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!