First week in La Y de la Laguna

We survived our first week in the village of La Y de la Laguna, or La Y for short (pronounced "La Yay"). This is where the health center is where Josh is volunteering. We traveled from Quito to the town of Quindide, then on to La Y. I will admit it took a bit of adjusting for me, but Owen seemed rather enthusiastic about being there! That, or else he was just happy to be done with the 7 hour journey required to get there.







The subcentro de salud (health center) where we worked and lived.




Ok, my computer won't let me arrange the order of the pictures, so here is what we did, in no particular order:

We played in the laguna. Well, at least Josh did. And he even let little fish nibble at him.

Josh and three other health center employees

View of the laguna from the back balcony of the health center. This was the sunniest day we had. It was usually cloudy, but not too hot and not too cold.

We spent lots of time hanging out in this hammock on the back balcony

We celebrated Halloween, even though nobody else knew why Owen was wearing a pumpkin hat.

No running water during the dry season, so we bathed out of buckets

In the main square of La Y

View of La Y from atop the water tower right by the health center. This is pretty much the entire village.

We made some new friends.

Our room. We sleep under mosquito nets.

The exam room in the clinic

More friends. Everyone loved Owen and everyone says he looks like a little doll.

We also ate some good food, along with some interesting foods. (Amy N., we were so excited to find Inca Kola!)


We enjoyed our time in La Y, it was quite an eye opening experience to see how the people here live. We were very happy to be back in Quito though, and we celebrated by going to Applebees. Thank goodness for American food! :)