Happy Manna-versary

It's been a year! We are in a season of a lot of goodbyes and one very exciting hello.

Yesterday was our last Adult English class. We had a party with our students, and Krysta and I stayed at the library with them until almost 9pm. We had a TON of food, music, a little English, and a lot of laughter. We have been with most of our students since January and a couple since last year. They have such excitement for learning English, and they have spoiled us with gifts for "Teacher Day", "Women's Day", "Easter", and any other holiday for that matter. They also taught me so much about Ecuador, Ecuadorian culture, and Spanish throughout the past year. We said our goodbyes and had quite the photo shoot. I hope these adults stop by the library to say hi throughout the next month. They are wonderful students and friends. Through this experience, I've learned how to be a teacher and how education is the key to development. Through education, these community members have so many more opportunities available to them and they are empowered to seek out the best for themselves and their familes.

Tomorrow will be the end of summer volunteers. We will say farewell to our 11 new friends, and step back to see how much they've helped us during the last 2 months. They worked to bring in new faces to the library... helping us reach record-breaking attendance! They encouraged kids to read through the Summer Reading Club and Literacy Class. They helped run classes and got to experience life in the realm of "Community Development". We've enjoyed their company, loud sing-a-longs, lesson-planning help, and shared love of ice cream.

With bittersweet farewells comes an exciting start of a journey. A year ago, we were all in Miami for new PD orientation. Now, the Ecuador 2010-2011 PDs are currently in Miami and will arrive in Quito on Saturday. Unfortunately, we will be in Colombia for the weekend (we have to leave the country to renew our visas), but we look forward to meeting the newbies when we return on Tuesday!

A 19,000 Word Blog Post

This is a beautiful country. This post is a collection of pictures taken recently. Enjoy the scenes and the stories they have to tell!

All Kinds of Busy

Here's an update of the last couple of weeks:

We've had summer volunteers here for about 3 weeks now. They've been helping with programs and have done some projects of their own. One exciting contribution is that we now have a reading club at the library. When kids read a book and do a mini book report, they earn a "piece" of an ice cream sundae. They put a construction paper banana or scoop of ice cream on the wall, and once they complete the sundae (8 pieces), they earn an ice cream. It's encouraged kids to read and take books home at the end of the day. They've also worked to improve our programs and have lesson planned for different classes.

On the weekends, the volunteers have done some traveling in this gorgeous country. Two weekends ago, I helped lead their trip to Banos. Banos is what we call a "transitional forest" (on the border between the rain forest and the cloud forest). There we mountain biked, rappelled through water falls, had massages, took a swim in thermal baths, and went 4-wheeling. It was an adventurous weekend, and I'm glad we got to make it to Banos before Tungarahua started erupting (Banos is at the base of a volcano that started erupting 2 days after we left).

Dr. Escobar, the doctor who I shadow on Tuesdays, has asked Krysta and I to attend a couple of the Diabetes Club meetings throughout the year. He has a club of a couple hundred diabetes patients that meets on Friday mornings to discuss different relavent topics, to get their glucose levels checked, and to meet as a support group. We just attended the (belated) Mother's Day Celebration. Dr. Escobar talked with me about the possibility of offering exercise classes for the club, and we are now in the process of setting that up. I think this is an awesome opportunity and I hope that these classes will be up and running before I leave.

Diabetes Club

Last Friday, our 6th graders at Alinambi gave interviews to local tiendas to ask about the nutritional value of what they sell and how that affects the health of the community. Some of them were shy, but for the most part, I was really impressed with their journalism skills.

They look thrilled, don't they

The Summer Vols Have Landed

For the next 2 months, we will have a full house with 10 extra volunteers here. They are helping us with existing programs and even starting some new ones. There are 2 one-month sessions with 10 volunteers in each session (3 of the 10 will be here for both sessions). This weekend we have been going around with them as they get aquainted with Quito and the valley we call home. It's exciting to have new faces and fresh ideas in the house, but 20 mouths to feed and constant shannanigans has made life here crazier than ever.

Today we also had our last soccer game of the year (tear). It was quite the battle. Krysta, Sarah, and I were all bleeding, Krysta got a black eye and chipped her tooth, and Sarah was covered from head to toe in dirt. Can't say we went out without a fight!

Fierce