First Full Day in Country!

Beinvenidos!

Today was my first full day in Ecuador. Today was also a great day.

All of the people in country have been so welcoming to me.

In honor of this I have decided to make this entry a "welcome" to my blog!

My name is Justin Larkins. I am currently in the faculty of education at the University of Manitoba. I recently completed my first year of my two year education degree. I have a passion for sports, working with young people, and helping those around me.

I have travelled to Ecuador as part of a volunteer group (ESLE - Ecuador Service Learning Experience) from the University of Manitoba. As a group we are spending one month working with local schools in the city of Quito. Our group will be working to promote healthy lifestyles and self-esteem through games, sport and language exchange. Along with this we are hoping to give students here a glimpse of our personalities and life from our perspectives.

Our group consists of nine students as well as a group of professional facilitators pictured below:

(Not in Ecuador yet: Joe, Blair)

(Back Row, Left to Right: Chris, Flo, Dana, Sara, Justin, Andrew)

(Front Row, Left to Right: Me, Jen, Meghan)

Today began with breakfast and a trip up to Panicillo. It had a beautiful view of the city, as seen in the photo above. After visiting Panicillo we paid a visit to two of the schools we will be teaching at. The first school we visited was Calderon. This is the school which Justin and Flo will be teaching at. The students here were putting on an open house with various areas set up with food, drink, and information about several topics from natural disasters to how to put together a computer. This was a very lively school. All of the students here wear school uniforms. The students here also were very excited to see us and learn from us. I can not wait to begin working with the students here! The language barrier will be an issue no doubt, but one which we will all work together to overcome. Next we visited Bellevista school. This is the school which Jen and Chris will be teaching at. This school had a very open environment. There are no hallways here, just walkways which are all outside. The classrooms do not have a lot of resources to work with, however I can already tell that the educators overcome this issue with their amazing passion for teaching.

Tomorrow we will be visiting Zambiza school and Inca school. Sara and I are teaching at Zambiza. Andrew and Dana are teaching at Inca. I am really looking forward to the opportunity to see the school I where I will be working, the people who I will be working with, and the students who I will be sharing information with. I will post more about this in my next blog.

Please feel free to leave a comment asking any questions you have.

Thanks for reading!