Gardens and more gardens

Well, it's been a pretty full week--I spent the weekend weeding my garden and Monday transplanting brocoli between "scattered showers," so yes, it is still raining. We helped the school in Marcopamba get their garden started, but the director of the school didn't want to let us help beyond being extra pairs of hands to break up the really packed clay they were transplanting carrots (yes, that's right, transplanting carrots. On purpose, not just thinnings), so that was frustrating. I also met with a guy who wants to improve and extend the irrigation system in Marcopamba, so that could be an interesting project, though given the timescale of things here, not one I'm holding my breath about actually seeing happen.

We're going to Sauce to start a garden there on Friday, so that we can get a few things in before they leave for summer and then they'll have some stuff ready to harvest when they come back. School gets out here in a week or so and then starts again in September.

Other than that, I'm planning a little greenhouse for the tomato plants I have coming up in bags now, and really wishing I had the Dabney House Magic Green Box of tools. A power drill and a staple gun, particularly, would come in handy right about now. But turns out all that fighting with black plastic will also come in handy, as the stuff for greenhouses is the same only clear. I'll take pictures when I'm done and it'll probably look like a close approximation to a drop day roof. But there's no Home Depot, and no place to get this stuff closer than Riobamba, so I'm using scraps I find around, making things more exciting.

Things are generally going well, althoughI think I might have amoebas. I hear I should just let them be, though, unless they start causing serious problems because they may go away on their own, plus the drugs to get rid of them are pretty toxic, and unless I stop eating the food I'm offered (once from a kitchen that had cuys running around on the floor) and drinking from cups washed in questionable water, I'm likely to just get them again. And since not eating anything anyone offers me ever is not likely to go over well, and the amoebas are mostly just sitting around making my stomach make funny noises, I'm going to wait and see what happens.