Music Maestro!

Our trusty team of Leapers are now into their third week of Ecuadorian adventure and have said farewell to Michaela (Leap Tower’s very own globe-trotter) for the next leg of their volunteer placement. On Thursday they set off from Quito in the Andes and headed down to the Tropical Lowlands- an area of Rainforest and home to some of the last remaining Shaman communities in the region. They arrived in the Tsa’chila community of Los Naranjos to be  greeted by the villagers and a musical performance on traditional instruments (not to mention an ‘incredibly loud thunderstorm’!), to set the tone for the next few weeks of cultural safari!

The next day they started work alongside the locals, planting cacao trees (the raw form of chocolate) in the jungle farms. The community’s end goal is to plant three thousand trees on various farms, with the help of Leap volunteers.  They’re off to a swinging start and on the first morning alone the Leapers planted 250 trees!  While the heat and the mosquitoes were not very kind to them on day one (a bit of a shock when you’ve been living in a mozzie free zone at 14,000ft above sea level)  they dug deep, pushed through and finished early in time for a good lunch and a refreshing dip in the river.  Over the weekend, the group stayed in the community to participate in activities such as cleaning up the local primary school, football matches, and long walks around the community.  Today, the tree planting continues!

Here are some photos taken by Sarah in the team’s last project in the Andes…

Meeting the local Llama.

A trip to the hairdressers!