Riobamba Retreat Attempt, Take 1

As a group we take 4 weekend retreats throughout our year here to spend some, more, time together away from the stresses of work and the city. This past weekend we headed to the city of Riobamba (about 4 hours south of Conocoto) that is famous for its amazing views of the gorgeous and huge volcano Chimborazo, as well as an icredible train ride through the Devil's Nose and surrounding mountainous landscape. We had high hopes and great plans but most of them were drowned due to rain, clouds, and the fact that the train was sold out for the following 3 weeks. So, instead the girls took shelter in coffee and ice cream shops and enjoyed some quality chit-chat in the comforts of our beds while the boys took in a leisurely 3+ hour nap and reading. So what were we to do now? Well luckily Ecuador is the land of volcanoes and one happened to be currently erupting just outside of Riobamba.

Tungurahua has been erupting since early January, though thankfully without any severe damage done, as the tourist hotspot city of Baños lays at it's base. We took advantage of our suddenly free Sunday to take a bus up to the volcano to get some amazing views of the action. Though I have climbed to the summit of an active volcano and seen the lava in the past, I have never seen an erupting volcano that up close and personal. It was an incredible sight (when the clouds decided to part). Ash was floating through the air and an occasional 'boom' rocked the sky and our ear drums. So even though our original planned weekend didn't turn out, we still were able to take in some of what makes Ecuador truly an awesome country.

Haley, me and Jackie taking in the views

along the way to Tungurahua!

The cows delayed our progress a bit....

The smoking Tungurahua!!

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

The group! With Tungurahua hiding

somewhere atrás...

This weekend is Carnaval and we all have already been subject to various water balloons and foam spray attacks by local and passing children. Wish us luck in survival this weekend as we head into the main celebratory days of Carnaval!!

amor + peace

Krysta

Love and Nutrition

As the month of February began this week, my life was filled with teaching English, Estudios Mundiales and Women's Exercise by day, and Nutrition Program research by night. As a result of a meeting this morning with the local school Aliñambi (where all my nutrition research with hopefully show itself in the form of improving kids malnourishment), starting March 1st, along with Haley and Jackie, I will be starting a Nutrition Education Program with the 7th graders.

Dra. Julia at Aliñambi wanted to start a project with the 7th graders that would instill some personal responsibility and empower them to take control of their lives. This is where we came up with the, as I like to call it, "You Are What You Eat" Nutrition Project. This project entails working with the 7th graders for 3 hours a week teaching them about nutrition and the process food takes from planting, to food processing, to consumption, to composting. We are aiming at showing these kids they have the power to take control of their lives and make life changing decisions.

Every Tuesday, I will be alternating weeks between giving charlas on various nutrition topics with hands-on projects in which the students will build a portfolio to be presented the final week. Every Wednesday and Friday the class will be divided into 2 groups in which one group will attend cooking classes with Haley and I, and the other half will work in the 7th grade garden with Jackie. Finally, the kids will be walking around to different 'tiendas' (local food stores that sell everything from cookies to fruit to diapers- a mini Ecuadorian 7-11 perhaps) and interview the owners about what type of food they sell, and what is most popular. They will tie this information to local kids by asking them what they buy at tiendas and why. We want to make kids more conscious of their nutritional surroundings and what is available to them in their community.

If I thought I was busy before, I life is about to get chaotic, but I couldn't be happier. After 6 months of working with health at Aliñambi it is so nice to finally have an amazing project developed and rolling. I love health, teaching, and our community and this project is bringing all those things together!

And even though my bedtime may be getting earlier in these next coming weeks, I vow to uphold my promise to keep you updated more often!

Nutrition!!

Aliñambi!!

Until next post!

Krysta

New Year....New Programs!

With the break for Christmas and starting a new "quarter", some of our programs have been revamped and some new programs have taken flight. I am busier than ever having taken on some new responsibilities as well as a few of my programs getting into their initiation stages. Here is how my time will be spent, most likely, for the next, and last (sniff) 6 months of my time with Manna.


-Adult English: I am no longer teaching Intermediate Adult's English but rather Haley and I have started a Beginner's Adult English course. Many of our community members expressed interest in English but needed the beginners course because though many of them come into contact with English speakers at their various jobs, they had no where they could turn to to get the basic level....until now! Our class is completely FULL (yay!) with 10 students. They are the greatest bunch of students I have ever worked with. They are so eager to learn and participate it is amazing. I love my class!


-Estudios Mundiales (World Studies): This is a new class based off Jackie and I's Natural Science class from the fall. We had great success in our Natty Sci class but we wanted to extend it's range of material. Many kids here do not know geography and even barely know what continent Ecuador is in or where on a map. So we ran with this enlightenment and decided to make a geography/natural science combined class. We came up with 'World Studies'! Each week we teach the kids about geography and various places and cultures around the world and incorporate in current science and environmental topics. So far it has had a rough start with attendance but we are hoping to change that this week so stayed tuned!


-Women's Exercise: I have now taken over teaching Tae Bo on Tuesday evenings for the Women's Exercise class. Haley, the leader of the program, has built a great foundation of women that regularly attend Yoga classes on Mondays, Tae Bo on Tuesdays, and Aerobics on Thursdays. My side kick/punch combo will be perfected in no time! Women's Exercise is a program aiming at getting normally domestic women out of the house and moving! We track their blood pressure, pulse and weight each week so they can see the progress of their health. It is a great program and we will be soon matching this class with cooking classes to teach these women how to cook healthy using the amazing local produce available to them here in Ecuador!


-Health: I have some sad news, one of my programs, the Aliñambi Primary Clinic Expansion project has lost its funding and has thus been put on hold for the time being. It was a decision out of my hands unfortunately but, it does however leave me time to focus on my Nutrition Program. We have measured and analyzed all the data of the children and about 33% of the children are malnourished. Our next steps are to develop a Nutrition Program to get these children healthy and to change the way they and their families see health and nutrition. We plan to use a combination of vitamins and supplements coupled with nutrition education so that eventually the artificial vitamins can be replaced with natural ingredients in the fruits, veggies and meats of Ecuador. This program has been a long time developing but I truly think we are at the stage where the actual implementation of the Nutrition Program is in sight! HURRAY! 


-Scholarships: I am going to be working with a local financial company in Quito that provides scholarships for students wanting to continue their education. Nothing like this is offered in our community so we want to work with this organization and our donors to bring this opportunity to our community members. For example we have one amazingly smart lady who wants to return to school to study nutrition, and this program will help her achieve that goal.


Aside from all of this, I will be working on starting a book club at our library for the kids as well as continuing my shadowing at one of the local hospitals near where we live. When I put this all in writing it seems like a lot, and well, it is, but when it comes down to it, I'm only here for a year so I would be crazy to not take advantage of all these great opportunities! 


Hope all is well with everyone in all your respective global cities!

A picture just for fun because my family was awesome enough

 to come down and visit me over Christmas!! :)

Me and the Fam in the Galapagos! Love you guys!

Con cariño,

Krysta

2010...the Year to Celebrate Families, Friends and Communities!

Starting off 2010 right by showing the communities in which we work our appreciation for them and their support was our top priority. With this in mind, yesterday we held a "Celebración Comunitaria" (Community Celebration) for all our community members to come relax, enjoy one another, and embark in the new year with confidence that Manna, and other local organizations are still present and at their sides. 

The Celebración was preceded by hours, and months for that matter, of organization, bringing back supplies such as water balloons and face paint from the US, and walking all over advertising for the big day. Our preparation even entailed recruiting visitors from the states to spend precious Ecuador vacation time making large banners to hang at local organizations...Thanks Laura! Despite the usual pre-event advertising and organization, I was responsible for coordinating with a local radio station, SuperK, with whom Manna has a very close relationship, to advertise our event on air. Since December, Oswaldo from SuperK has been making short 20 second advertisements on air with the promise that we would come into the station in January to be interviewed about the event. Since I have been to the station twice before, once with our teen camp this past summer and the other to promote our Health Clinic in August, I was the one heading to the station last Friday, on nerves, to be interviewed. Accompanied by Jackie, Oswaldo introduced me and said a little background info about the station's history with Manna and from there interview took off. He asked me about Manna, where we work, what we do, how the culture here is different and how we are liking it, how Manna gets its money and support to work down here, and of course about out upcoming Celebration. Amidst all the business talk, he of course didn't fail to ask if I had an Ecuadorian boyfriend and as I responded "no", he made the announcement that I will be handing out cards at the Celebration for those interested! ha. He also mentioned my personal blog and ask about the soccer team we were playing on and what position I played. I mentioned that Jackie also played and though she had bowed out of speaking on the radio, Oswaldo asked her what position she played and if she liked it and Jackie, thinking he asked what she would be doing at the Celebration, responded: "I'm doing musical chairs!" hahah. Needless to say that is the joke around the house right now, but I reassured Jackie that the listeners just got a glimpse of how fun and entertaining we are and would want to come to the Celebration even more! :) So, all-in-all the interview lasted about 25 minutes or so and we definitely got across to some of our community members as one lady mentioned her hearing us on the radio that morning! Success!
During the actual Celebration, we had a local DJ playing music, the Ministry of Health had a booth with current health issues, the local credit and earnings coop, as well as local venders selling food. We had games for kids including a water balloon toss, face paint (and let me tell you I'm pretty darn good a painting whiskers now), balloon animals, egg races, and soccer. For adults, we had a recipe/food sampling table (which I spent hours before the event preparing the food), soccer, a sample Women's Exercise class in which for that day only men were invited, and of course dancing and entertainment. I was the "ringmaster" of the event in that on numerous occasions I had to get on the loud speaker and made announcements about upcoming games and activities and library tours. Loud speaker talking in front of many people....yikes. But hey what's life without a little humility right?
All-in-all the event was a huge success with many new community members coming to see what Manna and the library have to offer and spend some time with neighbors and family. It was really awesome to take a step back yesterday and see the number of families and children that had come to enjoy the day with us. Amidst all the chaos and stress, it is very easy to forget why we are here doing what we do and that even though we may not be as successful in all aspects of what we do, it is the little things that are really making a difference to these people and communities. Many people overlook this and get wrapped up in the bigger picture and forget to appreciate what they have accomplished thus far. Our library has really grown in the past few months and we have so many upcoming new programs about to start...that is something we really need to be proud of. I have learned so much being around this culture and these communities. Who can resist faces likes these....

Me and the Future Champion Flosser of Ecuador! 

(See my first guest blog on the MPI blog!)

Whatever you do don't drop the egg!

Community members checking out what the 

Ministry of Health booth has to offer!

Passing along delicious and nutritious food and 

recipes, all using local Ecuadorian goods!

Thank you to all my family, friends, new and old, and to my supporters. I am now just about half way through my year here and can't believe how time is flying. I have so many goals still to achieve here and I can only hope 2010 proves to be as generous and prosperous for me as 2009!
May all your troubles last as long as your New Year Resolutions!


Un abrazo,
Krysta 

Ready... Set... EXPLODE!!

First off let me apologize for my lack of posting in November AND December! Between Thanksgiving and organizing classes and contacts to prepare for break, my blog sadly took position on the back burner. But here is a guest blog that I wrote for the Manna Blog about our fabulous Natural Science class volcano-building finale....
And check back later this week for an update about the new year here in Ecuador and how our programs and my work has changed!

Without further ado, my guest blog...

"As our Natural Science class sadly came to an end this week, we decided we wanted to go out with a bang...or rather an EXPLOSION!

Our 2-part class on volcanoes had a suspenseful start with a volcano diagram and learning, in Spanish AND English, about the various parts of a volcano. Then we swiftly transitioned into our lecture for the day with material stopping just short of discussing plate tectonics, but nonetheless just as invigorating! We had planned to do a worksheet and show a video, but due to the awesome power outages, neither of those caught glimpse of action on Volcanoes Day One. We ended Day One with the actual building of the volcanoes! WOOHOO! Since our class is so large, we split them up into 2 groups allowing each group to make their own paper mache volcano. And naturally without fail they teamed up into boys and girls teams. As Day One came to a close, the volcanoes were taking shape and looking awesome!

Cotopaxi is one of Ecuador's more famous volcanoes with its spectacular glacier-topped summit peeking over mountains and clouds providing views from all around Quito. Did you know that Cotopaxi has erupted 50 times since 1738?! If you were in our class Friday, you would have learned this! NO WAY! Yes way...

After some English vocabulary review, a Discovery Channel video about volcanoes, a worksheet and a lesson about the effects of volcanoes on the environment, the time had come...explosion time! Needless to say they were a huge hit, I mean what kid doesn't love volcano eruption day in elementary school? So, I'll let the pictures and video do the talking from here...

The boys enjoying constructing (and sticking newspaper up their

noses)

Jackie and Krysta with the girls' finished product

Profe Krysta completes the second demonstration

Our whole class!

And FINALLY, our epic explosion video:

**For some reason my Blogger will not allow me to upload the video

so click this link to my guest blog to see the video! Sorry!

Natural Science Volcano Explosion Video!

If you are just beside yourself with excitement and jealousy that you didn't get to build a volcano with us, we offer free Skype dates so you too can learn how to bring the fun into your home! (*Materials not included)

Thanks for reading and have a splendid Thanksgiving week!

Hugs and besitos,

Krysta"

Ecuadorian Futbol Team!!!

For those who don't know, futbol is serious business down here in South America. Instead of little kids having the choice of little league, football, tennis, or futbol like in the US, pretty much the only choice here is futbol. Kids are born and bred to play soccer, and they don't lose that passion as adults! There is no Sunday tennis with your girlfriends or adult slow pitch softball leagues, there is futbol leagues for little kids, adult men, and yes adult women; and I think I fear the women futbol players more than the men down here! Haley, Jackie, Sarah, Bibi, and I had the opportunity to join one of these Ecuadorian Women's Futbol teams; the team representing our part of town, Rumiñahui. We committed to playing with the assurance from Bibi that there would be no practices (because we really don't have too much spare time outside of work), that it was not too competitive and we were promised sweet jerseys including our names on that back! How could we pass that opportunity up! Well come to find out our team and the league are anything but laid back and 'friendly'. Our 'coach' (more of just the organizer of the team) is super hard core and LOVES to yell at Jackie for unknown reasons, and we have practices once a week. Though I did amazingly get my lucky/favorite number, 4, my jersey is 4 sizes too big and with one sprint down the field I may be completely shed of my top....yikes! Oh and no names on the back! But, such is the Ecuadorian/South American lifestyle...vague/unpredictable.

We had our first game today against a neighboring barrio. I did not play because I had been in bed the past 2 days sick and thus, this morning just walking to the field made me light-headed, soooo, I was a side line cheerer. Though we unfortunately lost 2 to 3, the game was great! The other team was pretty cheap and mouthy and just really uncool. But Jackie scored an awesome goal and I am quite sad I did not catch it on video. It was a proud moment for all of us gringas since the coach loves to pick on her; perhaps now she will be more easy on poor Jackie?

Anyway, it was definitely hard sitting on the sidelines not playing but I am feeling better and will definitely be out there next weekend! Can't wait!

This is panning out to be a rough but great experience for us. It really gets us more infiltrated into the community and first hand experiencing what everyday Ecuadorian life is like, bruises and all! The season goes until December and so we will see what happens! I will keep you updated on our record! Going for the gold baby!

Quick team huddle before kick off! Sarah #7, Bibi #8, 

and Jackie #2 (to the left of Bibi)

Me being sad I missed out on playing

in our first game :(

Bibi dominating the field!

Hope the weekend treated everyone well!

besitos!
Krysta

Somos Ecuatorianos?!

Hey all,
So now that we are about 5 weeks into our programs that started on September 14th, I have lots of updates about the ones that I am personally running/involved in!


Adult English- We have 9 people registered now for the class! Woohoo! And on a regular basis, we have about 6 people show up each day. Which for starting out with no one showing up is pretty good!  We ended up teaching an intermediate class because all our students were far more advanced than we had planned for and so we did a quick change of lesson plans to cater the course to intermediate students. Each day we teach some grammar, vocab, and my personal favorite (my favorite lesson I did everyday when I was teaching in Austin) the Song-of-the-Day!  We give the students the lyrics to an English song with about a word per line missing and so they listen to the song and have to fill in the blanks with the words they hear. It's pretty awesome when we go over all the words and then listen one final time and we all sing along :) So this 6 week course is about to end but we are more than likely just going to advertise some more and continue the course as is since we finally have regular attendance and eager students. But man is English grammar getting hard to teach! Thank goodness one of my English partners is Chet and he was an English major!


Kids English- I am now helping out with Kid's English on Wednesdays because the class got too big, and so they had to split it into 2 groups and thus needed extra help to wrangle all the kids! It's a much more relaxed class in which we teach them colors, animals, and numbers and don't have to worry about teaching them the pluperfect or any awesome grammar like that!  I really enjoy helping out with this class and it gives me a great chance to work on my class room management skills, a skill we all should have in this crazy world!


Natural Science class- I had a vision of starting a science class here teaching kids about elementary science topics and doing those awesome experiments we all did as children (baking soda volcano anyone?!). Jackie is really involved in environmental projects down here and wanted to teach kids about environmental issues and raising their awareness about conservation. So we decided to join forces and start a Natural Science class for kids where we do science experiments while at the same time incorporating environmental topics; i.e. projects that show how oil and water don’t mix and incorporate negative impacts of oil spills on the environment. It has been very successful thus far and we are really excited about the progress and future of this class. These kids have already passed our expectations on their science and environmental knowledge so we can't wait to build on it!

Aliñambi Nutrition Program- A few weeks ago we took measurements (weight, height, and arm and trunk circumference) on all about 130 students that attend the Aliñambi school. We did this because we are in the works of developing a Nutrition Program at this school where, while all are not malnourished, most have nutritional issues whether they be undernourishment, obesity (very few but it is present), or lack of iron issues. We have yet to develop the specific program, as I am still doing research to find what time of Nutrition Programs have already been implemented in Ecuador and their success and failures. So all in all we are looking for a type of program to base ours on, as our partner foundation HealtheChildren, with whom we are working on this Nutrition Program with, will support a program that has shown previous success. So I am crazily working on Nutrition Program research as well as working with Dra. Julia at Aliñambi to get other information about these kids are far as economical status, and other info that will help us correlate what makes these kids malnourished (what the strongest factor is) and how we can change that variable. Also, while taking these measurements we took the opportunity to ask these kids first hand what they ate for breakfast, lunch, and what their favorite food is (I think we only got 1 pizza and 0 mac-n-cheese response...poor kids, I feel I need to enlighten them on the amazingness that is mac-n-cheese!). But we are going to use these responses to also help us find identifying factors of malnutrition. So it is all really exciting and once we get all this data charted and entered into SPSS, we will hopefully have a well enough trend and identified variables where we can create a great Nutrition Program. Upon the hopeful success of this soon-to-be Nutrition Program, we want to implement it in other schools in the Valle de los Chillos region to improve nutrition over a greater area. 

Ecuador Ministry of Health- This past week Shawn and I met with Dr. Escobar, a contact with the Sangolqui Hospital and Ministry of Health, to talk to him about the 5 medicine-interested girls in Manna to start shadowing some doctors. The Sangolqui Hospital is the only public hospital (all public hospitals in Ecuador are free) in the Valle. There are 10 or 11 other subcentral sites (small local clinics that serve small rural communities) that are run through this Sangolqui Hospital as well. This past Thursday we met all the heads of these Subcentral sites at their monthly meeting. It was pretty awesome to see how these areas come together and hear their numbers for the hospital. So in the end, all 5 of us have been assigned Drs. to shadow starting off with once a week and then if we feel we have more time, we can add another day. This is an absolute AMAZING opportunity for us as pre-health students as well as for Manna, and also we are offering up our time to the hospitals here that are in absolute DIRE need of extra hands. Shadowing will allow us, as Manna volunteers, to see how health care here in Ecuador is run so we get a better idea of how to open a successful Preventative Health Center. Also, this experience will show us and allow us to do/see what we couldn't even imagine seeing our entire lives in the US or doing until our later years of professional school. I am starting off working with Dr. Escobar himself who is an Internal Medicine doc who also works with diabetes and TB. I am soooooo stoked, words cannot express. Maybe even happier than a little kid on Christmas morning! I'm such a nerd. Even though I have loads of work already, I am hoping to try these next 2 weeks and see how they go and then hopefully add another day of shadowing per week. Since I am already working with Dr. Escobar in the actual hospital, I am hoping to add another day in a rural subcentral site where the cases are more rare and my opportunities to perform "procedures" would be greater. I will definitely keep you updated on this and I'll try and keep out the gory details (especially for you Mackie! ) (but don't worry mom you'll hear them all even though I know you don't want to but you're my mom and well that's how it goes :) )

Presidential Inauguration- Manna Ecuador has been here for the past 2 years, and with this current group makes 3. They opened the Library last March and thus since then Manna has been a constant figure in the community with the Library acting as a community center for kids and teens. Just being constant in the community doesn't necessarily mean we are 'part' of the community. Though culturally, Ecuadorians are very welcoming, it takes more than just us being here and offering classes to be accepted into the community. We are reminded constantly that the communities are thankful that we are here but we do all we can to be accepted and considered one of them. We go into the community whenever we can, we have attended a fundraiser for the church in Rumiloma, which they tore down last year but didn't have the funds to rebuild (ya sounds weird but thats how they do things down here ha). Rumiloma is the particular community where our Library is located but is it very small and the other communities that are just streets away are San Francisco, Tena, Fajardo, Chaupitena, and Santa Isabel. Rumiloma elected a new President a couple weeks ago and we went to introduce ourselves to him. He had obviously already heard of our presence in the community and so we just wanted to extend our presence to have him as a major contact in the community and his insight. Upon our meeting with him, he formally invited us to his inauguration into office. We were blown away by this invite and were so honored to be formally invited to such a big event. This invite showed us we are one step closer to being accepted and considered part of the community here. The inauguration was great. It was a small meeting where representatives from the other barrios (neighborhoods) and heads of major bus companies and camioneta companies were present. The prez honored us and thanked us for coming and for doing all that we have done for Rumiloma. It was a great honor to be recognized by so many people at this meeting and thanked. We know we are making a difference slowly here in these communities, though sometimes we feel that isn't always the case. It was great to see how much our organization and presence meant to a lot of people and how they are thankful for each day that we are here. One man spoke and said he had been living in his barrio for the greater part of 10 years but has greatly considered moving to Rumiloma because of the opportunities that exist there, with Manna's Library being one of them. That alone was an amazing praise to our organization and fuel for us to strive to achieve more here. 
*Check the MPI Ecuador Blog (link to the right on my page) for some pics from the Prez Inaug! or just click here :)  http://openhandsdirtyfeet.blogspot.com

Other- Last Saturday we did a minga (aka. more or less a community project--sometimes I wish Spanish and English would just translate perfectly..anyway) where we cleaned the streets of Rumiloma with kids and families from the library. We collected over 400lbs of trash along with 2 tires!  It was awesome to see. We took the opportunity to teach kids about litter and trash and the environment. Litter here is sadly horrible and most think that the streets are a trash can. 
We also had a Health Focus Group where we got the chance to talk to a few women in the community about health and preventative health and what type of center or way of obtaining information would be the most successful and used by the community members here. It went great and we received a lot of good information about what Ecuadorians think about Preventative Health. Steps to the center are looking better!


Finally, Ecuador's national soccer team played Uruguay last night and 5 of us had the opportunity of going!  We got to the stadium at 11:45am, more than 5 hours before game time, which was 5pm, and the stadium was already FULL!!  It was insane!  We unfortunately lost, which means our road to the World Cup just got harder, but all in all it was an amazing experience and not many people can say they have been to an Ecuador World Cup Qualifying game!  So it was great and I'm so happy to have gotten to experience the awesomeness that is South American soccer during such a big game!  But on happier news, the first love of my life, Chile, played last night against Colombia and won and thus qualified for the World Cup!  Yay!  I was super excited they won for 2 reasons, 1. They qualified, obvious happiness!  and 2. Ecuador plays Chile this Wednesday as their final opportunity to qualify and so I was really distraught over who I was going to cheer for but now that Chile has qualified, I am comfortabe cheering for Ecuador without feel too* guilty! 

That is all my news for now. Sorry there was so much of it. So much goes on around here each day and I have a severe case of over-wordy-writing. But thank you again for your support on this project and I am so thankful that I am here being able to make this difference for the people down here. Muchos muchos gracias!

Chet and I sporting our newest piece of Ecuador fan 

gear....awesome hats that I want to wear like everyday! 

Ecuador vs. Uruguay!

View of the fans and police from our seats (3rd row baby!)

"Vamos, Ecuatorianos.

Esta noche, tenemos que ganar"

"Let's go, Ecuadorians.

Tonight, we have to win!"

Viva Ecuador!

Krysta