Leaving Las Palmas

It was difficult to leave Mexico this year, the children and the village of Las Palmas had taken over our hearts. Before we left, the village celebrated the Spring Festival, and the king and queen of the festival were crowned. They were voted on by their school friends in kindergarten and pre-school. The evening was high energy with children from the pre-school and kindergarten performing dances in the village square, and other kids dressed as animals of the forest and then driven around the town in decorated trucks. It was so full of energy and excitement – lions and tigers, butterflies and flowers, as well as Hawaiian and Folkloric dancers flitted around the square chasing one another. The dogs had a great time too. The Festival is sponsored by local businesses, most in Las Varas. Money is provided for the parents to rent the costumes, decorations and buy food with these donations. Also a family will save up for a whole year for the honour of being a sponsor for one of these events.

See pictures in the Photo Album

Lunchroom Finished

The lunch room is finished. See the new photographs on the right. We were able to pay for the tile for the floor, paint for the windows, and buy a fridge, microwave, and blender with the money collected from our friends and families. Since the lunchroom’s completion the government has instituted a breakfast program, all children in this school now receive a hot breakfast. The food is provided by the government and the work is provided by the mothers. We would like to think this was given to them because of their new lunchroom, but we were not sure if this was the case.

Classroom Tiling

In January, thanks to our friend Wendy, the Lakewood Rotary in Washington State gave us $1,000.00 dollars to contribute towards the renovations needed at the school. We had a meeting with the teachers and mothers and they decided that they wanted to tile two other classrooms. We did not have enough money to pay a professional to do it and they said they wanted to do it themselves. They were so proud of their accomplishments in the lunch room and wanted to show us how much they had learned. The first room got off to a good start but went a little haywire in the middle; we had to go in and rescue them and correct some mistakes. We offered to pay for someone to do the second classroom but they were determined to show us once again that they could do it themselves. Unfortunately this floor was uneven; we levelled it out with cement as best we could, and then left them to it. The next week we went to say goodbye, there were some problems, but basically they seem to be doing OK. The room was almost finished when we left- see photographs on the right.

We were also able to give two small scholarships to two girls for English classes. Isaak does an after school program teaching English but it is not funded by the government so he has to charge for his time and this is paid by the parents. Obviously some parents cannot afford to pay.

It is hard to express how much we have enjoyed the project, the children and the families. Everyone is so connected in this village; they celebrate and work together with so much energy and laughter that we were easily drawn into their lives.

We are looking forward to going back next year. Once again a big thank you to all of the people that contributed to this project both financially, with school supplies, and with physical labor. We hope to do a couple of small projects next year as well as set up an after school program a couple of days a week. We are planning to teach art, basketball and anything else that comes up. Isaak, our favourite teacher, is teaching English three days a week after school and wants a little help with that. The mothers may want a day, too, so any suggestions and ideas for this program are very welcome.

Secondario

We also visited the Secondary school and were disturbed with the lack of resources there. The principal told us that the Government gives them very little funding, they even have to pay for the electricity and water used at the school out of their own pockets. The teachers and the families all contribute to the expenses of the school but there is only so much they can do.

It seems that the government contributes to the kinder and primary schools, giving a basic education to the children but does not give much support to secondary education. If the student manages to get through secondary school and has good enough marks they move on to the Prepa. This school is in preparation for University. The program is financed by the government but Manual, the principal, said that the schools are not very good and students are better prepared in private prepa schools. After that the Government gives an adequate allowance to students to attend University. I guess our judgement is that they want to give a basic education, reading, writing and arithmetic but don’t want to educate all of the children and so make it difficult for them to continue.

Here again we found the teachers to be dedicated and passionate about their students. We would like to help out at the secondary school much like we did with the primary, some work on the physical structure, maybe some paint, and other projects. Manual said he would like some book cases as they have lots of books but nowhere to store them. Rick thought it would be a great project to do with the Dads in the village. We also believe it is important to get these students some access to computers and the internet, as right now they have to travel to Las Varas to get on the internet. In the future, we would like to help out maybe with small scholarships for the students going on to Prepa. We will research this next year.