Teaching Ecuadorian kids in a Foreign Reality

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To the tune Row, row, row your boat; ¨Tell me what you do, early in the morning. Everyday I brush my teeth, early in the morning.¨ Easy one, the songs and chants for kids module of the teaching english course last May in Seville. It took us about five minutes to make the song and then we could have sung for half an hour about morning routines: ¨Everyday I wake up, I take a shower, I´m getting dressed, I have some bread, I brush my teeth, I pack my bag, I hug my mom, I go to school… early in the morning.¨ While singing we could mimic the activities that we were mentioning. Yeah, we were sure: this was going to be a hit for the kids.



My new three to five year old friends from the market of San Roque can use a lesson in morning routines. Besides, they are fascinated by everything that´s music (related): you can kind of hypnotize them by playing guitar and singing. During my daily brainstorm session in the shower (:D) that song just crossed my mind and I was sure: if I translate this to Spanish, it will be a great success.

Although… I´ll have to leave out ¨I take a shower¨ then: most kids wake up at four and when they arrive at our place at nine, the new and old dirt on their faces shows us that even ¨washing my face¨ isn´t part of a daily ritual.

¨I´m getting dressed¨. Yes, they do. But… they come to CENIT in the same clothes for a whole week so frequently (whether they peed in their pants or not, walked or crawled through the muddy market or not, suffered from diarrea or snot or not), that I wonder if they have garment that could serve them as pyamas. Anyway, if they would, they probably wouldn´t use it as pyamas. It´s not necesarry to explain that won´t discuss the topic ¨clean underwear¨ (if they do wear any underwear at all…) here.



Where was I? Oh yeah: ¨I have some bread¨. Breakfast. If you can miss a dollar today. Five to nine children is many and seventy to threehundred euros a month is not. So if the kids eat anything before we come to get them, it´s cheap food, fat and/or with kilo´s of sugar. To keep them going. But it´s not really fair to sing about having breakfast if half of them arrives with an empty stomach. So we won´t. Next?

¨I brush my teeth¨. Eeerm… no. This week we´ll get the cups and the toothbrushes to teach them how to brush their teeth. Once a day. For most of them that means once a day more tan they do now. And they´ll do it at CENIT, not (yet) at home.

What about ¨I pack my bag¨? Nope. No bag. Sometimes a truck with one wheel short or a fourth-hand doll that is allowed to travel with them as an ally during the long and empty days. But no bag, because that is for those who have stuff to put in it. There you go. Alternatives?

¨I hug my mom¨ or ¨I hug my dad¨. Auw. Some parents are truly friendly towards both us and their kids. But work (= food) always has priority. ¨Children are like plants: they grow up automatically, you don´t really have to anything for it to happen… that is normal here.¨

¨Normal here¨ in our countries would be called ¨neglect¨. Not much hugging going on anyway.



When I was getting the kids from their stalls this week, one day I ran up to a mom that was beating up her son with a big vegetable that looked like a too far grown version of a leek. The boy sat slumped against the wall and crying and screaming he tried to block the improvised baton of his mom with his arms held up high. Unknowingly I probably expected the woman to stop once she saw me, but instead she caught the boy´s collar and dragged him to the space next to the alley, while she pushed me aside with her other hand to make way. Inside she pushed her son violently against the wall, where he tried to make himself as small as posible to bear the hits that followed. All the time he´d been lamenting and screaming that she had to stop, and I was too stunned to react. Later it turned out that he didn´t do his homework. ¨Everyday I hug my mom, early in the morning.¨ One more to tick off I suppose.

All my hope on the last refrain then. ¨I go to school¨. Officially, yes. Sometimes. Unless I don´t go. Sigh.

Row, row, row your boat,

gently down the stream.

Merely, merely, merely, merely,

life is just a dream.

Uh-huh. I´m going to look for another song to sing.

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This blog is part of my project imagine all the people. For this project, I´ll work in different countries for 2,5 years as a volunteer and I write a little story about my experiences now and then. That way I want to get people in touch with eachother, to make them curious and to open their views so they will become more aware of their own position in this world. Through different media I´ll try to achieve the goals of the project: making the world a little bit better and inspire others to do the same in their own way.

If you want to know more about the project (what I'm doing exactly, why and how), check out the website http://tinkywong.webnode.nl/, or you can find me (Nelleke Reckers) and/or my project on facebook: check (and like :P) Project Imagine all the people on facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Project-Imagine-all-the-people/210147532462086

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