I have been so busy these past five days with the volunteer posting that I have barely made it to a wifi zone to check emails. My little hotel in Quito does have wifi, but frustratingly intermittent and when I finally did get coverage, to discover the havoc that Mother Nature has wrecked on Calgary, I was left almost winded with shock! Unbelievably devastating for my home town. My husband, son and brother-in-law all seem to have survived and our homes and business sites are intact, but many thousands were not so fortunate. It will take a monumental effort to clean up our wee city on the Bow, which at the moment, is a raging torrent of water flow! I cannot comprehend how much is involved to bring our city back to some form of normalcy. My blog posting has taken a bit of a hiatus due to my inability to even form a sentence at the end of days … totally exhausted and my head hits the pillow shortly after dinner ….

The American family of 14 arrived safe, sound and travel weary last Wednesday … all from Manhattan and Boston areas … as high powered, and competitive a family as I have ever met!! …. they left me reeling. They are here only for a week and man, did they get moving with our first assignment …. the painting of the Fundac funded Child Centre. With military precision, one was voted foreman, assigning all tasks, observing what we were best at, shifting us around as needed and away we flew! After three and a half days, the work is almost complete!!! Brian could have used this team of hard workers on the hotel!! Maybe I will suggest they head to Calgary for the flood clean up …. they would have it done within a week!!

This is the 15th trip they have done together as a family, but their first volunteer posting together …. Apparently, the idea for the family excursions started as a celebration for whichever child of the family was graduating from high school that year. The graduate got to chose the destination country for the celebration. This years marks their last child to graduate (four siblings, spouses and offspring) … They are thinking up ways to handle from here on in … I imagine, given this family’s ‘can do’ attitude, they will have that sewn up in no time!

The children at the Centre are lovely … I have fallen in love with them all … no surprise there :). Since we have finished our first task of painting the Centre, I imagine next week we will be working more with the children. A few pictures to share of our first days … Firstly our small familyish hotel, Sol de Quito, around the Centre, mostly of painting but did catch Steve, Matt and Colin having a bit of a rest 🙂 walking to lunch as a group down a dusty road, children napping in the afternoon (several to a bed!!) and some random shots. I am a ‘good’ tired these days 🙂