Adult English expands at the Centro!

With our new Wednesday-Saturday schedule, adult English has been drawing from an entirely new subsection of the community.  Those who couldn’t make our previous 5-7pm weekday classes due to work are now able to attend our 6-7pm Wednesday and 9-12 Saturday morning classes.  It’s been really exciting to see new faces!

Separating the class into three levels required the further adjustment of splitting up Brock and Sam’s prior teaching team.  In the fall, I taught my own basic English class, and Brock and Sam taught the intermediate English class together.  This time around Brock has taken the basic class, Sam the intermediate class, and I the advanced class.  So far, I personally have loved the change. 

My class of 12 ranges from 14-year-old Jonathan, looking to supplement his high school English curriculum, to several middle-aged folks who want to improve their English in order to become more versatile in their lines of work.  During our Wednesday hour, I introduce the basic concepts of the chapter we’re working on that week (they are able to move much faster than my basic class did), give them homework, and then we review the concepts in depth through homework review, more exercises, reading comprehension, and games during our longer Saturday morning class.  With this setup, we encourage students to come to all classes, but if they can’t come to the Wednesday class due to work, they don’t actually miss out on entire portions of the material.  Two of my students, Ana and Franklin, are cousins; Franklin is only available for the Saturday morning class, and Ana is only available for the Wednesday afternoon class.  Ana told me yesterday that between each class they fill each other in on what the other missed and thus cover both the introduction and the in depth coverage of the material.  It works for everyone!

A final change that’s affected the way we operate adult English is that all three of our levels take place at exactly the same time, whereas previously the basic class ran Mon/Wed and the intermediate class ran Tues/Thurs.  Now all three of us occupy spaces in the library from 6-7pm Wednesdays and 9-12pm Saturdays.  Since my class is the biggest, I have remained at the big English table outside the teen center, while Brock teaches his basic class in the children’s art corner and Sam alternates between upstairs in the women’s exercise space and the table in the adult section of the library (since the upstairs space is occupied by women’s exercise and cooking classes on Saturday morning now). 

Brock's basic class in the children's art corner.

Sam's intermediate class in the women's exercise space.

My advanced class, sans a few students.

Thank goodness we have three dry erase boards and markers are cheap!

Microfinance takes to the streets

With an update on continuing developments in Microfinance, here's Jack!

Just before Christmas break, we wrapped up MPI Ecuador’s first small business course. Our final class will stand out as one of my favorite moments of the past 7 months. Each of the students shared their feelings as entrepreneurs and how intimately proud they have been of their work of running their own businesses. Even better, our students discussed in detail how our course motivated them to make some concrete improvements to their businesses. The final moments of this class gave me a convicting reaffirmation of the MPI’s capacity to truly empower others.

Several weeks ago, we brought on a fantastic new addition to the MPI team: Carlos Rodriguez, a finance student from Quito, is now helping out at our centro and is helping us start an exciting new element of our Business Development program. Together, Carlos and I are now providing consulting services to several businesses in our area. This past Saturday we worked with our first two clients.

We started in Sangolquí working with a small business that sells feed and other supplies for livestock and pets. This family-owned business demonstrated to us that they have had no shortage of clientele, but they have been struggling to make income cover their costs. Carlos and I are currently in the process of helping them re-organize their inventory system so they can get a better grasp of their daily and monthly finances.

After some time in Sangolquí we went back to Rumiloma to work with a small group of women who manage their own street-food stand. Every Saturday, these women sell plates of barbeque chicken and roasted potatoes. We made a brief summary of their finances, and discovered that despite their hard work, their chicken dishes have been too costly to turn a profit. After comparing their expenses from cooking up barbeque chicken with what they would be earning if they switched to salchipapas (french fries and hot dogs, an extremely common street-food option), they would be making significantly more money. These women were excited, albeit flabbergasted, about the prospect of finally making some money on their Saturday afternoons.

With a stimulating and successful day behind us, Carlos and I are thrilled with the potential impact we can have by personally working with businesses in the area. It’s amazing what a calculator and some common sense can do to completely jump-start someone’s livelihood. 

Fiesta in Rumiloma!

This past Saturday bore witness to the second annual Manna Community Celebration in Rumiloma!  Jack spearheaded the planning and execution of a festival on the Plaza Rumiloma, where the central church of Rumiloma is located just a few blocks down from our Centro.  For the week prior, we talked up the celebration to everyone we met who it seemed likely might come: in our library, our classes, even on our beloved Capelo bus route between Sangolquí and Rumiloma.  Following Ecuadorian cues of advertising, Jack and I both on multiple occasions stood up and made announcements and handed out fliers for the festival.  Nerve racking at first, it ended up being a huge rush. 

And must have been successful!  Between 150 and 200 people turned up for the celebration that Saturday, children and adults alike.  With Jack emceeing on the DJ’s microphone, we led activities all afternoon, from a water balloon toss to tug of war to an organized game of fútbol.  Folks also bought raffle tickets throughout the afternoon, the prizes for which were a brand new chess set just donated over Christmas, coloring books and new crayons, Manna t-shirts, and Manna water bottles. 

Brock leads a game of Tug-of-War, or Juego de Cabo.

Hannah and Damian, who requested his face be painted like KISS.

Luke is the goose in Duck Duck Goose!

Becky and Ashley lead a Tae Bo class with kids on the lawn.

Aiming to catch the water balloon before it breaks on the concrete!

In addition to the activities we’d planned, several of our partner organizations actively participated in the afternoon’s events.  Christian and Laura from our agriculture partner, Fundación Añamisi, ran a very successful booth giving out information and selling items from their recently opened small business selling quinoa products.  The Red Cross of Sangolquí sent more than a dozen volunteers to man an information booth and carry out first aid demonstrations in their ambulance, as well as to run face painting.  (As it turned out, the ambulance was put to practical use as well when a girl fell and got a nose bleed and Ashley rolled her ankle when she skipped into a divot.)  Juan Carlos, the sixth grade teacher with whom we work in the nutrition program at Fundación Aliñambi, even brought and managed a bounce house shaped like a whale.  

Face painting with the Cruz Roja.

Jack with two of his fellow face paintees.

A whale of a moon bounce

The afternoon was overall a huge success.  Not only did we have regular library attendees present but also a great many new faces interested in learning about Manna and participating as a community in this celebration.  ¡Viva Rumiloma!

Festivities in the New Year!

We have made it to 2011! The months so far have flown by and we are currently looking ahead to Spring Break groups and Summer volunteers. Our return to Ecuador has been a busy one, but not without festivities. We celebrated our first birthday of the new year this past weekend! Noel entered into her 25th year this past Monday. Our fiesta in Quito was one to be remembered, complete with one of Zoe's amazing cards, good food and a Packer's victory (shout out to Brock and Luke). The only downside of the night was the Ravens' loss which was quickly forgotten after good food and time spent with even better company.


Zoe presenting her work of art to Noel. It's beautiful!


Noel enjoying her personalized birthday card complete with the score of Happy Birthday on the front.


Bibi and Lucia out way past their bedtime to celebrate at Hunter's.


The girls making friends at Strawberry Fields.


I would like to wish Noel (my partner in crime on the blog, and in Ecuadorian life) all the best on her 24th birthday. I hope that this 25th year is filled with nothing but happiness, success and love.


Until next time
Besos Chao Chao

Nutrition gets underway full force at Aliñambi

Our first guest blog of 2011 comes from Zoë, with news on our Nutrition program.  Aliñambi, the school in which we work, does not allow us to take pictures of their students, so please forgive the lack of photos for this week’s blog!

Hello blog-readers! Thank you for coming back to us after our break for the holidays. Most of us traveled back to the U.S. to visit our respective hometowns for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. While the three-week break was much enjoyed by all, we are excited to be back to work.

One of the most thrilling parts of being back in the community is that the Nutrition program is now being fully implemented. Becky, Noel, Brock, Luke and I are all part of the Nutrition team, and we are all excited to bring the nutrition charlas and cooking class to the Nutrition program starting this month.  Charlas are essentially informational talks or lectures.  Up until December, the Nutrition program was just made up of the garden, which Becky blogged about a few months back. Now the garden has made excellent progress and the whole program is growing along with it!

Every week, Noel, Becky and I present a charla to the 6^th graders at Aliñambi school. We will be covering topics such as why nutrition is important, the food pyramid, micro- and macronutrients, and different types of Ecuadorian products. Using these concepts as well as some of the crops from the garden, Becky and I teach the students how to prepare a healthy dish using economical and accessible Ecuadorian ingredients. All of the recipes have been provided to us by María Luisa, the wife of the Principal of Aliñambi—so she could be sure to include culturally appropriate ingredients.

Today was our first cooking class. We prepared a mixture of rice and quinoa with a topping of swiss chard. We also prepared steamed vegetables with garlic and Naranjilla juice. It ran smoothly, but I do have to admit that the children are going to have to acquire a taste for certain ingredients- such as the Swiss chard María Luisa included in the recipe for today. When I asked one student if he wanted more, he shook his head in an absolute panic! Juan Carlos, their teacher, was threatening extra homework to the last one to finish their food.

Despite the somewhat unfamiliar tastes, all in all, the students really enjoyed being in the kitchen. Many of them help their mothers cook at home, and were teaching Becky and I new kitchen tricks. For example, one girl told me to soak the onion before I started cutting it so it wouldn’t hurt my eyes as much.

We have been preparing and planning the curriculum for Nutrition since about September, and so we are all eager to get it off the ground. Thanks for tuning in!