Wrap-up from South Africa

Before we wrap-up our trip, we want to thank everyone for following along.  Beyond your support, we have received many e-mails and phone calls of encouragement that have helped guide our project.  We hope that we have kept you all in the loop through this blog and our regular updates.  We have tried to keep them both informational and entertaining.  However, if there is anything we have left out or anything that you wish to know more about that we have not answered, please let us know.  You are encouraged to ask us anything about our trips or projects, we would love to hear from you.  In the meantime, here are some thoughts on our latest progress and a little self-analysis.

Over the past year and a half, Focal Point has worked on our South African Campaign.  We have met with community leaders, government officials, embassy employees, non-profit specialists, wealthy donors, and hard working volunteers.   We have also spent more than a month within the Coffee Bay community itself.  It was our first project location and has been the model for how we wish to run future projects. We have tried to run an aid program in a small, personal and effective way. Not by merely throwing money at an area or a project but by spending time with communities and learning the heart of their needs and problems.  Then by personally ensuring that the aid we give is used for precisely what it is intended, we know that our supporters can trust that their donations are used properly.

As this current trip to South Africa is almost wrapped-up, we take a few seconds to ask ourselves some questions:  

Have we done all we can to fulfill our promise to both the community and our supporters?   

We certainly tried.  Inasmuch as we stayed true to the ideas that founded Focal Point Aid, we have been very successful.  We have been very open with our supporters and tried to communicate throughout this entire process.  As far as the communities are concerned, we have done our best to bring them what we have promised, not always as quickly as we hoped, but we will continue to work until we have.

Does our model of running a small charity program work?

Yes, we thing it does.  Small projects might not get the attention as the big guys, but they have been at the heart of international aid efforts for decades.  A few people deciding it's time to do what they can to help is exactly the way every charity has begun, big or small.  We hope that more people follow this model.  Because of our size, Focal Point is able to spend attention to the little details that can really make a difference.  The relationship we have with the communities we help grows more personal and direct each time we visit. 

When dealing with vendors, government officials, and dozens of other people unknown to you, how do we know who to trust?

The real answer is that you can never be 100% sure.  It will always take a little leap of faith, but we couldn't do our work without help from both our old friends and new ones.  We hope that by spending a lot of time in the location of our project, we get a better sense of the local scene and know where and when to take those risks.  Beyond those personal relationships, we never do anything without research.  We seek out many recommendations from every source possible before setting our path.  We have always and will continue to seek out advice from other non-profits as well when working in common areas and  dealing with common problems. Some times it might take longer or had a few extra hurdles, but we think it's worth it.

Where is our next project?

Focal Point will always look for ways to help anywhere we can. It might be something at home in our backyard or it might be something abroad.  Our work over the next few months will include looking for new grants and new areas of support.  In the meantime, we still have much work to do on our current projects.  While we will continue to find ways to assist Amun Shea in El Salvador, Coffee Bay remains our prime focus.  On this trip we were able to supply desks, chalkboards and new paint two schools.  It was a good trip, but it is not nearly enough.  There is a mountain of more that we can and will do in Coffee Bay.

We hope that our diligence in our work and our proven track record for reliability will help us gain respect within the giving community.  And we hope that our work thus far has lived up to the standards that we hold ourselves to and to the standards that you have all come to expect from us.  Thank you all once again, the next time we talk it will be from New York.

The Story of the Desks

Over the past year, Focal Point Aid has tried to find a way to help out a few schools in need.  Some things we have found remarkably easy, like meeting new people in a community a half world away, learning how and when to trust strangers, and seeing how even small gestures of help can change desperate situations.   On the other hand, some things we have found needlessly difficult, such as actually starting our charity, dealing with large government bureaucracies, and convincing people that even small gestures of help can change desperate situations.  Through the entire process, from researching a region, meeting a community, pinpointing a viable project and raising money, we thought the simplest aspect of our program would be the moment that all that other stuff was completed and we could just go out and purchase what we had promised to deliver.  Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

This trip to South Africa was centered around us purchasing well-needed desks for the Madakeni and Bekisizwe schools.  Along the way, we intended on buying other supplies and materials, but the desks were the centerpiece of our aid package.  Sounds simple enough, right? Several weeks before leaving we started our search for school desks.  We asked the principals of the schools to get price quotes for us, but little news came back our way.  Then we solicited the help of 2 woman working in the South African Embassy in New York. They spoke Xhosa (K-osa) like most people in the Eastern Cape, and they offered to help us translate with vendors while we were still at home.  The prices that we were getting however, were sometimes 300% higher than  we knew they should have been.  We suspected that the vendors heard that an American group was the buyer and they thought they could make more money from us (later we found out that they will raise the price for any reason at anytime, a very frustrating trend considering the amount of improvement that all the schools in the area need).

Meanwhile, we were getting a little nervous.  We had promised the schools that desks were on their way, and we promised our supporters that their donations would be put towards these desks.  So, with some discussion and a little bit of faith, we decided that the best way to negotiate was face-to-face. While waiting for new quotes, we headed to South Africa ourselves.  Along the way, we met with the mother of one of our embassy friends who lived in East London, the South African Board of Education (twice), both schools, another NGO who had purchased desks in the past, and then rechecked our initial contacts.  We were neck deep in price quotes from several different sources, sometimes 3 different prices from the same company.  Some included tax, but charged delivery.  Some offered free delivery but only if we ordered twice as many.  Some vendors were near by but would have taken a very long time to fill the large order.  Some were seen as very reliable but were 300km away.  Who knew that it would be this confusing just to buy desks for a school?  In the end, we chose reliability (free delivery didn't hurt either).  

We are happy to announce that the desks have been purchased!  Along with this order, we had enough money to also buy a school full of chalkboards and dry-erase boards for Bekisizswe.  We will remain in South Africa for a few more days to tie-up some loose ends and then we will return to New York. 

School Safety

The picture above looks much worse than it really is, we promise.   But it brings up a large issue that we have witnessed over the time we have spent here:  School safety.  Yesterday while we were overseeing the painting of the Madakeni Junior Secondary School we met a man introduced to us as the "Councilor".  He has some kind of jurisdiction over the school properties in the area. He was very friendly and glad to speak with us.   However, we were not the reason he was there.  As many schools of the Eastern Cape wish to do, the Madakeni wants to organize a school garden to plant fresh vegetables to prepare better lunches for it's students.  The Councilor had brought his tractor and was there to clear some ground for the garden.  This seemed normal enough.  But what we did not know was that this included burning the brush and debris away first, as is traditionally done on South African farms.  

So what you see above is an actual fire started on school grounds, on purpose, during lunch break where all the students sit in the school yard.  Many children didn't pay it a second thought, but many thought it was fun to surround the fire and see how close they could get or run up and smack the burning ground with sticks.  Now, nobody was hurt today in the fire, but his is certainly not an exercise that many schools in the Unites States would either try or get away with.  Which has lead us to ask some questions about school safety.

How much concern about safety can you have in a place where children must sit outside in cow fields to learn?  How much concern is there about general hygiene where dogs, sheep and geese drink from the same water spigot as students leaving sheddings, waste and feces in all the wrong places? How safe are schools where the concrete stairs are crumbling into piles of sand; where broken windows leave jagged glass within arms reach of anyone older than 7 years; where children already have fallen into creek beds and ravines just trying to get to the bathroom; where just walking to school could mean crossing dangerous terrain?

We don't know.  Each culture lives with its own risks and dangers and they judge for themselves what is acceptable or not.  It seems that in South Africa, starting a brush fire is not a school safety issue.  However, there are things that can be attended to. Fences, for example.  All these schools need fences.  Fences to keep the livestock away from school grounds, and fences keeping thieves away from valuable school property.  Teachers also tell us that they need fences to keep the children from wondering into dangerous situations during school hours.  Unfortunately, there have been too many cases of students being harassed, attacked, or even abducted within feet of school grounds.  It is difficult to keep track of where students are if your school is vastly understaffed and your buildings cannot even house all your students indoors.  

While new buildings and structural improvements could help some of those other schoolyard dangers, the schoolyard will become a much safer place around here with fences (and maybe they could find a less fiery way to clear the brush, too).

A New Coat Of Paint

Our trip so far has included a lot of frustration over things well beyond our control.  If you have been reading some of our past posts, you see we have come up against a beauracratic wall as far as improvements to both schools we are here to help.  We are continually saddened by the conditions in which thousands of children must learn in everyday in what is technically the "wealthiest country in Africa".  This could only lead us to a few very unfortunate conclusions.  Either the South African government is not spending money on these schools, or the money has been diverted away from this region by people within the education system.  It is a sobering reality that unfortunately will effect yet another generation of South African children.

Being outsiders here, it is not our place nor within our power to wage a political fight on behalf of these schools.  For now all we can do is shine a spotlight on the situation and give as much aid to these school directly as we can.  Today, we finally saw the benefits of our project in work.  After several trips to Umtata and wading through a comically inefficient hardware warehouse experience, we were able to purchase about 300 liters of paint and supplies for the Madakeni school.  Today, we painted.  To be more precise, students, teachers and community member painted.  Mrs. Madlalisa (the school's principle seen above) rounded-up a few dozen members of the extended Madakeni family and went to work.  From 9am his morning to the last ring of the school bell, they repaired cracks, spackled over holes and repainted the exterior of their 5 room school building.  Tomorrow they will tackle the interior and maybe take care of a few more cracks.  

Painting an old building isn't as good as building a new one, one that is desperately needed, but it is at least a positive step for this school.  For now they will have freshly painted walls to house the desks that we are on our way to delivering.  

As we continue our work here, we want to thank everyone back home for their support, especially the students of Ms. McKay's 2nd grade class at PS 154Q in New York City.

Communication

Day-4

As you can see from our past posts, we are very concerned about the Bekiziswe school.  We are concerned about the deplorable conditions that the children must endure each day they are there.  We are concerned about corruption in the way that education funds have been misused, how this school, one of the poorest we have ever seen continues to be overlooked for improvements and basic needs like a roof over their heads.  We are also concerned that the Board Of Education or some others who have heard about Focal Point Aid bringing aid to the schools of the region may use us as an excuse for not helping these schools themselves.  This last thought has weighed heavily on our work the past few days.

We were able to reschedule yesterday's postponed meeting with Mr. Madaza from the Board Of Education for today.  The meeting was at the Bekisizwe with us, Mrs. Mangisa, Mr. Madaza and Mrs Madlalisa from the Madakeni school.  Mr. Madaza brought us building blueprints and quotes for desk prices that he had promised from the other day.  After thanking him for those, we wanted to be very clear about our concerns for the school and steered the discussion towards what exactly the BOE is planing for the school.  Mrs. Mangisa had been hearing for the last 13 years to expect new school buildings and we had heard just 2 days ago the exact same thing.  According to Mr. Madaza, installment of temporary structures were scheduled to begin yesterday, but shrugged it off to "the way things happen."  

The meeting today was friendly but very direct.  The answers about the timeline for improvements to the school were unacceptable at best.  While we are here we will do what we can to help the Bekizise.  We will buy the desks that we have promised as well as a dozen chalkboards and other supplies.  But we will  certainly not stop there.  We will continue to raise money for the cause of the schools here.  We will also try to shine a giant spotlight on the egregious neglect of schools like the Bekiziswe. While we were here, we received a call from the South African Embassy in New York.  They are curious about our progress in the Eastern Cape.  We had a brief discussion over the phone about what we have seen here.  They have asked to meet with us when we get back to give them a full report about our trip.  We don't know if it will help, but we hope that us being can push things along.  If our stories and photographs can move those with the ability to help, actually do something positive for these schools, that will be a good day.  We will ourselves keep plugging along.

As always, thanks for following our project.  Please share this with your friends, families and colleagues. 

A serious day at Bekiziswe

Day-3 

Today was all about meeting with the Beiziswe Junior Secondary school.  On our first trip, we were shocked at not only how poor the conditions of the school were but wondered for how long the school could continue running without help.   A year and a half later not much has changed.  Children learning outside sitting on the muddy field surrounding the 4 room school structure, no electricity or running water, no bathroom facilities, no textbooks, no this, no that, etc.  And unfortunately probably no change in sight.   It is hard to explain exactly how much a school like this needs when they barely have a school at all.   The community has come together recently to help build them a small new structure, but it will be no more than a small mud-hut that will allow only a few more students to sit inside in the dark, and only temporarily.  

We met with Mrs Mangisa who has taught children here outside for more than 20 years. She was happy to see us but as we spoke she was noticeably tired of the situation and more than a bit angry at being told time and again that the Board of Education is going to help without ever seeing results.  The day before, we were told at our meeting at the BOE in Umtatha that the Bekiziswe had been visited by the Portfolio Committee sent by the South African Parliament and that they were in line for new buildings.  Mrs. Mangisa told us with a very stern look that they had been hearing the same thing for the last 13 years.  It appears that what we have heard, what the school has been told and what is really happening are three different scenarios.  

We are certainly not here to get involved in the politics of the South African Education system, nor are we here to tell anyone what is right and wrong, but some things are very obvious when you see them.  The Bekiziswe school needs help, their children need help, and their teachers need help.  To put things in perspective let us compare the meetings we have had over the last few days.  One meeting took place with the BOE in a very nice office in a big building in Umtatha.  The second was with The principle of the Madakeni school in a broken down classroom with holes in the ceilings and floors, no electricity and desks on their last legs.  The third was today with Mrs. Mangisa which took place with us sitting outside where the children learn in the grass and mud. We talked as she ate her lunch (rice and cabbage) while a local starving dog sat next to her waiting to see if she would drop any of her food.  This is a very proud woman who has spent her life trying her best to educate the children in her community.  She runs a school of over 600 children and in order to do whatever she can to help her situation she is forced to take meetings sitting in a cow field literally fending off hungry animals.

We tell her that we are able to buy enough desks to fill the classrooms that she has as well as chalkboards and other small items, but obviously there is much more that is needed to be done.   We are not an advocacy organization but we will do what we can to ensure that the Board Of Education does what it has promised.  Unfortunately the meeting we had with them today was postponed.  

Day-2

Day-2

8:50 am- Met up with Sanele to thank him for all the help he gave up while we were back in New York.  It was a fun reunion amongst friends.

9:15 am.  Arrived at the Madakeni Junior Secondary School (with Sanele in tow) to meet with school officials.

9:30 am.  Sat down with the Principle of the school, our very good  friend Mrs. Madlalisa and her teachers to re-aquaint everyone to our project and update them on our fundraising.  It was the schools first day back from classes after a week vacation so our timing could not have been better.  The school, the teachers and the children all made us feel welcome.  Our growing familiarity to this area is a great sense of comfort.

10:00 am.  The meeting goes well and they are thankful that we have come back, since so many other charities that have promised to help, have failed to return.  We mention that it would be helpful to have a school official  come with us to Umtatha to visit the Board of Education and to negotiate with possible vendors for school materials.

10:03 am. Minutes after saying this we are in our car with Mrs. Madlalisa and Sanele heading towards Umtatha.  Along our 100km ride, the four of us talk about Coffee Bay, The World Cup, Music and the possible whereabouts of Osama BIn Laden.

11:30 am. Arrive in Umtatha.

12:00 pm Find Parking. You think it's tough to find parking in NY, try downtown Umtatha at lunchtime!

12:10 pm.  We meet with Thobile Jombile and Simphiwe Madaza at the South African Board of Education.  They are head of the schools in the region (over 300 in all).  We discuss our project and our goals.  We talk about the two schools we are trying to help and tell them our frustrations about finding too many vendors who are overcharging for desks.  They vow to help us find fair prices and help track down building contractors for the future.  Mr. Madaza is coming to Coffee Bay tomorrow to discuss a plan.  This is a good sign.

1:00 pm.  Sanele departs and we go look for a place to eat lunch.  We are in the Capitol of the Eastern Cape so we have many options.  We pass over a few South African chain restaurants like "Steers" and "Debonair Pizza" and ignore the KFC (who knew?) and settle for a quick soup and sandwich place.

2:00 pm Lunch is over and we take Mrs. M to a hardware store where we purchase 140 liters of paint and paint supplies for her school.  The store looked like a mini Home Depot with large aisles filled with paint, fencing, posts, and other building supplies.  This will be a good store to know.  We will organize a painting day later this week after we figure out the desk situation.

Overall today was a very good day.  We bought some of the materials we need and made contacts that could help us in the long term.  The price of desks and finding a reliable vendor continues to be a concern, but hopefully it will get worked out over the next few days.  We hope that we won't have to make the long and arduous drive to and from Umtatha too often.  It takes up a lot of the day, but we will do what we have to.

Tomorrow before we meet with Mr. Madaza, we will go visit Mrs. Mangisa at the Bekiziswe school.  

Day 1

Thank you all for being patient with our blogs. Internet access is almost impossible to find and when we do find it, it is slow. We will not at this time be able to post pictures from our trip yet, but they are on their way. This the rundown from our first day in CoffeeBay.

10:30 am.-We meet with Daphne in East London. Daphne is a teacher in South Africa and the mother of Nwabisa Nzeymana who works in NYC at the South African embassy. She and Thami Sono have been unbelievably helpful over the past few months. Daphne has offered us help in local affairs and nogotiating with vendors.

11:30 am.- We leave East London and head towards the Capitol of the Eastern Cape, Umtatha (along the N2 for anyone consulting a map) we will pass Umtatha on our way to Coffee Bay.

1:00 pm.- We come across a very bad accident on the highway involving severe injuries and several vehichles. The scene is chaotic and already involves too many onlookers. Having little or nothing to offer those involved, we decide to continue to drive on, but the images of the accident have stayed with us all day and we wonder if maybe we should have tried in some way to help.

1:20 pm.- Rescue vehichles pass us heading to aid the victims of the car wreck, they will arrive more than an hour after the accident. South Africa has one of the worst car fatality rates, and the roads continue to be a source of national concern. Alos of note was that the accident occured on the main highway between two of the largest cities in the Eastern Cape and real help didn't arrive for more than an hour. What is of more concern is that the response time was actually fast. It is just a sad fact here in SA that their aren't enough medical or emergency facilities in the places where they are most needed.

2:15 pm.- Our car was "attacked " by a dog. As we get closer to Coffee Bay, the roadway is riddled with Cattle, horses, goats, sheep, dogs and potholes. The livestock in these parts control the road, so the bigger the animal the slower it is to move. The potholes, of course don't move. Along one stretch of seemingly empty road, a very animated dog jumps out in front of our car as we skid to a halt. Like a traffic cop barking orders, the dog continues to hold the road until he sees fit to let us pass, at which point he runs along side the car until he loses interest in us.

2:30 pm.- We reach the coffee bay Ocean View Hotel and check in. The hotel is run by new owners, and we are finding that little by little, our contacts have started to dissappear. Being a half world away from our project has taken it's toll.

4:00 pm.- We find out that AT&T is trying to charge us about $400 an hour to use the 3G wireless internet card here in this part of the world.

4:00.01 pm.- We decide NOT to use the 3G wireless internet card.

7:00 pm.- we call our friend Sanele to set our itinerary for tomorrow. Sanele was our guide from our last trip here (please read our past posts) and coontinues to be a force behind any success we may have in South Africa.

Once again, thank you for following along, we will attempt to give you updats as often as possible.

No Internet

Thank you for checking in on our progress. Team members of Focal Point Aid are currently in Coffee Bay and out of Internet range. They are writing a daily account of their travels and will post them here shortly.

We are all very excited to continue our progress in South Africa. Thank you for being a part of our adventure, please check back daily.

We are here!

We are here, we are here, we are here!  We will spare you all the fun of traveling halfway around the world this time but if you want some idea of what it is like you can read last year's post from our first South Africa trip here.  We will tell you however that a brief unexplained energy shut down at the Oliver Thambo International Airport in Johannesburg was a little added bonus that spiced up our day.   

This year, instead of traveling via Durbin, we flew further south down to the coastal town of East London deep in the heart of the Eastern Cape.  Here in the southernmost part of Africa, winter is turning into spring and the weather is not typically what you would think of when you think of Africa.  It is overcast, mid 60s and it is blowing wind consistently of over 35 kph.  The weather should clear tomorrow and we are very happy about that.  After getting a good nights sleep we will go about our business of procuring goods and materials for the schools of Coffee Bay.  

The first order of business is meeting up with a contact  of one of our new friends at the South African Embassy.  We will tell you more about all of them tomorrow.  As for now, thanks for all your help.  Please spread the word and forward this blog to everyone you know. 

Trip Announcement

As many of you already know, we have been preparing for a return trip to South Africa. We had planned on leaving this week. Due to some unfortunate circumstances and a little bad luck, we have to push back our trip one week. We are know leaving on Thursday, October 1st.

Thank you all for your support over the past few weeks, especially Gary and our friends at the Blue Donkey for putting together a very successful sendoff fundraiser last weekend. With your help and generosity, we hope to fulfill some of our promise to the students and teachers of the Madakeni and Bekiziswe schools.

Keep in touch as we travel, we will be sending info via this blog as we go.

Buy a Desk for South Africa!

On September 24th, we are headed back to Coffee Bay!Before we do, we are having a gathering and fundraiser for the children in the picture above.


Those are students from the Madakeni Junior Secondary School that we went to visit last year. As you can see (and read in past posts) they are great children and happy students, but they need a lot. On this trip Focal Point Aid will purchase some basic necessities for the school. You can help. It takes very little to make a big difference. Here is how:

For $20 you can purchase one of these students a new desk.

For $50 you can purchase a student a desk, a chair and a backpack.

We can guarantee that 100% of all donations that we get prior to our trip will get to the school in only 3 weeks. Your help can make a difference just that quick!

Come Join us at the Blue Donkey bar this Saturday, September 19th at 4pm to make your donation and help send us off.

WHEN: September 19th @ 4PM

WHERE: Blue Donkey, Amsterdam btw. w83rd and w84th st.

See you there. If you cannot make it, you can make your donation by visiting our website here.

A Focal Point Aid Benefit Concert

Come out to see some great music and support Focal Point Aid while you're at it.

WHAT: Benefit Concert for Focal Point Aid

WHEN: June 2nd, 7pm

WHERE: Arlene's Grocery, 95 Stanton st. Lower Manhattan

WHO: Zach Hurd www.myspace.com/zhurd
Tina Mathieu www.myspace.com/tinamathieumusic
John Schmitt www.myspace.com/johnschmitt
The Library www.myspace.com/thelibrarymusic


Proceeds of this event will go directly towards our school project in Coffee Bay, South Africa.

For more details about Focal Point Aid go here. If you can't make the event and wish to donate, please go here.

Wrap-up

After a week in El Salvador (and a little trip to Honduras) members of Focal Point Aid have returned. We were able to spend some valuable time with our friends at Amun Shea. We were proud to be able to buy new desks and textbooks for the students of the school and were invited to take pictures to document the progress the school has seen during its second year.

The school continues to be a great success story, but it is not a guaranteed success. It will have to work hard and struggle just to keep its doors open. The standard it has set for itself is high and they have hopes to continue the promise it has made to these children and the community. Seeing what can be accomplished in just a short amount of time has indeed been an inspiration.

Thank you to all the students, teachers and folks at the Perkin Lenca Hotel for the warm welcome. We hope bringing attention to this region and this school will bring some aid their way.

To assist Focal Point Aid, please make donations here.

To see some early returns on our photography from this latest trip, click here.

There is much more to come. This blog will continue to be live, so please check back often for updates and information.

Teachers and a sad farewell

We have been telling you about the Amun Shea school now for about a year.  We have told the story of its beginning, it's evolution and it's early success.   We have documented our visits with photography and written stories.  What we haven't said much about are the wonderful teachers at the school who have been doing a lot of heavy lifting to help get this project off the ground and keep it running.  Teachers are and will always be a guiding force for any group of children, but here in Morazon, they can have a profound effect on how children grow.   

Ana is the day-to-day director of the school and as one of the founding members, she has helped to shape the curriculum that has been a main ingredient to their success.  Marlene and Marina teach the youngest of the students here, and have a thankless job of trying to instill the idea of education into children who's older siblings may not have been lucky enough to have this opportunity.  Daisy, Doris, and Antonia teach 1st, 2nd and 4th grades.  As you have seen from our pictures they keep the students smiling and learning.  Meymis who is the Music and Arts teacher has created a chorus from scratch and within only one year this group has won awards for best choir in Morazon and could be the best young student choir in all of El Salvador.

Then there are the volunteers who come and go for periods of time, teaching classes like phys-ed or english.  This is the case of Erica who came from Ireland to help out for a while.  She is replacing Alex (seen above) who after 4 months is going back to D.C.(via a trip to Guatemala) to rejoin his life there.  We were on hand for his last day Friday when we witnessed an emotional farewell scene that took us and all the teachers by surprise.  As the students sang songs to Alex to say goodbye, one by one they broke down in tears. Some students were so overcome with grief that they ran outside the classroom to cover their faces.  Teachers here represent hope and give the students something that is very precious.  They become attached to these teachers and as we saw on Friday their departure sometimes is very hard to take.

Separation from loved ones is nothing new to these children.  As you drive down the road or walk through the villages and hang out in the town square, you quickly notice that the majority of people you see are younger than 18 or older than 40.  During the war, this might make sense, but the peace accords were signed 17 years ago, a whole generation removed from the violence.  Where are the young adults?  Once you reach the age that you would expect to start become an active member of the community, you have a responsibility to support the rest of your family.  For most young people here that means leaving the country to look for work (mostly illegal oppressive labor) abroad.  The largest source of income for most areas of El Salvador are these remmitances.  It is a viscious cycle that has no clear end in sight.  The best and the brightest leave the country and very few are left to become community leaders to build foundations for positive change.  This process has crippled and handcuffed the Salvadoran economy and continues to tear apart families.

When a teacher leaves, even if he was only there for a few months, the students are reminded of the hard reality that hey are trying to overcome.  Perhaps these students with enough help and guidance will help break this cycle.  But for now they sing farewell songs wishing their families could stay together:

Donde voy, donde voy
(Where I go, where I go)
Esperanza es mi destinación
(Hope is my destination)
Solo estoy, solo estoy
(I'm alone, I'm alone)
Por el monte profugo me voy
(Through the desert, a fugitive, I go)
Dias semanas y meces
(Days, weeks and months)
Pasa muy lejos de ti
(Pass far away from you)
Muy pronto tu llega dinero
(Soon you'll receive some money)
Yo te quiero tener junto a mi
(I want to have you near me)
El trabajo me llena las horas
(Work fills my hours)
Tu risa no puedo olividar
(Your laughter I can't forget)
Vivir sin tu amor no es vida
(To live with out your love isn't living)
Vivir de prófugo es igual
(To live as a fugitive is the same)

We follow alex back to the U.S. As we do, we want to thank the teachers for their great work and for welcoming us once again into their world.  

Honduras

Today, we spent the day exploring villages and sites deep in the Honduran mountainside. Most notably we went to see the location of the Salvadoran refugee camps in Colomoncagua.  We were privileged to be accompanied by our friend and host Ron Brenneman who spent time in these camps as an Aid worker during the war years.  26 years ago Ron relocated himself from the U.S. to the middle of a conflict zone to work with aid groups throughout El Salvador.  One of his early accomplishments was creating a model for a house that was used throughout the camps for people displaced by the war (a design still known as Ron's House).  He stayed on in El Salvador even after his organization had decided not to.  Since then, he has become an integral part of this community and as great teller of its history.   He has written a book about his experiences coming out soon.  Before you read the rest of this blog, you should read some of his (perkin musings).  We were lucky to have him as our guide today.

The first thing we noticed as we crossed the border between El Salvador and Honduras was that there was not much of a border at all.  We didn't have to show documentation to pass the border patrol.  As Ron said to us "Border's like this are only important during a war".  The road was dirt, rock, clay and little bumpy.  It wended its way throughout the beautiful mountainsides with small farms and tiny house clusters (mostly of Native Lencans) along the way.  The town of Colomoncagua is small, quaint and dominated by the image of the old church.  As we walked along the cobblestone streets, we noticed that we were being followed by interested but friendly stares.  They surely don't see many tourists around here.  Later in the day, after the tour of the camps, we returned to drink some Honduran beer in the back patio of a General store.

As we made our way through the muddy roads leading to the camps we stop and Ron tells us, "This is it."  We get out and survey a mostly empty tract of land that looks pretty much like everything else in the landscape.  Besides a few crumbling concrete foundations where mechanical shops once were and random piles of rusted tin, we can only imagine what this place was like during the the time between 1980-90 when as many as 6,000 refugees shared about 10 acres of rough terrain (the pictures above are of the camps during the war and yesterday).  Ron starts pointing out places where things used to be and as he tells us he tries to paint a picture of what the camps were like; how the camps were separated, where the different workshops were located, how they had to live in tents before any structures were built.  Starting a little before 1981, tens of thousands of Salvadorans were being displaced as the conflict was just starting to heat up.  The refugees settled in these camps (the largest at Mesa Grande at about 12,000).  They were run by the United Nations High Commissioner of Refuges and the Honduran military guarded the camps with prison-like conditions.  Without the help of foreign aid workers the camps would be little more than concentration camps.  We visited several sites in the former camp including the site where Ron lived while working there, a cemetary of those who died at the camps, and the remnants of the few permanent structured built there.  We almost got lost in the jungle setting that has grown over the camp sites in the last 20 years. If it wasn't for a chance run in with a machete wielding farmer, we still might be looking for our way out.

The day was a heavy one due to the reality of the regions past.  We are not the ones who can tell the story of the camps or the war for that matter, but as we learn more of the history of El Salvador, the work of this community to return to a bit of normalcy is incredible to witness.    Just like our tour of an old refugee camp, much of he history of the war will soon be overgrown with new memories.  But with people like Ron and many others of this community sharing their experiences and telling stories of the past, no amount of new growth can completely cover up the past.

After our visit to the camps and our relaxing beer in Colomoncagua we toured some of the towns on both sides of the border including a walk around Torola and a quick meal in San Fernando during a small rain storm.  It's hard to classify this area as remote, but it is isolated.  The towns are all quiet and the people very friendly. Today was a good day traveling about the border.  The last few days of our trip are still undetermined, but todays trip certainly was a highlight.  The more we visit this community, the more attached we become.  This certainly is a special and unique part of the world.

Buggin' Out!

This is just a small post to describe a little bit of travel pains we have had to deal with down here during the Central American rainy season.  For anyone who thinks adventure traveling is glamorous, take a look at the picture above.  This spider watches you while you sleep and greets you when you wake.  She is not aggressive but she will jump clear across the room when she gets startled.  And she is not the only little critter following our every move.  There are beetles the size of quarters, lizards that like to crawls along the tops of our boots, and one very large creature that hovers and buzzes around like a helicopter that we have been calling the "Dinosaur Bee".

This all comes with the territory and has not stopped us from doing our work or having a good time, but there are two very unique bug related stories that we want to share with you.  The first involves a volunteer named Alex who has been teaching at Amun Shea since the beginning of this year.  After experiencing some serious pain in is big toe, we drove him to the local medical clinic where he was treated for a bug bite.  Apparently while he slept one night, a nasty little creature called a "Chinene" crawled on his foot and excreted a toxin on his toes and it was slowing burning the skin away.  Sound like fun?

The other story happened last night just before dusk.  During the beginning of the rainy season, when the circumstances are just right, like a big rain storm that ends with a few hours of sunlight left, a phenomenon occurs a few times a year.  Last night was one of those times.  A swarm...when i say a swarm I mean a cloud...and when i say a cloud, I mean a plague of flying termites called "Palomillo" (little doves) descended on us and others throughout Morazon.  They were relentless for the few hours these little pests looked for wood to burry themselves into.  When the Polomllo arrive, there is nowhere to hide and all  can do is calmly allow them to surround you until the sun goes down.  We waited and then had dinner and some drinks while the dogs and extra large toads had a field day cleaning up the layer of dead termites.

 

I am not saying any of these bugs/creatures/swarms have detracted from our trip, I am just saying the next time you want to travel far away from home, ask yourself if dealing with toxic Chinene and flying Palomillo is something you could handle.

We will post again later with news from our day spend in Honduras.

This is what change looks like!

As you probably already know from past posts, the main reason that we took this trip was because we were able to give the school at Amun Shea a gift this year.  The desk seen above is one of 38 that Focal Point Aid purchased this year.  We also were able to by textbook packages for the students as well.  They use these books to study Math, Science, music etc.

In the scope of the larger needs of the school and the bigger issues facing the community these gifts were small ones.  Over time we hope that we will be able to do much more for this school and this community.  However, we take pride in the fact that even in a tough economic year, a year that has seen this generations largest drop in the stock market and the largest increase in the unemployment rate, that people were still willing to give donations to a new unproven charity like Focal Point Aid.

So all of you at home who helped us out, even just a little, take a look at what you helped to bring to these wonderful students here thousands of miles away.  We hope you recognize the difference that each and every donation makes.  

Thank you again.  As we continue this trip and continue our efforts in other parts of the world, we are glad that you have come with us...even if it is just reading along to this blog.  Pass along out greetings to your friends and send them to our website to find out how they can help.  

Back to School

In our first full day here back in El Salvador we went to visit Amun Shea.  If you have not heard about the school, please go back a few pages and read about how we came to find this place and how our own efforts have brought us back.  On our last trip the school housed 52 students K-3rd grade (12 plus per grade).  They all learned in a single 4 room building on a mostly barren tract of rocky land with little more than elbow grease and imagination keeping the place together.  Within their first year, Amun Shea had gained friends from around the globe and received recognition from within El Salvador for academic achievement and was looking to expand.

What difference does a year make?  Well, we saw the answer this  morning.  The school has expanded.  It is now pre-K through 4th grade (18 plus per year) and spread out through 3 separate school buildings, a nutritional center (more on that later), water systems, full bathroom facilities, an outdoor complex with a future garden project built by MIT volunteers and still room to expand.  

We were welcomed back with warmth and a mini concert by the new award winning school choir. The music program has won national competitions despite the lack of musical instruments (hint-hint for anyone out there holding onto unused guitars and keyboards that have been gathering dust waiting to be donated to a good cause).  

Many of the children recognized us while we were making our way around the complex with our cameras.  The more outgoing students still hammed it up for the lens while the shy ones giggled while hiding there faces in their hands. We will bring you these photos over the next week.

We continue to be impressed by the evolution of the school here.  If Amun Shea were to be transplanted in Westchester it would be an inspiration for its imagination, openness and positive learning environment.  Here in Perquin, with the backdrop of post-war politics, an economy dependent on aid and sheer luck, and a notoriously poor national education system, what they have accomplished here at Amun Shea in a year and a half is no short of  miracle.

Over the next few days, we will try in this blog to highlight its development and the hard working people who have sacrificed to make it happen.

Notes from our Travel Day

We have been welcomed back to El Salvador!  It has been a long day of travel for us and we are very tired.  But as we sit in our now familiar table in the dining room of the Perkin Lenca Hotel catching up with our good friend Ron, we feel good.  

A few notes from our trip so far:  The airline TACA INternational did a wonderful job of flying us here with a few dozen others, but the flight was less than half full.  It is hard to tell if this is due to the economy, the approaching rainy season in Central America or the threat of the swine-flu that has been hanging over the heads of the traveling public (dare we say partly due to overblown sensational coverage by mainstream media).  The flu has indeed hit the region this far south and evidence of concern lies in the doctors masks worn by about half of the airline employees, but we don't fell all that worried.  Consider that only 2 cases have been found in all of El Salvador thus far, compared to the 1,000 plus that has hit the U.S including 50 reported in our hometown of New York City.

The difference in heat and humidity is the first adjustment that we will have to make as it hit us like a wave once we stepped outside of the airport.  Luckily, the climate in the mountains here in Morazon is much more temperate and cool breezes tend to dominate in the evenings.   The ride here was pretty much the same as past trips, only with less wrong turns and the comfort of knowing our surroundings.  Since it did not rain during our 4 hours car ride, we were able to enjoy some of the natural beauty that the country has offer (like the dominating view of Volcan De St. Vincente  seen above).

Thats it for now, we are up early tomorrow to say hello to Amun Shea.

Oh, yes...for those keeping track, we are 2 hours behind you on the East Coast.

Southward Ho!

In just a few hours, we will be on Taca Airlines on our way to Perquin via San Salvador, San Miguel and a few dozen other El Salvador way points. By now you all should have received our yearly update and the announcement of this trip, so there is no need to recap here.

The good news: We are able to make this trip and help out our friends at the Amun Shea school who continue to grow and prosper despite myriad obstacles in their way.

The Bad News: As expected during the start of this rainy season, the weather report is calling for 60-80% chance of serious rain storms each day we are there.

That's all for now. Wish us luck and see you all when we return. Check back here often to see what we are up to. We will be posting daily reports from our trip.

Return To Perquin

Focal Point Aid heads back to EL SALVADOR.

On Wednesday May 13th, members of Focal Point Aid will head back to El Salvador to visit our friends at the Amun Shea school. As we mentioned in our most recent update, because of generous donations to Focal Point Aid, we were able to purchase desks and textbooks for the students at Amun Shea. Most of the goods have arrived and we have been invited by the school and the Perkin Educational Opportunities Foundation (PEOF) to visit and witness the progress of the program.

As you may remember, Amun Shea is a private school program in Perquin, El Salvador in the Morazon Province. It opened last year for 52 students Kindergarten through 3rd grade. It quickly showed great success and is a model for what education can do for a community that has gone through some tough times.

We are happy to be able to help, and are hopeful that our relationship with this school and its families will inspire others to reach out and assist in any way that they can.

Follow along with our trip by reading our Travel Blog, and if you wish to help out please make a donation here.

An overdue update

This was our year end update that was sent out in January. We appologize for the tardiness of the post.

Hello friends and Happy New Year. Thank you all for your well wishes. We have received some e-mails and questions regarding our projects, so we want to send you this project update to keep you all up to speed.

The good news!
Our friends at the Amun Shea School in El Salvador have entered their second year and have expanded their program to include grades K-4. As an initial aid package, Focal Point Aid will purchase a full set of textbooks for all the students at Amun Shea including Math, Science, Social Studies, and Language. We will also fund the building of 36 new desks and chairs for the school. Our gifts to the school may also include other schools supplies as well as musical instruments. We will deliver these goods this spring.

Coffee Bay, South Africa

Our contact with the community in Coffee Bay, South Africa has been harder to maintain over these past few months. However, we are confident that we will be able to travel back sometime this summer to deliver an aid package to the Bekisizwe and Madekeni schools similar to the one we are donating to El Salvador. With it, we will continue the initial planning for new school buildings.

The economy and Focal Point Aid

As you all know it has been a hard year for charities and non-profits. Many organizations have suffered greatly and others have been forced to completely shut their doors. The tragedy of this situation is that as the stability of our economy waivers, the people of the world with the greatest needs suffer the most.

When we created Focal Point Aid a year ago, we knew that many charity groups are weighed down by the burden of administrative costs like salaries and office space. Thankfully, since these costs are not part of who we are, we have not been forced to abandon our work. However, the state of the economy will make it a little bit harder for us to complete our current projects in the timeframe we first had envisioned. Your help is needed more than ever. We except donations through our website or by mail.

Thank You

It has been quite a year for Focal Point Aid. We traveled half way round the world and back, endured tough economic times, suffered a few tropical diseases and here we are, still standing. We look forward to the successes and challenges of our second year.
Keep in touch. We have several events on the horizon.

Thanks again for your support,

Joe, John, Pete and Heather