Nourish and Organic Urban Agriculture

SO last Friday we took a break from our regular work site and traveled to another project site in South Quito.  The site is an indigenous day care for children in the neighborhood.  We brought abuot 10 of the boys from the colegio where our first project is to help us out. We had to begin the first steps of a volunteer group from England´s greenhouse because tey only have 1 week to complete their project instead of 2.

We arrived just after 9, but our boys from the high school and Luchito had already begun leveling the hillside that will serve as the site for the next greenhouse.  We were welcomed by around 30 children, many of whom showered us with hugs, kisses and handshakes. They were all adorable, sweet and very petite.  Once we were settled and had worked for a few minutes, a large group of children came down to say hello and after all introducing ourselves we decided to split into 2 groups. 1 for working and the other for playing! Brianna, Bridget, Julia and myself decided to play first.  We walked to a cement patio and after a few minutes of deliberating, decided to play duck duck goose, or "raton, raton, gato" (rat and cat)  The kids ranged in age from 2 years to 14 years, but everyone joined in and we played a huge game for about 30 minutes.  We then decided to get a lot of their energy out, and took all the kids across the street to a huge dirt soccer field to play blob tag, red light, green ligh (luz rojo, luz verde) and Simon says (simon dice).  They were all very patient with us and loving and gave us lots of suggestions for what simon should say.  It was nice to get away from our daily routine of working with the teenagers to experience another culture and age group. Of course I am completely biased because I work in a daycare back home and absolutely love playing games with kids so Friday was extra exciting for me. I am thoroughly jealous of the British students who get to work there for a whole week. I am already plotting ways to convince Alicia to let us return for a day or 2.

The boys from the colegio hard at work leveling the ground and settng the posts for the greenhouse of another volunteer group

After about 2 hours of fun and games, we had to switch with the boys and Renata.  Before heading down to actually help with the greenhouse, we were offered a drink, and here you never decline food or drink.  Tachi has taught us that even if people have nothing, they will somehow find something to offer you, usually the best things they have, so we went to try chicha and avena.  Chica is a drink made from fermented corn and cinnamon and avena is an oatmeal drink.  We were pleasantly suprised because both were delicious! After our warm drinks, we finally went to help out with digging post holes and securing the posts for the greenhouse.

Just our luck, about 15 minutes after heading down to help out, it started to rain, hard, so we all ran inside along with all the kids.  There was another group of volunteers who were from Maine helping out at the daycare.  They were a high school group traveling with their Spanish teacher who had secured a $4000 grant to travel to South America and volunteer for 3 weeks to teach English. Although none of us believe that 3 weeks is anywhere near enough time to teach and learn another language, we were happy to help them out.  In the large cafeteria room, we all sat down with a few children and read them books.  I was sitting with Elsa, a tiny young girl who was around 7 years old, on my lap.  She was so excited to show me what she had learned in English.  She sang "head, shoulders, knees and toes, knes and toes" and counted to 11.  We then went over the numbers that come after 11, and read a book in Spanish about a circus elephant and his parrot friend 3 times.  Sadly, the rain stopped and we had to get back to work.

When we finished at 1, we had leveled the hillside for the greenhouse floor, dug post holes and put all of the posts in place for the greenhosue structure.  Along with our boys from the high school, we went back upstairs to the cafeteria and were treated to a huge, delicious lunch! We were given quinoa soup and then a plate of salad, rice, potatoes and garbanzo beans! It was all deliciously seasoned and we were so stuffed afterwards.  Laura, the coordinator of the school, then talked to us about the indigenous calender for the year, which revolves around the planting seasons for their crops.  It was so intersting to see and understand the partnership between the earth, the animals and the times of the year for planting and harvesting crops.  They have a dual relationship with the earth and have immense knowledge of the land and all the animals and creatures that assist in the process.

We were soo sad to leave after our day playing and working with the children.  We said our goodbyes to probably the cutest kids I have ever seen, and headed home to get some rest before our weekend in Mindo!

A few of the kids at the daycare before we played a seemingly endless game of ratón y gato, their version of duck duck goose

I feel like we are getting a very diverse experience here in Ecuador. The projects we are working on range in age groups from small children to high school students to adults.  We are getting to work in a variety of settings from schools to neighborhoods to a national park.  I really thank our partners in Ecuador, Triple Salto and ConQuito, for enabling us to work in so many places on so many projects!  We are going to try to post pictures soon. it´s just been challenging!