Monday 18 July 2011

Alfredo in the mountains: part 1







here are some pictures of Alfredo's first work team experience in the mountain community of lirio in June.

Saturday 9 July 2011

July Praise and Prayers

(Wish list is the blog entry below this one)

I haven’t seen much of Alfredo this month as he’s spent over two weeks travelling with two different groups to visit and work in the mountain projects. This is the first time in 6 years of working with HCJB Global that he has really spent any time in Chimborazo Province! It was cold and windy and now Alf understands why sleeping bags have hoods! The first trip was to take the summer interns to stay in one community and work on digging in the morning, childrens work in the afternoons and church services in the evenings.

The second trip was to take a team from ‘Safe Water in Ecuador’ (one of our donor organizations from Michigan) around various different projects. They stayed in a different community each night and were given lots of ‘cuy’ (guinea pig) to eat. As most of the group didn’t like the cuy, it all got passed down the table to Alfredo’s plate! The group were pleased to see vegetables on the plates and a guesthouse with showers when they came to visit Shell!

While Alfredo was travelling the country, practicing his English with the groups, I was left in Shell looking after the children and practicing my English too! I have enrolled on an online course to get teaching skills and am helping again at the Spotlight English conversation club.

When Alfredo wasn’t in the mountains he managed to get a jungle trip in, and went to check the construction done by Lizzie, Steph and Stefy last year and get the details for the expansion of Washintsa. Now he has to put the scribbles and sketches into sensible reports for the local water company to buy us the materials.

The football team lost the last games and didn’t get through to the next round (didn’t help that the best goal-scorer went to Haiti for 2 weeks!) The team are now playing an indoor football championship for a few weeks.

A group from the States has offered to bring us stuff down in August... on our blog entry below is a wish-list of things we need for the office, so please take a look and buy us a gift that will help life in the office and jungle be a little bit easier.

Praise:

For the good time Alfredo had in the mountains with the teams

For the new microscope the SWIE group bought us for the parasite studies in the jungle

For the opportunity to study English teaching on line with ITN (and the missionary discount)

Prayers:

For ‘sitting ability’ as Alfredo has to write reports (he doesn’t like to sit and do paperwork much)

For the shell hospital as they try to recruit more doctors for later in the year and the shell missionary school as they try to find teachers for September (one teacher has just suddenly moved to Quito because of health problems and one is still in the States after a kidney transplant).

For the holidays! We are going to the Dominican Republic at the end of the month to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary with Alfredo’s cousins who live there and to use our air-miles!

Thank you for your love and interest in our family and work,

Many blessing, Alex, Alfredo, Benjamin and Camila Leon

Friday 8 July 2011

Wish List

We have the opportunity to bring stuff down with a group in August from the States... so here is your chance to buy us a little something that we need in the office. If you’re interested in helping us purchase these things, please write to me at agriffin@hcjb.org.ec or give on line at www.hcjb.org.uk and put in the memo line ‘leon’ and what the money is for.

· Printer cartridges HP 60 @£16/$26 a pair (they are double the price in Ecuador)

· Comfortable Therm-a-Rest mattress for Alfredo £65/$100

· Replacement Filter cartridges for katadyn vario multiflow water filter @£ 18/$30 each (this is the water filter we use when we are in the jungle)

· 2 wide-mouth water bottles (Nalgene) that fit on to the Katadyn filter @£10 /$16 each

· External hard-drive for office file back-up and ‘caselogic’ case @£65/$100

· 2 Bug-huts (mosquito nets that are self supporting, like a dome tent) @£50/$80

· New desktop computer and back-up battery protection @£500/$800

Engineering in Emergencies handbook £30/$50

Field guide to environmental engineering for development book £30/$50

Field guide to appropriate technology book £50/$75


And some desired stuff for us...

· Feminine Appeal by Carolyn Mahaney, the book for my next women’s book study @ £10/$15

· Delagua have offered free filters, but postage costs £90. This will mean we could filter drinking water instead of boiling.

· A digital SLR camera, memory card and case @£400/$650

· Samsung galaxy tablet £320/$500