Work ... finally
Projects
For YMCA Tours I’ve mainly been revising the English part of their website, something that is really necessary if they want to be taken seriously by the international market and came up with some ideas of how to address that international market.
The work for the No Bases Network is a bit more diverse. Apart from putting articles on the website and checking their mailing list, I needed to find a way to make videos available on the web. It was quite an interesting search and I learned a lot more about different kinds of technologies, but in the end it proved to be a good thing to have a geeky boyfriend, with a good computer and a good internet connection at the house ;-) At work, it is virtually impossible to even convert the movies, let alone to upload them to the web!
Helga, the Directora Internacional of ACJ is since last year also involved in the new Asamblea Constituyente. Since the members of her group want to keep people informed about the progress they are making, I got to set up a Google Group for her. Something else really cool I discovered recently, are the forms you can send out to fill Google Spreadsheets with data that other people provide. Obviously, Will’s geeky-ness is rubbing off on me … ;-)
Work related fun
On Saturday the 15th of December, I went to ACJ Sur again together with Karla. To celebrate the almost finishing of the ACJ campaign against violent toys, they had organised some kind of festival called D’Arte Paz, where some drama and dance groups performed.
The plays of course tried to convey a message, which came down to something like “try to preserve the earth for your children”, while the dance and music was just very cheerful and nice to watch – especially the girl doing the Bolivian dance … (now we understand the role of dance in Bolivian society, that’s how you find yourself a husband! Check You-Tube)
The Friday after that, on the 21st of December, we had our ACJ Amigo Secreto-annex-Christmas party. This is where the names of all the participants are shuffeled in the hat and you get to buy a present for the person whose name you drew. Every day of the week preceding the party, you bring little presents (like candy). My poor amigo secreto had to do it with children’s glasses and a red-coloured hedgehog type of fruit / nut).
I thought we’d have a small party at the office, but no … After a lot of guess work to find out who’s your amigo secreto and each of us opening our presents, the festivities moved on ... To Helga’s place in Tumbaco, a district about half an hour to the northwest of Quito, some
The oficina nacional provided a gigantic turkey, the crew from ACJ Sur was in charge of the salads and Cesol (ACJ’s micro credit program) brought dessert – ice cream. Once there, we got a tour in the beautiful garden, enjoyed oranges straight from the tree, played football and handball, prices for winning and losing teams of each of the four matches were distributed, we prepared the salads and fresh jugo and then finally started eating. After dinner, when most people were already gone, we had some tea and chocolate and I got another tour in the garden from Helga’s husband, showing me all the herbs and giving me a lot of them to make tea of. They even have a pepper tree!
The next weekend then, on the 23rd of December was the final day of the no violent toys campaign Mambru no va a la guerra, after a children’s song Mambru va a la guerra. Will and I went there and met up with Leo and Pato and the girls and with Lili and Belen. We got to demonstrate our animal-and-flower-making-abilities with the balloons, but unfortunately, I only remembered three types of animals :-(
On the way home, we visited a concours in nascimentos (nativity scenes). The winning creation was made of metal, where the artist had made a moving maquette of
Highlight
That was December workwise. Apart from the Fiesta des Ensaladas one noon at work, where we had loads of delicious food (each of us brought an ingredient), January has been pretty calm with one major highlight.
The people of the filial were very nice and open. They gave me a tour of the park in which the filial is housed and I got to taste the home grown guava, fruta de pan - a kind of nuts from a big fruit that fell from the tree, splashed open, was gathered by us, boiled and then eaten - and delicious mango juice.
Then Geoffrey, the gardener-and-more of the park / filial, took me by motor bike to a CRA (Centro de recréación y aprendisaje), where I met a very engaged and engaging group of mums all conspiring in favour of the education of their children. Back at the filial, I talked with one of the volunteers in charge of the canastas comunales, where the food is bought in large quantities which makes it a lot cheaper and then redistributed among the participants. After that, Geoffrey took me to a mercado in the centre of town where I bought a gigantic guanabana (a big fruit, looking a bit like a giant litchee on the outside, with many pits and white flesh on the inside, slightly pear flavoured, but much more subtle and tasty; you can make delicious jugos out of it!), we went to a hill nearby from which you had a great overview of the city and when it was time to go, both Patty and me got a couple of mangos as a present.
Conclusion of the day: I met some great people, ate very well and learned a lot, as well about ACJ itself as about plants (thanks to Geoffrey).
At the end of January, Evelyn, my only remaining colleague of YMCA Tours (since Ivan left at the beginning of January for a very interesting UN project in the Ibarra region) resigned. She was being employed with three month contracts and had found a fixed job elsewhere. At the moment it is a bit uncertain whether ACJ will continue with the project or just cancel it. The decision was to be taken this week - but as should be expected from any self-respecting Latin American culture ngo - the meeting has been postponed …
