John Bracken is the winner

Although I accidental turned off the commenting function, John did email me first but there will be a 2nd place prize to Chris McKnight and a 3rd place prize to my brother Glenn. Thanks for playing!

Gringo Sabe

Life in Zuleta is filled with many small acomplishments that otherwise would just get absorbed and discarded in ones daily life. Such as the constant way the guys I work with in the garden test me, when I get it wrong they happily step in and help the gringo who knows little. But when I get it right and they say "Gringo Sabe" or "Esta Tecnico", then I feel good. I have not had to prove my manhood this often since High School and it is hard and strange, but rewarding when it works. It is hard to pound a 4 inch nail into old wood when you have three or four Ecuadorians watching every strike of the hammer. All part of life out of my natural element.

trout, potatoes and whisky for breakfast

Cameroon, want breakfast.

Yes I said, and down to the lower garden in the little shed I had never been, and there on the dirt floor was a make-shift grill with trout over the coals. Next comes out the potaoes, new and freshly dug. Then a bag of salt and a bag of toasted corn. Breakfast strong enough to skip lunch , they tell me.

We ate and talked. They often ask me in Spanish, ¿Como esta in su tierra? How is it in your land. Tierra is a great word, Earth, soil, land. Then they asked what types of whisky I had in my land, I said we had many.

After eating, they asked if I wanted some cola, Yes please. Then I said this just needs some whisky, as a joke really. And there it was in my cup, half whisky half cola at ten in the morn.

Going back to work, my row of transplants swerved a bit, but otherwise it was great.

Four men on Horses

Katie and I were walking through the main Plaza at the Hacienda with misty fog in our faces, when out from the dark just outside the entrance, a man said in Spanish," We need to see the doctor." Shocked and a bit scared, because if the dark night and that the men had been drinking, we cautiously asked for clarification, they had heard of a doctor who lived at the Hacienda. We said we would go check, we ran to the kitchen to ask the cook who Adriano was, where he lived and most importantly, whether we could bring four men on horses to his house in the dark of night. The cook said yes that it was fine, with an air of comfortness that suggested this type of thing happens with some regularity. Going back out we led them to Adriano`s house and watched outside to make sure their mission really was well meaning. Seeing that it was we left and both had the feeling that we were transported for a short time to the 1700`s.