August was an eventful, busy and fun-filled month. The classes of activities, “summer school,” had healthy and paint filled beginnings and continued strong throughout the month with trips to the waterfall, and team building activities. The Amazon Conservation and Community Development program, has selected a range of projects from agriculturally based activities to school enhancement.

July has been a month of beginnings and endings. The new Amazon Conservation and Community Development program, an extension of the Arajuno Road Project and complement to the teaching program, is underway and the volunteer house is rapidly expanding as construction continues and awakenings are forever hammer filled.

The government English teacher finished at the beginning of the month, leaving us to take the reins and prepare the children for end of year exams. With no official curriculum or assessment system we were left to create tests as we saw fit. There has been a gradual improvement on test results from last year, with our longest running schools doing significantly better than our new associations. The children (like everywhere) have an obsession for grades and were clambering to know how they got on.

The last week of July, was a week in limbo between the end of the school year and the start of summer schools and gave us the opportunity to visit another school and help out with their own summer school. We got plenty of ideas for activities and experience with working with groups of young (4 year old) children.

The Amazon Conservation and Community Development program launched July 5th and its plate is full and flourishing as never a day passes without a more broadened perspective and understanding of the communities with which we work and the ambiguous nature of the words “sustainable development.” The team has spent a majority of July working with local community members on their farms and learning from various local organizations whose projects and vision are in line with our own. In the meantime, as relationships with local communities along the Arajuno Road are continually nourished and resources that will better enable the program's success are utilized, new projects for the community and environment are continually sought after.

To ensure that the foundations of the community program are a solid platform for us to build on, we have been planning and researching how, what and where our projects will take place. The program is a learning experience for all involved, and we are using our individual strengths to make the biggest impact. For example, Nancy, a long term volunteer, has been helping map out a section of donated land for reforestation, trial agricultural areas and a nursery, using her landscaping skills.

Along with all the excitement and happenings along the Arajuno Road the volunteer house is experiencing a makeover of its own. Construction has been steady the past month and the workers, a few friends named Segundo, Juan and Segundo again, have established a presence that will surely be missed as their sly comments and clanking of tools fail to be heard as deep slumber and naps drift into light. Pictures of the house's evolution will be posted soon!

The football competition finished with a trophy for San Ramon and top goal scorer award going to Eloy at km 35. It gave us some ideas for the vacations!