Mindo is Lindo

Mindo: Adventure weekend in a cloud forest.

Our home away from home for the weekend, Casa de Cecilia.

My Swiss Family Robinson dreams come to fruition.

Most of the group heads out to zip-line, while...

Dunc and Ryan enjoy a Pilsner by the river.

Early morning contemplations on the porch are very serious.

The girls talk around the breakfast table.

An ideal breakfast. Followed by pancakes.

Scott, Meghan, Michael and Ryan learn about coffee roasting.

Roasting Coffee Beans!

Coca beans ready to be shelled, roasted, ground and spread on our pancakes.


View out the back of our hostel.

Scott, Taylor, Meghan and Ryan sit on one side of the truck bed...

While Dunc, Michael, Mari and I sit on the other.


Getting the "hold on really tight" speech before tube-rafting.


Everyone's ready for the river. Especially Dunc and Meghan...

Markers, Blokus, and Picture Books

Yesterday was the first official day of programs for Summer Session Two (ss2 from here on out).

The day started early; 7:30am found half the group prepping for language school at the house and the other half out at Christian's with Eliah working on the community garden project. After lunch we split again; Priya, Tim, Mari, Michael, Taylor and Sarah headed out to the library to teach English class, play ping-pong in the teen center, and read with the 35+ kids who showed up, while Meghan, Scott, Ryan and Fiona joined Jocelyn in kicking off another 3-week English class in San Juan, our neighboring community. Follow that with women's exercise, family dinner, board games at the dining room table, and Spanish homework, once we actually took a breath, stretched our bones and realized how exhausted we were, it was already 11:30pm... summer around here is anything but dull!

(Michael reads with Issac Suntaxi Suntaxi (seriously that's his name, amazing))

(Priya and Selena put some important details on their cat drawing)

(Mari and Priscilla contemplate their next moves in Blokus)

(Selena and Wendy crack me and Michael up)

(Sarah and Taylor lead English class)

(Tim and Sarah excite the kids with an English memory game)

Another trek to Mitad del Mundo

With the arrival of summer session two, we PDs found ourselves revving up for another week of orientation. Of course, since I am notoriously bad at opening email attachments, I didn't end up signing up for an orientation spot until the last minute, at which point I realized that, oh, the only spots available are for...Mitad del Mundo! Again!

If Mark were reading over my shoulder he would say something along the lines of "Well, this is what happens when you don't open attachments or answer your cell phone or..." (ok, so I have a slight cell phone problem, as my family can also attest to).

We missed Fiona and Mari, who were feeling a little under the weather and opted out of the 4+ hours of busing, but overall had a funny day out on the equatorial line. It's always a strange feeling to realize that you're standing in both the northern and southern hemisphere at the same time...

Until tomorrow,
Holly

(getting the talk about the sundial and shadows and equatorial lines and all that jazz)

(Michael tries an Andean mask on for size)

I Spy Joys

Taken Tuesday in the kid's corner.

The Wonder of New

Today we kicked off Summer Session Two in true MPIE style; a big morning meeting, freshly baked banana bread, and a detailed run-through of the next 4 weeks. After getting the logistical stuff out of the way (typical greetings, safety guidelines, dress code, how to work the water filter, toilet paper rules, etc.) Dana, Eliah and Dunc led the summer vols on a tour of 'downtown' (term used lightly) Conocoto. Mark, Jos and I met the crew for lunch at Sazon de la Abuela, the nicest almuerzo restaurant we can walk to, before heading out to the library space together.

After walking through the different parts of the library and giving them a crash course in it's day to day functioning, we moved couches, beanbags, and office chairs into a small circle in the teen center and got comfortable for another, less formal talk.

As led by Bibi (our new country director who arrived Monday, did I forget to mention that? Don't worry, she'll get her own SERIES of posts she's that amazing), we started digging into some big topics: the reasons we participate in service, our motivations and intentions, hang-ups and successes, and overarching feelings on the entire concept of "community development". I found myself looking around at our group, made up of students from Brown, Middlebury, Vanderbilt and Georgetown (and a few in between which I've currently forgotten) with such a sense of pride and excitement. Here we were, having just met last night, all engaged in a discussion about grass-roots community organizing, the current Ecuadorian economic situation, and different stages of development. It's exciting to have new voices to add to the dialogue. New perspectives. New ideas. New Challenges.

Good things are going to happen with this group, I can feel it in my bones.

~Holly