Welcome Summer Volunteers!

MPI Ecuador blog readers, allow me the pleasure of introducing six wonderful volunteers who will be with us for this month: Caroline, Elizabeth, Robert, Sydney, Taylor, and Zach!  Hailing from James Madison University, the University of Georgia, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Miami University of Ohio, and Vanderbilt University (in no particular order), six new faces are now to be seen about our house in Sangolquí.  Since arriving last Thursday and Friday, they have had a flurry of orientation to our programs and life in the house, as well as to Quito and the Valley.  They've spent time in the library and teen center, playing games and reading with the kids, and have already jumped into some of our programs: Caroline taught Brock's adult English class on Saturday in his absentia, and Elizabeth was Luke's right-hand-woman during Saturday's cooking class!

Over the next four weeks, these lovely volunteers will be not only assisting in our current programs, but they will also be helping us complete shorter-term projects, expand upon our ideas for programs, and planning and executing their own projects with partner organizations.  From running leadership workshops with teens at Jesus Divino to teaching an English class for children in the neighborhood of San Juan in the Valley, they will be seeing plenty of life in the Valley.  Not to mention some cool weekend travel on the side.

MPI Ecuador Summer Session 1, along with Sam, Session 1 Coordinator, and Luke, at the Basílica in Quito!

The volunteers' experience with Manna will constitute something considerably different from those which PDs can convey on this blog, so in an effort to give blog readers access to the freshness and perspective that our volunteers are already bringing us, I am giving them the keys to their own separate tab on the Manna blog, Summer Session 1!  You can click on it above, right next to our home page tab.  Over the next month we will simultaneously be running our regular programs as well as the volunteers' projects, so please check back regularly for updates on both aspects of summer in Ecuador with MPI!