The plan

So here is the plan for our time in Ecuador...  After the initial month of Spanish school in Quito, we plan to travel down to the small town of Guadalupe in the province of Zamora-Chinchipe in Ecuador.  There, I (Kate) will be volunteering in the Clinica Misional at the Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe mission.  I am a family physician, and I will be spending my days taking care of the local folk who, it is reported, sometimes travel for hours to get to the clinic to be seen.  Guadalupe is a very small town in southeastern Ecuador, in a climate area known as the cloud forest.  If you "Google Earth" the town, here is what you see:

You see the mission (La Mision) on the left, and the town on the right across the river.  There are two bridges connecting the mission and the town.  We will be living right across the river from the mission in an apartment that is provided to us by the clinic staff.  It's a small town, as you can see, and the kids will be going to the local public school (entirely in Spanish -- hence the month of formal language instruction before school begins!).  John, who is a social worker by training, will do a "needs assessment" once we get there, and find something meaningful to do.  I suspect the sisters will find a way to put him to work...