The Gang Gives Back

I've made up my mind, I love it here. I love the people, the profs, the program and the ideals. Here's what happened today: we were given all of our assignments. We only have a few but they are all several weeks long. For starters we have to write a grant proposal, which we then summit to local agencies. Various grant requests come from rural organic farms, women;s justice programs, reforestation and conservation programs. We have the potential to make a difference. There are so many little problems that could be resolved so easily if there was only alittle more funding. That's where we come in. One of the programs biggest goals is to give back to the community in Ecuador for giving us an incredible semester.
Along the same lines, our second long term project is a sustainably project. We were divided into groups and given a list of potential ways to lower this program's carbon footprint both here in ecuador at the experiemento (our classroom and headquarters) and for SIT in general. Different groups include: an energy audit group, a composting and recycling group (there is no recycling in Quito), a rooftop garden team, a gray water return (recycling water to water plants and use in toliets) and an environment education group. There are also two people working with our academic directors (Sylvia y Xavier) to decrease the carbon footprint and find ways to give back to our local communities on a much broader scale. Our program leads SIT in its 70+ programs as being the most environmentally responsible. For example, tomorrow we are planting trees in a reforestation area to helo offset the fuel we used in our flight here. We will be doing similar projects throughout the team to make ourselves carbon neutral. Anyways, we also have two sustainablity coordinators, who oversee the projects, work on a comprehensive plan, help out where needed, find contacts and pass the unfinished projects onto next semesters students. (not to brag, but I'm a coordinator)
In addition to this two programs we have two more sciencey projects: A field investigation project and our independant study project. More on these later...
Finally we all took salsa lessons today, I was terrible. Tomorrow we are off to Bosque Andino Preserve.
Miss you all.
On an unrelated note, my name down here has officially been changed to Theodoro or Teo for short. My professor thought that Teddy and Theodore would be too difficult for Ecuadorian to say.
But seriously, I miss you all
Teo