Our first weekend at Jesus Divino de Preso

We have begun a partnership with a new organization here in the Valley: Jesus Divino de Preso. Today Ashley brings a little more information about our inaugural activities and conversations with Jesus Divino.

Ashley here again, ready and excited to update you on an interesting new volunteer opportunity in which we have decided to take part. Bibi and Hannah initially met with Juana (affectionately known at their foundation as “Juanita”) from Jesus Divino de Preso, an organization that houses children whose mothers are in prison. While their intent was to discuss spring break, another opportunity emerged out of the meeting - the chance for us to volunteer every other weekend to give the “tías” (house aunts) a few days off.

Jesus Divino operates a number of houses on their beautifully lush property, in which children all live together as a family with their tía. Children are expected to take responsibility for themselves and all of their belongings, including doing dishes, cleaning the house, and washing their laundry daily. The foundation is run by a strong base of professionals who want the children to grow up feeling empowered instead of feeling poor and pitied.

Noel and I were the first to volunteer for a weekend, and it was quite an experience. We traveled to their property not knowing at all what to anticipate or what our role would be in relating to the kids. It ended up being a weekend of dualities: feeling both necessary and superfluous, connecting with kids and yet maintaining distance, loving spending time with them and being frustrated at their periodic disrespect.

It was fascinating to see our shifting roles in relation to the kids as well: at different times we served as authority figures, stand-in loving mothers, disciplinarians, and playmates. After leaving from the weekend both tired and slightly confused at our responsibilities, we met with Juana and a few other professionals from the foundation, including a psychologist with a great deal of insight. They provided us with information about our relationships with the kids as well as the benefits (on both sides) of our volunteering with them. It was incredibly helpful, and we are excited to continue working with them in this unique opportunity!


Two of the houses where the children and tías live on Jesus Divino's grounds, including the one we occupied (left) during our stay.

A tía and some girls waiting out the rain.

John Kevin playing with Noel's umbrella.

Me playing with Freddy and John Kevin in the windows of their house.

Noel reading Aladdin to Freddy, Junior, and Jorge.

Día de los Difuntos celebration!

Last Friday, November 5, we held an afternoon-long celebration at the library of el Día de los Difuntos. After our 5-day feriado, we wanted to bring kids back into our space with a bang. To that end, we advertised during the preceding weeks for a fiesta which would include games, special art projects, and the traditional food and drink of Ecuador’s Día de los Difuntos: colada morada and guaguas de pan (bread shaped as little dolls).

The week before our long weekend, some of our adult English students (Ivonne, who is in the intermediate class, and her aunt Fabiola, who is in my basic class) arranged to teach us all how to make colada morada, a thick, fruity, sugary beverage which we’ve all decided to try to reproduce in our future lives in the States to pour over ice cream or pie. Not only was the instruction a great deal of fun and an opportunity for camaraderie with our students, it was fantastic preparation for the three enormous pots worth of colada we ended up making for our fiesta the following week.



The afternoon was a great success! Our library, decorated with purple and white flowers in honor of the occasion, was filled to capacity from its opening at 2:30 until we closed at 7:00.




The kids participated in an Uno tournament, a ping pong tournament, group board games, and a special art project led by our children’s art profes, Luke, Sam, and Zoë during the regular children’s art hours of 4-5pm on Fridays. The afternoon served as a fantastic advertisement for children’s art, as nearly every child under 11 in the library made lovely construction paper flowers from construction paper and pipe cleaners to take home to their families.







At the end of the day we were exhausted but ecstatic about the number of kids who had heard about and come to share in our celebration. Even though we came home with a pot and a half left of colada morada that we had to make space for in the refrigerator, we all felt like it was a decided success.

English outside the box

In response to overwhelming community interest in Manna's English classes and following up on expansion initiatives undertaken by the previous year's program directors, we have extended our English offerings outside of the Centro to reach more and more varied of our community members. In today's guest blog Jack brings you a glimpse into what Manna's English looks like outside the box.

Sangolquí: Our home since mid-September, Sangolquí is a bustling metropolis and is the largest city in our valley. Unlike our former neighborhood (Conocoto), Sangolquí has lots of stores, restaurants, internet café’s, and bus lines in close proximity to our house.

Rumiloma: This is the small community where we maintain our library and host the majority of our programs. Rumiloma is slightly less developed that Sangolquí, and has a fairly slower pace of life.

Why the explanation? I’d been hoping to have my own English class down here; however, we already had more than enough people maintaining the current children's and adult English classes at our centro in Rumiloma. Since the move to Sangolquí in September, I have been working through our neighborhood's government to organize a new English class in this area. A few weeks ago, I finally started adult and teen English classes. Funnily enough, the town president decided the best place for these classes would be the local police station. A few times every class, fully suited-up chapas (cops) stroll into the class and listen in on our mock dialogues and vocab games. Every class also features a song of the day: I choose a song to play on my laptop that includes a few relevant phrases or vocab words and give all the students a worksheet with a few of the lyrics missing. For my first song, I chose "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones. This really helped everyone pick up on the phrase “Pleased to Meet You.” Afterwards I translated the lyrics for everyone. Things got a little awkward when I came to the phrase “Every cop is a criminal” (keep in mind all of the cops in Ecuador went on strike about a month ago).

All in all, however, our two new English classes have been a big hit, and they have definitely boosted awareness of MPI’s presence in Sangolquí. As some of the only Americans in our area, we are the only source of English classes in our community that are taught by native speakers (they are also the cheapest - $10 for an 8 week course). While English instruction is only a small part of the development work we conduct, it has nonetheless been a longstanding success that we are excited to continue.

Feriado!

Happy Thursday everyone! For us here in Ecuador today has felt like a strange cross between a Monday and a Saturday because we just got back from traveling over our 5-day weekend. November 2nd and 3rd are national feriados due to el Día de los Difuntos (you may know it as Día de los Muertos) and Cuenca’s Independence Day. Just last week, in classic Ecuadorian style, the government declared Monday, November 1st, a feriado as well, giving everyone the chance to get out of town for a continuous five days.

While Luke held down the fort at the Manna house, the rest of us split into three directions to see parts of Ecuador new to each of us. Brock, Jack, and Sam headed off into the Oriente to Tena for a long weekend full of adventure in the Amazon. It included rafting, caving, and jumping off bridges. The souvenirs with which they returned consisted not only great photos, but also calves covered in bright red bug bites after their insect repellent washed off while rafting.



Becky and Zoë, meanwhile, went south to Montañita, a beautiful and tranquil coast town near Guayaquíl. There, they relaxed on the beach, ate the delicious seafood cuisine the coast is famous for, and made friends with locals.



Finally, Hannah, Ashley and I combined a bit of the jungle (though not the Amazon) and a bit of the beach with a two-part trip to the northwest part of the country. We stopped first in Playa de Oro, where we stayed at a jungle lodge just set back from a river run by the residents of the village of Playa de Oro, went on hikes, and swam in a waterfall. After the jungle, we pushed out to the northern beach towns of Atacames and Súa for a change of pace before heading home.



For everyone, it was a great weekend of travel. We relaxed and adventured and continued to put into the national context of Ecuador what Manna is doing in the sierras outside Quito. Ecuador never ceases to amaze.

Otavalo - Retreat #1

Two weekends ago, all of us PDs packed up our things, closed the library early for the week and took off for Otavalo in the mountains of Ecuador for our first retreat. Sadly, Brock was in Miami and couldn't be with us for the weekend but we made do without him (thank goodness nothing broke and needed fixing). Our first day was spent mostly in the leather markets of Cotacachi - three of us even have new leather jackets to show for it. We were able to see Peguche Waterfall and hiked around for a while - Luke, Jack and I found a great cave at the top of the falls but dared not enter.


Peguche Waterfall

Friday night we went to a nice dinner in Otavalo and then took a long and bumpy taxi ride up to our hostel. The next morning we were able to really appreciate the views that our hostel had to offer - it was gorgeous. Situated between two mountains with fields of green patchwork on all sides of them, we had a truly picturesque view (thank you Zoe!).


View from the hotel

Saturday we woke up early for breakfast of bread and tea and headed to one of the largest animal markets in Ecuador. After gawking at hundreds of chickens, angry cows and some of the largest pigs we have ever seen, we headed to the artisan market.
Debating whether or not to purchase "crunchy" overall shorts and creepy masks, we finally settled on some purchases, ate lunch and left for La Laguna Mojanda.
Bibi worked her magic and found us a camioneta willing to take us to the top of the mountain to see La Laguna. It took us about an hour and halfway through the skies opened up and freezing cold rain started to fall on us in the back of the camioneta. Our nice driver offered us a tarp and we decided to grin and bear it. The Laguna was absolutely gorgeous and worth the frigid rainfall we endured to get to the top. Jack and I decided to take off on a two hour long hike to get to the top while the rest of the group hiked around the perimeter of the lake. Although we didn't see much from the top, the hike itself was amazing.


La Laguna Mojanda


The Mountains around La Laguna that Jack and I climbed


Jack and I halfway up the mountain!

Dinner never tasted so good. We ate at the hostel and then hung out in their common area drinking wine, playing ping pong and singing along to jack's incredible guitar skills.



Sunday came too fast but we made the most of it by taking a long hike to El Lechero (the healing tree of Otavalo). Even though people told us that it was just up the way, we ended up hiking for a good hour and a half before we found the beautiful old tree. We took turns resting and hugging it (especially Ashley with her hurt ankle) and then hiked back down to catch our bus back home.
Overall, the trip was amazing. It was relaxing and fun - exactly what we were hoping for in Retreat #1!


The group (minus Brock) at Otavalo!


3 more to go!
Besos Chao Chao