tirsdag den 3. november 2015

A "normal" week in the life of a volunteer in Ecuador - Monday the 19th of October and Tuesday the 20th of October

I want to explain how life is for me in a "plain", "basic" week and what I am doing at my project. This means a week without travelling, because no week in Ecuador is just a normal week. Therefore, I will tell you about what I did in the week of the 19th to 25th of October.

I have been told that I have to work from 8-12 o'clock with therapy, have a two hour lunch break and then work from 14-18 o'clock, but since this is Ecuador, things are never quite as you are told they are.

At the moment, we are 3 VASE/ICYE volunteers who live with host families and furthermore 7 volunteers are living at the foundation and are here for a shorter period of time, which also means that we have started spending a lot of time trying to make the foundation better.

Monday:
Every day I get out of bed at 6 o'clock, get dressed and eat breakfast, usually being in so good time that my family is impressed by how I sometimes have time to read before leaving the house.
At 7 o'clock, I leave the house and walks the short way to the bus stop, where I wait for the bus, that is always full. The bus ride is around 15-20 minutes and afterwards I walk for 25 minutes before reaching my project.
Fundación AM-EN is in a beautiful setting in the bottom of a valley in Tumbaco and the river runs nearby.

We start the day out by taking the horses to drink water and prepare the horses we use for the therapy. For the therapy, the horses have to be cleaned and they wear a blanket that the child can sit on.
Every Monday morning we have open therapy, where the parents bring their children and we then do the therapy with them one at a time.
Usually one volunteer walks around with the horse and one or two volunteers make sure that the child does not fall of the horse. Depending on how many children are coming for therapy. we have 1-4 horses in the riding hall at a time.

The children who comes for open therapy can have either mental or physical illnesses and we take them ten rounds around the riding hall. Normally they go in five different positions on the horse during this time, but that of course depends on the child and their special needs.
I will go into more details about how we conduct the therapy in a later post.

When the therapy had finished we had to remove stones and sand from the road, that had fallen down during the weekend and this was what we spend the rest of the day doing. It was hard physical work, but it was actually funny and since we were a lot of volunteers working on it, we could talk and have fun in the meantime. We finished working at 5 o'clock, when one of the other volunteers proclaimed that she would under no circumstance work any longer.

During the day we worked in shifts, so the volunteers who worked on clearing the road in the morning, where I worked with the therapy, gave riding classes in the afternoon.

During the lunch break I ate my lunch that is provided for me by my host family and Skyped with one of my friends in Denmark.

Tuesday: 
On Tuesdays we have group therapy. Sometimes the children who comes have mental or physical illnesses, but they can be normal kindergarten kids.
From the morning, I helped with the therapy for a group of kindergarten children and when we finished we cleaned a horse box and at around 11 o'clock I started working on clearing the road. I spent the rest of the day working on clearing the road. We finished the work at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and could be satisfied with the result of our hard work! Now knowing that the cars can come to Fundación Amor y Energía without any problems.

To be continued...

Horse therapy
Hesteterapi

Jeg vil gerne fortælle lidt om en "normal" uge i mit liv i Ecuador. I dette tilfælde betyder "normal" at jeg ikke har været ude at rejse i weekenden, fordi ingen uge i Ecuador er bare en "normal" uge.
Den uge jeg gerne vil fortælle om er fra den 19. til den 25. october.

Jeg har fået af vide at jeg skal være på arbejde fra 8-12, holde to timers frokostpause og arbejde igen fra 14-18. Men eftersom jeg befinder mig i Ecuador, så er tingene ikke altid som man får af vide, at de er.

Lige for tiden er vi 3 volontører fra VASE/ICYE og derudover bor der 7 volontører på projektet, som er her for en kortere tidsperiode. Siden vi er så mange volontører for tiden er vi også begyndt at arbejde på at forbedre fundationen.

Mandag:
Alle dage står jeg op klokken 6, og gør mig klar og spiser morgenmad, hvorefter jeg forlader huset klokken 7. Normalt har jeg rigtig god tid om morgenen og min værtsfamilie er ret imponerede over hvordan jeg nogle gange formår at have tid til at læse om morgenen.

Busturen tager 15-20 minutter, hvorefter jeg skal gå i 25 minutter for at komme til mit projekt.
Fundación AM-EN ligger i rigtig smukke omgivelser nede i en dal, hvor floden løber lige ved siden af.

Alle dage starter vi ud med at give hestene muligheden for at drikke vand, og derefter klargøre de heste, der skal bruges til terapien ved at børste dem, rense deres hove og give dem et tæppe på, som børnene kan sidde på.

Hver mandag har vi åben terapi, hvor forældrene kan komme med deres børn, der enten kan have forskellige fysiske handicap eller lide af forskellige psykiske lidelser.
Der skal altid være en volontør der trækker hesten rundt og en eller to volontører, der sørger for at barnet ikke falder af hesten.
Afhængigt af antallet af børn arbejder vi normalt med 1-4 heste i ridehallen på en gang.
Vi går 10 runder i ridehallen med hvert barn, og normalt skal barnet sidde på hesten i 5 forskellige positioner. Men det afhænger selvfølgelig af barnet.

Da vi havde færdiggjort terapien skulle vi rydde vejen til Fundación AM-EN for sten og sand, der var skredet ned i løbet af weekenden. Det var meget hårdt, men vi havde det også sjovt i mellemtiden, fordi vi var en masse frivillige, der arbejdede på det. De volontører der havde arbejdet med at rydde vejen om formiddagen, tilbragte eftermiddagen med at give rideundervisning.
Jeg kunne gå hjem klokken 5, da en af de andre frivillige proklamerede at hun under ingen omstændigheder ville fortsætte arbejdet.

I min frokostpause den dag, spiste jeg selvfølgelig min frokost, som min værtsfamilie altid laver til mig om morgenen, hvorefter jeg skypede med en af mine venner fra Danmark.

Tirsdag:
Tirsdag har vi normalt gruppeterapi, nogle gange for børn med forskellige lidelser og andre gange for normalle børnehavegrupper.

Fra morgenstunden af hjalp jeg til med terapien og rengøring af hestebokse, hvorefter jeg tilbragte resten af dagen med at arbejde med at rydde vejen for sten og sand.
Klokken 4 kunne jeg gå hjem og være meget tilfreds over vores hårde arbejde. Og glæde mig over, at vi forhåbentligt ikke skulle skovle mere sand eller flere sten.

Fortsættes...

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