Manna Project International Ecuador - Craig Smith: July 2008

The last several months have seen a great influx on North American visitors and volunteers to the Manna Project International – Ecuador site here in Valle de Los Chillos. In addition to the four spring break groups discussed in earlier entries we also hosted two summer groups of about ten college students and recent graduates that were both here for a full four weeks. In between spring break and summer, however, I was lucky enough to receive a visit from a former colleague of mine at Garinger High School: social worker Carol Rodd. Along with Carol also came gang prevention expert Fran Cook. When Carol first contacted me about a potential

visit I merely assumed that they would be coming to tour

Ecuador

and our programming, but I could not have been more wrong. While did catch many of the tourist sites, including Otavalo and Cotopaxi among others, they proved to be an invaluable help in our programs as well as a continuing catalyst for our own organizational growth. Not only has Carol since continued to regularly support by sitting as a member of our MPI-Ecuador Advisory Board, but Carol and Fran both continuously asked us difficult questions about our mission and our strategy – in other words, what are we doing here and why are we doing it?

We had been feeling pretty good about ourselves and our work at this point, and it was quite a humbling experience to not be able to give a clear and concise answer to these seemingly simple questions. After their departure we continued to have many discussions about these vital questions and several PD’s have engaged themselves fully in defining just what exactly is 1) our mission, 2) our vision, and 3) our approach to carrying these out. Though I have not been directly involved in these discussions, I have been quite impress with their and know that when they finish in the coming weeks we will have a solid plan of action as well as a clear description to provide supporters and other interested parties about just what it is that we are trying to do here in Ecuador.

On a lighter note, my parents and my sister came to visit and they took me to the most astounding place on Earth: The Galápagos Islands. What is so incredible about the Galápagos is the never ending sequence of once-in-a-lifetime sights and experiences. I apologize for not being able to describe the awe-inspiring majesty of such a place in words and will defer to photographs (set 1, set 2, set 3).

Another set of visitors were the two groups of summer volunteers that were here from mid-May to mid-July. I have to apologize because I had a large amount of great pictures of them until, on the last night of second session, I accidentally deleted every picture off of my camera and lost them all…So sad L. Despite the fact that I do not have visual proof, the summer volunteers were a wonderful help. Among other activities they 1) taught intensive English classes in two separate neighborhoods here in Conocoto, 2) provided a new light and excitement to our art program, 3) supported our research efforts by conducting surveys and entering data, 4) organized an impromptu summer camp with activities ranging from dance to sports to English to cooking, and 5) volunteered in local medical centers.

You may be getting the impression by now of how busy we have been hosting other volunteers and visitors, especially after two straight months of having ten more people hanging around the house, but the fun did not stop there as the same day the summer volunteers left a whole new batch of Program Directors arrived! The PD’s are a really great, and diverse, group and am really excited to see the work they will accomplish in the coming year. Click here to see read a little about each of them. Currently the “newbies” are living in Quito attending language school and undergoing an intense orientation program into Ecuadorian history, teaching and learning, what service and development looks like with MPI-Ecuador, and Ecuadorian current events and culture. This orientation is being facilitated not only by MPIE PD’s, but also by board member and founder Luke Putnam and several Ecuadorian professionals and academics.

One of the very first things that I wanted to do when I came to Ecuador was a ride a bike from Baños towards the Amazonía along the famous “Ruta de las Cascadas” (Route of the waterfalls). Those of you who know me fairly well know that I am kind of a big fan of waterfalls and was thrilled to hear that the “newbies” were making their way towards Baños this past weekend and were also interested in the bike ride. We spent the day on Saturday riding some 20 kilometers past four major waterfalls and countless mini waterfalls. The Río Pastaza at this point is at the bottom of a close to 1000 meter deep gorge and as the rivers and streams reach the gorge they shoot out into amazing waterfalls. One such waterfall, known as El Pailón del Diablo (The Devil’s Cauldron) results from the Río Verde (no slouch in its own right) being forced from a width of 75 meters to a mere 3 meters as it crashes into the Río Pastaza 50 meters below. As you may have already figured out, it is considered a cauldron not so much because of the shape and more because of the sheer force with which the water crashes and plunges.