Saca mi punto por favor!

Week 12

21^st- 27^th November 2011

Another busy week! We have traveled to Quito and back for the monthly latin link prayer meeting, worked in the school and gone for a dip in yet another rio! The children have been learning fruit and veg in English and are getting very excited about Christmass as their classroom’s are getting covered in tinsel and decorations. We have officially become the saca mi punto team (pencil sharpener team) amongst the smaller children and the creater of ‘fun’ but educational games for the older children in English lessons. Robin’s favourite is to play a version of splat but using English words.

As usual the children were delightful if a little naughty at times. In p.e this week all the children were learning things about balance by trying to swing a hoop round their bodies or pushing it along the ground. Junior was running wild loving throwing his hoop, in particular at the poor man trying to deliver the clean water bottles to the school.  I have discovered that there is nothing the 3 year olds like better then getting tickled so most of the lunch breaks are spent tickling. Although these children are an absoloute delight they are also the givers of great gifts one of which I have managed to receive ……………….. nits. 

It was great to meet up with everyone in Quito and see how they are all doing.  Unfortunatly I had a stinking cold (along with an itchy head) so we didn’t stay in Quito a long time. 

Sunday our day of rest was interrupted by a trip to a local Rio with Carlos’s family who also brought things for cooking. The rio was fast flowing with rapids and plenty of places to jump in which delighted Robin and terrified me.  Enoah was as keen as always to get into the river and is getting stronger at swimming ……..with her arm bands on. Ceasar, Pati and Christian made a fire and with a huge pan cooked chicken and paticones (fried green bananas) my new Ecuadorian favourite. It was another fantastic day even though the mosquitos took a particular fondness to me!  

Check out our pictures of this week by clicking on this LINK.

This week please pray for our health and safety (boring but essential). Also please pray for continued good relations with Carlos’s family and the teachers and children at the school and compassion project. Finally for lower crime rates in Santo Domingo especially in the barrio’s. 

Mucho Amor de Ecuador xxx

A funny moment this week:

-        -  Ordering  ‘pasta’ with pork for lunch and getting  ‘pata’ a big pig trotter complete with nails intact on my plate. (Pata means foot)

-          -Spending 3 hours in the bathroom removing the nits from my hair!

We have a postal address if anyone wants to send us anything it’s:

Casilla 17-24-351,

Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas,

Ecuador

Always be prepared for your plans to change......

Week 11

14th-20th November 2011

Well this week has certainly been one full of surprises some good and some not so good ! The one thing I will take away from our time in Ecuador is that you never know where a day can take you.  From the pits of despair about having all our photos robbed from us to pure delight swimming in a Rio. This week Carlos’s family have really been a fantastic help to us from cooking us dinner and breakfast to taking us to the supermarket so we can buy some food of our own. 

But let’s step back a second. Before my rather energetic last post just after being mugged we had actually done a few things. On Monday the 14^th we were in school, our first lesson of the day is with 1^st Basica this class is full of lively little characters one of which struggles to sit down for longer than two seconds. I was really proud of robin as he specifically focused his time on this little chap who instead of getting no work done and distracting the whole class, actually managed to  copy the sentence from the board in joined up writing (no mean task when you are 5 years old).  Sometimes it can be a little dis-heartening being a missionary you never feel like you are doing enough or doing something so massively life changing that you know that you have transformed someone’s life forever. But I find that it is in these little helpfull moments when you know that flying half way round the world and taking 6 months out of normal life is worth it. Seeing a child who struggled all morning to write the letter E finally get it, or who can’t understand what a subtraction symbol means compared to addition and finally the light bulb goes on or hearing a three year old master the English word for 1. In previous posts I have been somewhat frustrated at the school and the poverty of the children’s families which has meant they haven’t been pushed or achieved as much as a student in England might have. But it is clear that without this school pupils like Melanie (a little girl who lives in the barrio) would never have attended school and would still be trapped in the cycle of poverty with no basic education. 

I for one am greatful for all the wonderful happy smiling faces of the children this week. If you ever need a cure for getting over the shock of being mugged these little chaps will do it. We went into school the day after being mugged (Wednesday 16^th ) we where greeted by Junior who came bounding up to us to give us a hug and get picked up. That morning we had witnessed a 16 year old boy being taken off by the police, he had been carrying a big knife and was one of the robbers from our attack. It was sad to think that these little children could ever end up in the same situation. 

On Saturday we had a great time at the compassion project helping give out food and hanging out with the older teenagers. The girls kindly took me under their wing and taught me some card games whilst robin played football with the boys.  The children who attend the project all come from the surrounding barrio’s.  The younger boys asked if Robin knew how to fight with a knife, or knew how to fire a gun and where surprised that he didn’t know how to. Violence and crime are so normal to these kids and it was clear to see by looking at the faces of some of the children that they could very easily follow in the footsteps of the robbers and get involved in crime. In that Saturday alone Robin had to break up 3 fights.     

But all is not doom and gloom! We have also had lots of fun this week with an impromptu trip to the rio (river) for a swim with Carlos’s family. Little Enoah (Caesar and Pati’s 2 year old daughter) nearly drowned herself in her eagerness to get into the rio she flung herself in even though she can’t swim. We have also got taken later that day to Katherine and Jonathon’s college fiesta where there was bands playing, dance groups, fireworks and the selection of the school queen (which involved many scantily clad 15 year olds strutting their stuff). On Sunday we got a late night surprise visit by Monica, Ricardo and Priscilla who took us out for an ice cream and to the cinema to see the new twilight film.

Check out our pictures of this week by clicking on this LINK and LINK 2.

Please pray this week for our safety and protection out here and for the children growing up in the barrio’s that they would be able to break out of the cycle of poverty and crime.

Love from Ecuador xxx

Other things that made us chuckle this week:

-        -  Robin going into a pharmacist and being told he has herpes (he doesn’t it was just a cut from a football smacking him in the mouth).

-         - Eating in a restaurant called ‘willys’ ………. Childish I know!

-          -Due to Monica and Ricardo’s impromptu visit I ended up going out wearing my pyjamas to an ice cream parlour and the cinema.

-          -Ceasar, Carlos and Christian’s rigged a number game so that the men could get out of doing the washing up.

A totally crap day!

We got mugged at gun point yesterday.  

We had just finished having lunch at a restaurant literally opposite Carlos and Caesar´s house. In the restaurant was a police man which turned out to be incredibly useful. Across the road is the Church we attend Assemblies de Dios and the area surrounding that side of the road is a Barrio where a few of the poor kids who attend the school live. We finished our meal and started to walk in to the town center ( a way we have walked everyday many many times) we had literally just crossed the road from the restaurant and were about to go round the corner when we got mugged. It all happened very quickly. Firstly I thought someone was pushing past us in a rush but when I turned my head to look there was suddenly a tall black man with a gun pointed at Robin´s head. I let out a involuntary scream of terror! Which I think scared them a bit as they backed off into the road. The gun was still pointed at Robin who was patting down his shorts and showing the robber that he didn´t have a mobile phone on him (which is what the robber was asking for). I turned round and had a small younger chap facing me who just yanked my bag of my shoulder and then they both ran off round the corner. Thankfully a friend of Caesar´s family Kevin who we both know was standing not to far away and saw the whole thing and very kindly took us both back to the restaurant and told the police man everything that had happened and got Caesar and Carlos. Kevin also recognised one of the robbers which is a useful lead. Caesar is good friends with the chief of police for Santo Domingo so they had quite a few police on the case and even a helicopter pretty quickly. But both the black guy and the young chap escaped on a motorbike. We were woken this morning by some police men who had caught the younger chap. It was really quite sad to be honest, he was only 16, his clothes were torn and he looked poor he was sat on the police motorbike in handcuffs. The police had just caught him in the Barrio with a massive knife on his person which just goes to show you never know what these people carry. Now the police have caught him and know who the other black guy is there may be some hope in recovering the usb although not much.

Caesar´s family have been very kind to us and last night took us for something to eat and even got us to drive their new car (I think they wanted to take our minds off of the mugging) and this morning they cooked us a breakfast and invited us over. They are also taking us to the supermarket later on which is where we were heading before the mugging.  We are both fine and neither of us are hurt which is the main thing, we have been told we are very fortunate that they did not hurt us as they could of.

The photos from the week 10 blog will be somewhat reduced as my usb got stolen which had all of the photos on of our time in Ecuador we now only have the ones left on the camera. So there are none of the school or the compassion project or sadly my chickens feet soup!

There is no need to worry, Carlos´s family are being very supportive and we are recovering well from the shock. I have to admit I feel much more wary about just walking down the road but Robin and I are enjoying our time out here and this one blip is not going to stop us from carrying on enjoying our time out here. We love the school, the compassion project, the kids. We are determined to carry on and everyone has supported us really well.

A bit of a low time at the moment but im sure spendng some time with the children at the school will cheer us both up.

If you could please pray for our safety and protection whilst we are out here that would be much appreciated!

Lots of love from both Robin and I
xxx

Back to school!

Week 10

6th- 13th November 2011

A fun packed week of excitable children, english lessons, fat lips and attending two fiesta´s in one day...again!We have more of a structured timetable at school now and help out in most english lessons and pe lessons as well as acting as a general teaching assistant which has helped us in preparing games/ songs/ worksheets for lessons. It has been interesting to see how the children build on the little english learnt aged 2-3 years (currently they are learning the numbers 6 & 7) to the standard of 11year olds (who are learning the names of the planets in the solar system). The folder our dear friend Holly gave us and other resources such as posters and cds have come in vbery useful in the lessons.We are enjoying being of use in the school and becoming better friends with Elizabeth the English teacher who is currently studying at university alongside working at the school. We have tried to help her with her English University work on linguistics but it has flummuxed both Robin and I.

We are also discovering more problems with the children advancing in their educations. The simple lack of a pencil or even pencil sharpener can leave a child sat twiddling their thumbs doing nothing for an entire lesson as they lack the basic equipment to write in their exercise books. The school does not provide pencils, pencil sharpeners or rubbers to the students if they have forgotten theirs or if their parents haven´t bought them any (which apparently is more likely). This has been highly frustrating for both Robin and I to see the children who are capable of working sat doing nothing so we have purchased some much needed items of equipment which we carry at all times in the school. A pencil, pencil sharpener and rubber which gaurantees that the few students who dont have the correct equipment in the lessons we attend can now participate.

On saturday we went to the Compassion project which had 200-300 children attending. They were incredibly friendly and Robin and I spent our time getting mobbed by young children asking us our names and endless questions as we got pulled this and way that. It was great fun as we played versions of football, volley ball and dodgeball in which I got a ball to the face! Bindi also acquired an injury when playing football with the older teenagers as he headed the ball and smacked his face into the back of one of the boys givign himself a fat lip! The children arrive at the compassion project at 8:15 in the morning and recieve breakfast and leave after lunch at rounghly 1pm. It was great to get stuck in and help in handing out the food and both Robin and I left totally exhausted but happy. The most amazing people at the Compassion project are the volunteers some of whom have been working their for the past 10 years giving their time freely to cook and wash up for 300 children every thurs, fri and saturday. No mean feat!

On Sunday we somehow found ourselves attending two fiestas. Carlos´s family where having a bbq complete with dance music and badminton. We were invited to come and it was great to feel part of their family. Carlos´s family have been very welcoming and kind to us here. Pati and Cesar have allowed us to borrow their camera until ours is fixed which has been fantastic as I can finally take some pictures of where we work and what we get up to. Later in the evening we went to Barrio de Naranjos where Robin and the step team had helped build the church. The church held a special service in honour of the step team and Robin returning to see them. It was great to meet Gabriel, Louis and their families. The ladies got rather excited by the fact that Robin has a wife so got me to dress up in the clothes of Quichuan women and declared that I was now a Ecuadorian woman. In the service we met two little girls who where named after Bethany and Kristen from the step team they were very cute! Robin gave a sermon in the church in spanish and got to meet Marianno and the two Pedro´s. We even visited the house the step team stayed in when they were here.

It has been a great week and we are really enjoying our time here in Ecuador. Please pray for inspiration for creating fun and useful games to help the children learn english and for good relationships with the teachers, students and children at the compassion project. Also please pray for our health and safety out here.

Check out pictures of Santo Domingo and the school by clicking on this LINK. (coming soon)
Check out pictures of the Compassion project by clicking on this LINK. (coming soon)
Check out pictures of Carlos´s family fiesta and the fiesta at Barrio de Naranjos by clicking on this LINK.

Lots of love from Ecuador xxx


Other things that brought us laughter this week:
- Never trust chicken soup you never know what part of the chiken you will get! To my delight this week I managed to get chickens feet in my soup complete with nails attached! Needless to say i did not take a nibble on it.
- The lovely children aged 3-4 years who thoroughly enjoyed our pencil sharpeners so much so that as soon as we sharpened them they snapped the nib off so we could sharpen it again!
-Bindi causing two Ecuadorian women to burst into laughter by nearly walking into a young boy who was weeing in the middle of the busy street.
- One of the children asking if I was Robin´s mum!! How old do I look??
- Eating bright blue bubblegum flavoured ice cream which tasted just as nutritious as it looked.
- Getting dressed up a Quichua woman. See pictures of Barrio de Naranjos.

¡Yo quiero ir nadando en el mar!....(I want to go swimming in the sea!)

Week 9

30th October- 5th November

Both the school and compassion project are shut this week for vacation which meant that we had a free week. We decided to spend it wisely at the beach in Puerto Lopez!

Puerto Lopez renowned in Ecuador for its proximity to the island 'Isla de la Plata' (also known as the poor man's galapagos). We had a great week we saw many blue footed boobies, swam with turtles, went snorkelling in a coral reef, saw some humpbacked whales, stumbled across a tarantula, walked in the dry forest, hung out on hammocks at the beach, got burned by the sun, lost a wedding ring, saved a washed up seahorse, spotted many exotic birds and finally bought a new wedding ring for $1.

For the birds lovers we saw many of these blue footed boobies:

Frigate birds, red headed vultures, pelicans, a harpy eagle, ornate hawk eagle, Ecuadorian Trogan, Western white-tailed trogan, collared trogan, a burrowing owl, numerous gauyaquil woodpeckers, lemon- rumped tanager, rufous tailed tyrant, southern beardless tyramulet, a white whiskered puffbird and a black headed toby flycatcher. The most beautiful birds were the red headed woodpeckers:

Also the exotically coloured trogans:

The area surrounding Puerto Lopez is part of the National Parque Machailla and encorporates 3 different types of  enviroment, dry forest, dry cloud forest and dry jungle. Which meant we got to see a lot of wild life!

We arrived on Saturday 29th in the evening after a long 8 hour bus journey but it was worth it when we got up the next day and had breakfast in a rickety bamboo cafe on stilts over looking the pacific ocean. The beach had lots of frigate birds and pelicans looking for their breakfast too. Our first day there was spent on a boat trip to the Isla de la plata, where to our delight we spotted the infamous blue footed booby with it's babies and were priviledged to watch one male do his mating dance to try and woe the lady. Watch these videos LINK 1 and LINK 2. It was the beginning of November but the sun was incredibly strong at 30-35 degrees!  After walking round part of the Island we headed back to the boat to eat our lunch and found to our delight 3 green turtles also having their lunch of some lettuce! Watch this video LINK 3 We then donned our swim suites and went snorkeling in the coral reef where Robin spotted one of the turtles and we got to swim along with him before he disappeared into the ocean. The coral reef was stunning and we got to see lots of beautiful fish such as angel fishes, globo fishes, pirate fish, trumpet fish and trigger fish. Like these:

Unfortunatly my camera which we had paid $65 to fix only worked for ten minutes before disallowing us to take anymore pictures but we did take a few films and a kind Ecuadorian couple took some pictures for us and have posted them on facebook. Check out the photos by clicking on this LINK.

After such an amazing start to the week we were even more delighted on monday when we went on a boat tour to Isla Salango to go fishing and snorkelling and I spotted a whale in the distance. The usual season for humpbacked whales in Puerto Lopez is June- September so we where amazingly blessed to spot two pods of humpbacked whales swimming along in the ocean. We managed to get so close that we could see there white bellies and their backs as they came up to release water and breath. Check out the videos LINK 4 and LINK 5!! After spotting the whales we had an unsuccesful fishing trip as both Robin and I got a bite but both of our strings broke as we tried to wheel the fish in! The snorkeling was good although it was a lot more murky and I had a sudden realisation that this was tiger shark territory and if there where whales about then the sharks could be lurking about waiting for a nibble to! Unfortunatly Robin lost his wedding ring when we went snorkelling and there was absoloutly no chance of finding it again. But he did also find a big bright blue starfish and pick it up and place it on my hand!

After so much adventure we decided to have a day of rest at Los Frailles beach. A beautiful place with clean white sands and aqua coloured water. Check out the video LINK 7 and LINK 8. We caught the bus there and went for a hike through the dry forest (see video). It was incredibly hot, none of the plants looked alive and we kept hearing wierd rustling noises as lizards ran about the place (there are also snakes there but thankfully they remained hidden). Check out the video LINK 6. On the beach there were lots of little orange crabs who timidly would poke their heads out of the sand and make a run for it into the sea but if anyone was going near them they would run as quickly as possible and dive back into their holes in the sand. Watch the VIDEO. We had a great time but I got completely roasted by the sun and turned a lovely shade of luminous pink even with sun cream on (applied several hours later in the day).

Another adventure filled day into the dry jungle of Parque Machailla to a place called Borro de Oro. We got up at 6am to be at the parque by 7 to begin our mamoth 6 hour walk in to the Jungle in search of monkeys and birds. The tour guide who had described the walk as easy and not very long had clearly never been on the tour or was slightly insane as we sweated and climbed up mountains, crossed streams, muddy bogs and tried to climb down hills that were completely parched. Even though I would not recommend going on a 6 hour tek in the jungle with both of your legs covered in sunburn the expereince was rewarding as we got to see lots of plants used for medicinal purposes such as bad stomachs, circulation, fertility, swelling and randomly gonorrhea! We also spotted lots of brightly coloured birds and even some squids and  crabs. Unfortunatly we did not get to see the monkeys, we did hear the howler monkeys and had the joy of smelling and seeing their poo but alas no monkeys! Ou guide tried his best to find us some as he machetied his way through the jungle off the beaten track as Robin and I followed. As we where hacking are way through the jungle our guide spotted a giant tarantula which crossed our path! I was terrified but Robin was fascinated and took this video LINK 9! Apparently it was a jumping tarantula and could be potentially very dangerous. This brought me no comfort as we carried on walking in tarantula infested jungle.

After the high energy adrenaline filled jungle tour the final day of our stay was spent chilling out on hammocks at the beach in puerto lopez drinking delicious fruit milkshakes and reading our books before heading back to Santo Domingo. See video LINK 10.

We had a truly fantastic week! Please pray as we settle back in to school life that we will find ways to be of use to the school in a productive manner.

Mucho amor de Ecuador! xxx

Merengue Bailar!

Week 8

24th October- 29th October 2011

This week, working with the children in the school and compassion project has been the bigget highlight by far. It has also been a somewhat sweaty week as both Robin and myself have visited the gym (which is remarkable as I never attend the gym back home ...... even with a membership)! We have also attended a fiesta for Carlos´s son who has returned home from Spain and gone up to Quito for the monthly prayer meeting.

We are beginning to understand the complexity of the issues surrounding the children´s abilities and there attendence at school. As we have been observing the classes it is clear to see that one class in particular which has the largest number of students is struggling. This week has been exam week for the children and it has been fascinating to see the massive differentiation between some students. In this one particular class there is an incredibly bright intelligent 5 year old girl who sits there and finishes her exams within 15-20 minutes and gets all of the answers correct whereas other students in the class can not even read  or do addition or subtraction so can not answer any questions. Robin and I ended up teaching/ helping the ones who where struggling in their tests so that they could answer the questions. When I asked the teacher why there is such a wide range of abilties she informed me that some children's parents don´t think that education is important so won't send there children into school for weeks at a time leaving massive gaps in their education. No wonder there is such a difference of ability. It was also quite sad to see that those students who came from a poor background or whose parent's didn't support there education as much lacked the equipment necessary for school such as pens, pencils, exercise books etc. Sadly this meant that the students just had to sit in the class and do nothing which obviously caused massive distractions to the others who at the best of times are easily distractable. The children's backgrounds are mixed, some come from well adjusted homes whereas others come from homes with no parents, who live in the local barrio and are incredibly poor. This has meant that some students have alot of issues, attention seeking, anger, apathy and fighting. Although this hasn't stopped them from being very loving towards us. We have deffinitly made some new friends at the school. Robin in particualr has a new friend called David, a 3 year old boy, who spotted Robin leaning over the banister looking down at the play area/ courtyard and shrieked with delight pointing up at him and then came running up the stairs to greet him and get a hug!

We had a baptism of fire at the 'Compassion project' as we sat down and joined the kids to see what they would be doing on thursday afternoon only to discover that we were going to be giving an impromptu english lesson. We managed to wing it teaching them greetings and the alphabet mixed in with some fun and ever so slightly competitive games. The children at the compassion project are full of life, very loud and bubbly with lots of energy to boot. They are also some of the poorest children I have seen. There clothes are often incredibly dirty, wripped and falling apart. It is clear that without the compassion project to go along to, where the children get fed and have some space to do there work and to learn, they would just be hanging around the local barrio municipal with no supervision and possibly getting up to mischief.  Although the impromptu English lesson was scary it was also a great way to break the ice and get chatting to lots of different kids. We hope to build on our relationships with the kids in the next few months.

I know some of you may have been shocked to hear that I have actually attended a gym but I am sane and well and the expereience of attending a females only gym in Ecuador was well worth the small droplets of persperation. The female only gym which as soon as I walked through the door it was clear to see was not a females only gym had posters plastered all over the walls of disgusting overly muscular men doused in baby oil and wearing a tiny thong the women´s posters are not much better! Inspirational I think not! I attended the gym with Monica whose wedding is on the 10th December. We were going to the dance aerobics session which was merengue mixed with zumba. Easy thought I who had attended one english version of a zumba class ........ clearly not, after the instructor came over to me and told me that I danced like I needed the toilet! The instructor himself was somewhat of a character he gave no instructions but instead expected you to follow the leader and spent most of his time looking at himself in the mirror rubbing, thrusting and winking at his own reflection! If you would liek to picture the scene just imagine how the girls dance in the programme 'My big fat gypsy wedding' and you will have some idea.

On friday we headed up to Quito with Katy for the monthly meeting which was being held at Lizzi's apartment. It was great to see everyone and catch up on what had been going on.

The school and compassion project are on holiday this coming week so we are hoping to go to Puerto Lopez the poor man's galapagos for the week.

Please pray for stronger relationships with the children in  the school and compassion project and the staff members. Also for good communication with the english teacher so we know what to prepare for lessons and when they will be.

Other highlights this week:
- Somehow ordering chicken's stomach soup! Pretty gross with bits of intestine floating in the water.
- The wonderful 2 year old grandaughter of Carlos who enjoyed trying to ride the massive rockwheiler dog, pretending to cook seeds and showing me a furniture magazine and pointing out which things she liked. (She is very cute)
-Amy´s parents coming over to visit her and bringing some cadburys chocolate for us to eat!!!

The camera is still broken but I managed to get these pics of the very small 3 year old class LINK