Volunteer Ecuador and Peru

La Paz and end of trip

2008-10-19T09:14:00.000-07:00

We arrived in La Paz on October 17th, 2008. On the bus into town we got a good view of La Paz, which is situated in a valley at 3600 meters (highest capital city in the world). It´s very busy with traffic and people and the city seems like one big market (at least here in the center). We are not affected at all by the altitude, because we have been mostly above 3200+ meters for the last 7 weeks.
We haven´t been doing much in La Paz except souvenir shopping, checking out city center a little (went to witchcraft market and saw a parade) and mostly finishing off this blog and getting ready to leave. We leave South America on October 20th, which is the end of our trip and therefore this will be our last post. Paulien will go back to Holland to work and Brian will make a detour via Australia (for a wedding) and Thailand (for a holiday).

If you are just interested in looking at only photos then you can visit the flickr sets (all these photos are in our blog).

Lake Titicaca

2008-10-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

On the way to Llachón (October 13th) we started to notice how rural the area is. Many cows, sheep, bikes and some motorbikes with a person holding a sheep. When we got dropped off in Llachón it was almost deserted. Fortunately, we were able to find a hostel, which was very basic. No running water and only a standing toilet, but it was very tranquil. After lunch and a siesta we went on a walk with the owners daughter Lourdes along the lake and a bit into "town". Each region has it´s own traditional clothes. Here it´s a four pointed hat with 2 pompoms (only for females) and colorful long toques. Paulien didn´t have supper tonight because of stomach problems; maybe because of altitude sickness, since Lake Titicaca is around 3800 meters above sea level. The guy running the hostel gave Paulien a bowl to pee in, he suggested rubbing the pee on the belly to cure any stomach ailments. We had to be careful not to burst into laughter when that was suggested. We would often get muña tea here, which is supposed to help with digestive problems.
Next day we set off to Amantaní Island, the less touristy of the two nearby islands. It took 90 minutes in a small boat to get there. It was clear that it was not touristy anymore, since almost all shops were closed, including artisan shops and we only saw two gringos as we were leaving the island. It was actually hard to find a snack! We walked a lot around the island and also up both of the islands peaks Pacha Mama and Pacha Tata. On both peaks there are Inca ruins and excellent views. We first went to Inkatiana that is an inca throne carved out of stone on the shore. Then we started our way up the mountain, which was quite steep and we had to make our way up terraces to the top. Once we were at the top we found a tourist path that goes all around the island (it took over 3 years to build)! Also here we found that the people cultivate land even high up on the hills and walk their sheep almost to the top of the mountains, so far away from their houses.
The following day we took the same small boat (40 minutes) to one of the Los Uros islands. There are around 30 of these floating reed islands. We saw three, but visited only one. These ones are less touristy than the ones near Puno, but we still got a lot of attention and felt some pressure to buy some of their crafts. To us the crafts weren´t very impressive and all the families sold the same things. The island we visited was about 6 x 15 meters and 8 families lived there with around 14 school age kids. The children go to school somewhere else. The reeds are not only used to make the island (which is floating buy anchored), but it´s also used to make the houses, boats, some of the handicrafts and it´s used for food and as a substitute for toothbrush and toothpaste. Their food mainly consists of fish and different parts of the reed plants. The roots of the reed plants are actually not bad. Since it was cloudy, cold, windy and rainy we didn´t stay very long. We did, however, take a little boat trip on a more modern version of the reed boats (constructed with some nylon) to the reeds. Even though the weather was pretty bad it was still worth the trip to see how these people lived.
At 1pm we took a bus back to Juliaca. The first hour was the slowest bus we had ever taken in our lives. We couldn´t even catch up to a person riding a bike. Then suddenly he sped up, probably he was just going slow hoping to pick up more people. In Juliaca we took a motor taxi (tuktuk) to the bus terminal to Puno. There are a lot in South America and this was the first time we took one. Once in Puno Brian got sick and the next morning Paulien didn´t feel too good either. We stayed in bed most of the time and arranged everything through the hotel. We finally broke down and started taking antibiotic pills. When we looked on the internet we found out that what is eaten here a lot (bananas, rice and potatoes) are actually good against diarrhea. In the afternoon we felt better and took a tour to Sillustani. Sillustani is a hill containing many burial towers made by 4 different cultures from 2000 B.C. up till the time of the Incas. They are all different styles and generally built near the edge of the hill. On many burial towers there was a tiny entrance on the east side, because that´s where the sun comes up and a new life starts. Especially the largest tower was impressive how it was built with such big rocks that fit together perfectly (it was pre-Inca). On the way back to Puno we stopped to visit a traditional house where we had potato with clay mayonnaise (the clay is taken from the river and used as a sauce)! Back in Puno we saw a big parade, which is a common thing in Puno (there is a parade every week). There were amazing costumes and it was very big. On October 17th we took a bus at 7:30am to La Paz and arrived at 5:30pm. We stopped in Copacabana (town on Lake Titicaca on Bolivian side) for 90 minutes. The bus ride also included a ferry trip. Fortunately we took a separate boat than the bus, because the bus looked like it was going to fall off the ferry from the wobbling. Apparently big buses don´t go through there anymore, because one of the buses actually fell into the lake.

Arequipa and Colca Canyon

2008-10-18T18:43:00.000-07:00

On October 8th, our bus from Cusco arrived in Arequipa at 5am, which was an hour earlier than we were told. We arranged for a taxi pickup at 6am, so we decided to wait, especially since the taxis in Arequipa can be dangerous. Also, we didn´t know whether the hostel would be open. At 6:20am we took one of the taxis only to find out we could have called and also that there was somebody at the station looking for us! So, we first had a nap and for lunch we met Claudia. She is the wife of the brother of Brian´s brother´s wife, does that make sense? We wandered around town a bit as well.
Next day we left at 4am for a 3-day trip to Colca Canyon, which is the world´s second deepest canyon (twice as deep as the Grand Canyon). A 4 hour bus ride took us into the canyon (160km) and on the way we saw many cactii, rocky cliffs with different colors and textures and again many terraces. Our first stop was a condor viewpoint (Cruz del Condor), where we found a lot of people waiting for condors. We were there for an hour, but didn´t see any condors. We happened to miss 3 condors just 5 minutes before we arrived! We went into town (Cabanaconde) for a wander, lunch and then afterwards started hiking with a group of 6 plus guide. In contrast to the Lares Trek where we had porters and donkeys, we had to carry all of our things. This meant that Brian had to carry almost everything, because the hike was going to be hard enough on Paulien´s knees already without carrying extra things. Fortunately, she didn´t have any knee problems after that one time in Ollantaytambo. Also, in contract to the Lares Trek it was very sunny, hot and dusty. Almost all of the paths had loose rocks and sand and the hike down was pretty steep (one of the girls fell and hurt her knee). We walked down the barren and rocky side for 3 hours and had a short rest. Then we walked up the lush green side with flowing creeks for almost 2 hours. There are no roads on either side, only paths for walking and donkeys. We spent the night in the village of Cosñirhua where we stayed in a hostel and had unexpected luxuries: shower with hot water, tv and dvd-player. We were also watching the cooking and were witness to a guinea pig being killed (by breaking the neck) and then dipped in hot water to remove the fur. Fortunately, we are vegetarians and didn´t have to eat it. Since we were all tired we went to bed early at 9:30pm and slept in till 7:30am; this tour ended up being much more relaxed than we were expecting. After breakfast we walked to another town where we checked out a small local museum that explained local traditional life. Then we walked down to the oasis which is at the bottom of the canyon. Here we could swim, lay in the grass or relax and play cards on the tables and chairs made of palm trees. Lunch and breakfast today were carried (from Cabanaconde) and prepared by our guide. So, he had a lighter bag going up, but we didn´t. The lunch had a lot of carbohydrates to help us get out of the canyon. After another little siesta we started our climb out of the canyon. The oasis is at an altitude of 2100 meters and Cabanaconde at 3300 meters. The two of us went ahead and climbed out in 2.5 hours. Many times it seemed as if we were almost at the top, but that was just not the case as we would find out around the next corner. On the way we saw donkeys, mules (one carrying a bed frame), sheep, locals (some were running down) and, of course, some tourists. We did some internet in town while waiting for the group to arrive, since we didn´t know which hotel we would be staying at. After dinner we went into town for a drink with our group and some of the people we met on the way. We were very happy with our guide that we got through Perú Schweiz Explorer, since he gave us a lot of information about the plants, people and the area. He was able to answer all of our questions and although he basically only spoke spanish with us he was very easy to understand. One of the things that he explained was how Christianity is mixed with the Andean religion - for instance combining a cross with a pacha mama (cubby hole for an offering for mother earth). Our third and last day we walked to a lookout and spent some time there, because the only road out was blocked by a rock slide. We had to wait for that to be cleared, so that our bus could pick us up. We were actually supposed to go early in the morning to the condor view point for our second chance to see the condors, but couldn´t because of the rock slide. We found out when we did arrive that a few late condors had just disappeared. We drove back to Chivay, which is on the edge of the canyon for a yummy buffet lunch (not included in tour!). Then we went back to Arequipa and made some stops to look at various volcanoes and herds of vicuñas, alpacas and llamas.
On our last day in Arequipa we went to the Santa Catalina Convent, which is an over 2 hectare complete miniature walled colonial town in the middle of Arequipa and is Unesco protected. About 450 nuns lived here in total seclusion (few nuns remain now). It´s constructed, like many buildings in Arequipa, from sillar (local white volcanic stone). It was pretty big and worth the visit.
We also went to the Museo Santuarios Andinos that contains frozen bodies found on Ampato Volcano (>6000 meters), including the famous Juanita found in 1995. These children were sacrificed by the Incas to please the gods. These children walked all the way from Cusco up that high mountain to give their lives to help their people.
At 2pm we took a bus to Juliaca, a transport hub for the area. We arrived shortly before 7pm and found out that there were no more buses to the Capachica peninsula. In fact, when we asked some locals they didn´t even know the place and a tourist who has family there and had been there multiple times asked us why we were going there... well, our book says it´s nice there. So, we stayed overnight in Juliaca and caught a morning "collectivo" (minivan) to the town Llachón, which is on the tip of the Capachica peninsula. This story will continue in the next post...

Cusco and Machu Picchu

2008-10-18T14:11:00.000-07:00

After taking the night bus from Huancayo to Lima we caught a flight to Cusco on October 1st. The rest of the day we mainly spent looking for a trek to Machu Picchu. Cusco is the ancient Inca capital and now has a fascinating mix of Inca and colonial Spanish architecture. Unfortunately, it is very touristy, too touristy for us even in the off season. When you walk down the street you are constantly asked if you want massages, tours, food or drugs. Along with the hassle of finding a trek we also had to arrange our own train tickets from Machu Picchu, since there was a train strike the day that we wanted to come back (which is why we couldn´t do the Salkantay Trek). We ended up booking the Lares Trek through Liz´s Explorer. They gave us the impression that it would be a private tour, but it ended up being with 6 other travellers. Liz said the pickup time would be 6:00 or 6:30, but when she pooled us with other people she tried to change the time to 5:00, but we weren´t having any of that. The guide that we were told we had changed twice before we left. The first day we were pleasantly surprised by the quality and amount of food, but after that it got saltier and saltier (or we noticed it more and more) and on the last day much of the group couldn´t finish their plates because of that. To give credit to the cook (and his assistant) though, they tried very hard and even set the table as if we were in a restaurant. Nonetheless, it was an excellent trek and we are only mentioning the above for future travellers. Get what is important to you about the trek written down before paying!
We ended up with a nice group: 2 girls from England, one couple from Belgium (so, we couldn´t "gossip" in Dutch) and one couple from Brazil. We started the Lares Trek by driving to Lares - the scenery is nice: terraced mountains, valleys with villages and even high up on the mountain small houses could be seen and barren scenery in differing colors and vegetation. We made the mandatory stop at a tourist trap to see some weaving, textiles and domesticated caged condors. The area around Lares is covered in green vegetation, so it was a big contrast to the drive there. We had lunch at the hot springs (pools ranging from 28-34 °C) in Lares after relaxing there for a while and started on the trek. The first day was the shortest with only 3 hours of walking. On this first day we saw many children come running down the hills to our group on a quest for little presents. We gave them candy, snacks we were given by our guide, coca leaves and finger puppets. There were so many kids we ran out of candy, fortunately the rest of the group still had some. Also, luckily the English girls had lots of pens to give away too. The children walked in bare feet or sandals and many had dirty hands, feet and clothes. While walking we saw how the Quechua people lived by farming potatoes and herding llamas, alpacas and sheep. They live in simple small houses made from rocks and straw or tin roofs. There are rock walls surrounding all of their potato fields and often their houses, which serve also to protect crops from animals. These walls can be seen all over. We camped in the village of W´aka W´asi. It was quite cold and we both had upset bellies, so our guide made a tea of special herb that he had collected that day. Kids came by with 2 mantas (blankets) full of drinks and hand made clothing to sell. Brian bought a scarf and a beer from the children. Normally we don´t buy things off children, but in this case we made an exception because the children don´t "work" for very long and the proceeds are used to help the families. We asked the British girls where the bathroom was and they told us that it was in an abandoned house (that is what they were told). So, we went there with our flashlight, noticed it was used previously as a bathroom and used the facilities. Because it was so cold, the ground was uneven and we got up at 6am, we didn´t get much sleep. The next morning on the way to the bathroom our guide asked us where we were going and kindly directed us to the proper outhouse (hole in ground with tin walls, a roof and no door), which is a standard toilet around there.
The second day of our trip the scenery was different: there weren´t many villages, there were lakes, glaciers, an alpine forest. This day we hiked from 3600 to 4400 meters and after lunch descended to 3800. The girls and women wore colorful skirts and upturned hats. The boys wore ponchos or westernized clothing. Some of the people we encountered spoke only Quechua, so our guide was our voice. The people that did speak spanish generally spoke very little. Some of the kids in this area have to walk two hours each way to school. We met one boy who had walked his sheep from Lares to where we had walked 6.5 hours in total and was going to return the same day. It was even colder this night and our tent had frost on the outside in the morning. 3 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of pants and 4 top layers didn´t keep Paulien warm enough, so she woke up with tired and puffy eyes. Brian went to bed sick without dinner and had a great sleep and woke up a bit early feeling super. We walked downhill the whole morning, which quickly turned from shade into sun. We saw 4 condors in the distance and many, many butterflies. We had lunch beside a creek and then started to wait for our bus ride to Ollantaytambo. Due to mountainbike races the road was blocked so our bus came 2 hours late. To pass that time and get some exercise the two of us walked to the highway. There we encountered the same girl that had joined us for lunch, so she was walking around with a big bag of spaghetti that she was eating with her hands. She was dirty and drooling chocolate, so after grabbing Paulien´s hands and arms, Paulien went back up the road to find water to wash up. Ollantaytambo was touristy, so the main ruins were busy and expensive. We decided to go to the Pinkuylluna ruins on the mountain opposite, which were free (of tourists and monetary). We could see all the tourists on the other side flashing their cameras. The ruins here were used as storage and were used at the same time as the other ruins (this side of the mountain was not exposed to as much sun, so was cooler). During the walk up Paulien noticed that both of here knees were inflamed, so it was a good thing we chose the Lares Trek instead of Salkantay (which is a harder hike). The town of Ollantaytambo was interesting with narrow cobblestone streets everywhere. Brian tried a Cerveza de Coca (coca leaf beer), which would be so illegal in other countries. At 7pm we took a train to Aguas Calientes, which is the town closest to Machu Picchu. We got to bed at 10:30pm and we had to get up at 3am, because we wanted to shower (for the first time in 3 days) before our 4am breakfast. On this fourth and final day we went to Machu Picchu and lucky us it was raining. Brian bought a plastic poncho and it was the best 3 soles (1$ USD) he ever spent, because it rained a lot that day. After a steep 90 minute hike up the humid rainforest, we had arrived at Machu Picchu. Since it was still raining and very foggy, we couldn´t see any of the surrounding mountains. Once through the entrance it was the same, however, this made Machu Picchu look mysterious. After a tour of almost 2 hours we had some food and waited under umbrellas for the rain to clear. When that happened we checked out Machu Picchu some more and took some photos where you could actually see Machu Picchu. Also, we hiked up Wayna Picchu mountain, which has many Inca ruins as well as an amazing view of Machu Picchu. We were very lucky, because we were #195 and #196 and only 200 people were allowed into Wayna Picchu. It was an hour up and the steps were very big, but it was well worth the effort. We waited at the top for the mist to clear so that we could see Machu Picchu. It was amazing to see what the Incas had accomplished in so little time - the rocks that fit perfectly together, the location (remote jungle) and altitude, using two different mountains, the large variety of areas: agricultural, temple, living areas, etc. It was astonishing to find out that the Incas had managed to keep this whole area, which is now a wonder of the world, a secret from the Spanish. We had to catch a bus down to Aguas Calientes to catch our 3:30 train to Cusco. This train was was a lot fancier than the ride to Aguas Calientes, because it was the only type of ticket available. We got some food and drinks, performance by a traditionally dressed and masked guy and also a fashion show with alpaca and llama clothing. It was especially funny because the girl in the fashion show was strutting her stuff and the guy was walking almost as fast as he could. We arrived at 8pm in Cusco quite tired (it´s faster to take the bus from Ollantaytambo).
The next day there were no vehicles all morning (except police), because of the protests and strikes. Strikes and protests are common here. It was different, because the roads were filled with protesting people instead of honking taxis. Since it was cold and rainy we went to check out important buildings. We visited the cathedral (which is a 3 church complex) and Qorikancha at Santa Domingo, which was once the center of the past Inca society. This important Inca temple was destroyed by the Spanish and now there is hardly anything left. Before going on our night bus to Arequipa we had a well deserved massage. It was relaxing, but we were very oily afterwards and had to hurry up to our bus. Also, Paulien felt a little bit bruised the next day (probably from the Inca massage, which is a rough massage using warm smooth rocks). We took a cheaper bus this time and stopped at a lot of places along the way, which didn´t make it easier to sleep!

Last 3 weeks in Huancayo

2008-09-30T16:24:00.000-07:00

Tinkuy Peru has turned out to be the most rewarding of the four volunteering projects. First we´ll start with some more information about Tinkuy Peru and their plans.

Tinkuy Peru:
Since Tino was eight years old he has wanted to help the poor, but then without money since he was poor himself. Tinkuy Peru started in 2002 after a radio interview in New York where he was questioned about what he was doing to help the poor children and whether he had an exchange program setup. This gave him the idea to setup a volunteer program and four months later he got his first volunteer (from Canada) who helped a lot with organizing the volunteer program.
The Andean School (where they teach English to help fund the Mountain School) is closed because there aren´t enough volunteers. They hope to re-open in January 2008.
We´ve talked a lot with Tino and Marie and the have many good ideas for Tinkuy Peru to help fund the schools. They may open up a guest house with an artesan shop and organize tours in Cuzco. Gloria can hopefully start a bakery, since she is almost finished cooking school and is an excellent cook. Additionally, they are hoping to be able to offer workshops to the older children and some parents in, for instance, gourd carving, ceramics, weaving and silver. These workshops will hopefully provide a better future. Also, they would like to open up another school in the town Concepcion (another poor town 1 hour bus from Huancayo).
With the rest of our donations we funded two things. Firstly, the registration of the school, which will make it an official school with all the benefits of a "real" school. Secondly, we have paid for the first floor of the new school; currently Tinkuy Peru is renting one floor of a house. The "Casa de Niños" or "Children´s House" (which may be the name of the new school) will have computers, proper bathrooms (with showers) to improve hygiene and a playground/garden for the children. Future plans may include having a floor dedicated as an orphanage and another floor for the workshops.

Tino´s Family
Tino´s entire family and everybody else living in the house is very nice and have made us feel at home at all times. Most of them help in one way or another with Tinkuy Peru. Many of them are also studying and/or working hard as well. Tino is one of the 10 best weavers in Peru (his weavings look like photos) and has met many important people because of that. Instead of making a lot of money with his weaving he has decided to help poor children and only do a little bit of weaving. Tino and Marie are so appreciative of any help they get or anything you do and are also very helpful. It´s always nice to chat with the family and they have many stories to tell.

Teaching
Teaching at the schools is 4-5 hours per day, but our days were full because we also spent time on walking around 20 minutes each way twice, preparing lessons, some teaching or helping out (math, chess, computer) at the house.
Brian was mostly teaching math and some english: in the mornings with students between 6 and 15 years old and in the afternoons between 9 and 11. Paulien taught math, english, some geography and health to her afternoon class (7-14 years old). Paulien mainly taught numbers, letters and colours to her morning class (3-6 years old). In the beginning Gemma worked with Paulien in her morning class and afterwards another volunteer named Brian (from Ireland). Gemma and Scott left after our first week and the volunteer Ian only came back shortly to return later this year. So, most of the time we were 3 volunteers in total. The class sizes ranged from 3-15 children depending on how many students showed up and how many volunteers were working. All of the children only attend for a half day and for the other half they attend a government run school. Students in Peru only attend their government run schools for half a day. There is a big difference in the level per class (for instance, 4 different math levels) because of the age difference, but also between students of the same age. This might be because they go to different schools, but also because some students are more eager to earn. Some students are clearly behind; for instance, a 5 year old who cannot recognize the numbers 1-10 and a 13 year old who cannot tell time well in Spanish. Often the children, also the older ones, just wanted to draw in class instead of learning new things, but we only allowed some drawing or games at the end of class if they were good. A bingo/memory game in English that Paulien got from her co-op student was very popular. The children also asked for help (miss/teacher, ayudame!) a lot as well as for erasers, pencil sharpeners or kleenex, which kept us busy. The class with 4-6 year olds in the morning could get pretty tough, because after the break in the morning they could get quite restless. The teacher there works basically as a volunteer (Tino pays her a small wage) and whenever she had other commitments class would be cancelled if there were no volunteers. The government has decided to close the class for 3-6 year olds at the government school starting next week. Kids 5 and up will be attending a different government school 4 blocks away, while the other children will go to the Tinkuy Peru school. Next year all the children can go to the Tinkuy Peru school when it´s built and officially registered. That will also be a lot better for their hygiene, since there was no bathroom at the current location and often no running water. The children would just pee behind the classroom and sometimes even on the school yard.
We did 2 excursions with the students aged 3-6. A walk up the hill, while the teacher told them stuff about the area and nature. The other time we went to the zoo and the playground. All of us (12 kids and 3 adults) went into one station wagon taxi. Again, the children walked in pairs, were well behaved and enjoyed the outing a lot.

Children General
The children love having their picture taken. So, we were basically forced to take lots of photos if we brought out our camera. Then they would, of course, want to see their photo right away on the camera screen. We got presents from Sara: a knitted and perfumed table cloth, cereal and many drawings. Sara is mentally and physically disabled, but is always cheerful and always first to class in the morning and afternoon. Little kids told Paulien that she had a big nose (it is compared to theirs), while the older ones would admire or braid her hair. The children that we taught seem noticeably poorer than other kids from the same area. They often wore the same clothes, or clothes with holes in them, but they were happy in general.

Huancayo General
Most of the time it was sunny. One of the weeks was fairly cloudy and rained a bit more than normal. The temperature would often drop by 5pm when class ended. On the way home in the afternoon we got amazing views of clouds, sun, rain and mountains. There were often fiestas with a small symphony for live music and people dancing. Tino and Marie told us that they have fiestas for any reason: such as for finishing a floor of a house and for finishing the roof there is a big party.
Many women use a very colourful blanket to carry a child, produce from the fields, plastic bottles, groceries, etc. We bought one too and one day Paulien wore it and got a lot of attention from the locals.
There were a lot of dogs, but most of them were healthy and the situation was a lot better than in Ecuador in Cabo San Francisco.
There were many bike kiosks, either parked or biking around with a megaphone.
Brian found out that there are a lot of fun places to go at night (even till really late). The people everywhere are very nice and we never felt unsafe. Kids are often saying "hello" on the street. People in general called us gringo or gringa (name for white person) and mama/mami or papa (words used to show affection). Many people made small talk for no reason and we got warned a lot to be careful as well. All this made us feel really welcome.

Excursions
Our second weekend we went on a bike ride north of Huancayo in Mantaro Valley from 10:00 a.m. till 7:30 p.m. with Tino, Marie, Scott and Gemma. We biked about 60-70km total with multiple stops. First stop was Coches where there are detailed gourd carvings "mates burilados" - we got a small gourd filled with stories of the area. Then San Agustin de Cajas for fresh fruit juice. Followed by Hualhuas where there are different craft places with weavings (we got a scarf). After lunch we went to San Jeronimo, which is a town with many silver shops. Paulien got a bracelet and earrings. Then just Tino and us biked up to Virgen Inmaculada Concepcion, which was a hard bike because it was steep and the weather changed and got windy and cloudy after being totally sunny. Concepcion is the second tallest statue at 25 meters in South America, followed only by "Christ the Redeemer" in Rio de Janeiro. You can climb in the statue to the top - it was so windy and cold at the top that we only took a few quick photos of the amazing views. We took a one hour bus back. This was a very good trip: it was nice to be biking again, nice scenery, good smelling eucalyptus trees; at the end we were sore from the bumpy dirt roads. That Sunday we walked around town and at night we went to Torre Torre under a full moon. Mabel bought coca leaves, which Brian chewed on until his mouth was numb. It was really amazing and a great experience.
Our third weekend we went to the glacier Huaytapallana. In Quechua huayta means flower and pallana means "pick up". In April and May there are many flowers, but we only saw a few flowers. September, however, is apparently the best time for hiking the glacier. We took a taxi for over an hour to get up to 4000 meters for the start of the hike. The way there was a rocky dirt road with cows, sheep, llamas, donkeys, horses and pigs - on or alongside the road. The mountain is holy and people perform ceremonies there. We also did a ceremony of our own - we each put the best coca leaf from a handful under a Tinkuy Peru rock pile called "apacheta" and made a wish. We hiked from 9:30 a.m. till 2:30 p.m., which is apparently fast. 6 hours is normal for this hike. At the highest point we reached an altitude of 5300 meters. The hike started out sunny and when we reached the glacier it was cloudier and started snowing. We saw rabbits, squirrels and birds. There was snow, yet it was barren and rocky - there were multiple lakes and one was a bright turqoise (like Lake Louise in Canada). Since Tino has climbed the glacier many times before and has done a glacier guiding course we were able to hike higher up the glacier than most tourists go. Paulien found it a little bit scary jumping over small crevaces and walking on icy ridges. The top part was really steep and it was really fun to slide down the glacier. At the high altitude the clouds were amazing and moving fast and changing shape quickly. The visibility would change really fast and at one point we could just see each other. After hiking we had a really well deserved lunch of yummy trout at the restaurant at the start of the hike (the only place around for many kilometers). We could see our breath in the restaurant, it was starting to get cold already. This hike was a great experience: the hiking/exercise itself (which is a lot harder at this altitude), but especially the immense mountains, snow, walking on a glacier, having the entire glacier almost to yourself and being at such a high altitude. We both took some altitude medicine for the hike. Here you can buy single pills of medicine - they open the package and cut the amount of pills out you want. Sunday we checked out the artesan market again and "Mercado Libre", which is a gigantic market of food, clothing and other daily necessities. We were, most of the time, the only gringos around. We had lunch in a vegetarian restaurant and had a 4 course meal (including lamb soya) for one euro. In the afternoon we went to "Parque de la Identidad". It´s a beautiful park made mainly with nicely arranged rocks in different patterns. There are different statues showing artists and things specific for Huancayo and a castle for children to play in. For dessert (before dinner) we ate picarones (onion-ring shaped and deep fried dessert with sweet honey sauce) and arroz con leche (like rice pudding).
For our fourth and last weekend we went to La Cabaña (touristy restaurant) on Friday night with 3 other people. We had some local drinks with pisco (alcoholic). Then to two different discos - one was apparently the best in Huancayo, while the other was a bit dodgy and we were the only gringos. We got back at 5:30am and didn´t do much the next day because of that. That Saturday was Tino´s birthday, so Brian got up before 9 to make soy milk together with Marie for his Dutch pancakes. We made different kinds of Dutch pancakes and hutspot (Dutch meal) for around 13 people for Tino´s birthday dinner. The cooking, cleaning up and eating took from 6-11, so luckily everybody enjoyed the meal. Sunday we went to Torre Torre for the third time. This time we brought a camera to take daytime photos. On the way up and down we saw some of our students that live around there. One of our students was walking with her 2 younger sisters and a herd of sheep. After that we went to Mercado Libre with Gloria. We saw some parts that we hadn´t seen before and started to realize how big the market was. Some interesting items for sale were snakes (in a jar) and dried frogs (for soup).

Stay General
Shortly after our last blog post they changed the water connections and there was a normal temperature shower. Also, not long after the last blog post Paulien got better. In addition to latin music, 80´s and early 90´s music is very popular in Peru and Ecuador.
The food we got at the house was generally tasty and healthy and cooked by different people. For breakfast there was bread and often fruit with either egg, french toast, pancakes, chocolate milk or porridge. Lunch in Peru is also the biggest meal of the day and always had soup and a plate of rice with veggies, salad, beans, or eggs and usually potatoes as well. Dinner was always different, but often with potatoes or rice. Every meal had tea, so Paulien drank more tea this month than in her entire life. Two special meals in our last week were grilled alpaca and lasagna with alpaca. The alpaca was the first "steak" that either of us has eaten in 5 years (since we are vegetarian!). We decided to try it because it was supposed to be good and it turned out to be maybe the best meat we have ever eaten. In addition to the lasagna on our last day we also had Cahiuw Relleno (stuffed vegetable) followed by delicious maracuya pie, both made by Gloria. On Sunday´s we would go out for pizza (Brian´s favourite food) - Huancayo has a couple of really good pizza places.
Doing laundry in Huancayo wasn´t the biggest success for us. The first time our laundry was clean, but the second time it smelled like smoke or gasoline. So, the third time we tried another place where we got our clothes back after two full days still wet and not really folded. The fourth time we tried another place where we got clean clothes back the same day, except Brian´s jeans were missing - even though that was the only place that marked all the clothes by either sewing a mark or writing with permanent marker on the other clothes. To make a long story short, after some hassle and not believing we would see the pants again, we got them back.

Last Day
The kids were already a bit sad on the second last day and asking when we were coming back, but on the last day even more so. Both in the morning and afternoon we had a small fiesta with some drinks and food/candy at the end of the lesson. Since the children knew about the fiesta ahead of time, we had good attendance and even a student we had never seen before. Unfortunately we didn´t have a lot of time on our last day to hang out with everybody because we were busy packing and arranging the last few things. It felt weird to leave - we were both sad to go and would have liked to stay longer. We liked Huancayo and working with the children, but also we really liked our stay with Tino´s family. Everybody was so nice and it felt a little bit like leaving our own family behind. We took a night bus to Lima. We want to return one day, hopefully before our hair is gray.

Donations spent

2008-09-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

With money that was donated we bought a second-hand spectrophotometer (from Gemini BV, who gave us a discount) for the laboratory in Cabo San Francisco and medicines (through a vet in Nijmegen) for the Santa Martha Rescue Center.

For the Santa Martha Rescue Center we bought a cheap mini-oven and some kitchen/cleaning utilities to make life easier for future volunteers.

To be able to do our work at FCSF we bought stuff for the following tasks:
- Garbage cleanup (eg: gloves, many garbage bags and material to make signs)
- Laboratory work (eg: converter for microscope, ups/power regulator to protect electrical equipment, parasite atlas and materials for conducting the research)
- Teaching English (2 dictionaries)
Additionally, we bought some small items for the FCSF house like garbage bins and bed sheets.
Also, for the main elementary school in Cabo San Francisco we purchased stainless steel plates, bowls and spoons for all the children (260). There is a government supplied lunch, but the children had to bring a plate, bowl and spoon from home. This was not very hygienic since they often dropped them on the ground, some plates were old and made out of plastic (with probably many germs in the scratches) and they might not all be washed properly at home. Now, when some more supplies are bought, the plates will be washed at school and will stay there.

To Yanapuma we made a cash donation of $800. Half of this will be used for the Tsachila community in Bua where we stayed for one week (probably for a health center or library). The other half will be used by Yanapuma where they feel it will have the most benefit; we indicated a preference for a project in a very poor area.

For Tinkuy Peru we purchased all of the books used by the government elementary schools, plus a few other books and posters. Also, we had to pay a small fee to bring the books from Lima - we brought 20 kg of donated books.
Additionally we paid for the costs that will allow Tinkuy Peru to be an officially registered school. This has many benefits for the students, such as allowing them to transfer schools. We have also paid for the costs of building the first floor of the new school, which will have improved facilities. Right now the children are using the third floor of a house that is used by other people. Also, with the new school Tinkuy Peru will no longer be paying rent for the classrooms.

We used € 300 of the "Brian and Paulien" money, so that the donation to Tinkuy Peru would be enough for registration and to complete the first floor of the new school. The remaining money was mainly spent on transportation and extra (unexpected) costs for volunteering that we wouldn´t have had if we would have just been travelling.

Donations spent as of September 23rd, 2008.

First week in Huancayo

2008-09-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

Day 0 (September 2nd):
We arrived at the house just in time for a birthday party. It was Jessica´s birthday, so there was cake and other sweets. There were 3 volunteers in total: Ian, Jessica and Laura. Not only volunteers live in the house with Tino (director of Tinkuy Peru), but eight members of his family as well: Tino's mother, his two sisters, his two nieces, Leslie and Jacki, his wife Marie, and his two daughters Pilar and Angela. Also, Mabel (extended family) and Lydia (cleans and cooks) live there too. There´s plenty of room because the house is very large. In high season there can be up to 20 volunteers at once.

Day 1:
Brian was sick in bed almost the whole day, so we didn´t do much. Paulien was mostly getting information.

Day 2:
In the morning 2 new volunteers arrived: Jed and Sebastian. Today we checked out the different classes. It is a 30 minute walk uphill to the schools, or a bus ride. Many roads aren´t paved, so it´s really dusty and we get a dust tan. August is the dustiest month, so that should start getting less. There is a government run school with classes in the morning (9:30-12) for children 4-6 years old. There is a teacher there, but the education is poor. In the morning volunteers teach at this class as well. The Tinkuy Peru mountain school has classes in the morning (9:30-11) and afternoon (3:30-5) for different groups of children ranging in age from 3-15. There are around 67 students in total, but the amount that show up each day is different. Many of the children at the school are either orphans or have a step-parent or don´t get enough attention at home. When we arrived we got greeted by the kids with a hug and kiss, which is normal here (also, when saying goodbye). The female volunteers are called "miss" and male volunteers are called "teacher". The kids are very cute, but a bit dirty. Many have dirty noses, hands and clothes (the children in Cabo San Francisco were cleaner). The dirty noses are probably because of the high altitude - we´re around 3200 metres. It´s sunny and warm during the day, but cold in late afternoon and night. We didn´t teach today, since we were mostly observing and helping Laura. Afterwards the teacher gave a lesson and we were surprised to see what she was teaching: she actually showed the children what burns (eg paper and plastic) and what doesn´t without mentioning, for instance, that fire is dangerous or that you shouldn´t burn plastic. After lunch we taught the youngest class at the mountain school, making paper planes, coloring, practicing numbers, etc. Teaching is difficult because there is a large range in skills in each class and our spanish isn´t super good.
Brian went out at night with all of the others drinking a local drink called Pisco Sour. Paulien had to go to bed early, because she was sick now (probably altitude sickness).

Day 3:
Paulien felt a bit better, but had intestinal problems now and therefore could not go to the morning class at the government school, since there is no bathroom there). It was the last day for Jessica and Laura, so there was a going away party arranged in combination with one of the students birthdays. There was food and dancing and all of the kids were clean and dressed up. The food was really healthy for a kids party and afterwards all of the parents and teacher drank beer. In the afternoon we took the students from the mountain school on a field trip to the zoo and then a playground. There were 27 children and they loved it. The children are really affectionate: always wanting to hold your hand, give you a hug, etc. That night we went to see a band playing Peruvian music with lots of different instruments, with one person maybe playing 3 instruments in a song (flute, pan flute & saxophone).

Day 4:
On Saturday we (Mabel, Marie, Jed, Ian and us) went to visit a ruin in a nearby town Ñahuimpuquio. Up on a nearby hill that we climbed up, there are ruins from 800 BC built well enough to withstand many earthquakes and years of erosion. After that we went down to the lake and went around on some paddle-boats. The boys won the race obviously, especially since the girls didn´t consider it a race. For lunch we had trout prepared two different ways on a stove heated by eucalyptus branches. Ian and Jed ordered more food than they could eat, so it was fed to a dog with blue eyebrows (painted). Then we walked to a nearby town called Chupaca, we pronounced it Chewbacca (like in star wars), to a local market. In Peru they have 3,000 different kinds of potatoes, so almost every meal has some kind of potatoe (except for breakfast). Paulien got welcomed to the town by two different guys. From Jessica and Laura we heard that that kind of attention was normal. After being blown away almost by all of the dust, we took a bus back to Huancayo. When we got back we saw people on the street dressed in traditional clothing dancing. We went close to take a photo and got dragged into the party and invited to dance.

Day 5:
3 volunteers left this morning (Ian, Jessica and Laura). Luckily, Ian is coming back in a week or so. We checked out the market in Huancayo and bought a blanket that people use here for carrying things on their back (in the local design). It was a really big market, but that is not too surprising in a city of 300,000 people. Not much else interesting that day.

Day 6:
Two new volunteers arrived (Gemma and Scott). In the morning there were only classes at the mountain school. There we gave our first real classes. In the afternoon we went on a field trip, because there weren´t that many children, which is apparently normal on a Monday. Also, Sebastian wanted to checkout "Torre Torre" on his last day. It´s a series of naturally formed reddish sandstone pillars from which you get an amazing view of the surrounding area. Unfortunately, we don´t have any photos of it, since we didn´t bring our camera, but we will go back and take photos. It´s less than 10 minutes away from the mountain school. The children are fearless and run on the crazy dodgiest parts (even jumping gaps with 20 meter drops). Many children have broken shoes or shoes not suitable for hiking. Needless to say this field trip would never be allowed in Canada or Holland. Then we went into town to buy some books for the school - we managed to buy the whole government curriculum for grades 1-6 in math, science, social studies and 1 other subject. This was really needed, since the children are mainly taught English and math by the volunteers.

Day 7:
2 volunteers left (Jed and Sebastian) to fly back to the United States. Together with the 2 remaining volunteers (Gemma and Scott), we gave classes in the morning and the afternoon. Mainly teaching at the government school is very tiring, because the children ask for help often and have problems with many of the tasks. In the afternoon Paulien couldn´t teach, because she was still sick with intestinal problems, which got worse.

General:
Paulien is called Paulina in both Ecuador and Peru.
Sometimes we speak Dutch by accident. Brian when he´s speaking Spanish and Paulien when she needs to speak English. Speaking Dutch can be useful, however, when we want to say things that we don´t want others to understand. We have to be careful though, since there are Dutch people everywhere!
In certain spots here there can be a lot of garbage, just like in Ecuador, but the town itself is very clean due to people cleaning it up. In Ecuador we saw many times that the bus driver would clean up the bus by simply throwing everything out the window - no matter where the bus was.
We are here for another 3 weeks.

Donations Received

2008-09-08T16:40:00.000-07:00

We would like to thank everybody that has donated so far. To date we have donations totaling € 4242 (donations in other currencies have been converted to Euros). We hope to get still more though, since we need to divide the money amongst 4 organizations. In addition, lots of books and other material to teach English to kids was donated.

Besides anonymous donations we have received donations from the following people:

Gera Backx
M. Braam
Steve Campbell
Cindy Dieteren
Thomas Froehlich and Emily Henry
Rob Groen
Maïlys Guillard
Marcel Havekes
Rolf Janssen
An Jonckheere
Marja Kikkert
Marloes van Meel
Leo Monnens
Jarco Portengen
Herman de Reus

Vincent van Rossum
Elke Schrama
Ruud and Berthy Schrama
André and Ans Smits
Harrie Smits
Marius and Marjo Smits
Mia Smits
Rob Smits
Theo and Ria Smits
Toon and Mariet Smits
Floor Stunnenberg
Gerard Verhoeven
Martijn Wilmer
Brian and Karen Zinn

We have also received a generous donation from:

Last updated September 23rd, 2008.

Trip from Quito (Ecuador) to Huancayo (Peru)

2008-09-07T14:19:00.000-07:00

Day 1:
After visiting Yanapuma and giving them a donation it was time to leave Quito. We gave Yanapuma the contact information for FCSF, since both organizations are working in the same area.
Our first stop was Ecuador´s most popular highland resort named Baños (a 4 hour bus ride), but we didn´t have big plans here. The Manto de la Virgin waterfall in the corner of town is a symbol of Baños. It´s called Baños because of all of the hot baths, some of which are natural. Unfortunately for Paulien, there was no time for us to visit the baths. We went on a volcano night tour that we thought would go up to the volcano, but it was just to a lookout of Baños. It was also cloudy and raining, but at least we could see Baños. We didn´t think too much of the tour and that might explain why Brian didn´t do that tour when he was here 2 years ago for almost a week.

Day 2:
After checking out Baños some more we took a 2 hour bus ride to Riobamba (with a bit of backtracking) and after a short taxi ride we ended up at our hostel beside the train station. We spent most of our time finding food, a bank machine that worked, arranging things (train ticket), internet and walking around town.

Day 3:
Started a bit early, since at 7am we needed to be at the station for the Devil´s Nose (La Nariz del Diablo) train ride. Our guidebook said that riding on the roof was prohibited following a fatal accident in 2007, but luckily that was changed. The train was filled with gringos (foreigners) and started out pretty chilly with some rain and after an hour or so it broke down. When the train departed most of the roof passengers moved into the train cars. We stayed on the roof to get the full experience. Lots of people waved to all the prople on the train, mainly children hoping for candy. It was a bit like a parade with all the candy throwing and children chasing candy. There were people selling things like drinks, food and candy on the rooftop, even when the train was in motion. We stopped at a couple of small towns on the way. Paulien bought some knitted socks and we ate empañada con queso (fried cheese turnover) and fried banana in batter. The train picked up more passengers in Alausi and started it´s journey towards Devil´s Nose hill. The hill itself was quite steep and had switchbacks on it where the train would switch direction and zig-zag down or up the hill. The whole trip was very beautiful and a great experience even though the beginning was cold, and afterwards it was very dusty and overall it was uncomfortable. We arrived back in Alausi a bit off schedule and went to the bus that we bought tickets for on the train. The bus left a bit late and stopped after 5 minutes to let us off to get on another bus, which never came. After waiting for half an hour we plus many other tourists took a different bus. It was totally full and luggage had to go on the roof. On top of that our bus driver was almost suicidal and sitting on the floor at the front gave a nice view of his driving skills. Here are 3 examples of what he did:
1. passing another bus that wasn´t going slow, while going uphill on an s-curve with double solid lines on the road.
2. passing a truck going uphill while it was foggy and the visibility was less than 50 meters.
3. passing a big truck with a flammable load that was passing another vehicle on the crest of a hill.
The road was curvy and part was not paved, even though it was the Pan-American Highway. We were relieved to get off the bus uninjured after 2 hours in El Tambo. After a 20 minute taxi ride we arrived in Ingapirca, we could see the ruins from town. We didn´t book a room, so we were hoping there would be something available. There was room at the first hostel we went to - we were the only people staying there.

Day 4:
We had various communication problems at this hostel, since we couldn´t understand each other. Even though with some people we can have normal conversations in spanish. After finding out that there wasn´t hot water it took some time to get a bucket of hot water for a shower. In this sleepy town of Ingapirca lies Ecuador´s most important Inca site. We arrived at the ruins and were at first surprised how few people there were around. We had the sun temple all to ourselves. The tourists all started arriving later or as we were leaving. It was a sunny day with beautiful views, so we decided to walk an additional path to see the Cara del Inca (face of the Inca) and some other Inca things. An old lady was trying to sell a rock axe and other amulets that she claimed were Inca treasure that she uncovered herself. Then it was time for some punishment on the bus. We took a 1pm bus from Ingapirca to Cuenca (> 2 hours) followed by a 4:30 pm bus to Loja (> 5 hours) and topped of with another bus at 11pm to Piura, Peru (8 hours). On the bus ride to Loja we gave an English lesson to our neighbouring passenger, who was very eager to learn (and already knew a lot) and at the same time we practised our Spanish. However, this was quite tiring and we missed some good views of the mountains and beautiful sunset because of it.

Day 5:
We woke up at 4:30 am on the Ecuador/Peru border. We were happy to get off the bus to get through customs (which took really long), because the bus was hot and smelly and the guy beside us kept spitting into the aisle. The north of Peru looks very different from what we have seen in Ecuador so far: very dry, barren and poorer looking buildings. At 7am we arrived in Piura and walked with all our luggage to the next bus (we should have taken a taxi because the 3 blocks were a lot bigger than we thought and we were probably very lucky to not have gotten robbed). We caught an 8:30 am bus to Chiclayo (3 hours) and were moved into first class! We stayed where our taxi driver made a recommendation, and once again no hot water. We booked our first tour for the next day and went to bed early, since we didn´t sleep much on the bus rides.

Day 6:
On the way to our tour there was a huge police procession. There is a lot of sugarcane grown and processed in this area. The first stop on our tour was Huaca Rajada where excavations have been ongoing since 1987 in one of 3 crumbling pyramids. The pyramids are from the Moche culture (AD 1-750). In these pyramids they have found 12 royal tombs with offerings (only replicas are shown). The main two people were the lord of Sipan and the old lord of Sipan, who are probably related and separated by 200 years. When a lord dies some people are sacrificed and buried together with him, for instance, wife and sometimes children, warriors, guardians (without feet) and llamas (without heads). Also found were jewelery, armour and lots of pottery (pots represent people). The tombs had many layers when a new lord died a new layer was built on top. After lunch we went to Tucume, a big city built over 1000 years ago. We climbed up "El Purgatorio", which offers a panoramic view of 26 major pyramids, platform mounds, walled citadels, etc. Huaca Larga, one of the pyramids, is the longest adobe structure in the world (700m long). The pyramids were occupied by different cultures - Sican, Chimu and Inca. They are still excavating Huaca Larga and are supposed to be opening the inside to the public soon. Then we went to Museo de los Tumbas Reales de Sipan. This museum contains the original stuff excavated from Huaca Rajada (our first stop). We only had an hour in the museum since we were late, but it was still amazing. It was 3 floors done from top down, mirroring the archeologists discoveries. The old lord of Sipan´s remains were surprisingly intact (more than the lord of Sipan´s), because they were further underground and were protected by more gold. There were lots of copper and gold things as well as huge neclaces made from cotton or sea shells. After getting back to Chiclayo we had to rush to catch our bus to Trujillo. We made it in time, but the bus left an hour late because of drunk people. We arrived at the hostel late and there was no answer, so the taxi driver took us to the sister´s house nearby.

Day 7:
We had our first hot shower since we arrived in Peru, despite only staying at places that offer hot water. In town for breakfast, checking out the main plaza and arranging things again (money, bus tickets (took a long time)). Both in Ecuador and Peru you can get fresh fruit juices anywhere with normally a big selection of fruits. In the afternoon we went to Huanchaco, which is a surfing and fishing town with a big beach. This time we were by far not the only tourists. The boats the fisherman use are made of reeds and are narrow pointed fishing rafts called "caballitos", which means little horses. Checked out town, church and ate a seafood dinner on the beach while watching surfers and the sunset.

Day 8:
Our second tour started with the pyramids of the sun and moon. Also from the Moche culture and taken over by the Chimu culture afterwards. The pyramids are made from millions of mud bricks. These cultures covered up previous temples by adding floors, which meant filling in the entire parts underneath - covering up walls and walls of mural paintings. We mainly saw the mural paintings, but many other things are found there including tombs and a whole urban area. They are still excavating and restoring. Then we went to the Dragon or Rainbow temple, which is located in the middle of a city. It´s part of Chimu culture and was probably used for food storage. There are many similiar temples in the area. Our last stop was Chan Chan, the most important center of the Chimu culture (9-15 century BC). It is considered to be the largest pre-Colombian mud brick city in the world (area of 14 km²) with remains of palaces, cemeteries, cultivated fields, suburbs, subterranean aquaducts, irrigation canals, pyramid temples and enormous walls decorated with relieves of geometric figures and mythological beings. Big parts of Chan Chan were destroyed by erosion (it´s right on the ocean) and earthquakes, but it´s partially restored. That night we thought it would be fun to take a bus for a change :) We left at 10:30 pm to go to Lima.

Day 9:
Arrived at 8:30 am and took a taxi to city center. We checked out some interesting buildings, for instance, the San Francisco Monastery museum, which is really big and contains catacombs with 25,000 people. There were multiple groups of high school students who where saying English phrases to us and taking pictures of us. After our 4 hours of speed tourism was over we took a bus to Huancayo (7 hours). Some of the buses here have multiple levels of comfort and service. We picked a middle class of service that provided food, movies (like most buses) and bingo. The total time on bus and train to get from Quito to Huancayo was about 51 hours! We were very tired when we arrived. Fortuntely, we got picked up and the house was a very short taxi ride away.

Cabo San Francisco - Last 3 weeks

2008-08-24T23:47:00.000-07:00

We updated previous post by adding days 9-11 and adding some photos.

Cabo San Francisco has a population of about 2500 people living in about 280 houses (usually single floor and small).

First Week (days 12-18) - Preparing
We arrived in Cabo San Francisco Monday morning. We talked with both of the primary school principals, Richard and Fulton, to plan what we can do with both schools. There is a primary school on each end of town. One with 260 and the other with 40 students. They only give classes in the morning.
With Richard we went to Esmeraldas, the capital of the province (3 hours by bus), to buy plates, bowls and spoons for all the kids at his school. There is a government supplied lunch, but the children had to bring a plate, bowl and spoon from home. This was not very hygienic since they often dropped them on the ground, some plates were old and made out of plastic (with probably many germs in the scratches) and they might not all be washed properly at home. Now, when some more supplies are bought, the plates will be washed at school and will stay there. Just when we were about to go on the bus back some guy tried to rob Paulien by grabbing her bag and pulling really hard. Paulien (and Brian too) held on to her bag tight and she screamed loudly getting the attention of everybody around. Then the guy ran off empty handed when he realized he wouldn´t get her bag. We got a bit of adrenaline, scratches and a slightly bent pencil and sunglasses. We were warned about it being dangerous there.
We ¨had to¨ buy dishwashing liquid and sponges because the cooking lady was washing our dishes with a sponge that she used for everything including wiping juice and ants off the floor. Also, she wasn´t using soap to wash the dishes. We both had upset stomachs in the beginning.
This week the schools were closed, so we couldn´t do any work there. That´s why we used this week to prepare garbage cleanup, english lessons, website translation and hygiene information, which actually took a lot more time than we thought it would, since we were doing everything from scratch.
When walking through the town we again noticed how much garbage there is everywhere, even though it´s apparently a lot better than it used to be. There is a lot on the beach that is washed in by the current, however, there is also a lot dumped by the inhabitants. They dig big holes in the beach and fill them with garbage and cover them with sand, even though there is a garbage truck picking up the garbage. The volunteers that are staying after us are looking into solutions for that problem, because we didn´t find out about this till later on.
We walked through the finca (farm) of 2 local FCSF people. They are brothers and come from a family with 14 children, which is not uncommon here - the average is around 8. The whole finca is still rainforest and includes many different plants - bananas, cacao, hot pepper, coconut, bamboo, etc. Also, they have a waterfall in their finca which supplies the town with fresh water, that´s used for laundry, cooking and cleaning.
On Saturday we went to Muisne, which is a town on a nearby island. We went with the students going to the college in Muisne. First in an overloaded truck to the village Bunche where we crossed a river in wobbly canoes. Then another truck to the boat over to Muisne, which took less than one hour in total. We checked out the town and the beach. We went on the internet which was extremely slow and bought a stuffed animal dog for our hygiene play. We looked through the book that they use at the college for teaching English and more than 1/2 of the sentences had at least one error! We went to a Karaoke bar then for somebody´s birthday (Karaoke is popular in Ecuador). We went back to Cabo San Francisco, but this time we walked the last part, accompanied by lots of mosquitos.
On Sunday we were invited to a beach bonfire (to clean up the driftwood and not for warmth) by Tamara, a local girl studying in Guayaquil.

Second week (days 19-24)
Now we finally started working. Generally our day would start with some preparation or other work, an English class (4 different classrooms) at Richards school from 10:30-12:30, lunch, more preparation/work, English class at the other school 3pm-4:15ish (plus 1/2 hour walk each way) and after dinner a movie. Additionally, we sometimes did garbage cleanup.

On our first day at 10:30 the kids were all lined up, like they do everyday after the break before their last class. They were lined up per class and symbolically we gave the plates, bowls and spoons to each class. Then we started our first English class and we were surprised at how unbelievably slow the children wrote. Also, their attention span isn´t very good and their understanding of doing a simple conversation in English, but they were very good at repeating the things we said. The age range in one grade was up to 6 years (8-14 years). The second day was a lot worse when we taught a different class. It was a mess the children did not write, listen much and were making masks and playing with a soccer ball. We got their attention sometimes, but it wasn´t very long - that was unfortunate for the few children that were interested. We were clearly not prepared for losing control of a class like this and it obviously didn´t help that the teacher wasn´t there. The classes after that went a lot better. Everyday children would follow us home and often hold our hands - even on the first day when they didn´t know us. Participation in the English class in the afternoon at the other school was voluntary and we mainly taught the principal´s family. The big difference with the other school was that they paid attention and wanted to learn. Also, because the class was smaller and we gave lessons almost every day to them we got to practice with them more and noticed how much their pronounciation improved.
On the first day that we wanted to start our parasite research we only got 2 samples of the 10 that we expected. After looking at them under the microscope we decided that things were not as clear on this microscope as the one that we were training with and there were a fair amount of things we couldn´t identify.
Brian mentioned to people that he was a software engineer as an explanation for why he couldn´t identify parasites. Unfortunately, this meant that it was time to look at some computers in the town and to teach computer lessons.
Half way through the week we got frustrated because it was so hard to get things done. We really wanted to do useful work there that produced results, but not everybody and everything seemed to cooperate. For example, at that point the plates were still being brought home and the English classes at Richard´s school seemed to have very little effect and there was nobody to continue with the lessons.
On Thursday and Friday we cleaned up garbage instead of teaching English lessons. We started out with a little play about hygiene (washing hands) and not throwing garbage, which the kids loved. Even the ones that didn´t pay attention in class. Paulien was handing out gloves to the children for picking up garbage and almost got pushed over by the mob of excited children. Then we cleaned the beach with around 40 kids. The bags were filled in a flash and they were all asking for new bags. We didn´t get all the gloves back, because some of the children apparently thought that they were a gift. Even some of the boys were crazy about the women´s gardening gloves with colourful floral patterns. We filled up 10 super size bags (76x92cm) and 3 normal size. The second garbage cleanup was a bit better organized and we also got them to pick up the smaller pieces. A big part of the beach actually looked clean now.
One afternoon with Tamara on a bus to the nearest town Tongara. We followed the creek to the ocean. There we had a nice swim in the ocean - the water in Cabo San Francisco is brown close to shore because of all the wood bits and sand. Unfortunately, we couldn´t walk back to Cabo San Francisco so we went back to Cabo San Francisco the same way. It was the first time we actually did something not related to working, so it was a really nice break. Even though on the way back it was raining and we got bit by mosquitos.
There are more mosquitos than we thought our first weekend. Paulien was kept up for 4 nights in a row because mosquitos were inside her mosquito net.
Another volunteer, Felix, arrived on Friday. He was going to stay 10 days teaching a course on starting a small enterprise. Also, he brought $3,000 worth of goods for the pharmacy (donated by a pharmaceutical company). It was nice that he spoke good Spanish and English, so he could help us translate. Later that day Ricardo and 3 other people arrived. It was a full house and soon we ran out of water. We wanted to ¨shower¨ in the ocean but it was too dirty, so we ¨showered¨ in the river, which was probably not much cleaner than we were after cleaning garbage :)
By the end of the week many people knew our names and kids were calling our names and saying english words (Hello, bye-bye or good morning) while we were walking down the street.
On Saturday 2 new volunteers arrived - a German girl (Lena) and a Swiss girl (Andrea). It is not normal for FCSF to have this many volunteers simultaneously; on average there are around 12 volunteers per year (staying 1 to 3 months each). Lena was mainly going to do health related stuff and Andrea was mainly going to work on the house and the plant nursery. After talking to us and people in town they also decided to do some English lessons and garbage clean-up. That night we went to the nightclub for the first time. It was pitch black with really loud salsa and raggaeton music.

Third week (days 25-31)
A lot of things got cancelled, mainly English classes, often we didn´t find out until we got there. The second computer class (for the teachers) wasn´t so much cancelled, but nobody showed up - either by lack of communication or willingness to learn. Also, we put up signs in town to organize the garbage cleanups. We had a sign-up sheet and a box for messages. Lots of people signed up, but nobody showed up for the 3 days (even though at least 12 people were signed up, for example, for the previous Saturday). This surprised us because we got over 10 positive and motivating messages about what we were doing. Then suddenly our message box, sign-up sheet, notes, pen disappeared - it couldn´t have been the wind because a bunch of stones (to keep the notes from blowing away) were also gone. One time we cleaned by ourselves and the 2 other times we cleaned with kids from the neighbourhood. The kids were really happy to help us and the kids were asking/begging for the next time they could do cleanup. However, they easily got distracted and started playing, hugging us with dirty gloves or fighting. Still we loved them and appreciated their help. Also, the kids loved to wash their hands afterwards with soap and would try to wash their hands 3 times. This is probably because they´re not used to washing their hands. At school they just got washing basins to make the kids wash their hands. Next on the list is supplies to do the dishes.
This week was the worst week for water, but the best week for power (not as many power outages). Most people or maybe everybody except for the FCSF house do not have running water. We heard there was water supplied every other day for 15 minutes for filling water tanks. We didn´t have water Tuesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday. To be able to flush the toilets that were getting really stinky or for an occasional shower we had to get water from a well, which was probably contaminated from the pigs that lived in the same back yard and the garbage that was dumped nearby on the beach. Obviously we had to take the water out with a pail and rope.
We learned a really confusing card game called 40, which was really fun.
For Andrea´s birthday we had a big bonfire (using all the wood collected in garbage clean-ups) and singing in 4 different languages.
On Thursday we gave the class that we taught twice an English test. Before giving the test they were told there was a test and we went over everything that was on the test really well. Lots of the students wrote on their hands and prepared cheat sheets before the test. We tried to make sure they didn´t cheat that way, but there was so much talking and looking at neighbours tests that we couldn´t keep up with the cheating. By cheating and us allowing bad spelling, the average grade was 75%, but some answers were so bad they were funny because the English and sometimes Spanish looked like Chinese. They often mispelled common Spanish words, even when written correctly on the board.
On Friday, our last day, the German girl Lena started a parasite research. Since she had some experience in Germany she was able to identify more parasites than we could, so she is able to continue on with the research.
In the afternoon we went on a walk with Tamara again. We went to the government run health center, which we didn´t know existed. It seemed to be pretty well run - there were two full time doctors, a dentist, pharmacy (with free medicine), laboratory, vacination room, maternity room, etc. We also saw the former FCSF house that was destroyed by an earthquake. Apparently during the earthquake a volunteer was taking a shower and was trapped inside, but somehow got out safely though. Higher up on another hill in town was a big water tank with an amazing view of town. On the way there we saw an old guy making little pipes and massage thingies out of local tree material. At night there was a going away party organized by Tamara at the discotheque. Next morning we left early we were lucky enough to get a ride directly to Quito.

Some general things about our stay in Cabo San Francisco
The Food
Lunch is the biggest meal of the day and usually consists of soup and a rice plate. We had a lot of fish and seafood (even for breakfast maybe fried squid and home-made yuca fries). Lots of plantains or plantain-like food every day and multiple times per day - it is, however, surprising how many different ways the same food can be prepared. Most of the food is fried and there is a lack of vegetables. We were looking forward to going to Quito again and having nicer and more nutricious food. The tastier things were pancake things, empanadas (fried dough with cheese), maracuja juice, sweet bananas rolled up in leaves and cooked and for Brian chocolate milk made from local cacao beans (first dried, toasted and then ground into a paste). Specially for our last day, lunch was crab and took a long time to eat. Multiple times we noticed that there was sand in our food and one day we saw freshly caught fish being cleaned in the sand, so we knew why!

Language
Lots of things are -ita or -ito. For example, ahora (now) is ahorita. Also, the ´s´ is generally not pronounced.

Overall Experience
We were a bit sad to leave, because we were just getting to know the people and town better. We were also happy to go because we had so many setbacks that got us frustrated (lack of organization, lack of cooperation/participation from the people, things getting cancelled, preparation taking too long). We would not do it again, but we did, however, learn a lot from the experience. It was a shame we couldn´t do as much as we wanted to or make a big a difference as we would have liked. The people were very friendly and grateful and the kids were generally very sweet. When we got to Quito we were inclined to say hello (hola or buenas) to people on the street, since that is the custom in Cabo San Francisco). Also, it was nice that in our last week we had some company from other volunteers and we were less isolated. Unfortunately, they took a lot of ¨our¨ water :)
We hope that things will improve for future volunteers in the areas of organization and communication. It is hard to change the mentality in town - that will only happen slowly, but hopefully the changes within FCSF will go quicker. At least FCSF is interested in improving their organization and everything in general. We made many documents to help future volunteers so they won´t have to start from scratch, but they will also help with continuity in the various projects. We also supplied a lot of feedback to FCSF. So, we hope that our stay was worthwhile.

We are in Quito now and leaving tomorrow morning to go south towards our final volunteer stop, which is in Peru...

Training and Preparing for FCSF in Quito

2008-08-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

Day 5:
After going to the office Brian got a $1.50 haircut, what a price difference with back home. We had lunch at a pizzeria while Ricardo was finalizing the laboratory training arrangements for us. We went in the afternoon to the laboratory of the Sangolqui Hospital in Quito. The lady who helped us (Gladys) told us that it is impossible to learn to identify intestinal parasites in 2 days (which was the plan). After looking at some sample slides with her showing things to us we had to agree with her. The sampes are made by sticking and stirring a toothpick in a poo sample. That is put on a glass slide with 2 different kinds of liquid. She checked out the microscope that Ricardo got and that we took to and from Cabo San Francisco. We couldn't get that microscope working properly. After we had seen all of the slides we left to do some shopping for FCSF and ourselves. When we got back to the FCSF office we could not open the door with the key that we got. We tried calling Ricardo, but there was no answer. After having some food and trying again we left a message on the phone and on the door. We went to an internet cafe and were planning on getting a hotel at 10pm (when the taxis stop waiting), if we hadn't heard back. We were only inside for 2 minutes when Ricardo arrived, so we were really relieved. It turned out we needed a second key to open the door!

Day 6:
We started out the day with an ice cold shower. Ricardo had told us that there isn't always warm water here, so it wasn't a big surprise. We went to pick up another microscope that we call the 2-headed microscope, because it has 2 eye pieces, so that 2 people can look through the microscope at the same time. This will be very handy for our research, since we are planning on doing lots of it together (at least while we are still learning). Then we went shopping again. This time shopping was with Ricardo's son Joseph (FCSF Project Coordinator). The microscope needed a 6 volt converter, which is more work than it sounds because we didn't know what we needed. We also got a UPS (power regulator for the laboratory equipment) and some stuff for garbage clean-up. Then we went to the laboratory and tried out the 2-headed microscope with the converter. We cut up the converter cables and connected the microscope light with electrical tape, but it didn't work. We tried a few things and Brian made sure the converter worked by connecting the wires to his tongue (the converter worked and Brian is still alive). So, we figured that we needed a stronger converter. Brian and Joseph went to look for one, while Paulien looked at some new poo samples. Fortunately, the new converter worked and we managed to get sharp images with the new microscope!! Joseph brought all of the shopping goodies and the non-functioning microscope back to the FCSF office. Since we left later we had to take the 2-headed microscope on the bus. Paulien almost poked out a kids eye when she fell backwards onto the seat when the bus suddenly took off. For dinner was a roadside diner of a lady cooking food basically in a bbq on the sidewalk. Since we didn't include meat all that was left was fried mashed potatoes, corn (similar to popcorn), beets and lettuce. The night before we got dinner from the same place, but that time we ate it in the park out of the plastic bags with our hands (since we couldn't get in the house). Still tasted good though.

Day 7:
We started out the day with a cold shower again, so we were wide awake. In the morning we found out that the UPS wasn't working properly. We took it back to the store where it worked perfectly. We don't know what happened, but when we got home that night it worked perfectly again, luckily. Then back to the laboratory. We were still having trouble locating and differentiating parasites. Also, we had only seen a few different kinds of parasites and not all of those parasites are as common on the coast. We wanted to take a picture of Gladys because she was so helpful and always nice and cheery, but she was a little camera shy. We tried to find a parasite atlas, but had no luck. We tried to find the pizzeria where we had a great lunch on day 5. That time we were dropped off by car, but this time was by bus. The first bus we got on we ended up on a highway because we didn't get off on time (even though the lady was yelling "El Triangulo", which was our stop). So, we crossed the highway and took another bus back and missed our stop yet again. This time it was walking distance back (1 block) and we finally ended up at the pizzeria after another bus ride. Then the foccacia wasn't as good as the time before, but fortunately the rest was yummy. A technician was going to Cabo San Francisco the next morning to fix the water, but we decided not to go with him since we needed more stuff before we could start our research. He did take all of the stuff we bought so far, so that will make the bus trip out a lot easier.

Day 8:
No hot water again. Brian was getting used to the cold water, but Paulien with her longer hair was almost getting a brain freeze in the shower. We went to Quito city center to buy supplies for our research and a parasite atlas. After 4 days of traveling around a lot on buses and driving with Joseph, we finally had everything we needed. Also, we got a laptop today so we can work on translating more of the FCSF website into English. Since there is no internet we can't use babelfish to help us out with translating the spanish into ridiculously funny sentences.

We were supposed to leave on a bus tonight at 11:45 pm, but it was fully booked for today and tomorrow. Therefore Joseph (who is going to Quito tomorrow) will try to get us tickets and we can hopefully leave tomorrow night with a different bus company. This is not all bad, because we get an extra day of training in the laboratory. Hopefully there will be some parasites we haven't seen yet and the ones we find hard to identify.

Days 9-11:
Paulien was sick and vomiting for 2 days, so we could not use our bus tickets. She probably got sick from the food on the street. On day 11 (Sunday, August 3rd) Paulien got a bit better, which was good since it was her birthday. We went to a big market in Sangolqui (Quito suburb) that had more food than the market in Otavello (the most known market in Ecuador). One of the more interesting things there was lots of pig heads for sale. We took the night bus to Cabo San Francisco.

It is a shame that we are using so much of our volunteer time for getting things organized instead of actually working. At least all of this organizing has produced some results, like a lab that can be used to analyze parasites.

Cabo San Francisco - First weekend

2008-07-31T07:38:00.000-07:00

Day 1:
On July 24th we left Quito a bit late, because we needed to get our malaria medicine from the museum and meet Ricardo (Director of FCSF). Then we met a second doctor (Edison) who was driving us to Cabo San Francisco, which is at least a 7 hour drive. We took the route via "Mitad del Mundo" that crossed the equator. There aren't a lot of trees or thick vegetation around there, but shortly afterwards the rainforests starts and the warmth and humidity rise. We drove slower than the buses, which tend to drive quite fast. On the way we got into a small accident (there was only vehicle damage), which added an hour and a half to the trip time. Apparently it's quite common here to just pay for the damage instead of going through police and insurance. As soon as it got dark out it started raining like a monsoon. Also, there were blinding bolts of lightning that were really nearby, so you can imagine that we weren't driving very fast then; especially since large parts of the road are covered in potholes and bumps with huge speed bumps in the villages. After 6pm Ecuador time we managed to take out more money (since it was the next day in Holland and we had reached our daily limit already); we needed more money to finish paying for the month of volunteering and the nearest bank machine to Cabo San Francisco is about 2 hours away. We didn't arrive in Esmeraldas (capital city of the Esmeraldas province and located on the coast) until 9pm, 8 hours after leaving Quito, and decided to stay overnight.

Day 2:
Another over 3 hours of travelling. We had breakfast in Tonchigüe beside the beach and saw lots of pelicans and other big birds. Within the last year, the first part of the last 51 kilometers was paved. The rest was a bumpy dirt road. There were several rustic villages on the way. Houses were generally made out of wood, bamboo and a roof of leaves. On the road (also on day 1) we came across horses (with or without people and one horse was carrying a pig, bananas and a person), dogs (sometimes sleeping in the middle), chickens, cows and pigs on the road. Cabo San Francisco is surrounded by tropical humid forests that come right up to the ocean. We arrived and got introduced to some of the locals and we made our way to the FCSF house. The FCSF house is 3 floors plus a loft and basement making it the tallest building in town, but some rooms on the 2nd floor aren't finished. It's almost on the beach and has a view of most of the town. The house itself is made with a lot of bamboo, but so is most of the furniture. The house is built for people that work for FCSF: locals, doctors that volunteer and general volunteers. Other than a few bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen and sitting area the house has a pharmacy (one room with medicine) and one room that's being used as a laboratory and an examination room for the doctors. We were a bit surprised to find out how remote the town is (more remote than Bua de los Tsachilas), so as you can imagine there is no internet here (but we weren't expecting that). Also, we were unpleasantly surprised to find out that there was no running water. It was partially setup, but not functioning. To flush the toilet for instance, you need to bail water out of a large barrel into the toilet tank. To give you an idea of other toilet experiences in Ecuador: it is required to throw toilet paper in the garbage (not in the toilet) and many public toilets don't provide toilet paper. We have seen toilets that don't flush (missing the tank), shower curtains for a door (lots of privacy) and a sink where no water comes out of the tap. In the afternoon, the doctors saw a lot of patients and we cruised the beach and town and were really surprised with the amounts of garbage laying around. One of our tasks here is to try to cleanup the garbage and stimulate the locals to keep it clean. Previous volunteers have worked on this problem, but it takes time to set in. At this point Ricardo found out that Paulien didn't have any experience examining feces for parasites (the research that he wants us to conduct). The plan is for us to do an epidemiological study to determine the percentage of children that have different kinds of parasites. It was decided to go back to Quito on Sunday with the other doctors, so we could be trained. Sometime after 6pm while setting up our mosquito nets in the bedroom the lights suddenly went out. Later we found out that this is a daily occurence. The power outage can last from 1.5 - 6 hours. Luckily we had flashlights and there weren't many mosquitos. We were happy to find out there aren't many mosquitos, since we're right on the ocean and it's constantly windy. There was pretty loud music at night, since there is a discothèque across the road that turned up the volume briefly every five minutes or so. During the night noises from dogs and in the early morning roosters.

Day 3:
Two more doctors arrived to help out; there were a lot of people waiting to be seen by a doctor. On hand there were 2 family doctors, one urologist and one neurologist. There is usually one doctor visit per month. We saw ~6 year old boy poo and pee right next to the FCSF house. Shortly after we saw a girl of ~10 years of age pee on some garbage with other kids standing around. At night we saw two men peeing on a building and on the side of the main road. This made us question the level of sanitation here. We were walking around town and came across a butcher who was cutting up a bull and selling all the different parts. It was interesting to see the head and a leg under the table. The intestines and other parts were separated into different buckets, lungs were hanging from the roof and ribs were cut up with an axe! Since we were taking photos one of the kids there was kind enough to turn the head around to show us the bloody neck. One of the students asked us if we would teach english at the local college. That afternoon we prepared our first two lessons. We also practiced our spanish, which is very much needed. Many people here tend to talk really fast and mumble. Then we attended a long meeting in spanish about reforestation and other environmental projects that FCSF is also working on in Cabo San Francisco and area. Somebody had to pump water and then start an electrical pump, so we could have a shower before the power went out. This will hopefully be fixed when the technician comes next week.

Day 4:
Some general information: There are about 1000 inhabitants here and families here are big with an average of 8 children. You often see (small) children caring for even smaller children. We also saw many children working, for instance, making cement (shovel and wheelbarrow), carrying blocks and doing laundry. Lots of cement blocks are handed out by the government, which are being used to build many new houses. There are many unfinished buildings in town. Most of the people here are really friendly. Most people in the Esmeraldas province are Afro-Ecuadorians whose ancestors were brought as slaves to work in the cane fields. The plan was to leave around 9am, but that changed to 11am because the doctors had to see a pregnant patient. We ended up actually leaving at 2:30pm, since we were invited by the school director for lunch and got a tour of a plant nursery. With a short stop for dinner we arrived in Quito at exactly midnight.

Day 5:
We spent the night at doctor Edison's house. After breakfast and an interesting tour through the house, we left to go to the FCSF office (located in a suburb of Quito). This is where we will stay the next few days for our laboratory training and other preparations.

2 days in Quito

2008-07-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

We spent 2 days in Quito, which was one day more than planned. It was nice though, because we had more time to get things organized. We went to "El Panecillo", which is a visual landmark in Quito. The statue "Virgen de Quito" is located there as well. We weren´t there for very long, since we took a taxi up there and back. It is not recommended to walk up there because it´s apparently quite dangerous in that area.

Afterwards we went to Santa Catalina, which is a monestary for nuns. There is a pharmacy there which sells things made in the monestary, but you never get to see the person behind the counter. There is a revolving door and you only get to hear the nuns voices. There was a museum there and we went up one of the two towers. The tower had a great view of old town in Quito. We climbed out of the tower onto the roof, which was allowed. It was a bit exciting to be walking on the steps on the roof, because there were no guard rails and it was a long ways down.

We´ve started to notice a few things here that are different from Europe/Canada that we haven´t mentioned yet. Lots of boys work in the city shoe polishing (if you´re wearing shoes that can´t be shined then they gladly pose for a photo for a donation). Kids and grown-ups are often trying to sell things on the street and on buses. Sometimes there is even a whole sales pitch. People basically sell most things anywhere, even at your taxi window. There are buses everywhere, for most places you don´t need to wait very long. Also, buses will pick you up anywhere and stop anywhere to let you out (it doesn't need to be an actual bus stop). There is a person on the bus that tries to get people in the bus, by yelling the destination or getting out of the bus to ask. That person is also responsible for collecting the money. The buses are always in a hurry, so if you say you are going with them then they grab your bags and run off to the bus - even if the bag weighs 20 kilos and the person weighs max 60 kilos.

Bua de los Tsachilas

2008-07-23T15:38:00.000-07:00

We did a cultural exchange at Bua de los Tsachilas through Yanapuma. It´s a community 4 hours south west of Quito located near Santo Domingo. Tsachilas are immediately identifiable by the women´s multicoloured hand woven skirts and the men´s cropped hair, dyed red with paste from the ´achiote´ tree. Nowadays not all Tsachilas are in the traditional clothing or hair style. The community of Bua is the largest population of the 7 remaining Tsachila communities and is working hard to preserve their rich culture. They have for instance an ethnographic museum, trails through the jungle and a medicinal and botanical garden. They try to promote tourism to tell other people about their culture and as an additional source of income.

Day 1: Went to the Yanapuma office and took a 3+ hour bus ride to Santo Domingo. The bus ride scenery quickly changed into a lush rainforest about 1 hour outside of Quito. Santo Domingo turned out to be a lot bigger than we expected. We were met by a Tsachila named Freddy (easily identifiable by red hair). It was a 20+ minute taxi ride down a road that was paved 3 years ago, but already full of potholes. Everybody in the community we talked to spoke spanish, so we were finally able to practice a bit and we didn´t have to play sherades all the time (we still did sometimes, since our spanish isn´t that good). We were surprised about some of the luxuries such as TV and dvd player, which we found out weren´t in the house last year. It seemed that almost everybody had a mobile phone as well. Although, other luxuries such as fridge, stove and running water were missing. We were introduced to the ecological toilet and the river we would be bathing in. After lunch and a short rest we went to the local school on the bus. There was a group of high school volunteers from London working on speed bumps for the school. The played a soccer game against Ecuadorian kids that were generally younger and a lot smaller... Ecuador won! There were 2 volunteers from the US staying with our host family that spoke excellent spanish, so that made things easier for us. It was t-shirt weather, so it was a lot warmer than we were used to. Because of all the mosquitos and biting flies we often wore pants and long sleaves. At night the bats got out to work on controlling the insect population and we met the sloth that sometimes visits the house at night. It had long curved claws and when we fed the sloth rice we had to watch out a bit, although the sloth was very slow. We watched a dvd of the tribe showing their cultural practices. Our night was really peaceful because we could hear the river and some strange animal noises and in the morning we were woken up by the birds.

Our host Germania and Alfonso have 2 daughters. Additionally, Freddy and his son Richard were often there as well. Everybody was so cheery, friendly, kind and polite that it made our stay very pleasant and enjoyable.

Day 2: We found out about the handshake - more important people have a firmer handshake and in general a handshake is done by extending a limp hand and making hand contact. We did a bit of work today clearing plants. When we saw Alfonso working with a machete we had an urge to join in. The machetes worked their magic again and produced some nice blisters. Machetes are carried around everywhere (even on the bus) by many people from young boys to old ladies. Afterwards we took a well deserved bath in the river. There were little fish nibbling on our toes and butterflies and birds of all sizes flying around. The river is also used to do laundry by hand. Alfonso collected a bunch of Achiote plant and we helped him to get the little red balls out of the fruit. Removing the red bits stained our hands for a few days and works well as lipstick too. Apparently Achiote can also be used with cooking. The red bits are rubbed together to create a paste that is rubbed into the hair. Vasoline is added to the hair to prevent the colours from running when it´s raining. The hair is combed into a shape like a hat. The process of adding Achiote and combing is repeated many times and takes quite a while. It can stay in the hair for 8 days. Then we went on a guided rainforest walk with the volunteers from London. The trail was filled with different plants, trees, berries and flowers. Many plants had really big leaves and some at least a meter long. At the end of the rainforest walk we found a colony of ants carrying leaves. We later found these leaf carrying ants in other locations as well. After dinner we went to the goodbye ceremony for the volunteers from London. It started with a ritual from the shaman of the tribe which was against bad spirits and for good energy, which we participated in as well. That was followed by traditional dancing and music from Tsachilas. The Tsachilas have won dance awards for 1st and 2nd place at dance competitions involving groups from Ecuador and some from surrounding countries. Afterwards everybody was invited join in the dancing. Unfortunately the photos didn´t really work out from the ceremony. We returned in the back of a pickup truck lit by a full moon. There weren´t many clouds and the walk through the rainforest path was made possible by the moon - it was amazing to look up at the silhouettes of the trees and plants with reflecting moonlight.

Day 3: So far we didn´t mind that much getting bit by insects because they weren´t itchy... until now. Richard gave us a tour of their museum and afterwards we got a lesson in Tsa´fiki (the Tsachila language), which is totally different from any language we know. At the same time we taught Richard some English, which continued for the remainder of our stay. Some interesting words are ´Ju´ (hi), ´layan joo´ (thank you very much), ´shushu´ (dog), ´shushu-na´ (puppy) and ´a´ (hair). They don´t have a word for good-bye; there was only ´inale´ (see you later). Then it was time again to relax on the hammocks, which we did a lot this week (a nice but awkward change from the 2 weeks at Santa Martha). We used these opportunites to study spanish as well. Then we went out with the 2 US volunteers, Freddy (in traditional clothing), Richard, Elizabeth and Guilermo (a long term Yanapuma employee helping the Tsachila with amongst others their agricultural practices). In Santo Domingo we watched the movie Hancock in spanish which we sort of understood, but we didn´t get most of the jokes. After dinner (shortly after 8) we went out dancing in an empty night club playing latin music. We went back at 12, which is way after our normal bed time of 9:30 or 10.

Day 4:
We went to a funeral ceremony at the school for a woman from the UK who had been living with the Tsachilas for over 60 years. Since she meant a lot to the tribe members she was the first non-Tsachila to be buried in the traditional Tsachila way. There was singing during the ceremony and also 2 dance performances (from girls she taught to dance) and of course people talking about her. After that the official part of the ceremony took place (we didn´t go to that part). We were going to take the bus back to where we were staying, but got out after a couple minutes because the bus was so full (we were standing in the doorway of the bus). It was an hour walk back. The rest of the day was just relaxing.

At this point we started to notice a pattern to the food, which was different every day if you don´t include the rice, beans and plantains. Breakfast was the most different often with eggs and for instance crushed corn boiled and shaped. Lunch was different kinds of soups and a plate with rice and some vegetables (eg: beans, beets or tomatoes), sweet banana or plantain chips. Dinner was similar to lunch, but without the soup. All meals were accompanied by a drink: often sweet tasting coffee in the morning and for lunch and dinner a warm cinammon drink or juice from lemons or mandarins, for instance. We got extra fruit and sugarcane for snacks too.

Day 5:
In the morning Alfonso told stories about the Tsachila culture. He explained how traditional funerals were carried out and how the Tsachila culture has changed to adapt to modern times. Alfonso is head of the cultural group that is trying to revive the culture along with Yanapuma. Richard took us on a walk to 2 villages in the opposite direction of Santo Domingo. The first village was 4 km. Along the way we saw many different kinds of plants and trees (cacao, papaya, maracuya, bamboo, achiote, coffee, etc.). We could later identify some of these plans on Alfonso´s land. Tsachila´s are renting out a big part of their land, but that is getting less partly because they want the rainforest to grow back, but also because they want to stop the bad agricultural practices (like using chemicals that are banned in other countries).

The women spend part of their day cleaning. Mainly sweeping up leaves with twig brooms. The leaves reappear the next day, since leaves are constantly falling. We were really surprised that they spent so much time keeping everything neat and tidy, because it is a contrast to the rest of Ecuador. In the afternoon 16 volunteers from the same school in London arrived for 4 days to work on a bridge for the jungle trail. This group stayed in tents nearby making Shinopi (where we were staying) much more lively and loud. Since they brought a lot of movies we ended up watching 3 of them at night with them.

Day 6:
It rained a lot this time at night. When it was raining really hard small amounts of rain came through the roof made of leaves. Paulien didn´t notice since she was on the bottom bunk. We helped with the bridge a bit by carrying leaves, rocks and also digging. Richard took us on a tour of the medicinal garden and through Alfonso´s fields (mainly maracuya, corn and yuca, but also caracas, pan de fruita, etc.). It was a big farm with more than 10 people working there.

Day 7:
In the morning the women did some arts and crafts, which is a traditional practice. Paulien had already bought a necklace, bag and bracelet. Germania made a bracelet for each of us and Paulien made a necklace (with some help from Brian). As a good-bye from one of the 3 dogs both of Brian´s bags were peed on! Shortly before lunch it was time for us to go. It was a nice week and we would have liked to stay longer, but we had to be in Quito to prepare for our next volunteer place on the coast.

Quilotoa Circuit

2008-07-15T12:37:00.000-07:00

Saturday after Santa Martha we took a few buses and taxis to end up at Quilotoa, which is a small village high up in the mountains (3800 meters). One of the buses was so full that we sat up on the roof with a bike and dog for about half an hour. Then we moved into the crowded bus, since it´s actually not allowed to sit up top. It was pretty fun sitting on the roof with amazing views. It´s common to see chickens, goats and sheep on top of the bus or in the storage area of the bus (with the luggage).

The scenery was beautiful green hills and mountains with little houses. Farmers crops were even found on really steep remote hills.

Quilotoa was quite cold at night. Luckily our room had a little wood stove, but it wasn´t enough to keep Paulien warm through the night. Also, the shower there didn´t get any warmer than icy cold. We hiked around the ridge of a spectacular volcanic crater filled with an emerald lake (4 hours). The views were beautiful and there were many flowers covering the whole crater. Then we took a bus to Chugchilan with 3 other travellers we´d met on the scariest bus ride so far, since the dirt road was narrow, had no guard rails, and was really close to big drop-offs.

The Mama Hilda Hostel at Chugchilan had a common eating area (like Quilotoa) for breakfast and dinner, which was kept really warm by a wood stove. It was a nice change from being cold, plus there was a warm shower.

At both hostels in Quilotoa and Chugchilan the breakfast and dinner were really good local food. For example, dinner started with soup that had quinoa, potatoes and cilantro. Main meal with corn maize, salad and eggs for us (chicken for everyone else). Chicken is included in most meals here. For dessert there was pie or fruit (tomate de arbol, a local fruit also used to make juice).

In Chugchilan we did a small hike in a canyon with 2 other travellers. There were small houses made of what looked like corn husks. We think that they used to be used for living in them (and probably still in poorer areas), mostly now just for animals or storage.

Yesterday we left Chugchilan at 11am for a long trip back to Quito. We didn´t get to our hostel in Quito until 8pm because of bad bus connections and then traffic in Quito.

Tomorrow we start our 2nd volunteer project, which is a week with a tribe (through Yanapuma). Right after that we go onto our third project for a month with FCSF.

Last week at Santa Martha Rescue center

2008-07-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

For the weekend we went to Quito and spent Saturday night with other volunteers from Santa Martha. Sunday we went to the middle of the earth. There are no photos, since we didn´t bring the battery. We did some experiments related to the differences in gravity and the direction water spins when it´s drained. Brian got a certificate for balancing an egg on a nail on the equator.

Our last week at Santa Martha involved a lot of chopping down trees for the stairs and the aviary. The aviary was finished by the end of the week and animals were moved from the vet clinic to the new spaces. Some parts of building the aviary were a bit sketchy because it was high up and the ladders weren´t very high. There was a new employee this week that helped out with the construction. Paulien chopped down a big tree and it took 9 people to carry half of the tree!

Often we have to be in the cages for cleaning. Some animals like to crawl on you and some of the birds poop on you. Brian was enjoying a parrot on him until it started biting his ear and pooing on him.

Note for the kinkajou photos that the adult kinkajou is sticking out his tongue and the baby is all bandaged up (was put in vet clinic because the adult kinkajous were attacking it).

Some of the animals are tame. One of the galapagos turtles and one of the pumas, for example. The turtles that weren´t tame hissed when you come close when they are eating. The bears look sweet and kind, but since they can be released and are really strong we couldn´t play with them when they stuck their paws out of the cage.

To make life a bit easier for volunteers we spent some of the donation money on things like a mini-oven and cleaning/kitchen materials. Fortuntately, the owner bought our house a new fridge to replace an old fridge (like a cupboard) that only fit food for one day. So our second week was one in ´luxury´.

Our final night concluded with a bonfire and some marshmellows.

First week at Santa Martha Rescue Center

2008-07-05T16:50:00.000-07:00

We have finished our first week of working at Santa Martha Wildlife Rescue Center. It has turned out to be a lot more physical work than we had expected, but that is in part due to the surplus of volunteers.

Some of the animals at the moment are: lions, jaguar, pumas, cabezas, coaties, kinkajoos, ocelots, andean bears, parrots (also mackaws), eagles, snakes, iguanas, toucan, lamas, sheep, turtles and tortoises. Most of these animals were either kept as pets (even an eagle), or mistreated in a zoo or circus. Some animals cannot be rehabilited or released because they are either tame, injured or not indigenous to Ecuador and not welcome in their home country. The week before we arrived many monkeys and turtles were release back into the wild. There are also pigs, rabbits and guinea pigs for emergency food.

There are 18 volunteers at the moment, which is the maximum capacity. Most of them are from Europe (England, Norway, Ireland, Germany), United States and New Zealand. Working hours are from 8am-1pm and 4pm-6pm. The morning shift is usually exhausting. It´s hard work mentally and physically, but it´s also fun and rewarding. Some of the things we have done: cleaning animals cages (amongst others lions and cabezas produce a large amount of poo!), feeding animals (mostly fruit we cut up and want to eat ourselves, but also raw meat and whole chickens), cutting down trees with machetes, building stairs (with shovels, hoes, saws, hammers, and the wood we cut up). Especially building the stairs is hard work giving most of us nice blisters, but it´s fun to do work we haven´t done before and the final result is quite impressive. We both really liked working with machetes. Paulien could only do it for a little bit, but Brian did it 5 hours / day and had trouble holding his toothbrush properly afterwards. We get to do a lot of construction work because there are a lot of volunteers, so there is less time with the animals than when there are less volunteers.

The road up from the town is really bumpy cobblestone and dirt. It´s basically only accessible to us with a white pick-up truck taxi (there are lots of crazy dogs and the hill is really steep). In the town there is not much to get besides basic vegetables and odd food in tiny stores that carry a limited selection, but we managed to create some yummy meals anyway.

The afternoons and nights we usually spend freshening up, grocery shopping, cooking, eating and relaxing (maybe watching a movie or Family Guy episodes). There are 3 different houses for the volunteers (we are in the most basic house and longer term volunteers are often in the house with the more luxury).

The area is beautiful with green hills and a few snow capped mountains. We can supposedly see Cotopaxi (5897 meter volcano) and the Iliniza mountains.

We finished up our Saturday morning cleaning and feeding and came down in a white pickup truck taxi with 17 volunteers and their bags (some volunteers were leaving). It was an interesting 15 minute ride down the bumpy road - a sight you wouldn´t see in North America or Europe. Paulien was laying down on 3 girls in the back seat and Brian rode standing on the bumper (we went pretty slow). We´re in Quito till Sunday night with 9 other volunteers. Tomorrow we´re both going to the middle of the earth (Mitad del Mundo) to do some scientific experiments at the equator.

After next week we´ll put up some more photos of the work and the animals. We´ve been too busy, tired or dirty to take many photos.

First week in Quito and area

2008-06-29T17:56:00.000-07:00

We spent our first week as tourists and starting tomorrow we are going to be volunteering.
Our second day in Quito we went up Pichincha mountain on the teleferico (gondola) to 4100 metres. We hiked for something like 4 hours and could feel the altitude making hiking harder than it should be. It was beautiful and sunny and we both got sunburnt a little bit.
Next day we checked out of our hostel that rents rooms by the hour. We were already wondering why they were cleaning the rooms all day... in our travelling guide that hostel was highly recommended!
We took a 2 hour bus ride up north (for 2$) to Otavalo, which has an enourmous Saturday market. Lots of people getting on the bus to sell things like ice cream, water and toothbrushes. We got to practice our spanish by watching a movie on the bus ride. We stayed in a nearby town, Peguchi, which has a famous waterfall. We hiked up to the waterfall and made friends with some strange dogs that followed us the whole time. Also, some locals wanted to take photos of us at the waterfall, with their camera!
The market was really big with lots of indigenous textiles and crafts, but also food and a livestock market. Maybe even more interesting were the people themselves - their faces, clothing and the huge amounts of goods they carried. Also, kids and occasionally animals are carried on the back all wrapped up. At our hostel their was live entertainment with local music and dancing.
Sunday we took a bus back to Quito and we explored the Old Town again. Mainly churches - the Basilica vota del Nacional was the most fun because we got to climb all these sketchy ladders to the tops of two towers. Another interesting church was La Compañia, which has walls of gold.
We´ve been getting by ok. We´ve ended up taking taxis a lot because they are cheap and easy (we never need to wait more than 1 minute since there are so many). Most people here can´t speak a word of English. This will help us learn spanish faster, but is making things challenging.
Starting tomorrow we will be volunteering at the Santa Martha Wildlife Rescue Center.

Start of our trip

2008-06-25T15:57:00.000-07:00

This is the first in an ongoing list of blog posts for our four month trip. We left Amsterdam early on June 24th around 8am with four big suitcases and also some heavy hand baggage. We managed to bring all the books, spectrophotometer, microscope, medicines and also our own stuff without any problems or extra costs. They didn´t even look at our customs forms! There were some questions about the microscope when it went through the x-ray, though.
We arrived pretty tired at our hostel in Quito basically 24 hours later. Today we checked out Quito a bit while it was sunny, but then it started raining, thundering and even hailing (this is not normal here, but especially for our first day). We have delivered the spectrophotometer and pipettes already, so we have less to carry around.

Goods we are donating

2008-06-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

The Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center has donated a microscope, which will be given to the Santa Martha Rescue Center, and 3 pipettes for the laboratory in Cabo San Francisco.
Most of the books which were donated will be going to the mountain school in Tinkuy Peru.
With money that was donated we bought a second-hand spectrophotometer (from Gemini BV, who gave us a discount) for the laboratory in Cabo San Francisco and medicines (through a vet in Nijmegen) for the Santa Martha Rescue Center.

Check back for updates

2008-02-24T12:05:00.000-08:00

We will try to keep the blog up to date with photos and information for the entire trip (which starts at the end of June). So, keep checking back here for updates!

General Information

2008-02-10T08:15:00.000-08:00

We will be volunteering in South America in Peru and Ecuador from the end of June till the end of October.

In Ecuador we start just south of Quito at Santa Martha Rescue [1]. We will be spending 2 weeks here at a center that rescues a wide variety of wild animals from unhealthy and illegal situations. We will work 6 days per week feeding the animals twice per day, cleaning and improving facilities.

Then west of Quito in the foothills of the Andes we go to Bua de los Tsachilas, one of the 6 indigenous communities Yanapuma [2] is working with (focused on sustainable development). During the 1 week cultural exchange we will be living in this indigenous community. We will learn about their culture and they will get an opportunity to learn about foreigners, which is helpful because they want to promote tourism in their area.

Afterwards we go to the coast (Cabo San Francisco [3]) for one month. Here we will do a variety of volunteer work, including construction (bamboo), education (English and environmental) and work at the laboratory they are setting up. The community here lives under conditions of extreme poverty.

Finally, in Peru we will be working for a month in Huancayo (Tinkuy Peru [4]), one of the poorest cities in Peru. We will mainly be working at the mountain school, teaching kids from ages 2-14. This will not only include teaching various subjects, but also doing sports, teaching proper hygienic skills and going on excursions with the children and most of all giving them love and attention.

We picked these 4 projects out of a huge list based on different criteria: mostly the importance and effectiveness of the volunteer project (e.g. working in poor areas), but also the location (the projects shouldn't be too far apart), our own interests (e.g. working with animals and children), our abilities, and doing different kinds of work.

Of course, we will try to see as much as possible of Ecuador en Peru in the limited amount of spare time during and between the different volunteer projects.

Donations

2008-01-27T07:44:00.000-08:00

We are not accepting donations anymore on behalf of the organizations. However, you can still donate money directly to the organizations; for more information on that, check out their websites (which are mentioned at the bottom of the posts about the organizations).

These organizations are always in need of money, since they mostly or completely rely on donations.
Examples of what the different organizations need money for are:
- building materials for school, library and/or toilets (Tinkuy Peru and Yanapuma)
- books for children (Tinkuy Peru and Yanapuma)
- furniture for school or health center (Tinkuy Peru, Yanapuma and FCSF)
- medicine and medical supplies (Santa Martha, Yanapuma and FCSF)
- laboratory equipment (FCSF)
- veterinary equipment (Santa Martha)
None of the places we are volunteering at have administration costs for donations. So, every cent goes directly to where it's needed.

And remember - every little bit helps.

Santa Martha Rescue Center

2008-01-08T06:39:00.000-08:00

This is our first volunteer project

Santa Martha Rescue Center is an animal sanctuary located in the Andean mountains of Ecuador. Assisted by volunteers, they are responsible for rescuing a wide variety of wild animals (such as monkeys, cats, bears, reptiles, parrots, etc) from unhealthy and illegal situations, which have been the victims of animal-trafficking or mistreatment. Operating since 2001, the center is locally owned by Johnny and Brenda Córdova and is situated on their 65 hectare dairy farm, 1 hour south of Quito.

Since 2006, there is a new animal rehabilitation and release center in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador, called Santa Martha Flor de la Amazonia. There they work in partnership with an indigenous Indian community and now have over 1,000 private hectares of primary Amazon forest within which they can release the rescued animals.

Santa Martha works closely with the national police organisation UPMA to encourage the development and enforcement of legislation in relation to wildlife found in Ecuador.
Another very important aspect of Santa Martha is that of community awareness. School visits are an important part of our effort to help educate the local community, especially the children.

It has become apparent that the need is far greater than ever imagined, hence over a short period of time, Santa Martha has grown almost overwhelmingly. By attempting to never turn away an animal in need, Santa Martha has become the premier animal rescue center in Ecuador. As a result Santa Martha is continually operating at its limits and it is only with the enthusiastic work of so many volunteers that Santa Martha has been able to help as many animals as it has today.

Despite its incredible growth Santa Martha is solely based on love and respect of the animal kingdom. It is an NGO (non government organisation), which means it is completely reliant on its volunteers and other donations to keep running. Despite working closely with the government, the police, and other orgainsations, we receive no funding from them.

For more information, check out the website: www.santamartharescue.org

Yanapuma

2008-01-08T06:36:00.000-08:00

Yanapuma Foundation is a cooperatively run non-governmental organisation whose aims are to facilitate sustainable practices in poor urban and rural communities throughout Ecuador, and to encourage intercultural exchange that fosters mutual benefit and learning in a globalizing world.
Yanapuma works with communities in the Amazon rainforest, in the sierra, and at the coast, as well as offering options to work with projects in Quito.

Founded in 2006, its mission is to help indigenous populations to manage their development in a way that allows them to protect their environment and their cultural heritage, and to manage and maintain control of their resources as they adapt to the demands of a globalized world. The situation for many indigenous communities throughout Ecuador is that they are being forced into an alien form of development, without the tools, knowledge, background, education, connections, or understanding that they need to manage this transition well. This causes problems such as:
- A lack of quality education for indigenous children
- Depreciation of indigenous culture in the face of uncontrolled economic development
- Problems of waste management and lack of recycling options
- Destruction of the environment for quick economic gain
- Exhaustion of water supplies through deforestation and destructive agricultural practices
- Impoverishment of diet due to increasing reliance on imported foods and poverty
- Health problems due to environmental pollution and poor practices
- Breakdown of family ties due to forced migration.
All the communities that Yanapuma works with have requested their help and are eager to receive volunteers and visitors. Yanapuma offers them a solution by taking an integrated approach to working with communities, partnering with other organizations and NGOs to deliver all the necessary services and programs that are needed to make a community truly sustainable, socially, environmentally and economically.
Their vision is that each community should have appropriate services for its culture and environment in terms of water and sanitation, a sustainable agricultural system, a good educational system, sound environmental management, and maintain a keen sense of its culture and history.

In addition to normal volunteering programs, Yanapuma also offers cultural exchange visits. These programs are for those with less time to offer, and are oriented towards helping communities that are developing community-based tourism projects. Visitors on this program will have the opportunity to experience daily life in an indigenous community, off the beaten tourist path. The presence of the volunteers acts as an encouragement to the community's tourism project, and offers them an opportunity to learn about other cultures and the needs and preferences of foreigners.

For more information, check out the website: http://www.yanapuma.org/

Cabo San Francisco

2008-01-08T06:34:00.000-08:00

The FCSF (Cabo San Francisco Foundation) is a non-profit organization concerned with conservationist and environmental principles, with sustainable development and with the defense of the environment and nature. It is assisted by the Red Cross of Switzerland. The target area of the foundation is the parish of San Francisco, located in a torrid climate region, with tropical humid forest neighboring the Pacific Ocean. The population of San Francisco del Cabo (around 3500 inhabitants) lives in conditions of extreme poverty on the edge of survival.

FCSF wants to improve sanitary conditions, education, and the infrastructure on a much larger scale, and for a greater number of communities located in this forgotten zone on the Ecuadorian coast. Additionally, there are environmental protection and sustainable use programs to improve the use of resources. The economy is stimulated by bringing agricultural zones back in use and supporting the fishing industry, which is the primary economic activity of the region.

One of the current projects is to install a functioning clinical laboratory in San Francisco that can handle diagnosing common pathologies in this area, such as malaria, dengue fever, chagas disease and parasite-related diseases. It is important to know that the closest place where these types of analyses can be performed is three hours away. This is why a clinical laboratory is a necessity, not only for the population of San Francisco, but also for the surrounding communities that make up the municipality of San Francisco with a population of 5,000 people.

For more information, check out the websites: www.fcsf.org (the new website, which they are still working) and www.cabosanfrancisco.ch (the old website).

Tinkuy Peru

2007-12-30T11:30:00.001-08:00

This is our last volunteer place.

Tinkuy Peru is an organization run by Tino Leoncio and his family. They live in Huancayo, one of the poorest cities in Peru, located in the Peruvian Andes mountains. The poverty is caused by terrorism in the 1990s, the weak Peruvian economy as well as the low quality of the educational system. Tinkuy Peru works with orphaned children and poor families in different areas of Huancayo. Most of the families live in improvised housing without electicity, gas, water or sanitation. Many of the children there have either lost a parent, have parents who work non-stop and don't have time for them, have to work to help their parents, are malnourished, or are confronted with domestic violence or alcohol abuse.

What Tinkuy Peru tries to do is:
- provide the children with the necessary attention that parents are not able to give
- show the children that people care about them, give them joy and happiness
- provide the children with additional education (with special attention for English, which can be important when tourism grows in Huancayo)
- give the children confidence to be able to create a better future
- decrease the time that children spend in surroundings that can be physically or mentally damaging
- bring the children into contact with many children of their age

Volunteers can work at different locations: at the orphanage, the mountain school or the Andean school. The Andean school is started and operated by the Tinkuy Peru staff and volunteers. The primary goal for this school is to teach local children and adults basic understanding of the English language. The mountain school is for children aged 2 to 14 years. The volunteers can not only teach English here, but also other subjects or entertain the children by singing songs, playing sports and doing excursions with them. The children in the orphanage range from 6 months to 18 years old. Typical work at the orphanage includes English tutoring, help with homework, arts and crafts, sports, games, infant care, counseling, one-on-one mentorship/special care, and facility improvement projects.
All this work should help the children to increase their confidence and educational level and give them a better chance to escape poverty and create a better future for themselves and their community.

For more information, check out the website: http://www.tinkuyperu.com/