What are yoooou doing?

Hey guys. Well, I’ve really been meaning to write more frequently, but the truth is with the holidays, reconnect (week-long PC conference held 6 months into service), and work, I have been keeping myself decently busy. It seems like a lot of the people I’ve talked to from home have been curious as to what I’ve been up to now that I’ve been in site for just about 6 months. “Really? Already?” Yup. And the 6 month mark at site means 8 months in Ecuador for Omnibus 102 (my training group). REP.RE.SENT. So, lets cut to the chase. I like to call this post: “What are Yoooou Doing?” (If you have absolutely no interest in what I’m doing, see next blog post.)


Something weird happened when I got to Ecuador - I became an English teacher. Its strange because I don’t recall ever studying education. Or English at that. It seems that my United States citizenship alone is enough to make me a qualified English teacher in Ecuador. When I try to explain to Ecuadorians that I really have no experience teaching, they just smile and show me to the classroom. I sometimes like to think about how cool my service would be if this worked with other professions as well. Like law, for example. All I would do is say that I’m from the U.S. and somebody would quickly hand me a briefcase and a power suit and shove me into the courtroom. Or acting. Once it got out that I was born in the States, Ecuadorian directors would line up at my apartment door, waving scripts in their hands. So far though, it only works with teaching English. So, three days a week I teach. I teach English in about 10 classes at 3 different schools and all of my students are children ages 12 and under. The sweet thing about that is that I can just prepare one lesson for the week and use it on all 10 classes. The not-so-sweet part about it is that 10 classes > 250 students and there is no way I can keep track of them all. So when little Pepé sees me on the street and starts to wave frantically to get my attention yelling, “HELLO MS. YENNIFER!!” (My name is no longer Jennifer, but Yennifer, with a “Y”) instead of racking my brain trying to remember his name, and what grade, class, and school he belongs to, I just yell, “Hey! Good to see ya! Did you get started on the homework? Great, see you in class!” Eventually I will learn their names, but the generic, one-size-fits-all greeting will have to do until then.


Teaching has been fun, but the PC youth and families program encourages us to teach English as part of secondary, not primary projects, so that we can dedicate the majority of our time to jobs involving youth life skills, prevention, and awareness. So while it has been a good way to work my way into the community (little Pepé introduces me to his parents, who invite me to dinner, where I meet the rest of the family, etc., etc.) I want to try to get away from it by next school year.


Ok, so that’s three days a week. The other two weekdays I have been working at the special needs school. To say I was overwhelmed when I first stated spending time at the special needs school would be an understatement. I had no idea what to do with a classroom full of students ages 5 to about 33 with varying types of special needs. I tried to use one of the curriculums that Peace Corps had provided us with - which wasn’t for special needs but rather young people in general - to find that a “25” minute activity would take us an hour and a half. I tried coming up with my own activities, but ran out sometime around week two. I even tried singing songs I learned at Spanish camp, but apparently rocking out to songs about farm animals when you are 17 isn’t as cool as it used to be. Even though I wanted to throw in the towel at times because I felt like I was wasting everybody’s time, the teachers encouraged me to stay. Now when I go to the school I give one or two activities (art projects, running games, mini workshops, songs about zoo animals… hey, that’s my bread and butter) and for the rest of the time I just hang out in the classrooms while the teachers give their lessons and fill in where I can. Unlike teaching English, working at this school is something I plan on carrying over to the next school year.


Lots of kids work in Ecuador. We are talking kids with jobs. Twelve-year-old girls frying empanadas all day on the street and adolescent boys with sacks full of water and juice to sell on buses barely phase me anymore. It should, but it’s so common to see that it takes me a second to remind myself that the U.S. and Ecuador are different in this aspect. Because the kids who work really don’t have the opportunity to go to school, there is a program (and I use the word “program” very loosely) in San Vicente that allows child workers in the area to study after normal school hours. A few months ago my counterpart asked me to start working with these kids. I agreed thinking it would be fun to get involved in the closest thing that we have to an after school program. I agreed, of course, not taking the time to consider that these kids, having little or no formal education and possibly difficult home lives, had the potential to be somewhat misbehaved. The first time I walked into the class of about 20 kids their teacher was giving them a math lesson. The children sat at two person desks, and while some of them were distracted by side conversations, the majority of them were copying down the lesson. I had brought an icebreaker and fun activity to do with the kids and started to take it out as the other teacher wrapped up. She introduced me to the class and asked if it would be alright if she stepped out of the room.


“Good afternoon,” I started. “My name is Jennifer.”
“WHAT?” A teenage boy shouted from the back of the room.
Giggles.
“Jennifer.” I repeated. “I’m from the United States, here with the Peace Cor…”
“WHERE?” The same boy cut me off, cupped his ear and squinted as if he was straining to hear me.
Snickers started to break out in the class.
“Does anyone know anyone in the United States?” I tried to maintain control.
“I do!” A young girl in the front row waved her hand in the air.
“Really?”
“No.” She replied.
Laughter erupted in the classroom.
I started to sweat and looked out the door nervously to see if the other teacher was close by. No luck. The kids sniffed out my discomfort like drug dogs and class was over before it started. Objects began to fly across the room. Kids got up out of their seats and began to run, shout, laugh, and enjoy themselves as if I were invisible. Have you ever seen Sister Act II? (If not, think Michelle Pheifer in Dangerous Minds.) Well it was kind of like the scene when Whoopi first walks into the music class to find a room full of airborne spitballs and overturned desks. Minus Lauryn Hill and the cool freestyle rap music of course. After standing there for about 10 minutes feeling like an idiot, I packed up my stuff and left.


The next few classes I asked the teacher to stay in the classroom with me hoping that it would help keep the kids under control, but soon realized that the kids are just as poorly behaved for her as they are for me. Little by little though, the kids and I started to develop a mutual respect and I was finally able to get through a class. Now, we work on reading, writing, art, and football and basketball when they have too much energy. There have been no miracles though. Its seems like every class involves some degree of flying objects, foul language, and obscene gestures. Yeah, and the kids are pretty bad too. :)


So besides teaching I have begun to work towards starting a youth basketball league in town. So far I have only been working with a couple of neighborhoods two times a week, but I want to work toward making it open to any child up to middle school age. This is going to be a big task, and I definitely won’t be able to do it alone, so I am hoping that I will be able to count on parents, older siblings, and teachers to help me out. If I can get this rolling I would like to first start a summer league for the kids and use that as a springboard into youth groups and after school activities during the coming school year.


Like I have mentioned a few times, the school year is coming to an end this side of the equator. This Friday is the last day of classes for most schools in the county and we won’t start up again until the end of April. So just as I am starting to find a rhythm and some consistency in my routine, the beginning of “summer” vacation will be a lot like starting all over again. I have committed to working with the main office for social services in San Vicente by giving adult English classes a hour a day, three time a week. The adults will be a nice change of pace for me and even though we will do the same songs, games, and competitions that I did with the kids, this time around it will be a lot more entertaining for me. That along with starting a summer hoops league should keep me reasonably occupied, but that doesn’t mean I won’t have time to read good books, listen to new music, and watch full seasons of good T.V. series from the States. Addys on your right!