Having spent an uncomfortable night in a not so ‘exclusive’ seat on an Excluciva bus, I find myself back in Lima, sat on a recliner at a rooftop bar in the sun, playing questionable remixes of Bob Marley classics, full of recognisable spirits, and gringos galore. (Something which I never thought I would find myself saying with disappointment!) It is now that my excitement to be traveling home has worn thin, and my sentimental thoughts and feelings towards Lobitos, the people, and the programs I have been involved in over the last couple of months begin to take over my thoughts.
Reflecting on the programming, there are two weeks which really stand out for me as a period in which I feel like the effectiveness of WAVES and the requirement for the programming in the community shone through; and this is the fortnight during which the children were on school holiday.
During these two weeks, the regularity of surf classes increased, extra-curricular English classes drew in larger numbers of children, and most significantly, the Lobitos Literacy Project was introduced to the weekly schedule. The literacy project is currently working its way through the Dr. Seuss classics, the most recent and last of which I was involved with being ‘Green Eggs and Ham’.
After the successful first week, reading, and playing games centred around ‘the Cat in the Hat’ I was beginning to wonder whether we would be able to replicate the success and conjure up some new and exciting activities for the children, or whether we would end up just replicating previous activities with a different subject matter; something which I feared could cause numbers to drop and interest to dwindle.
That fear however was short lived. I walked into the kitchen the following morning for an innocent coffee and pancake binge and was greeted by an excited looking Kate Pavelich spouting ideas about scavenger hunts, treasure trails, and creating genuine edible green eggs and ham for the children to have at the end of the session and signal home-time. (It turns out that although a wonderful struggle, getting the children to leave is one of the most stressful parts of the day!)
After a bit of breakfast table consideration we were able to concoct variations on these games to match the theme of ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ and also provide some intellectually stimulating material for the slightly older children to sink their teeth into (sometimes quite literally). As with the previous week, all the activities went down a storm, and the slightly more adventurous activities such as the scavenger hunt around Primavera created a real stir and excitement amongst the children, and provided an opportunity for locales not directly involved in WAVES to see the sorts of things we get up too.
One of the nicest things about the literacy program is that the children are getting activities planned for them to suit their age groups interests and needs, something which as an outsider Lobitos appears to lack. Real effort went into not only the planning of the activities, but the presentation of these activities to make them child friendly, smaller details like painting all the eggs green for the egg and spoon races, creating decorative props for the scavenger hunts, and treating the children to homemade green eggs and ham at the end of the day were details the children really seemed to enjoy.
It’s been an exciting few weeks, and the program is already looking like a key component of the WAVES setup, it caters for both the young who just need some structured activities through to the older who are working hard to improve their English speaking abilities. For future volunteers, general craft materials, and books will really help this program maintain the high standards set in the first few weeks, and release pressure on the program budget. This program has provided some of the highlights of my trip, and long may it continue!
By Nicky Goodson, WAVES Volunteer 2013
