Farewell Neverland!

Today was a sad day as we parted ways with Neverland Farm and our new friends. However, before I talk about the sad stuff, I will fill you in on what has happened in the last two/three weeks since our last post...

The School- For the last two weeks we were able to get into the Tumianuma elementary school to teach English and computer skills. There are 4 different classes, Jardin (kindergarten), 2nd-3rd, 4th-5th, and 6th-7th. We ended up mostly teaching English as the computers were difficult to use and frustrating for the kids. Our first day at school was very interesting. We had the youngest kids for an hour of English which is a long time for 5 year old attention spans. We definitely overwhelmed them with too many words and not enough songs and games. We then went to the 6th and 7th grade classroom. We had them for an hour and a half with no teacher in the room to ensure good behavior. Three of the boys in the class definitely took advantage of this situation. If you find it hard to discipline kids, try it in another language that you don´t have a complete grasp on. Boy howdy was it tough! We got through some simple phrases and a bit of vocab with them but we left the school feeling a bit down about the day and not too excited to devote every morning for the next two weeks to trying to discipline kids. After a day at the school, we now knew what to expect, so we decided we needed a new plan of attack for teaching. We came up with songs, games, vocab and phrases to make the teaching more organized and we learned a few important words (basta! = enough! and afuera! = outside!) in case anyone acted up. Our second day at the school was magical! We had the youngest kids for 30 minutes and we played a delightful game in which we would yell out a color and the kids would have to run to that color block which we had set out around the playground. They did wonderfully and we had no problem with short attention spans. We then had the 2nd/3rd graders and they were wonderful! So adorable and excited to learn. We drew animals on the board and they would get so excited when they could guess what it was and would yell out what it was in Spanish then we would tell them what it was in English. They were really curious and wonderfully behaved. They would copy down the drawings and words we wrote on the board and run up and show us what they had drawn. It was quite cute! We then went back into the 6th/7th grade room and to our delight they were well behaved also! We left school feeling great about the day and excited to keep going. From that day on we loved every day we got to go into school. We played soccer, volleyball and jumped rope at recess and each day would walk home with the kids. They loved to take pictures with our cameras and actually took some really nice photos! It was difficult to say goodbye today. We brought in three new volunteers to introduce them to the teachers and students and it was sad to explain that we wouldn´t be back. It was amazing how much we had learned about a lot of students too...¨this one is really good at soccer....this one loves the color yellow...this one is a bully...this one gets picked on but is wonderfully smart...etc. etc. etc.¨ We got really invested in some of the kids and hope to be able to return to see them in a few years. We are working hard to figure out how to open up the communication for our parents schools at home and the Tumianuma school and are in the process of raising some money in order to buy a battery (the last missing link) to bring internet to the entire mountain community of Tumianuma. If you have any cash sitting around burning a hole in your wallet we are trying to raise about $500 dollars to get the internet up and going, so let us know! Our hope is that we can help purchase the battery for the internet, which will be crucial to starting up the idea of having sister schools in different countries and make that connection much easier to maintain. At any rate, we are sad to have left but are thankful for the time that we got to spend with those kids!

The Farm- The farm has been lovely in the last two weeks. We have planted, harvested, gone fruit picking, gone swimming, worked with the horses, cooked bountiful meals from obscure ingredients (including an avocado cake!), made adobe bricks, painted, and through it all made some darn good friends. Perhaps our favorite job was working with Daniel to irrigate the garden. We do so very simply by opening and closing different ditches and then by walking around the crops digging smaller ditches to channel the water to each different plant. It is fun work and is a lot like putting together a puzzle. Any job was fun if we got to work with Daniel though! He grew up in Quito and went to University to get a degree in farm management. He is passionate about what he does and was an incredibly patient teacher. He became a close friend and we will both miss him dearly. He owns some property in the cloud rainforest and is planning on opening up a nature reserve and wildlife rescue center within the next 5 years. We plan on coming back to visit him for sure!

The Mountain- This past weekend we finally got up into the mountains to the Inca ruins near the farm. Seven of us, our guide (and friend from the farm) and our two horses loaded with gear all set out for the 5 hour hike to the ruins. We had heard it was steep and boy howdy was it!! Up up up up up and more up! My spirit was free up there though. With each vista increasing in beauty as we went, I couldn´t help but break into song (The hills are alive with the sound of muuuuusssiiiiiiiccc! aaahhh ahhh aaah ahhhh!¨) much to everyone´s dismay. It was incredible. My legs burned and my heart sang...I felt so alive! We climbed higher and higher and eventually came to a pine forest which looked, smelled, and sounded exactly like home. It made me nostalgic for the days I have spent backpacking with my Dad in Montana. I had to keep reminding myself that I was actually in Ecuador! We ate the most bizarre lunch I have ever had, hard boiled eggs, yucca cakes, rice, mayonaise, ketchup, pb&j sandwiches, and cheese. Needless to say, we had to siesta before we got back to hiking. After a short nap we put on our packs and finished the hike to a small abandoned house where we spent the night. We ate an early dinner as we all worked up an apatite on the hike. With nothing to do Patricio taught us a game called Three in a Row which is essentially a complicated version of Tic-Tac-Toe. Tina had warned us never to enter into a gambling game with Patricio saying ¨Just don´t do it. You will lose.¨ but we disregarded her warning and when a bottle of Zhumir (Ecuadorian adult beverage) was produced we knew we were in for it. We played the game for hours and had a terrific night losing game after game after game to Patricio. Tina was right! We slept outside under the starless cloudy sky and just hoped there wouldn´t be rain. We were lucky and stayed dry but had an early and obnoxious wake up call from a swarm of blood thirsty mosquitos. We ate breakfast, packed our stuff and headed for the ruins. If you are picturing ruins like Machu Picchu, you may be a bit disappointed. The ruins were small but the nature of the trip was unreal. Private guide, overnight trip, mountains to ourselves, ruins to ourselves...unbelievable! The ruins were simple but important to the Inca. They consisted of three circles within each other. On the outside of the center circle there were stairs up to where a throne had been where the Inca Mayor sat to oversee sacrifices. The mountains were sacred to the Inca and they often preformed human sacrifice as offerings to the mountain gods. I can´t even begin to express the feeling I had standing on top of a mountain, in the center of ancient Inca ruins where many before me had died as offerings to the gods of the mountain. It was intense and real and beautiful. After my moment of awe passed, we acted out the parts. Patricio was the Inca king, Leah the one chosen to make the sacrifice and Laura, of course, the sacrificial victim. We got some good pictures and had some good laughs. We pressed on, passing through grassy meadows, pine forests, and out onto the steep ridgeline that would return us to Neverland. It was truly an incredible experience and one that will last on in my memory forever.

To Peru- With the help of Daniel and his sister who is a travel agent we were able to look up Galapagos packages. Much to our dismay we weren´t able to find a cheap enough trip and so we are going to miss visiting there on this trip. We keep saying that it will just be a good excuse to have to come back to Ecuador some day. So...we are heading back to Peru! The plan is to go to Chachapoyas in Northern Peru. Rumor has it, Chachapoyas is nearly as magnificent as Machu Picchu, but less touristy, so we are excited to go see more ruins. From there we plan on heading to Southern Peru to visit Arequipa (home of the deepest Canyon in the world), Cuzco and Machu Picchu. By the end of this trip we are going to be RUINed. Hehe. Sorry for the bad pun, but I have been waiting to use it for several paragraphs now.

We will hopefully have more consistent internet from here on out so we will try to update the blog more often. We both have some amazing pictures as well, but the internet cafe here doesn´t allow picture downloads. So we will post some as soon as we can. We are now over halfway through our trip and can´t believe how fast it is flying by. What a wonderful first month!

To those of you who are experiencing snow, enjoy it for us. We both have sunburned faces and necks and are missing the excitement of the first snow!

All of our love! More soon...