Checking the specs on the enlign

It has been brought to my attention that this blog has been more of a chronicle of the predators in my garden than a detailed account of my experience as a Peace Corps volunteer and the things that I am doing.

While the garden is part of what I am doing, I am involved in several other projects.

One of them, for example, is the community bank I am starting in a community of 30 families about an hour away from where I live. There is no bus route to this town, so we have to rely on the municipality's resources for mobilization.

(Peace Corps has adapted a model for a community bank that is based off the idea of microfinance and microcredit that Mohammed Yunis developed)

To describe the municipality's fleet of vehicles as past their prime would be an accurate statement. The gem of the corps is "The New Chispita," which translates to "the new spark" ("the new" being English and not requiring translation). I don't really know what year the Chispita was made or what brand it is. I contend that it is a brand in and of itself and that it might have been one of the things that was created between the sixth and seventh day of creation (Pirke Avot simply omitted the Chispita).

Some would say that the Chispita defies science. I would contend that science defies the Chispita.

Well, either way, it's a good time. Last night, as we are returning from the community bank meeting and heading up a hill on the highway, the Chispita gives out. It simply couldn't do it.

So we pulled over to the side of the road to inspect the problem. And here is a photo of me checking the specs on the enlign for the rotary gerter. That line, from my favorite film, is the depth and breadth of my car knowledge.



To make a long, and fun, story short, we finally made it back home at 10:45, when we should have gotten back around 8:00. After the car didn't make it up the first time, we decided to give it another go. After that didn't work, we relied on gravity to take us down to the town at the bottom of the hill, where we called for help (no cell reception) and left the car for the night.

The night involved us eating some horrendous bread for dinner, me being freaked out by a barking dog, and three games of Casino (Ecuadorian rules are slightly different than what Grandma and Papa taught me, but the spirit of competition here is just as intense).