The End of an Era

After over 6 years of intensive research and community development work in and around the Yachana Reserve, GVI Amazon is coming to a close. We have finished our final research project (look forward to our Road Effects paper, coming soon!) and are handing over the project to our partner, The Yachana Foundation. They will continue to maintain and monitor the reserve, using it as an hands-on science education center for students -- we're very excited to see what fabulous things this next generation of scientists find! For more detail on GVI Amazon's closure, and our accomplishments over the years, please read on...
GVI Amazon Closure Statement

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Puerto Rico here we come!

8:15am rolled around and the rain was still thundering down, so a small group of volunteers donned wellies, raincoats and umbrellas and set off, only to be stopped by the fast flowing creek, which had risen above our wellies- they braved it, got very wet and set off again in search of the school. This was tricky to find, as the direct route was avoided due to a dodgy bridge. They eventually made it and walked into their respective classes, not really knowing what to expect. The older class of children seemed very attentive. Zoe and Dan got straight to work on, “My name is…” which they already knew, but it’s not as easy as you might think getting all the children speaking. Next step was to try and teach the kids to say how old they were. It turned into a game, bouncing a very questionable tennis ball on the floor, to coincide with the number of years for each child. Dan’s team were “muy rapido” and according to Dan, obliterated Zoe’s team! Dan and Zoe threw in a few formal greetings and this seemed to be something that almost all of the children were very confident with.

After a tiring lesson, the class understandably started to lose concentration, throwing paper aeroplanes around the classroom – classic lack of concentration behaviour! One of the kids tried to get Dan to shake his hand with a big centipede in it. This was definitely the cue to begin packing up. Dan and Zoe said their goodbyes hoping they would remember some of the wisdom they had divulged for the next lesson!

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