Feliz Navidad!

Hello!! Merrrrrry Christmas!
I hope everyone is putting the finishing touches on their Christmas presents as we speak! Tying the bows, writing the cards... *sigh*
We are having a great time. We live underneath the Highest Active Volcano in the world! At least that´s what we keep telling people. We live at 3500 meters. The altitude gave me headaches he first few days but I´m getting better now. Both Jason and I have now gone on the day trip to the volcano (a bonus of being a volunteer- free!). We drive up the volcano to the parking lot, 4500 meters, and then hike up this gravelly hill for about 30 mins to an hour depending on how fit you are to get to the refuge, a height of 4800 meters. It really takes your breath away. Literally and figuratively. Then you continue upwards. I was able to reach 4900 meters, higher than any mountain in Europe!! I was so proud of myself! When Jason went he saw the Andean wolf, and a condor! I didn´t see that stuff, but it was still cool.
Jason did some horseback riding the other day. He enjoyed that, but his horse was a little skiddish and it was hard to keep control. But of course he did great.

We live at the hostel and are the hosts for the guests. We take care of anything they need and organize all their tours and stuff. It´s really fun meeting all the cool travelers. We live with four dogs and two kids. Three of the dogs are puppies and pee and poo a lot. You could probably guess, but Jason cleans up all the doggy messes. From our front step we can see 7 mountain peaks ranging in height from 4000 to almost 6000 meters (Cotopaxi). It´s almost always clear in the mornings, it´s really amazing.

I was feeling rather reminiscent yesterday. I walked up the hill and found a tree branch that had kind of red-green flowers on it. I put it up for a Christmas tree and made some paper snowflakes to go on it. I hung the ´ornies´ that Robin had sent with me and it made it feel almost like home.
We really miss everyone a lot. But I think it will be lovely Christmas nonetheless.
We´ll be here for three more weeks and then we don´t know what we´ll do. We´re thinking of heading to Argentina, or maybe head back up north through the rest of Central America that we missed. Who knows!

I´m having some troubles uploading the photos, but I´ll try later. LOVE YOU ALLL!!!!!
Oh, and by the way, if anyone wants to send a letter (no packages please), you have two weeks to post it so that we´ll get it.

Jason and Kaela
Secret Garden
Calle Anteparra y Los Rios
E4-60
San Blas, Quito
Ecuador, South America

Feliz Navidad, y prospero año a todos!!

The Next Chapter

Today was our last day at the Magic Roundabout. It was hard saying goodbye. We had a lovely day. We hiked up to all three waterfalls and had a lovely little summit at the top of the ridge. Of course, we also played euchre. Our time with Jordan, Randi, Roger and Jamie was so precious, it´s hard to see it finish. But it´s nice to leave on a good note. Jason will have to make friends with some new chickens.
Tomorrow we are headed to Cotopaxi, our next destination on this crazy adventure. We will probably be there for a month. There is no electricity. It´s a laid back vibe, and we´re volunteering for free room and board, so that´s awesome. Only 11 shopping days left until Christmas, hope everyone is not stressing too much! We might be having a Christmas dinner of guinea pig!
Us at the third waterfall.

Chocolate bananas. 10 cents. Amazing.

Our week at the local school

Jason here. One random day a group of about 30 highschool kids came up to the hostel to look at the waterfalls. Right before they left we thought it might be a good idea to run some trust and team building activities some time at their school. They said yes. I was a little intimdated by the language barrier but with all of us working together (Jordan, Randi, Kaela, Jamie and me) it turned out to be an awesome week. I truly learned the meaning of 80% of communication is nonverbal. The kids responded well to our crazy fun attitudes and simple acted out instructions. A local peace Corps volunteer we met helped put together a sign that we presented to each group before we started as way to introduce what all these crazy activities were ultimately for. We came about an hour or two early to set up all the challenge activites and make a plan. We ran about two to three groups a day for four days straight. It got very exhausting but a lot of fun and rewarding as well. At the end of the day each kid shared what they learned. It was amazing to hear what they had to say. A great way to end our time in Baeza.

We made good friends with several of the students.

This is called the "Bog of Eternal Stench." The students had to work together to cross a certain amount of distance without stepping off a dot. They would lose the dot if a foot came off but could purchase a new one in exchange for being blindfolded. This one seemed to be their favorite.

This is the "spider web." The students need to get the entire group through the web without waking up the spider and can only use one hole per person.

The "Mouse Trap" is always a thrill. One student holds a set mouse trap in their hand while they lead their blindfolded partner safely over it and with a flat hand snap the trap and no one is hurt. Good for building trust.

This was a huge game of Rock Paper Siccors. Nuff said.

Special thanks to Randi, Jordan, and Jamie for all their enthusiasm and help. I couldn´t have done it without them. We truly worked together as one team.

Exciting News

The moment we heard about Chad and Emily´s engagement! We´re in the internet cafe!

Congrats Guys!!

Photos

Jordan and Anand The waterfall.

Jason in the tub with his best friends. Don´t worry, they didn´t poo in the tub.

I´m pretty sure this translates as , "For the love of God, vote no". But it could be "because God loves you, vote no." Almost just as weird.

Hitching a ride to Baeza to get some of the best pizza in the world made by this Dutch guy. Mmmm!

Quito Fever

We´re in Quito, having a blast. We came to have a few days in the city, a little break from the life on the farm. We´re staying in the apartment of some friends, and generally having a great time. We´re just here for the two days but it´s quite interesting. At the hostel where we hang out all day, 95% of the people speak English. I often forget that I am in South America. I feel like I´m hanging out with some new friends at some place in Portland or something. All the music they play is in English, too. But everyone here is traveling this way or that way. Any question you have about anything around here is answered with ease, we have no need for a guide book, we have many new friends. We´ve been away only one night and Jason already misses the chickens. We bathe in an outdoor bathtub next to our house. The day before we left Jason was in the bath and petting the chickens that were on the side of the tub. We´re really excited to have chickens when we get back to the States.

For Thanksgiving, we made a delicious pizza and had pasta and Jason invented a yummy donut hole recipe. We also had berry cobbler. It was nice, but honestly, I was incredibly heartbroken to be away from family. We all went around saying what we´re thankful for and everyone mentioned family back home.

Christmas decorations are everywhere here, as I¨m sure they are at home. It´s pretty pathetic, I know, but it´s hard for me to even comprehend that Christmas exists when I´m not at home to celebrate it. I look at all the decorations and Jason has to keep me from buying random ornaments and such.
Much love from Ecuador!!

Galak

This is Jason impersonating the face dogs make when they poop. He is with Guiness in this photo. Here is Roger, Marco and Jason with Guiness and Winston at the first waterfall up the path from where we live.

Randi with Roger´s birthday cake.

View of Quito

Yumm.... We are eating candy right now called Galak. It is made by Nestle and it is kind of like a Crunch bar but with white chocolate. Delish. We are having a lovely time. On TV in the internet cafe is Full House dubbed in Spanish.

Here is a story: We went to travel a couple of days with Roger, Jordan´s dad. We were in a taxi and we told the taxi driver that it was Roger´s birthday. He asked how old Roger was and he told him. Then Roger said something along the lines of "I have a young face". Then the taxi driver said, "but you have grey hair!" We all laughed awkwardly, as this would be kind of a strange thing to say in the States. I was translating everything and I almost didn´t want to translate it. But then the taxi driver said, "we have a saying, it doesn´t matter what color your hair is, it only matters how your penis works." I, of course, did not yet know the Spanish word for penis and told him that I wasn´t familar with it. He laughed like crazy and asked how that was possible since I am married! We all had a good laugh. What makes it really funny is that the Spanish words for hair and penis are really similar. I´m not sure on the spelling but its something like pelo and palo. so the saying is quite an effective one. That taxi driver was hilarious. He joked the whole time that we were with him and then asked if we believed in Jesus Christ.

Jason might do a facilitation day with one of the local high schools. They came by to go on a hike and we asked them if they wanted him to come and do a day at their school. It will be his first international facilitation. How cool will that be. I get to come and translate. The teacher who we were talking to was also telling lots of jokes. He was telling pretty dirty jokes right in front of all the students and everything. I guess it´s just a cultural difference. They love to joke down here. I usually end up understanding about half of the joke and pretend to laugh. My Spanish is not quite good enough for humor, yet. Although I did manage to tell them a blonde joke in Spanish and everyone cracked up.

Love you all.

The Good Life

Jason and Jordan playing cards on the front porch of the lodge.

Our first meal together.

This is where the beeks´sleep.

The view from the porch.

The whole gang on the porch.

We´re having a blast here. Today we´re headed to a little sight-seeing trip with Jordan´s dad, Roger. We´re going first to Otavalu, a huge market town. We´ll go shopping there tomorrow and then spend a night in Quito, and then one in Cotopaxi. It is the point closest to the sun on the Earth because of the Equatorial bulge. We´re having such a good time.

A few adventures include: when the dog escaped and attacked one of the llamas, when one of the llamas gave birth (baby did not survive), when I got charged by a random horse that was on our land and jason jumped a fence to protect me, learning to make woven bracelets, feeding the chickens everyday and having to go on egg hunts to find where they´re laying *dang free range*, butchering a chicken, de-feathering, and gutting it and then barbecuing it- what an experience, playing cards all day, and many many more.

It´s starting to hit me that we´re not going to be there for the holidays. There are christmas decorations for sale here and I´m so bummed to be away from family during this time of year. But, I also think it will give us some perspective.

Traveling is like the first time that you go to spend the night at a friend´s house. You realize that not everything you and your family do is normal. Or not even normal, but just that not everybody does them. I remember the first time I went to spend the night at my friend Ann Gevock´s house. Her family was having meatloaf for dinner. I had never had meatloaf before. Our family didn´t even eat meat, let alone a LOAF of meat. They couldn´t believe that I´d never had meatloaf, but they still graciously showed me how some people eat it with ketchup, and so on. I was amazed, and eternally changed. Traveling has been the same.

Ecuador!

Welcome Back to the Jungle!

We have arrived in the Amazon Basin, about 3 hours southeast of Quito, close to a town called Baeza. We are staying in a little hostel that Jordan and Randi are running called ¨The Magic Roundabout¨. It is amazing. We have llamas, chickens, and four waterfalls. It has been raining a lot but we keep ourselves busy by cooking delicious meals and joking all day long. Our window looks out onto rolling mountains covered in cloudforest, primary rainforests. We eat veggies from the garden and eat eggs from the chickens. We are totally in our element here. It is so nice to be back in the jungle but without the million degree weather.

I don´t have a ton of time, just wanted to say that we are safe and oh so happy. We will be watching the news really carefully!
If anyone is dying to talk to us, there is a cell phone here at the hostel, the number is 099345264. You´ll have to dial the country code for Ecuador first, though. I don´t know what it is. If it doesn´t work, try the number without the zero.

Okay, I think that´s it. We are so stoked to be enjoying another country with our great friends! Everyone go out and vote today!!!

Panimacac

Hello friends and family!

What a week! I spent four days in a small village called Panimacac. Me, Kari and Cali went to survey the families for an upcoming water project our volunteer place is going to do. We surveyed all 44 houses in the village and marked with a GPS all the points of separation in their water system. Basically, we did a ton of amazing work. Many of the families only have water a few hours every week. They have to make it last. The water system there is crazy. I can´t believe that any of the people have water. We will send a report to Engineers without Borders to see if they can help with the situation.

We stayed in their elementary school because it is the only building in their town that has a door that locks. Women from the village took turns bringing us three amazing meals a day. They always brought coke or ´coffee´ as well, which is really just brown sugar water. We would ask them all sorts of questions about their water system, their house, their health, etc. Then we would tell them about the trash bottles. Here at Long Way Home, they stuff all their trash into plastic soda bottles and then use them in construction. They have already built a house out of tires and trash, they are going to build a school. In return for help with their water system, the village needed to start putting all their trash into bottles. I somehow became the one who at each house would explain, in a very animated and Kaela-like manner, how to stuff the bottles really full and why we needed them. It was so funny. My Spanish is terrible, but with a lot of noises and hand motions and actions, I would explain everything. We also explained to them a new way to purify water. Keep in mind that maybe only half of these families spoke Spanish, the rest speak Qaachikal (I have no idea how to spell it). A guide from the village named Mercedes came with us everywhere and would help translate. Mostly we talked to the women, because the men were all working in their farms. It was amazing. By the end of the three days I knew everyone in the village. We had mapped every last inch, and had so many adventures. I wish I had time to recount them all, but we´re paying for internet. This is a picture of kids stuffing their trash into bottles for us. They would sometimes get really into it. They were very proud when their bottles were super compact. Usually they just throw all their trash in their yards or wherever. Many familes even burn their trash, all of it, even the plastic. Their ´stoves´are fire pits in their houses, no chimney, nothing. We explained how the fumes of the plastic burning in the fire was harmful for them to breathe. These kids are picking up trash from a huge pile of it that was in the school yard. The trash bottle project helps us and it helps them. It´s a pretty cool system.

This is in Panimacac. This guy on the left was really nice. He had one of the three flush toilets in the village, I think. It was red.

This is Mercedes, me, Kari, and Victor. Mercedes (on the left) was a huge joker and was cracking us up all day long. It made our days go by really quickly. Victor was the community´s health representative, helping children get vaccinated and such.

This is me and my friend Flor Sylvestre... that´s right, her name is basically Sylvester Flower. I thought it was hilarious. She was adorable and followed me everywhere and brought me jocote fruit everyday. Jocotes are these fruits that they grow there on trees. They taste kind of like mangoes, only different. They are about the size of a key lime.

This is a traditional weaver-woman, a tejadora. Lots of women in Panimacac weave, actually most of them do, but only some sell them in the markets.

The trip was so so so much fun. Jason stayed in Comalapa and worked, that was hard. But it was so good for me, I´m so happy I went. Everyone was sad when they found out that I would not be returning.

More news, we just bought our tickets to Ecuador. We are flying on November 2nd from Guatemala City to Quito. We will be meeting up with Jordan (one of Jason´s best friends) and his girlfriend Randi. They are running a hostel three hours south of Quito. So many many more adventures to come! We´ll be celebrating Jason´s birthday in Ecuador!

Jason writing: Hello, I am having a great time. Before I say more I wanted to quickly mention that with my birthday and holidays coming up if anyone wants to send us financial gifts the best and safest way to do it is to write a check made out to Jason or Kaela Asher then mail it to my Papa´s address, below, where it will then be deposited into our online account. He has the same online bank so it works out great.

Leonard Krause

PO Box 50755,

Eugene, Oregon 97405

Of course we do not expect anyone to send us anything.

I am doing good. I am really enjoying the good times with all the cool people we meet from around the world and surprisingly most of them are from The Great North West. This trip has been great for me and Kaela. I am learning more great things about her that I would not have in normal conditions back home. Like she is a work horse when she wants to be. She spent three hours yesterday washing clothes by hand. She can work a power drill very well in building a bamboo fence. I am learning a lot about myself as well. It has been a growth experience on all levels. Love you all and thanks once again for your comments. We love to read them. It means a lot.

Photos

Above is a picture of a coffee table in a very fun Hostel where Jason had a cup of joe and some time to read and reflect.

This is the church in Comalapa, the town where we are staying. They are in the process of painting it. This church is referred to as the Colonial church. There are other churches that they refer to as just normal churches. I love the weird statures that they put on their churches. The jaguars painted on the upper corners crack me up. This church is right next to the plaza where the market is held.

This is the view on the main street in Comalapa going away from the market. All the main streets are paved like this.

This is a view in town at the market. All the ladies sit with their various goods and us incredibly tall gringos have to bend down and talk with them and try and figure out with our limited spanish how much they´re charging and whether or not it´s a good deal. I love market day. We´ve gotten into a really good rhythm and now it only takes us a few minutes to go around to all the little stands and buy what we need. A lot of the ladies know us now and already know what we´re going to buy them. I have made a friend named Blanca. She is a single mom, she sells textiles and traditional clothes. She wanted me to teach her son english in return for her teaching me spanish. I wanted to do it, but we don´t have enough time. I will miss her smiling face on Sundays.

This is a photo of (L to R) Cali, Lars, Kari, me and Jason. Cali is from Wisconsin and is volunteering for a couple of months. One night she made delicious pasta primavera- DELISH!! She is a total crack up. Lars was here for a three months. He has since left. He is an ex peace corps guy in Guatemala. We had tons of fun with him. He is a major euchre player. We played a lot of Jenga, as well. He knows a lot of Big Lebowski quotes. Kari is next. She is from OSU, an intern here for 10 weeks for her Public Health program. She is really sweet and tons of fun. Then there´s me and Jason.

More about Guatemala

Just thought we´d fill you in a little more about what we´re doing down here.

We work about 40 hours a week on various projects around the park. Jason has mostly been doing masonry or odd jobs. Kaela has been gardening and working in the tree nursery. We work from around 8 to 4 or 5 and then have dinner. We play cards and shoot the sh*t. Sometimes (like last night) we get lucky and watch a movie. We watched Zohan- it wasn´t our favorite. Today we were supposed to start a new project inthe community. We are going to go to different villages with a GPS and map their water systems to try and help map the surrounding area´s water. We were supposed to do this huge hike to another village today but it is raining really hard and everything is all muddy, so we´ll stay in today. Hopefully we´ll start tomorrow.

Everyone here is super cool. There are 5 ex Peace Corps volunteers who still live here in Guatemala. There is also a girl from Portland interning here until December. Today another volunteer arrives.

Every week, usually Sundays, we go into Comalapa to the market to buy our food. The center of the town is completely covered with people selling all their random stuff. This is where we get all our veggies and food for the week. Most people are just selling the same stuff so you have to look around to get the best price and quality. It is so much fun. Our spanish is not that good, but it´s okay because most of these people speak Quechical (?) as their first language. They are learning spanish as well. So we all laugh and have a good time. Jason and I are usually the tallest people in the entire market. They make these little roofs over their stands with tarps and we usually have to crouch down just to fit under them. It is totally zany and fun. I wish they had markets like that in the states. We always buy our beans from the same old lady who is crouched next to the empanada stand who has only a few teeth left. I feel a strange connection to her. 5 Q for a pound of black beans, 7.7 Q to the dollar. Pretty good price.

We will stay here until the 3rd or 4th of November. Then we´re planning to head to Ecuador to stay at a hostel with Jordan and Randi. We will most likely be there for some months. We may end up running the hostel for a few months, the owners are not there right now. Once we know the address, we will let you all know so we can send postcards! Christmas in Ecuador. Weird.

Lovelovelove you all and thanks again for all your comments. They mean a lot.

Guatemala!

Working in the Vivero, the tree nursery. Luckily they had overalls and boots for me to wear!Us with our new friend Alex on Lake Peten. He is from Tacoma! We had a great time hanging out. He was even at TomFest the same year as I was!
A road in Flores.
The view of the garden and the vivero at Long Way Home.
Jason and I at Lake Atitlan, in San Marcos La Laguna.

We are having a great time in San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala! We work hard and play hard. Jason plays soccor and basketball after work most afternoons, and I am learning all sorts of new recipes. The other day I made unbelievable cinnamon rolls from SCRATCH! and baked them in an "oven" that is a pot on top of a propane stove! We are having such a good time. We miss family and friends so dearly! Our newest pastime is playing euchre (pronounced you ker), a card game that is all the rage here. All the volunteers play it every night.

We went last weekend to Lake Atitlan for a little vacay. We had the craziest bus rides. We can now say we experienced a real guatemalan traffic jam. A landslide had blocked the road. we waited for an hour, and then as soon as we were picking up speed to get out of the traffic jam, the transmission breaks down on our chicken bus and we have to flag down another! Whew! Que Adventura!

Love you all so much! Can´t wait to teach you all euchre!

The Last Chapter of Belize!

Our time at the STAND center is over. We are covered in bug bites and sweat but missing the friends we made already. .

While at the STAND center, Jason faced his two greatest challenges: painting and holding a baby. By the end of the three weeks, Kaela was killing spiders left and right. It is strange how quickly it becomes normal to swat away a spider that in the US would have made me scream bloody murder. A couple of night before we left there was a flash flood in the middle of the night that swept away tons of foliage and even a pair of jason's underwear. We woke up to the driveway turned into a creekbed. The time at the STAND center was amazing. We both feel incredibly empowered by our time there. We are excited for the next adventure. Hopefully it will be as good as this last one.

Here is Jason fording the river on our way out of the STAND center. We made the ten mile trek out of the jungle with our heavy packs on our backs. We forded a flowing river and are now in San Ignacio again. This is how Jason feels about the quash.
Jason holding baby Forest.
Kaela at the Cahal Pech Mayan ruins. It was awesome.
This picture was taken after Jason found out that the quash ate four out of the five baby chicks on the farm. He looks like 'Simple Jack.'

We leave tomorrow for Guatemala! We are going to another volunteer place called "Long Way Home". http://www.longwayhomeinc.org/index.htm

Hopefully we will be staying there for about a month, maybe more. We hear they have electricity- bonus!

The Rains have come to the Rainforest

We have now been at the farm for about two weeks. It has been raining really hard the last couple of days. The river is flooded sometimes and you can't leave the farm. The sound of the rain on our zinc roof is nearly deafening sometimes. This is how rain is supposed to be. Jason has killed three scorpions, one in our cabin, seen a huge tarantula and a snake. Luckily, I did not see the tarantula or the snake. But- we are both getting a lot better at the jungle life. I washed my clothes by hand the other day. It felt really good. There is this hand-churned washer thing that you plug with a candle- genius! I have been preparing and planting a garden while Jason has been renovating our cabin.

For the next two days we are staying in San Ignacio, a little town in the west, with some friends from the farm. We are trying to figure out what to do after we leave the farm.

Thank you so much for all the comments, they mean a lot. We can't believe we've only been gone 17 days. It feels like 2 months. Love you all so much.

PS: The quash is not cute. It bites your ankles and has eaten two of the baby chickens on the farm. It gets into everything and is like a rebellious teenager. Jason, of course, loves it.

Welcome to the Jungle

We have arrived at the STAND center! We are at a farm with no electricity, running water, or any other comfortable amenities! The first couple of days were really hard. We are now getting used to the farm life. Our schedule is kind of like this: 6 AM- wake up, make a fire for breakfast (we cook everything on fire) do some chores, make breakfast, eat, etc. By about 8 or 9 AM we are ready to really start working. Jason has been doing carpentry stuff around the farm. There are some termite issues in some of the wooden structures. We work for four hours until lunch. We cook lunch, clean up and then go to the river to cool off. Then we rest and/or do laundry and other chores until dinner. After dinner we're so exhausted we fall asleep around 9PM.

There are two dogs, a cat, some free-range chickens and the quash. The quash is somewhat like a raccoon with a long tail. He playfully attacks you when you're wearing sandals and gnaws at your feet. Jason of course loves it. We're thinking we'll stay here for two or three weeks more, and then- who knows! If you want to check out the farm, go to stand-center.com

Before we came to the farm, we got to see a Belizean Independance Day Parade/Carnival. That was pretty cool. Here are our new friends, Dan, Laura and Scott with Jason in a little store on Caye Caulker.

Here is the Belizean parade.
This is on the way to the farm.

The quash!