Blogs from Otavalo, North, Ecuador, South America - page 12

The rest of the week was good. Teaching teaching and more teaching. The kids alternate between listening really well and being ridiculously hyper and non-compliant. The good definitely outweighs the annoyances though and I love working with them! I think it's going to be hard to leave! Friday the teachers were gone again for another meeting so we had all the kids. More beading and then a bunch of PE: relay races, obstacle courses... one of the races they had to put on big clothes over their own as part of it. It was hilarious, especially for the really little ones because the clothes were massive! After the first couple people, everyone started helping their teammates get in and out of the clothes. It wasn't supposed to work that way, but it was actually a really ... read more

I added 2 pictures to the Ecuador entry, and then obviously to the Mindo one and this one. Monday ( Feb. 2) was back to school! We're still doing the same things (shapes, sizes, colors, counting) and the kids are starting to get tired of it. Even though we're doing different activities, it's still the same topic. Monday they were especially energetic and didn't want to listen, I think partly because they didn't get their colada in the morning because there wasn't any gas for the stove. Luckily we got some gas by lunch time. The hardest part about teaching is seeing some of the kids come to school limping or with fresh bruises that may or may not have been from playing or falling down... Monday one of my girls came in with a black ... read more

3 days down! It's weird that it's already Wednesday! It's gone by pretty fast, surprisingly. Usually the first days are the slowest! So I started my teaching Monday. At Larcacunga. There are only 3 kids in my class, Aida, Natali, and Anderson. But they're all young so they are full of energy and don't like to sit still for long doing work. They're first graders, but the grades here are a lot different than at home. They haven't really done anything with writing numbers and letters (although they can write their names) and any sort of reading is unheard of. We're mostly doing preschool/kindergarten stuff: pencil control, drawing straight lines, shapes, sizes, counting... all that good stuff. Monday (26) was my first day so I was supposed to just be helping the director with teaching so ... read more

Hello again... let's see... the past couple days I've had Spanish classes from 8:30-12:30 and 2-4. Then I either do stuff related to the volunteering, go to the internet, or go home and do spanish homework. I think it's going to be harder to get really good at spanish than I thought just because there aren't as many opportunities to practice as I was expecting. I figured I would be living with a family so I would be totally immersed and by the end of 4 months I would be relatively fluent. Well, that would be nice but there are some problems. Mainly that I'm not truly immersed. I will be teaching the kids in spanish, but there's kind of a set vocabulary that you use for teaching and you don't need much more. It's not ... read more

Bevor mir uf Galapagos gange si, hei mir no es Wucheaend in Otavalo verbracht. Das isch oepe 2 Stund mit em Bus vo Quito entfaernt und isch bekannt fuer si farbefrohi Markt. Mir hei ues dert mit Alpaca-Sache ihdeckt (Chappe, Haentschae, Pontscho....) English version: Otavalo is well known for its faboulous and colourful market - especially for beautiful handicraft of alpaca wool. ... read more