Back in the Class

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What a pleasant experience I had today. I went back to J. Joarces Perez, a school I visited last week. As I walked towards the class I could see and hear the students erupt in excitement. Somehow, over the course of a week, I have been elevated to ¨Rock Star¨ status. They were so excited to have me in the classroom and they performed a skit for me, the one they are going to do at the Festival of Water next week. It was awesome and very well thought out. Their theme is ¨Mal Usos de Agua¨ which is essentially bad or wasteful uses of water. They played out a scenario of a typical Ecaudorian family and how each member wastes water. They skit had so many funny stereotypes and a ton of useful info. I was so proud of them and they were so proud to be performing for me. As I was leaving, they begged me to come back tomorrow to see the posters they were making for the festival. I have a busy schedule, but agreed to make time to come back.

Somehow, today, in that classroom, I felt like I was a teacher again. It´s like coming home when you don´t know where you´ve been - it felt great and I was so content to be back in front of the kids, being my normal goofy self.

Ok, I´m going to get a little sappy now, so if you don´t care to read the rest of this paragraph.... I´ll understand....my experiences in the schools over these past two weeks really makes me feel like we can make it in this world - humans that is. Sure, countries and people fight wars and there is a lot of hate, but seeing these kids, their innocence, their aspirations, their compassion, and their interests - it was refreshing. There is no better investment we can make in life than an investment in the generation(s) that follows us.

This weekend, Sue and I are headed to Ambato (about 2.5 hours away) to meet up with a couple PC friends and to do a little shopping for items we can not find, or are too expensive in Puyo. We will hopefully be stopping in the small town of Pelileo so that I can buy a couple new pairs of pants. One pair to replace the ones I ripped climbing into my apartment and another pair to replace the ones I´ll probably rip in the future - climbing into my apartment. Pelileo, if I haven´t mentioned it before, is a town that is know for its jeans - they make tons of them there and they are good quality. You can get a pair for $3 or $4. I hope to find some non-blue jean variety pants though - I saw some in a store front a few weeks ago when I rode through Pelileo.

We´ll only be in Ambato for the day. We are still under the Peace Corps 3-month ¨lock-down¨ where they do not let you leave your sight overnight (unless you have a work-related reason). Anyhow, it should be a nice trip out of Puyo. I´ll let you all know how the trip goes.

Jeremy

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