milagro and the establishment of the penpal cooperative

milagro is a city about the size of kingston about 40 minutes from guayaquil, located right in the middle of a flood plain. it's hot, steamy and cramped - um, like guayaquil in miniature.

i had been invited by carola, a friend of nancy who is the facilitator at an ecoclub there, to talk to the kids in her group about organizing a recycling program in the community. they're new, only had a couple months together and a couple of meetings, but they seem like good kids (12-16 in age) and interested in cleaning up the river that runs through the town. we chatted about what they needed to get accomplished before they set out such as talking to the recycling corporation in town (canadian by the way) about potential pick up days and the availability of a truck. we also talked about them potentially getting involved with the group in mississauga as penpals. i originally had wanted to do a big internet based thing but that sorta fell through as they were already settled into the penpal idea. anyway they seemed interested, said it was a good opportunity to practice their english and such so i sent the word north and am currently waiting on word back from them.

anyway it was a fun little day and they even sprung for lunch at a vegentarian restaurant which was nice if a little pedestrian (i'm way too used to the gourmet like selections at the taiwanese place near the house). we're tentatively hooked up for next saturday at 3 but that's kind of dependent on my options for the weekend.

i'm also a little sick at the moment - my nose and eyes are almost constantly running and i sneeze a lot. it's like i have allergies all of a sudden, but that's just it, it's all of a sudden, like the last few days or so. hmm.... my throat is almost 100% which is nice although i've lost that sexy raspy edge to my voice that was driving the women wild.