Last week in Otavalo

The first two days of the week, I worked with Bronwen in the classroom, turning over the students to her capable hands. Bronwen is quite artistic and I am sure she will have fun with the kids and they will definitely learn from her. I realized how comfortable I had gotten with the kids and the operations of the school, and how I wasn't fazed my much anymore when something didn't go as planned either in the classroom or with the food for breakfast and lunch or with the keys!  Making puppets was one of our last projects together -- I brought a kit with me, and they kids had fun with them.

On Tuesday when we entered the classroom building and started setting up, Bronwen looked at one of the work tables and asked what on earth was on the table! I walked over to it, and saw that it looked like bird doo, so I looked up to see if there was a whole in the roof, or a bird in the rafters. There wasn't, and then I saw that there were little piles around on the floor and on top of a book on another table! It was chicken shit! The bird must have gotten in through the hole in the back wall! Had a good laugh about and tried to get some of the older kids to clean up for us, to no avail!

Wednesday and Thursday were my days to help build a stove. Well, as with many things here, it didn't go quite as planned, but we did get off to a good start and I got to do a little bit! All of the materials for two stoves had been delivered to the two locations where the community wanted the first two stoves to be built. The first problem was that they wanted to build one outside of one of the school buildings, where they hoped someday to extend the building! After a bit of discussion, Tracey was able to convince the community leader that the intent was for them to be built in an existing house, and not outside somewhere where it might take years before they got a building built around it. So, off we went to the second site where work began. All of the materials: bricks, cement blocks, the sand, cement and gravel, along with the cook top and pipe for the chimney had to be carried up from the road to the house. Again there was discussion about exactly where to build and the position of the stove. The location was determined and work began: things had to be moved out of the way, the earth had to be leveled off, and a cement block wall had to be relocated. Once these guys determined everything was right, I got to spread some of the cement between the bricks --- my contribution to the building!

I think I might have mentioned that the food at the homestay was pretty basic and for lunch I usually had a roll with something inside of it, and two pieces of fruit. The roll most often was dry and might have had caramel or jam or guacamole in it, or be plain. I usually carried a bag of peanuts with me to supplement the lunch or add to the jam sandwich. On a really good day it might be tuna or sandwich ham. Well, later in the week when returning to Otavalo, Bronwen said she was starving --- her roll was so dry and plain that she hadn't been able to eat it, so had feed it to the chickens! I had a good laugh about that too. I hope she is either able to suggest other food to the homestay mom, or come to terms with the food!

For our usual Wednesday GVI get together, we went to a nice fish restuarant for our goodbye dinner.  Janine, Jordy and I were all leaving.  Janine is on the same program as I, so I will work with her again in Peru. On Thursday, immediately after school, I finished packing and was driven into Quito by my homestay parents. I spent all of Friday traveling from Quito to Arequipa, with a long layover in Lima. Here I am with Janine and Tracey:

I am quite pleased with the work I was able to do with Huayrapungo and will miss the kids. However, the long, long days including an hour ride on a bumpy road every morning and afternoon won't be missed!