monkeys, children, and waterfalls

we had a pretty fun weekend actually. sarita had met a few german travelers in baños a few weeks ago and invited them to come out to puyo and hang out. we hung out with them on saturday, walked around puyo, ate a really cheap lunch that was pretty good, then went on a hike out in the jungle by our lodge. we found a really cool little hidden waterfall. on sunday we went back into town and stopped at a little town on the way into puyo called triumpho where we hiked to another waterfall and went swimming. it was a little cold, but felt really good. later, we went back to the monkey sanctuary. i was wearing my favorite bob marly hat and it didn´t take but 5 minutes for a monkey to swoop by on a line overhead and snatch it off my head. he tried to wear it, but then he released the snaps on the back and started chewing on it. he took it high into a tree for a while then dropped it on the roof. i thought i wasn´t getting it back, but then another monkey came by and dropped it down. lesson learned. don´t wear hats around mokeys. also, keep your pockets closed, they try to take things from it. 


this week i started teaching solo/ with new volunteers in the schools.  the schools are all labeled by their kilometer mark on the road. i went to kilometer 10 on monday. the lower the kilometer, the closter to puyo it is. the first class i had 19 1st and second graders. it was a bit unexpected because so far the class capacity has been 10 children at the most.  its really hard for me to focus on trying to teach english when i notice a real educational need. i feel that priorities are a little mixed. ive been trying to add in academics into the lessons. for this class i read a book about time. the kids don´t seem to read much at the schools so i found myself focused more on literacy skills like being able to tell what comes next in the story which meant i was speaking more spanish than english. its tricky to balance. the older the child, the harder it is to speak solely in english and i find myself reverting to spanish more than i thought. also, i really want to get to know the kids here, but find it next to impossible when i´m supposed to be teaching nearly 30 different classrooms of children (5 schools, about 6 classrooms each, seperated by age) the system is not set up to know the children well. and i feel if i don´t know the children, then i can´t really teach them effectively.  i would say that i´m learning a lot here about what constitutes effective and non effective teaching systems abroad.  this weekend i was doing a little research online, trying to find some good universal curriculums for teaching abroad. i found one curriculum, created by an australian guy, that focuses purely on what children want to know in english. i got some good songs from the website. www.genkienglish.net. and brought them into the classroom.  the kids enjoyed them. though, the challenge here is that the children only learn for 40 minutes a week and then have no one to practice with. very very few people here speak any english.  and we all know that learning another language requires practice. also, in talking to some of the locals, i´ve noticed that many have said that they want to learn the local indiginous language called kechua (don´t think that is spelled correctly), not english. one man i spoke to at the bus station said that he was actually bothered by foreigners coming to teach english that don´t know spanish. i can see the irony and frustration in this situation. 

the past few days, ive been orienting the new volunteers into the classroom. theyve been observing me and i´ve been helping them translate. hopefully tommorow i´ll be able to step back from teaching the class and allow the volunteers a chance to take the lead. though, as a said, they are only here until the end of next week. so, by the time they become comfortable, it will be time for them to leave. its strange being the go to person for answers when i´ve only been here for a little over a week.  but, i feel confident in the classrooms and being able to speak spanish is a savior here.

unfortunately for the children and the project, sarita and i have planned to leave here for quito on the 29th of the month. we found a hostel to stay in for free in exchange for work. its in a nice, historical part of quito. honestly, as harsh as this may sound, i´m excited to leave. i´m just feeling so tired here, already after only a week. the commuting for three hours a day or more is tiring. the 30 to 40 minute hike up the steep rocky hill at high altitude at 630 in the morning to catch the bus is tiring. the hour long bus ride is packed most of the times. sometimes we stand body to body.   and the teaching is also a bit taxing, but wouldn´t be if the elements were different. i think i would feel different about leaving if i really felt that i was able to make a big difference and had the support to do so. but given the constraints of the situation, i don´t feel like my presence here is useful, sadly.  sarita and i plan to travel around as cheeply as possible. we´ve looked around at different farms in ecuador and peru that will give a place to stay in exchange for work. i´m excited to have some new experiences and be able to see a bit more of south america.  thats all for now.