Who can believe it’s February? Apparently time flies when
you’re teaching English. And building a bottle school. And planning for Spring
Break. Speaking of Spring Break, in less than a month, we will have our first
group of Spring Break volunteers arriving in Sololá. Fifteen fresh-faced students
from the beautiful Nashville campus of Vanderbilt University will be here for a
week, experiencing a little bit of the Program Director lifestyle. The
following week, we will be welcoming students from both Tulane University and
the University of Georgia. Finally, to round out the month of March, we will be
hosting medical students from the University of Alabama-Birmingham. Each group
will be working on a week-long project in one or both of our schools in Chaquijyá.
Now, preparing these projects ahead of time is no walk in the park. Let me
paint you a picture.
Talkin' it out with Celso, the principal of La Primaría Cooperativa |
Vanderbilt is coming in a little less than a month to assist
in building a playground in La Escuela Central. Essentially, the volunteers have 4-5 days to construct a full
functioning playground that can withstand the madness of 275 children. Since
January, the group and I have been brainstorming a plan of what we want to
include in our playground. Easy? Well no. Getting everyone in the community on
the same page in building the structures is probably the hardest part. The
architect wants to build everything out of wood. He wants all the wood shipped
in from the capital. The metal worker wants to build everything out of…you
guessed it…metal. He wants to construct everything at his shop, for an
exorbitant fee. Meanwhile, the director of the school wants me to present a
blueprint to the PTA-equivalent to gain their support for the project. We need
manpower from the community to assist in building the structures. No manpower,
no playground. A lot of action going on at once.
However, this is fun. All this time
I’ve made some great relationships, come up with cool ideas, and at the end of
the day, we’re doing something for the kids! I know everything will get done
eventually, and I’m excited to have the volunteers come and work next to us for
a week. Stayed tuned for project and Spring Break updates!See ya!
Cam
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