The week I didn't really get anything done

Monday the 27 was when I last updated. I left the internet cafe and went to the map office, knowing they weren't gonna give me anything, just to check up and make sure the situation was as i understood it to be. i had been told that at this point do to my repeated assaults on the office and Carlos in Quito's talking to the director of the project that made the maps to begin with, we were gonna get all the maps we need. we just needed the current pres of the parrochia and the newly elected one to sign something saying that they wouldn't give the maps away to anybody else, strictly for the use of the parrochia (and since the parrochia is a counterpart in the project, us too). the presidents were unavailable at the time, so i just went to the office to better understand how it was all gonna go down. i get there and i go to the pendejo and i ask him, why did you give me the overviews and tell me they were detailed? why didn't you give me the detailed maps? I didn't give them to you, he says, because now you have to pay for them, the mayor has given us new instructions. what? putting aside the fact that the mayor had not given these new instructions at the time of the pendejo civilly disobeying my requests, the mayor shouldn't have changed his mind, he already signed a form saying to give us the maps for free. well, i spoke with the pendejo's boss, and it is true. apparently these maps are just too great to actually be put to use. they spent a lot of money making them, so now its very important that they keep them hidden from anybody who wants to do anything. they wanna charge a dollar a hectare, this would come out to well over 2 grand. so now we gotta wait for the new mayor to take his seat and ask him to help us out.

tuesday the 28th i thought about waking up early and going to the other side of the mountain for grafting class, but laziness got the best of me. i went down to the project office in the afternoon only to find my laziness overshadowed by that of the much better paid engineers who work there. Victor, my friend, the director of the project was playing rummy with his assistant engineer David who is also a nice guy i just don't know him as well, and the jelly prez. its lunch break, they tell me, 2pm. well, the government offices close 12 to 2:30, so i guess its ok. anyway, theres not a damn thing i can do about it. so i go to a nearby community to talk to the prez of the women's community bank about getting a grant or a loan to buy the trout ponds. she gives me some coffee and tortillas, and i get back to the project office about 2 hours later. and they're still playing rummy. the jelly prez is winning all their money. thats a lot of lunch, i say. to their credit, there is a power outage, so they can't do computer work. but that doesn't mean they couldn't be doing something a little more constructive to earn their salaries (2 to 3 times what i make). anyway, after 5, i figure office hours are over so i show the jelly prez how to play texas hold'em and i win 50 cents. they gave a lecture that night to a couple of farmers (they could have been publicizing it during the day and maybe more people would have come). i gave a part on agroforestry and wrote down some people who want to plant aliso. i feel like their presentation was overly technical and the people didn't get much out of it. they talked about ion exchange capacity, among other things. i left early to catch the last truck up to my community.

wednesday july 29th: pretty much the same story. except this time they were drinking too.

thursday july 30th: went to town. blew most of the day on facebook.

friday july 31st: taught my classes. the young adults have stopped coming. this, even when i ask them if they want class, and they say yes, so i open up the school, and they just keep playing soccer for an hour, so i leave. its really not as frustrating as it sounds, i spent the time watching music videos that the teacher put on the computer and printing lsat study materials.

saturday august 1st: at site they were celebrating the entrance of the newly elected people, but i came to ibarra to celebrate the leaving of my peacecorps friend here. should not have drunk so much.

sunday august 2nd: paying the price of drinking so much.

so that is the week in which i didn't really do much. hopefully there won't be more of the same. tomorrow i'm gonna go to an office here in ibarra to see about getting some trees to plant. also, a development bank to see about getting a loan for the trout ponds. anyway, since i didn't really do much this week, i've posted below one of my fellow volunteer's stories.