The jungle continues its stately ebb and flow with few variations on a theme. Unlike North America, which just six short months ago was suffering from a historic deep freeze, has now recently suffered a debilitating heat wave! I always found that a wee bit schizophrenic and constantly needed to know what to wear each day--but here things are just the same most days. The river is quickly receding and it takes longer to climb up steps and hills in order to arrive at communities but residents carrying on--whether in flood stage or dry season, they roll with it all!

June found me very busy with service projects and other donor groups. As I had mentioned earlier, we have a donor out of Denver who funded a pilot project to install individual water systems in jungle homes. This was accomplished in April and the donor arrived in June to see the results. We had a great visit, the feedback from residents was very positive, and our donor shows strong signs of continuing his help with more mini-water treatment systems. We are considering the idea of installing them in classrooms, especially for smaller communities where there is no clean water system. When I’m in Denver this fall, I’ll be speaking to my donor’s church congregation with more details. This should be fun and the best part of my job—when I get to talk!! CONAPAC also hosted the annual water project review where a third party comes in and evaluates our systems. Our partnership with the University of Colorado, Boulder, has proven to be invaluable in accessing the effectiveness of our water program. Four grad students and their professor were here for a month making many visits to our communities and executing in-depth interviews with the residents. We are eagerly awaiting their final and full report sometime in August but preliminarily, we have been encouraged by the anecdotal observations which the team made before departing. However, as always, we still look forward to more suggestions for improvement!

July brought changes as CONAPAC took over the CCC Amazon Library, adding one more major project to the CONAPAC family. Started 13 years ago by Dr Nancy Dunn, the library boasts over 4,000 titles, computers, music programs, and after school instruction. There is a second branch in a community down river about 30 minutes so things are growing and we hope to add more branches soon. Dr. Dunn decided it was time to move on in her life so she gave CONAPAC the library as a gift and we have now taken full responsibility to keep it running. Megan Thomas, a former Peace Corps volunteer, who also originates from Michigan, has taken the reins and the transition is complete. In July we hosted our first Rotary water workshop. CONAPAC’s reputation for education has spread and although Rotary International does a great job building water treatment plants, they don’t have an education piece. We were hired to facilitate the first one in the jungle. It went very well and we expect to be doing more very soon. Also, in July I had the honor of a visit from one of our most committed water project donors—Janice Lee, who is the Director of the SAGA Charitable Trust from the UK. Janice’s organization has consistently funded more water projects for CONAPAC than any other entity. She was here 2 ½ year ago and thought it was time to return and see the work we are doing. She and I made several community visits and we both had a chance to really chat with folks and hear their feedback about the value of drinking clean water. Overall, a very positive and productive visit! And finally, the 28th of July was the 190th year of independence for Peru from Spain and Inauguration Day for a new president, Ollanta Humala. Peru continues to show strong economic growth and the citizens expect no less from their new president. Folks out there in the West, it’s a great time to visit Peru. If it’s not on our radar screen, it should be! And, as always, if you want a highly personalized, behind the scenes visit to the jungle and jungle communities, I’m here to be your guide!!

In Iquitos, the truly crazy process of installing a city-wide waste disposal treatment system continues. I suppose there’s some method to their madness but thus far I’ve not figured it out. Streets seem to be closed a random, but barely. Gaping holes are left for days; piles of sand and dirt are in a crazy patch work of locations; the workers make huge cement pipe transitions right in the street where they’re working; then bulldozers and backhoes freely go to work around motorcars, buses, trucks, cars and pedestrians—all of which have to jockey for an opening in which to cross the street or continue on. Western attorneys would have a field day with these non-safety minded workers and their bosses. However, somehow in Iquitos it all works as do so many other seemingly incongruent activities of everyday life. Hmmm—solution? Well, when in doubt, a cold beer!

So, this current phase of my time in Peru is quickly coming to a close. In a little over three weeks, I'll be on my way to Sydney, Perth and Cairns, Australia followed by my return to the US, mainly Michigan and Colorado. My time in Peru has been priceless and I have no regrets about the various choices I've made and the time spent in this beautiful land. Since I'll be returning here in December to continue the work I stated three years ago, I'm not leaving on any kind of bittersweet note. This is pleasing and I'm thrilled to know I'll be home again soon—namely Iquitos, Peru! But it's now time to re-connect with my family--especially Erin, Samantha and Jack--and my incredibly supportive network of friends. It's amazing how small the world really is. Email, Facebook and Skype have made my time away seem more like a trip across the country than to another hemisphere. And then there's James in Australia who has been patiently waiting five months for us to see each other again! Without technology this long distance relationship would be unlikely but with it the world is a smaller place and I'm taking full advantage of its many little joys. So watch for my postings on FB--once the TSA lets me back in the US of A--and let's make some dates to get together. I look forward to seeing each of you very soon!