Hola once again from dusty, hot and sunny Mancora!

Well, we've been continuing to have quite the experience here and have managed to find ourselves just as busy now as we were in Edmonton! Hopefully it's just a craze for a bit while we write curriculum for everything we are doing and then it will settle in to the slower pace that the Mancorians seem to have found.

We haven't written for a while, so if you plan to read this blog entry, it might be worth your while to go and get a nice cup of tea, or even something stronger like cervesa or gin, before tackling it.

I've definitely learned a few lessons already since being here in a developing country that I'd like to share:

1) Step carefully around wet patches in the sand, as they are more than likely spots where men have publicly urinated!

2) If you've locked the only set of keys to your room inside your room, and scaling the wall along the roof outside your house is a bit too daunting, Shelly can eventually open it with a medium-sized screw driver and a bit of her skill!

3) You don't need to speak another language to communicate love and concern...a smile says it all, and people smile back.

4) You really can live without all of the luxuries in life, like microwaves, ovens, blankets that fit your bed properly, cookbooks, laminating machines, milkduds, mushrooms, milkduds, canned soup, milkduds, calendars, milkduds, etc.

5) People here are extremely hard-working. They don't have proper tools available to them, so it takes 10 hours to construct what could take 10 minutes if the town were more developed.

6) Even though people half-way around the world are fabulous, they can't keep you company the way your friends can...we miss you!

I have a million more lessons to learn, but these are some that are striking me today.

One of our favorite projects so far has been teaching the adult English classes. We have such a great mix of people and it's nice to be interacting with more people similar to our age group! In our class we have a teacher, a hotel owner, several workers from the center for special needs kids, the administrator from the city hall, some hotel workers and some women who work in the laundry services here. They are so eager to learn and are really great students so far...they love the crazy games we are playing with them. :)

We've also been busy painting the community centre and it looks fabulous! We bought some bright curtains and now it is a really cozy place to teach our classes. We hope to host a Bunko night in the very near future for all of the people we are meeting along the way.

We did take the opportunity to go away last weekend to a really gorgeous hotel in nearby Pocitas Beach, which was an amazing and much-needed getaway from the noise here in Mancora. We had a great time just connecting and swimming in the ocean and boogie-boarding and eating and drinking pina coladas and sitting by the fire watching the stars and listening to the ocean.

We also enjoyed a great meal the other night a place called Chan Chan's, which is an Italian restaurant owned by an ex-ship's captain. He moved here 8 years ago to start up a business to help his Peruvian wife's sister, but she found it to be too much work and moved away, so he and his wife now run it. He's a very interesting guy with a big heart wanting to help us in any way he can. We hope to take our English class there for a lesson on Restaurant etiquette and vocabulary. ;)

All in all, we are adapting to the challenges of living with other people, leading groups in a second language, finding our place here, and constantly having dirty feet (this for me is perhaps the biggest challenge!) We hope you enjoy the blog and photos of life here in Mancora.

We miss you and really hope that you are all happy and healthy. We think of you often and miss the time we spend with you. Thanks for being great at keeping in touch...it keeps us going on the tougher days!

Stacy

Buenos Noches! It is 11:00 pm on a Sunday night and I a wanting to send this blog out tonight, so hopefully there will not be too many mistakes.

It has been a challenging 3 weeks since you last heard from us. Lots of emotions have swept through me during this time. Nervousness, frustration, failure, uncertainty, lonliness and anger. I didn't think that living with others would be as challenging as it has turned out to be. My lesson have been hard and I am not always a quick learner. It is a good thing that I have a great wife who is so understanding and helpful. I wouldn't have made it through without her. We have faced obstacles about feeling part of the program in the house. It has been an adjustment to feel not trusted and valued at times. Communication has been a problem at times and we are working to improve it, but in the mean time it leads to difficulties. So keep us in your thoughts as we strive to make it less difficult and work together as a team.

I have learned more about myself in the past week than I have in awhile. Learning to let go of things that may have been important back home and not here is one of those lessons. Sometimes I felt like my professional skills were not valued or appreciated, but I realized that my role is just different than I may have anticipated. I am trying to learn to be less uptight and follow even when I don't like that way things are planned. I don't think that I realized I had issues with that before. So I am trying to be more humble and less anal about what happens.

I am also learning to find joy in the role that I do have and just relax sometimes. I want to learn to do that more even when I get back home. See things and people, be in the moment more, not look always for ways to do more and improve more. Maybe it will take me more than one year to learn

Anyways, we started teaching English one of the schools in town called Piette. We have 10 different classes a week . Grade 3 on Mondays, Grade 4 on Tuesdays, Grade 5 on Wednesdays and Grade 6 on Thursday. Thank God we have no classes on Fridays. There are 250 students that we teach at the school each week. We were quite nervous the first day! Let me tell you even though I have taught for 11 years, it was a different experience trying to get control of third graders who speak little English and call out "Miss, Miss Miss" every 10 seconds.

Our first class was a bit of a disaster according to the lesson plan, good thing we were not being evaluated. But we found out later that it is a special class with kids who have a lot of emotion and social problems, our perspective changed and it became more understandable how they acted.

Several kids come from separated home and are often abused. One has a father who just left the family for a young girl who is a sex trade worker. The girls in the sex trade often hook up with men that are abusive because they are just looking for a better life that they hope to find with the wrong guys.

The classes got better after the first one of course, and they can be quite enjoyable, but take a s*** load of planning. Hopefully we will find resources more easily as the time goes by.

Another lesson I am learning is from the teachers of Mancora. They have so little in their classrooms to work with and even if they had more money to buy things, so little is available in Mancora so they must be creative. It makes my job back home look like a piece of cake with all of the materials and resources I have available. These teachers don't just have to worry about cranky kids and grumpy parents, they also have to deal with someone stealing the water tank that store the only water for the school. So right now one of the schools has no water and the principal is selling sweets to raise money to buy a new one. In the meantime it is a problem of course because the washrooms at the school are unclean and smelly because the students just go even without the water. The tank cost more to buy in Mancora, but it is still only about $100. The priorities are a little out of whack here when schools are in that condition.

Despite what is lacking I still see so many teachers with hope, hope for the children and the future of Mancora. Many care about their students and want what is best for them. They do a great job with dire conditions and they inspire me to be a better teacher and use my skill more.

I'm not sure the students are learning much from us, but I guess we are a piece of the puzzle. We will be teaching these classes until the end of November, so maybe by then when we ask them their name they won't stare at us with blank looks and actually answer us.

The water situation still troubles me. We are looking into trying to improve it in a huge scale. I don't even know where to start other than I am going to contact the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for help. They have water 3-4 hours a day and try to catch what they can in the tank if they are lucky enough to afford one. The pipes that carry the water are only 3 inches in diameter, so there is not much water coming during those few hours. I am thankful for my cold shower when so many don't have the water to wash up in.

We have also started the after school project called Robin Hood. It was inspired by a previous volunteer Magda. She wanted to steal from our rich, capitalistic society and give it to the poor children of Mancora who are their hope She came down this week to launch the project. She is a fantastic woman. She is Eygptian, born in Australia, lived in Saudi Arabia for several years and now lives in London. Robin Hood was inspired by two brothers who live in Mancora. Milton is one of theose brothers who stops by the house nearly every day. He lives with a friend of the family and has to sell papas (potato snacks) everyday after school to make money. His mother is a prostitute. Magda fell in love with him, which is very easy to do, and wanted to do something for him and others like him.

So when we arrived they asked us to lead Robin Hood. We came up with the theme of "Discovery Me" These kids in the program are troubled somehow, either emotionaly or physically abused. We hope to build on their strengths and show them how many gifts they have, improve their self esteem and confidence and show them how to have some fun too. We are making a scrapbook with a different mini theme each day. We took pictures for the covers and the kids were so excited. They received a folder for keeping their scrapbooks and supplies in and they are so proud of them. They just don't get things like that. We also divided the 20 kids into color teams and have competitions against each other. They put on head band and arm bands and have a cheer. The first competitions involved banana relays. Yeah well, it seemed like a good idea. They had so much fun .

The program has been a struggle defining exactly what were are to do, beside coming up with the planning. The coordinators here also have a vested interest in the program and is felt like to much is riding on this, so we are all just trying to see where we fit in and fit together. Tuesday was the first day and was hard with lots of emotions and struggles. Thursday was better and made us realized how much it is about the kids, and whatever we do they will love. As they left they hugged and kissed us and were just so happy. It was all worth it for that moment,

We are fitting into the town a little more. We will always be gringos, but more people know our names and faces and beep their moto horns at us as we walk down the street. It is so interesting how the sound of a horn can communicate different things just by the way it is honked. Sounds are a big thing here and they are always constant. No wonder it is hard to get the students attention in class, they have learned to block out so much noise and can't notice us sometimes. Anyways, we know Jose the baker, Edgar the moto driver, Rita the teacher and her husband Benjamin the computer guys, Juana the vender on the Mallecon/boardwalk, Amelia the shop keeper and so many students that call out "Teacher or Miss as we walk down the street......it feels a little more like home each day.

Our days start at about 7:30 and end at noon at the schools. We then come home and plan for the next day or the adult class or Robin Hood. We try to sneak to the beach between classes and painting the community center. Hopefully this week will be a little slower. Oh yeah, don't forget cooking and going to the market a few times a week. Be careful buying meat. They just cut it off the slab in front of you, collect your money and hand back the change covered in the blood of the beef they were just handling.....

Last Friday we went to a town a few hours away called Piura. It has about 3 million people and we took a bus there. We went to a movie and just walked around. Big day in the big city:) Hell of a van ride back in the dark on the windy road, squished in and breathing in exhaust fumes. Next time we take the bus back too.

We have two cats that you have met in pictures that I have been training to keep off the furniture. I am happy to report some success in that department. Amazing what a water bottle can do. I made them a cozy little box of their own to cuddle in, so I do have a heart.

Today we went to Los Pacitas for the the afternoon and took in the beach and as we were laying there we saw two whales and loads of dolphins putting on a show for us for over half and hour. It was fantastic! The evening ended with the best sunset we have seen here. The sun was reflecting across the beach and was just so amazing. It gave me hope for a fresh start and that I will have another day to be alive and hopefully make a difference and continue learning what I should about me and those around me. Who could ask for more than that?

We miss you all so much but are so privileged to be here and grow and learn. I hope that your journey is full and filled with lessons that aren't too painful, and that you have the courage and strength to face them each day, and that at the end of the day you have a beautiful sunset to remind you how great it is to be alive and that there is nothing more beautiful than that.

Enjoy the ride

Shelly