Saturday (Jan 22nd) marked the day of our community celebration in the plaza de Rumiloma just a few blocks from our centro. This is a tradition started by last year's PD's in order to promote our library space and programs after a three weeks hiatus in which most us went back to the states for Christmas.





Through the hard work of Jack Butler (he organized the event) and the rest of us who diligently promoted throughout Rumiloma, we had anywhere between 150-200 people stop by, most of which children. We organized games such as tug-o-war, a water balloon toss (that yours truly put together), and a three legged race. We also had a face painting station and a blow up bouncy house, both were huge hits with the children. As you can see from pictures that accompany this blog post, I opted to get my face painted. What I thought was going to be a tiger turned into the hybrid of a tiger with an off centered mouth, a lion, and a butterfly. Oh, did I mention the DJ who played reggae tone to which I tried to learn how to salsa. Unfortunately it was to no avail.





On another note, all three Manna Project sites decided to participate in a 30 hour fast in order to raise awareness of world hunger. It is also proving ot be a valuable tool for me to reflect upon the sturggles of the 1 billion people affected by this. It began yesterday (Jan 27th) at 1, and thusfar has been a mental battle. Yes, I'm grumpy, tired, light headed, and hungry. I could not imagine my life soley based on the effort to find food, or to have had my physical or mental capacity be affected by malnutrition. I have been very blessed, this I know. Here are some links to articles and videos that we all looked at before partaking in the fast. I highly recommend checking them out.

http: //www.30hourfamine.org/images/stories/PDFs/FamineTrivia.pdf

http://www.eclac.org/cgi-bin/getProd.asp?xml=/prensa/noticias/comunicados/2/20352/P20352.xml&xsl=/prensa/tpl-i/p6f.xsl&base=/prensa/tpl-i/top-bottom.xsl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfUQgT_W3bU

http://www.wfp.org/videos/nutrition-2-minutes-0

My water balloon toss partner

Jack interviewing tug-o-war participants

Crazy game of duck, duck goose

Feliz Ano! I hope everyone had a great holiday season. Here in Ecuador we had a 3 week break where all but one of us went back to the states to spend some time with our family and friends over the holidays. I will undoubtedly miss being home to hang out with my 6 year old niece, my brothers, my friends, and yes, even my parents. However, I am excited for my next 7 months in the beautiful country (and warm might I add, I believe it is 8 degrees at home right now as opposed to 80 here) of Ecuador that I now call home.

I was unsure of how I would adjust after such a long time in the states. I was actually a bit nervous. I stepped off of the plane and realized my elevation of 9,300 feet due to my shortness of breath, haggled for a price of a cab (I won), opened the door to my house where I was greeted by my fellow co-workers (whom have now become close friends), and felt at home.

I am now officially back into the swing of things. During our 3 work days of last week we promoted the start of our new classes and the reopening of our library. Tuesday marked the first day of our library being open since we left for the states on December 15^th. I must say I was excited to see the kids and play uncopious amounts of Uno, which is really saying something. We also were benefactors of a game drive conducted by Zoe’s uncle. We were in dire need of some new games for our library. For this generous donation, we are all extremely grateful.

Well that’s it for now. Hope all is well. Chow.

Luke