Beach retreat and Andean indigenous life... (26 May... 10 July)

Having had the runs two days before I left Ibagué, 30 hours of bus travel in 48 crashed my antibiotic-depleted immune system. But that didn't bother me as I had come to rest and do something as close to a meditation retreat as I could, without actually doing a retreat.  Fate in the form of a small lad scouting for tourists brought me to La Faccia, a lovely hostel I felt comfortable in immediately. A room of my own and a pretty beach...

without any major development and as much local tourism as foreigners. Just the job. Many thanks to Flor for the recommendation. Managed to listen to almost all the retreat talks from Wat Kow Tahm's beginners retreat which I did for the first time in 2005 in Thailand. More or less in order too. And was able to do sitting and walking meditation and yoga. Oh and had my first surf lesson.

Rested and refreshed, I felt ready to head to my next volunteering project, Sky Ecuador (Sumak Kawsay Yachay ¡ a beautiful life through education in Kichwa). The eight-hour bus ride from Ecuador's north coast into the mountains involved lots of uphill on not-too-scary roads and some beautiful rainforest. When I got to the main road going south from Quito, I was shocked by the extent of the development. Not high-rise, but lots and lots of low rise, semi-constructed houses. Latacunga, capital of Cotopaxi province, seemed to just flow into the next place without much if any space between settlements. My hostel, Pachamama, I managed to find in the near dark, without much in the way of signage (i.e. zero), but it was all worth it when I saw it in the light.

This is the view off to the left of the deck. You can see that this part of Salasaca (the name of the indigenous people who live here and the place) is very rural despite being part of the built up plateau-valley going south of Qutio.

We are above a valley which is quiet apart from the occasional loud, late disco in the social club.

The house isnt what you'd call traditional but it is very pretty indeed. And very big. Enough for 15 volunteers. There is a whole level below this cut into the hillside we sit on. After missing hot water in Ibagué, hot showers made their return. Good news as the Andean sun can by quite shy, staying away for days as we are in the clouds quite often, being at nearly 3000m. Cold showers wouldn't have been fun.

The house has some stunning art done by the brother of the owner. The owner started Katitawa School in1997 when there was little, if any local education provision. Now it finds its niche working with children who would just get lost in classrooms of 35 and more. Also, some children for whom the free lunch every day makes a big difference to the family budget.

I couldn't resist putting up the leaving posters from Ibagué. Makes my room look brighter. I share with two other volunterers. The school year was just finishing as I arrived in June, building up to the Inti Raymi or sun festival, which marks the end of the old year and the beginning of the new in the Incan calendar. There was also the graduation ceremony at the school, so lots of stuff to help out with, but a decidedly easier workload.

This is Holly walking up to the school with the delightful Ligia. As you can see if you look closely, traditonal dress is used by pupils at the school. And the air was pretty thin for this bit of the walk, I can tell you. Good exercise. Holly and I worked with the pre-kinder class who were from 3-6. There were 10 kids in the group and they were delightful.

So it was very special to see them do their end of year parade for the Inti Raymi. I didn't get to know the bigger kids as well but...

...these little munchkins were all in my group. Cristian (4th from left) was just so cute. Almost running wild when I arrived, with a week of more structure and praise his behaviour transformed dramatically. As I was sitting on the lawn one day with other people all sitting around, he came over, hugged me and said, 'te quiero' which means for those that don't speak español 'I love you'. Bless his little cotton socks. Meant a lot to me, I can tell you.

Still at the Inti Raymi, above we have some of the parents and local dignitaries. The guy with the mike is called Raúl. He is one of my evening one-one students. He is also the inspector of schools for the local area so an important man to have on side. Like most of the others, he is bilingual in Kichwa and Spanish and also learning English.

Here you can see the traditional hats of the parents and of the kids for their dancing presentation.

The dancing presentation by the bigger kids. There were only 35 on roll last year, including the 10 from kindergarten so the groups for the older kids tended to be about 4.

The kichwa teacher is a highly committed guy called Rufino. He is a bit of a local historian too and in the town's parade a few days later, he was providing commentary from the podium as the various floats with bucolic scenes, complete with chickens strapped on went, past the local and international dignitaries.

More traditoinal clothing...

These were actually made by the kids for the festival. Very creative and when I saw real ones made by adults at the parade, I was impressed by how well Rufino and the kids did. The kids are doing traditional dance with shaking bells on the legs too.

Incredible!

Here the girls are eating the tradional corn and both corn and chicha (fermented corn drink) were passed round to all the parents. Lots of the day was conducted in Kichwa, including the ritual of leaving out food which was done on a specially constructed Andean cross mosaic out in front of the school.

And below you can see the traditional cook up. Meat from a whole sheep plus spuds and beans. Stones heated by fire, then food on top, covered and left for a couple of hours.

As I got a nice little contribution from the UK tax man, I decided to go to Quito to see if I could get anything cheaper for the Galapagos than I was finding online.

This is Quito from the roof of the impressive Notre Dame de Paris-esque basilica. May not look much but I was really impressed with Quito. Bogota was pretty scary outside of a very small area, but Quito I found less so. Its centre is much smaller I guess and it's just generally a smaller city.

These beautiful Spanish colonial buildings and the sun made walking around the Old Town a real treat.

The pretty museum of the town below was a little long on multi-media effects and a little short on information about pre-Colombian cultures. The museum was originally a hospital and they had some good info on that.

One of the several pretty squares in the old town, I felt very safe here although a bit dodgy on some of the side streets. For anybody who didn't realise going out after dark on your own in a South American capital is basically asking to be robbed. Overall though, I felt pretty safe in Quito, but I certainly didn't do anything like that....

The Basilica....The first pic was from the windows above the nave. You could also cross above the roof of the nave to get to stairs going even higher. Well you could, if you weren't a great big scaredycat like me...

Not bad, eh?

And when I walked over to the gringo part of town called Marescal, I went through two or three nice green spaces like the one below. Failed utterly to get anything sorted for the Galapagos. But did learn a bit more about it.

And also went up the Teleferiqo (sic) where I got great views over the city and had the prospet of hiking to the peak behind the woman's head. It was 4200m when you got out the lift so I reckon I made it to 4500m. Probably the highest I've been in my life.

Ooh, that's Quito, behind me.

and the south of Quito again.

and the north...

my path leading away...

and nearly at the peak....

Which brings me to the end of this round of blogging. Hope you enjoyed it. More soon :))

Volunteering Project 2: Ibagué, Colombia Jan 30th - May 25

After my first effort in Mexico doing construction for two weeks, I was definitely ready to do more volunteer work and put down some roots. As I had really enjoyed Pereira, I looked hard but failed to find anything there. So, after spending a day or two there, I went ahead and confirmed the project in Ibagué. Had a look round the city on Saturday afternoon. Went to a bar that night and chatted to two rather lovley ladies. All seemed liveable so I set off for the volunteer house where I was met by William, Berenice's son. It was quite quiet for the first couple of weeks as there was builiding work being done, so took the chance to go up to the hot springs with Mikayla, another volunteer.

Was really great to see ordinary Colombians relaxing and enjoying themselves. And what a beautiful location.

This is a stop on the way up where we got talking to 3 young Colombians who were getting the aguardiente (sambuca) down at 8 in the morning!

After another little while on the bus, we got dropped off and hiked up 45 mins. The Combeima valley was stunning.

Two of the Colombians, Mikayla, me and Tom, an American who was learning Spanish.

It doesn´t look much but the huts were dry and just about warm enough.

And this is the view from said huts. At least it was on the Saturday when we arrived. It fills up on Sunday as most Colombians work 6 days a week and can only make it up on Sunday.

These three came up with the idea of midnight bathing and I have to say it was one of the most beautiful nights of my life. The stars were hidden for the first two hours, but around 2am we were treated to a whole sky of incredible stars. And we then went and made our campfire for the third time in the day and finished off the beans. Incredible.

Beautiful but seriously cold. The non-faint hearted do the cold shower in this, then go down to the hot pools. Having nearly died of hypthermia (well, I was bone-cold) after following Paola into waterfalls on the Pereira trip, I decided to just take it real easy.

Over the first two weeks, I spent a lot of time with these kids in the rough neighbourhood of San José. They were amazingly welcoming and open, although at times, with 35 of them, it did get a bit wearing.

Also did some English classes with adults. Mikayla here teaching the ever-enthusiastic Juan Carlos and Yamile, the manager of the San José operation. This was in a smaller building where they also did beauty classes to help the local ladies gain self-esteem and some useful skills for earning money later.

This is the main community hall which the kids use during the day, Monday to Friday. Those with school in the morning would come in the afternoon and vice versa. We did help with homework, English classes, presetations on important themes of health, nutrition etc.

The facilities were basic and you could smell marijuana being smoked by drug dealers less than 10m away, but the kids took it in their stride and just got on with being kids.

Maira and Tatyana. Great fun. Some of these kids home situations were what you might call complicated, but you'd never have known most of the time. Yamile and the two supervisors, Rosío and Yanaire do an amazing job giving these kids a childhood.

In no time at all, you lot managed to provide enough money to buy a digital projector which was used to do educational presentations, show films and picture displays. Some of the leftover money went towards educational materials in Colombia, some to pay the bills at my new Ecuadorian project and some will be spent in Peru. It really does go a long way out here. Thank you all again so much for you generosity.

 These were the morning kids at Manos Amigas, the Colombian name of the foundation that goes by www.letsgovolunteer.com when it has anything to do with volunteers. Some volunteers came to work at the Orchid Foundation or with sex workers. Both of these are external to Manos Amigas but part of the letsgovolunteer offering. Manos Amigas, the oldest part of the organisation, does after-before school club and lunch for 150 kids, all in the house where I lived. The kids are from a local slum right by the very unpredictable and dangerous Combeima river.

Shortly after arrival, I had arranged to take on the new Volunteer Intern position which meant looking after the other volunteers from arrival to departure, hoping that they would go away happy to recommend us to others. About three weeks in, a new bunch of volunteers arrived who I got on really well with. Going on weekend trips with them, Yamile and Juan Carlos was a joy. Here are Zelal, Yamile, Laetizia and Menka at the back, walking up to a cable car. Same road as we went along for the hot springs, but we walked a good two hours.

Was well worth it though. The views as we crossed the Combeima Canyon were stunning.

and a little scary if you're not great with heights like me.

After a great meal, we got shown around the farm, which was just amazing. Llamas...

Andrew (aus) and Menka (Can) almost came to blows over drinking penalties on a later trip to the hot springs (joke), but were great friends here. :)))

These were one of the many exotic fruits available. Anyone recognise what they are? I can't remember for the life of me. Look vaguely like passion fruit...

Work was hard, with 16-hour days making their appearance in my life for the first time since Manchester, but it was all worth it. And with the wonderful weekends rolling on, like this trip to Payandé, the 7 waterfalls, it was a very rich experience.

A picture of me, just in case you forgot what I looked like.

And I really can't remember what Juan Carlos was telling us, but it must have been to do with the enormous SEMEX cement works not far from where we were. Pollution control is not great and this place featured in my environment presentation. But the waterfalls were unsullied.

About a month and a half into the trip I finally got it together to do some volunteering at the secondary school where some of our kids went. The extremely helpful and positive Edith made the whole experience happen and I really got a lot out of it. Some of her groups had nearly 60 pupils in.

Another trip to the hot springs. With obligatory games. Me, Juan Carlos and Zelal.

Menka didn't feel up to the midnight swim, so we sent her Juan Carlos to try to scare her into coming. :)))

After that lot left, I didn't go anywhere for about a month. Just business as usual with Pilar, below who cooked all the lunches for the kids and volunteers. A truly wonderful woman whose 15-year old daughter, Kate, would often help out, before school. An impressive work ethic.

And Berenice, who loved nothing more than to be on the lunch floor with her 'enanos' (little people). Berenice cooked vegetarian food all the Mondays to Fridays for four months while I was there and generally looked after the volunteers incredibly well. Her house was truly a family house, open to all, from whatever country if they wanted to come and help with the kids. And her own two kids, William and Carolina, were very special young people. So warm and welcoming, you couldn't ask for more.

. 

 The house I lived in for four months. Manos Amigas.

And the organisation wouldn't have been the same without several other dedicated Colombian members of staff. Here's Liliana who was doing her teacher training on Saturdays, writing essays, doing afternoons with us and marking the morning kids' books, amongst other things. Thanks Lili :)

None of it would have been possible without Carlos, whose energy and drive, really push the organisation to be all it can be. Him and his cousin, Maria del Pilar, set the foundation up and have given a huge amount to the kids of their home town. Much respect.

Another native of Ibagué, Jimena provided the kids with professional dance classes. And boy could they dance, some of them. An incredibly elegant dancer, a strict and effective teacher, Jimena also was a star in the programme.

David, not Colombian, but resident, was a great line manager. We got on really well and I like to think that we achieved quite a lot in the short time we worked together. David's commitment to the organisation was like that of all the other staff, unflagging and inspiring.

Huellas de amor was a more recent collaboration. They existed separately but Carlos really liked what they were doing and so work together had begun about  year before. I really enjoyed going there. The kids were fab and Rosío, the teacher, was just amazing.

You can't mae kids smile like that :) They only do it when they love and feel safe with the adults around them.

As time in Ibague drew to a close, a few more weekends away happened after a bit of a break. A new bunch of volunteers, filled with enthusiasm and energy to go exploring. Here on the way up to the Martinica.

Juan Carlos couldn't resist getting under the waterfall, so we all did. Really refreshing and not cold. A great start to our walk up to La Martinica.

And after all the uphill work, a great view of Ibagué.

And again...

And this chap, Edwin, was the star of my English classes in the morning, so I took this photo to put in the volunteers mnewsletter. I just pray that he will not fall victim to the many possible wrong turns his neighbourhood offers. A scholarship fund for the kids to benefit from when they leave was mooted and I really hope it becomes a reality.

Because these kids will occasionally need someone looking out for them. Yamile can do so much, but after 13 years of age, it gets harder.

Saying goodbye to these kids was hard. They meant and mean a great deal to me. But I felt it was time to move on. To Ecuador.

Spending 18 months in Latin America, I really wanted to spend a decent amount of time in an indigenous community. I had chosen the projet, www.skyecuador.org, in the Salasaca community near Ecuador. So, fighting back the tears, I said goodbye to all and set off on a two day journey to the beach in Ecuador for two weeks rest.