I have fallen so in love with Ecuador. The farm I work on in the Rio Muchacho river valley as well as the places I visit on weekends or when I have time off. The seasons are changing now so we are making over the garden, preparing seed beds and planting lots of new things. It is so satisfying to see the tiny little budding leaves of the seeds you planted a couple days earlier. How a sesame can go on to make thousands of itself is so amazing. I love to see the little sweet red peppers I harvested in the morning used in the salsa we eat at lunch. The Rio Muchacho school is a great place to get to know the kids of the community. I have been teaching English two mornings a week, It is exhausting but satidfying work. I am more tired after trying to keep the energy and attention of a group of kids in an outdoor classroom than I am after working in reforestation or making cement. It is so nice to enter the class and ask what day it is and hear the class say together Today is Thursday! when only a week before this was so difficult for them to learn. To see familar faces because in this small community I work with some of their uncles or fathers, their cousins are married to somebodys sister. The roots are so deep, the connections impossible to map out. On the weekends there is a little time to travel, so I have been going to other places for a few days of relaxation and sitting on the beach or to hike to see certain reforestation projects. I spent last week on a short vacation to another farm a couple hours inland. It was great to see the differences between the farm I am working on now and how they do it somewhere else. There were also howler monkeys and sloths in the trees above us, which was almost worth the mosquitoes munching on my entire body day and night, including the soles of my feet. I think my irrational fears of spiders and insect will be gone when I return home and the spiders change to normal sizes. the ones here that are the size of my hand only make me feel a little on edge now when I used to cry and scream and just generally panic. I think traveling can make us all a bit tougher in different ways. I have fallen so in love with this place that it hurts to think about leaving, I have caught the travel bug bad and I definitely want to explore the rest of South America. But I guess college is next on my list...ugh, the transition from this ropical heaven will be tough. Buena Suerte to the rest of the Latitudes crew!

From Rachael Smith at the Rio Muchacho Farm in Ecuador