"You must be the change you want to see in the world.": August

This month, I think the pictures can speak for themselves. There were a lot of fiestas in August, as we celebrated the anniversary of our cantón (kinda like county, I think). oh and i went to guayaquil to go on this pirate-themed party boat with some other volunteers. and, of course, we dressed the part. btw, ecuadorians don't really understand costume parties. heh

rommel likes to pretend he's michael jackson...if only i could upload videos i filmed rommel and another kid in a michael-jackson-imitation-dance-off

Working on a-minor with rommel...i got a great new guitar teacher too! too bad he is leaving soon to resume his studies...

goofy kids

swanky wedding i was invited to in Macara

we got some new interns for the month

guiding some tourists and training new tour guides in Cabeza de Toro

peacock in Cabeza de Toro (not-native)

pirate ship, the morgan

yarrrrgh

did i mention that it was an open bar?

we went to the communities on the ecuadorian-peruvian border to inspect a fence that appeared to be made of wood cut from the reserve without permission. ecuador has all sorts of natural-resource use laws.

peruvian side. in this particular area, it's hard to control people cutting down trees for lumber because all they have to do is cut the wood down and put it literally a few meters away, on the peruvian side, where the laws are much more lax.

the minister of environment inspecting the fence posts. we later tracked down the people building the fence and spoke with them. the fence used about 1,000 posts of a very high-quality wood. our investigation led nowhere as the people swore they bought the lumber and we couldn't find anywhere where lumber had been cut recently.