At the end of each section we will have a
little party for VALE. Over food, the kids will play jeopardy for their parents
and teachers to demonstrate what they have learned. This round was “The World”
so we will be eating international foods from mostly local products, but a few
spices and supplies I had to have shipped in or needed to get from specialty
stores. Friday morning, 3am, bus boarded for Arequipa City. Friday afternoon,
5pm, bus boarded for a rapid return to the Canyon. 12 hours on buses in one day
= smelly lu and a well deserved night of camping out near the natural volcanic
hot springs, and… drum roll.. a warm bath!
The following day was spent getting things
ready for today’s VALE.
Now that we have discussed how the planet
revolves and creates seasons, and we have discussed quite a bit about different
places and countries on this Earth, today we talked about how to take care of
our planet.
I asked them what it meant to take care of
our environment and there were resounding responses about not throwing trash in
the river, street, or ground. So we moved on to what one should do with trash, then what you could do with trash... and I got a lot of blank faces. I kind of threw the idea at them to recycle
trash. Recycling was something they knew they are supposed to do, but they
didn’t really know what it meant. They didn’t even realize that they are
actually recycling every time they reuse something.
When cutting down the program due to time
restraints I combined today’s recyling day, with one of the self esteem days.
“Today, we are going to make paper by
recycling news paper. Then, we are going to turn that paper into diaries that
you can write in every day.
You have 15 minutes to go outside and
collect all the newspapers and flowers you can find to make our paper.”
And, the were off, half an hour later
pressing their paper one at a time (which they thought was just the coolest
project in the world).
Well, that was until the blender died.
To our dumb luck, there happened to be a gentleman
in town selling kitchen supplies. He comes once a year, what is the
likelihood!? So, the blender was quickly and expensively replaced, and we were
back on duty.
Today felt like a particularly successful
day because they youth were in such an obedient and helpful mood. They arrived
early, helped set up, listened well, and then stayed to help clean up.
The VALE program gets a gold star for the
week because a couple of the girls asked permission to make Japanese fans. When
I got them the popsicle sticks and other supplies to do so, other youth started
inventing projects with the popsicle sticks. Huge success for the path to
creativity that was so non-existent when we started.
We continue with paper making this week,
then celebrate with the parents Thursday.
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