Another busy month on the Project – Sarah and the film crew left for more excitement deep in the jungle and then 11 volunteers arrived to do some community development work. They stayed for 10 days and did a lot of good work painting and fixing some of the schools with the locals in ´mingas´. The house was really full – 15 in total and everyone survived with dignity and sanity intact, with some more friends made and some more experiences to add the mountains we already have.

Jeremy has started to work on some project related work as we continue to desperately find a car to replace Julian – I think he spent more time with the mechanic than with us this month! If anyone can drive a new four by four over in the next week for us that will be great! Hopefully Jeremy will have some good news for us when he returns from Quito where he is speaking to a number of car manufacturers and other people about cars, internet and solar energy for the house. The new assistant coordinator, Vinny, has started and settled straight into the routine and has been a great help in managing the teaching project with some great ideas – she was in Haiti before organizing a relief effort after the earthquake.

With the volunteer numbers beginning to go up from now until the end of the academic year we are extending the teaching to new schools – km 6 and maybe San Ramon in Puyo education district – and beginning to teach extra classes in some schools for the 7th graders as they go on to college in September and need an extra injection of English. We are also talking with a school in the jungle to consider putting a live-in volunteer in situ to teach and help the community. We are also looking at starting a vegetable patch and growing tomatoes, onions, peppers and chillis – as long as the dogs don´t dig them up first!

This month has also seen the start of the district football competition with teams playing a game every Friday until the final later in April. Km 6 and a combined team from 22/35 are the strongest so fingers crossed for 22 and 35!

April also sees a small break of two days for Easter and also two days for a teacher meeting and ´El día del maestro´ (Teachers Day! What with the football more days lost but in Ecuador things are always changing! Now we have finished the trimester and are working for the final trimester to ensure that everything is set up for the new academic year with the new systems, procedures, documentation and new schools.

I will be off on a (well deserved!) holiday from 20th April so have a great month and I will update you with everything again at the beginning of May.

Simon Barlow, Arajuno Road Project Coordinator