Clubs at Clara Luna

After the Christmas and New Year holidays,  the activities return on January 10th with the English courses for the Rabbits and the Butterflies levels, and a little later for the Tigers. The "Language exchange" returned as well, which was welcomed warmly by the new volunteers, whom have little knowledge of Spanish. "Club de Ninos" is very popular and the attendance is growing every week. We had 38 kids participate in the "Pirate" theme activity. They all made pirate's hats, eyes patches and participated in a treasure hunt.  The monthly themes varies based on the books they are reading. The past month the kids have made a lion's head mask, a big birthday cake,  and a bird in a nest. During club de niños they also play outside for a game or two. All this, of course,  after 30 minutes of reading. The new "Club de Jovenes" is having a lot of success.  About 20 teenagers meet at Clara Luna every Saturday morning. "Cuentas in la Plaza" happens every two weeks.  Many children and families playing in the park are interested and come to read a book or two. 

For the first time Puerto Lopez had the "Feria Algarroba" from January 21-22 on the "malecon" or boardwalk. Clara Luna had a stand and offered different activities for the kids,  such as reading, face painting, a puppet show, and storytelling by Paola and some of the kids.  Valeria and Arturo, friends of Clara Luna, entertained the children with songs.

The last week of January,  Paola and three volunteers went to visit 3 villages touched by earthquakes last April. This is a visit that Clara Luna has committed to doing monthly since the earthquake. The children had a rare occasion to read,  draw, hear storytelling and watch a puppet show named "La Gallinita Roja" played by the volunteers.  The children appreciated the show and laughed a lot when the curtain accidentally play fell down revealing all of the puppets and actors.  This incident could be used again for the next shows,  it's a guaranteed success for laughs. 

Here we are , January is over and we are going into February with thrilling programs and busier than ever! 

The month of October was very busy at Clara Luna with the month starting with only 2 volunteers, Geni and Xanthia from Australia. Needless to say the fun never ended. In Club de Niños we did crafts of bears, chickens, elephants, sunflowers and frogs which would have been impossible without the help from dedicated donors. Especially for Halloween and Dia de los Muertos we made some beautiful lanky skeletons. In English different ages learnt a variety of topics with the youngest ones learning all about “Our World” and the oldest ones concentrating on the present perfect tense. On the third weekend of October we travelled up north to Bahia, San Vicente and Canoa to do activities with the kids affected by the earthquake. This eye opening experience included visiting a tent city where kids are still living under tarps 6 months after the earthquake. Shortly after this weekend, 3 new volunteers came to join; Tatiana from Belgium, Sara from Germany and Lisa from France. With the extra volunteers, everything ran smoothly. At the end of October we hosted our monthly event for the families of Clara Luna. This month we had a soccer tournament. We were able to rent out the soccer field in the center of town for four hours. We had four teams of children, one of teenages, and two of parents. At the end of the tournament, each child received a recycled art medal. We are looking forward to all our events coming up  at the end of the year and our big holiday party in December.