Beneath the Aqua Duct and Behind the Walls

There are some amazing surprises here. One of our favorite places to go on Sunday morning is the Starbucks which is located in the shadow of the ancient aqua-duct. At night it is spot-lighted, and in the day it is extraordinary.

The second thing is what you don't get to see behind the wall. The sidewalks come right up to the walls surrounding the houses. Occasionally we have gotten a glimpse of what is behind those walls when the gates are open. We have seen tiled garage floors, beautiful gardens and lovely homes.

Last weekend we traveled to the area where we will spend at least the first month after we are sworn in.We had a new alarm clock for being awakened each morning. We were used to the birds singing, but over the weekend the birds were joined by roosters and “roof dogs”. It was a cacophony of noise!

It is a nice city with some interesting historic sights. Near by is The Jardin Botanica which is inside the Reserva de la Biosfere and is an amazing cactus garden.

The cacti are huge and look like needles arising from a pincushion.

See Roger?

Could this be home?
After a month in the district office we will be moved to another more rural site which may well be very remote! One of the possible communities appears to be about 4 miles on a gravel road to get to a main highway....hummmm....could be interesting for transportation. When we left for the visit, we thought language would be our hardest challenge, now we are thinking transportation will be the biggest challenge! We have thought all along that if we didn't learn Spanish well enough, we might be cleaning bathrooms...looks like that may still be a reality.We were shown the office where there are 2 bedrooms and a half bath. HOWEVER the bathroom is used by the office too....not planning to clean the office bathroom! Time to LEARN that Spanish!
Monday we travel as a group of 10 volunteers and 6 staff to a small pueblo in the reserve for a field project. We will be staying in cabins, being fed by the local community and visiting with the residents about their hopes. There's more to come so stay tuned.....