I've survived my first day of volunteering! Hooray! I was excited but also very nervous about it. All the volunteers and staff - Cristina, Luli and Dany - meet at the office at 8:50am and leave from their for the different projects. The majority of the volunteers are doing the market programme, like me. Most of them are from the United States although there are a couple of Brits, one German, a couple of Canadians and two Swiss girls. The market that UBECI goes to on Tuesday is about a 30 minute bus ride from the office at a large temporary market.
After the hair-raising bus journey (separate post to follow on bus travel), we arrived at the market and set up two gazebos and spread mats on the ground for the children to work under. Then the staff and a couple of volunteers head off into the market to round up the children. The staff have spent a lot of time getting to know the mothers (most children come from single parent families) and gaining their trust so that the mothers are happy to let their children go with us.
The first 30 minutes or so is spent reading, doing puzzles, playing and hugging the children, but only after they have washed their hands. This is very important as part of UBECI's mission is to teach the children about the importance of good personal hygiene. Then all the toys are put away and they form a circle with the volunteers and we sing songs, in Spanish mainly but one or two are also in English. The children are incredibly affectionate and constantly hug you and want you to spin them around, chase them and just generally pay attention to them. After this the children are split into three groups according to age and are given an activity to do. The subjects covered are reading and writing, maths, drawing and English. I was assigned to the oldest group of children, from age 7 to 12. After about 20 minutes the volunteers (we are called either Señoritas or Profes by the children) switch groups and do a different activity with them. I drew lots of dogs, a few lions and some cars. I also helped with the maths exercises, although perhaps help is not quite the right word. It's a long time since any maths exercises and it showed! Luckily one of the other volunteers was more help to the children. The morning ended with the children lining up and singing one final song. All the children were given a sticker for being there and then we took them back to their mothers in the market.
I am one of the few volunteers who is volunteering full-time. Some of them have Spanish lessons in either the morning or afternoon or they want time to do other things. So while the rest of the volunteers went back to the office, I stayed at the market with Cristina and Luli. We had lunch and waited for the afternoon group to arrive with Danny, the other member of the UBECI team. The afternoon was the same as the morning, except that we did some theatre with Danny. The children are going to perform The Pied Piper of Hamelin for their parents on 23 August.
After packing everything away we took the bus back to the office to drop off the books, gazebos, toys, etc and I headed home, via the supermarket to buy a new pencil sharpener and some more pencils for UBECI (the pencil sharpener they have is next to useless!). By the time I got home it was after 6pm so I changed, read for a bit, had dinner with my family and was in bed just after 9pm. The sun, mountain air and children meant that I was exhausted.
A good day overall.
Lx
At this rate you are going to waste away! Sounds like a good start with your Pied Piper project.
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