Krysta's Interview AND Questions for Chet!

After many weeks of anticipation, I am happy to give you Krysta's interview. (A combination of amazingly slow internet and a forgetful/busy interview editor contributed to its tardiness. Sorry about that.) Krysta was a great sport, and even allowed me to throw some outtakes in at the end... so you might not want to miss those. Enjoy!

And since I've gotten a bit behind schedule on the interviewing, this is also the blog post announcement/request for questions for Mr. Chester Polson III. Chet is our in-house banker/finance man, who has become most famous for tracking our inability to correctly count money via his weekly Monday Morning Meeting Petty Cash announcements. He's also an art class/microfinance/small business man, and will soon be sharing a living space with Erik once the summer vols invade the house this week. Please either send questions to sarah.scott@mannaproject.org, or post them in the comments section of this blog by TUESDAY, MAY 11th before bedtime. And be sure to check back in for Chet's interview in the next 10ish days.

Chaooooo,

Sarah

Outings

The past few weekends have been chock full of travel, field trips, and adventures; perhaps it's the rapidly approaching summer volunteer arrival date that has influenced us to cram in as many activities as possible. In the month of April we have collectively and separately gone on a retreat, traveled to Cuenca, climbed Illinizas Norte, been proposed to (okay fine, that was just Haley), got lost trying to exit the largest inhabited crater in South America and attended three community youth-focused day trips. Since Erik mentioned one of the teen outings in his guest blog last week, I'll stick to reporting on the kids' paseo and This past Saturday's hike up Ilalo with the teens.

The kids' paseo for April was to el parque la Carolina's dinosaur museum with about 15 kids in-tow. Since the museum itself is only open on weekends, when I went to investigate a few weeks ago I wasn't allowed to see the facilities. As it turns out, the museum is really more of a badly-staged Jurassic Park set; the presentation included a 25-minute tour moving from scene to scene, each featuring a different moving dinosaur or Mega-beast that scared the pants off of pretty much every kid we were with. Although it wasn't quite as educational as I had hoped, the kids enjoyed the theatrics and running around Quito's largest urban park. I think in the future I will search for venues outside of Quito, as transport sucks up most our time, and I really want to start embarking on nature hikes in the valley.

Our favorite twins enjoy a post-tour 'thrill' ride


Iori (in my sweatshirt post-puddle mishap) and Paola in the park


The whole group at the museum entrance

Sticking with the theme of the great outdoors, Mike organized a trip for this teens on Saturday to summit Ilalo, the hill/small mountain about thirty minutes from our house by bus. Mike, Sonia, Chet and I led Joseph, Carlos and Christian up the trail; by led, I mean they ran up most of it as Mike and Chet chased after them and Sonia and I stopped frequently to 'take in the scenery.' When we reached the top in record time, the boys scurried up a 30-foot tall cross and we all took in 360 degree views as far as the eye could see.

Sonia and I at the base of the cross (we were too scared to go further)

The climbing crew in front of a fountain post-hike

Stay tuned later this week for our quarterly update - a succinct summary of our programmatic happenings spanning January through mid-April - and Krysta wc Peterson's interview to be posted later this week! (if you didn't get that middle name reference, don't worry, you will after you see this interview)

until next time,
Jackie

Fool proof way to burn off a Magnum bar

This week's guest blog comes from Haley Booe about an exceptional group of women involved in our exercise program. We had 9 of these women over for dinner a few weeks back. Everything went very smoothly, save running out of gas, forcing Mike to run around the valley in his basketball shorts to find a new one and me to cook broccoli in the microwave. Overall, it was a pleasure having them over to learn more about their lives and enjoy some Italian food!

"Hello blogging world! I hope you enjoy this wonderful time of the year when the school year comes to a close and kids are shrieking at the sound of ice cream trucks. I am definitely one to scream for ice cream, especially considering ours are pick-up trucks installed with soft-serve machines. Aside from eating my weight in ice cream sandwiches, there are a couple of other things that I’m passionately excited about. Over the past 10 months, I have developed a deep love for spandex, techno music, and sweaty women. Any member of the Manna Household will attest to how attached I am to the women in our community and how much I LOVE exercise.

The W.E. program has changed a lot since last August. We hold class in our own space, which has increased women's involvement in the center as they drop off their kids in the library; this has encouraged them to join other programs like cooking class and enrolling kids in Englihs. The women have developed relationships amongst themselves through socializing before and after class; they often meet up outside of class and continuously encourage each other in pursuit of healthier lifestyles.

We now offer 4 clases a week: Yoga, Pilates, and Tai Chi on Mondays, Tae Bo on Tuesdays, A mixed class on Wednesday mornings, and Aerobic circuit training on Thursdays. Many of the women attending class come every day; there are several who have missed no more than 5 classes in the last 6 months! I've really been able to develop relationships with these women and it is so encouraging to hear how much they appreciate what Manna is doing in their communities.

Exercise women + the 7 MPIE women = lots of estrogen in the Manna House

During spring break program rotations, volunteers helped me plan class for the day and completed various tasks including several improvements to our classroom. To name a few, the room is now a pale blue (which is very relaxing during Yoga), inspirational posters are hanging on the walls, circuit class 'stations' are well labeled, and a newly painted bookshelf now holds all of our equipment. Volunteers also helped plan a workshop to train the women to be fitness instructors. After the women complete the course this summer, they will assist or substitute for me and eventually be able to lead the class themselves; this is one exciting step closer to making exercise more sustainable in the long term!

This program relies on inscription money to pay for advertising, informational packets, and attendance prizes (including t-shirts, cookbooks, and yoga mats). In the past month, we've made some capital investments to improve our classes' effectiveness. The wonderfully handsome David Lawler brough down hand weights, exercise balls, and yoga mats for the women to use in class.

Dave and Haley enjoying some down time at the beach

Since we used most of our budget to buy this equipment, we don't have as much to spend on other costs. The women in our community enjoy this program so much and we appreciate any donations you can give to make Women's Exercise successful! If you would like to help financially support this program or would like more information, please e-mail me!

Peace, love and sweatbands!

Haley"

Guest Blog: Erik and Teens Get Artsy

(This week's - ok, fine, last week's because I forgot to post it - Guest Blog comes from Mr. Erik Swanson. Erik is involved in running both the Teen Center and the Small Business Microfinance Program... as well as being in co-in charge of the Summer Volunteer Program and the brand new cooking class with yours truly. He's also known for being in a long-term relationship with rugby, and for having descended from the Nordics. Here's Erik's account of the first TC paseo of the year... Disfrute!)

"This weekend, the Teen Center will be having its first trip of the year. It will be the first of many trips with the goal of connecting local professionals and artists to the Teen Center. The hope is that we can expose the youth in the area to both their opportunities in life beyond Rumiloma as well as try to open up new avenues for creative expression.

For those of you who are daily readers to our blog, you are already acquainted for my love for a small beach town called Ayampe. It is in Ayampe, by blind luck, that I met the professional that is now helping us this weekend. Her name is Fernanda Ponce. She is an artist in Cumbaya, the valley to the north of our own, and has her own studio in which she gives classes as well as does a good amount of her work. She happened to be in Ayampe doing an art exposition with a friend, also from the Quito area, and invited me to come check it out.

Upon arrival at her studio, we began planning activities and exercises for the kids that would make the trip to Cumbaya. First, Fer will begin by explaining her point of view on exactly what art is: a method of communication. Secondly, she will guide the kids through the steps of how she creates her works from inspiration to finishing. Lastly, we will create a work of art as a group. This work will be a cardboard tree, freestanding, and will include three leaves from each child, each of which will depict a different thing in their life that affects them.

We are greatly looking forward to having a series of trips like this one in the future, and will be trying to make sure that at least one per month occurs.

- Erik"

El día de la Tierra

Happy Earth Day!

It probably comes as no surprise to hear that Earth Day in Ecuador isn't quite as big of a deal as it is in the states; but just because there isn't a glorified holiday doesn't mean that Ecuadorians don't take their natural resources seriously. I have found that people here are extremely proud of their country's every landscape; one of the first questions I'm asked when meeting people is where I've traveled to and what I think of such a beautiful country.

People are also serious about issues such as water conservation, as a high percentage of the drinking water in the Quito metropolitan area comes from the diminishing glacier of Cotopaxi. In fact, I was told that thanks to FONAG, Quito has one of the best water conservation policies in the world, taking 1% of each household water bill (higher percentages from bigger companies and industries) to fund conservation projects.

We've noticed implications of climate change here in the valley, including increased droughts and an untimely rainy season; which pretty much just started, rather than running its usual course from October through February. Because of these issues and more, we have decided to use this international holiday to raise some awareness about human implications on the environment and what we all can do here in Ecuador to make a difference.

Last week, for our monthly 20-minute radio segment in Sangolqui, Bibi and I performed a little skit that defined Earth Day, climate change, and local environmental issues and solutions - for example trash incineration, dirty public transportation, and unreliable energy sources. We focused on advocating for change, something that isn't practiced very widely here but is definitely possible; most local town governments hold public meetings devoted entirely to hearing its residents' opinions about community projects such as trash collection. It was received very well by the radio station's employees and we can only hope that listeners out there took it to heart as well.

Today in the centro we'll be distributing pamphlets about climate change and tips about how to help combat it and protect the priceless resources of this country. We'll also be giving our earth day coloring sheets and activities to the kids.

I hope that you're all celebrating Earth Day out there in style; you can rest assured knowing that the PDs in this house are continuing their lack of showering, composting our food waste, eating very locally-grown produce and of course taking public transportation everywhere (really, it's not just because we have to...)

Sustainably yours,
Jackie