Christmas in Ecuador

Kids & Friends:

Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ, not snowmen, but an old school chum, Stan Zehr,  sent this and thought it might give you a chuckle. I can assure you there are few snow men in Ecuador. We saw 2 in Banos that were made of old tires painted white. People definitely like to celebrate Chrismas though. There are lots of colored lights everywhere, on houses and in public places, plus nativity scenes. In fact, Christmas in Ecuador is called Navidad, and Merry Chrismas as you probably know is Feliz Navidad.

We spent Christmas eve in a suburb in Northwest Guayaquil in the casa of Alphonso's sister, with about 20 people. The tradition is to stay up until midnight. It is kind of like a scaled down New Years eve. People dip into their arsenal of fireworks and keep up a fairly steady volley of minor explosions from dark until midnight, with a lot of activity in the streets and sound systems set up here blaring salsa music and Christmas carols  and kids going everywhere. In the house we were at, the people mostly stayed inside and ate and played games, visited and sang karioke. Much to my surprise I found a couple of English numbers I could do. April Love, Unchained Melody, and after success with those, I attempted Mambo #5. I couldn't keep up with the flow of words because I didn't know the song as well as I thought, but they did, so I just danced to it, which seemed to amuse them even more. Mambo #5 is one of my all time favorite dance songs, right up there with Jimmy Ray and pretty well anything by CCR.

 At midnight everybody goes around hugging and kissing and shaking hands. A kiss is actually just brushing cheeks together and making a kissing sound. If you are familiar or bold you might actually kiss a cheek. It was a lot of fun to be with them and be part of the family, eating, drinking a fruit punch (no alcohol was on site. No drinkers in the family) and singing and visting. Only a small portion of the family was included. Alfonso's father lived to be 105, still had all his teeth and didn't wear glasses. He was a builder of houses. He went through 4 wives, (one at a time) I think he wore them out making babies. Alfonso's mother was #3, and she had 11 children. Apparently it looked like a whole village showed up for his funeral, comprised of children, grand children and great grandchildren, with their spouces and families. At any rate, we felt privledged to be a part of the family that was there. They know how to have fun, and show love one for another.

We hope you all have a very merry Christmas.

Feliz Navidad.

Amor, Peter & Debbie

Back in Ecuador

Dear Kids & Mike:

This Sunday afternoon, Debbie and I went with Mariana Valero to Balou.It is a town of about 5,000 about 2.5 hours south of Guayaquil. Mariana is a director and teacher at a school for mentally challenged children. We wanted to see where she has been working for the last couple years. 

We checked into the only hotel in town, on the busiest corner in town that is on the edge of town and directly across from the bus terminal. Those features gave it some distinct disadvantages. 

Mariana took us on a walk around town to visit with the families of some of her students. Most were very humble places. The town is surrounded by banana plantations, and cocau (chocolat) plantations. Some rice is grown there, and along the coast, there are large shrimp farms. Fishermen go out in large dory like boats to fish, and to catch shrimp and crab in the ocean. Most of the people in town are engaged as workers in those industries, and the rest have little shops that line the streets, to sell all sorts of things, plus no end of food. 

There are hardly any cars in Balau. Most everybody drives a motorcycle. They are the size of a dirtbike, nothing bigger than 350cc. However, it is routine to see 3 and more people on a bike. We saw a family of 5 go by on one. Three adults with two little ones sandwiched between the adults. The people love their street life. Everybody is on the street, walking, riding a bike or motor bike, or riding in the three wheel motorcycle taxies. There were people going in all directions all evening, with loud music coming from various directions, visiting and buying food from vendors in the street and eating. I think a lot of houses do not have stoves or fridges, so people eat a lot of street food. 

The banana workers get $25 a day for 12 hours, but only get 2-3 days of work per week. At 5:30 am there is a steady stream of motorcycles going past our hotel to get to work. So much racket we could hardly hear the roosters crowing all over town. 

The last place we visited at we were invited in. They warmed up some supper and fed the three of us. They live in a house that is very unfinished aqnd everything is rough. The floor was poorly troweled concrete, and the walls were concrete block. I say unfinished, but in many cases that is as far as things get finished. Most houses are unfinished, and in fact the finished portions are in need of repairs before the place gets done. Anyway, the father is an "agricultural engineer" He seems to be a consultant. He offered to take us for a tour of the town in his truck. He and his son (mentally challenged) rode in the front and Mariana, Debbie,and his wife and I rode in back. We got the grand tour. After that we drove out of town and down to the ocean where there was a small protected bay, with a bunch of the dory like shrimp boats tied up. There were a few fellows unloading a catch of fish (it was after sundown) . They had been out in a very small, almost
canoe like boat and used a net to throw over the side just as they describe Peter James and John doing in Jesus day. On the spot, our host decided it was a good opportunity to get a good deal on some fish. They bought about 40 -50 lbs of them. Mariana went in with them on it. I decided to help them clean the fish, since I knew they would clean them and freeze them right away We went back and got set up and cleaned fish for an hour and a half. Marian scaled them, I cut off fins and gutted them, ant the woman finished cleaning them up and scraping out the gut cavity. I had in my pocket a very sharp pocket knife that I knew would be better than anything they had to work with, and it did the job nicely. 

We went to bed listening to motorcycles until late, and woke up early to the same sounds increased ten times. The shower had one knob that controlled the flow of cold water. The only chair in the room had been cut out of a section of a log with a chain saw. The beds were comfortable though. 

On Monday, we went to Mariana's school , and met everybody there, teachers and students. We participated in her class. She is amazing with those kids. In fact today she went to receive a citation for the work she has done there. She is well liked and respected in the town. In the afternoon, after an amazing lunch at a hole in the wall Chinese restaurant, we got one of those three wheel taxies and went out of town to look at a shrimp farm. They look like rice paddies but with no rice. Just dikes and sluce ways and pumping stations.  It seems that all the farmed shrimp are exported. The local shrimp are caught in the ocean and are not in great enough quantities for export. 

After breakfast we went to the river and saw some women doing their laundry there. There was a woman getting ready to go down to the river that Debbie struck up a conversation with. Debbie does really well with conversation in Spanish.

Our bus left Balau around 3:40 and we were back here at 7:30 on Monday. It was most interestingt. It was a side of Ecuador that we had glimpsed on occasion when here before. It was fun to get immersed in it for a time. It is very different. 

Today Debbie is nursing a cold. I went to the temple alone. We are enjoying that part of our stay here very much. Work at the Valero house is progressing very well. The steel rafters and purlins are in and the new, heavier duty concrete and asbestos corrogated roof is installed. Since then I have been doing some cement work on some walls, and stucco.  Today we enlarged to kitchen window by the kitchen sink. It is cut out wider, and higher and lower than it was, and have started doing the concrete work there as well, to finish up the sides where we cut out the concrete blocks. 

Love, Dad

Snow

We are thinking about finding a good used snow blower before next winter. Maybe they will come on sale this spring.   Dad

Otter on Meadow Pond

This otter we saw a couple of times this winter on Meadow Pond. In the first picture he is sitting by a hole in the ice. He could slide in that fast and slick as anything.   In the second picture he is eating a fish he caught.

It is a Sea Otter. He makes a circuit. He comes up a stream farther down the coast, goes near the headwater and then traverses over to the next watershed and down through to meadow pond and then back to the ocean. He is only around for a day or two when he arrives. We probably miss most of the visits as it is very elusive and spends more time underwater than on top of the ice. It was a farly large animal. 

 

Projects

Here are some of the projects I have completed this fall. The first is a 10x10 gazebo for Gerri Fraelic by her fish pond. The next is a garage for Doug Millar. Next a deck 10x13 for the Hartlens on Waterloo St. Last is a little box of black cherry with a little sliding tray inside of maple. It is made with hand cut dovetail joints. I haven't made any hand cut dovetails in 40 years and was pleased to see I can still do it. I have had some nice jobs this year. I have a few indoor jobs waiting for me when I get back and a tentative woodshed to build next spring.

Love, Dad/Pete

Corn

This was the best ever crop of corn at our house on Meadow Pond. I finally got it into full sunlight. We grow Seneca Horizon, an old variety of yellow corn that is the best. I don't care at all for the peaches and cream that is sold now. The best part is that the raccoons never got any corn, thanks to the electric fence. That was the best gardening improvement we have made. It kept them out of the grapes as well.

I took the picture of the heron on the rock just this morning.

Grandpa Camp

The pictures say it all. Weather is cool and overcast and looks iffy for the week. Gonna have to go do stuff anyway. Love, Dad