I thought Id get to write this at least once a week. But I literally havenbt had the time, plus while Im here in South America, I definatly want to spend my time doing things and not on the internet all the time....
Well, Iv finally left Quito and Im finally at the beach. I had decided that after all the cold and rain of the mountains that I needed a few days of getting a tan and lying in the sun before I headed back into the mountains again for more volunteering, so I decided to cut into a few days of my travelling time in Per u and changed my flights so that I could travel with one of my friends here and go to the coast!
Well after a 9 hour night bus, which was surprisingly nice, the bus I mean not the journey, I woke up to ......................rain, lots of rain, and lots of clouds and no hope of it going away soon............Apparently theres this really weird weather at the moment where the whole of the Ecuadorian "Routa del Sol " is covered in clouds and thunderstorms for the next week compared to the normal 25-35 degrees and sun that theyre used to.
Its a total pain, but Im just glad too to be at the beach too, espicially after the pollution of Quito, to be able to walk on the samd in bare feet is really really nice..... I thin kits actually the longest that I havent been to the beach or co ast. I know Im not a big mad surfer or anything, but you really miss the sea.......
One thing I definatly learnt is that Im not a mountain lady. Mountains are lovely to look at and to ski down and the sceanary here is amazing, but I just dont like living in them, or climbing them. Give me the beach any day, rainy or not!
Well, ok, going back to the last entry.....
Working in the center for street kids was good, it was tougher then I thought though - totally different from Brazil. (Went with company Ecuador volunteer, www.ecuadorvolunteer.com, on the low cost social projects)
It was a hard week starting off... the center is pretty big, theres about 50-60 kids, from newborn up to 18, mostly girls, living there in the upstairs and theres a primary school downstairs, all run by the same organisation. www.remar.com Theres 7 centeres alone in Quito owned by this organisation. They do good stuff but is all a bit too much "we love Jesus, we´re here to serve Jesus bla bla bla" for me, but I just dont take part in the Jesus stuff. But, in fairness, they are doing good and the kids would probably not have anything if it wasent for them. Cause its such a big center, theres loads of commings and goings and different people there every day, and its a bit disorganised with the teachers doing one thing and the lady thats in charge of the house doing another and the director of the whole center arrangins something different so it was difficult to find my way. They do get other volunteers every now and again, and I think most of them just did what they had to do and got out of there, so i think some of the people that worked there were a bit sceptical about another volunteer. Not because they didnt want help or there to be someone else there, just because I imagine that they need you to see the situation from their point of view and to see the whole situation, not just the little bit of how things look. and I think that some of the volunteers just dont get that , not that Im great or better then the others, but I think because Im a bit older and I went to brazil.... But I definatly had to work hard to gain the kids respect and for them top listen to me. I worked in the school in the second grade in the mornings with 6-10 year olds.... and then helped out in the afternoons in the house, getting lunch, feeding the smaller ones and taking care of the babies, doing homework etc.
Its hard to put my experiences of three weeks in to a few paragraphs in a blog, there were some kids that were great and were really enthuastic and some that were impossible no matter what way you approached or delt with them. BUt they all came from cbackgrounds and in 3 weeks I couldnt really do anything to change anything or the situation.
Some of the kids in my class
sometimes I really felt and feel that what Im doing isnt really helping anyone, I dont know if Im achieveing anything. Sometimes I think that it would be better to stay in one place for the whole time, and really my travelling is just for selfish reasons, but then experiencing new cultures and learning new languages and seeing the world is never a bad thing.... I think it makes you more aware of what you are capable of and hopefully it will lead onto new and cool things in my life!
Well, for all the very kind and generous people that gave me money before leaving, thank you first of all and just to let you know that I am splitting it with that place in Quito and with the place in Peru Im going to. I bought a sound system for the center in Quito, which the kids spent every lunchtime dancing around the place to and also they got to use it for PE and with an integrated dvd player they were able to watch films too, which was cool, because you can get loads of pirate copies of dvds on the streets of quito for a doller so they got spiderman 3 and shreck 3 etc. I also bought small things that they neede just like pencils and pens and cups for their morning snack (before there was about 8 cups to drink juice out of between about 80 kids, you can just imagine.....) The other thing was that there was a huge hair lice problem..... Every single one of the kids had them and I was petrified of getting them and regularly got to stand in the bathroom at my house freezing my ass off with gross smelly hairlice shampoo just to make sure I didnt get them too. But with the money and the help of the very nice teacher that normally had my class (she was like 21 and was married and had a two year old, way to make me feel old) we went and god a special "discuento" in a pharmacy wholesalers for about 250 heads worth of hairlice shampoo. So we had a lovely day of de hairlicing in the center, which took aaagggessss and then gave enough out to the other centeres too for all their kids and to the kids that lived outside. So thanks to all the you guys there are now a lot of kids in quito with much cleaner heads....
Well, thats about used up my time here on the internet....
next installment to follow tomorrow, Iv got loads more to tell about Ecuador, which Im leaving on Thursday....... Sorry for the super novel like approach, but theres just so much to talk about!!!
Talk to you all soon, hope everyones well and please send me comments and emails, theyre always really nice to get.....
lots of love
Aoife
