November saw the
arrival of 5 new volunteers - Mathias, Eva, Amy, Christof and Lynda.
With Nadine, Ingrid, Doug and Sylvie already on board this brought the
group to 8 - a full house! Mid November we did say goodbye however to
Nadine and Ingrid after 2 months on board and then sad goodbyes once
again to Doug and Sylvie who dedicated 3 months to their projects. It
was a lovely family feel in the house and we all took part in preparing
amazing Vegetarian meals together each night.
Doug,
Nadine and Ingrid taught English at San alejo, Jaime Roldós and
Felicísimo López schools. English classes continued at Clara Luna with
Ingrid, Nadine, Sylvie, Doug, Christof and Lynda hosting.
Club
de niños was full of fun and activities as always. This month we
completed reading Rosa Rosita. For activities we had Crazy Hats and peg
animals along with different games outdoors such as 'What's the time Mr
Woolf', 'Over and under' and 'Don't drop the Lime'.
Towards
the end of the month we introduced an environmental story written by
Lynda. The volunteers agreed after numerous walks so the beach that some
serious action needed to be taken to clean it up and hopefully assist
some of our precious Sea Turtles and other animals. The story, Alberto's
casa en el Mar, featured many sea creatures with names inspired by the
volunteers in the house. There was Alberto the Fish of course and
then Douglas the Dolphin, Amy the Turtle, Mathias the Whale, Paola the
Pelican, Eva the Blue footed Boobie and Christoph the Crab.
We
cut the story into sections and the kids took turns in reading their
part. The following week we re-read the story and then asked the
kids...'who wants to help Alberto and his friends?'. They were really
excited and so armed with gloves and sacks we took the kids down to the
beach and picked up the rubbish. We collected 15 sacks in around half an
hour! The kids really loved it and so did we - it made a real
difference.
For
Intercambio we had lots of different activities such as 'The price is
hot' - the Spanish speaking and English speaking teams took turns to
pick their 'price' - the higher the dollar value the harder the
question. They then answered and got points accordingly. A lot of fun!
Another great activity was 'Wheel of Fortune' - this also worked really
well, challenging each team in the opposite language with questions from
all different categories.
We
also had Nadine and Ingrid participate in Sea Turtle patrols at
Pacoche. November also saw the start of morning patrols, looking for
signs of Turtle tracks, which Amy, Eva and Lynda took part in.
Finally
to round of the month of activities, Lynda took Yoga lessons for the
local people and tourists with donations going to Club de niños.
A great full month of activities!
