Hola from Quetzaltenango (or Xela)!We were lucky enough to take private transport from Coban, as it is an 8 hour drive through mountainous terrain to Xela. Arriving Sunday evening, we were welcomed warmly at the language school Casa Xelaju, and driven (!?) to our individual homestays. The farthest homestay is a 15 minute walk. (I am the lucky one who gets to walk through le Parque Central many times a… Read More
Hey loved ones,
we’re all safe and sound in Sikkim, which is a groovy, magical mountain state that only became a part of this wild country in 1975. but to backtrack a bit-our last blog post said only “holi hell” and some mysterious thing happened to the rest of the blog. Its gone. Maybe forever. Our very own Hillary Brown assures us it was a great one, too. A moment… Read More
We left Otavalo a week ago for the Alto Choco Forest Reserve in northern Ecuador. Ramiro and Carolina, Ecuadorian mountain man, and a Swedish woman, our two contacts there, met us in town to get us started. We ended up in our own small van following a rocky road through the mountains driving through thick clouds to get to the town of Santa Rosa. We got out at the start… Read More
hey hey hey Kim here.so after an amazing week at carols, we procceeded to go on our 2 day adventure to Rwanda. After about 10 hours ish of driving we finally made it to kibale the capital of rwanda.. accomodations were very luxurious to our standards..a hotel, with a queen sized bed, a nice balcony and even a TV!! The first night, all of us ladies took a taxi to… Read More
Greetings from Mwanza(rock city), Tanzania: Where it is socially exceptable to spit your food on the ground
We got quite the fill of kids during our week in Fort Portal. Our afternoons were spent at the rescue home with the kids: Playing basketball & soccer, Swinging on swings, and many many arts&crafts.; The kids were precious, all clinging on to their new found friends.Our evenings were spent back at the… Read More
hey there people out there in cyberspacethere seemed to be some technical difficulties for this last postingand now it is lost in the vast and confusing land that is the internetbut Kolkuta was an amazing experience for all of usthere was a general consensus that volunteering was quite the worthwhile experienceI know personally I had the great fortune to work with four young kidsall who were orphans and hiv positivethey… Read More
This past week was spent in Chicacnab, an indigenous community high up in the cloud forests of Guatemala. We went there through an organization called Proyecto Ecologico Quetzal, a program that helps to provide sustainable work and incomes for families in the community. Our day of departure from Coban dawned with lots of fog and rain, and to get to Chicacnab we had to take two chicken buses and then… Read More
Back in Coban with electricity, internet, and all other trappings of civilization. To catch up a bit, we´re recapping San Andres.Day one, we all started our homestays, and some hit off well, while the unlucky ones still got warm smiles and a greeting. Not much more happened after that, to my knowledge, and the day ended quietly.Day two was our first day in language school, which we all enjoyed. In… Read More
Hey all! We are back in Otavalo for another weekend in the city. We have just returned from a week in the Cloud Forest, teaching English and computer skills to little kids. They were all absolutely precious and it was incredibly rewarding. As far as English goes, we taught the kids numbers, the alphabet, colors, days of the week, months of the year and basic greetings like hello, how are… Read More
Those who have seen the movie Blood Diamond (if you haven’t, do it) might remember the acronym “T.I.A.,” which means this is Africa. In the movie, it served as a simple way to describe the utterly complex, intricate and random workings – from the land to the people – of the entire country of Africa.
Similarly, our group has adopted T.I.I. (this is India) to describe the disappointment, the… Read More
We had a wonderful, and enlightening experience through JJ and his family. After hearing his influential words about three very mixed religions coming together and working together, we are ready for our next leg of the journey! We have learned that the African men can be very persistent, and traveling in an almost entire female group we get quite the laughs! With Muhammad hitting on Rose, and JB proposing to… Read More
Hello from Otavalo! We have safely arrived in the beautiful city of Otavalo. We had a nice late drive last night, and were able to see a bit of a sunset, I think the first since we have been here!
We woke up this morning, and had a nice start of the day by walking around the HUGE, market. I think a few of us are slow trailing things behind… Read More
Hey everyone, Chrys here, reporting for blog duty.
We’re currently in Bodhgaya, but before I get to that, there are some highlights from the rest of our time in Varanasi. Nina, Ben and Desmond did some fire=dancing with actual fire! A bunch of the girls made rings in jewely making class. We went on a sunrise boatride on the Ganges and on another day, took a boat ride across the… Read More
Today is our last night in Ecuador, we are going to go put our Salsa Dance Moves to the test. Hopefully all goes well, Haha . We have spent the last couple of day finishing up our last week of Spanish School. Learning all about past tense verbs, it has been a difficult week, if I might say so my self.
On Sunday the group, went to Mitda Del Mundo… Read More
Hello from San Andres!I am proud to introduce to you all the ninth member of our group: Patito the duck (pato being the Spanish word for duck). To recap, after we left Finca Ixobel we were assigned to our first homestay families. We were warmly welcomed into the community, and to ease the transition we stayed with another group member. We also ate our meals together as a group, which… Read More
Hello all! Emily here. We are now in Mbale, Uganda and are staying at an inter-faith coffee co-op called Mirembe Kawomera. We’ve been learning about how the coffee is grown and harvested and have gotten to take part in the entire process- picking the berries, pruning the trees, shelling the berries, etc. The farm is totally organic and the coffee is shade grown with many other plants, such as banana… Read More
So we are in this amazing city called varanasi, oh yeah! lots of bonding and good laughs flowing.
To start this blog off, “bridey” has officially changed her name to willa rose, which is awesome. There have been to recent hair stylings, thanks to our own willa rose, that have left the girls a bit short on the head (hillary and graham). As you may well know our beloved friend… Read More
hello out there in Bloggerville-
just throwin out a test blog of sorts. we have been experiencing technical difficulties and our last blog got lost in cyberspace. Stand by…… Read More
Standing so close to El Panecillo, the angel, the virgin mary, who looks over all of Ecuador brought us all closer to the city and it´s energy. The statue is amazing, standing tall above our heads, we strain our necks to look up at her halo of stars. She stands atop a serpent, holding it´s neck with a chain. Certainly majestic, she watches over a magnificent view of the city… Read More
