Troyer's Ecuador Adventures

At Home Again and THANKS!

2008-06-07T14:40:00.002-04:00

We have been at home in Florida for a week having arrived in Miami on Sunday June 1. We are sure there will be many days of reflection about our experiences in Ecuador over the next few months. We are a bit different because of our experiences. Hopefully, the people and the school in Puyo are a bit different because of our work there. Our hope is that it truly was a win, win situation for all involved.
People have asked us if we plan to return. The answer is that most likely that will happen. The job was only begun and we have a great deal of interest in what becomes of the school. The people associated with the school are outstanding people and have a magnetism that would make anyone wish to return to see them again.
A major part of our reflection on the experience will be to readjust to the abundant lifestyle we enjoy in this country. What will be our obligation to share in the future? When you see your "neighbor" in need, what is our responsibility? What is a fulfilling retired life? These and many more questions will follow us in the future.
Thank you to the many readers who followed this blog. Even as we returned home we have heard of additional people, who only casually knew us, who followed our experiences. We feel a need to recognize two couples who made this expereince possible. Eldon & Phyllis Yoder from Iowa provided an opportunity for us to accept this assignment. And then there was the home front. Phil and Joann Long, our friends and neighbors faithly watch our home, cared for our property and made midnight trips to the Miami airport. A special thanks to these people. And also a thanks to those who sent emails of interest and encouragement. It meant a lot. Finally there were all those people last summer who provided books, cash and other support to make the project happen. Thanks!
Until the next adventure, thats it!

The Process of Leaving

2008-05-25T15:13:00.000-04:00

Once again the cultural differences emerge as we have entered the wind down process here. Completing a job, or at least moving on, in the US is very much a matter of finishing up small tasks and leaving things in good order for the people left behind. Here, we find it to be as much a matter of social transition as it is a matter of tasks transition.

And so Friday evening the entire staff and some new Junta members gathered at a restaurant just outside of town for the official social termination of our stay here. The evening starts out on a festive note with group games and contests. All is meant to be light hearted and fun. Then the more serious exit ceremony begins. The Director thanked us for our work. Each staff women gave MJ a small gift by which they could be remembered. The men also gave me small gifts, but somehow things were not as straight forward. One forgot to bring something and gave me the keys to his car which he promptly reclaimed. Several others gave things that were reminders of private jokes in the past. All was in good humor!

Finally, the serious thanking took place. Emotions came to the surface and a few tears were shed. I couldn’t even use my old joke about making it look like you were leading a parade when, in fact, they were running you out of town. All of this was a sharp reminder of how seriously the Latino culture takes personal relationships. At moments like this one can easily measure the degree of acceptance we felt.

One postscript is in order here. I was writing this blog late Sunday morning on my computer. The son of our landlady came with an urgent message. We were to appear in the church immediately. Because of a number of things pertaining to getting ready to leave and because I am a little under the weather with a sinus cold, we had decided to skip church today. We were dressed in five minutes and taken immediately to the church where we were presented with a “thank you” plaque. We had assumed that last Sunday was the official “thank you” when we, along with the new Junta and other teachers, were recognized during the church service. I said to the Pastor “no one told us about this morning”. He was dumb-struck and responded “but you always come for the first service.” This is an excellent example of Latino planning and US expectations in conflict.

New Governance For The School

2008-05-19T16:53:00.000-04:00

Changing the school governance from a strong individual (senior pastor) to a school board (Junta) is both an interesting and challenging process. I have a feeling that the challenges have just begun. Playing roles one has never played or even observed before is full of surprises for everyone.
Today I spent about two hours working with the Director of the school on the topic of how she plays her role in a Junta meeting. First, the idea that one would outline, in writing, the details of every issue and present this document for Junta member’s consideration before the meeting is new. Secondly, the point that one needs to be available at the meeting to respond to questions and reactions of the Junta members is also new.
We are attempting to move from a procedure of announcing a new program to the public and THEN doing the research to see if it will work to researching first and then announcing a well planned program. Our school is suffering from a series of announce and then plan projects. Four announce and then plan programs have not worked and then retrenchment is required. Needless to say, that doesn’t do much for credibility of the institution.
Our next Junta meeting is Thursday evening. Before that time, we hope to meet with the president of the Junta to review the role she should play at a Junta meeting. We have discovered to this point that nothing can be assumed when it comes to playing new roles. We have some very good and sincere people who want the best for the future of the school. Whether or not the new governance will work depends a lot on our ability to teach the new governance roles.

Parade - Part II

2008-05-17T15:34:00.011-04:00

This will be the second and last posting of the Puyo celebration parades. Hope you enjoy the color and the festivities. Part of the parade was in the rain. Didn't seem to bother those in the parade, however.

School Kids Parade This Past Monday

2008-05-16T16:38:00.019-04:00

The photos in the blog today are all from the four hour school parade this last Monday. We often have difficulty downloading photos. Today was an exception and so we continued to download. Enjoy the color and the celebration that is done so well in this culture.

The two pictures below are photos of the Esperanza School kids.

Huaorani

2008-05-14T15:54:00.007-04:00

We had difficulty with internet downloads yesterday, so here is a part of the parade of last Sunday. As the sign indicates, the Huaorani (spelled several different ways) were a part of the parade. The dress (or lack there of) of the men bring about wide spread reaction in the crowd.

Seems that the history of these people in the last 52 years has been on some sort of speeded up version of an unlikely story. It was this tribe located here in the jungle that killed 5 American missionaries some 51 years ago this past January by spearing them to death.

Like most groups in the world who lived a primitive life, the Huaorani have been through a lot. Going from no money, living off the land and not being able to read or write to joining the modern world has sent shockwaves through their culture. Many of these shockwaves have been negative such as high alcoholism and living a life of subsistence poverty. The story is not over yet.

These people seem to have been accepted by the larger culture around here but at arms length. They are a curiosity rather than full partners in the local life and culture.

The future is uncertain. They have a large tract of land where they live their own style of "reservation life". The amount of land they cover is but a fraction of what it once was. Hunting and gathering took huge expanses of land to keep meat and food plentiful. The oil company invasion of their area has changed their lives forever.

Sunday Morning In The Market

2008-05-12T16:22:00.007-04:00

Sunday morning before going to the parade of indigenous peoples, we went to the Puyo Sunday market. Thought we would throw in a few pictures of food (one exception). Starting with the cows head, we were told that it makes excellent soup. (Count me out)

These pigs were in the back of a covered pickup. Fowl and animals like pigs are sold live and the butchering goes on at home. Well, it is fresh meat!

The picture above is a fairly common sight around town. Again, soup would be a food product, but you also see these things roasted and even the exterior fat is eaten. We called it "cracklings" years ago.

The above armadillo is really considered a great meat. They either roast or BBQ it. Some say it tastes like rabbit.

The non-food item above is broom straw made from a tree. Not sure of the details here.

And finally for dessert, the wiggly mess just does me in. I came by this box of "sawdust" and it was all moving. Inside were these giant grubs which feed on a certain kind of tree. The grub is considered a very special treat. (This is one of those pictures you need to click on to see the full size of these creatures.

Another Puyo Parade. Indigenous Day

2008-05-11T16:19:00.010-04:00

Town birthday celebrations are great here. Among other things it means a parade each day for three days in a row. Today the parade was centered on the indigenous peoples of the larger area around Puyo. We went to the staging area of the down town central park and took a number of pictures of the various groups getting ready. Dressing in traditional custome, getting painted up and just milling around with friends. It was a great photo opportunity.

The above group picture is of the Huaorani, a tribe that was very isolated and impossible to visit fifty years ago. They are now the highlight of the local parade.

The Huaorani are still not clothed very heavily. Living for centuries in the junggle entirely naked was actually a survival matter. Being soaking wet for days on end has a lot of health issues connected with it.

The group below are from another tribe. Because there were about 8 to 10 groups represented in the parade today, we foreigners get easily confused.

The kids in all groups get involved. The little girl below is typical of this. She was not too happy about me taking a picture until I showed her the results on the viewfinder. That brought a big smile.

Many of the participants paint each other. Saw but one person (above) looking in a portable mirror and painting themselves.

Most of the customes are colorful as the boy below illustrates.

Tomorrow will be the X-rated showing as the Huaorani show below. Even in a culture like here which is more open to this kind of thing, the Huaorani brought similes to peoples faces. One mid-twenties gal was taking pictures of the guys approaching the crowd as a group. Her camera was clearly not aimed at their faces.

Puyo Birthday Party

2008-05-10T16:48:00.002-04:00

This weekend is the annual Puyo birthday celebration. Not sure how many years old the town is but some of the pictures on display show the town over the years. Within our life time the town was little more than thatched roof huts and buildings and dusty streets. It is amazing how modern the town has become in the last thirty years.
There was a parade of bands this morning throught the town. On Monday, there will be another parade of dancers including a lot of school children. We could sure learn a lot about how to celebrate from these people.
Looks like we will be back in school on Tuesday.

And Now For A "School Board"

2008-05-09T16:16:00.000-04:00

We will attempt to summarize a meeting last evening that has been some time in the making. The school desperately needs an oversight committee of some sort to assist the Director with a long list of management issues. The oversight committee is commonly called a Board of Education in North America. Here, it is referred to as a Junta. Four women were asked by the senior pastor to consider appointment to the Junta. Last night the four gather along with the Director, an assistant pastor in charge of church administration, MJ’s co-teacher who acts as translator and us.
The meeting was excellent! The four potential Junta members, who all have some education experience, asked excellent questions about a model I had written. The model, translated into Spanish, consisted of about four pages of basic responsibilities of the Junta, how meetings should be conducted, and necessary orientation points for the individual members. After two hours of reviewing the model, asking questions and discussing some of the points, the group agreed to meet again next Thursday evening.
Now I am in a strange situation. I have attended and participated in hundreds of board meetings in the last 30 years. Now when I am faced with initiating a board meeting process, I am not sure what to advise. The structure was always provided before. Establishing a board meeting process in a culture which is not familiar with this as well as with people who have no experience, is indeed a challenge.
We will start with what is valid and what is not allowed in such meetings. It comes down to clarifying what the authority domain of the board is as opposed to the authority domain of the school administration.
Secondly, we will outline an agenda structure. The agenda has to include a number of items that as as prompts to remind all concerned that these matters should be discussed. For example, the budget is not really made out. We just spend until the kitty is empty and the church is asked to pick up the deficit. Monthly budget status reports are a must. This example is one of about eight things that must be discussed monthly.
We have also outlined a list of about 15 items that are major issues facing the school at the moment. In the past, items that may be on this list were resolved by default or became a crisis that took various tolls. Proactive school administration is a new concept here.

More to come on this topic in another week.

School Problems & Issues

2008-05-07T19:52:00.002-04:00

A number of issues seem to be coming to a head in the last few days. This was not unexpected. As a matter of fact we have been expecting a last minute rush of issues and the "please do list" would get crazy.
We had suggested the concept of a type of school board for school governace some months ago. Just now a quick scheduled meeting will be held tomorrow evening with potential board (junta) members, the director and the administrative assitant pastor of the church. The senior pastor is out of town yet again. I asked if people coming to the meeting had received the materials I wrote some three months ago about organizing a board. No materials had been distributed. We must start meeting with no information and from scratch. Something about cultural operations here that does not "allow" preparation for a meeting.
Semester test (a new concept) reality is upon us. Had a major confusion set straight in an after school meeting today. One teacher thought the semester test was to be distrinuted to students so they could memorize the correct answers. After a lot of tension, that one got re-directed.
There is some thought about using the semester test as an entrance exam for student for next year. there are still a ton of complexities to work out with that one not the least of which is test security.
We are NOT bored!

Puyo Fair - The Flowers

2008-05-05T16:24:00.007-04:00

We just finished two days and night of about 6 inches of rain. Temperatures dropped to a cool 69 degrees. One windoow we never close was slide shut. Everything is a little damp. We are thankful for a place with a clothes drier. Things are looking up now.

Last week we heard the main highway to Quito was closed around Banos due to five landslides. That was open after an over night closing. Problem is that additional rain often causes additional slides in the same area.

Before leaving the local fair, we thought we would send along some pictures from the flower section. We have mentioned before that orchids grow wild all over the place. We have noticed a place between here and Banos along the highway where orchids are just thick on the road bank.

The flower collection at the fair was just amazing. We have included a few for you to look at.

Puyo "County Fair" Part II

2008-05-03T13:04:00.006-04:00

Food is always a good place to start. The picture above was our lunch. Beans, banana chips, tuna, corn, tomato, onion with lemon and a bit of aiji (strong spice) The plate was good enough for the both of us. Cost $2. When is the last time you filled up at the fair for a dollar a person!!

We don't just walk around looking for good-looking young gals. This one was a former short term English student when we volunteered at a private tutors home for a week or two. She was handling out bank calendars.

Families here, as is the case most places, enjoy the fair. Kids have to eat the goodies.

The little guys can always have all the fun they need with an open water hose. Two open hoses is double the fun.

The picture above is a lot of bull. We were impressed with the size and bulk of the animals since little or no grain is fed to them. Grass and other green plants are plentiful, however.

There has been recent rebuilding of some of the structures at the fairgrounds. This cattle barn is in excellent condition.

"County Fair" Time in Puyo

2008-05-02T16:30:00.010-04:00

Today and for the next several days, the "county fair" is on here in Puyo. Actually, it more of a "state fair" as Puyo is the capital of the Pastaza provience of Ecuador. It is a huge are which is mostly covered with rain forest and open area. Puyo is by far the largest town at some where around 25 to 30,000 people.
The fair is similar in many ways to county fairs in the US. The additional feature is a good showing of all the indiginous groups who live in the area. The pictures below show some of the carfts from the Huaorani culture. This was the tribe that some 50 years ago killed five Americam missionaries.

The picture below is tree bark soaked in water for several days and dried. It is then used for women's skirts or a "baby carrier".

The darts used in the higly effect blow guns are shown below. These darts are made of extremely hard wood and are finely crafted to travel straight.

Other groups are also featured. The pictures below show the hand crafted jewelry of the Shiwar.

There is some locally made furniture which is shown below.

A kind of "Chinese patato" shown below is cut up in a modern slicer. The chips are deep fried and are very good. They are a bit more crisp then chips we know in the US

There are several meat choices available. Check out the next two pictures for the obvious answers to these choices.

There were a number of displays in which the excellent vegetables of the area we on display. Even here there seems to be a contest between the "naturally grown" and fetilized products.

Sugar cane is grown all over the area and the resulting products are on display. Easy to get your sugar fix here.

Future blog postings will feature other displays from the fair.

Labor Day Break

2008-05-01T16:46:00.002-04:00

We are on a two day "labor day" holiday. Spent the morning working with the school Director and the church corporation administrator looking at school finance. That was another world.

We looked at cost per student based on expenditures and cost per student based on total school income. There is a $25 a month NEGATIVE difference between the two. The church supplements the school budget 30% so the bottom line evens out at the end of the year. We will not go into detail except to say that when you run a school on less than $900 per year per student (with church help), there is a new definition for "basic education". Readers who know about school finance in the US will find this a small fraction of the cost of operation in usual circumstances.

We hope to find a day in the long weekend to travel to the community of Banos (volcano town) to just look around.

More People In The Market

2008-04-30T17:56:00.009-04:00

After looking back through the pictures of the markets, we decided to share a few more people pictures. In some cases we could just stand still and "let the pictures walk to us". The woman who has long since abandoned her dentist was obviously delighted with a chick she had for sale.

Young people the world over like to do the "pose" thing. This young lady did so when she saw me about to take her picture.

When the baby is hungry; feed it! That holds true when you are riding the market taxi.

Sometimes feeding the baby is a matter of stopping the selling, raising the apron and taking care of business.

Babies go along for the entire day. Mom often carries the baby AND heavy loads of produce at the same time. We were amazed at the fact that you seldom heard a baby cry.

Life in the small farming villages is tough duty in a lot of ways. First, working the fields is all done by hand including carrying out the crop at harvest time. The two pictures above and below show the "village taxis". The truck is just filled with people who come bailing out once the truck reaches the market. The picture above shows the line of "taxies" where the village people load and unload

And finally, just a street view of the activity in the picture below.

Market Products in Riobamba and Alausi

2008-04-29T15:48:00.013-04:00

So what do you want to buy or eat? The market products from Riobamba and Alausi and posted today. The picture above give an idea of the fruit and vegetables available

The picture above is worth a click to enlarge it to full screen. This husband and wife bought a sheep and a little pig. The wife found it easier to carry the pig than to lead it by the rope. The pig looks comfortable enough.

Although Ecuadorian food is somewhat bland, there are spices available. However, compared to our experience in the Middle East, the spice stalls are very small.

Grinding various grains into flour is done in the market. I think we are looking at a millet grain.

MJ and Debra are looking at big cakes of brown sugar. At first we thought it was home made soap.

There are mostly live chickens in the fowl section. There was a small pen of ducks as is shown above.

Both husband and wife come home from the market with a sheep. We happened to take the picture as the lead sheep was making a lot of noise.

Although it is too cold and the elevation is too high to raise bananas, they were plentiful in the market. A stalk of ripe bananas were selling for a dollar.

Some creative items were for sale as well. The animal "feed pans" below were made of old tires. Click on the picture to see the detailed work.

Don't know the price of eggs, but they were plentiful. The three of us had a breakfast of two eggs, coffee, juice, bread and cheese for a total cost for all of us of $5.

The most disgusting thing in the market to us, was the small animals that looked like huge rats being roasted over a grill. The head, including the teeth, and most other body parts were clearly visable. Many locals say this is the best meat around. No chance we can get this meat past our minds, let alone our mouth!!!

An then there is the traditional roast pig. The "good" interior meat goes for other dishes. What is left here is the outer layer of fat which a kind of "crackling". Hard roasted pig fat is considered a good "finger food". we enjoyed watching people walk up and take a bit when the vendor wasn't looking.

The People of The Street Market in Riobamba

2008-04-28T16:16:00.004-04:00

We are having considerable difficulty downloading pictures today. The pictures are from the street market in Riobamba, some three hours away from Puyo by bus. In this posting we are looking at the people of the market.
The Riobamba market is one of the largest street markets we have seen anywhere in the world. At least 29 city blocks of markety are located here. We were told there is another market in another part of the city as well.
The delight in seeing a rabbit is obvious. What is not know is why these women are so pleased with the creature.

The baby needs a drink. It is much easier for dad to provide the drink instead of unstrapping the baby. Child care is not an issue for these women because the baby goes with mom every where. The women below trade information or advice. The market is for more than just buying and selling.

The people in the Riobamba area are known for the colorful dress. The women especially were bright, multicolors. The fedora hat is a standard item for all women. In the pictures, you will notice several styles and colors. We don't know why the differences.

The picture below shows a great deal of living and probably wisdom in the face. We were able to capture several such pictures.

Back From Weekend Trip

2008-04-27T18:59:00.001-04:00

We just got home a few minutes ago from Riobamba and Alausi. Pictures of the "train ride" and the market in Riobamba will follow for several days this week. We need some time to download the pictures and sort which ones will be posted. Some 100 pictures to work through.

Student Day Off To The Parks

2008-04-25T17:14:00.002-04:00

Just a short note today. Today is "students day off to somewhere day". Different classes went different places such as parks pools, or recreation area.
In our case, we reviewed school budget with an eye towards establishing some kind of teacher salary schedule that recognizes both education of teachers and experience of teachers. Looks like we have a ways to go on that one.

Esperanza School: This and That

2008-04-23T16:16:00.005-04:00

Thought we would do a misc. picture blog today. There are times when there is a bit here and a bit there that is a bit interesting. The first two pictures show two 7th grade students who were sent out of class for whatever reason. I came along with the camera and started taking pictures. They scrambled like crazy to find some way to hide but the flat wall provided no cover. The one decided to look through the window to look "normal" while the other one hid behind the first. Now how normal is that!!!

The picture below is of the second grade. The teacher wanted a class photo and so I was pressed into service. Notice how "normal" they are in that there is a monkey in every group.

Finally, during teacher recognition week, the 4th grade along with a parent or two planned a surprise for the teacher. The boys with the rose hid behind their back was cute. The teacher was also served lunch.

Puyo Market - Products

2008-04-22T16:48:00.005-04:00

The posting today (delayed a day because of internet problems here) features the products of the Puyo market. It is obvious that this area produces more than rain forests and wood. The picture above is only a small part of the bananas in the market. Bananas are eaten many different ways. We still are not into roasted bananas over a grill.

The rivers bring in things like this huge live turtle. I am sure he was a good soup meal for some family.

We have eaten a lot of fresh pineapple. This cost about a dollar each.

The root and leaf vegatables are very plentiful. We eat fresh radishes all the time. Amazing how a huge radish can be woody like in the midwest, but they never have a strong taste.

Fresh meat is another issue. We just have a problem buying fresh meat after seeing how it is handled and is out in the open air for hours at a time.

A comment on our last blog posting asked about the US dollar being used at the market. Yes, the US dollar is not olny used at the market, it IS the currency of this country. They were looking for some economic stablity and went to our money system several years ago. And now with the value of the US dollar taking a nosedive --- well so much for stability.

Puyo Market (Part I)

2008-04-20T16:42:00.007-04:00

We have begun to look locally for things we have not done or seen yet. Yesterday we were in Shell (about 5 miles away). A blog about that trip later.

This morning we went to the Sunday morning Puyo market. Had not made that trip yet. The pictures today are the PEOPLE of the market. The next posting will be about the products of the market.
The picture above shows that not everyone thinks having their picture taken is the highlight of their morning. The lady with the folded arms was sending a strong message.
This market is actually very large. Many of the vendors are indiginous people from the area around Puyo.

MJ is buying some locally made jewelry. Most of the jewelry is made from various kinds of seeds.

When one gets too old to carry the heavy stuff, there is always a way to do it. Not sure my neck could take this load even now.

The kids are really something! This little gal was really IN TO her cotton candy!

The ladies above were obviously old hands at this market stuff. A wide variety of dress is evident around the market.

Mothers with babies and young children bring them to the market as a matter of fact. This mother was very pleased when we showed her the picture on our viewer. Kids are always cute!

More Cultural Differences

2008-04-18T16:29:00.000-04:00

In the teacher class yesterday, we did a presentation on cultural differences between the US and Ecuador. This was done in chart form to minimize language and translation difficulties. Such topics as time, people relationships and communications were discussed.

There seemed to be a number of surprises. For example, the fact that we view people and ideas separately in the US while here they are viewed the same. Viewing them separately allows us to accept the person while rejecting their ideas. “He is a good guy, but he has some strange ideas” is not a possible conclusion here. The view that people and ideas are one in the same causes people here to be very careful in disagreeing openly with another person for to do so is step one in severing the relationship.

In the US we are a lot more individualistic. Here the person is always viewed as part of a group be it family, social, or work group. You have to be careful what you say because it reflects on the group. An outspoken person in the US can be viewed as just that, while his or her remarks are not viewed as a reflection on the family or other group.

All of the above causes communications to take on a totally different characteristic here. It is difficult to get straight “yes” and “no” answers especially if the question is a bit sensitive. Communication with “the boss” is especially troublesome. You must not challenge the boss. In the US, many leaders expect to have probing questions raised to help clarify their thinking and their decisions. A boss who never allows questions is viewed as some sort of low self-esteem individual in the US.

Finally, the receiving of visitors under any conditions and at any time here is viewed as a must. When I suggested that people other than very close friends and immediate family should call first to see if a visit was OK, they were surprised. When I went farther and said a visit request might be turned down because one was busy, they were horrified. No matter what your plans or how busy you are, you never turn down a caller.

Seems the leaders of our government might do well to research some of the sensitivities of communicating with other cultures. If we were to do so, maybe our image in the world could be improved.

Teacher Day Assembly

2008-04-16T16:26:00.005-04:00

After experiencing download difficulties yesterday, we are posting pictures from the Teacher Day celebration held this past Monday. As usual, our assemblies are held outside as shown in the above picture. The day was "sponsored by the student queen and family of the school. Apparently a contest is held early in the school year and a school queen is selected. This year the queen was in 4th grade. This appears to be a fairly expensive thing for the winning family.

Some of our female teachers were called forward to participate in a game in which they collect clothing and other things you wear from students. They each selected a student in advance to "dress" with these things. The winner got a small prize. The winner had approximately 14 additional items on including several jackets.

A professional clown team was hired from another city. They were very good as they held the attention of the entire school for about 90 minutes with all kinds of silly games.

At the end of the assembly for students, teachers were gathered around a three person band for traditional music. The trio was really very good.

Finally, the teachers were each presented with a gift from the queen and her family. the bottom picture shows this presentation.

The entire assembly event was a full two hours. It was plain, simple fun and a nice way to honor teachers.

Teachers Day Out (Part II)

2008-04-14T16:29:00.009-04:00

The bridge over the river Napo is pictured here. I thought at first it was a footbridge. I believe this is the last bridge crossing for some time. Few people have cars so the traffic is not a problem on a single lane bridge.

In Tena, later in the day, we saw a guy selling crabs out of a cart. You could smell them before you could see them.

The teachers group did what all staff do on an outing. Relax, be silly and have a good time. The swimming was in a river at Tena.

Some people just wanted to lay back and relax. No problem with doing that either.

You were allowed to bring immediate family along on the trip. This teacher brought her two children.

It was too hot to play volleyball on a near by sand court. So, playing in the river was the next best thing.

Today we had another half day of teacher day celebration at the school. Tomorrow some pictures from that event. (We just have got to learn how to celebrate more in the US!)

Life On The River

2008-04-12T14:00:00.009-04:00

The "locals" above are their own advertisement for the easy lifestyle in many places in the rain forest. This series of pictures was taken in the river village of Misahualli Friday. This is one of the places the "teachers day out" included. This village was once the entry point to large Indian land area. The river had huge canoes that were used to ship things in and out. Today, it is only a small tourist town with one company giving motorized canoe trips up and down the river. It is out of the way and even the tourist trade is down from years back. The monkeys are just around town and down by the river looking for a handout.

The canoes hold 12 people. The trip down and back up the river was very pleasant under sunny skies.

Of course, a true tourist area has to have connections. The canoe people take you down river and stop at an Indian village where a good tour was given. A dollar tour goes a long ways.

You can audition for life as an Indian hunter. The guy in the red shirt tried out using a dart blow-gun. The target was a fruit pictured below. This guy may not be a perfect shot, but if the dart had poison on it, you will just have to take your chances. (I did just nip the skin of the fruit.)

Ok, it is confession time. Actually, my first shot was a little wild. I hit one of the teachers in the forehead. (See below) He is so hard headed, it didn't even phase him. Just look at his smile.

The picture above shows one white Indian that apparently has been lost for some time. We think she thinks she is some sort of "queen of the jungle". Nobody had the heart to tell her otherwise.

The scenery a long the river is spectacular looking in any direction. Misahualli is at the fork of two rivers. This means below the village the river is much larger.

Additional posting of this trip will follow.

National Teacher Weekend

2008-04-10T17:28:00.002-04:00

This is Thursday and the end of the work week. We seem to often have four day work weeks. Tomorrow is national teacher day and the schools are closed. We will be going with our teacher group to some kind of outdoor activity near Tena. We will be taking our school bus which is more of a coach bus.
Tonight, the parent social committee is hosting a dinner at a restaurant for all teachers. The school basically shut down after 10:30 today as kids hosted parties in the individual classroom. (make that a three and a half day week)
Saturday and Sunday we still hope to make the trip to Riobamba(three hours by bus) and take the tourist train up and down the Devils Nose. The train goes back and forth on what is essentially switch backs by going forward and backward. In so doing, it climbs a steep mountain wall. This was once the railroad that connected Quito to the pacific coast cities.
It has been some time since we posted pictures. Readers who only look at pictures will be back in luck in a few days.

Beginning To Look At Conclusions

2008-04-08T17:26:00.001-04:00

With the final weeks of our stay here beginning to appear, it is time to look at some wrap-up activities. One of those activities is our visit with the senior pastor this coming Friday evening. The agenda we have created includes questions he may have, what we have accomplished and what we believe to be next steps for improvement of the school.
Accomplishments include a staff created mission and vision statement, A process for creating academic standards, a system of monitoring high school student daily performance and a five page written discipline policy. We have been assured that a board (Junta) system of managing the school will be created with a 5 person board.

Things on the “to do list” include a more comprehensive system of communicating with parents. Most importantly the communication can be just plain information and even good things going on at the school. Communicating with parents now is only a “problem-centered approach.
An entrance exam system needs to be created. It must be more than who can afford the tuition.
We have a high percentage of dysfunctional families where the students are hindered in their school work because of family issues. We need a systematic approach to counseling.
A solid academic program for grades 7 through 10 is badly needed. Junior high and high school students are still treated as “big elementary” students.
How teachers spend their time is now a critical issue. Being required to watch parents play basketball and soccer doesn’t add academic value to students. Teachers now have much more academic responsibility and they seem to run out of time quickly.
We have no system of facilities maintenance and repair. A relatively new facility is beginning to show a lot of wear.
And finally, here even more than most places, putting words into action is a constant problem. Teachers are rightly concerned that we have written a lot of words that may go no farther. I spoke with the Director yesterday about this concern.
Any reader with talents in the above mentioned areas should contact us for continued efforts here next year.

Problem Solving & Higher Levels of Thinking

2008-04-06T16:28:00.003-04:00

This next week we were going to review six levels of thinking for teachers. The levels begin with recall at the simplest level and extent to evaluating and creating at the highest level. We see nearly all textbooks (workbook style texts) written at the recall level. We have mentioned before we live in a rote memory culture.
With the ease of information retrieval these days on the internet (even here), how important is recall and the rote memory of facts that can be so easily looked up. Any person with a blackberry on their belt has the internet on their person all the time.
Information in the world is said to be doubling every few years. Some experts believe information will double several times each year in the near future. So under these conditions, what information should be memorized? Yet at the same time a non-reading culture like Ecuador gets more out of touch with the modern world each day. Yes, they become more dependent on the informationally advanced countries who value problem solving.
Our reason for teaching higher levels of thinking is so problem solving becomes a tool possessed by all students. In this culture it is possessed by very few. What you know is clearly in second place to who you know.
So, should we spend time attempting to teach teachers how to teach higher levels of thinking?

A change of Heart

2008-04-04T17:31:00.003-04:00

It has been interesting to note the change of attitude of our junior high and high school students. Seems that being called to a meeting of all your teachers and your parents can bring "the fear of God" to students.
The degree of "on task" has risen significantly in the last two days. Now we will see how long this lasts. Secondly, bad class room habits are so firmly entrenched that it will take the remainder of the school year to begin to change some very bad habits.
All we can say is that it is a good start. Teachers appreciate the new attitude and can see that they do have the power to bring about change. This point is very significant because I heard tones of despair for much of the school year until now. We hope we can eventually kill the "well what can we do?" attitude of teachers.

Debriefing

2008-04-03T18:03:00.002-04:00

Today we spent an hour visiting with teachers about their parent meetings yesterday. Reviewing how a new approach worked listing both the positives and the negatives is not done here in the school. This was done in an hour meeting which is supposed to be devoted to English instruction for teachers.
Because it was a new experience, it started off slow. As we asked some leading questions, the discussion took off and at times became fairly animated. We eventually came up with the positives, the negatives and several suggestions for changes next time. This also gave us an opportunity to congratulate the staff on a taking a new system and following it through to a successful completion. It is always good to use opportunities like this for encouraging the troops. Moreover, we hope that parents saw this experience as a positive thing to help their children. Hopefully, a debriefing will become a standard practice when new approaches are tried.

Home Run! (We Think)

2008-04-02T16:47:00.000-04:00

With a fair amount of frustration being a part of our life on a regular basis, it is great when one feels a home run has been hit. This is one of those days.
From the beginning, we were told by teachers that confrontations with parents were too plentiful and that parents sort of ran the school. Of course, no school can be successful under these conditions. It has taken a number of months to figure out what the problem is and then to find a solution.
The old game of “divide and conquer” was far too prevalent. Teachers feeling isolated and dealing with complaining parents felt helpless. Moreover, there was no systematic documentation of student shortcomings.
During the month of April we designed a grid where the students were listed on one side and the days of the month across the top. Teachers were to note on the grid any student deficiencies in (1) homework not done, (2) books or necessary materials not brought to class and (3) any problems in class such as discipline problems or just not being at all engaged in the class. We applied this system to seventh through tenth grades.
The results were amazing. First, the collective situation was much worse than we imagined. Secondly, as I collected the information and returned a summary copy to teachers each week, they could sense a collective effort to define and document the problem.
Letters were sent to parents of the worst collective offenders to show up for a meeting with the group of teachers for their child. Also, the child was required to attend this session and explain him/herself. This series of conferences happened today.
Early reports are most encouraging. Parents were upset with their children, not the teachers. Parents were happy to see a systematic approach to a problem of poor effort on the part of their children. Teachers were encouraged to feel the support of parents and end the feelings of isolation they had long felt. We expect a much better effort on the part of all students in the future. Home run!

Physical Environment Changes The Thinking

2008-04-01T16:44:00.000-04:00

Several events recently have reminded us how the physical environment shapes one’s outlook on life. Many factors that we view as “set” are really comparative in nature and are determined by our environment. I offer the following examples.

Living in a climate where the temperature normally varies by 10 degrees and on extreme days varies by 14 degrees from the hottest to the coldest can totally reshape your thinking about “hot” and “cold”. Monday we had a “cold” and rainy day. It was about 70 degrees with rain and breezy conditions. I was glad I had put on a long sleeved shirt. I didn’t laugh quite as hard at the locals for wearing heavy jackets most of the day. I also begin to feel some discomfort as we approach 80 degrees on other days. And 82 degrees is just plain bad news.

In Florida we live on totally level land. Here we are surrounded by mountains which on clear days show us snow-capped peaks. We don’t know the definition of level and rugged any more. Readers in northeast Iowa might find it strange that we consider Allamakee County as “flat land” now.

The third example has to do with rain. We live in an area that averages just short of a half inch of rain every day. We recently had three days without any rain. We began to refer to that time as our “dry stretch”. The definition of “normal” has now come to mean rain some time in the past twenty four hours.

And finally, the physical climate explanation for health problems is alive and well in a different way here. A cold with a runny nose can be blamed on a severe change in temperatures from 80 to 70 degrees. The body can only tolerate so much, you know.

Define "Academic Integrity"

2008-03-30T16:33:00.002-04:00

One of the "cultural problems" that we have which is a serious educational problems is that parents do the work and the work appears with the student name on it. The poster shown is that of a pre-Kinder student (age 4). Obviously the work is done by the parents.

There are two basic problems with this. First, this begins a pattern that will continue through high school. There are just no questions asked at all about parents doing the work in the name of the student.

The second problem is that students become dependent on their parents to do the work. A "good" parent will see to it that homework is done one way or another. I have concluded that in a culture where who you know is more important than what you know, this really doesn't cause any problem.

Now after all of this, will a reader send me the definition of "academic integrity".

In_service In The Rain Forest Setting

2008-03-28T17:50:00.006-04:00

We spent today (Friday) in the most beautiful in-service room I have ever been in. In some of the pictures you can see the forest in the background. Of course, beyond the immediate forest was range after range of mountains. The setting is a large open room (roof only) on the second floor of the high school building. A cool breeze and 75 degrees sort of topped things off.

The in=service was about math manipulative's and the Montessori system of education for lower primary. It was well done by a lady from some education organization in Quito. We were joined by the staff of another small Christian school from Shell (about five miles away).

For those readers who are educators and have sat through some long in-service meetings, the setting can change everything. Now if my Spanish were up to speed, it would have been an excellent day.
MJ bugged out and prepared for classes on Monday as she has to teach by herself.

Rote Memory Vs. Problem Solving

2008-03-26T17:14:00.002-04:00

Today was one of those days when I was reminded of the far reaching effects of the type of education system a country has and how it extends to life in general. One way of dividing education systems and the way of life in most any country is the degree to which the education system is rote memory as opposed to problem solving.

We had a chance to experiment with some test types new to student here. Multiple choice tests can be written to cause the student to evaluate the "best answer" as opposed to an answer that is somewhat close to a correct answer. Also, in another test four sentences were written. Students needed to determine if any were correct and also needed to correct any sentences with grammatical errors in them. This requires the skills of analysis and evaluation. In all cases, students had a very difficult time with the short exams.

When students are educated with a rote memory system, the adult society tends to go about life in the same way. Using information to solve problems is not the typical approach to life. When American education is criticised because our students don't "know" as much as students from other cultures, we need to look a little deeper into the entire situation. A "walking encyclopedia" with little or no ability to solve problems is inert!

More From Quito

2008-03-25T17:04:00.005-04:00

The cathederal above is located on one of the many hills in old town Quito. We were not able to visit the inside, but the exterior is every bit as grand as many cathederals in Europe. People are waiting for the procession to come by.

We continue to have download problems with pictures. The pictures today give an idea of the huge crowds as well as the length of the Good Friday Procession in Quito. The picture above shows that one can not see to the other end of the procession. Sidewalks are 6 to 10 deep on both sides with observers. A pick-pocket's dream come true!!!

Old Town Quito

2008-03-24T17:47:00.003-04:00

We are having a bit of download problems today. Not sure how many pictures will eventually appear in the posting. The picture above is from "old town" Quito. It is really a beautiful part of the city. We understand that extensive renovation has been done in the last decade. Located in a very hilly section, there are places you can see for 20 blocks. The Good Friday procession was a real spectacle from these vantage points. The old buildings with three floors of interior courtyards are now used as resturants and shops.

We discovered today in school that our bus driver was also a pick-pocket victim in Quito over the weekend. He had to talk the bus driver into allowing him to pay for the ticket to Puyo after he arrived in Puyo. Too bad places like Quito gain this type of reputation. The economic impact will increase over the years as tourists begin to avoid places like this.

Good Friday In Quito

2008-03-23T15:54:00.008-04:00

We had not thought of Easter activity when we went to Quito. We found that on Good Friday there was a huge processional in the Old Town part of Quito. The pictures in this posting and one more to follow are from this event. Readers better versed in Catholic tradition will have to inform us as to the significance of the pointed hats with only the eyes showing. This is our first experience with this. A wide variety of "cross carriers" were included in the 45 minute parade. We say 45 minutes because we were at the very beginning. As the procession wound through the streets, it often came to a halt. Pictures posted tomorrow will show the lengthy route. Some crosses were so heavy that those carrying them were struggling at the start. We wonder how several miles of this would be possible

There a number of "groups" that wore different colored "cap and gowns". Again, we ask readers familiar with this to indicate the significance.

The great number of people who turn out to watch this event provided a golden opportunity for some in the crowd to increase their wealth. I fell victim to this. Now I get to replace all my credit cards, licence, etc. not to mention a new wallet. Thinking about this afterward, one can think of dozens of precautions that could have been taken to reduce the pick-pocket activity. Oh well, a lesson learned after being a bit lighter with cash!

Other than the one bad experience, it was a good trip. We are now ready for the final two months of work.

In Quito

2008-03-19T18:01:00.002-04:00

The blog report is being posted from Quito tonight. We decided to take a couple of days and look around Quito and do some shopping for educational supply items.

The bus ride from Puyo to Quito is normally five hours. Today it was 4:45. The bus was nearly new and very comfortable. Managing restroom stops is easy. There aren't any and there are no facilities aboard the bus. Anticipating this, we had A cup of coffee this morning.

We finished school prior to Easter vacation with a two hour teacher meeting on educational standards. We set up a system of identifying the major concepts taught in each course and grade level. These major concepts and skills are textbook based since it is closer to reality than any written curriculum. We demonstrated how questions would be constructed to test students over the major concepts.

We established a work calendar for the remainder of the year. Identify major concepts, distribute this document to students so they know what to study for, begin writing the exams, an exam schedule and finally a time to review and discuss the results. This was a HUGE undertaking in a culture that tends to operate day by day.

Going For A Walk

2008-03-18T16:31:00.006-04:00

Walking around the city can bring on the unexpected in a wide variety of ways. The pictures on this posting represent one such walk.

The picture above includes the "front yard" of a house which has dozens of potted plants. We stopped to take a picture through the fence when we heard this little voice yell out the window "Mary Jane!" Of course it was one of her students. Grandma came out as well as the student to invite us in to look at the remainder of the flowers. The little student asked where MJ's co-teacher was. They assume if they are together whenever they see them, they must be together on weekends too.

The picture of the school above has one of the more elegant fronts of all the schools in Puyo. The huge class entrance reflects the clouds on this sunny afternoon

From a foothill on the edge of the city, we could look back over Puyo and get a birdseye view. The city is estimated to be around 30,000 people. Although it lies at the junction of two rivers, one can look in most any direction to see the mountains in the distance. Clear days reveal snowcapped peaks.

Outstanding Woodwork In The Neighborhood!

2008-03-17T16:37:00.007-04:00

Sometimes the most interesting things appear from nowhere and in your own neighborhood. Several weeks ago while walking some four blocks from home, we came across this house where obviously a woodworking operation was going on. I need little more to attract my attention than people making things out of wood. The picture above is as entertainment center and the one below is a bench that could be used inside or outside.

Saturday afternoon, the gate was open and the owners were standing in the drive. We asked if we could take some pictures. This series of pictures came from their home, garage and driveway. Since the entire dwelling is filled with wood products, we really couldn't tell where the workshop was.

All of the wood is rain forest grown. I still don't know the names, but intend to find out. Note the bed headboard and foot board. The dark wood grows inside the tree and the white wood is younger and on the outside of the tree. It makes a beautiful combination.

The Chevrolet pickup is a REAL work of art. The details right down to the decals and all the damage on the old pickup is amazing. I intend to ask the price in the near future. May be out of my price range, however.

All of the wood is extremely dense and therefore, heavy. Transporting anything of any size back to the US presents a shipping problem.

Those readers who appreciate wood products may wish to click on the pictures to get a full screen view

Sidewalks Are Not Necessarily For Walking

2008-03-15T13:02:00.009-04:00

Among the many adjustments in living in another culture are the simple things we tend to believe are universal, but they are not. For example, we may think the rest of the world might have a rule that says pedestrians have the right of way. WRONG! Pedestrians have no rights here except the right to get out of the way or get hit. This applies to all locations, even intersections.

Another assumption that we make in the US is that sidewalks are for walking on. Wrong! We even assume that sidewalks should be free of any hazard that might cause a person to fall. The person walking here has all the liability. Simply put "watch where you are going!"

This series of pictures is designed to show that sidewalks are not just for pedestrians. Businesses often overflow into the sidewalk area. It is up to the walker to go around whatever is in the way. The picture above shows the "right" of the business owner to build a ramp fully across the sidewalk. Don't trip!!

The city will place a utility pole where ever necessary. Often this is in the middle of the sidewalk. This also give a place for people to lean against and small group conversations can totally block the sidewalk.

Construction work requires no warnings or barricades. Certainly you can see that construction is going on and so the walker should beware.

Finally, in the picture below the homeowner thought a nice rock would add to curb appeal. Placing it in the middle of the sidewalk is no problem at all. It is a dandy of a shin bumper!

The School Staff Relaxing

2008-03-14T17:24:00.005-04:00

The first picture shows the director and to her left, the second grade teacher.

The posting today highlights social activities of the staff from school. Once a month some kind of gathering is scheduled to, among other things, celebrate birthdays. The group is a typical one in many ways. There is always the "life of the party" and those who are more reserved. This picture series was taken at the home of one of the teachers. They had a karaoke system and the group got to singing all kinds of songs. Too bad we can't seem to get the video to download.

The picture above shows the senior pastor and to the extreme left, the director of the school.

The above group includes some of our female staff except for the second to the right. She is the wife of the senior pastor.

The above picture shows the computer teacher. He is one of the "life of the party" sort. Alex had a good time at this party.

We discovered early on that we are 20 years the senior of anyone who works at the school. So, we have the staff and then we have "the old couple". (Possibly "the odd couple".

Onward With Semester Exams!

2008-03-13T19:29:00.002-04:00

Just about the time we think we have come to a dead end on changing approaches to education, another breakthrough comes along. After meeting with a smaller group of teachers this evening and the school director, she decided that there will be a full staff meeting at 11:00 AM next Tuesday to explain setting academic standards. This includes establishing a semester test system which will have its trial run this coming June.

We have a ton of things to do in a short period of time now. Not the least of these things is a crash course in exam writing which includes proper sampling, kinds of test questions and a dozen other things.

More on this topic after the meeting next Tuesday.

Academic Standards

2008-03-12T21:05:00.003-04:00

We have now turned to the topic of academic standards with the teacher group. It is immediately obvious that this will be a difficult concept partly because it is more abstract and partly because of old beliefs about what an academic standard is. The textbook is not an academic standard. Student grades are not an academic standard. Both of these beliefs are widely held here.

Academic standards can only be observed when you have both the material and skills along with student exam performance on these two aspect of knowledge. Since no outside exams are available here, we have to devise an internal system where we write semester exams. This is especially difficult since teachers are not trained in test writing.

Attempting to establish a standard by setting the material to be learned along side the test performance of students on a semester by semester basis is not the ideal way to establish academic standards. We need to start some place. More reports later on this topic.

Funeral Procession

2008-03-11T16:37:00.003-04:00

Having some recent knowledge of funeral costs and customs, it is interesting to make comparisons. While we don't know the cost of a typical funeral here, we do know that it is considerably less than in the US. The three pictures in this posting show a funeral procession moving through the down town area of Puyo. As noted in the first picture, the casket is placed in an open pickup bed. The family walks after the pickup. There is no special traffic control as the taxi cabs and few other drivers quickly observe the situation and yield until the procession passes. Of course, it is raining and the procession takes this in stride.
We are told that the body is dressed and prepared for nearly immediate burial. We are not sure who prepares the body. We understand that sometimes this is done by family members. There are cemeteries around Puyo and we notice a lot of burial above the ground in family crypts.

Cultural Differences

2008-03-10T16:58:00.003-04:00

When living in another culture there are plenty of times when it is difficult to understand traits of the culture you are living in. Even more difficult is the explanation of things in your own culture that the local people here find strange. This last weekend, daylight time kicked in across the US. Now how do you explain that concept to people who live on the equator where each day is the same length the entire year around? Why would anybody go messing with the clock to gain something? What is it that is gained? Is it so valuable that everything from work schedules to airline schedules are disrupted twice a year? How does it "save time" as the name implies?

On this end of things we have the strange (to us) idea that the customer is responsible for having the correct change. Even the large shops with cash drawers full of change will ask if you have the odd amount of your bill so that they will not have to return change. Saturday morning this got complicated. We shopped in Puyo's largest department store. The transaction went fine. However, when I discovered I had no change to buy tomatoes from a vendor outside, I went back in to ask the store to break a $10 bill. I was refused. MJ suggested I buy something more. So, I bought a candy bar and waited in the same check out line where I was refused change. I laid the candy bar down along with a $20 bill. I stood with my hands on my hips. She became upset when I said I had no change. She made the change in a big huff, I thanked her and left the store to buy my tomatoes. (The store does not sell tomatoes).

In a future blog, we will demonstrate with pictures that sidewalks are NOT necessarily intended for walking on.

Different Vegetation in the Rain Forest

2008-03-09T16:40:00.006-04:00

As we travel around the rain forest area, one continually comes upon beautiful plant life. The two flowers pictured here were in the courtyard of our hotel in Tena. We do not know the name, but they appear to grow from a vine. The color and design was just outstanding.

The picture above and below are of the same kind of tree. Again, we don't know the name, but the 'fruit" grows to be huge. The green "ball" below is about the size of a volleyball. The outside of the fruit was very hard. This is an example of things that the traveler should research at the time, but never gets around to it later.

The two pictures below are of the same tree. We do not know the name, but like so many trees in the rain forest, it is just huge. There are estimates as to how much bird, insect, and animal life a single tree like this supports. The estimates stagger the mind. The problem is that the several hundred year old trees are being cut and sold for very little when one considers what it takes to replace them. The tree below is in a protected park and should live a long time.

Teacher Discussions & Classes

2008-03-07T16:02:00.005-05:00

This series of pictures show our teacher class room in action. The setting is the laundry room which is a covered shed in the middle of our compound. The group ranges from a dozen to 15 people. Watching the expression on people's faces says a lot. In the upper right you can see two people talking intensely at once. Talking over another person is not considered rude in this culture.

The picture in the upper left shows Debra, MJ's co-teacher and our chief translator at these meetings.

I spend a lot of time just waiting for the discussion to go on and finally questions in English emerge. I have tried very hard to stick with process type questions and give advice on process. The content of the discussions must belong to the group membership. I do bring a written outline to the meetings to direct discussions. My co-teacher translates for me. Without the written discussion guides, chaos has a better chance of surviving.

The picture to the lower right features the director of the school. Lidia takes a leadership role in directing discussions and responding to individual questions.

AmaZOOnica

2008-03-06T16:38:00.006-05:00

This posting shows several pictures of a wildlife refuge located in the jungle some hour and forty five minutes out of Tena. The place is called AmaZOOnica. It is run by a Swiss foundation. Access to this refuge is by motorized canoe. We took a chance of just stopping on the road a hundred yards from the landing. A boat happened to come by and give us a ride to the refuge. (We were lucky several times that day.)

The refuge has about 300 birds and animals with some 60 being monkeys. Most of the animals have had a troubled past. Some were cute pets that the owners wanted to get rid of when they got older and hard to handle. Others were confiscated from bird and animal smugglers. Some were shot and injured or the babies were rescued after the mother was shot.

Managing a situations where animals and birds come in and some are set free is a complicated job. Birds and animals may or may not accept the new comer. Releasing animals has to be done at some distance away. Sometimes the cage is left in the new location and after some time the doors are open. Some animals raised as pets can never be released because they never acquired hunting skills.

The people who work at AmaZOOnica are mostly young volunteers from Europe with a few from Canada and the US. They live at the refuge from two to six months at a cost to the volunteer of $100 a month for food and lodging. The Quechua Indians who live in the area are being taught to manage the refuge in the future. The families live on site. There is an elementary school to educate the children. Because of anticipated long term relations with the Swiss foundation, the school also teaches Germans to the students. So, the Quechua student know their own language, Spanish, German and some English. We happened to meet one of the volunteer teachers at our hotel in Tena the day before. She invited us to visit the school. The picture below shows two Swiss kids with Quechua children in the background.

Get This Monkey Off My Back

2008-03-05T18:33:00.004-05:00

This is one of those blog postings that will give all the wise-guy readers ammunition about "so which one is the monkey?" and a million other lines. So, fire away! The picture above shows Tiffany Miller with her new found friend. We were visiting an island zoo in Tena. Tena is about a two and a half hour bus trip north of Puyo. About one third of the ride was like riding a jackhammer. They are slowly improving the roads, however.

I wouldn't say I froze when this guy jumped on me, but I would say I scratched my head for about an hour after he got off. I think I now know why monkeys spend a lot of time scratching and looking through their fur.

Just outside of Puyo, we visited an botanical "farm". The owner has spent 28 years collecting plants which are going exstinct here in the rain forest. This is our fourth visit to this place over a several year period. We have over 250 pictures from this botanical "farm". Nathan & Tiffany are beside a "walking tree" which tends to gravitate toward additional sunlight over the years. The new "roots" grow out of the trunk all the way from a foot to three feet above the ground. New ones keep coming and old ones rot off.

The food of the rain forest people include a wide variety of natural things. The picture above was taken in a market in Tena. The large bowl is full of live grubs. This is a delicacy which we did NOT try. They are "roasted" in leaves much like the way they cook fish which we showed in a posting some time back. There are just some foods we can't get past the mind let alone the mouth. Be sure to click on this picture so you get a full screen view on your computer.

Future postings will include more pictures and details of three very full days of travel in this area.

Tena, Ecuador

2008-03-02T18:56:00.003-05:00

The posting tonight is from Tena, Ecuador. We decided to take a short weekend trip about two and a half hours north of Puyo by bus. About half the trip was on excellent roads and the other half was on roads under construction or should have been under construction. I think an excellent business here would be the selling of heavy duty suspension systems for busses.

Tena is a river town. Two major rivers join just a few hundred yards from our hotel. The island that makes up the upper fork of this joining of two rivers is a sort of natural zoo. We spent some time attempting to photograph monkeys in the trees until we discovered that if you stand still under the smaller trees, they will jump on you and sit on your shoulder and head. After this happened several times, I now know why monkeys scratch a lot. I felt the need to work my hair over a number of times.

My nephew, Nathan Miller and his wife Tiffany are making the trip with us. Seeing the rainforest for the first time, they seem to enjoy it and conclude it is a ¨wow¨experience.

Tomorrow (we are skipping work) we will travel back down south a bit to see several river communities and will possibly visit an animal rescue zoo where the animals of the area are nursed back to health. The rainforest does not present an opportunity to see wild life because of excess hunting and cutting of the forest. If one were to travel inland far enough, this would change. However, none of us are in condition nor have the time to try this challenging trip. A few people ¨cheat¨by riding down the rivers for several days to say they have ventured into the primary jungle.

We have run in to a number of Americans here in Tena who took a five hour bus trip from Quito to do some white water rafting. We have had a couple of interesting conversations.

Wednesday Activities

2008-02-28T17:39:00.003-05:00

We did not have school on Wednesday. The students performed a flag pledge marching program in the afternoon with all the pom and circumstance that this culture can muster which is substantial. The above picture shows a bit about this ceremony.

The teachers spent the morning hammering out a mission and vision statement for the school. This is new activity for them. We were very pleased with the process. Sharp disagreements were evident about the wording of both documents. To be able to separate issues from people in this culture is remarkable. We believe they now understand why it is so important that the staff go through the frustrations of creating these documents. Ownership was clearly evident at the conclusion of the session. Moreover, I think it was evident that they actually enjoyed the process.

The staff will conclude the discipline policy for the school at their next meeting next week. This has been an 8 hour process so far. We will next tackle some basics in setting academic standards. So, some progress here!

We look forward to the arrival of Nathan and Tiffany Miller from Moline, IL tomorrow afternoon. We will be doing some local touring and so there may be some missing blog posts. Hopefully, we will have some interesting pictures to post later.

A Routine Sunday Morning

2008-02-27T11:02:00.005-05:00

We often forget the routine things of life as we go about our business. This series of pictures shows a part of our Sunday morning. Fortunately, MJ carries the camera most of the time and so pictures like this are possible when we think to take them. We have about a 20 minute walk to church. We often take the bus and walk the last few blocks. So the little guys are out shining shoes and a quick shine is available.

As we approach our home, the neighbors have some different looking chickens running around. (Many people keep chickens in their yards all over town). This "fuzz ball" was just different and didn't mind posing for a shot.

There is a little compound of houses built largely of scrap lumber emerging about a block from us. It has been interesting watching the construction in slow motion (over a 6 months period of time). The picture below shows the huge amount of clothes that need to be dried from the people who live in this compound. Of course, the houses are just filled with children. The almost daily rain provides a real challenge to ever get this amount of wash dry.

And finally arriving back at the apartment, the picture below shows our compound, the flowers and "the boss". The blue tank is the rain water supply. because of a number of interruptions lately in city water supply, this has been a real life saver

The bottom line is that life here is a kaleidoscope of sites, sounds and just plain different things.

Pantyhose And Mis-communication

2008-02-26T18:56:00.002-05:00

Communication is a problem among people everywhere. Working between two languages with both parties much less than fluent causes even more problems. Consider the following rather funny incident:

The Pre-Kinder teacher came to school Monday with a giant run in her hose of which she was really not pleased. One of the cooks retails hose from her sister's shop and so has some on hand for sale.

The teacher understood that the cook only had hose on hand that might look like something from a XXX movie. MJ understood that XXX mean size and she imagined hose for a huge lady. MJ's co-teacher was telling me that the teacher was going to the kitchen to get three eggs. (XXX sounded like three eggs in her accent). I couldn't imagine the relationship between hose and three eggs but (for once) didn't ask.

Later in the day it came out that three of us had very different concepts of what happened:
1. hose that looked like something from a XXX movie
2. a huge pair of hose for someone wearing XXX
3. And Omer, who is out to lunch, wondering why a problem with a pair of hose involves three eggs in the kitchen.

Most of us had a good laugh over this one.

We now wonder how many of these kinds of situations go undetected and causes us to draw very bad conclusions.

A Different Way of Doing Business

2008-02-23T12:29:00.002-05:00

Meetings with the teacher group has been very interesting the last week. We had two staff meeting where the purpose was to write a discipline policy. The interesting part is that this is their first experience of defining a problem and writing solutions. Prior experience has always been a top down approach where the solutions were given to them by the "powers that be."

Not having experience in approaching a problem could have been very difficult. Some thirty questions or ideas to ponder were written by us. We had a bit of difficulty in that the points, even though they were intended as "starter questions" became the only thing looked at. By the second meeting we started to get past that issue.

Discussion was slow at first. By the second meeting things started to take off. It was very interesting to see the experience of discovering that other teachers had common problems unfold. This really seemed to generate the conversation.

Next meeting we will be getting into the "consequences". Hopefully, the concept of collaboration will kick in as well as the power that collaboration can generate. A most interesting experience!

Birthday Party

2008-02-21T18:34:00.004-05:00

Welcome to our birthday in first grade. The party girl gets dressed up to serve her cake and jello. The Pre- Kinder teacher doubles as the clown.

Parents take get delight and go to great length to make it a memorable ocassion with her friends. The party is the last thing in the day. What a way to end the day!!!

Sociology 101 And ¨Palanka

2008-02-19T16:37:00.000-05:00

Getting things done organizationaly speaking is a trick most anywhere. Trying to get things done in another culture of course requires some working knowledge of how things are done and what it takes to break through the barriers. In this culture ¨palanka¨(not sure of the spelling) is the series of connections between people that is used to accomplish the difficult if not the impossible. In the US we call it ¨connections¨or ¨greasing the skids¨or having ¨pull¨. In Bahrain it was called ¨whasta¨. The frustration of local people becomes apparent when an outsider can come in and do things they could not seem to get done for a long time. Of course it is not that the outsider is so smart, but rather the system is not working in the same way with the outsider.¨Palanka¨means I do something for you and you do something for me. As an outsider I can do for them, but I am not dependent on them doing something for me. The airport in Quito is five hours away and I have nothing to lose if it is necessary to leave. Consequently, the ¨palanka¨game is greatly altered. It is amazing how this brings people around who have not had to come around previously.Latino culture and organization is very top down. If you manage to rise to the top of the organization, a little clever ¨palanka¨can keep you there for a long time. People just accept that you are the boss.The down side of all of this that the power and leverage gained from team work and a collabrative approach is lost. It is amazing how that loss hinders organizations from getting as much done as should be done.And so we continue to work on organizational matters in the school.

Recreation in the Neighborhood

2008-02-18T16:15:00.004-05:00

Immediately behind (from our direction) the recreational park is the main bus terminal for Puyo.The picture above shows this terminal. There is another terminal across town too. You just have to know where you are going and go to the right terminal. The one pictured has busses going to Quito so this is where our five hour ride ends or starts when we come and go to or from Quito.

We often tend to overlook the familiar in our neighborhood the longer we are here. So Sunday afternoon we walked around taking a few pictures. Three blocks from where we live we have this large recreational park. the picture above shows this huge water slide. They have other areas for volleyball (carry ball as I watched them) and basketball as well as a couple of tennis courts. The park is about 2 square blocks of space. The only cost is for the pools and waterslide; $3 for adults and $1.50 for kids. We attempted to download more pics but there is a download problems some where.

Long Term School Review

2008-02-16T17:25:00.003-05:00

After a two and a half hour meeting this morning with the senior pastor, principal, asst. principal and translator, it seems we may be on a new and long path at the school.
There is a willingness on the part of the senior pastor to explore the concept of a school board (junta in Spanish).
There is no knowledge or practice in this environment of how a junta would work. My first task is to write up a set of rules as to how a well functioning junta would work. So we will get started on that and get the list of do´s and don´ts translated. It is important that potential junta members be informed as to how they are expected to behave and function before they accept the appointment. Yes, at least for starters they will be appointed.
We have suggested before that we will not make another year commitment to this project. However, I did agree to come several times a year on a consulting basis. We can also do a lot of work by email and Skype once we get that all set up.
The list of things to do for a total school review boggles the mind, but there is never a short cut to these kinds of things.

Face Painting The Lesson

2008-02-15T16:47:00.007-05:00

As readers can see, we will turn to the lighter (and more interesting) side of things here. Little kids have that entertainment ability without even trying.
Pictured above is MJ's co-teacher, Debora. This is her first year of teaching. It has been a growing experience for her in many ways. She is also our main translator when it comes to speaking to the school "powers that be." She also translate during our sessions with the teaching staff.

These kids are in Pre-Kinder. While studying animals and insects, the teacher paints the creatures on kids faces. They love it!!

There are only four girls out of the 12 students in this class. They know their colors, numbers to 10, shapes and toys.

The teacher shown below is an excellent teacher with the little kids. She has a lot of creative ideas. She uses music and dance as well as art and drama to get her points across. She also speaks English fairly well. Because they don't have children's music, she was thankful and very interested in a series of children's music CD's we brought which were in both English and Spanish. Amazing what a $10 investment can do.

This is MJ's hug source every day

Be sure to click on these pictures for a full screen view. The faces are great!

NO Water In The Rainforest.

2008-02-14T18:55:00.003-05:00

Yet another little glich in life here in Puyo. Actually Puyo has become Pooy-o. The city was without water for three days. Restrooms were in desperate need of water!!

In our case, we survived because our landlady has a large rainwater supply tank. We used out of this supply for two days. We had some rain which helped to replenish this supply a bit. A little water was boiled for a spitz bath this morning. Had not gone this route for about 50 years.

The school is just out of town and is on another supply source. We have had our problems there in the past too.

When we returned from school today, water was finally back on. We now appreciate water in the rainforest.

Valentines Day, while celebrated, is a much lower key thing here. MJ might end up with a pizza!

Excellent Teacher Discussion

2008-02-13T18:38:00.002-05:00

Yet another day full of surprises! The meeting today at school was to receive an already written mission statement from the school-pastor leadership. Every school accrediting association in the world will tell you that the mission statement has no chance of sucess if it comes from the top down. You can not hand a staff a mission statement. Sooooo, I raised the question in the meeting about who was the author of the mission statement. Apparently it was one dusted off from a number of years ago.
I simply made the point that as good as it might be, it has no chance of taking root because there was obviously no ownership. As soon as I raised this question (bucked the hand down approach) the teacher group changed and there was some considerable discussion about the wording. Finally, it was decided to come back at a later meeting to work on the wording. What a change in attitude by the staff!
This meeting was followed by an hour and a half meeting at our home regarding the discipline policy (or lack there of). We used a structured question approach written out. Without this structure a meeting would be like herding cats. An excellent discussion was held with another meeting set for next week to begin hammering out the details of a discipline policy.
I also used a crude diagram of the parts of school operations. The staff was amazed at the full picture of school operations. Most had copied the diagram from the board and one teacher translated the parts of school operations into Spanish. All in all, it was an excellent meeting. Clearly new ground was broken in that teachers were actually having to work through their own situation.

Changes At The Drop of a Hat

2008-02-12T16:02:00.000-05:00

In the posting yesterday, I was sure of the schedule for this week. Well, today that seems to have changed. By the end of the school day we were informed students would be going home early tomorrow because we have an extended meeting at 11:30. Can't seem to find a teacher that has any idea of the topic of the meeting. Life is never boring here. We live for the unexpected.

Weather? Well the sky opened and we had about two days of a lot of rain. This afternoon the sun is out and one could aquire a sunburn within the hour. Makes the orchids grow!

We have found an internet shop very close to our apartment that allows us to connect our laptop for the going rate. Nice to have one's own bookmarks and keyboard.

Just Work & Meetings

2008-02-11T17:02:00.001-05:00

Well, it looks like nothing but plain work for this week. In addition to the five school days (we think) we will have a teacher´s English class Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday afternoon there will be a staff discussion on the improvement of the discipline picture at school. On Friday an ëxpert¨will come to speak about how to write better test questions. On Saturday morning we will meet with the principals and the senior pastor about general school improvement topics.

Nobody can say we aren´t trying to get a better handle on things. It will be interesting to see how much patience the staff has for all of this. The listing above is a shock to everyone as we generally don´t have experience with these matters here. We have already notice at the highest level that there is a tendancy to copy other plans rather than work through the issues. We have to be careful that we build ownership into anything that is decided.

What Does an Excellent School Look Like?

2008-02-09T10:21:00.000-05:00

Today we might press our luck a bit with the school improvement ideas. At five this PM we will be meeting with the senior pastor, principal, an interpreter, and the vice principal. Although we are not sure of the agenda (the meeting isn´t mine) I think the topic will be approaches to school improvement.

One of the remote possibilities is to look at what it takes to become an accredited school. This is a long shot and may not go any place because we have so far to go. I am recalling in about 1991 we were at this point in Bahrain. The project was a full four year project to become an accredited school. Again we had resources to do it there. Here, it would be a shoe string operation at best.

A major problem here is we have no pratice in answering the question of ¨what does an excellent school look like?¨ We can use the general categories commonly used by most any accrediting organization to give an idea of what characteristics as good school has. I have downloaded some samples from the internet. I hope to find additional examples in Spanish.

A report on this difficult question and how the group today handled it will be forth coming.

Teacher Success!

2008-02-08T17:10:00.000-05:00

From time to time I have complained about lack of progress in our projects. MJ says patience is not my strongest point. She may be partly correct (Never will give in completely on this point.)

We have been working for several months to implement a student grading system that is fair to students, communicates to parents, and allows teachers the flexibility needed to use a system on all subject areas as well as age levels. In a meeting Thursday afternoon, a final presentation was made with teachers demonstrating knowledge of a completed system. There were outstanding weighted grading systems presented. The discussion indicated an excellent knowledge of what was done and how it would be used to grade students.

Earlier in the day, I was in the computer room and saw the spreadsheet documents of a few teachers. They were excellent! (We don´t have the luxery of built in spreadsheet systems as most US schools have in their grade report systems. We have to build our own.)

Teachers were obviously pleased with their results as well. At the end of the meeting we asked the question as to which issue we should tackle next. Teaching techniques and discipline were the two top suggestions. Educators throughout America will know that discipline was the final winner. So, we now have a thirty point discipline discussion guide in the hands of teachers to begin thinking about this topic. My co-teacher has translated it so that everyone understands issues and approaches to think about.

IT was a good week!!

Carnival Pics - Finally

2008-02-07T15:50:00.000-05:00

Of course, the pics today are from carnival from last Sat through Tuesday. Getting wet is a real possibility. I got the big dump from a bucket of water some three stories up in the down town area. We hear that some areas even dump paint on each other. We are very ¨civilized¨here in Puyo.

The dresses are beautiful and they know how to make the most of what they wear.

A lot of nice looking ladies in these here parts of the world.

Don´t know about people like in the pic below. At least I didn´t recognize him (it).

You guess as to what is being sold here. Business was good, however.

And big smiles all around except on Monday when the parade got rained out. With all the rain around here, it was the first event to get rained out since we have been here. The ¨sinning¨went on in other ways even in the rain. Missed a good picture of two boys about 10 years old sharing a beer on main street watching the parade.

Carnival, Internet, and Volcano

2008-02-06T19:08:00.001-05:00

OK, Carnival is over which means, among other things we get internet back in operation. Carnival is such a big deal here that most everything of a business nature comes to a halt including four days of no internet any where in the town of Puyo. Internet is still very slow tonight as many people are back on and getting caught up on news, etc.

The other big news is that the volcano about 30 miles away is blowing. A big erruption ocurred during the night last night. Those readers who are really interested in this should type the name of the volcano, Tungurahua, into the news section of google.com. There is plenty of information on it now. We understand the road to by the volcano that leads eventually to Quito is closed not because it is covered but because the danger is great enough that an erruption to come at any time.

We are again very busy with school with some interesting break throughs. More about that later.

CARNIVAL!

2008-02-02T16:16:00.000-05:00

We are attempting to download a series of pictures we took this morning. Carnival holidays are here. We do not have school on Monday and Tuesday. There was a very nice parade this morning and another one on Monday morning. Possibly a few pictures can be sent today. We have a VERY slow internet today which will limit the number of pictures sent.

Reading Education

2008-01-31T18:33:00.000-05:00

Teacher classes in Englishcontinued today. Again, very interesting watching adults react to children´s literature. Just the fact that you can read something in another language is a good feeling.

In the course of using the children´s literature with adults, we are discovering that children´s TV programming is very limited. While in the US there is concern about small children spending too much time in front of the TV even for educational programming, here it doesn´t happen but on a VERY limited basis. Reading is just beginning to be taught in second grade. There are no reading books as we would have in US schools at this age or at any other age for that matter. All school books are in workbook form. I saw my first student all year reading a book on the bus the other morning.

The fact that we tend to work on vocabulary building at the lower grades while delaying the grammar instruction until later just blows there mind here. Grammar IS the most important thing that can be taught. The concept that everyone has limited thinking ability based, in part, on the amount of vocabulary one has, just doesn´t register. No one challenges the thinking that being grammar rich and vocabulary poor may be a problem.

We have just mentioned some educational differences that we can not address to any degree this school year.

First Grade Literature Books For Adults

2008-01-30T18:51:00.000-05:00

This afternoon we began using the first grade literature books to teach teachers English. The pictures, repetion, and simplicity of vocabulary really seemed to improve instruction. There were still a lot of questions about grammar, which to some extent is necessary. However, the emphasis on reading and enlarging vocabulary was still the main theme. The books (there are five in the series at first grade) become difficult fairly rapidly. The next lesson will probably have to go much slower as vocabulary overload becomes a factor very quickly.

The next two days we will be having staff meetings after school. We will discover the topics when we get to the meetings.

Pictures For Those Experiencing Winter

2008-01-29T16:16:00.000-05:00

This blog entry is for the benefit of those readers in the upper midwest who have had one serious bout of winter recently and apparently today are experiencing round two. These pictures were taken just outside Puyo last week. Hope it helps warm you a bit and thoughts can turn to spring.
Click on any picture to enlarge it to full screen.

Teaching Teachers English

2008-01-28T16:53:00.000-05:00

We started a new approach to teaching English to teachers today. The approach may sound a bit basic, but when one puts the shoe on the other foot, maybe it is not. If you didn´t know any Spanish, would reading first grade literature books in Spanish be too simple? Probably not for most people. All we need to get past is the idea that adults are reading first grade material. Wednesday is our first experiment with this approach.

We brought back a wooden clock with moveable hands which would be used in first grade. This was a big hit last week in the teacher class as we worked on how to tell time in English.

I have started typing the story content of the first grade books in double spacing so that the reader can write the translation on their own copy of the story since writing in the book is not possible. We may even try this approach in some of the classes for students.

This approach will rely heavily on the use of pictures in the stories to build vocabulary. This is what pictures do for primary students in their own language.

By the time we are finished with this experiment here, we should finally know what we should have known at the beginning.

More Field Trip Pics

2008-01-27T13:46:00.000-05:00

The pictures scattered around this posting are supposed to show two themes. First some of the creatures we encounter on a field trip include a huge ¨wooly worm¨with a very interesting tail

. One of the teachers was willing to show it on his arm. The monkey was a tame-wild camp monkey. He is free to run as he likes, but is clearly not afraid of humans. He is about the size of a very large rat. Of course, he was a constant pesk in the kitche, running over the food and the dishes. Didn´t seem to bother anyone but me.

There were two large parrots that were also tame-wild. They too came into the kitchen and dinning room at will. Some of our group were feeding them bread on the table. They enjoyed it so much they immediately left a ¨thank offering¨on the table before flying off. Again, I´m the only one bothered.

One picture above shows the camp from the river. It was actually about three times larger than the picture shows.

Finally, the kids had a lot of fun swimming in a waterfall and in the river. Of course kids go full blast all day and only crash when it is all over. It was a 12 hour day for all of us.

2008-01-26T15:21:00.000-05:00

The field trip to the jungle was a great one. We will probably write a couple of blog entries about this trip. We will concentrate on the historical or "old ways" of doing things in this posting.

Cooking fresh fish and a look at the old hollowed out canoes used on the river for centuries were both a fascination.
On the way to our "camp" located about an hour out of Puyo, we stop near the camp site at a fish farm. The man working there threw a net into the water and brought back about six fish per throw. One of the teachers, who worked as a tour guide at one time, cut large green leaves from a plant on the banks of the pond. Pictures on this page show how the fish are finally wrapped in the leaves and placed over a low fire. It takes about an hour for the fish to be steamed (water coming from the leaves). The fish was absolutely delicious. Just wished the head and tail had been removed first. The insides were removed prior to cooking.

I am not sure about the kind of wood the canoes are made of. I had imagined canoes as we know them which are made of plastic. As the pictures indicate, these canoes are huge. They easily carry ten people and additional cargo beside. One of the hazzards of these canoes is that over time they tend to crack. Some of the picture indicate strips of tin or even plastic nailed over the cracks. Nothing like getting a few more years out of a canoe that must have taken considerable time to hand carve.
Wasn't hard to imagine the local indian tribes catching fish, cooking them from nature's frying pan and eating them. It would have been a much more pleasant task then poling that canoe back up against a very swift current!
Please recall you can click once on any picture to enlarge that picture. Clicking the back arrow in the upper left of your screen gets you back to the blog.

Venting About Grading Students

2008-01-24T18:31:00.000-05:00

Will have to ¨vent¨a bit today. Probably the next entry will have some pictures of the field trip.

Grading students can be more trouble than it is worth under the wrong conditions. I discovered today that about half the staff is so into the calculation part of grading that they give no consideration to the rest of the process. Wanting to calculate a grade to two and three decimal places suggests that student evaluation is as scientific as launching a spaceship. Problem is that there are some teachers who, judged by their actions, actually believe this to be true.

I am in the process of writing a one page paper that outlines a brief grading process. Taking an appropriate sample of questions from the unit, writing the questions in clear language, and considering statistical matters of too few questions (or even too many that makes the test time period the critical factor) never seem to be taken into account. Violating all these basics of test writing simply allows the teacher to calculate the results of a poorly written exam to two or three decimal places. What is this?????

I am hoping one of our co-teachers will translate the paper and make a presentation to the staff. Somehow we need to teach the fact that evaluating students is a process, not just a caculation. This fixation with detailed grade calculations also teaches parents that we are capable of that precise of a system of evaluating students.

Evaluation of students is, at best, an approximation! There, I feel better.

A Miss Is As Good As A Mile

2008-01-23T19:07:00.000-05:00

Today was a fairly normal day. Only a few near misses. Kids were pushing to get on the bus which returned late from a field trip. Of course one fell down near the back wheels as the bus was rolling to a stop. Miss is as good as a mile, I guess. Saw some kids turning back flips on a landing pad today. One kid came very close to a miss and nearly hit his head on the cement. A miss is as good as a mile, I guess. Yesterday when kids were demonstrating their volcano productions, they used black cat firecrackers to explode down inside to produce smoke. One didn´t go off and a kid reached down inside to move it. It still didn´t go off. A miss is as good as a mile, I guess. Don´t knock leading a charmed life.

On Friday grades 8-9-10 are going on a field trip to the jungle. This includes waterfalls, river tubing , etc. I plan to go with them. I can only imagine on a day like this a miss better be as good as a mile.

Volcano Student Led Program Today

2008-01-22T16:49:00.000-05:00

There are some days in education when things just happen to come together when the theory of teaching a concept meets the real world. Today was one of those days. The social studies class (grade 7) was studying volcanoes. The usual volcano erruption was produced by the proper chemicals.

About four student groups presented their project and made their volcano errupt with varying degrees of success.

Other classes looked on in anticipation as the volcanos did their thing.

You will notice in the background of some of these pictures that the rainforest is present as well as the fog. What you don´t see (and we had a hard time seeing it too) was the real volcano some 30 miles away was beginning to spit again. These kids live with the reality of volcanic ash being a part of their lives at any time. Fortunately, they are far enough away not to have to worry about evacuations or any real threat resulting from a serious erruption

And a good time was had by all while reality lerked in the background.

Back In Puyo

2008-01-21T16:52:00.000-05:00

The bus ride from Quito to Puyo was fast and uneventful. The volcano in Banos along the way was quiet. We could see only a little smoke. The bus driver must have an important Sunday afternoon event in Puyo. We made the five hour trip in four and a half hours. We learned Sunday evening that another bus recently "lost it" and six people died in a crash.

The Latino culture which emphasizes personal relationships was alive and well when we returned to school. Special welcome was given at the morning assembly and staff and students gave personal welcomes all day. Nice to be back!

We are not sure what are next steps will be in working with teachers. We will meet with teachers on Wednesday, but Monday is too early to know the contents of that meeting.

This afternoon is hair cut time ($1 each) and time to restock the frig. We did some "difficult to find in Puyo" grocery shopping in Quito. Freezing fresh hamburger all night for the trip here yesterday worked well.

For those readers in the Midwest, please be reminded that it is the usual 75 degrees here with a little rain.

Funerals And The Return To Puyo

2008-01-20T06:02:00.000-05:00

We are finally back. Our last posting indicated that we were leaving Ecuador for Iowa for the funeral of my mother. That travel included a lot of changing of air travel in order to get to Miami. Avianca (Columbian) airlines were wonderful in doing everything possible for us and with no additional charge. Phil Long made the trip to Miami in the middle of the night to take us to North Port where we changed our suitcase content from warm clothes to winter clothes and then took us on to Tampa to catch a plane to Iowa. The Longs were a vital link in making a difficult three day trip even possible. Thanks!

After the funeral of my mother it became apparent that my father would not live long because of kidney failure. Because he had bounced back so often we could not tell when he would go to join mom. We returned to Florida to take care of business and work around our house. On Friday January 4, my father died. We knew he had gone into a comma and had made plans to travel back to Iowa even before he died. His funeral was Monday January 7, exactly three weeks after the funeral of my mother. While saying goodby to both of them in such a short time was difficult, they both had such serious health conditions at the age of 89 that God spared them any additional suffering.

After spending some time on family business and visiting children and grandchildren, we returned to Florida on January 14. We left Florida yesterday for Quito. LAN Ecuador is one of the finest flying experiences we have had. A newly refurbished interior of the plane leaves each passenger with their own monitor and a wide range of entertainment options. The four hour flight went quickly with great service.

Today we will make the five hour bus trip from Quito to Puyo assuming the volcano is still just spitting and not fully errupting. We pass within two miles of this volcano at Banos. It will be good to get back to work.

After the experiences of the last month, we have so many friends, extended family, and even companies to thank for all the prayers and support. It is truely humbling.

Some Serious Change of Plans

2007-12-13T06:46:00.000-05:00

This blog will be suspended for at least a week

Word reached us yesterday morning in Puyo that my mother passed away in the early morning hours of Wednesday December 12. She broke her hip in a fall on Saturday. She survived surgery on Tuesday, but a long time heart problem took her Wednesday morning. We immediately made plans to travel to Quito and then on to Iowa. The blog posting today is from Quito.

We had tickets to leave Ecuador for Christmas on this coming Sunday. Avianca Airlines has done all they can do to get us out this afternoon (Thursday). We will fly to Bogata, Columbia and then on to Miami arriving at 1:45 AM Friday morning.

Phil and Joan Long have been taking care of our house in North Port. Once again they are going way above the call of duty to pick us up in Miami at that terrible hour of the night. We hope to arrive in North Port by around 6 AM

We are purchasing tickets to fly from Tampa to Moline, IL. and arrive there by 5:00 PM Friday. The North Port stop is necessary because we are living in the tropics and word has it that there is some serious winter in Iowa. A different set of clothing seems in order.

Some time around the first of January we plan to return to North Port for possibly up to a week. The health condition of my father remains serious. We are not sure how the passing of my mother will affect him and his marginal condition.

The funeral of my mother has been set for Monday December 17.

Frustrations Latino Style

2007-12-10T16:33:00.000-05:00

This is one of those days you can not photograph. It is not only if something can go wrong it will, it is if anything can go wrong Latino style it will.
We have not had water at school for two days. Last Friday the plastic water line was cut just outside the school campus. Now it is time to stand in a big circle and point fingers and no one will take responsibility for the repairs. Repairs means two small plastic couplers and two small clamps. The water tube is above ground (that's how it got cut) and so there is no digging. I think total repair time should take 15 minutes at the most. We have toilets that have been used for two days (sat over the weekend) which reeks in the 78 degree temps. We have dishes from the cafeteria which were not washed today. They are short of staff by one. Everyone hopes the $2.50 repairs will be made this afternoon and at least that problem can be resolved.
Problem number 2 has to do with the copy machine. This is an every day problem. Paper is purchased one and maybe two reams at a time. Re-order time is when we are actually out of paper. A taxi is called and the paper appears after an hour or so. Ink is another matter. It has about the same routine as the paper. Maintenance on the copier is off the chart. Someone comes out and guesses at the problem and "fixes" it. The moral of the copier story is to stay well ahead of the use of your copies.
We have two laser printers on campus. We just brought the second one back with us in November. Within a week the main office was using my printer because the ink had run out of theirs. Cartridges are ordered from Quito. So, for three days they made several trips a day from the office to the English work room to do all their printing. I suggested they order six replacement cartridges and they answered they were farsighted and ordered two. In all of this I did resist the request that they take my printer to the office. I still wouldn't have it back.

In most of these matters (and the list of matters is long), the most important factor first of all is to go through the blame game with each person denying any responsibility. After we have wasted a bunch of time and increased everyone's frustration to the breaking point, the problem will finally get solved but probably not before another one is on the table.
There! I feel better! Complaining is good for the soul. It just doesn't fix the problem

Esperanza Eterna Church

2007-12-09T15:39:00.000-05:00

The church from the outside. Some readers have been at this church before and will remember when the newly cemented upper portion on the right was open.

A view from one front corner looking back to the sanctuary seating and the balcony seating.

The front "stage" or altar is nothing but poured cement with two sets of poured cement rounded steps.

A view of the altar area from the balcony. The sign is a part of mission statement of the church which will finally be placed so all can read it each Sunday. Imagine a church being reminded of their mission statement each week!!!!

This picture was taken from an area which will be an office in the future. The office is accessed by the balcony. The church does have its main office in a building down town.

The church that sponsors us has been involved in a remodeling project. This is a major financial project as the total cost is about $50,000. Considering the wealth of the people, the project might be 5 to 10 times as large in the USA as a comparable project. Moreover, this is not a matter of an estate gift or some other "gift from heaven". By the standards of churches in the US, the building is very rustic to say the least. Hard wooden benches are used and the overflow sits on plastic lawn chairs. My butt prefers the lawn chairs. The service is two hours in length. The sermon takes half of that time. That is a lot of Spanish we don't understand!!

We continue to be impressed with the large number of people who show up every Sunday (400 in the first service). People are "tuned in" to the service.

Christmas Shopping In Puyo

2007-12-08T15:05:00.000-05:00

With a little more than two weeks until Christmas, it is obvious that the retail sales ¨big deal¨ that is so common in the USA is not a big deal here. It seems that at least three economic factors come together to help explain this.

First there are very few large retail establisment. ¨Large¨ here would be considered a mom and pop type store in the US. Only recently did Puyo gain a department store that sells both food and an asortment of other items. It is the largest store in a town of 30,000. The little shops mostly have their specialties and only a few carry items that would be considered hot Christmas items.

Secondly, there is little discrectionary income. Most families work for the basic necessities of life and there is little money left for anything else. We really don´t know what a ¨large¨Christmas expenditure might be, but it is safe to say that $100 would be huge.

The third factor that limits Christmas buying is that there is no credit card use here. The concept of using plastic to pay for things is only something people hear about. They find it difficult to believe.

Credit card use and purchasing on the internet are now closely related in the US. Purchasing on the internet is unheard of here. When we explain how this works, people see it as some sort of magic purchasing. It seems to them that purchases must be sort of ¨free¨if they can be made this way.

So how commercial is Christmas here? We really are not sure, but it is certainly a different kind of ¨commercial¨than we know in the US.

Changing Tradition

2007-12-07T17:52:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday and Thursday late afternoons we used our usual teacher English class time to discuss student grading and grading systems with small groups of teachers. Both of our co-teachers were present and explained the technical stuff in Spanish. We just forget what information and experience we have about how systems operate.

Explaining what appears to be fairly simple grading systems is a total revelation to teachers here. I had a summary of all grades given for the second grading period on a spreadsheet. One of the teachers inquired as to why I would make up such an example. She was in total shock to find out that nothing was made up and it was a picture of what the staff had collectively just done.

Change in a fast moving society is a challenge. Change in a very traditional society is a shock. There is immediate fear of what the reaction of the "powers that be" will be. A control of the tradition by this fear is a huge factor to deal with. Again, we might be learning more than we are teaching.

No Mail Service

2007-12-06T18:38:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you have to live in a culture a while before some things become obvious and you wonder why you didn´t see it before. Such was the case in a recent 8th grade class.

Students were required to read a passage where a character needed to fill out a form with his name and address on it. 8th Grade students then were required to fill out the same form for themselves in English. The name went ok, but the address was a real problem.

Only about half of the class had any idea of what their address was. Others knew the name of the street on which they lived, but nothing more. The it hit me that there is no mail service here. All mail is picked up at the central post office. This begs the question of when to go to the post office because how would you know if you had mail or not?

The non-existence of mail delivery creates an entire chain reaction of other problems just in the school setting alone. How do you communicate with parents in writing? In a culture where there are a lot of things floating around in the first place, it is good to have school communication in writing. When I explained that in the USA, a teacher could mail a note to parents or they could email them immediately about the child´s performance, they were in shock.

Getting mail, even junk mail, is something we take for granted. Imagine absolutely no mail service!! Or, maybe you can´t.

Volcano!

2007-12-05T18:50:00.000-05:00

In the land of ¨what can be next¨we had a ¨next¨today. We had been watching a distant volcano spit out a plumb of steam for about two days. MJ took the two pictures below. The pictures are taken from the second story of the school just outside the English offices & work room.

This morning we had a fairly strong wind coming from the volcano. Sure enough, the black, sandy ash was coming down on everything. The top picture shows a little pile of this collected from two normal size sheets of paper. The tile floor in the English room was glazed so that I could skate around the room on this stuff. The problem is that this fine little ash gets into everything leaving a gritty feel. I call it an ash, but it is more like a very fine black sand.

All of this is happening about an hour away by bus. I have no idea how many miles as the crow flies. It is the same volcano that has really dumped the ash down on the highway out of here on the way to Quito in the past year. They just keep building the highway higher over the top of the ash flow. Hope this thing doesn´t cause a problem with our travel plans out of here a week from this Friday.

As the winds decreased today, the ash deposit also seemed to decrease.

Arajuno, The Last Posting

2007-12-04T16:11:00.000-05:00

This is the last of a three part series about Arajuno. The tree above is a chonta which belongs to the palm family. The wood is extremely hard and dense. The shaft of the blowguns made by the Huorani are made of this wood. A close-up of this picture will show thousands of berry like blooms near the trunk.

It is small, so take two. Actually, I made a download error and I ended up with two Protestant churches (the same one). Those of you in to church renovation need to take a lesson from these people. Don´t spend the money on a fancy place.

Every town needs a ¨cock-of-the-walk¨. This guy is about as nice a bird as I have seen anywhere. Not sure the size of his kingdom.

The Catholics always have to have the grandest structure in town. And so it is here in Arajuno! Two colors on the sides and old and new tin on the roof. Again, don´t spend the money on the building.

When I first saw this horse and saddle, I thought ¨man this equipment could have you singing soprano in a minute¨. The saddle is not for humans but for hauling lumber from the mill. You need to click this picture once to get a close-up of the saddle.

A typical Saturday afternoon in Arajuno. A careful look at the picture will indicate the street lights. A kid or two and a dog or two is the heaviest traffice they have. The bus we rode back made a loop around town honking to let people know it was departing. A couple people got on. Front door service!!!

And finally, the butterflies. Don´t know what kind of plant they are on, but they really attract the butterflies. Click on this picture to see about five of them on the same plant.

Gardening In Arajuno

2007-12-03T16:48:00.000-05:00

The people of Arajuno have a great place to raise all their food. People along the way in the mountains had to carve out enough space for a vegetable garden. the river flood plain is a great gardening area. This picture shows the footbridge across the river.

The river is wide and shallow. I am not sure how much rain it would take to get this thing to flood, but it appears as though it seldom floods judging from the permanent "truck gardens".

the entire family does the gardening. As is the case here, older children often take care of the younger ones and even the babies

The picture below shows a well managed footpath for the beginning of the huge gardening area. The picture above shows how the path narrows and is just dirt as you get a greater distance from the river.

The crops include bananas, and a lot of manioc (tapioca). The locals dig the large tubulars out of the ground and mash them. The leaves are poison and need to be boiled for some time to take the toxins out. Some type of pole bean was also growing in some patches.

The plants are all huge because of the rich flood plain soil and because of the frequent rains. We are not sure if all the food is eaten or if some is used as a cash crop. In any case, all is carried out on the backs of people. The river bank path was a five minute walk for two people not in good shape. It appeared that it was a five minute walk for people carrying full baskets of produce on their backs who were in shape.

Arajuno; Out In The Jungle

2007-12-02T14:49:00.000-05:00

This will be the first in a series of several postings of pictures and comments about Arajuno, the Arajuno River and the jungle around it.

Saturday December 1, was a good day to take a break from school problems and teaching. We decided to take a bus ride northeast of Puyo as far as the road would take us. The road ends in the rainforest village of Arajuno (ara hOOn o). The two and a half hour ride was as close to riding a jackhammer as I hope to experience. The road was graveled with large round river rock for the most part. The final 10 miles was a single lane road cut into the mountain side and yes there was two-way traffic. Because Arajuno is located on a major river, the last five miles was a fairly steep decent into the valley.

One of the major reason we wanted to travel to Arajuno is because it is one of the few roads one can take into Huorani territory. We had heard and read of the very dense rainforest and the very rugged mountains in which they live. None of the descriptions were exaggerated. The Huorani were called “savages” or Aucas by the neighboring Indian tribes and then also by the Spanish and other white people. They came to the attention of the world in general when they speared five American missionaries to death some 50 years ago in the general region in which we traveled today. They not only had a history of spearing outsiders, but they also got caught up in revenge spearing among their own clans. As late as the 1960’s, 60% of Huorani deaths were due to murder within the general tribe. Those of you readers who have seen the movie or read the book End Of The Spear will know all about this.

We saw no older Huorani today. The young generation has tended to melt into local society. The older men have grossly wide feet at the back of the toes and a huge space between the big toe and the next one. This is due to climbing trees barefoot. Also, the older generation of men and women had ear lobes larger than a quarter because of implanted balsa wood flat plates.

The pictures today show the airport at Arajuno. This is a major airport with transfer of supplies here from larger planes to smaller ones which can land on very short village landing strip.

We walked out on the runway just in time to see a plane coming at us. A careful look at the picture shows the nose wheel not on the ground yet.

In the space of about four hours, five planes came in and took off again. The airport was originally built in the 1940's by the Shell Oil Co. to act as one of the bases for oil exploration. It was abandoned in the 1950's and was frequently used by missionaries and government officials.

We enjoyed watching the children act as "cargo hands" in loading the planes. The plane is fueled out of plastic drums. An electric pump is used. The dropcord is run from across the nearby road.

It appeared as though the Ministry of Education was getting supplies into remote villages by air. These supplies include food for the school food programs which may mean two or three meals a day for the kids.

The very first picture shows a solution to MJ's problem when we first arrived in the village. Men are often seen standing partly hidden doing their thing. MJ just used a local resident's outhouse. No harm, no foul.

Pre-Kinder & First Grade

2007-11-30T15:18:00.000-05:00

This is the Pre-Kinder class of 11. Debra, my co-teacher is sitting at the table helping them paint a bears head brown. We have just finished a unit on Our Body and the words were head, arms and legs. The regular teacher is sitting at her desk and a Mother is here to talk. I often see Mother's here to complain about something. I would like to start a volunteer Mother's morning out to help the teachers after the first of the year. They might realize that the teacher has her hands full and maybe "Johnny" isn't the perfect little boy at school or maybe he is.

First grade students.

The last 4 pictures are of the 19 First graders. There unit was on My Home. We learned such words as bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen. We drew all kinds of pictures of each room of their house. We were ready for construction and learned howto build a house. We made doors, windows and many designs of flowers and sun on the outside of our houses. To get the roof put on they had to be able to name the 4 parts of the house we had studied. They got to pick out the roof color and take the house home. Omer was with one of the first grade boys family and grandma was having him tell Omer the parts of the house he knew. So for this week they know the house rooms but what about next week?

Rain & Area Outside Our Apartment

2007-11-29T16:12:00.000-05:00

Looking into the apartment through the front door. (Only door)

The cobblestone walkway and rain water drain

My barrel runeth over

Click once on the picture to enlarge to full screen

We have written before about rain here in the rainforest area of Ecuador. It is very difficult to capture rain by camera. This afternoon we had a 30 minute down pour that dumped at least 3 inches on us.
We live in an apartment at the back of an enclosed courtyard. The center of the courtyard has a covered patio that is about 30 by 15 wide. Inside is the washer and drier and a general work and storage area. We walk through the covered patio and on back through a covered but open sidewalk to our apartment.
The roof of the patio captures some of the rainwater and channels it into a large blue plastic rain barrel. This water is a supply that is pumped through a system of pipes and is used for washing clothes, flushing stools, etc.
Very often this rain barrel overflows. There is never any problem with stagnant water. Actually, this system provides soft, fresh water for household use in a very efficient way. By the way, we buy all drinking water in five gallon containers which are delivered to our door for $1.25.

For those of you who live in the midwest, please note that these pictures were taken today (Nov. 29) It is NOT beginning to look a lot like Christmas here.

Refurbished Playground

2007-11-27T16:41:00.000-05:00

In this volunteer business there are times when your efforts are never seen and then there are other times when you can see immediate results. The kids went crazy when they found out there merry-go-round worked. You see the results here.

I counted up to 15 kids on this little thing at various times. It was clear that many had to learn how to play on the merry-go-round.

And then there are students that will "mug it up" when they see the camera. Refurbishing the playground renewed student interest in playing there.

We spent two hours in meetings after school today talking about grading systems and using course content to help set standards in grading. For some at the meeting this was totally new information. This story will probably go on for some time.

Rain & More Rain

2007-11-26T16:49:00.000-05:00

There is a short supply of gopher wood and Noah has been working overtime! Although it rains a lot here all the time, it has now caused the locals to notice and comment on the rain. We estimate we are getting 3 to 4 inches a day for several days running now. When the sun does come out, we have a new definition of humidity.
There is an off chance we might actually have a complete week of school without interruptions. Our bet is that if it does happen, it will never last for two weeks in a row.
For those of you following the condition of my Dad, last week was a very good week. Then on Saturday there was a sudden turn around. He has been on oxygen and has been in a more weakened condition.

Funny Language Incidents

2007-11-25T14:59:00.000-05:00

Language can be a funy thing, especially when vocabulary is limited and you use a word you THINK is close enough. Pronounciation can also be a funny thing. Three examples follw.

Students were giving a 10th grade girl a bad time during the break. I asked what was going on. One student said ¨that girl has a poopy face¨. I was about to let them know that this wasn´t funny when another student said ¨she has a face like a poopy¨. Oh yes, the letter U in Spanish is pronounced as öo¨. That explained the entire thing. ¨Puppy face¨is a little more acceptable.

I was working with a staff member looking at the broken merry-go-round on Friday. Both of us could lift it off the pivot by really straining. He was out of shape even more than I. Right in the middle of lifting it off, he needed a break for just a second. He reached for the only English he had at this moment and said Omer, I need a vacation! I wanted to say¨ok Freddie why don´t you take a week off and I will hold this thing myself¨.

Finally, our landlady told us she has a sister named Funny. About three weeks later it dawned on us that her name was probably Fanny.

School Clean Up Day

2007-11-24T16:06:00.000-05:00

We have posted a lot of pictures yesterday and today. remember to click on the picture once if you want the picture enlarged. Hit the "back" button to go back to normal blog reading.
So what do all good educators, parents and kids do on a Saturday morning. Head off to school to clean up the campus. We started off with two dump trucks of sand.

If everyone brings some hand equipment, things can go quickly. This picture gives you an idea of a group at work.

The idea is to take the sand (very coarse) and fill in the washed out places in the playground. With the amount of rain we get, a playground can get in bad shape in a short period of time.

We are surrounded by forest right up to our fence. We need to trim the mountainside outside our fence. The PE teacher is very effective with his equipment.

A view from the balcony of the school.

The campus is reached by a winding road edged into the hillside. Both sides of the road need to be clipped.

Sometimes the going gets very steep. Not the place for rider mowers!!!

Some of the playground equipment needed repair. This old merry-go-round was not working all year. I insisted we take it to a welding shop and get it repaired. Hauling it was another issue.

Getting the merry-go-round back on the pivot was another issue as well. Several of us managed to grease the pivot and get things back together.

With the ever present rain, things are always rusting. This swing pivot had not worked for some time. We used a hammer to un-freeze it and then gave it a good greasing.

Everyone has an opinion about how to line things up. No chance that one person could give directions and the rest follow them!

After the project was finished, we walked down to the main road to catch a bus back to town (A .20 fee) While waiting for the bus "Willie Nelson" came by. I am guessing it was an "American hippie" and his dog who were out riding the highways and byways of Ecuador. What a unique transportation he used.

Hazing and RAIN!

2007-11-23T17:42:00.000-05:00

The pictures show the initiation/hazing event from back to the beginning. Student had to go into the jungle just outside the school yard gate. They jumped in a pool of water and got pushed back in repeatedly.

Just as the event was about to come to an end, God sent a huge rainstorm that saved all teachers. This girl is exhausted, but seemed to enjoy the day.

Happy, but totally soaked. You will see some of these girls in fancy dress below. Can't believe they are the same people.

You have to mug it up for the camera as you come out of jungle. They were all good sports and nobody was really taken advantage of.

Another muddy, wet and happy student.

This picture is taken just outside the school fence. We are looking down a very steep "hill" to where all the mud and water events took place.

The younger students walked a part of the way to the "action". As soon as the high school students started to emerge from the jungle, they came running to the top of the hill.

Before the mud and wet, there was a fashion show. Each female inductee had to dress up and do the "catwalk" trip in front of the student body.

Another young student "struts her stuff".

some parents came to watch the show. Didn't see but one or two stick around for the wet and mud thing,

The dress up theme selected by one of the students before changing into a formal gown.

The lead off gal walking in front of the student body.

The event sent the student body into a non-productive mood all day. All of the above events were for three class periods. Again we gave thanks for the appropriately timed down pour of rain. More than two inches of rain fell in about 30 minutes.