoon I was put on seed planting which sounds easy enough but it's not fun. We have to sit on the ground, permanently crouched over to get the soil and it is so monotonous, filling bags with soil and a seed for two and a half hours. It really makes your back hurt so after this I wasn't in a very good mood. I went over to the kitchen to get a drink and went inside where some volunteers were. H didn't want me to be there as she was cooking. I knew they were making pizza but I'd realised they were doing something for my birthday, too. I didn't ask and when we ate, they'd also made hot chocolate and after we'd finished the pizza, they brought out a cake which they'd made. It was a really nice surprise and really well made.
But that was not all. N and J had been into town to get the ingredients and also some drinks for the party we had that evening. They'd been out for hours trying to get everything and I was very grateful to everyone who had done something for me. We listened to Ecuadorian music in the common room and drank some beer. Overall it was a very pleasant birthday.
During the rest of the week I wanted to get more involved in making things. We needed things like chairs, tables, shelves for the bathroom and so on and one day when I was working in the garden, we heard a massive crashing noise. It sounded like something big had broken. It was in fact a tree in the home garden. The roots had been destroyed by a previous maid and it just lost its balance and fell down. It was about 7m tall and very thick. Fortunately it only broke one fruit tree and there was no other damage but this meant I could have lots of wood to make things (I also wanted to make a soil table so we didn't have the back-breaking work of planting seeds).
I did my first tree planting session this week. It may sound like something easy to do but it is considered the hardest job of the week. The reasons are that you have to work on slopes which are sometimes quite steep and unsteady and to make room for the new trees to be planted, you have to cut through the plants already there, and don't forget, this is a rainforest. I had a very dense patch to cut through and it is really hard work. With my partner, we managed to plant 15 trees in 3 hours.
Fortunately for me, the aching after these activities that I feel doesn't last long and I'm usually recovered by the afternoon.
On Wednesday afternoons we play football with the local workers on the football pitch at the school. It's all a fun event with the cook (she's quite good!) and her daughter. The Ecuadorian men take it more seriously but it's a good way to end the working day.
On Thursday, seven of us had the plan to go and visit a few towns for the weekend. Three of the volunteers were leaving this weekend and two of them came along; in fact, in was H's plan to do it. We had to travel on buses as, due to the terrain, there are not many trains in Ecuador. The aren't so bad and even though they get quite hot and go quickly round the mountain roads, they are quite cheap. They always show violent action films; it seems to be the only type that they watch here and considering that there are also children on the buses sometimes, it's not very appropriate.
You also get food and drink sellers who get on a various points. Their style, as is the bus drivers at the stations, is to say what they have (or where they are going) repeatedly and very fast. There is no logic to this as it would work just to say it slowly a couple of times rather than “Aguaguaguaguagua” or “Quitoquitoquitoquitoquito”.
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