Ive made it safe and sound to quito already. We ended the project last Friday. It was sad to say goodbye to the kids after only being there for less than a month. The last class that i taught was a fifth grade classroom that was amazing. They really enjoyed the activites that we had planned and the class ran so smoothly. They were energetic and you could tell that they were learning. Those are my favorite teaching moments, where everyone is engaged with their whole selves. And there is always a lot of laughter. At the end of the class the kids were asking about what we were going to do next week. It was very hard to tell them that I wasnt coming back. Though after staying a few days at the hostel ill be volunteering at, i can tell that the right decision was made. Here there are a few volunteers, but all speak spanish and ill get lots of opportunity to be hearing and speaking spanish with adults. the hostel is very cute. the woman that runs it is so warm and welcoming. During the time here we will be helping to paint and put together rooms that are not being used at the moment. also i'll be helping to landscape and plant a garden outback near the rabbit cage (lots of cute bunnies out there). There is a good sense of commity here and i like that.
This past weekend we went to baños, a town about 1 1/2 from puyo. The town is pretty touristy. You can rent motorbikes, quads, go canyoning, white water rafting, horse riding, and bunji jumping. When you walk on the streets venders are all hollering at you to purchase these activities through them. We didn't do any of those activites. Instead, we went on a 5 hour hike up through the hills around the town to view the volcano. It was really pretty. Our legs were definately burning by the end. We also got to bathe in the natural hot springs coming from the volcano and shower in the water from the nearby waterfall. This is why the town is called baños (meaning baths and also bathrooms). The weekend before we went Tena, a town about two hours north of puyo. We went white water rafting. It was really fun because there weren't all of the regulations that you get in the states. We were sitting on the front of the boat during the rapids, standing in the boat trying to balance holding hands, jumping off to swim in the river, and we got to ride on the front of a kayak through the rapids as well. We stopped midway to tour inside a little cave on the way. The istructors rubbed some red and yellow clay rocks together to make face paint. They painted our faces in different native kitchwa patters.
So, this is our second day now in quito. Sarita and I have already got a gym membership for the month. Were going to take a class everyday during the week. Some of them are latin dancing classes, those should be fun. So far, all is well here and i'm looking forward to spending the next month fixing up the hostel and helping the owner aurelia.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
the first week
I´m here in Puyo for the day, so ill have some time to write. and fyi, i´m not going to use capitol letters because i have to press like three buttons at a time to get the capitol letter on this keyboard. i´ll start with arrival. i arrived in quito, looked for my luggage only to find that it wasn´t there. when i tried to ask someone about what to do, they didn´t know how to help me because i didn´t have a phone number and was going to be 8 hours from the airport in the jungle the next day. so, i went to the arrival area to look for the person who was supposed to be picking me up. no one. i went to the desk that the agency told me to check with if there were problems. they said they didn´t have any knowledge of my arrival and noone contacted them from youvolunteer. so, i was trying to sort out the situation as calmly as i could, but trying to communicate in my broken spanish and listen to them speak in an accent i´m unfamiliar with was a bit difficult. by this point it was getting dark and i was thinking to take a taxi to a hostel, but wanted to stick around the airport to sort out the luggage situation. also, i didn´t know if the agency had already arranged a hostel stay for me. i went to try and use a phone to call the director when a flight agent probably noticed my distress and asked if i needed help. he lent me his phone and helped to sort out the situation with the agency. after about a half an hour they found my luggage and sorted a ride to the hostel. the driver was very nice. he walked me into the hostel because he said it wasn´t safe for me to be out after dark alone. luckily i didn´t take a taxi by myself. the woman at the hostel talked with the director and told me that someone was going to be picking me up in the morning at 730. i waited until 745 the next morning. no one. so i just took a taxi to the bus station. the taxi driver again got out with me and helped me to purchase a ticket to puyo. the people here are so kind. the bus ride was beautiful. i saw so many waterfalls. the amazon looks just as i had imagined. so serene and natural. i get off the bus, not expecting to find the pick up person. but right as i exited, i heard, "jessica hicks?" ahhh relief. manuel was very warm and welcoming. we took a taxi to another bus station. then climbed onto a crowded bus with my big bags and took an hour and a half bus ride to the house. getting to the house, i didn´t expect to only see two volunteers (who have left already). both were british guys, very friendly. the lodge is literally in the middle of nowhere. no people around for miles. i guess i expected remoteness, but having people around definately helps to bare the extreme remoteness. and with only two of us staying at the lodge with nearly 10 bedrooms over this weekend, we will definately feel the isolation. couple of days ago, we came home and there were flying ants all over in the sink. and when i say large ants i mean the size of a large beetle. there were hundreds of them left in a bag on the table by manuel and when he left they got out of the bag. he collected them for a friend to snack on. the locals like the taste. its interesting how different two cultures can be sometimes.
this week, i spent going to the different schools with sarita, the education coordinator. we take a 700am bus into the schools which range in distance. the walk up to the bus is a half an hour up a steep, rocky hill. then the busr ride is another hour to hour and a half of a rocky dirt road (again, not a commute i expected). the children are great in most of the schools. like i said, the culture here is so loveable and i can see that i will be able to connect with these children well. we teach 1st through 7th about 30min to an hour for each group. i love working with the little ones. though, the day is very long, and in some of the schools there is no structure at all and the children can be quite difficult. i was excited about coming here and orienting volunteers, helping them to come up with ideas for teaching, and translating for them. though, this is not the case. i will be orienting two new volunteers next week. but they are only set to stay for two weeks and with the looks of things i don´t know that they will even stay that long. after that there will only be one other volunteer coming for the next two months. so far, every volunteer i´ve met here had plans to stay longer and decided to leave early, including my leader sarita. i don´t feel that it would be healthy for me to take on the load of a colapsing organization. especially considering the isolation of the house. i feel for the children and know that they deserve to learn english. but know that with the disorganization of the system, they really aren´t getting much out of the process. so, i´m going to make the best out of the next month, have fun with the kids and try to think a little outside box in terms of the existing curriculum (which in my opinion is terrible). i can see that this culture is very relational in nature and highly values knowing people. and by knowing, i mean really seeing the inner person. so, i´m going to make every attempt to know these children for the short time i have. and expect that the desire to connect and form friendship with charge the motivation to learn a language that will assist in that process. weather or not they learn the words "pencil" "clock" or "eraser" in the process is less important, i believe, than if they gain a small desire to learn the language that will eventually open more opportunities to them in the future. this seems like a tangible objective for the next month, based on my observations so far.
this week we got to go to a monkey sanctuary in puyo. as soon as we walked in, a monkey jumped strait onto my back nearly knocking me over. it made me jump out of shoes. but this place is so cool. they try to rehabilitate monkeys that have been trafficed so that they can return them to the wild. though, it seems that many of those monkeys will be there for the remainder of their lives becuase they are so attached to humans already. but, there is one type of monkey there, i think its just called a white monkey, that is supposed to be the smartest monkey species. apparently they study them a lot in the states and learned that they are capable of creating their own civilization. they were able to barter for bannanas and even come up with the right amount to pay and give exact change. crazy!
after this month, sarita and i have decided that we want to do some traveling through south america. we are for sure planning to go to cusco in peru. then are thinking to head down through buenos aires and chile, all by bus (its much cheeper). while i´m sad to leave the project, i´m very happy to be getting to travel a bit more. i think this will also improve my spanish. i´m slowly begining to understand the accent here better and i´m picking up on new words every day. sarita is an extremely seasoned traveler, so i´m in good hands.
next weekend i hope to head to baños. this is a pretty touristy town. its located near a volcano. it has hot springs, canyoning, and lots of other fun stuff for tourists. i don´t know that im brave enough for the canyoning, but we´ll see. more to come next week. hopefully not so long!
this week, i spent going to the different schools with sarita, the education coordinator. we take a 700am bus into the schools which range in distance. the walk up to the bus is a half an hour up a steep, rocky hill. then the busr ride is another hour to hour and a half of a rocky dirt road (again, not a commute i expected). the children are great in most of the schools. like i said, the culture here is so loveable and i can see that i will be able to connect with these children well. we teach 1st through 7th about 30min to an hour for each group. i love working with the little ones. though, the day is very long, and in some of the schools there is no structure at all and the children can be quite difficult. i was excited about coming here and orienting volunteers, helping them to come up with ideas for teaching, and translating for them. though, this is not the case. i will be orienting two new volunteers next week. but they are only set to stay for two weeks and with the looks of things i don´t know that they will even stay that long. after that there will only be one other volunteer coming for the next two months. so far, every volunteer i´ve met here had plans to stay longer and decided to leave early, including my leader sarita. i don´t feel that it would be healthy for me to take on the load of a colapsing organization. especially considering the isolation of the house. i feel for the children and know that they deserve to learn english. but know that with the disorganization of the system, they really aren´t getting much out of the process. so, i´m going to make the best out of the next month, have fun with the kids and try to think a little outside box in terms of the existing curriculum (which in my opinion is terrible). i can see that this culture is very relational in nature and highly values knowing people. and by knowing, i mean really seeing the inner person. so, i´m going to make every attempt to know these children for the short time i have. and expect that the desire to connect and form friendship with charge the motivation to learn a language that will assist in that process. weather or not they learn the words "pencil" "clock" or "eraser" in the process is less important, i believe, than if they gain a small desire to learn the language that will eventually open more opportunities to them in the future. this seems like a tangible objective for the next month, based on my observations so far.
this week we got to go to a monkey sanctuary in puyo. as soon as we walked in, a monkey jumped strait onto my back nearly knocking me over. it made me jump out of shoes. but this place is so cool. they try to rehabilitate monkeys that have been trafficed so that they can return them to the wild. though, it seems that many of those monkeys will be there for the remainder of their lives becuase they are so attached to humans already. but, there is one type of monkey there, i think its just called a white monkey, that is supposed to be the smartest monkey species. apparently they study them a lot in the states and learned that they are capable of creating their own civilization. they were able to barter for bannanas and even come up with the right amount to pay and give exact change. crazy!
after this month, sarita and i have decided that we want to do some traveling through south america. we are for sure planning to go to cusco in peru. then are thinking to head down through buenos aires and chile, all by bus (its much cheeper). while i´m sad to leave the project, i´m very happy to be getting to travel a bit more. i think this will also improve my spanish. i´m slowly begining to understand the accent here better and i´m picking up on new words every day. sarita is an extremely seasoned traveler, so i´m in good hands.
next weekend i hope to head to baños. this is a pretty touristy town. its located near a volcano. it has hot springs, canyoning, and lots of other fun stuff for tourists. i don´t know that im brave enough for the canyoning, but we´ll see. more to come next week. hopefully not so long!
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
unexpected changes
ok, i need to be brief here. The past few days have been very interesting. I´ve had a lot of fun working in the schools with the children. Though, the lodge we are staying at is a lot more isolated than I thought it was. I´ve met a few volunteers (there are only two others at the moment, one is leaving on Friday and we are getting two more on Wed.) and they are very nice. The organization and project are very disorganized and for that, I and the director(who has been here 5 weeks and originally commited to a year) have decided to commit to only the rest of October and then we may do some traveling together around the ecuador and possibly even outside of the country come November. I´m happy about the decision because this is just not what i expected at all. In the meantime, we are going to make the best of the situation and enjoy the children. I have to go now, but i´´ll try to get back to town this weekend and if not, next week.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Ready for the Jungle!
Well, I'm getting ready to leave on Saturday for Arajuno, Ecuador. I can't wait! I'll be working with an organization called youvolunteer, assisting volunteers with lesson planning, organizing and running adult ESL classes, and helping to translate between the children and volunteers (let's hope my Spanish is good enough for this!) I don't know anyone there and will be traveling alone, so I'm hoping and praying that I'll make it there safe and sound (I've been know to get lost in my day), and that I'll make lasting friendships with good people. This is my first leadership role abroad and I know It's going to stretch me but I feel ready and eager to grow and learn. This week, I'll be looking for some good books to bring along with me, if any of you have suggestions, let me know. I'm looking forward to sharing this experience with all of you!
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