The food

Well, after a week, the students have gotten comfortable enough to start complaining. The main issue is the food. The Tsachila seem to subscribe to an anti-Atkins diet, almost all carbs and no protein. Popular foods include yucca, plantain log (boiled, mashed and reformed plantain), and bananas. The people are often worried there's not enough food so every meal always has an extra heap of white rice. For lunch, the leaders eat in the elementary school cafeteria, which meets the same standards of taste and nutrition as school food around the world. Having a little bit of advanced warning, I brought a bottle of Texas Pete's hot sauce to "give" to the family I stay with. I use it on almost everything, which gets me through. They think I'm crazy, which is fair enough.

Our main mode of transport is in the back of trucks. I'm pictured here with a few of my students. Note the pants tucked into the socks look. I started doing this biking in the city, but have found it stops most, but not all of the bugs from biting my legs. The students thought it was hilarious, but I've noticed more of them doing it in the field- I guess I'm fashion forward. There's only one paved road, so it's easy to hitchhike. One of my students commented that for his generation, hitchhiking is really unusual, not like back in my day. My co-leader Stephen has clung on to that, and continues to ask me about how things were in my day.

The other picture is from ultimate Frisbee. I've gotta admit I was never very good, and I'm slower than most of the students, but it's fun. We usually play after afternoon seminars, then send them to their host families dirty and tired.