Sofie’s Team @ the Coast: Emily, Caroline, Eliza, Alexa, George, Catherine, Kieran, Emily, Georgie and Hannah Kauffman.

Hello!

We’re all in Atacames at the moment where we’ve spent the weekend on the beach. Everyone’s fine and work at Caimito has been going well. The team have been working hard all week on the school building, first preparing all the surfaces with wire wool and then painting and varnishing upstairs. The two teachers’ rooms and library are very nearly done and started painting downstairs on Friday. We’re going to carry on with that next week until its done.

Noone’s been ill this week and thankfully the medication I’ve been taking worked and I’m now feeling fine again (typical that it’s the team leader that gets a bad stomach!). There was a bit of confusion on the first couple of days here is Caimito when the ladies cooking for the team gave us bread and jam for dinner but I spoke to them and they’re now giving us a full dinner which is good!

Think some people are finding it a bit hard to adjust to the food and bugs but everyone’s in good spirits generally.

Davis’ Team @ the Rainforest: Jessie, Louise, Ellie, Alice, Izzy, Harvey, Hannah Byrne, Eloise, Lauren and Mark.

Hello from the jungle!

Things went well in Bua for the team’s first week on the placement. We´ve been cutting and and organizing tocilla leaves (used for thatching rooves in the village’s communal buildings) since Monday. Because of the distance of the leaf cultivation fields from the community we had to rise and eat breakfast earlier than usual for the first few days, which has been a bit of a shock to the system! We started working much closer to Bua this Monday which means the team haven’t been travelling around as much and are able to sleep in about an hour later…which is poular with everyone : ) Plus, the project will we´ll be working on from now on is building for the community, which the team much prefer to chopping down leaves so that should be an added improvement on the work side of things!

In the very first week there was a stomach bug that went around my group but people seem to be recoving quite quickly, so far Louise, Harvey, Jessie and Elly have had a bit of the the bug, generally it puts them out for two days with a bad stomach and a light fever. I have been making sure they drink enough water, and getting them out of the sun. All should be better by the end of the weekend. Hannah had an upset stomach as a result of not being used to the heat and not being properly hydrated on Monday, but after some rest made a full recovery and was back working with the rest og the team by Wednesday. Poor Alice had a bit of a rash on her leg as a result of an allery to her wellies. I think that´s it on the illness front! Fingers crossed next week wont be so eventful!!

Regards, Davis