Ecuador Blog Swap!

Keeping with the theme of this week, blog swap!, Heather Kryzak writes to you below from MPI Ecuador.
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Hey everyone, this is Heather Kryzak, one of the 7 Program Directors at the MPI Ecuador site. I am in charge of our site’s blog, (along with Watkins Fulk-Gray) and am writing to give our Nicaragua and Guatemala readers an update on how things are going here in the Chillos Valley. 

 We arrived here in July and spent our first two weeks living in Quito with host families, getting to know the Ecuadorian culture and taking some intensive Spanish classes. Then we moved into the valley and got started with a 3-week summer camp for kids. This was a great chance for us to meet the kids in our community and their parents and to start finding our way around the valley.

Since then we have been busy with our first quarter of programs, most of which we run out of our public-lending library and community center in Rumiloma. This space holds our adult and children’s English classes, children’s art, women’s exercise, adult’s nutrition and cooking classes, and a new computer class one of our PD’s Charlie started up this year. The library is also a safe space for children to come and play games, read, and get help with their homework. A special part of the library is reserved just for teens to hang out, play videogames and ping-pong, and occasionally watch movies on a Friday night.

In addition to the programs we hold in the library, the small business development program meets directly with local businesses giving them free consultations and help with accounting. Two of our PD’s work directly in a nearby high-school giving nutrition classes for children once a week. We also have an agriculture program that works with a local organic farmer’s cooperative and with another foundation nearby that has small organic garden plots. 

We just said goodbye to our first round of short-term volunteers, a group of 5 girls from the University of Georgia who spent the week shadowing our programs and helping us with some manual labor. It was exciting and refreshing to get some big projects taken care of and hear some outside perspectives on what we are doing here.

The first quarter has flown by for us in a whirl of meeting new people and establishing lasting relationships in the community. As we wrap up and prepare for vacation we are also busy planning a Christmas party for community members in the library and a larger community celebration to be held when we return in January. We have found it to be important to hold events every once in a while to attract new faces to the center while letting everyone know we are still here and our programs will continue to go strong.

Thanks to Guatemala and Nicaragua for this chance to share a little bit of news from Ecuador. Check out our site’s blog for more information on life in the Chillos Valley!

Update from Ecuador!

Readers, we're thrilled with the chance to give an update from the Manna site in Ecuador this afternoon.  Our work is part of a larger vision to be leaders in creative solutions to development and mentors for college students that want to learn more about serving internationally.  Our other international sites are key in making that a reality.  Here's the update.

   Hi! My name is Hannah Palin and I am a Program Director for MPI – Ecuador. I am very excited to be writing a blog post for Manna’s newest site and to share a little about Manna’s influence in another part of the world.

   Manna Project Ecuador started four years ago and has grown substantially since its original work with apoyo escolar (after school homework help) in a local community building. We currently run our programs out of our own Centro in the community of Rumiloma. We have a library, a teen center and a third floor space that houses all our health programs. In the past few months we have concentrated greatly on increasing attendance in our library and making the space more like a traditional biblioteca.

  

   With that in mind, the PDs of MPI- Ecuador decided to start having monthly community celebrations. We started with a small party for Dia de los Difuntos (our Halloween) and had such success that we have since had a Christmas party and a New Year celebration that brought close to 200 people to our space. Since then the library has been overflowing with kids eager to have a safe space to play and learn after school.

   The rest of our programs have been thriving as well; English classes are full and women’s exercise has had to request more equipment to keep up with growing classes (now five times a week!). Microfinance and agriculture have been busy with new initiatives hoping to promote good business practices within the community. Children’s art is so popular that we cannot collect art supplies fast enough to keep up with the growing demand.

   Although this year has been full of changes – a move to a new house in a different community closer to Rumiloma and the loss of some of our space within the Centro, it has been a productive year focused on building upon the work of the past. The work that Guatemala has been doing and the confianza that they have gained within their community is a reminder of the solid foundation upon which MPI Ecuador was also built.

 

  I want to thank Guatemala for allowing us to share the work that we are doing in South America. Please check out our blog if you would like to find out more information about MPI – Ecuador.

Until then,

Besos chao chao

Hannah

A day in the life..

Thursday afternoon after I last wrote, I walked with Bibi, Jackie, and Sonia to the biblioteca.  Yes, you might be reading Spanglish from here on out.  Anyway, I got to participate in Krysta and Jackie's clase de ciencias naturales about the different ecosystems in Ecuador, as well as take Haley and Sarah's women's exercise class.  It was aerobics and it was hard to squat the next day, so good job girls.

Friday I spent some time writing interview questions for my Guatemalan contacts until it was time to go to the library again.  I keep calling them interviews, but they're going to be more like friendly, informational sessions.  Also, if any of you have any suggestions, feel free to pass them along.

La clase de arte in the library was a lot of fun with Chet and Sonia, who cleverly saved cloth flour bags and had the kids fill them with discarded clothing scraps to make pillows!  They came out really great and I think the kids had a lot of fun.  Thursday and Friday also gave me some time to talk about Guatemala with Bibi (the Ecuador country director) and some of the PDs-- suggestions, room for improvement, ideas, etc.  The more perspectives, the better, and I am hoping to hear everyone's before I leave.

Friday and Saturday also brought a reunion with the one and only Michael Seager while roaming around Quito! It was short but sweet, and his Spanish fluency gives me high hopes.

A super exciting Michael Seager reunion!

Some real Manna love in Quito with PDs Sonia, Shawn, Sarah, Krysta, and Jackie

And finally today.. Que magnifico, but man am I tired.  Chet, Jackie, Mike, Sonia, and I just returned from hiking for seven hours up Volcan Pasochoa!  Yes, after only four days of acclimatizing, I thought it would be a good idea to climb up another 900 meters (or about 3,000 feet of pure altitude).

Eagle spotting!

Diving off into the clouds after reaching the peak

Our hike leaders jumping for joy

Well, it's time to rest my bones.  Looking forward to our Monday morning meeting for some more pearls of wisdom from the Ecuador team.

Hasta luego,

Dana

Safe, sound, and on the ground

Hola amigos,

I am excited to report that the feasibility trip has officially begun!  I flew into Quito, Ecuador last night and found Bibi and Jackie's shining faces greeting me at the airport.  The taxi ride was a series of deja vus for me as I recalled landing in Quito less than 2 years ago.  It is wonderful to be back in Ecuador.  Somehow I missed the stray dogs and insane traffic patterns.

The volunteer house in Conocoto is incredible, combining American luxuries and stunning vistas.  I can see Cotopaxi from the window!  I have my very own room in "the apartment," which is really the rented third floor of someone's house.  All the PDs have been incredibly hospitable and open to explaining their daily tasks and positions.  I am impressed by the delegation of chores, and somehow, in a 9-person house, no toes seemed to be stepped on.  Some things really need to be changed if they ever expect to be on MTV's The Real World: Ecuador.

Over the course of this week I will be attending all their organizational meetings, including a PR meeting in 20 minutes.  Later today we're going to walk to the library where all of their programs take place.  They have such a great selection of classes available to the community already, and the library has only been open for about 10 months!  There's English, Science, Art, and Fitness classes, all of which I will get to experience before I leave.

Well, it is a beautiful day, time for the meeting, and then outside!  Don't worry grandma, I'm wearing sunscreen.

loving every minute,

Dana

Four Days!?

How do the days pass so quickly?  I have been in Delray Beach, Florida visiting my grandparents for a few days now, but will be returning to good old New Jersey (not the Jersey shore for those of you who associate NJ with nothing else) tomorrow.  Then come the last minute preparations before I take off for Quito, Ecuador!!!  Not only do I get to soak up infinite amounts of MPI knowledge, but I get to spend my first week with some new friends and an old one-- shout out to Jackie Weidman(!)  Want to see what they're up to in Ecuador?

Week 2 will begin as Maddie and I finally meet in Guatemala City!  I think we're more than ready for the second phase of our friendship (phase 1: gchat).

In addition to giving you a brief status update and glimpse into my itinerary, I wanted to remind everyone to vote for Manna in the Chase Community Giving Campaign on Facebook.  Thank you to everyone who voted for Manna in the first round to award us $25,000!  This time we have the chance to win $100,000 or even one million dollars!

The final countdown,

Danita