Pictures of the New Space

Today Jos and I stopped in to visit our new space after Children's English to snap a view pictures for this little site, since I was too uncoordinated to get them up in time for Seth's post last week. Video to come soon (as soon as I can find an internet signal strong enough to survive the upload!). It will be fun to look back on these bare little photographs once we have furniture, book cases, paintings and the teen center set up!

(main room, as seen from the entrance)

(check out the trophies that come with the space! winners!)

(main room; the door on the left opens out to the porch)


(Jos looks out at the soccer field from the porch)

(view from the main room looking back)

(back room)

(back room view, different angle)

Movin' on up to the east side!

(Today's guest blog is from Seth Harlan, who's currently team Ecuador's country director, as Mark has once again left the country for some important leadership summit...we all know he just wants to hang out with Chris Taylor.)

"There could be nothing more gratifying than signing the lease and pickup the freshly made keys to our brand new 2009 Manna Office. On second thought, if the keys had belonged to a brand new 2009 Manna Mobile it may have been a little more exciting, but none the less this has been a highly anticipated development for us!

In hopes of establishing a stronger presence in the community, we have decided to rent a program space accessible to all of the communities we work with. Fully equipped with an Ecuadorian washer and dryer (aka a large outdoor sink and clothes line), his and hers bathrooms, hardwood floors, ample storage space, and a balcony with a full view of the surrounding mountains, this elegant one-floor studio has certain Manna PDs considering moving in permanently (Eliah, cough cough). As you may already know we have huge plans for this new space.

In March we hope to officially open it up to the public as our new office, the first public library in the valley, and a center for youth leadership development. We are working closely with our friends at the cooperative Esperanza y Progreso del Valle, the community board for educational development, and several other community leaders to get this project off the ground- a realty that makes this project much more exciting as we see this as not just Manna Project International, but a collective effort from the community as a whole. Currently we are in the process of furnishing the space, organizations book drives, and planning a free concert to announce our official grand opening in March. Mark even convinced a decorator to volunteer this past Sunday and give us suggestions for setting up the office and dividing up the space… Mrs. Hand, you should be proud!

On behalf of all of us, I would like to thank the following individuals and organizations for their contributions to this specific project:

Campus Chapters at Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Vanderbilt
HealtheChildren
Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas
MoneyGram International
The Robertson Program at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill
Claudia Diaz
The Geller Family
The Hand Family
Jens Haerter
Linda Roby
Linda Smith
The Ward Family
Jordan Wolf
Alejandra Gomez

We are off to a great start to 2009 and thrilled about the potential for this next year. If you would like to support this project, organize a book drive, or give Mark suggestions for building books shelves please contact Seth at seth.w.harlan@gmail.com or visit our wish list at http://mannaproject.org/ecuadorwishlist.asp

Best Wishes,
Seth

Drawing Neruda

As I mentioned at the start of the week, Tuesday was our first day of the new Children's Art class. This class has been one of my dreams ever since I applied to Manna Project, which was about this time last year if I think about it. It's wild to think back on that time of life when Ecuador was still a far-away day dream.

After finishing up the last of their homework problems (and trying to fit a few pieces into the new puzzle Jocelyn's mom sent back with her), Dana, Eliah and I convinced them to help us push 4 big tables together into the middle of the Casa Barrial, maneuver the heavy benches around the edges, plug in my ipod and speakers, and find a seat.

As I see it, the main objectives of the Children's Art class is twofold: in the short term, I hope to provide the students with a creative outlet and to expand their artistic experiences from those of markers, stickers, and construction paper to collages, portraits, painter studies, poetry, splatter painting, and public art instillations. In the long term, I can only hope that the experiences they have in our 45 minutes together will inspire a shift in their way of thinking and approaching problems (be it homework or life related) that encourages independent thinking and a creative outlook, as opposed to the overwhelming status quo of copying and memorizing any and everything.

To that end, for our first lesson Seth loaned me his comprehensive anthology of poetry by Pablo Neruda. As we passed the two poems I had chosen (Ode to Criticism and IV from 100 Love Sonnets) around the table, everyone took a turn reading a stanza aloud. After brainstorming a list of images we found in each poem, we took the next 30 minutes to translate the words of the poem into our own crayon, colored-pencil and marker-rich images. And while there was a good deal of overlap (read: copying), there were also a few creative surprises Neruda himself would have been proud of.

Holly

(first class's finished products: see if you can find 1. Eliah's, 2. two that are exactly the same, 3. the snow bird)

How do you say...fork?

It's late, I have Christian's in the early morning (6am wake up call is coming all too soon), and the creative writing juices have all but dried out for today...but, that said, I couldn't NOT post a little something to shout out to our darling newbie (she'll always be our newbie, even 5 months in) Dana, for successfully kicking-off our 4th program of 2009: Children's English!

With 14 little students (none of whom could remember the word "fork" in today's placement test...it's a tricky one), she has her work cut out for her, and yet we all know the class couldn't be in more capable hands. They have all already bonded to her and Jos in the first 45 minutes class...they're going to have quite the following of English speaking 10 year olds come March :)

And coming tomorrow: Children's Art!

Goodnight.
Holly

(Carlos Eduardo and Cynthia take turns reading Harry Potter while listening to the High School Musical soundtracks in the cave...life is good.)

Building networks, one beet at a time

(In an effort to add more voices to the mix, we're upping the guest blog frequency, trying for twice a week. Today's comes from Eliah!)

"If credibility is important to securing local buy-in to community development projects—and it is—I often get off to a rocky start here. As one of the two PDs working on Manna Ecuador's soon-to-be-released agricultural education program, I am often asked by the community members and agricultural experts I talk to what it is I grow on my farm. Nothing, I tell them. Actually I don't have a farm. In fact, I don't know very much about agriculture. Interestingly, this almost always produces the same response from the person I'm talking to: a sort of silent, confused nod, not unlike how they might act had I told them I was wearing leopard skin underwear. Reading this, you may be reacting the same way right now. "So what are you doing running an agriculture program?" you might ask. Then again, it could be the leopard skin. Either way, this example is instructive of how many programs at Manna Project work.

As a rule of thumb, we Manna Ecuadorians aren't explicitly qualified for most activities we take part in. This shouldn't be surprising; after all, we don't hold advanced degrees or have years of work experience under our belts. Instead, what we bring to the table is the ability to find the people who are qualified for some task and the community members interested in their expertise and connect them up. So while I may not know whether a lettuce- or grain-based diet makes for the most succulent guinea pig, I know a guy who does, and he'll come out here and tell you for free.

Anyway, that whole credibility thing is still important, so today Dana (the other ag ed PD) and I did some farming. INNFA, a social welfare organization, runs a model farm in Conocoto to teach agricultural techniques to locals. We went there, as always, in the hopes of connecting our community members with expert help—we talked to Julio, INNFA's agricultural engineer, about bringing a group to work at the farm on a weekly basis—but we stayed to rake hay, pull beets, and anything else that kept us away from Juan, the 50-something worker who wanted Dana's number. In the end we were rewarded with a sack of fresh, organic produce and a sense of gratitude that, while we may not know whether to take offense when they ask us to do some hoeing, we can do this job.

So while it could be that our ag ed PD next year is a licensed agronomist and card carrying member of the US Potato Board, and I hope that happens, I'll live through the awkward nods and questioning stares and keep on building the networks that make this program run. Who knows, maybe I'll even learn something along the way.

-Eliah"

(our fridge is now stocked with produce from our very own farmers)