Adventures with Adam and Emily: More fotos!

The other day Betty asked me why I do so much origami in the Cuerpo de Paz, and aside from it being something that I was able to easily assist in teaching when my Spanish was still in its formative stages (my Spanish is still improving, but after a year in, it is much better than what it was...I can actually say more than "Doble aca."), really one of the big reasons is that it is an inexpensive activity that can be done to help improve creativity and motor skills in the young & the old alike.

Each time that Eri and I are in front of a new group, we share a little blip about the ancient Japanese art of origami and how it can be shared between the young and the old and that origami can be done regardless of gender, race or age. We share this in Spanish, followed by Japanese and then in English (which everyone gets a kick out of). For only $.15 for a pack of 10 sheets of papel brillante (or using recycled paper or newspaper), we are able to create amazing things...and help all the kids (and occasionally adults) who have no idea how to fold a triangle out of a square sheet of paper.

So it is no surprise that with the amount of origami I have done this year, that I would start having dreams about it. Last night, I dreamt that I was teaching origami to American teachers. I couldn't remember how to fold anything and I didn't have an origami book to assist me (sometimes even after a having done the same things over and over for a year, Eri and I forget some of the steps and reference the book). Needless to say, I woke up in a panic. Ha!

And although I don't just do origami, it does seem to be the majority of my activities (again, inexpensive and easy to do with kids...and it isn't messy! And I don't have to watch out for the little ones eating the crayons or the paste!). However, I have been working with the girls at Dorotea Carrion and it is nice to have a change of pace. Last week we took out a few of the girls and headed out to a park close to my house where we had a nice stroll (it was amazing weather) and did some activities with them.

It was actually a sun shiney day- I can't take those for granted here!

One of the stinky but pretty rivers that runs through Loja

This was Eri's first time at the Parque Lineal de Tebaida even though she has passed it dozens of times in the past

A good game of Rock, Paper, Scissors

The "lower the hula hoop" activity. Less yelling than when I've done it before with college students, haha.

Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures from the work Adam has been doing but he has been pretty busy with the little ones as well. This week with summer camp, Adam and the kids went up to the Parque Nacional Podocarpus and then spent the rest of the week swimming at the pool (followed by an hour long snack break that leads to the kids going crazy, and then arts, crafts, painting, etc.). Adam's learning new vocab like "grab the floaty device!" and "hang on to the fun noodle!"

In other news, we had our friend Jessica come visit us from the coast last weekend and we also bid farewell to one of the volunteers in our cluster who just finished her 2 years of service, Corrie. Here are a few pix: