A New Experience at This Year’s Adopt-A-School
For a different twist on the Adopt-A-School experience, I brought my granddaughter this time, getting to see it through her eyes.
Story by Nancy Cowal, CONAPAC volunteer
I’ve been down to the Amazon many times to help with school deliveries as part of CONAPAC’s Adopt-A-School program. I even remember traveling hours and hours in wooden boats with thatch roofs. That was a long time ago. The last few years we have had quite a few young people accompanying older family members as volunteers for the program. It’s such a pleasure to see the experience through their eyes and watch the children from the villages engage with people a lot closer to their age. I’d thought about it a number of times before, but this year I arranged to bring my 14-year-old granddaughter, Cadence, to join the volunteer group. It was an easy sell because she loves tropical animals and the rainforest, and because I’d been telling her about the experience ever since she was little. I thought I’d take the opportunity in this month’s newsletter to tell you about our Adopt-A-School experience.
I was worried about whether Cadence would even be able to travel with me as we waited for her new passport to arrive, but, at just about the last minute, it did. Packing was fraught with thinking of everything she might need. And then it took three flights to get there. We met up in Atlanta with our friend and fellow volunteer, Lundie Spence, for that long and tiring flight to Lima. We arrived in Lima and then went on to Iquitos. I was glad that I had decided on coming a day early to have time for us to recuperate, although I’m not sure whether it was Cadence or I who needed it more. That extra day in Iquitos meant we were able to go to the Manatee Rescue Center, which is a great experience for adults and young people. I was really looking forward to sharing Iquitos with Cadence, as it is an interesting place and very different from anywhere she has visited in the States. After a few fun city experiences during the day, in the evening we met up with all the other volunteers. Our group ranged from volunteers who have been returning for 10-plus-years, to first-timers, to several family groups--the younger generation with parents or grandparents, aunts or uncles. It was great fun to greet old friends and new, and to introduce Cadence to them. The next morning we were off in boats and heading downriver!
It was the weekend, so we had a few excursions and time to look around at Explorama’s Ceiba Tops Lodge. Lots to explore and experience, like a fishing trip for pirañas and jungle walks and animal encounters. Cadence embraced all of it. She loves exploring in nature and she’s always been able to strike up a conversation with adults and kids she'd only just met. There were many chances to do just that. We had a great group of kind and caring folks, young and old, who were welcoming and helpful. For instance, before the delivery week even began, we all had an assignment to put together the kindergarten educational materials, so the group all pitched in to produce the bags for each school in very little time. Cadence was already working with Pachita on that.
Above: Community teachers and Adopt-A-School volunteers - First time in Peru ~ First time seeing the Pacific Ocean ~ First view of the Amazon ~ On the ground in Iquitos ~ Meeting up with Kalyna, Pam’s daughter, who had visited us in the States many years ago - First sunset on the Amazon ~ First walk in the rainforest
Monday, our first day of community visits, started off right after breakfast. We divided into four groups each day--CONAPAC staff, local education department representatives, volunteers, and our Explorama guides and boatmen. We visited two or three communities each day, each one unique. At each community we set up the student and teacher packets and other educational materials, and then the events began. Community leaders, teachers and students made presentations, played music, and performed dances, often asking for our participation. No time to be shy! Then classroom materials were displayed and each student and teacher called up to receive a personal packet of school supplies. I had Cadence with me the first two days, and then she was off on her own with other groups. It’s a lot of work and a lot of fun meeting people in the communities and she joined right in. For us older people it was great to have young folks like Cadence along to dance around the “humishas” (palm tree piñatas set up out in the sun with gifts attached). She also played with the kids, including tossing around the soccer balls, just to make sure the new ones we’d delivered were working.
The deliveries were made Monday through Friday, with great weather all week--cloudy, making it cooler, or better said, not as hot as it could be, and without heavy rain. All too soon it was the end of the week. We had visited 45 of the 49 CONAPAC partner communities. The second-week volunteers arrived on Saturday, and we all worked on putting together packets of photos and letters and drawings made by the community children for their donors. The newly arrived volunteers would go out on Monday to deliver to the last few communities. By Saturday night we all felt quite close, as we’d chatted, told stories, worked and laughed together. And that evening we had a great dance party, the “Hora Loca” or crazy hour, led by a professional dance group from Iquitos. It was a good thing we had lots of “humisha" dancing practice!
I had hoped this trip would give Cadence a larger picture of the world by experiencing foreign airports and cities, meeting people who live in the Amazon, sharing work with our CONAPAC friends and volunteers, who come from many places, and seeing how different and the same we all are. And, as any of you who have traveled with kids knows, you get a chance to see many things in a different light. As Lundie, who has traveled innumerable times with students and teachers, has said, travel opens doors that you may not have gone through or even known existed. So, I thank Cadence for coming with me this time. My experience was all the richer for it. And, if any of you are contemplating sharing the experience with your children or grandchildren, I highly recommend it!
Above: Adopt-A-School delivery days
March 2025 Adopt-A-School
These are the numbers for AAS deliveries 2025
Kindergarten 433
Elementary 965
High School 900
Teachers. 253
Total Students 2298
March 2025 CONAPAC Volunteers and Staff
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