Welcome back!

After returning to Ecuador I started on a new installment to my blog, which sat in the ¨needs to be edited¨ folder for about a month before I read it again and deleted everything. It's probably not a great time to be writing a new blog, since I am tired, frustrated, and feeling a little emotional drain, but it's been too long since my last entry, so here it is folks.
The nearly two months since you heard from me last have been perhaps the most fruitful, frustrating, yet rewarding since coming to Ecuador. In December I spent Christmas with my entire family (sans one), held the two week old baby girl of a long-time friend, ran the trails of dear Wilderness Park with the old crew, fed my cravings for the Oven (twice), Chipotle, and green salads, and saw my cat for perhaps the last time. And when it was all over boarding the plane to Ecuador was hard, but not as tough as the first time, since I knew exactly what awaited me upon my return (about twenty Ecuadorians eager to tear my suitcases apart for the American clothes and two butt-wagging mutts).
A week into returning to my mountain life my camera fried when I plugged it into a virus ridden computer. A trip to the local mall in Quito proved fruitless, since the one store that carried the chip I needed was out, and wouldnt't get a new shipment until February (which in Ecuador could mean March or April). So, sorry, but no new pics for awhile.
I received an unpleasant surprise when I checked out my school\¨house for the elderly¨ garden and found a cow and her frisky calf frolicking all over the cabbages, carrots, beans, onions...or what should have been the cabbages, carrots, beans, onions, etc. Apparently a neighbor thought the FENCED IN land would make a great place to house her cow`. It did, but the result was that it didn´t make it a great place to grow things. After throwing up an emergency fence around the garden and talking with the neighbor, we now have a promising crop of vegetables peeking through the soil (and plenty of manure should we want compost).
After sitting on the idea for several months, some prompting by the local librarian started me baking and selling chocolate chip cookies on the weekends. So far the local kids have retained their excitment for the endeavor, joining me Fridays and Saturdays to bake. Of course, the promise of dinner and licking the bowl and spoons when we're done could have something to do with their enthusiasm. We sell the cookies in Susanna's store, and donate the proceeds to the library.
A cardboard box placed in a school room and embellished with some signs and stickers means we have a crude recycling program started in Nono. Though the kids are just collecting plastic bottles, I'm hoping with time we can expand to cans and paper, and recruit the older generations to start collecting.
Finally, this past Friday the father of my landlady passed away from prostate cancer. The cancer was present since before I arrived in Nono, and the past seven months he exhibited a slow but steady decline in health. The last month he was completely bedridden, and poor Susanna worked double duty taking care of her store and her father. Cancer is not a merciful disease, and in the last week before his death it reduced him to a being of skin and bone, resembling more of a holocaust victim than the kind and vibrant man he used to be. All day Friday the family and friends accompanied his body while it rested in the community center, and when friends left for bed the family stayed, leaving only to prepare for the mass and burial in the morning. This morning Susanna opened the store as usual, and is back to selling choclos, habbas, and her famous aji. A day elapsed between death and burial, and though I wasn't close to the man I feel slightly dazed by the rapidity of it all.
So, there you have it. The trials and triumphs of my first month back. Here's to hoping future months hold the same productivity, but with less stress.