…in both English and Spanish.
Check out some cool maps of Caimito.
…more links are coming soon.

Dimas with a huge yellow tail.

we published some more photos in our flickr album. they are from our last trip to Caimito this August.

Caimito was beautiful as always! One day Dimas brought a huge yellow tail and dona Maria gave some to us.
On the beach this time the rocks were completely exposed because of the low tide and it looked very surreal.

we had a wonderful time!

… And now we proudly present Caimito photo album!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35154163@N00/sets/72157594192809574/

Click here to see these photos on the world map.

Please, feel free to comment

OK, Wow, about a week ago, my friend Paul Sevilla and myself took a little trip to The Ministry of the Environment and INDA and through some creative administrative processes and a gentlemen giving us some “consulting” we were able to begin the process of gaining protected status for the land in montecaimito. Yowzer! So we are expecting that in 1 - 2 weeks the process will be complete and the land will be protected (even though protection only goes as far as the regulations are enforced). So I would expect that considering the culture in Latin America, it will probably be 4 - 6 weeks. But no matter, the process should be completed either way before Leyla and I return to the States. Pretty cool.

Now that this is out of the way, we can start focusing on building a well out in the community. I have a feeling that this is going to be one hell of a process and we honestly do not know what we are doing at this pont. But we will learn. I suppose that one of the first things that we need to do is contact a well-engineer here in Quito and get some advice on what we are going to do. We will also need info on maintenance costs. There are also a number of social issues with which we are going to have to grapple. Things like security, jealousy from adjacent communities, etc. If the situation were not so dire (there has been a drought for two years now) then we would probably try and create a way for the community to build the well for itself that would be something the adjacent communities could copy thereby hopefully mitigating some jealousy issues. But alas, the situation is so bad that immediate action needs to be taken and we do not have time to wait and see if the community can pull together on this as a project.

Below are some pics from the community.

This is a picture of the community leader, Dimas. He is a cocoa farmer among other things. He is holding a python he just killed. I am not sure how I feel about this, but the snakes are considered dangerous (I do not know if this is true) so the locals kill them. the same goes for the moray eels. yes there are moray eels in and around the rocks just off the coastline of our property.

OK, I am on the plane writing this first blog entry for our trip. trip? Oh, I did not mention the trip yet, sorry. OK, lets go back a little. My wife and I are going to be spending two months in South America, mostly in Ecuador. Now before anyone goes and gets jealous that we are able to take off for 8 weeks, you should understand that we will not be vacationing (ok maybe a little in august), we are going to be working for ManyOne networks.

http://www.manyone.net

yep, that is right we will be doing our web dev from Ecuador/ South America. OK, now you can get jealous.

We will be building / enhancing the content delivery system for the digital universe:

http://www.digitaluniverse.net

it is an interesting “web 2.0 app” in that most of the app logic is in javascript in the client, not on the server like most web apps. The server exists to provide XML fragments and documents as the client needs them. It is really just a dumb doc server . but i digress… ok, now on to more personal stuff.

so I guess the next question would be “ummm, why did you go to South America?”. Good question, thanks for asking. Well, my wife and I have a sustainable community project on the Esmeraldas coast. You can read the crappy old website here:

http://www.montecaimito.org

We will be creating a non-crappy website and launching it while we are in Ecuador

So basically here are the goals while we are here:

1) Obtain protected status for montecaimito’s land - recently the land was declared as INDA land. That means the land is protected and trees cannot be removed. It also means that a tree’s worth of paperwork must be done before we are granted protected status for the land.

2) Build a stable well for the montecaimito commuity. Even though it is a rainforest, there are still water problems. It is theorized that this is because huge swaths of the forest to the north and the south of montecaimito have been completely destroyed (clear cut) and it is having a negative impact on the local weather patterns. Montecaimito is a special place and has a micro climate that is ~ 10 degrees cooler than the surrounding areas but that is starting to change. more on that later

3) launch the new and improved website for Montecaimito.

4) hopefully start an eco-tourism project that will increase the awareness of the Montecaimito area.

Ok, i think that list is ambitious enough especially as we will be committing 40 / week to ManyOne. If anyone has any feedback / suggestions / comments please tell us, even negative comments are welcome.