Karla from Mindo: 4 year old photographer

Today we walked around town with the kids from Salem, and found nature where we could. As the town is about 6 blocks square, that's not too hard to do :-) We had Karla, or Karlita as her mom sometimes called her, and Paula, her mom with us. Karla is crazy about snapping that shutter on the camera, and took about 200 photos. I posted some of her better ones here, as well as those I took of her taking pictures. She's adorable and stole Joe's heart as well as mine. 

 Karla at Salem before we headed around town, these 2 photos by Maria, another Salem child.

Karla and her best friend.

Paula, holding Karla's hand, is her mother. She may be 18 or 19 years old, and works at Salem helping take care of the kids. She's very capable, but in the States she would be a kid herself. 

Cristian, Susana, Paula, Karla and Joe. Karla stayed close to Joe :-)

Top to bottom: Paula, Susana, Miara, Jose and Karla.

 Paula took this cute one.

Photo by Karla of her mom.

She is so intent with her camera, and only 4 years old!

 This is the photo she took. There were quite a few shots of Joe's middle, her view point tended to cut off a few heads :-)

By Karla as well as the next one.

When we reached the river Karla stripped to her undies and went in.  Her mom joined her and they played by the waterfall! The amount of  oversight by parents here in Mindo is a fraction of what we do at home, children run free and are not watched closely at all! But no one seems to get hurt and there is more freedom and less fear.

She loves her camera!

Karla started out the day much cleaner :-)

This is her special pose to take a photo :-)

 Karla took these next few photographs, all on her own. I think they came out very well, she's really looking at her world.

Her Mom, Paula.

Cristian.

Joe, she took lots of photos of him :-)

Karla took this one and I took the next one of her taking this shot...

What a great child!

Photo Walk with the Camera for Kids Kids

Joe and I walked around Mindo with the Salem children and our cameras today, I let them lead the way. Their interests are in La Naturaleza, Nature, so they took us along the raging Mindo River and we took photos of each other and anything else that captured our interest. These children live together during the week at Salem International, and go home to their families on the weekend. They come from disadvantaged homes broken up by drug and alcohol abuse or other disfunction. In spite of it all, they are loving to each other, to us and are fun to be with!

I love these children! They are mostly the same ones from when I was here last year, except for the girl in the yellow.

Me and Cristian.

 Tubing is big business on the river in Mindo. 

Cristian took this great shot of Maria with one of the donated cameras.

Joe got this one.

A woman who asked one of the boys to help her get this guava down from the tree. He did, by throwing many large sticks at it.

Cristian and Noemi

 Also another image by Joe, he's taking lots of photos and blogging, too!! See a link to his blog on the right side listing.

 Cristian y Maria

Maira y Susana.  Maira is an incredible football goalie, we watched a game where she single handedly stopped about 50 goals!  Susana is more interested in Alvaro and the other boys :-)

First 24 Horas in Mindo, Ecuador

All these photos were taken with my small point and shoot Sony Cybershot camera. I left my battery charger at home for my Canon T2i, big duh, but am compelled to take photos no matter what camera I have, and I think these turned out fine. Ian's friend, Luke, bought me a new charger in Maine yesterday, and via Andrew I should receive it in the next few days and be using my 'big' camera again. See if you can tell the difference...

 Ian and Andrew left for Quito this afternoon to pick up Luke and Alison at the airport. Two birder friends who made it through the blizzard to Ecuador, they will all travel together birding for about 3 weeks. Happy adventures!

Getting ready to leave, I'm sorry to see them go :-(

 Just a wildflower, but what a flower!

 Joe with another large jungle plant.

A girl we met by the river with a pigeon she had rescued. She was going to take care of it and release it. 

 Another darling child.

Alvaro, my star photographer at Salem, with the cameras Joe and I dropped off today.

Where we had breakfast this morning, at El Quetzal.

View from our balcony off our room at El Quetzal, our hostal in Mindo. A very nice room, with private bath and breakfast for $30/nt.

Morning tea.

Dinner last night with our friends Karen and Gary, who live in Mindo, and Ian and Andrew.

What are they hoping to see?? Birds???

Playing with Toy Story characters, just like in the movie!

Lincoln, our driver, drove us to Mindo from Quito yesterday in his white SUV. We met up with Karen and Gary on the way and Ian and Andrew went off birding with them, while Joe and I continued on to Mindo.