The start of June meant the start of goat birthing season here. You have to seperate the baby goats from the other goats so they won't get trampled, so everyone around here had a corral full of baby goats, which are super cute. The families I know ended up with about 50-100 new goats between mid-June and mid-July. I got to see one goat birth (I've got video if you're interested but didn't want to gross people out.) which was pretty cool just because it's so quick and the goat doesn't even seem to care that it's happening. Yay new goats!
On June 11, we went out to the campo to work on the trail I was telling you about last post. On the way back into town, we got into an accident, which you already know about as well. The roads are really bad because of construction projects and trucks and whatnot. We ran off the road into a ditch to avoid hitting a truck. I wish I had taken pictures of my nose, but I was in a bit of shock for a few days after...oops. Anyway here's a picture of the accident.
The next week we had a couple of first aid workshops given by the Red Cross. It was very interesting because we took traditional first aid techniques and procedures and applied them to a campo setting. Our final "test," so to say, was to build a stretcher from materials found in the campo and find and rescue an "injured" person in the forest. There are more photos of this somewhere, but I don't have them. Anyway, it was cool. We learned how to immobilize the head/neck with baseball caps and a belt and how to make a splint out of tree bark, for example. 
Also in June we continued work on some land-rights stuff. When NCI buys property for its reserves in this area they try to straighten out property titles etc. for the people who live nearby and have no titles for their land because of 1) they and their ancestors lived under a feudal system and never had actual titles and 2) the distance to cities and difficulty and cost in filing for the titles. In one of the towns, Bolaspamba, the municipal government is building these tiny, ugly, brick and cement houses for people if they knock down their old, traditional-style houses. Supposedly they are improving quality of life. The town is going to be so ugly, ugh. No one from the municipality took even two minutes to consider the people of the town, what life in the campo is like, the traditional design and its benefits....grr. And for some reason I think they may have already told people to tear down their houses before having finished the new ones...there is a section of town that looks like this
July to come in next post. Love ya! -Sarita
