everyday life in Ecuador

---

All in all I'm staying for three months in ecuador, not only for travelling but primarily to work as a volunteer. Every monday to wednesday I teach english in the Montessori- Pestalozzi school in Otavalo. It's one of the very few schools which integrates children with disability. There are 52 children seperated into preschool, 1. class, 2./3. class, 4./5. class and 6./7. class. In every class I teach english twice a week. The kids here are so lovely! Every morning when I arrive at school, they run towards me and hug me! Some of them even give you a kiss and expect one back. Teachers and the kids are much more closer here, which I cherish! But teaching here in general is definitely different than in Switzerland. The kids don't really show respect to you as a authority person. Some of them just tell me straight in my face that they won't do the exersice I told them. Ore they walk out of the room whenever they want. It needs a lot to enforce my principles! In general I really like to work here, but in some moments I also hate myself that I decided to do it.. But some of the teacher don't really care if the kids learn anything ore not, so it's normal that they behave like that. Therefore it's difficult for me in such moments to express myself properly in spanish! I haven't got any problem to explain the exersices but i definitely fail with conveying my moral concept! And that annoys me so much, cause I think that's more important than the things I teach in english..
An other challenge is to deal with some of the disabilities. One boy for example is deaf-dumb and isn't able to do lip-reading nor to understand mimicry. It's hard to explain him what to do, because I want him to allow doing the same as the others! Ore an other boy hasn't himself under controll. I don't know what it actually is, but he starts screaming and moving uncontrolled from one second to the other! Then I just try all my tricks to calm him down again.. One student is petrified and knows writing and drawing with his mouth. He's really smart and always telling funny jokes! I really like him and think everyone could learn something from his strong personality.. There are a lot of other interesting kids and I love having them at classes, cause you never know what you will experiance with them every new morning!On thursday and friday I work a cafe called cafetcetera founded by two swiss women. They also integrate people with disability as workforce. On thursday morning I supervise a 32 years old man. Most of the time we're doing different handicrafts to decorate the café ore heading to the market for doing the daily purchase. In the afternoons I'm offering a workshop for kids. We're bakeing and doing handicrafts concerning the theme "christmas". There are always a lot of kids coming cause they don't have any chance to do something like that in school here! On friday I start now with four handicaped students from my school to do anything creative that they can (ore have to) use their hands and imigination! We will paint some wooden stars for example, which we will hang up the tree for our christmas market infront of the cafe! All this gives them a chance to be integrated in everyday life and work.I really like what I'm doing here, although you need for everything you wanna reach at least double time and steady nerves. But it's a good feeling to do something good for the others! On the weekend I stay with all other volunteers in an apartement in the centre of Otavalo. We're a group of 11 people and they're all from Germany. First we always have to tell us for hours what we experianced new during the weekdays. And then we use our freetime to do different trips to see all the beautiful spots of Ecuador. Almost every weeekend we're doing a hike to the top of some vulcans, around lakes ore whatever.. I love the landscape here. It's so hilly, colourful when the sun shines in it and sometimes looks like a drawing out of a children's book!

---