OK that didn´t seem to take any much less or more time. Everything here takes time....
More pics. First off, I think that´s the cousin of the kids in my family, holding my Kiwi hat on the head of a bovine denizen of Ecuador.... Cute. Smells gross now. Maybe that´s because of my and not the cow though...
Next pic is from the room of my house. It´s flat and after rain it collects a little bit of water that doesn´t drain off. Pretty sunset eh? Puesta del sol I think is the local word. Lots of them here behind the mountains and such..cool stuff.
3rd pic is in a nearby field where the cows have just been "moved." Basically every day they move the lines and poles that mark off where the cows can graze so that a little more fresh grass can be eaten and the older overgrazed stuff can regrow. Pretty place sto work but the sun is brutal. And of course there are big piles of poop to navigate.
Last pic is from up on the hillside behind our town that is in between the town and the huge volcano nearby. Same day as when the cow wore my hat... We went up there but the big bull stared us down, etc old story by now. Strange how time works here. I don´t know much from the news except that Cheney shot someone on a quail hunting trip and now there´s some coverup about what happened and how serious it was/is.

OK so a little news. Today the Peace Corps saw fit to confiscate our saturday to tel us all about the little and big nasties that we´ll likely encounter during out service. A few choice excerpts: The bushmaster is a local snake that can be up to 14 feet long, can strike up to six feet away and four feet high, has 3.5 inch long fangs, and happens to be aggressive, unafraid of people, and tends to strike multiple times if it can. They´re called matacaballos (horsekillers.) OK so I´ll try to avoid them.

Everything we eat and drink and touch and think about can make us sick. From horrible skin lesions and worms burrowing around under our epidermis to intestinal monsters that come out to play with us when we crap to little things that chew into us while we´re relaxing on the beach and lay eg sacs in our toes to fungal problems that make me gag to think of right now. I hear that the anti-malarial medication we are likely to have to take causes wicked vivid dreams and sometimes awful nightmares. Weird. I bought a pillow two days ago and got to soak it with sweat the first night as I had a fever of over 100 that broke over the night. Charming and not fun at all but at least it was gone the next day. The nurses say that they get call all the time and the basic message is something like "Oh sweet Jesus I´m dying! There´s blood in my shits! I crapped worms! My arm fell off and is chasing me around the farm!" They just calmly say take two ibuprofen and call me tomorrow. Usually it´s nothing. Just to reassure you that I´ll prolly be fine, the last time anyone died in service here it was a 70 year old volunteer who had a heart attack, and that was years ago. Plus, if I get bitten by a snake and they have to amputate a leg or an arm or a head or something, I understand that I qualify for financial support after service/hospital, etc.

We had pizza today too out on the nurse´s ranch. That was nice, even if it had been sitting around for fifty minutes before we started eating. A little melted cheese and a slice of pepperoni or hawaiian pizza, even if it tasted like cardboard with bilge slime smeared on it, was a welcome treat after the gauntlet of potatoes I´ve been enjoying.

Clearly I ham things up here to make your reading experience more interesting.... don´t worry about me, just kep sending me funny emails and well wishes and that will go a LOOOOOOONG way towards keeping me halfway sane over the next couple of years. Eventually I´ll get a phone card and try calling people, so be prepared! Ciao!

-MJ