Hello again,
Welcome to our May newsletter for the Arajuno Road Project, as always we have been living through the constantly changing combination of sunshine and rain, although there seems to have been a bit more sunshine recently, I feel a storm brewing....
The big news is that we have started teaching at El Triunfo until the end of term, which is a trial to see how much we are needed. As many of you will know, I have always said that the El Triunfo school would be the last school that we would visit as it already have many resources, but with only a month until the end of term, and without our project manager and coordinators in place, it was the best option. Personally I have really enjoyed working at the school. We work as assistants to the English teacher, helping with pronunciation and working with the children in smaller groups. It gives us a good insight into other teaching methods, and shows the difference between schools along the road. There are 220 children at the school, so too many to know all of their names, yet we I’m working on it.
School at Km.35 has been progressing as normal, we have just started teaching “to have” to the children which they seem to be grasping. There’s not long left now until the end of term and exams are coming up soon. On Fridays a computer teacher comes (there’s a new computer at school) which means the children are now constantly playing Super Mario Bros! The construction covered playing surface has come to a halt as is so typically Ecuadorian, apparently it is because they are waiting for the roof to be completed.
At Km.22 plans are in place for a school trip next month. Profe has thousands of new ideas on how we can improve everything at the school (as he always does) and the current focus is on getting the toilets working again. We also found out that when it rains the smaller children don’t come to school, because their parents don’t want them getting wet!!!
Outside of school, we have finished our evening classes for a while, as we search for something a bit more productive. In the meantime we have started working with the community families on Wednesday’s, which so far has seen us go down to Wilko’s families land to help with their plantations. It’s incredible to think that they do this every day!
We have also been on a couple of jungle trips recently, one was overnight and a big success. Traditional food eaten out of leaves and sleeping on a floor of leaves.
Our jinx of not being able to get to El Triunfo on a Friday for football was finally broken last week, although when we arrived most of the normal players had gone to Puyo. We still played and won (I think!).
As for the house, the paving in the garden is almost finished, the kitchen is a nice bright red and the 2nd bathroom is installed and painted. Electricity is still not with us, but I’m bugging more and more people about it, how have promised that “something” will be sorted this Wednesday.
Last but by no means least, we have said goodbye to Erica as the end of her stay has come to an end. Her help has been incredible and all of the children are going to miss her a lot. Even Juan said that she was a “great friend” and his family will miss her!