This week Katitawa has some new volunteers. Mitchell & Amy from New Zealand, Eddie & Megan also from New Zealand, and Marina & Bruna from Argentina. Mitchell is an architect by profession, and Eddie is an architecture student; which makes now an almost perfect time to work on the treehouse and finish it, but alas, the materials for the treehouse are not available :(

Setbacks and impediments like this are part and parcel of the volunteering life at Katitawa, and one has to learn to get by and work around them. Since no more progress was possible on the treehouse, we focussed on the pond instead. The pond got a new layer of plastic (this time with no holes in it) so when we filled it with water, it didn’t all vanish in a couple of hours. We also worked on the ramp to the nursery classroom and managed to put in the concrete slabs which would retain the gravel in place.

The Argentinian girls - Marina & Bruna - have taken it upon themselves to teach me some Spanish. Thanks to their dedicated and extremely patient efforts, “Yo hablo poco Espanyol” finally has a minute element of truth in it.