Right before shutting down the office for Semana Santa, the Awá Federation organized a three day workshop on a beautiful beach in Manabi. They hired a bus for the entire journey so that all the administrative staff, promoters and técnicos and dirigentes as well as their gringo cooperante can come along. The rationale for this trip was to boost the morale of the troops. We had our regular monthly plannification meeting the first day which literaly lasted all day long, ending with a small group of us putting together a project prosposal until 11pm. The second day was supposed to be more relaxing with a motivation workshop in the morning and the afternoon for leisure.
They contracted a profesor from the nearby city of Manta who showed us her curriculum demonstrating her expertise in the subject. It turned out to be a pretty disapointing event as her lecture (a powerpoint presentation with the cheesiest videos ever made) was tailored for a corporate audience. Certainly not for a social organization like the FCAE even less appropriate for the Awá nationality. This triggered some concern from a few participants including the president but the WCS respresentative who 
came along saved the profesor telling the audience that all these communication tips she was giving us was food for thought and that a deeper analisis of the communication crisis within the Federation required another, separate workshop. This allowed the profesor to wrap up what she had prepared, or more recycled to be exact. There were a few interesting dinamicas which I will certainly use in the future but I must say that I doubt that the FCAE staff got much out of it.
The last day on the beach was somewhat free. The organizers (the administrative staff, led by the accountant) took us to another beach, Crucitas, an hour away. It wasn’t as clean nor flat as the beach in the small fishermen pueblo of San Jacinto so we didn’t even stay a full hour there. We returned to San Jacinto, packed our stuff, had lunch and loaded on the bus once again to check out the famous coastal city of Manta. This is where the US has a military base, supposedly to monitor drug trafficking on the Colombian border. The US troops are scheduled to leave in November this year under Corea’s orders. Manta is also the fish factory town where they can sardines and tuna, needless to say, it reeks.
Anyways we get there and the FCAE accoutant asks the driver to take us to this market the admin staff want to check out. We end up at the bloody bus terminal next to the most ghetto market ever. Obviously the Awá were not interested at all in this technical stop and a bunch of us hired a pick up truck to show us around the harbor and the downtown parks. It took us another 12 hours of bus to get back to Ibarra, I almost froze myself to death getting back to the sierra after those hot beach days. Few of us actually had a chance toi enjoy the beach at all. I went jogging and swimming in the morning before breakfast knowing that our agenda was full once we started working. The italian fellow, Mauro, barely got a feel for it at all as he was leading the proposal writing process, stuck in front of his laptop on a beautiful beach. I wouldn’t call that motivation!
Technically I’m on vacation now since the shop is closed for the week. I don’t have any plans though and will probably hang around Lita get some work done. The water situation is still unstable, it keeps coming and going and the quality is well below any health standards. I was supposed to have dinner with the PC director and a bunch of volunteers in Imbabura yesterday but the secretary called me at noon the day of the meeting to let us know it was canceled. I didn’t say anything and remained cordial but I can’t hide that I am increasingly frustrated by the disorganization in this office. Our mid-service reunion is scheduled on the first days of June, I hope to be able to address a few of my concerns there.
