Life on the Farm - Week 3

Hola amigos!

We had a great week 3 at the farm! Last weekend, before going back to the farm, we went paragliding! Paragliding is when you take off from a cliff or mountain and fly around catching lifts of wind coming off the cliffs in order to stay in the air. We each did a tandem flight with a guide. It feels just like flying! You catch the same lifts as the birds flying with you. Very cool! We were each in the air for 15-20 minutes. We took off from a cliff just behind Canoa and landed right on the beach. This weekend in Canoa there is a paragliding competition! Each paraglider has a GPS and has to pass certain points during the flight and the person who does it the fastest wins. There is also a long distance race today. There were more than 40 kites in the sky!

Marsh geared up and getting ready to take off paragliding

Marsh in flight

Shaina landing on the beach

At the farm this week, ‘Profesora Shaina’ (AKA Senorita Shena, Shaila, Jaina, Jena, Yana, etc.) was busy at the school. There are four classrooms at the school: one for the preschool and grade 1s; one for the grade 2s; one for the grade 3 and 4s; and one for the grade 5,6,7s. Mondays and Fridays I teach the older classes for an hour each and Wednesdays I teach the younger kids for an hour. It was really fun! It’s challenging at times to keep their attention for longer than 5 min J and we usually play a game towards the end of the class. The older kids know a bit of English, especially the kids who live at the farm with us, but the younger ones don’t know any. They started learning numbers (1-12) and colours and we are working up to fruits and animals, days of the week, months, and bigger numbers. I taught the older kids some simple verbs as well. They are adorable and fairly well behaved. We played red light - green light (with the addition of yellow, pink and blue lights) and charades and read stories. One of the new interns is also helping out. Next week the regular teacher of the oldest kids is away, so I might be there full time (school is from 8:30am – 12:00pm only).

Teaching the younger kids at the Rio Muchacho school

Marsh’s mornings were busy in the garden and around the farm. He was in charge of the tree nursery, a very important job, as well as feeding and cleaning the ‘cuys’ (guinea pigs). Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, Marsh was running an intensive English play time at the farm for the older school kids. Unfortunately not many of the kids showed up, as transportation is a big issue for them. So next week, Marsh will probably come to the school to run the program there, instead of at the farm.

For our cultural afternoon this week, we went back to the giant strangle fig tree to climb it and then cooled off with a swim in the river.

Other farm news, the other pregnant pig had her piglets this week – only 4 babies. The first pig had 16, so they gave some of hers to the second one, to even out the milk and hopefully more will survive. So far about 4 or 5 have died but the rest seem to be doing well. They also let another female out to breed – so in 2 months and 21 days there will be more piglets! There is also a newborn colt!

The new baby colt

There are now about 12 of us at the farm – volunteers and interns, so chores and dishes are shared among more of us, which is nice. We can’t believe that this week will be our last week at the farm! It went so fast and we will be sad to leave. They are starting some great community projects through the school kids, which would be great to be a part of. Hopefully we can stay in contact with them and see how things work out.

Shaina grinding corn into cornmeal on the bicycle grinder

Our plan going forward is to head from the farm to Cuenca (another colonial city in the southern Ecuadorian Andes) for a few days and then move on to Peru working south to Cusco by October 5 for our Machu Picchu trek.

Ciao!

xoxo M&S