Our First Month in Santa Elena. Work Work Work...
Trip Start
Jun 11, 2005
1
8
25
Trip End
Jun 05, 2006
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Santa Elena,
Venezuela
Monday, August 1, 2005
The work so far has been pretty varied, and the flexibility to get involved with a number of different activities has been as good as promised.
Andrea has been running the English classes with Anna, a girl from Buckinghamshire who is at Swansea university, and arrived the day after we did. Anna speaks Spanish, thus a very handy person to have along. Along with a few other volunteers Andrea's also been helping to decorate the Attention Centre for Kids with Special Needs, which is due to open for business, so to speak, within a few weeks.
Her efforts to do some physio have been mostly frustrating, as she makes arrangement after arrangement to meet patients who then don't show up, but she has been able to spend some time observing in the local hospital. The standards have been quite an eye-opener, with the cleanliness and level of care heart-breakingly far away from first-world standards, and she has been coming home with many a shocking tale of things that she's witnessed during the day.
She has also been out visiting disabled children and adults in the community, an activity which has been more rewarding. As there are no facilities or any real support for the disabled or those with special needs or learning disabilities, invariably they end up locked away at home, so the visits by Andrea and some of the other volunteers have been very well received, even if all they've really been able to offer is moral support, although she has been able to make some recommendations for things to make people's lives a little easier, like how to move people from bed to wheelchair etc.
I spent the first couple of weeks alternately helping to decorate the attention centre (an almost-to-scale map of the solar system being my crowning achievement so far) and helping Dave and Darren, two of the other volunteers doing some carpentry.
Cooking Venezuelan Style
We've managed to make some partitions, a stage, a puppet theatre and some football goals, with only a few splinters and bruised thumbs between us. I've also helped out at some of the English classes and helped to clean up the house at the 'Foundation Grounds' a 2 hectare property that the Foundation owns up in the hills above the town, which they are planning to turn into a therapy centre for the kids.The Flood
We arrived at the English class one afternoon, to find the area swarming with people (the English classes were held in the Attention Centre (for Kids With Special Needs), a room on loan to Peace Villages within the Town Hall complex). Eduardo was waiting for us, and explained the situation. The heavy rain of the last few days had caused a river to overflow, and flooded a number of homes in the flatlands near the river. As a result, people temporarily needed a place to stay until the water subsided and they could then proceed with the clean up, so the mayor had opened up the town hall complex, as a temporary refuge. The poorer neighbourhoods in Santa Elena had been expanding down towards the river, and it was these homes that suffered most.
The English class was thus cancelled, and Eduardo had offered our services to assist with whatever needed doing. What needed doing, as it turned out, was looking after the kids of the families, while the parents went out to find alternative accommodation. Thus followed a slightly chaotic few hours of trying to keep 30 kids entertained with only a few toys, paper, colouring pens and not much Spanish.
Gazing into the Abyss
Andrea even got peed on by one girl that she was trying to comfort (second time this trip, first time was in Puerto Ordaz by Wolf's baby girl - good job we brought lots of clothes-washing gel...) After 3 or 4 hours, some of the parents came back, and we dragged our weary feet back to the guesthouse (Andrea being made to walk behind, because of the wee-smell).Later, as there were people sleeping in our Attention Centre, there was a need for someone to be on hand to supervise in case of problems, or in the unlikely event that the residents decided to steal all the equipment from the centre. Eduardo was staying until 1am, Gregoria, the special needs teacher was going to come in at 5am, and Andrea (M.)(volunteer coordinator) was doing the night shift. She called round to ask for a willing volunteer to accompany her, as she didn't fancy being there at night by herself. Everyone was pretty tired, and guiltily made their apologies. Many a night at the Samaritans front desk had got me used to sleep debt/credit, and I cunningly thought that this would remove my child minding obligations for at least half of the next day. As I wasn't sure I could spend another 4 hours drawing cars, and horses that looked more like dogs, I happily agreed.
It turned out to be quite an entertaining night chatting with security guards from the town hall, as all the refugees at the centre were peacefully sleeping ("chatting" meaning a combination of broken Spanish, gesticulations and drawing illustrations to aid communication on my part).
The next day the others got down to the town hall early, and by the time I arrived our fellow volunteers Dave (from York) and Mike (from near Whitby) were just finishing off a big football game.
Looking out Across The Sabana
The town hall had put shelters up to shade people from the mid-day sun, and Andrea (R.) organised musical chairs, with Eduardo singing Spanish songs as musical accompaniment. We played a few other games through the afternoon, and I told a jack-and-the-beanstalk type "ghost" story about a boy who steals a giant's toes (a little implausible, even by small child standards, but the best I could do) while Eduardo translated. English class was cancelled again, but a few kids turned up anyway, so we got them involved in some more games. We played pin the tail on the donkey (although it could have been a dog - I was drawing). After some musical statues, and piggy back rides, we were all completely knackered again, and pretty glad that it was no longer raining.
By the next day, most of the families had gone home or found friends to stay with, and the rest thinned out over the next few days.
A moment which may have caused me to get a little moist of eye: As some of the kids were going home, Eduardo asked one of them how the last few days had been, one child's response: it was the best vacation he'd ever had!
Coming soon, the trek to Roraima...
