Training in the North East

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Most of this week was taken up with our training in Huachi. We set off on Thursday and embarked upon our long journey to the rural school were the training was held. Having spent several hours on bumpy, winding, dusty tracks, crossing rivers and seeing wild pigs, we came to a sudden halt. There was a road block. Several local peasants were blocking the road as a protest to the oil company that was running its heavy trucks up and down their village, damaging their field, crops, livelihoods and roads. They were charging each vehicle the equivalent of £1 to pass. After some discussion, we agreed to pay, only to meet 2 other road blocks 200m further down the track. It was only when somebody said that Phil and I had travelled all the way from England to come to their town to help train their teachers and educate their children that they let us through without paying. Despite their protest, which we felt was justified, they also showed us their generosity and thanked us for coming.
The training went well and we were pleased with the hard work of the trainees. We visited several classes before the training and played games with them. One evening we went to the local square and ended up doing the “Congo” amongst other strange dances, infront of lots of people. Can’t ever imagine doing that in England. They thought it was great. Of course, we then had to pose with several people to have our photo taken. For most of the locals, they have never seen a foreigner before and they all wanted a piece of you! Walking back to our accommodation, we had about 50 of the local kids following us. We felt like the “Piped Piper”!

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