Semillas de Amor: Saint Valentine

September 13

By Terrylynn Figueroa

It is the first week in Turbaco, Colombia for us new interns. We are just getting to know Semillas de Amor, but we are ecstatic about this opportunity. Our project this week centered around Saint Valentine, as Colombia celebrates Valentine's day in September. Uris, the wonderful program leader, found a great project to celebrate Saint Valentine with the kids. We helped them make cute cut-out pigs from recycled plastic bottles. They cut out the center, painted the inside, and added ears, a nose, a curly tail and eyes. They all turned out very unique and really showed the different personalities of the children. After everything dried, they filled the pigs with gravel or dirt and stuck in cute little paper flowers. The children really enjoyed every minute of the project and couldn't wait to get to the next step. Each day they would bring back their water bottle and patiently await their turn with the paint brush or glue bottle. The idea was for the children to give them as a gift to their mothers and I know they have already brightened so many faces across Turbaco!

 

El Bichito: New interns, Xela & Chelise

September 13

By Xela & Chelise Rowley

Our first week at El Bichito was definitely one for the books. We have had so many great and interesting experiences already. Not knowing the language has been quite the challenge but we are trying to catch on as quickly as possible. We love the kids, they are all one of a kind. We are working on getting to know each child personally. We're having a little trouble remembering all of their names but we're getting better as the days pass. Liz and Miguel have been stupendous. We love them and would be completely lost without them! Feliciana and Melchora have been wonderful as well. They make fun of us all the time for saying words wrong but they do it lovingly. They are really great gals. Peru is swell and we are liking it a lot. The culture is so interesting but at the same time, so easy to fall in love with!"

El Bichito: Chica night

June 20

By Tavia 

This week went really well. The girls really enjoyed the chica night. We as interns tried to make the girls feel like princesses and make them feel really important because they are. It was a success! They loved it! I attached a few pictures from it. As for English classes I feel like the students at the elementary school are learning English really well. They are improving so much since the first time that I came. In total the students have learned three English helper songs. They have learned, "the abcs", "head, shoulders, knees, and toes", and "the months of the year." The students love the songs because they get to interact especially with the "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" song. I was thinking if the elementary school has a CD player it might be cool to burn those songs on a CD so that the teacher can play them in class whenever she wants. It might be kind of nice since the students love them so much. I don't know just a thought?

El Bichito: Listening Skills

Tuesday, May 13th:

We did a Fama Lesson on Listening Skills. We talked about why it is important to listen and what good listening means, then we played Simon Says. The kids really enjoyed it and had fun. The other two interns Lauren and Kelsey filmed some of the game and got pictures for the blog.

Wednesday, May 14th:

We had another reading day. We also pulled out puzzles and the kids loved them!

El Bichito: Reading Day

News from our interns down in El Bichito!

Monday, May 12th:

We decided to change things up a little bit and have certain days where there was specifically homework time or reading time and activities. Monday was reading day, so we changed out the books and put chapter books out with some picture books so that kids could read more on their level. We would then give stickers to the kids once they had read a certain amount. One challenge we had was keeping track of which kids had read what, so we are thinking of solutions to better keep track. But some of the kids loved the chapter books so much that they didn’t even want to eat because they were too busy reading.

Child Spotlight- Mariela

This beautiful little lady is Mariela Chavez! She is 7 years old and loves the color purple. She also loves to write, to draw, and to read. Her favorite book to read is Little Red Riding Hood.



Check out how you can help children like Mariela at Eagle Condor's website, eagle-condor.org.

Child Spotlight- Alex

Hello all! A few things to note:

The new url for Eagle Condor's blog is now eaglecondorhumanitarian.blogspot.com. If you have bookmarks saved on your computer, please update those. Blog posts will also be shown on our website at eagle-condor.org/blog.

Attached is a picture of Alex Exhayder. He is nine years old and loves to paint, draw, and do homework. He loves to paint so much that he currently holds the record for the most paintings in the classroom with a total of 13!

Like other kids from Peru, he loves to play soccer and his favorite position is attacker. Look at that smile!

El Bichito: Feliz Dia de la Tierra (Happy Earth Day)

April 26
By Alicia Platt

Tuesday was Earth Day in the US, so I took the chance to explain the occasion to the kids at El Bichito! I taught them that this holiday is about celebrating nature, taking care of the environment, remembering to clean up garbage, and do our recycling, etc. I chose five words in English to learn (sun-sol, Earth-Tierra, forest-bosque, river-rio, and lake-lago), and got great participation as we tried to learn them. Then, whoever participated in English got to color a nature page I printed out, and as you can see, they did so beautifully!

I'm trying to get the kids here to appreciate nature and think about taking care of their environment more, as simply throwing garbage wherever is a huge problem here in Peru and El Bichito. To help with this I've also put a garbage can in the main room of El Bichito and hope to see them using it more and more in the weeks to come!

Semillas de Amor: Field trip update

April 2

By: Sarah MacCarthy

It has been two weeks since I left Turbaco, Colombia, but I am eager to share the story about our field trip to Cartagena with sixty-five children and twelve adults. Saturday morning, March 15th, we all woke up early and prepared ourselves for a fun-filled day in Cartagena. We put on our Colombian soccer jerseys and headed to the corner where the bus was going to collect us. We loaded up and the adventure began! The children were so incredibly excited, as many of them had never been to the city before, let alone seen the ocean. Eager eyes stared outside the bus as we rolled through the busy, traffic-filled streets en route to the city. Music was playing, and the kids were singing loudly.

The bus came to a stop outside the ancient-walled city, and the kids unloaded into the park. We carefully escorted the children through the streets and arrived at "La Universidad de Cartagena". This was the first and probably most important stop on the tour. We attended a presentation, interacted with the staff, watched two short videos and explored the library. The kids were engaged and interested the entire time. At the end, everyone snacked on hot dogs and soda in the beautiful university plaza.

The tour continued as we split the group into two smaller groups. This allowed us to take half of the group to the gold museum and and the other half to the Palacio de la Inquisición, a common tourist stop in Cartagena. We toured both facilities, and the kids enjoyed both experiences. After well-guided tours and several short videos, we headed outside to Bolivar Park. The kids were able to run around and burn some energy before the pizza arrived. We ended the field trip with pizza in the park.

As you can see from the pictures, there were many smiles, many firsts and overall the trip was a success. The trip to the university gave these young, impressionable minds a look into the opportunities ahead. The trip was invaluable, and I was glad to be a part of the experience.

Thank you to Eagle Condor for making this trip possible.

Semillas de Amor: Bottle cap art project

March 14
By Sarah MacCarthy

The last seven days has been filled with washing, planning, painting and glueing plastic bottle caps for the new sign to hang outside the foundation. Previously there has been no title on the building in Nueva Colombia. Our goal with the art project was to work together "as a team" to create a sign to represent the foundation. We incorporated the colors of the Colombian flag into the design. Luckily yellow, blue and red bottle caps are the most abundant colors of plastic bottle caps here in Colombia. In comparison we found very few green, purple and orange caps but incorporated those colors into the border. Enjoy the pictures below! We are excited with the result.

El Bichito: Noche de las Chicas

March 11
By Alicia Platt

Friday night we had Noche de las Chicas! Fist we reviewed what 'CHICA' stands for--Confianza, Hermosa, Inteligente, Cariñosa, Atletica (confident, beautiful, intelligent, loving, athletic). We then talked about respect and how each of them deserved respect and also owed it to others. Afterwards, we enjoyed a movie and fruit salad together. They loved Pocahontas, though we did have to cover our eyes during the kissing parts...Overall it was great to get together and have some fun with just the girls!

Semilllas de Amor: Recycling project update

March 9

By Sarah MacCarthy

It has been a busy week here at Semillas de Amor. We finished the collection and washing process of all the plastic bottle caps. We will see the project come full circle this week.
This week I would like to highlight Jessy, one of the young boys at the foundation. You can see him below in the top, left picture. The art project has brought together various classroom themes that we have been working towards, including working as a team and setting goals. Jessy did a great job this week and worked well in the team environment which is essential for the completion of this project.

Our goal setting has been expanding from short-term goals, to medium-term goals and will conclude next week when we go to the University of Cartagena and think about our long-term goals.

This will be my last week in the foundation and it will be a busy one! We will keep you updated on all the excitement to come.

Semillas de Amor: Recycling project

February 28
By Sarah MacCarthy

Semillas de Amor in Turbaco has been busy collecting plastic bottle caps for our upcoming art project. The idea originally came from my cousin, who is a middle-school art teacher in Colorado. We are working towards two different goals. The first goal is to work together as a "team" to accomplish a larger project and the second goal is to recycle these bottle caps that would otherwise remain in the street. The kids bring as many "tapas" as they can to the foundation each day. In another week, we will start to wash, design and assemble a sign for the foundation.

The field trip to Cartagena is still in the works and that will be another exciting event coming up in March. We hope to tour the local university, visit a couple museums and take the kids out for pizza. It should be a great experience.

Stay tuned for more photos and updates to come!

Karen, Nohemi and Zuliney arrive to the foundation with the bottle caps that they have found.

The local Turbaco kids have been helping us with our upcoming art project.

El Bichito: All you need is “lo-vay”

February 16
By Alicia Platt

Friday was Día de San Valentín/Día de Amor y Amistad! They don’t celebrate it much here, but we did! We watched a short Charlie Brown clip in Spanish, learned Valentine’s Day words in English (thus, loh-vay), and made tarjetas de San Valentín (Valentines). There aren’t a lot of kids who come to El Bichito right now, as their school is out for their summer until March (and they don’t live close or need homework help), but the 8 or 10 who stayed made some great Valentines for their parents or grandparents.

El Bichito: February 10th update from Alicia

February 10
By Alicia Platt

Things are marching on here at El Bichito. I'm still trying to figure out a daily routine and am trying to plan better.  Even though there weren't many participants, we did have a math competition one day, which was fun, and a nutrition lesson that went really well. We also continue to lend books to kids every day, and I've been incorporating English into the FAMA or other lessons that we do, which they seem to like. Furthermore, English lessons with the college students have continued approximately 3 times a week (depending on the rain...) and I've enjoyed teaching those. My greatest feat this last week, however, was probably organizing the supply room!

Semillas de Amor: Quick update

February 10
By Sarah McCarthy

The end of the third week has come and gone quickly. This last week, we were able to celebrate several birthdays. Diego, a member of the foundation from Turbaco, turned 10 on February 5th!

This is a short update but we are in the process of planning several new projects at the foundation in the next month. Please check back for further updates soon.

In early March, we are planning a field trip to Cartagena. We hope to visit a local university in the old town as well as do a small city tour. Also, we have recently put up a good behavior chart in the foundation and each child is working towards this goal so that they can participate in the field trip!

Semillas de Amor: Meet Sarah

February 1
By Sarah MacCarthy

Hello. My name is Sarah MacCarthy and I am a new volunteer here at Semillas de Amor in Turbaco, Colombia. The second week of my internship has just come to an end and it has been an amazing learning experience thus far. This past week at the foundation our focus was about demonstrating our talents and learning about the talents of our classmates. The week started off with a basic discussion on talents and by the end of the week all the kids have practiced up for the big TALENT SHOW! 

I would like to highlight one participant in the talent show named Dayre. He is a rambunctious little kid that not only demonstrated his many talents to us but he also displayed to me that he understood the lesson. Near the end of the talent show, he asked me if I was going to sing and I explained to him, "singing is not my talent." He then politely asked me what my talents were and we had a good discussion. I thought this was a perfect demonstration of the lesson and what we had been talking about during the course of the week. Dayre has a lot of energy and he was able to use his energy to sing and dance for us this week. It was a successful week at the foundation and I look forward to more positive learning experiences in the future, for both the kids and myself.

 Uris introducing Dayre's act in the talent show.

 An artist demonstrating his talents to the group.

 These two young ladies danced, danced, danced.

The cheering section.

El Bichito: A busy ending

January 21

By Sunny Hicken

We made toothbrush holders out of plastic beverage bottles—a big one for el Bichito and smaller ones that each child could give to their family as a Christmas present. They finger-knitted a strap to hang it by, and we provided toothbrushes. (You can see some of them hanging from the pole in front of the white board.) We learned a fun song about brushing teeth—you can watch it here:

Christmas party! Eliana, a previous intern, came to help, and Melchora and Feliciana all helped put on a grand “chocolatada” with treats and games. We played musical chairs, a custom bingo game with everyone’s names on it, and danced to music.

Sierra’s 4th grade class in the United States had done a book drive, and books arrived just before we left. We skyped each other and got to say “Thank You!”

Along with the book drive, we received some donated funds that we used to build a bookcase and reading bench. Now el Bichito has it’s own reading corner to curl up in.

And Alida’s graduation! Congratulations Alida! Brent got to act as her “padrino” and attend the festivities. She received the dress as a gift from Eliana and looked beautiful! Alida is a hard worker and has been recognized for her studies at the local school.