La Restinga

After being here in Iquitos more than 3 weeks, it´s about time with some more info about La Restinga. I do ask everyone to take into consideration that I aquiered all the info I have about La Restinga in spanish, so there´s a slight chanse that I missed out on some detailes...but here we go;

Asociacion La Restinga was founded the 16th of Octobre 1996. The aim was to work for a better quality of life for children and adolesences at risk; that is children and adolesences who come from poor families, who might have social problems, with alcohol or drug abuse, violence or sexual abuse. These children might be exposed to, or in the risk of being exposed to any of these. Many of these children have to work as well, to contribute to the family economy. Many of them work in informal jobs, as selling gum, shining shoes...in some cases, the situation of sexual abuse might be a way to earn money. We would call it prostitution if we only didn´t speak about young, underage girls and boys, who clearly are in a situation of explotation.

La Restinga works on several levels. The areas of main focus are education and to work with the self esteem of these kids.

Education. Working long hours, several nigths a week, leaves little time for studying. Many of these kids drop out of school. And some families can´t afford to send their kids to school. Public schools are free - in therory- but they do have to pay for the school uniform and the books.

La Restinga has 3 projects that work with educational issues.

Escuelas abiertas, "Open Schools", works directly with schools and teachers, both to educate, offer educational materiale and to work with the teachers to better the learning enviorment. We´ve been told that the educational system in Peru (as in many other countries I´m sure) is of bad quality. One problem is the learning enviornment. We´ve been told that is widely accepted to hit the palm of the hands of students who hasn´t done homework. Verbally abuse is common. This clearly isn´t the best suroundings for learning. We still haven´t been to any of the schools, but our impression is that all they do, and all thay learn is copying. Copy letters, copy words, copy sentences- without understanding what it says.

This leads to Aula Movil, " mobile classroom". From 9 to 12 in the mornings a group of varying size, ( if it rains, theres very few who shows up. Most of them live far away, and clearly have to walk to get places, and in the rainseason, thay might have to use a boat to get places) come to do their homework and get a warm lunch before they go to school in the afternoons. Tuesdays and thursdays there are talleres- workshops/ courses of different types, for those who have finished their homework.

In the afternoon, from 5 to 9, the group Entre Nos, "Between us". Entre Nos is a group focusing on kids who are in risk of sexual abuse/explotation. They also work with homework, and tuesdays and thursdays they have talleres.

Not many of these kids have anyone at home who really can help them with the homework. Educators and volunteers as ourselves help them, and at times educate them. Because of their situation, and the quality of the teaching, there´s often a gap between the level of the kids, and the level of the homework. They might have for homework to write a dialogue in english, without really knowing any words or grammar, for example.

Every day theres up to a 100 kids at La Restinga. These kids started comming there after being contacted by some of the social workers at La Restinga, or they came with frinds who allready had started comming. The social workers/ educators of La Restinga also does follow-up work with the kids´families and their teachers. ( sometimes they have to work with the kid and its family to motivate them to let the kid continue or get back into school).And, as they are not only focusing on the education of these kids, but the development of whole persons, they do follow up talks with the kids. The talleres, as they work with different themes and skills, often in creative forms, also help develop their selfesteem. As one of the slogans of La Restinga is Creo en ti- I belive in you, the work also helps the kids belive in themselves.

Creo en ti; I believe in you

The entrance of La Restinga

A moment of deep consentration! You learn to appreciate these moments, since there are times when you have five of these little angels running around not doing their homework. Being a kid and sitting still more than 5 minutes might be a challenge wether you are a kid in Norway or in Peru, I know. But I´m still trying to figure out when to be patient and when to be strict...

Time for homework; Elise helping some of the kids at La Restinga with their homework.

Ay, what better place to be than surrounded by all these heartbreakers!? :) Anyone heard the biological clock ticking? :)The charming gentleman in my arms is Ericks baby brother. The photo is from our visit with Erick´s family in Bèlen last Sunday.

This by the way is the Amazone river. Next time I´ll make sure to post a photo of me in it. (Together with all the crocodilles, snakes and pirajas I´ve heard so much about. I´m not sure if the roumers are true. And it´s really only one way to find out, isn´t it!? )

Elise and me at our first encounter with the river. It´s not the famous Amazone, but one of the siderivers, in Bèlen, Iquitos.

This is the view of typical houses along the river. In the rainseason, the level of the river raises and the houses turn into floting homes.

One week- thousand impressions!

Our first week here in Iquitos has passed, and it´s been amazing. But I have to admit, also a tiny bit tiring with the change of climate (I feel like I live in a sauna!), a couple of rounds of throwing up, and what I the least expected; a cold! A few weeks from now I will say that it´s a part of the charm (as we at least put it in norwegian:)

Since its not completly decided what we´ll be doing at La Restinga, we´ve mostly been hanging around, and helping the kids with their homework this week. And little by little getting to know them. There´s about a houndred kids who come to La restinga every day, so we have a way to go before we know all the names...

In the morning, around 9 o´clock, the group of kids who go to school in the afternoon come to La Restinga to do homework. Here some attend school in the mornings, and others in the afternoons. Before starting the homework, they get a glass of warm milk. It´s hard to study on an emty stomach. The kids are of different ages and at different levels. Our job is to help the ones who needs it most. Helping some of the kids with teir math-homework, I realised that I could need some freshing up...there´s not much left of what I once knew... Other than that, we been helping out with their english-homework. Some speak quite well english, but for most of them there´s a gap between the level they are at, and the level of the homework...with some help they manage, but I´m not sure how much they understand.At 11.30, the kids get served lunch, before they go home to get ready for school, or they shower and change into their uniforms at La Restinga.

This week we have had time off from around noon or one o´clock, to around 5-6 pm. I´ve discovered the beatuy of siesta! So far we been getting a few hours of sleep every day, but I expect as we get used to the temperature, we´ll function well also without the "nap". At night, til 9-10 pm we´ve been helping out with homework again, or just been there, talking to the kids.

I look forward to knowing more exactly what we´ll be doing. We plan to start teaching english pretty soon. A lot of kids are asking for it. Other than that I think we´ll be arranging games, and taking part in courses they allready have at La Restinga.

So far we haven´t been told much about each and every kid. But all of them come from poor families, and in one form or another have to contribute to the family economy by working on the street. Some sell gum, popcorn or cigarettes. Some sell their bodies. It´s a reality differnent from ours.

But they are still just kids. And sometimes I find myself forgetting their world. When we talk to them, or play around with them at La Restinga, for a moment they are just kids. Kids having fun. Kids asking questions. Kids wanting a hug. Until they say that they have to go to work. ¡Hasta mañana!- See you tomorrow!

Other than being at La Restinga, we´ve been out to lunch to eat fish the amazonian way, fried whole (claro, con platanos- with bananas). We visited the families of Dino and Erick, both Hald students who now are in Norway. Wonderful people, and what a hospitality! Today I tried turtle for the first time, with rice and yuca, having luch at Erick´s parents restaurant. Muy rico! Later today I had ayacucho, cow- heart...New for me, here a lot of restaurants seem to only be serving chicken. Chicken with platanos or papas...Most of the time our meals are accompanied by the delicious inca kola, yam,yam :) ( for those unlucky souls who haven´t experienced it, its a tasty peruvian soft drink). We also went out a few times with other volunteers and employees from La Restinga, nice people and a lot of fun!

Until next time, take care! ¡Cuidate! :) A big chump of amozonian love from me to you!

Iquitos; finalamente aqui!

After more than 3 great weeks in Lima, we finally arriwed in Iquitos yesterday. Feeling more or less as tourists in Lima, it will be great getting down to business. We were met at the airport of two of the teenagers from La Restinga. First imressions that went through my head as we drove from the airport in two motocarros; Hot and not the least humid, crazy traffick, a lot of people everywhere...First we stopped by La Resinga, the center that will be our workplace and seccond home. We met some of the kids who stay there. I really look forward to getting to know them.Then we brought our luggage to our apartment. A very nice place about ten minutes walk from La Restinga. Then we were showed around a bit, stopped to watch a capoeira roda, teenagers and kids from La Restinga. We really got impressed. For me its incredible that its even possible to make your body do these things..Later we went to Puchin´s place (he´s one of our bosses). There we met other volunteers, ate and hang out. The food was delicious, but I´m afraid it resulted in a bit of a troubled stomach this morning... There´s a lot of people everywhere, and a lot of people in the streets and plazas. There´s also a lot of kids working in the streeets. We´ve allready experienced kids running up to us and hugging us, very eager to talk. Of course it´s cute and charming, but it´s also sad, and these kids run a great risk if they meet the wrong kind of people. The first impression is that this is my kind of city, very laidback and relaxed, open. I don´t think I will have any problems having a good time here, and I really look forward to getting to know more of the place and the people! Well, this was some first thoughts, a bit unorganized and chaotic...More jungelvrol comming up soon, and hopefully som photos :) ¡Espero que todos están bien! Mucho amor a todos!