Me and almost 30 señoras ...

There are a lot of things that happen, like always but here it is very confusing for me because on the one hand people are very slow, never punctual (1hour late is normal) and do not take things too seriously, even at work. Of course that can be quite refreshing but first of all, where I work, we work with people, and in the centre and in the countryside mostly with very vulnerable people. Therefore slowness and a little lack of taking things seriously can do quite a bit of harm at one point. The second problem I have is that my time is very limited and I should plan, but since I arrived this seems almost impossible. Yesterday I sat down and planned what I want to finish when but I really do struggle with a week late collaboration every time I need it. Well, Ecuador is different things go differently and obviously a bit slower. I still do hope that the Maltrato Infantil (child Abuse) leaflet and Manual on how to use it and do workshops with it, will be finished next week. I luckily have a friend in the Foundation who is also a volunteer and said he will help me with putting everything into the right words. So I do hope that tomorrow or the day after we will sit down and go over everything I have written so far. Thank you Marco! Last week was quite exciting for me because on Tuesday night at 11 Juan and Margarita told me that they wont be there tomorrow for the team meeting of the Desarrollo Infantil project and that a group of 15 facilitators (doing very similar work) from Ambato will join us as well. Well, that sounded interesting until they put the planning and presentation in my hands. At 11 o’clock at night!!!!!!! Mils gracias! But I do love to plan things like that, so we exchanged ideas to make sure we are all on the same track and I stood there at 8:30 in the morning, prepared for the day. I was a facilitator of a workshop of 26 señoras and one señor. Interesting experience with my medio Spanish. I was quite aware of time and pushed people quite a bit to get the most out of the morning. At the end I had some new friends from Ambato who love to come and do work experience in Scotland and Germany and moreover managed to heat up my body temperature in the freezing Andes that I only needed a T-Shirt while everyone else was covered in Ponchos and wide scarves .
On Thursday we had a very productive meeting which really cheered me up and gave me new energy. I finally shared all my thought, observations and recommendations I prepared for the Centro Apoyo Juvenil with the team and together we embarked on identifying all the necessary actions we need to take to improve the work of the Centre for the sake of the muchachos. There is a lot to come but as Juan and Margarita asked me to keep doing, I have to push a lot to get things moving. Culture is Latino culture…laid back…