The day at the school

We spent a few days in the Amazon, and on the second day, we went to a local school. Unfortunately, it was Carnival week, so the students and teachers had a week off for vacation, but the kids came in for that day so we could interact with them.

This is the group of Weymouth teachers who are on the trip with me. In addition, there are teachers from Hopkinton, Medway, and Middleboro. We've all actually had an opportunity to talk about teaching.

Anyways, here is the lodge we stayed at for two nights. We only had electricity from 6-10 p.m. Each night and there was no wi-fi, so I had no chance to blog. None of us had any chance to use our devices. We actually had to live device-free for 48 hours and I must say that's welcomed the break from technology!

When we went to the school, we took a river canoe across the river. The trip took about 15 minutes, so it was pretty quick. Back homes, all of us collected supplies to donate to the schools, so we hauled three huge suitcases filled with various things for the school.

 

This is a typical style house one sees in the Amazon. The house is elevated where people live on the second floor. It rains a lot, so having housing on the first floor wouldn't be a good idea.

We made it to the school at about 10 a.m. on Friday. It was hot and sticky, but we were so excited to meet the children, so it didn't really matter.

 

Here is a group of the school children. They were a little shy when they first met us. We were the third group that this school community has ever met.

We spent some of the time sorting out the school supplies. Half of the supplies needed to go to the kindergarten and the other half needed to go to the older students. It was incredible to see how little these classrooms had. We should be so grateful for all that we have in our schools.

Ivan, our guide, was teaching the students and telling them about our visit.

My community service job was to make bookshelves. I was on the bookshelf team with about four other people. Our bus driver, Segundo, ended up helping us out a lot. By the end of the day, two bookshelves were made.

Here is one of the bookshelves (thanks Segundo!).

I met Christina who was so precious. She loved meeting the blue-footed booby. She was not shy at all!

I saw a real cocoa pod with my own eyes. That was very cool. When you eat chocolate, this is where it comes from.

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