Rural Kids Day Camp # 1

The blog is back which means we are back in Puyo. We arrived Wednesday afternoon after a five hour bus ride from Quito. The previous day we left Des Moines at 6:15 and went to New York. Things were on schedule until we were ready to push away in Miami. Somebody had checked in their luggage, but failed to board themselves. TSA takes a dim view of that on international flights these days and so it took them nearly an hour to unload baggage until they found the three bags. We arrived in Quito about 8:00 PM. We had no trouble at customs with the nearly $500 worth of electronic equipment for the school.
Leaving Iowa knowing that my Dad is in his last days was not easy. His kidney failure will continue to poison the system until the poison takes him. It might be weeks or even a month or more. We were glad to have made the trip when conversation was still possible. He is in the nursing home Hospice room being well cared for.
Our first day back (today) was a shocker. We had no school and instead our staff was at the church camp running a camp for rural Puyo children. It seems that the provincial government helps out our school and we in turn need to help out the provincial school system. We do that by running a day camp of a bit over 200 student each day for two days.
The day consisted of an assembly with songs, stories, and a play. Group games outside took us up to lunch. After lunch they went swimming in the camp spring-fed pool. We rode the bus to deliver a large group of students to their “RURAL” homes. The blog tomorrow will include a description of “rural” here in the rainforest area. My goodness!!