Life is Beautiful

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Well, I am in my version of Peace Corps Hell Week. I have a ton of schools to visit this week and am feeling the pressure from all sides. My counterpart, Bolivar, all but lectured me today about how I need to visit more schools - that many still need help with the Festival of Water project. I politely reminded him about last week, when he interrupted my scheduled meetings and that if he wanted all the schools to get help that he should have decided to do this project months earlier, not two weeks ago. Ok, I didn´t really say that to him, but I wanted to. What I told him was that I am doing the best that I can and that I can only visit 3-4 schools a morning and do a good job.

Seriously, this is pissing me off. All I am really doing is going to the schools to show them a few books of info I have and to give them a few ideas. I have streamlined the process with typed documents that have my ideas written down in SPANISH. Anyone in my office, or matter of fact, anyone on the street could take my stuff and visit a school and accomplish as much as I am or maybe even more.

The whole process is about as organized as a fire drill the first day of school. If you can´t picture this, then imagine everyone wandering around not sure of where to go, what to do, questioning why they are doing anything at all, and then proposing their own individual solutions to a problem they know nothing about. If that sounds confusing to you - then good, you know the level of organization I´m dealing with.

Left to my own devices, I would have scheduled pre-determined meetings with the schools and teachers in the respective communities last week and then a quick individual meeting this week. In other words instead of going back and forth between schools, I would have coordinated efforts to hit all the schools in an area on the same day, heck, maybe even invited the teachers to a central location to hit them all at once and to let them answer each other´s questions and to share ideas. Then in week two (this week) I could have swung by the each school for 10-15 minutes to check in and answer any pressing questions.

As it stands now, my counterpart, schedules meetings on opposite sides of town for the same time and doesn´t bother to look at the meetings I have already scheduled - then to make matters more interesting (notice I didn´t say worse - every cloud has a silver lining) some teachers are under the impression that I am going to be giving a presentation to their class about water pollution. Yes, I found this out today at my first school when the teacher introduced me to her class of 30 and said I was an expert on water pollution and that I was going to give a presentation about it and answer ALL of their questions. Ironically, this is just the type of situation that I thrive in - bullshit in a foreign language. Seriously, I took it all in stride and launched into, what probably seemed to these young ladies (12-13 year-olds) to be dissertation of epic proportions - ok, it was a short 10 minute interactive presentation about water pollution, water uses, and solutions to water problems that exhausted my entire Spanish vocabulary - I resorted at the end of my presentation to talking about the Great Lakes - which these bright young ladies actually knew all about. So, I don´t think I wowed them - they laughed and giggled more than anything else, but they were making intelligent comments too that proved they were listening and understood what I was talking about - I am glad they did, because at times, I was wondering if I did.

Anyhow, the silver lining is that I used my spanish vocab effectively and I enjoyed the interaction with these students. Ironically, the teacher had walked out of the room as soon as I started talking so she missed the whole thing. I guess she trusted this wacko gringo with her whole class - she returned magically as I was finishing up and I thanked her for the opportunity, told the girls good luck, and then left - already 30 minutes late for my next scheduled meeting.

This brings me to a short side story - seeing as how it was 9:30 and I was 30 minutes late, I couldn´t help but think about my walk into town yesterday morning with Sue. It was 9:30 as we passed a restaurant where 4 men were sitting at the table drinking cervezas (beers). I glanced down at my watch to see if in fact it was beer-thirty. I have to hand it to the Ecuadorians drinking this early on a Sunday puts them in a whole new realm of respect. Normally, I wouldn´t consider cracking a beer until beer-thirty U.S. time (roughly 12:30pm). This is one part of the culture I may have to consider exploring in more depth.

As we walked by and after I checked my watch, I thought about what could draw them to drink this early. First, I ruled out the carry-over effect, meaning they were still drinking from the night before. They were clean shaven, well dressed, and certainly not drunk. Second I ruled out that they were skipping church. I know for a fact church was over - the bells wake me up at about 6:00 on Sunday morning and mass starts soon after. I can respect people who get up that early to go to church. When I was in college and mass started at 4:30 in the afternoon - I had trouble getting there - and admittedly, rarely did make it - though not because I was still sleeping - I have my reasons. Anyhow, I ruled out skipping church. Possibility #3 was that they had just left church and wanted to celebrate the ¨good word¨ by throwing back a few beers - this possibility was gaining momentum in my head. In reality though, I think they were just four good friends with nothing better to do on an awesome Sunday morning, so they got together and drank a few beers - Simplicity - I love it. Didn´t some scientist once say that the most simple explanation is usually the correct explanation? So, I was happy that I didn´t waste more than a couple minutes trying to figure out why people were drinking at 9:30am on a Sunday - as if a reason needs to exist.

Back to my school meetings - I thought about taking a taxi to Veracruz where the next meeting was, but when I was told it would cost me $4 I said no way and headed to try and find a bus that would take me there. As luck would have it, as soon as I got to the main road a bus came by headed my way. I hopped on and road to Veracruz. No worries, they forgot I was coming. They quickly covered their tracks and set up an impromptu meeting. We spoke about climate change and their school is going to do a project related to climate change and its effects on world water supplies. I gave them some great ideas on how to demonstrate the greenhouse effect and I think they are going to build a model based on my ideas.

Bolivar called during the meeting and asked where I was. I told him I was at Veracruz and that if he looked at the schedule I left him - he would know where I was - he said he was coming to pick me up and that we had to see three more schools this morning. I got into his car and immediately reminded him of the meeting I had at Valladares (his son´s school) and he took me there - he explained that he would be back in 45 minutes to go to the other two schools. I was 40 minutes late to this meeting, and the teachers had started without me. They were in good spirits though and accepted my apologies. We tore through the meeting, they were pumped, I was pumped, and now was back on schedule. Bolivar, however, didn´t come to pick me up. I got a call saying that he didn´t have his car and that I should return to the office. I walked back and asked if we were going to the other schools and he said that he had some other meetings to go to - then he ¨lectured¨ me about not getting to enough schools which brings us full circle to the beginning of this blog entry.

I am over it - now, within a couple hours a bunch of teachers stopped by with questions, needing my help, and they all left more or less happy - this in turn made Bolivar happy, which in turn made me less pissed off. Bolivar means very well - he wants CODEAMA to look good and to be the organization everyone turns to when they need advice or info about environmental issues - to that regard he has been very effective.

Now back to yesterday. After Sue and I went to the market and purchased about 25 lbs of fresh fruits and veggies for $7 we returned to the apartment. I was sweaty from hauling the 25lbs back 2 miles from the market - so, I decided to cap off my exercise with a little jog. Sue went to the roof to read and catch some sun. I was enjoying my run until, in slow motion, I saw a bus pull over to let people off. One of the passengers was a kid (about 10) who, without looking, crossed in front of the bus into traffic - at about the same time I noticed an SUV overtaking the stopped bus and realized that a kid was about to get hit - I am not sure what words came out of my mouth - Spanish, English, Spanglish, who knows, but I do know that I wanted to yell ¨watch out¨. The SUV saw the kid at the last second, slammed on its breaks - the kid had the typical deer in headlights look and he managed to jump up into the air a little before impact. This probably saved his life. The front grill struck his shin spinning him belly first onto the hood of the SUV. As the SUV lurched to a stop, the kid flew from the front of the car and landed hands first on the road, followed by his feet. I think I may have witnessed my first perfect 10 point landing. The kid popped up and quickly ran into the median. At this point 20 or 30 people gathered and started to grab the boy to see if he was ok - I think he was ok, save a nice cut on his leg, until the mob started to grab him - he freaked and tried to get squirm away - I was satisfied that he was ok, so I didn´t offer my first aid training - that was the first hit pedestrian I have seen here - it looked awful, but had a less than awful outcome.

Experiences like that are in a weird sense, humbling, they made you realize just how fragile life is and that there are no guarantees. It could have been me who stepped in front of that SUV and I know the outcome would have been different - I don´t have the reflexes of a 10-year old, nor can I execute a perfect 10 point landing. But it wasn´t me, and the experience made me want to find the 4 guys drinking beers for the hell of it and buy them a round.

Peace,
Jeremy

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Comments

[Greg]

Ockham's Razor
The scientist who explained why four guys would be drinking beer at 9:30 in the morning was William of Ockham. Depeding on who you read, he said "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate" or "entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem." Literally it means entities should not be unecessarily multiplied. In common use, it argues that all things being equal, the simplest solution that explains all the evidence tends to be the best one. Glad to hear things are working a little better for you. Sounds like school kids are school kids wherever you go.