Monkeys and Keyboards?

A trip to the internet is always welcome. Our home is right at the end of a very badly beaten track, so Buenos Aires, collection of shoe shops around a dusty bus station that it is, seems like a vibrant bustling metropolis. More importantly there are far fewer insects here! I had to remove a scorpion from the wall in my room last night before I went to bed. It probably wont kill you but "¡Se duele mucho! Hmm ugly arachnids as you can see! I am going to transcribe a little here from my ink and paper diary, a bit about the project and how we have been feeling and getting on with the whole thing: Initally it seemed very disorganised as we arrived and there was noone here -bar our host families, who have no involvement other than putting us up, and Sara, who has been out here volunteering since the summer- to introduce us to our work. In addition to the rain that really left us with very little to do. All of us as people who had joined the project to learn new skills, with a view to c...

Life out here has settled down to a a fairly simple routine now. We are doing alot of digging and planting, chopping and shaping. We built a bridge in the village this week too which was really satisfying. Brute force and determination is in abundance among the locals, and a little is rubbing off on me. I think its partly all the insect bites, anaesthetising me against the world... they are getting better now as I learn how to keep moving just enough to keep them off, and not to be shy with the chemical repellant for trips into the jungle. I feel like part of the family where I am staying too, playing with the kids, and chatting to the parents in ever (slowly) improving Spanish in the evenings. I have been tasting, smelling, seeing, feeling and hearing everything with my senses wide open and with as little prejudice as I can. There are some wonderful things around... surprises of allsorts, from humming birds to flocks of parrots, to bizarre grubs appearing out of the earth we are diggi...

Hey hey folks.... Lots to tell seeing I have been here less than a week so far.... I'll skip all the dull stuff about cramped flights and so on, bar the fact that I had to catch a 4wd bus, at 6 this morning with about a hundred other people to spend 2 hours bouncing along rain washed muddy tracks to the nearest town -The positively bustling metropolis(!) of Buenos Aires- with internet... (it's not that bad really, just don't expect regular reports... oh and the nearest post office is here aswell,closed today!!!) So as you can imagine up in the village of Boruka where I am staying life is quite rustic. I am live with a family of four in their house, a pleasant room of my own and a thatched cabana outside where the cooking is done by Louisa over a wood fire, and I sit in the hammok in the evenings with my book watching the vampire bats flutter round me. The people here are so nice, really. I have been just accepted into the family as one of them I feel... sent next door to pi...