we typed this up last night. enjoy...
February 13, 2008
We arrived at our host house and host family on Saturday around 2:30. We are living in a small town about 15 minutes from where we have classes during the week. It’s a small town with a huge, huge, old, and pretty church that is just about on our front doorstep. Also, out our front door is the town’s central park which is small and pretty with all sorts of colorful flowers. Just beyond our front door is an incredible view of the surrounding communities. As far as the eye can see are green, rolling hills (on a clear day we can see the glaciers on Cayambe, a nearby mostly inactive volcano).
Aside form the wonderful vistas the people here are extraordinarily nice. We live on a street that consists of five or so connected houses (they used to be a convent) where the sisters of our host mom, Dona Fabiola, live with their families. Connecting the houses is a large garden with all sorts of interesting things like; corn, carrots, chamomile, chard, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, and tons of plants for making teas.
In short, we’re still having a great time but of course we still miss you all!!
We’ve attached all the pictures we’ve taken so far. The pictures are of the following places and/or events:
Packing our stuff in Arizona
Our walking tour of Washington D.C.
Me on bus to the training site
The training site
Mary doing laundry with the help of Fabiola, Santiago, and Carolina (notice the absence of Mike’s name from this list)
Pictures of our house including our room, the living room, the kitchen, the garden, the courtyard, the outside or our house, and views from our front door.
Enjoy!!
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| The first ecuador album |
(double click on the image to see a larger version and watch the slideshow!)
8 comments:
Happy Valentine's Day!
I was so surprised and happy to hear from you and the pictures are great. You made my day.
Your "neighborhood" sounds wonderful and it looks like your host family is making you feel at home.
SO good to hear from you and take care of each other.
love,
grandma
I loved the pictures! I found the laundry pictures really interesting--we all take for granted the idea of throwing a bunch of clothes in a machine and leaving to do something else! Your family looks wonderful--the children are beautiful. Happy Valentine's Day. We're off to Maine in a couple of days for a short college tour (Bates and Colby).
love,
Rosemary
Hi kids,
Thanks for the photos.
This sure beats mailing home rolls of film !
Looks like a nice place.
Pay attention in class.
Enjoy every minute.
dad/joe
Hi,
I found your BLOG through Peace Corps Journals. I just got my invite to Ecuador! I will be arriving in June for Urban Youth Development!
Lauren
Dear Mary and Mike,
Great pictures and what a treat to hear from you on Valintine's Day. I tried calling the phone number but couldn't get through. Probably our service. We'll figure it out. You are certainly in a gorgeous part of the world--with a lovely family too.
Happy Valentine's Day to everyone around you.
Love,
Mary's Dad
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY
GREAT PICTURES
Thanks for the pix.
I think you don't have my email address included in your blog. Steve forwarded his email to me.
I thought I was signed up..
Anyway, please include me next time around.
And have fun!
Marie
Dear Mary and Mike,
Great to get through by telephone yesterday. I love you a lot and miss you.
The phone difficulty continues. I keep getting a "the circuits are busy" on Verison. I called them and they don't show any outage in Ecuador. They didn't have my Ecuador coverage when first I checked, so it might get getter (not the first 10 times so far!)
I would NOT recommend that people use the "operator assisted" option on ATT at least, which I used yesterday. I was about to use it again today and asked them what the rate was before connecting.
$16 for the first minute, plus $4 for each additional minute, plus a bunch of other charges! It was well worth it one time, but probably not on a regular basis
:-)
I'll keep trying and any updates from those who have better success would be appreciated.
Love,
Mary's Dad
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