Santo Domingo



The unfinished cathedral in Santo Domingo.

Meg, Amanda and I went on an overnight trip with Maggy and Giovanni (MAP staff) to Santo Domingo, northwest of Quito. It was a good drive through very windy roads to get through the mountains - we drove through a cloud forest on our way! This trip was like most of our trips with MAP - the "schedule" was not exactly what happened. We were going to observe students that MAP had trained to lead workshops in their schools. We arrived and went to a school, but the time had been changed for the workshop we were supposed to observe. So we went to lunch and then had a meeting in Maggy's mom's house about a project that MAP is helping with in Valle del Toachi (I'm working on translating a document about this project, so I was excited to hear more about it). They are going to build a health center in the community, but not with your typical building materials. The building is going to be constructed using plastic bottles! They fill the bottles with sand, creating these plastic bricks. The whole community comes together to fill the bottles. MAP is trying to get the schools in Santo Domingo involved in collecting bottles for the project.
We also visited an all girls school and observed and participated in workshop they were giving about sexuality. They started with a game of telephone to show how information is passed from person to person and in the end isn't correct. I held up the game trying to understand what the message was.

Playing telephone, en espanol.

It took us a really long time to leave the school because girls kept asking to get their pictures taken with us - everywhere we go, its like we're celebrities. Everyone wants a picture with a gringa...


Students leading the workshop.



Introducing oursevles to the group.