Amazon, amoebas, [north] Americans

Hey all,

We´re in Tena, Ecuador! Its been a week, and what a wild week its been.

In the last two days I´ve had ungodly access to email that no traveler should ever have, because I´m the school nurse and spending a good amount of time in town dropping off stool samples and taking girls to the doctor. We just finished round 1 of Americans vs. Amoebas. We won this round though.

In reality, that has been such a small part of the last week. We had a brilliant descent by bus in to the Amazon basin, crossed literally under the oil pipeline that ravages the land here, and found ourselves passing through cloud forests and paramo on our way down to the rainforest.

We´re staying in little huts in the base of this valley about 5 miles outside of the small city of Tena. The girls have to focus on their classes literally with monkeys jumping around in the background. (Little perverted bastards - theyre constantly touching themselves and humping chairs). I figure if I can teach here for my first classes ever I´m getting a good start.

We went caving two days ago - and it was amazing to take a trust walk from the day before and apply it to the situation of swimming, sliding, hiking and climbing through caves. After certain friends forced me to watch horror movies like ¨The Cave¨and ¨The CAvern¨I never thought Id find caving so unbelievably beautiful and awe-inspiring.

I´ve taught my first two classes in the rainforest. I´m challenged by doing this in a way that I cant even think of a time previous that I´ve felt this way. I want SO BADLY to be able to do this well, to capture this experience for these girls and give them the best of it all. I´m not being hard on myself, just honest, and I feel unbelievably motivated to learn as much as I possibly can since I´m here. So this is teaching. And I really believe that this is education in the best of all possible worlds.

More soon. Much love to all of you. Hearing from you has been wonderful - please keep me posted about your lives - it means a great deal to hear from you while I´m here.

Love,

Heather