Believe it or not

I'm back in Guaranda, already. I left my USB drive in the computer yesterday and realized this fact only several hours later, back in San Lorenzo, and with not enough time to go back and forth before my meeting at 5. So I came back today, and amazingly enough, the woman at the internet place had found it and saved it for me! So that made me happy.

Which is good, because yesterday was not such a good day. Turns out I could have come back to Guaranda, because only 2 people showed up for the meeting, at 4:15 because they thought it was at 4 like it said on the invitations I made up. So they went to go wait in the plaza for Marzo, the president to show up. Well, turns out he decided he needed to go to a rodeo for the fiesta of San Pedro just the other side of Guaranda in a town called Guanujo, because his family was going to be there. And that it was okay to show up at 6. He claims he told the others that he would get there at 6 and that they said that was fine. Well, by the others he apparently means two of the others, and needless to say I was a little annoyed. It's not as though there's not anything to talk about. I made a list of 10 things that need to get resolved ASAP without even thinking that hard. And by ASAP, I mean before everyones crops start to die because they have no water. It's one of those times I find the Ecuadorian sense of time and priorities and etc. a little difficult to deal with. I mean, seriously--couldn't Marzo have said "hey, Saturday's not good, lets try a different day?" And it should really be his job to set up these meetings--they're required every month according to the statutes of the canal users group, which are apparently more like guidelines, or have been treated that way, certainly.

So that made for a very frustrating day, and I'm hoping today will be better, although I do have to do laundry when I get back, and of all the chores I have here, that's my least favorite. It usually takes at least an hour, sometimes 2 to get everything done and hung on the line. And that's time with my hands in freezing cold water scrubbing muddy clothes. Everything else isn't so bad, I've totally gotten used to bucket baths and the lack of garbage collection and transportation issues, and all the rest, but doing laundry is still awful, no way around it. It's just got to get done, so I do it.

To end on a positive note, my garden is coming along nicely. I'm going to be able to eat a ton of salad with non-iceberg lettuce by periodically thinning my lettuce patch, the radishes are now almost too gigantic, and I have 4 zucchini plants looking happy and hopefully 3 more coming up. My tomato plants are almost too big for the bags they're in, so I'm going to have to really finish the greenhouse I'm designing in my head, and all the school gardens and family gardens are coming along nicely. Moral of the story? Avoid asking people for money and creating beaurocracies, and projects go much faster!