Bring on another year at Clara Luna!
Wow, how is it March already and we haven’t
updated you all on what’s been happening in your Puerto López home?!
From January to March we were well
represented with volunteers from around the globe: Shenay from Turkey; Johanna from Canada;
“the family” of Marjan, Guy & Hannah and then also Kris from Belgium; Tata & Mirta from
Argentina; Patrick from Ireland; Leo & Pauline from France; Jacky from
Australia; Lucin from the UK; Joonas & Reetta from Finland; and Kristen,
Matt, Lexi, Feyi, Paul & Barbara from the U.S. Two of these volunteers were even repeat
volunteers: Leo had been here a year ago & I (Barbara) had been here this
past July. Who else is ready to come back for more??
When I was here in July,
Clara Luna had only recently moved in to its new location. I could tell right
away that the volunteers in the interim had done a ton of work on the house
& gardens! The instituting of Community Dinners was new & it’s a great
idea – from Monday to Friday the volunteers take turns cooking dinner. For
those of us who don’t cook, it’s both a blessing and a curse J: first, you get many a delicious meal cooked for you. BUT then you
have to cook for the household—how nerve wracking! However, you soon learn that
everyone is pretty much experimenting when they cook, because you can’t always
find the exact ingredients here you may be used to. Also a lot of meals tend to
be vegetarian, not only because sometimes a volunteer is vegetarian, but also
because many of us are used to shopping in a “sterile” supermarket-type
environment; going to the market and buying a (literally) whole chicken
sometimes seems a bit daunting (although it’s a great experience when you do
it!). Volunteers come back with fun tales of having bought fish straight from
the fisherman at the fish market on the beach (how do you say “please gut it
for me” en español?), learning how to handle chicken feet & heads when you
purchase chicken at the market, etc. You learn more than you expect here!
So besides being well-fed and becoming a
tight-knit community over dinners (with beer, wine, & rum on an
occasional—or was it every?—Friday night), the volunteers also all worked well
together in their various areas.
Johanna, Kristen, Matt, Pauline, Paul,
Lucin, Lexi, & I taught English classes at Clara Luna; Johanna also taught
English at the San Alejo school. Volunteers took turns helping with the
Wednesday evening Intercambios also, doing activities such as “Two Truths &
a Lie”, Valentine’s Day bingo, “Who Am I?” (when you have the name of a famous
person on your head), learning about countries/world geography, & “Speed
Dating”.
Tata, who was here over two months, quickly
became the lead volunteer at the Foundacion Jose Rivera.
Marjan, Guy, Hannah, Feyi, Shenay,
& Lucin all worked there as well and worked with the students on arts &
crafts, almost weekly excursions to the beach, etc. Joonas & Reetta picked
up where the previous volunteers left off and created a couple of songs and
little dances that the Foundation students could enjoy! (“Si tu cancho es
gordo, hazlo adelgazar!” is a new Puerto Lopez hit! :)
Most of these same volunteers also helped
on Thursday afternoons with the group of disabled at the market. From January
to early March, Tata led the group in learning how to make puppets (she has an
amazing collection of handmade puppets that she brought with her to PL!). The
project culminated with a puppet show enjoyed by all!
Also helping out with the Foundation, PT
volunteer Jacky led a seminar (en español!) for the local “Técnicos” who
haven’t had any real training in physical therapy and did house visits. In
addition, she contacted dozens of international agencies trying to find funding
for further training and PT help at the Foundation.
Just about everyone helped with Club de
Niños & there were lots of fun readings, art projects & games! A number
of readings & activities surrounded the Ecuadorian flora (Palo Santo tree)
& fauna (Andean condor, sea turtle, humpback whale). In January, the
volunteers put on a great puppet show for the kids using Tata’s puppets – they
loved it! We were even able to make a few excursions to places right in Puerto
Lopez which are related to these topics, for example to El Artesan, a workshop where they make
products out of the Palo Santo tree; Machalilla National Park Visitor Center,
where they were nursing back to health two sick sea turtles during our visit;
and the open air Whale Museum by the beach. Many of the kids had never been to
any of these places, despite the fact that they are all free and easily reached
on foot. Mirta & Patrick cleverly created a map puzzle of the South
American countries and had the kids do an activity surrounding that to learn
the flags of each country, etc. Leo let the kids get artistic with his camera
and they took some amazing shots in the back yard. At the end of March, we
debuted a new reading corner upstairs with all of the kids books readily
accessible. With the popular “free reading” periods, we’re also teaching kids
how to take care of books.
While Paul was here learning Spanish, he
also dug in – literally – to what needed to be done in the back yard. The
compost got some much needed attention as did the plants and grounds
themselves. Just before leaving, he planted a number of sunflower seeds along
the fence. (I have been dutifully watering them, Paul, & they are growing!)
Everyone also helped with the morning beach
patrols to monitor sea turtle nesting & several also had the opportunity to
overnight at Playita with other volunteers from Equilibrio Azul and a Machalilla park
ranger. A couple of folks were even lucky enough to see a nesting sea turtle at
one of those overnights!
The Monday group clean up afternoons are
back! Right after our Monday group meeting, all the volunteers spend time
cleaning the house, yard, & helping with projects. Besides just helping to
keep the place clean, there has been a lot of progress made on reorganizing the
kitchen as well as the various resources for ESL, Intercambios, Kids’ Club,
etc.
As always, there’s lots more to be done here
– come back, come back! But if you can’t get on a plane to Ecuador in the near
future, there are still ways you can help. Stay tuned for an upcoming blogpost
on helping from afar!
