Rostro de Cristo in Ecuador

Buenas!

Hope everyone who is reading this finds themselves doing well and keeping warm in the cold January weather. We have no trouble doing that here in the scorching heat that January has brought Ecuador, so no need to worry about us! Despite the sun and the invasion of the grillos, everything is rolling along just fine here in Duran. Yesterday I finished my Mundo class and was sad to say good-bye to my students, especially since some of them will not be returning to Nuevo Mundo next year. But the summer vacation will be a nice time to work on new projects and have a little bit of a change of pace. I will be going out every day to Manos Abiertas, our afterschool program in 28 de agosto, with Juanito, Bridget, and Marissa, and I am really excited to be able to be there with the kids every day. Since the kids are out of school, that means no homework, so we decided to change the format of the program for the summer. In place of the hour of homework time that we originally had, we have planned several subjects that we will be teaching the kids....geography, Spanish grammar, and English. Although we have only had three days of the ´new manos´ the kids seem really excited and are definitely into the new projects. I am excited to see their progress, especially in geography, and eager to see them learning that the world is a huge place with lots of different cultures, people, and opportunities. Because most of them do not have the resources to travel, it is easy for them to lose sight of the fact that the world is so huge. But hopefully, with Bridget´s hard work on the geography lessons, their eyes will be opened to new places and new possibilities.

During the summer, I will also be spending time at the Hansen´s hospital in the afternoons. Last weekend, a friend of Sr. Annie´s sponsored a huge party for the patients....complete with a huge lunch, drinks, ice cream, soccer and volleyball games, and of course, dancing! It was an awesome party and a great oppotunity for the patients to have fun outside of the hospital. They are still talking about how much fun they had, so I think it was a huge success.

Take care everyone. You, as always, will be in our prayers.

Chelsea