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Published: February 22nd 2008
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Wow! Where do I start? I love this place! Sorry about the delay on the update but I've been kept pretty busy since I arrived and we only have electricity for the internet a couple of hours a day. No complaints though, I really do love it here!
Ok, so I arrived to find out that the coordinator has changed her mind and is now staying for another few months at least, so I didnt get the admin job. Instead I was asked to work as an english teacher as they want to step up the english classes for the kids as the tourism here is picking up and it will be very useful for them to get jobs once they're old enough to leave the orphanage. There were already two english teachers, but theres about 250 kids studying here and we get all of them at least once a week, up to once a day for the older kids. So I started straight into class on monday past and to be honest it was a little difficult to begin with. A lot of the kids do want to learn but there's a lot that just arent interested and they
tend to distract the other kids as much as possible. At the start the bad kids simply didn't listen to me at all, nor the other two teachers for that matter. But I've got to know them a bit already and they've started doing what I ask them so we're getting on with class a bit better. I try my best to befriend the dificult kids, usually by wrestling with them or teaching them how to make better paper airplanes, and it seems to be working, they have a lot more respect for me now. There's kids of all ages here, from 4 or 5 (kindergarten) up to about 15 or 16 (6th grade) and to be honest the young ones are the hardest to teach. If anyone knows any word games I can play in class apart from hangman let me know, they'd come in very handy.
In the evenings and at the weekends we have to supervise activities for the kids. During the week the activities are films, discos, board games and painting. At the weekend we have to decide what the activities are going to be, usually its swimming in the river, fishing, football, baseball or
simply playing in the park. I like the activities more than the classes because all you have to do is play with the kids, and being the big kid that I am I tend to have good fun with them.
Theres about 20 volunteers working here and we're split up between two houses, one is the teachers house were the local teachers live with the mostly female spanish professional teachers. They all have a class each and teach the basic curriculum here. The other house is called the volunteer's house where I live with about 8 other people. At the minute I have a room to myself but its a bunk bed so if more people arrive I might have to share. We have no electricity at all in the house so at night everything is done by candle light, I really dont mind as it adds a nice feel to the already very basic living conditions. We have no hot water which means cold showers all the time, which isn't so bad either considering its usually about 30 degrees centigrade during the day. We do have a gas cooker which comes in pretty handy for tea, coffee and
snacks.
I suppose I should introduce the volunteers, ladies first of course... Believe it or not there's a girl from Belfast, Kelly, shes one of the other english teachers. Strange that I cross the world in search of exotic women and the best looking girl here is from the Ormeau Road! She grew up in the holy lands before it was taken over by students. We also have Michela from Italy; Suvi from Finland; Tamary from Israel; Montse from Catalunya; Luna, Laura, Barbara, Ester, Patricia and Elena from Spain; and last but definitly not least, Chrstina from the USA, I love them all! As for the boys, my drinking partner is called Andres, hes from Guatemala city and is the second Guatemalan volunteer ever in the 30 years that the orphanage has been running. He's actually the son of the producers of Gallo, a famous Guatemalan beer, probably well known amongst some of you alcoholics back home. They're also one of the richest ligitimate families in Guatemala, as monopolies are 100% legal here and they also produce a couple of other beers and soft drinks, he came here because his life needed a change according to him. There's also
Jesus and Kike from Spain; Henry from the USA; and Elli from Israel. Everyone came alone as far as I know except for a group of 17 french canadian kids who arrived the other day and are staying for 10 days. None of them speak english or spanish so we haven't really said more than hola to each other.
The orphanage is literally stuck between the river and the jungle with no roads to or from it. There are however a few little villages in the jungle, mostly by the river where we can go to for a walk or a swim or even to get some cola from their little shop. Every wednesday and saturday night most of the volunteers get a boat back to Rio Dulce where we get dinner and drunk. Drinking is supposedly prohibited at the orphanage but its not very strict so we occasionally have a carton or two of wine when night falls. Being the jungle there are a lot of insects and animals everywhere. So far I've seen a mouse, a few monkeys, a few strange looking lizards and a tarantula! Check out the pics.
We also try to arrange activities
for the volunteers, so for example we had a dinner last week where Kike made some spanish tortilla and Elli made some Israeli dish. I dont think either of them came out perfect due to limited cooking utensils but both were lovely and well appreciated by everyone after so much rice and beans. This week we had a massage night where we putt all the names in a hat and picked out massage partners. Of course I got a fella, but it was my good friend Andres so I gave him the massage anyway for the craic. We transformed the volunteers house into a bit of a massage parlour with candles everywhere and incense and chill out music. All in all it went very well but I have to wait until next week for my massage. It was Montse's birthday on tuesday so we celebrated it on wednesday when we went to town. We made loads of decorations and a cake and all got very drunk, good fun!
The food is far from what I expected, everything is super fresh as most of it's produced onsite, but most of the good stuff gets sold in the local town as
Cafe Sundog in Rio Dulce
Kelly, myself, Tamary and Christina its a valuable income for the orphanage. So for example we don't get any of the fish or fresh eggs that are produced, but me and Andres have decided to have a midnight fish and barbacue some night. The pigs and chickens that are raised here do get eaten and I have to say they are delicious. They're usually killed and eaten the same day although it's hard to get through a whole pig in one day even with the 300 odd people eating here every day. We get rice almost every day which is bought in from the local town, and beans every other day which were suprisingly good, so a lot of the volunteers have got bored of the food and just make their own dinner in the house. All in all I do like the food but as I said, it's far from what I expected.
I'm gonna have to stop writing and put some pics on because the electric goes off in 15 mins. Keep posted for the next update, I'll try not to take so long this time but no promises...
BTW, if you like the blog then hit recommend at the top,
that way more people will hear about it and get to read it. Thanks.
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Nuala McAree
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Tarantula??
Ok I have to say I love you Blog, and the place you are staying looks very lovely, but I just seen the photo of the tarantula......Im sorry to say, no amount of sun and candle light could keep me there!!! Id be on the 1st flight back to belfast where there are NO spiders that size!!!! LOL