Project Management and Leadership

July 26 – August 1

     This week was our Project Management and Leadership training, which we attended with a counterpart to work on developing our projects. I stayed with our Minca volunteer in Rodadero and enjoyed a hot shower and air conditioning the night before training and then we travelled together to Centro Recreacional Turipaná, where our training was held. The campus was beautiful and seeing everyone was wonderful. After creative, productive days in training, we’d get together to swim, visit, and laugh. We planned new projects and developed ideas, while learning about leadership styles, writing objectives, assessing needs, and creating budgets. Following that adventure, I stayed with several other volunteer’s at the Tubará volunteer’s house, where we ate good food and continued to enjoy each other’s company before heading home the following day.

- The students here love playing learning games, partially because they are so unusual. We played a memory game with 3^rd grade to practice English words for school supplies and they were very enthusiastic. School supplies are laid out on a table and students have 1 minute to look at everything there. Then, they turn to face the back of the room, while the teacher removes and hides 1 object. Students turn back around and raise their hand to guess which object is missing. They were very good at the game and seemed to enjoy learning in a different way.

- I am proud to say that I can actually pull water out of our well in an emergency. I know, that’s such a small thing, but it’s an important thing to be able to do here. I came home from training to an empty house and no water, so I hauled the thick concrete slab off the top of our well and pulled out water. Another important thing I learned in the process is that, if there is water available to the house, there’s a switch that turns it on and off, which is also good to know. So, in case you are ever home and the water goes out, make sure you know where to get water and how to turn the water back on once it becomes available.