Alpha Eight week two update by Hannah Johns

Charlie gets stuck in on the Alpha Eight project site

The community centre is going up quickly now and it is really coming together. All four walls are going up fast and it’s getting very exciting. Over the past couple of days the groups have been spending time with their families, asking questions about their lives and work, and squeezing in the odd cooking lesson, as well as the daily milking of the cows.

Comida tipica: rice, beans, tortilla and salty cheese - your staple diet in Miraflor

Alpha Eight celebrated Valentine’s Day by designing their own anonymous cards using the famous Raleigh art box then picked up random ones and tried to guess who it was from. At the start of the week they visited another community that Raleigh has previously worked with to find out what ways it has affected them and what benefits it has brought. The week ended with a piñata party for a local boy, with lots of dancing done by all. Monday morning brought a visit from the Field Base team and a trek up a local mountain to see a coffee, banana and orange plantation. At the evening meeting Toby showed off his hypnosis skills by getting Roisin to forget her own name! For lent, Hannah has bravely decided to give up scratching her bites while Nick is giving up biting his nails... the rest of the team think they have given up enough already!

Fieldbase deliver the mail

Checking out the community's coffee plantation