La Playa!

We spent today on the beach at Salinas, which is kind of a tourist city. It was really fun to play in the warm ocean. The only problem with visiting the beach on the equator was that I got completely fried by the sun.

Just like home!

This house even has a white picket fence! No matter how poor you are, you can still make your house clean and pretty. These people do the best they can with what they have.

Many of them paint their houses to make them brighter and more attractive. This is where my sister, Katy would live in this town. The house is bright green, although that didn't completely come across in the picture.

Some Similarities to our community...

This may be a poor community, but they have many things in common with us. For example, people still have flowers to make their yards more beautiful...

Un Dia en la Comunidad

This is basically what the houses look like in the communities we are going into on the outskirts of the city. Dirt streets, no running water, no indoor plumbing. Most of the houses are built on stilts because there is a major problem with flooding in the rainy season. There are still swamps everywhere. Not exactly the kind of place where most of us would want to place our summer homes.

Temple Night!

This was one of the most amazing experiences I have had so far here in Ecuador. We spent our Thursday night at the Guayaquil temple. The temple is a beautiful, clean, peaceful refuge from the dirty, smelly, suffering city. I was very grateful to be able to spend an evening there.

May 7th

Visiting some kids playing behind the school where I was taking measurements of children. They aren't so different from American children. They have fun with the things that are available to them. In this case, it was building things out of bamboo.