ANOTHER DAY IN THE JUNGLE has now moved to
www.ixcanaan.com
Please come and visit us there!!
Monday, November 22, 2010
Another Day in the Jungle has Moved
Posted by Anne Lossing at 6:31 a.m. 1 comments
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Volunteers from Campus California
Bit by bit, I will be catching up on some blogging that was left far behind by circumstances. Volunteers Francisco Mendes and Ok Mandoon are from Campus California Teachers Group. CCTG is many things, but I have become familiar with it as a "school for adults, training them to become Development Instructors and Poverty Fighters in Africa, Asia and Latin America, for a 4, 6 or 12 month period". The instructors from CCTG have been bringing their small classes through El Remate to tour Project Ix-canaan for a while now, and this group of two, who are on their way to a volunteer job in Belize, actually stopped for a few days to help out with the kids of the NUFED Academy, by teaching a cooking class and an art class.
The two students were happy to do some research to determine the type of recipes that would be both interesting to the students, as well as possible to do with the ingredients that the women could afford. The primary dish that they decided to make was a Teriyaki Chicken.
Posted by Anne Lossing at 3:30 a.m. 5 comments
Labels: volunteers
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Special Thanks from the N.U.F.E.D. Academy
What a wonderful surprise we had the other day when Project Ix-canaan was presented with this beautiful plaque thanking us for the support we gave the NUFED Academy during the past year in Computer Classes! The Academy had wanted to teach Computer Classes for some time, so we made the Ix-canaan library and computers available to them every second week for them to teach their students.
Posted by Anne Lossing at 12:17 a.m. 0 comments
SIFE Seminar
On Saturday, Nikki, Cameron and I ran up and down thousands of stairs around the village as we delivered invitations to a seminar to all the hotel owner/managers in the village. The Seminar was to be in two parts, Scott teaching the first part on "Social Marketing", and Nikki teaching the second segment on "Building a Free Website with Windows Live".
Jeffrey filmed the event,
Doña Marta (right) and her daughter, Brenda, were hired to serve a snack of tostados with refried beans, tomato sauce and fresh cheese with fresh lemonade to drink.
Posted by Anne Lossing at 12:11 a.m. 0 comments
Sunday, November 22, 2009
SIFE Volunteers
We are excited to welcome 4 volunteers from the SIFE chapter of the University of Valdosta, Georgia ... Cameron Hoopes, Scott Manley, Jeffrie Shipley and Nikki Mitchell.
SIFE is an international non-profit organization that works with leaders in business and higher education to mobilize university students to make a difference in their communities while developing the skills to become socially responsible business leaders. Participating students form teams on their university campuses and apply business concepts to develop outreach projects that improve the quality of life and standard of living for people in need. An annual series of regional and national competitions provides a forum for teams to present the results of their projects, and to be evaluated by business leaders serving as judges. National champion teams advance to the prestigious SIFE World Cup. In addition to the community aspect of the program, SIFE’s leadership and career initiatives create meaningful opportunities for learning and exchange among the participants as well as the placement of students and alumni with companies in search of emerging talent."
The group, consisting of two students and two faculty advisors, has come to El Remate as an "outreach project" to teach us to market ourselves, both as individual entities (beginning with Gringo Perdido and Project Ix-canaan) and as a village that has a lot to offer as a tourist destination.
Over the past week, the group has spent a lot of time familiarizing themselves with Gringo Perdido and Project Ix-canaan ... here you see them checking out the new experimental water collection system at the Women's Center ...
And they have been visiting local points of interest, like the Ruta del Mono Canopy tour, to collect marketing information.
Posted by Anne Lossing at 7:32 a.m. 0 comments
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Solar Cooking Workshop is Altered
After building the solar ovens on Saturday, we planned a Solar Cooking Workshop for Sunday. The volunteers had done fundraising before they left home, and were prepared for the expenses of the food, as well as the few things we needed for the ovens themselves.
Unfortunately, Sunday turned out to be too overcast to cook solar, so we turned the class into an indoor cooking class to teach the women the recipes for the foods that they had planned to cook in the solar ovens. They taught how to make a delicious lentil and rice casserole, as well as a chicken/vegetable stew.
Julie Mikus taught the procedure ...
Posted by Anne Lossing at 7:33 a.m. 2 comments
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Solar Oven Building Workshop
The students from the University of North Carolina were instrumental in organizing and facilitating our first Solar Oven Building Workshop. From left to right above: Julie Mikus, Brandon Dixon, Jessie Kruse, Avani Javer, Roshen Edathil and Anushri Deshai.
We collected boxes from all over Santa Elena for weeks before the date of the workshop so we would have enough to make 10 ovens. There were 20 women who wanted to participate, 10 from each of the two women's groups, so we divided them into teams of two to work together on the ovens.
The volunteers began by matching up boxes in pairs ... one approximately 2" larger on all sides than the other in each pair. Sometimes they had to actually rebuild the boxes to get the right size.
Posted by Anne Lossing at 8:23 p.m. 0 comments
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Collaboration with N.U.F.E.D. for Computer Classes
THE NUFED School is a technical institute for grades 7, 8 and 9. The graduates from this program are mostly unable (usually because of financial reasons) to go further with their education, so it is important to give them as many life skills as possible in their short time in this school.
We don't have enough computers in the Ix-canaan Library to be able to teach an entire class at once, so Byron, a local man who volunteers to teach Computer Skills to the students, has set up a schedule for afternoons, every second week. The eligible students don't get what I feel is ENOUGH computer time, but they at least get some time to become familiarized with the use of a computer. Considering that many of these students will be looking for work in tourism, their studies in Computer Skills and English are critical to their future success.
If you would like to volunteer to teach either computer classes or English classes to the students of the NUFED Institute (or any of a variety of other classes), then please let us know.
Posted by Anne Lossing at 8:19 p.m. 0 comments
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Volunteer Group from North Carolina State University
Diabetes is a huge problem here in the jungle. This is a result of diet (heavy on sweet coffee and soft drinks and low on nutrition) in combination with the hot humid climate. Since there are no programs for the jungle poor who have this disease, many, often women, lose feet, then legs, then their lives at a relatively young age.
Posted by Anne Lossing at 4:22 p.m. 1 comments
Solar Lighting
The system includes a small battery, as well as a small solar panel
Posted by Anne Lossing at 1:24 p.m. 1 comments
Adelaida Finishes her "Practicas"
Posted by Anne Lossing at 12:38 p.m. 0 comments
Sunday, October 18, 2009
A Successful School Year
Posted by Anne Lossing at 7:57 p.m. 0 comments
October Volunteers: Joe Moore and Juleen Rodakowski
Joe and Juleen prepared an excellent program for their daily class, consisting of a variety of different activities, interspersed with time on the playground.
Posted by Anne Lossing at 2:38 p.m. 2 comments