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Published: April 7th 2008
Kids before the chaos
Students from the school Amauta Nampi, before they started to run amuck in the computer lab.This week seemed to pass quicker than most and I am not entirely sure why that is. Perhaps it was due to the start of the MLB season and my Indians jumped out to an early start before finishing the week at 2-3, perhaps it was the lead-up to the NCAA final four, perhaps it was because Katie was leaving the country this week and you never get enough time to say goodbye or to tie up loose ends, or perhaps it was because I was busy as usual and these days time is flying by. I have been sick though with a nasty head/chest cold that has kept me from getting a good night sleep for a couple of weeks now.
My global warming/environment presentation project in the high schools is coming to an end. I had three presentations this week. The first was actually at the indigenous school in town and it was with a group of 8-10 year old kids. I modified my presentation and gave it to this group as a favor to one of the teachers at the school. The school is called Amauta Nampi and they don’t seem to have a lot of people
Students enjoying the presentation
Here are some of the high school students from the Technical High School of Pastaza. doing them too many favors. The presentation was scheduled for Tuesday at 10:00. I showed up at 9:45 and nobody seemed to have any idea that I was coming. That is ok, in Peace Corps, you just learn to go with the flow. So, I offered to come back another day, however, they insisted that I do it today. So, they told me to go to the new computer lab that they have to set up my presentation while they rounded up some students.
This computer lab is state-of-the-art. It would rival any back in the US. I am not sure who funded it, but it had 30 computers with LCD Monitors, Wi-Fi, LCD projectors, a stereo system, printers, scanners, etc. etc. So, I got my presentation ready, and about 25 kiddos came in. A teacher then popped in and told me I could start and then she left. For the next 40 minutes, I gave my presentation while the kids messed around with the computers. I told them not to touch anything, but then after 5 minutes I gave up and thought to myself, screw it. If the teachers are too lazy to come in and supervise, then
The Brigde
This is one of the many foot bridges that cross Río Puyo near FRATES. they must not care too much about their $30,000+ computer lab. When my presentation was over, I looked for some teachers, however, none seemed to be around. I told the kids once again to stop messing with the computers - they once again didn’t listen so I packed up my stuff and walked out. It was a waste of my time - no I take that back, I think there were 3-4 kids who were genuinely interested and paid attention, so…..it was not a waste of time - just not as effective as it could have been. I hope the kids didn’t destroy the lab, from the state of things right before I walked out, it was a real possibility. Imagine a group of 8 year-olds playing tag in a computer lab while another group is trying to lasso them with computer cables.
The other two presentations were in the Technical High School in town. These presentations went really well. After the first one, one of the teachers came up to me and said that my presentation was the coolest thing he had ever seen and invited me to do a presentation for a tourism class he teaches at
Sadie and Shannon
This was taken on our hike near the volcano in Baños. night.
The second presentation was even better and when I got to the last video clip about the water cycle and played it, the students started clapping and begged me to play it again - which I did.
All said, I have given the presentation to about 900 students and 30 teachers. This, like the Magic Show I did a few months back seem to make me out to be a “Rock Star” in town. Kids that I don’t even know, will lean out of buses and yell my name or wave. On days when you are feeling low - this is a sure pick-me-up. It is not that my presentation is so amazing, students in the states wouldn’t be overly impressed. However, here, my style is so different from anything else they have experienced that it automatically becomes interesting.
I mentioned early in this blog that Katie left town. Her last day was Monday - I took her to get a few beers at a store by my office. It was nice leaving work early and sitting out by the street on a beautiful sunny afternoon drinking cold beers. Katie was noticeably anxious and at times
View of the Valley
One of the many views during our hike - too bad it was too cloudy to see the volcano. sad. We agreed to meet the next morning for breakfast before she bugged out on a morning bus.
Not having Katie around will be different for sure, but I think that like having Andrea leave, this too will only make my Spanish better and will in-turn make me a better volunteer in the long run. I like Katie, we work well together, and I wish her all the luck in the future.
On Thursday, I went out to the FRATES community of Libertad to supervise a health charla (workshop) on male and female reproductive systems. The project is through Global Pediatric Alliance and is one of my new projects now that Andrea is no longer with CODEAMA. Fanny, Guillermo’s daughter is a registered nurse and is in charge of doing the charlas and planning the project - I just supervise her.
Anyhow, this was the first charla in the series. It was fun sitting in a small one-room school house with 8 adults and 4 teenagers and having a discussion about reproductive parts. You all would be amazed at their general lack of a basic understanding of how things work. One moment that I especially liked was
when Fanny was talking about how men can get a vasectomy. This woman in the community raised her hand shocked and asked if that really worked. Fanny explained the process to her and then she looked at her husband and told him that he needed to get one right away. Moments later, her hand shot up again. By the look on her face, I knew exactly what was coming. She shyly asked if his parts would still function normally, because if not, she thought that getting a vasectomy would be a bad idea. We all had a good laugh and then answered the question.
The rest of the charla was filled with excellent questions, looks of amazement, and an eagerness to learn more. In three weeks, we will give the second charla in the series and this one will be specifically about forms of birth control.
I am not sure exactly what it is, but I love being in the communities working along side the campo “country” folk. They are the most genuine people imagineable. I look forward to trip I get to take that brings me to one of these communities.
I did receive some disappointing
news, I am not allowed to attend a workshop with CODEAMA and 15 communities members from FRATES. The workshop is in the province of Sucumbios and that is the one where FARC has been active. Peace Corps will not let me go for safety reasons. I appreciate their concern, however, the community where I would be going is 2 hours from any of the questionable areas and I would be with people who know me and who are Ecuadorians. Oh well, safety first I suppose, I was even going to pack my Deep FARC-Off spray - it’s a repellant for military activists. They are going to visit a community-run ecotourism lodge and it is going to be a good leaning experience for our group. I really want to go and was disappointed that my boss at Peace Corps said no.
On Friday, some students from the German High School in Quito came down to visit projects in the area that the German Embassy funds. One of these projects was at FRATES with the medicinal plant garden and the carpentry shop. No one from CODEAMA could accompany them, so Bolivar asked me to go. This was fine, however, I thought
it to be poor form for CODEAMA to pawn their visit off on me - after all, German funding agencies provide a lot of money for CODEAMA projects, Bolivar should have been catering to this groups every request.
The students were not German, they were all Ecuadorians. The teachers and professors, however, were all Germans. I guess Germany sets up schools like this in a lot of countries. This particular group was studying socio-economic impacts on the environment. On the way out to FRATES I sat next to one of the German teachers and we chatted for an hour, in Spanish, about Ecuador, his work, my work, the students, and world issues. It was a great conversation and I couldn’t help but smile thinking that we were speaking to each other using a second language that we had in common - how cool is that?
The students were divided into groups and each group was visiting a specific project. They had to conduct interviews, take photos and video, and then they would make a multi-media presentation to present to the German Ambassador. I was interviewed at the end of the trip by a group of three girls/young women.
They asked me about Peace Corps, CODEAMA, my involvement with projects, etc. etc. That all went well, though they were making fun of my Spanish - it didn’t bother me though - I can play along so I found cultural things to throw right back at them and we all were laughing at each other during our ride back to Puyo.
I got back to the office and said goodbye to Yadira. Friday was her last day at CODEAMA. She took another job near Coca that pays 3 times as much. I will miss Yadira, she is a bright young woman with a bright future. Karina is going to miss her most of all. In the last few months we have seen Pablo, Andrea, and now Yadira all leave. Right now, it is just Bolivar, Karina, and I. However, we are going to be hiring a secretary and new program specialist to replace Yadira.
I took part in an interview of a young lady for the secretary position. In fact, I was the first person in the office to interview her. She didn’t know what to think of me or my questions. I gave her the easy stuff
Carlos´dog and I
This pup greeted us at the high point of our hike. Very friendly dog who Carlos said was bad because he likes to steal cigarettes from tourists. like: tell me about your family, your ambitions in life, what skills you have, how you deal with conflict, organizational skills, and why we should hire you. She replied to each question with a one sentence answer. I kept asking her to elaborate telling her that my interview was informal and an opportunity for her to talk about her abilities. Perhaps my questions were not normal for an Ecuadorian interview given her responses to them. All in all, she was nice, she could type like the wind, and she seemed intelligent. Given that she was the only application that we received, I’d have to say that she has a good chance of getting the job.
Yesterday, Sue and I went up to Banos to meet Sadie (another volunteer in our group) and her sister Shannon. We all hiked around Banos near the volcano. It was a great hike, though the volcano was clouded over so I couldn’t get any good photos of it. At the turn-around point of our hike, we met a guy, Carlos Sanchez, who works at the volcano monitoring station that was located there. He had a tree house that provides great views of the volcano
The tree house
This was a tree house that Carlos had built. It was pretty sketchy but lent itself for some of the valley photos that I took. on a clear days - I’ll include a photo of this.
When Carlos found out that we were Peace Corps volunteers he went on and on about a volunteer his community had 10 years ago and how great Peace Corps was. He talked about how Peace Corps doesn’t hand out money to people that it teaches you how to do things and that this was so much better. He was the poster boy for everything Peace Corps tries to accomplish. He made us some lemon-grass tea and then made us listen to him talk about the volcano, evacuation routes, when to see the volcano, etc. etc. He talked for about 45 minutes before we were finally able to break away and head back down towards Banos. It was so nice though seeing how us volunteers do make a difference and that the people are appreciative of what we do. This is the second person we have met in Ecuador that found out we were volunteers and then raved about a volunteer they knew in the past.
We hiked back down to Banos, had a great lunch at Casa Hood. We then walked around town, killing time before it
The group taken from the treehouse
This is of Sadie, Susan, Shannon, Carlos and the dog taken from the treehouse. was happy hour. The ladies were in the mood for half-priced mojitos. We returned to Casa hood about 30 minutes before happy hour and had coffee and dessert. By the time we finished that it was time for drinks. We all had a couple of mojitos and then left to find another place to sit and have a cocktail before we split ways. We ended up at a Cuban bar that seemed to be playing the same song over and over. Sadie mis-ordered her drinks and ended up getting her sister a drink that tasted something like old mouth wash. Being the gentleman, I gave her my drink and took hers. It was so horrendous that I could only stomach about 3 sips. After the ladies finished their cocktails, Sue and I caught a bus back to Puyo.
That it from Ecuador - until next time...
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anonymous
non-member comment
nice pics, you've raised the bar. Did you ask carlos dog if he knew rudi? they look eerily similar. I'll have to ask rudi if he tought any sout american cousins to steal cigarrettes.