One Week In

We have just finished our first week as volunteers.  Steve spent most of the week working on upgrading computers in the school.  They date from 2008 to 2006, so they are in dire need of upgrades.  There are 13 working out of 27, so there is a lot to do.  One problem is that the satellite internet connection at the school is slow and downloading upgrades is quite a challenge.   

 Heather spent her time in the classroom observing and jumping in occasionally to provide native pronunciation or to check notebooks.  She will begin co-teaching next week.  The lower school has very few students. These students are from our village. Classes have as few as 7-10 students, whereas the middle school has classes as large as 33. 

Students come from small communities up to three hours away to attend grades 7-9.  Some walk for hours to arrive to the school.  The school has an internado which is a boarding school for these students. This consists of two large rooms with bunk beds.  There are about 30 boys in one and 20 girls in the other. There is a single light in each large room and a couple of long tables for studying. School begins at 11:30 a.m. on Monday and finishes at 12 p.m. on Friday.  Students then spend 3 nights at their respective homes.

Saturday morning was spent helping our host parents cook for 60 people. The World Bank and a number of environmental groups came to see how their money was spent in agricultural projects in the area. We prepared arroz con pollo, potato salad and fried plantains.  We also made a drink known as chicha from fresh pineapples.  Fortunately we had help!  Here are some photos.

Elias and Denis chop green peppers

Arroz con Pollo for 60? No problem.

 

Heather chops pineapples for the chicha

Later in the day we attended a 1^st birthday party for a neighbor’s grandchild.   Our host mom Odilia once again did a wonderful job baking the birthday cake.

Odilia works her magic

 Here is a cake she made last week.  She could easily turn professional!

Another masterpiece - delicious too!

Here are the proud parents and the child.

Juan, Luisa and Elizabeth

 The kids had fun with the piñata but were surprised to find a shower of flour on them when the piñata broke open!

Swinging at the piñata

Candies and flour!

Sunday we finally got a chance to make our granola, which has been a staple of the Bailey diet for the past 35 years.  We added a new twist this time.  Instead of using grated coconut out of a bag (which we couldn’t find in the supermarket in the city), Steve grated a fresh coconut using a clever device which is essentially a sharp rounded blade attached to a piece of wood which he sat on.  It worked really well!

Steve grating the coconut

The proud cook!

 There is never a shortage of bananas around our house.  The little ones at the bottom have a taste of apple in them.  You can fry the green ones - they taste like French fries.

Bananas galore!

Our neighbors raise pigs in their back yard.

There are 17 of these guys around somewhere...

 

Here is one picture that didn’t make it into our previous blog entries.  We found a huge jellyfish on the shore when we had our weekend of vacation after swearing in and before going to our sites.

Stay away from this one!