.. it´s Monday, as we arrive at km22 school at 7.30am , the kids spot the big red jeep and run up shouting "good morning teacher", they all want to be picked up and spun around!.. Classes run until 12.30, and everyone (including volunteers) gets a rice meal around 10.00

..... this school is doing a great job on self-sufficiency - we get to see the vegetable garden, chicken shed (they only eat the white ones) and the guinea pigs (local speciality, have decided to avoid.....). We´re teaching 7 different grades in four classes today, the young ones happy to practise new words (colours, animals) and do some drawing, the higher grades are moving on to short sentences and grammar structures. Some of us decide to take the bus back to the volunteer house about 12km away, we walk along the road with some of the kids, dropping them off along the way and finally wave down the "San Francisco" bus, big seats, great music and sublime views over the Amazon rainforest.

..back at the house, get lesson planning done for the next day and go for some "hammock time" - much later on head chef (rotated daily amongst volunteers) sorts out dinner, tuna and noodles tonight, followed by chat about the day and attempts to keep large insects out of the kitchen.

So, Tuesday may well be a "non-school" day, but with 8 people this week plus 2 dogs and 2 cats in the house, things get messy and cleaning is shared. Today there´s also time to head into nearest town (Puyo, one hour by bus!) for laundry, decent coffee and fast internet access!

Carmen is the local English teacher and covers 5 different schools, volunteers on the Arajuno Road Project also work at two more, and help to make sure all schools get two hours English a week by working with her at some schools and leading the teaching at others... Esfuerzo school is off the beaten track, but today (Wednesday) we need to see what Carmen´s doing so we can plan for the lesson we´ll be delivering on Friday. The morning break gives us a chance to talk to Oljer, the school´s director, he´s got some great snake stories and is teaching us some phrases in local tribal language Quichua (and we´re exchanging some English phrases)......

So, Wednesday has turned into a very long and happy day - we´ve started giving evening lessons to adults in a village about 10km away - most come in from local farms and are really excited to get the opportunity to learn. But "community relations" are pushed to a whole new level this week as we get invited into a local guy´s house for a party (well there are two birthdays to celebrate!). Not sure about the peach wine but the latin rhythms and attempts at the Argentinian tango (more Ecuadorian shuffle) make it a really funny night....

....on Thursday we teach at Independencia school - this community is way off the main road and there are only around 12 children, split into 3 classes. We´re teaching simple commands (sit down, stand up, come here) and letting the kids loose on our very own version of "Old MacDonald had a farm" - they never turn down the chance to sing! Making pig noises given me a sore throat ....!

...Friday is my other Esfuerzo day, two of us share three classes of mixed levels, there´s an extra student in class (small puppy distracting kids and teachers!). As long as we can get some planning done for Monday/Tuesday lessons then Friday afternoon and evening is pure chillout (chillax?) - wine, beer, card games, table tennis competitions and volcano spotting (Volcan Sangay is about 80km away but during my 3 weeks here have managed to take photographs of it puffing away at sunset....).

...it´s Saturday and this week all the volunteers in the house have signed up for a 2-day jungle trek with a night in the wilderness. It´s a long, hard descent in dense rainforest to the shelter.. and with no light at all after about 6.30 - eating fried fish and yucca in the dark is messy.....attempts at card games, impossible - by 8.00 pm the only option is sleep.

Kept awake by storm and amazing jungle noises, at long last, morning light - early popcorn (?) breakfast and the return journey uphill in slippery red mud after overnight rain but we´re tough, and finish in about 3 hours.

Only one thing on my mind now..... the hammock (although lowering myself into it is pure agony.....)

Vanessa Strudwick