Hey everyone, hows it going in Alaska? Here its hazed over and hot-not very enjoyable! Today we got to ride horses and gallop up and down the beach, it was awesome!!!

At the farm nothing that new has happened. We got to listen to a guest speaker about Perma culture and he was really good! We switched to pigs this week and all we did was muck out their stalls and give them food. On friday Vienna and I went to work with one of the workers, Carlos and I got attacked by close to 500 ticks! Luckily I was fast and jumped in the shower before many attached... but it was terrifying!

I´v got to go and I hope you enjoyed the photos!"!! Miss you all
Noelle

A Vender Vending Shaved Ice

Lisa^s View

Our second week at Rio Muchaco was much more interesting. We had a speaker come in from the Andes and talk about permaculture. Permaculture is basically creating a system of living that is sustainable and organic. He taught us the origin of domesticated fruits, vegetables and animals. Most came from SE Asia and the tropical Andes region. He also spoke a lot about seed saving and how important it is we start to save natural seeds ( seeds not genetically engineered by seed producers). When seeds naturally evolve and adapt over time they retain their nutritional value. When corporate US engineers seeds they focus on mass production and resistance to pest and diseases, Not to nutritional value. Therefor many of our plants have lost up to 5o% of their nutritional value. Combine that with how we feed them, and cross pollination and it becomes a scary picture for our future. So research those seeds and plants you are buying. We also watched a great movie by Bill Morrison about permaculture The Global Gardener and how they have transformed desert areas in Botswana and other places to be actively producing food for the local people. Another great Movie is The Future of Food, Both Definitely worth watching.
Hillary and I and the girls have been teaching English through art and ecology at the school. The kids are enthusiastic and eager to learn. We have been working on trees and who lives there and why they are important to us. Next week we are start 2 projects one on the food chain where they will have to be our teachers as I am not sure of who eats who here. The other project is about how long it takes various things to decompose. While I always enjoy the kids, I wish I were only working on the farm as the daily grunt labor we do is very educational. I loved watching the girls plant corn and I was fertilizing corn and sugar cane that was already growing. I used cow manure tea, not hard labor just time consuming as all is done by hand. I watered with a little plastic container and a big bucket of water that I had to walk 1/8 a mile to the river to refill. To water an area 30 feet by 100 feet it took me 2 hours. All went well till Treava dropped my plastic container full of cow manure tea and I was soaked in cow Dung. Yuk. The girls planted corn by using a stick and poking a hole in the ground, dropping in corn and refilling the hole. Again it took them 2 hours to do a similar size. I was amazed with how calm they remained when they discovered they were covered in Ticks. They are nasty varmites some so tiny you can barely see them until they have sucked your blood. What an amazing grip they have once they are sucking.
All the food we eat at Rio Muchacho cames from the farm and all animals are only for fertilizing. I think for the most part it is absolutely delicous. We are though all tiring of rice and the lack of diversity. Their teas are awesome, just natural fennel in a pot or other herbs one was rosemary and yum. Next week I hope to help more in the kitchen to make a cookbook.
We have all adapted well to the creepy crawlers and bugs at night. A few days we even had sun shine. I guess in Dec, Jan and feb their rainy season it rains at night but gets blazing hot during the day.
Love to you all. Lisa

Noelle ridding horses at the beach

Quito, Ecuador

They love our helmets

Cultural day at Rio Muchaco (making spoons)

Lifting Ecuadorian weights

Hi!!!
We are getting ready to return to the farm and this is the last of email acess.So I thought I would give a quick update of where we are headed after the farm.
Quito,Ecuador
Baños,Ecuador
Otovalo,Ecuador
Amazon River,Ecuador
Lima,Peru
Cuzco,Peru
Machu Picchu,Peru
Bolivia
Chile
Panama city
Boca Brava,Panama
San Pedro,El Salvador
Antigua,Guatemala
San Salvador,El Salvodor
Anchorage,Alaska
Soldotna,Alaska!!!
Today was tons of fun,we got to ride horses on the beach!! One was very lazy and the other hyper and fast. I am rubbed raw from riding in shorts but it was great!! My main schedule in Conoa is eat,eat,eat and eat so I better go Eat.
Miss you all and hope all is well.
Vienna
I miss you all and hope all is well.

Collecting sand dollars

One Fat Caterpillar !

Washing Horses at Rio Muchacho Farm

Getting an Ecuadorian Facial !

Leafcutter ants in equador

Chief Lisa with her blowgun

Mittal de Mundo, Ecuador

Hey everyone!!
Finally, the weekend! Access to the outside world. Pizza.......YUM!
Today noelle and I got to experience tics... not something I enjoyed. We were planting corn and sat down to take a small breack when noelle noticed millons of tics crawling up her pants so she went back to change. Little did I know I had about 15 sucking my blood! So we both showered and after that we were tic free untill noelle notices a tic on my eyelid. That hurt to get out!
Other then tics and poor animal treatment + food this week was far better then last. We got to ride and wash horses and had more interaction with the other volunters. I really miss AK and Thanksgiving was very hard. I miss you all so much and hope you had great thanksgivings. After we leave the farm we are planning on heading back to Quito and then to the amazon. The Amazon scares me.. creepy crawling bugs!
Vienna

My first 10 days by lisa

At last I get time to write. My first couple days were spent in a haze of oh my golly what did I do. I was so disappointed. It was freaking cold. I found myself wearing everything I owned including my long john. Who would have expected going to the equator would be cold 55 degrees in Quito. I kept thinking that when we got to the farm on the coast it would be warmer. Well it is a little, today at the beach I swam and actually am wearing shorts. Had a couple great rides on the boogie board too. But many days I am wearing my fleece coat.
Quito is a world hertiage city and beautiful. The old town area has Gothic Church and appears very European. I will try to post a picture of one of the many beautiful churchs. When the Spanish arrived they tried to errect churches everywhere to override the local religion.
On our second day we went to the Mital del Mundo. The middle of the earth. There was a beautiful museum with great interactive exhibits. We got to straddle the equator, feel the imbalance one experiences on the equator, watch water going different directions depending on wether you were in the northern or southern hemishere, directly on the equator it doesn't swirl it just goes straight down. My favorite were blowing the dart blow gun and watching the family do it. Treava was our best shooter. Too much force and look out. They also showed us a river creature that when men urinate in the river it attaches in their penis whith barb like attachments. Scared all the men half to death. They showed us the process of shrinking skulls and more.
We are now at the sustainable organic farm. Again we have all struggled with letting go of expectations and trying to find the gifts in this experience. The housing is Bamboo cabanas with grass roofs. For the first week we got the semiscreened house but have now been moved to the substandard. Once you get over the flying bugs and all it is beaUTIRUL. iT IS PERCHED ON A HILL OVERLOOKING THE CREEK THAT WHEN IT IS WARM ENOUGH WE BATH IN. Oops pushed the wrong button and got bold. sorry. The farm has horses, lots of pigs, chicken, gueinne pigs, dogs and cats, cows and donkeys.
We all are finding it kind of funny that we are paying money to work our fannies off on the farm. We started teaching in the schools last week. The kids are different here. They are exposed to tourist and western ways more so we see some behavior problems. They also love to play, yet aren't as eager to learn. I think it has to do with so many different foriegner coming through the school.
The motto of the farm is feed the soil not the plant. They focus on Permaculture which focuses on sustainability and feeding the soil. Last week we learned alot about the insects and the soil. They make Humanure from their composting toilets. They named off the chain of which manures are best. Humanure is at the low end, then horse, cow, pig,dog, cat, chicken and the highest nutrient rich being guiena pigs. Fascinating.
We also learned why it is so important that the rainforest not be cut down for farming. There is very little soil coverage and the soil is very poor. The whole rainforest ecosytem is based upon heat humidity and rapid decompositon of the plant matter in the forest to feed the plants of the rainforest.
This weekend we are in a small town on the coast called Canoa. As the girls said the food at Rio Muchacha is good at first but then it all starts to seem the same. how fortunate us Americans are to have so many daily choses available to us. The girls have eaten their way through the weekend. Pizza, pancakes, papa fritas and lots of water. We will take some food and water back with us to help as especially for treava she is constanly hunger. We are only given our 3 meals a day. Well I need to go buy food. Take care
Also please comment back. I know many of you said you read it last year. It is much more motivating when folks are interacting. Just remember I believe everyone can view your comments. Lisa

The Beach

So, I just spent half an hour typing and then this stupid computor deleted everything. Anyways, I guess Vienna told you all about the farm so I will tell you about the Beach town Canoa we are in! Canoa-it has a wonderful feel and is a fun hang-out place! The water is warm and really refreshing to get in. Malakia(one of the kids of a volunteer at the farm) and us had a fun day just hanging out! Eating real Americanized food i SO good. We don't get to chose what we eat at the farm so its usually just beans and rice.

At the farm, we play soccer after dinner every night. It is really fun and we usually win! The kids love to play cards and for us to show them lots of card tricks-if you know any, let me know! I miss you all,
Noelle

What a trip so far! We made it safely to Rio Muchacho organic farm and are now in Conoa a small beach town 20 minutes from the farm. We have been doing lots since we arrived at the farm including caring for the horses, agriculture ect. I will go through our daily schedual,
5:45> We wake up, get dressed in our work cloths and head out to the horse corral.
6:00> Work begins, we start attaching the wagon to collect sugar cane or processing it through the grinder.
6:15> If collecting sugar cane we make it to the field where the machetes are brought out and we begin wacking and loading sugar cane and grass to feed to the horses.
6:15> If not collecting grass we begin feeding the grass and sugar cane(that was collected the day before)to cut it up into very small pices and then put into feed troughs.
6:45> We let out the horses from the pasture above and bring them down to the horse corral.
7:00-7:30>Get ready for breakfast, shower with cold water(alway freezing cold and only if needed).
7:30-8:00> Eat breakfast which contains fruit slalad and bread.
8:00-11:30> Lisa and noelle teach at the school( Vienna is starting this week and Treava studies in the kindergarten class).Chris does handyman services around the farm.
12:00> Lunch time! Lunch typicaly contains of: Soup,Rice,Beans and a juice.
12:30-4:00> Chris: does more handyman things or helps in the garden. Vienna: Washes one of the 7 horses( including donkey) and later takes for a walk.Lisa:Helps the girls with the horses or helps out in the garden or kitchen.Noelle: Washes one horse and later takes for a walk.Treava: Helps noelle,vienna or mom.
4:00> Work ends and we are free till dinner time.
6:00> We eat dinner( usally rice and beans.)
7:30> Go to bed~! Early wake up!
This is our usual scheduel but on monday and tuesday vienna, Noelle and Lisa take a all day agriculture class. Also Vienna,Noelle,Chris and Lisa take 1 hour spanish classes per day.
I will write next weekend.
vienna

BEACH

O.K. I will start at to day firs and then tell you about the farm. Today-at 7am, we woke up but none of the restaurants were open. So, we bought some delicious crescent roles to tide us over until 8:30! At 8:30, we had pancakes at La Flor, and bought some fruit. It tasted so good to eat food other than rice and beans. After breakfast, we went down and spent an exhilarating day at the beach! We have just finished eating pizza (which by the way was not bad, thank gosh!)

Well... I should probably tell you all about the farm, also-the earthquake did not hit us to all of you that were wondering. I know I covered a little about the farm in my previous blog but I will try and go more in depth this time! Anyways, the farm is great, I learned that they have very many different kinds of composting. All the animal manure is used to produce a rich soil for the plants called humus. They have a dry toilet, they compost the brush and have many different theory's about inter-mixing rows of veggies and flowers to produce a good chemical reaction to grow. Example: They plant a papaya tree right next to a coffee and banana tree-banana for chemical formula and the papaya tree provides shade for the coffee! All the food they make comes off the organic farm-except the rice-and the food is great the first day you try it. After your 3rd or 4th day you start to get tired of eating the same thing over and over again! The setting of Rio Muchaco is beautiful and the locals are fun and nice to work with and talk to. As for the volunteers, there is a older couple that are REALLY nice and friendly and then there are 10 or 12 college students that can be very noninclusive although they are nice once you get to talking with them. Also there is a 7 year old Malakia-he is really fun and nice to hang out with and play with. Vienna, Treava and I play soccer with the kids and Malakia every night and we usually win the boys-we also have fun teaching the kids card games at night that they just love! If any of you have any card tricks you could teach me over the Internet i´m sure they would appreciate it! I MISS you all and cant wait to get home! Noelle

RIO MUCHACHO

Hi all, we have been having fun scooping poop, planting plants ( and the fun part) Washing and caring for the horses. It is fun but hard work. I have learned lots about perma-culture and rganic farming. Man do I miss the delicious american food. The foos on th efarm is very good tradicional food but it gets tiring after 3 or 4 days-rice an dbeans twice aday-blah. There is a river that we going swimming in after a hard days work ( usual work day: 5:30 wake up and feed the horses, 7:30 breakfast, 8:30 morning work-irrigation planting ect., 12:00 lunch, 1:30 back to work- wash horses an d take for walk- 6:00 dinner-after dinner hit the sack!!!!It is exausting but satisfying work). WE will spend a nice weekend at the beach and then head back for work!!! Best regards,
Noelle

I am in Quito, Ecuador and getting ready to go to the small beach town(Bahia), and then on Sunday to the farm where I will be staying for 1 month. After that my family and I will head to Lima,Peru and on to the Amazon and the machupecthu ruins.Yesterday we went to the equator, took lots of pictures and went to a hands on museum about the equator, they had lots of activities on the north and south hemisphere. One of the things I found the most interesting was that when you walk on the equator line it is very hard to balance. We also got to see that on the north and west hemisphere water spins in different directions( counter-clockwise or clockwise).
Miss you,
Vienna Schmitter-Schrier

THE MITAL DEL MUNDO!!!!

Today we are heading to Bahia (a little beach town) on the coast. Yesterday we saw the site cruses ( the seven crosses). They were seven beautiful churches! The first one had amazing architecture. The second one was painted with gold leafing on the whole inside! We only visited 4 of the churches but those were the most outstanding!

At the mital del mundo ( the middle of the world) We got some pictures at the monument that was not actually on the equator and then at the actual equator we went to a wonderful museum! I learned that on the northern hemisphere, the water spin counterclockwise. On the southern hemisphere it spins clockwise. On the equator, it just goes straight down! Oh... a little fear factor, my mom and Trevar fell 10 feet from a zip-line at one of the parks. Got to go,
Noelle

hey,
we are getting ready to go see the ecuador and the capital of Ecuador,Quito.
I miss AK a ton and cant wait to get home! It is fairly cold here although warmer then Alaska. We will be staying here in quito for a few days and then heading on to Bahia a small town close to the organic farm (an 8 hour bus ride from Quito) and on suday our final destination for this month the organic farm.I will write soon,
Vienna

Hi guys, how are you? I miss you all so much! It is pretty cold here, I expected warmer. The food is better than El Salvadorian food but i still miss America food ALOT! The flight was really long and i was pooped when we got in last night... but i couldn´t fall asleep. I was up untill 3 in the morning their time! The hotel were staying at is O.K. but it´s hard to adjust.

Today we might go to the equator, pretty exiting! Tmoarow we are going on a city tour and then will probaly go to an amusment park and the local markets in 2 days! I miss you all so much and i will try and put pictures up on our blog. So, make shure you check it!

On saturday were heading to the organic farm. So far no scary insects! I better go because we have to go get our bus tickets for saturday! I miss you all soooooooooo much, cant wait to hear from you,
Noelle

Salvadoranean Fiesta

Just testing the video feature this time!

Have a great day!

How about this for a stack of matresses ?!

(just testing to see if the add image feature of Blogger works!)

We snapped this on the way to San Salvador, El Salvador in 2006 !

Mas Espanol esta Inverano ! (More Spanish this Winter!)

Our family has decided to be snowbirds once again and travel south this winter, this time to Ecquador and Peru, for one more dose of spanish. The girls got an excellent introduction to the spanish language last year in El Salvador and we want to continue this winter.

Initially, we will stay and work at a sustainable organic farm near the Pacific coast of Ecquador that an expatriated Kiwi woman and Equadorian man operate. They say that we will have time to venture over to the coast on weekends for an infusion of sunshine.

After Equador, we will make our way over land down to Peru where we will meet up with the Dunn family (who are working in Panama) for a pilgrimage up the old Inca Trail to the mysterious Machu Picchu, high up in the Andes mountains.

In February we will return to Alaska via Panama and El Salvador to say visit people that we met last year.

Stay tuned for a more detailed description of the organic farm in about two weeks time!

Salud! Chris, Lisa, Noelle, Vienna, Treava