Here's the canal minga photo-story:

The first day of landslide clearing. Two things to notice: that's a LOT of dirt (the canal runs all the way to the right of the photo), and that is in fact me, getting my hands very, very dirty. The second day, we split up and some of us were just cleaning out the canal. Dredging mud, fun!

The landslide is still not totally taken care of--at the end of the second day, just when the canal was clear, another chunk slid in. We're trying to get someone to loan us a tractor.

My kitchen, now with sink! Note the things hanging by nails--my new favorite storage system.

Here is a map of the Parroquia of San Lorenzo. The lower circle to the left is San Lorenzo center, Marcopamba is the yellow part--the school and health center are at the first crossroads up in the yellow, Sauce is between the lower red and the brown, etc. This map does not mention that except the main road at the botom and a couple others, a lot of the "roads" are not passable by car. The irrigation canal comes off the river toward the upper left, in the light green between yellow and red. The map's from the health center in Marcopamba

In other news, I was in Quito last weekend visiting Ted and Rosalie, my aunt and uncle. They swung through Quito to see a former student of Ted's after a couple weeks in Peru, so I got up there to see them. I had a little bit of big-city culture shock going there after San Lorenzo, but I got some good food and hot showers, which were quite nice. I swung through Riobamba on my way back home to pick up some Trichoderma from the University there. Trichoderma is a neat fungus that eats other fungi and nematodes while also producing metabolites that stimulate root growth. They make it at the University and sell small quantities. So I'm experimenting with that a bit.

Saturday was the 473rd anniversary of the founding of San Lorenzo, so we had a parade and music, and although I missed seeing the afternoon karaoke because it was raining, I could definitely hear it from my house, so I figure I didn't miss much. Other than that it's been a lot of the same, gardens, canal clearing, etc. I now have bunches of stuff coming up, and the radishes are about ready to eat, and I have a handful of things ready to transplant soon. There are a couple of family gardens getting going in Marcopamba, the garden at the health center is started, and we're hoping to start the school garden in Sauce this week, as well as start planting here in San Lorenzo, if we can work out some sort of weird conflict about permission and whatnot. I'm getting awfully used to every tiny little thing requiring an official, signed memo by someone, but come on, planting a garden? Oh well...

OK, keep writing letters and emails and the like, I love hearing from people!