Lumbisi

Yesterday I went to a small town called Lumbisi, about ten minutes away from where I live. Lumbisi is quite a fascinating place because it has it's own government and laws. The reason for my visit was to help plant some trees in an ecological park that the community are developing. I got picked up by Nicki, Tom and Yvette (who had organised the volunteers from school) and we headed for the town square in Lumbisi, where we would be meeting everyone else. As soon as we stepped out of the car, both Nicki and I grabbed our cameras and started taking pictures.

I felt like I was in real Ecuador. This may seem like a strange thing to say because obviously I'm living in Euador, but the area I live in is very modern, so you could really be anywhere in the world. (Well, maybe not Norfolk, what with the view of the mountains and everything!)

Lumbisi Ecological Park is an area of about 600 hectares. The local community have been working to improve it for a couple of years now so that it can be enjoyed by many people. It was a really beautiful area - apart from the large amounts of rubbish that people have dumped.



One of our tasks was to pick up as much of the plastic as possible. We also planted trees in front of the dumping area so that people wouldn't be able to just back their vehicles in. Quite a few of the kids from Secondary came and helped which was really cool (Yvette is form teacher to a lot of them). It was interesting to see who got stuck in and who enjoyed messing around. I soon discovered that I wasn't much cop with a pickaxe, but I did make a few holes. I took photos, collected rubbish, cleared areas of ground and put trees in holes! I certainly didn't do as much as some of the others, but it was a really good experience to do something that does make a difference. In teaching we hope to make a difference to the children we teach and their families, by planting trees you know, without doubt, it is making a difference.