fredag den 6. november 2015

A "normal" week in the life of a volunteer in Ecuador - Wednesday the 21st of October and Thursday the 22nd of October

Wednesday:
Today something special happened. Normally on Wednesdays, we have open therapy as we do on Mondays. We had open therapy! But we also had to include a big group of volunteers for the day.
We had a group of 20-30 teenagers from the German school in Quito who was there to help on the project for the day. In Ecuador, the schoolers need to complete a certain number of social work hours before they can graduate and helping on our project counted towards the hours they have to work. Besides, the children enrolled at the German school comes from very rich families. I talked with their German teacher who told me about how the difference between rich and poor is very big and that he thought that it was healthy for them to see how they could make a difference and help the lesser privileged parts of their community.

The teenagers where around the age of 12 and at first they had to clean the horses, while we told them how to do it. It was funny experiencing because none of them knew how to take care of horses and most of them seemed to be afraid of the horses (and the horses we use for therapy could not be calmer!). Of course a horse is a big animal. I took a group of the teenagers in trying to brush the horse with a hoof cleaner and I had to tell them how to use it correctly with my still limited Spanish. The other volunteers could just speak German, as the schoolers had had 6 years of German in a good school.

Then we did the open therapy, telling the kids from the German school how they had to hold the kids and what they had to do, while we where two volunteers observing each horse/child in therapy to make sure nothing went wrong.

Every Wednesday we also have 4-6 adults in their thirties coming for therapy. I think at least one has Down's syndrome, but I am not sure about their diagnoses. We saddle the horses and the women go in the saddles and taken around the riding hall ten times.
They cannot go in different positions, but they are happy every time they visit us and go on the horse. Some of them are very silent, where others keep talking about how much they love horses and pointing out their favorite horse. Seeing them on the horses can make you truly happy!

The German school also donated diapers for all the children who normally go in therapy, because they often come from poor families and gave cake to everyone.

In the afternoon we had to clean "the bar". I have no clue why it is named the bar, but it is probably because it looks like a bar! Just besides the bar (where there is always clean) the children who comes for group therapy usually eats their lunch. And the other part consists of what looks like a bar desk and behind that a small house. I am sure that the bar had not been used for years, because it had a thick layer of dust and had been used as a storage room for all kinds of stuff that could either have been useful for the therapy or was already broken. For an example, we found a broken computer and a broken microwave. And a bag containing leftovers from cleaning the stables.
So we spend the afternoon cleaning the bar, removing all the broken stuff and making sure there was no more dust. We did a good job and worked until 6 o'clock, when we had cleaned the job. As I said, because we are a lot of volunteers we have done a lot of work to make the foundation better and from what I know we also needed pictures from the place for a new website of Fundación AM-EN.

Thursday:
This morning we started out by doing gardening work. Which meant taking a bunch of trees and branches and throwing them down towards the river, so that they were out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind works in Ecuador as well.

Then at around 10 o'clock two groups of kids arrived. One group with deaf and or blind kids and another group of normal kindergarten kids. We did the therapy for them normally, but as we had around 30 kids in total, we were really busy and had to cut the number of rounds down to 9, thereby only walking one round in the last position (that I will still explain in another position).
This day I only had to work until 12 o'clock, whereafter I could go home and spend the afternoon catching up on many things I needed to do. Or, as it ended up: Sleeping! I was tired after 4 days of hard work and a lot of walking.

To be continued...
Schoolers from the German school in Quito
Skoleelever fra den tyske skole i Quito

Hoof pick - clearly not to be used for brushing the horse
Hovrenser - tydeligvis ikke noget man skal bruge til at børste en hest med!
Photo credit: http://www.horsetackinternational.com/images/222737PL.06.jpg



Onsdag:
Denne onsdag var en smule speciel. Alle onsdage har vi åben terapi ligesom om mandagen og det havde vi også denne onsdag. Men vi fik en hel masse hjælp, hvilket vi selvfølgelig først vidste på dagen.
Der kom en gruppe på 20-30 teenagere fra Quitos tyske skole, som skulle hjælpe os i løbet af dagen. I Ecuador skal skoleelever gennemføre en bestemt mængde frivilligt arbejde, hvor de hjælper på sociale projekter, før de kan gå ud af skolen. Det var derfor de skulle hjælpe til på vores projekt.
Derudover kommer eleverne på den tyske skole fra rigere familier i Ecuador og jeg snakkede med en af deres lærere, der mente at det ville være godt for eleverne at se en forskel mellem rig og fattig og hvordan de kunne gøre en forskel, ved at hjælpe de mindre privilegerede dele af deres samfund.

Eleverne var cirka 12 år gamle og skulle først hjælpe med at klargøre hestene til terapi ved at børste dem og rense hovene. Det var tydeligt at nogle af skoleeleverne stod over for en hest for første gang og var en smule bange for hestene. For eksempel fandt jeg en gruppe skoleelever, der forsøgte at børste hestene med en hovrenser og jeg forsøgte at forklare dem den rigtige brug af hovrenseren ud fra det spanske jeg efterhånden har fået lært.

Under terapien fortalte vi eleverne hvad de skulle gøre, og de fik lov til at gå rundt med hesten og sørge for at barnet ikke faldt af (3 i hvert hold og holdene skiftede efter hvert barn havde været i terapi). Imens gik vi to volontører med hver gruppe og sørgede for at være der, inden noget gik galt.

Hver onsdag kommer der også 4-6 cirka 30-årige kvinder for terapi. Jeg tror at mindst en af dem er diagnosticeret med Downs syndrom, men jeg er ikke sikre på deres diagnoser.
Vi sadler hestene for dem og trækker dem 10 runder rundt i ridehuset uden at de skifter position, men de bliver altid så glade, når de kommer i sadlen. Nogle af dem er meget stille og andre taler løs om hvor meget de elsker at ride og udpeger altid deres yndlingshest. Jeg bliver altid glad af at udføre terapien med dem, fordi de altid er glade.

Skoleeleverne fra den tyske skole donerede også bleer til alle familierne, der har deres barn i åben terapi. Og derudover delte de kage ud, inden de tog hjem klokken 12.

Om eftermiddagen skulle vi rengøre "baren". Og jeg aner ikke hvorfor det bliver kaldt "baren", udover at det ligner en bar med et lille hus bagved. Lige ved siden af spiser de børn, der kommer til gruppeterapi altid deres frokost.
Jeg er overbevist om, at stedet ikke havde været brugt i årevis, for der var støv over det hele, og så stod der en masse ting, som kunne have været brugt i de andre terapiformer samt ødelagte ting - blandt andet en ødelagt computer og en sammenbrændt mikrobølgeovn.
Vi brugte 4 timer indtil klokken 6 på at rengøre "baren", fjerne alle de ødelagte ting og sortere alle de ting, der rent faktisk kunne bruges til noget.
Som jeg har nævnt tidligere, så sørger vi for at arbejde på at gøre Fundación AM-EN til et bedre sted siden vi er så mange volontører, og derudover tror jeg også, at vi havde brug for billeder af stedet til en hjemmeside.

Torsdag:
Vi startede dagen ud med havearbejde i form af at fjerne en række træer og grene, der lå langs vejen ned til Fundación AM-EN og smide dem ned mod floden, der løber langs fundationen. Ude af øje, ude af sind!

Klokken 10 ankom der to grupper af børn. Den ene bestående af døve og/eller blinde børn og den anden var en gruppe af normale børnehavebørn.
Vi tog alle børnene igennem den normale terapi, men da vi havde 30 børn i alt, havde vi meget travlt, da vi skulle være færdige til klokken 12. Derfor blev den sidste position, som jeg nok skal fortælle om i et senere indlæg, skåret ned til kun at være 1 runde, og derfor fik børnene kun 9 runder på hesten i alt.
Det var kun nødvendigt at jeg arbejdede indtil klokken 12, da der kun var få opgaver om eftermiddagen (at fodre hestene og give rideundervisning). Derfor havde jeg hele eftermiddagen til at være produktiv. Hvilket resulterede i at jeg tog en lur. 4 dage med hårdt arbejde, hvor man også går en masse tærer på kræfterne.

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