Thursday, January 31, 2008

FEBRUARY 2008 UPDATE



It’s another typical night at the Manna house in Ecuador. The air outside is cool and damp, having just rained. The group, both content and tired from a full day’s work, is eager to unwind. As I type this, mouth-watering smells of homemade jambalaya are wafting from the kitchen (it’s Luke and Marks’ cooking night). Since the beginning of the New Year and the start of a new structure to our classes, we’ve been incredibly busy. Our programs are better than ever and we’re building more and more friendships in the community, but at the end of fulfilling (and exhausting) days, it’s nice to just relax.

Programs are going great. We continue to have two hours of homework help every day, which are now followed by an hour of enrichment courses. Mondays and Fridays are for art: crafts, music, and drama. Tuesdays and Thursdays are literacy (currently the kids are reading Harry Potter in Spanish and writing in journals they made in crafts). Wednesdays we teach English class. Saturdays, we’ve started a three-hour sports camp during the morning, followed by a three-hour adult English class. Zak continues to work with a local cooperative to enhance microfinance operations in the community. This Friday we are taking a group of our students (the ones with nearly perfect attendance at our program) on a field trip to Quito to see the Guayasamín Art Museum, a breathtaking art collection of a famous Ecuadorian painter. Next week, a group of medical students from Iowa will be teaching a dental hygiene class to the kids. We are also in the process of planning health and nutrition classes for the children in our programs and their families.

Again, things in Ecuador are busy and exciting. Ferris Bueller said, “Life goes by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. “ So as we take a moment to breathe and reflect- and before we go eat some delicious jambalaya- we’d again like to thank everyone for your continued encouragement.

Until next month,

Abbie


Making turtles during arts and crafts.


Working on some homework during our apoyo escolar program.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

JANUARY 2008 UPDATE

How fast a year can disappear is pretty standard conversational fare around the holidays. Where did the time go? Did we spend this year really investing in the people we care about? Did we accomplish all we could have?

Never have I felt that as strongly as this year. I have spent five months - five months! – in South America working, learning, planning, meeting, talking, listening, living. Yet the feeling of having only scratched the surface both of Ecuador and of the community of San Francisco persists, at once humbling me and reminding me that community development is a lengthy, rather than quick, process. “If you want to go fast,” says one African proverb, “walk alone. If you want to go far, walk together.”

Our parents’ meeting, just before we left Ecuador to wander South America for the holidays, capped five months of work in Ecuador and three (for me) in San Francisco. We thanked our parents again for trusting us with their children and described the potential changes in our programming. We then split the parents into small groups to hear their thoughts on our current work and their ideas for how to use our time and energy in the future.

As in our first two meetings, the parents responded positively and honestly: Our students’ grades are up across the board, but we will have to learn how to teach Ecuadorian, rather than American, math. The young adult English classes are good and needed, but we ought to offer them on the weekends instead. Rewarding regular attendance with field trips to universities and museums would be great – and the parents want to come, too.

In addition to discussing the after-school help and English programs, we batted around ideas for potential sports programs, outdoors clubs, women’s exercise classes, computer training, and more. In addition, we have begun to map out a strategy for raising the level of preventive health care in the neighborhood along with a nearby clinic. We have spoken with both private organizations and government ministries about bringing in developed microfinance programs. And we are furiously preparing for the arrival of spring break groups and summer volunteers, in addition to recruiting yearlong volunteers for 2008-2009.

2008 holds bright prospects for MPI Ecuador, as we hope it does for you. We thank you for walking together with us this far!

Feliz Año Nuevo,

Mark Clayton Hand



The MPI group with some of the parents and kids from our program.


Parents and kids meeting to discuss MPI programs.