Shower Heads & Computer

The infamous shower head blog entry seems to have captured the attention of many readers. Apparently the imagination has its limits when it comes to fathoming what this thing looks like and how it works. Please note the two pictures above in this entry which will hopefully help us close this topic.

We have had two experiences in the last two days that give us a clue as to where the use of the internet is here in Puyo. While internet shops abound, we see most people who use them do so to email others or communicate with other on Facebook or MySpace. The amount of serious research, reading of newspapers and magazines, or seeking general information about events in the world is very limited. Possibly the same could be said of internet use in the US.

A major difference appears to be that using such web sites as Google to seek information is a skill not yet learned. A person desperately seeking English materials told me that she did not have English information on her computer. The fact that what she was looking for abounds on the internet was not understood. She had internet in her home.

I recall in the 1980’s, we taught computer in high school to teach computer. The internet as we know it today did not exist. After receiving a brief explanation of the computer curriculum at school here provided an immediate flashback to the 1980’s. I see a lot of work ahead to teach the education community that the computer is a tool and not an end in itself. I can’t think of a better place to start with this project than to hold a few classes for the Board of pastors.

It appears we are yet another month away from having operational internet at the school. The internal installation is done. How ever the internet company apparently has some exterior installations to complete. Stay tuned!

Eating Ants & Other Mundain Things

To the three "wise guys" who commented about yesterdays blog, come on down and see for yourselves!!

And now to more series matters. The huge flying ants are in season. "In season" means this is the season you EAT them. It seems to be a specialty for older people while the younger ones avoid it. Fried in oil and salted, these things sell for $1 for a large handful. The legs and wings are still attached. The discerning eater will pick the wings and the legs off before eating them. I was pressured into eating one by none other than big brave, MJ who refused to do the same. I think the blasted thing was crawling around in my stomach for sometime after I ate it even though it was dead. I couldn't chew! It went down whole! This is one experience that is good to have in the past. They tell us that some of the indigenous tribes in the area eat these things alive along with fat worms (grubs) which sell for four for a dollar. That is really high priced eating around here!

We now have a local cell phone. The Church is really the account holder and we simply pay the Church. Saves a lot of application red tape that way.

Riding the bus to the down town was simple. Just hadn't figured out the right bus to take home. That problem is now solved. Going down town and back for two people now costs us a total of .72. We might even be able to ride free as we most certainly would qualify as "elderly".

Next week the classes in English for all teachers at the school begin. We will have two groups. More on this one later.

School Matters & "Bow-Wow"

Some friends from North Port asked us some question in an email regarding the level of English we encountered in the school. The question went on to ask if we are doing what we thought we would be doing at the school. Excellent questions.
First, we really didn't know what to expect. For that matter, we still don't know what to expect. We expected to start at a basic level of English. MJ teaches the ABC's through 4th grade. On the other hand, 10th grade is mostly very good.
A major problem at the school is that anyone who has the money can enroll their children. Students at the 10th grade with 2nd grade English cause a major problem for the entire system. Advanced students get bored with the time spent on the weak students and at the same time, weak students are floundering. I have spoken and will speak very loudly to the "powers that be" that you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either control entrance requirements OR forever resign yourself to the fact that the institution is going to be second rate. This is a major problem for the school because they need the income and yet can't afford a second rate reputation. In Bahrain, we "bit the bullet" for two years financially and established our reputation. I believe they must do the same thing here.
A second major problem is teacher stability. There is way too much of a revolving door of teachers. There are many reasons for this. The leadership is going to have to consider the question of teacher retention. As this is being written my co-teacher at the high school level is considering leaving the school. This would be a serious problem for sustainability of the English program for the future not too mention immediate problems for me.
Comments have been made about the pictures of our students in uniforms. ALL students in ALL schools, both public and private wear uniforms. Teachers wear uniforms not only in schools, but employees in many businesses wear uniforms. In some ways this is a must for older students and adults. We have never seen so many low cut necklines in our life. "Bow wow" outfits don't even need the "bow" to make the WOW!! Our greatest surprise is that this includes dressing for church.
I suspose I will have a request for more pictures now!

Government Regulations

Dealing with governmental regulations in most any country can be challenging. Ecuador is not an exception to the rule. In addition to applying for a visa to stay in the country, one needs to deal with residency on two levels once you get here.

The documentation resulting from the visa application must be filed in Quito, the capitol city. Our sponsoring organization took care of that for us. I notice the attorney working for the organization charged $89 for the filing fee and his work. This registration resulted in additional documentation which needed to be filed here in Puyo which is the capitol of Pastaza province. You have 30 days to complete these filings.

As deadlines were approaching, the president of the sponsoring foundation decided that Monday afternoon we would file the papers here in Puyo. He took off from work early and he anticipated what we would need in the local office. We ran additional photo copies of our passports and took yet another set of pictures of ourselves. We arrived at the office to find that one of the three persons who must be present at a filing was on vacation in Quito. Obviously, the other two could not cover for the one absent person. We were told to return the next day. (Tuesday).

So, yesterday (the last possible day for filing) afternoon we again met at the local immigration office. Three officials (two men and a lady) began the process of our registration. One man took our passports and entered the information in a computer. The lady wrote the entry of our entire envelop of information in a ledger and pasted a photo of each of us on the outside. This was the sole use of the photos. The absent person took our pictures with a camera connected to a computer, enters more information in a computer and finally printed off ID cards that look much like a driver’s license. The first man took a total of $10 and the last took $15 for a total of $25. We walked out properly registered on just the second try. Had we not been successful, a $200 late fee would have been accessed.

We can not resist telling a side story. The man with the camera required that I take off my glasses and lean forward so he could see my eye color. The very matronly looking clerk was watching this. She had her hair slicked back in a bun and was following some apparent regulation about never cracking a smile while on duty. As I put my glasses back on while still looking at the man who looked at my eye color, I jumped as if surprised to see him clearly with my glasses on. She lost her composure and the face cracked. For the next few moments, she would let out a chuckle, regain composure only to chuckle again. Watching the battle of composure versus mirth was interesting to say the least. It didn’t help when I commented that the picture he took of me made me look like a criminal. They understood that much English.

A Three Hour Vacation & Other Matters

After complaining in the last blog entry about working so hard, we spent about three hours on Saturday afternoon and evening at the best resort in Puyo. Unfortunately, we didn't have the camera, but we will go again and take some shots. Isle de Sol (Island of the Sun) is about 10 acres of swimming pool, pool deck, covered dinning area, a small motel and a very nice dining room. The backdrop is a beautiful set of mountains, clouds, and closer up, the jungle. It also has a sauna, whirlpool, and a children's area. You can stay at the motel for $61 a night including breakfast and the use of all facilities. Some of you who wanted a five star hotel if you were to come here, may have your wish. This is a walled and gated area.

After a refreshing swim, sauna, and swim again, we felt like different people. And imagine that all this was done with an assistant pastor and his family. A great time was had by all.

Reality is startung to set in with some of the upper classes in English. We prsented a grading system today which outlined the requirements each student should meet in areas such as vocabulary, notebooks, class work, group work and exams. What a bunch of howling. The system of unspecified requirements so the grade can be debated forever is over. I am sure we will hear more about this as the system takes its toll.

WE HAVE RAMBLED ON FOR ABOUT A MONTH IN THIS BLOG. PLEASE SEND US YOUR QUESTIONS AND COMMENT EITHER BY EMAIL OR BY COMMENTS TO THIS BLOG. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW??

¨Vacation¨ in Ecuador

So after a month, how is your VACATION in Ecuador going. There are people who are cruel enough to ask this question! I will describe a typical work day for us.

We arise at 5:30 AM and eat breakfast. By the time we shower, get dressed and are ready for school it is 6:45. We ride the bus which transports both children and adults to school. Our ride is about 25 minutes in length meaning that we arrive at school about 7:15. Classes start at 7:30. Each class is 40 minutes in length (approximately). There is no passing time for teachers who move from class to class and so classes are 40 minutes give or take five minutes. Since the horn is sounded manually, the person in charge may or may not remember to sound the horn on time.

We teach four classes and then have a 40 minute break where a light snack is served. Often this consists of a rice dish. Friday, it was a pancake with marmalade on top. This is the time of the day when everyone does their own thing, including the kids.

We then end the day with three more classes. On average we teach six lessons out of seven. MJ teaches five out of seven classes each day. By 1:00 PM the bus is loaded for the trip home.

We often stop to eat at a small café operated by the husband of the school principal. He serves up a hearty lunch of a soup and a main plate for $1.25 each. Basically this is an “all you can eat” type of meal.

We arrive home at approximately 2:30 and often take a short nap. We go to the internet shop and generate all that wisdom you read here on a daily basis. We answer emails (not enough), read the local newspapers in various communities in which we have lived, do our banking, etc.

From 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM we tutor a class of teenagers for a lady who runs an English academy. It is often 7:00 PM before we arrive back at the apartment. We eat a lighter meal, read a bit, and prepare for the next day. We usually go to bed between 9:00 and 9:30.

How is that for a VACATION schedule?

Paper Work (Toilet Paper)

For those of you who like pictures, you won´t find them today for obvious reasons.

Every culture has a thing or two that surprises the visitor. Suprises may come from any direction. Although we knew about the toilet paper issue from previous visits, we didn´t realize how pervasive it was until we lived here for a few weeks.

To set the record straight, there is no public toilet paper. One must carry or purchase single use toilet paper where ever one goes. If you take a bus trip of any length of time, take a roll. If you go to school, take a roll. The list of school supplies for each child included two rolls of toilet paper which can be stored in ones school locker. When a child askes to be excused to go to the restroom, they take the anticipated amount of toilet paper with them and hope they guessed correctly. In short, there are restrooms everywhere but one will not find a single roll of toilet paper. In a culture where there is a lack of emphasis on planning, this small detail is always planned for.

In discussing this with one of the teachers, (I´m getting to know them better) I discover that this is all a part of personal responsibility. If you trip and fall over a break in the sidewalk or a short pipe cut off two inches above the sidewalk, it is YOUR responsibility, not that of the city. The bottom line (no pun intended) is take responsibiñlity for all things personal including toilet paper. One should not do the paper work at public expense!

Construction & Local Sites

Today we thought we would include a few more pictures. Construction, although not that wide spread, goes on throughout Puyo. It is how the construction is done that is mindboggling. The use of huge bamboo for forming cement and holding up entire floors of concrete is amazing. Above, you see this large bamboo pole being hoisted to a second floor construction site.

You can see the small pile of bamboo poles on the ground. All of these will eventually be lifted to the second floor by rope and manpower.

The above picture shows how the bamboo hold an entire floor of cement in place until it dries. I have read that bamboo can exced steel in tensile strength. Amazingly, they are able to get most second and third story floors fairly level using bamboo.

The last two pictures show some of the amazing natural sites around here. The above picture shows a fairly large tree with catus growing well above it. We estimate the catus to be beween 25 and 35 feet tall.

Finally, the above picture is my best one so far to show the tropical trees at camera level while in the far distance one can see snow capped mountains. Something like pouring hot chocolate over ice cream

This & That (Again)

Once in a while you just have to clean up scattered topics. This is one of those days.

We have started tutoring several teenaged students at a lady´s home who goes to our church. We said we would help out for a short time. The session is daily from 5 to 6 PM. It is an interesting experience in that you get experience how local teenagers think. Yesterday we gave them four topics from which they were to agree on one for today. There were some more worldly topics, but they want to talk about what is so good about Puyo. We hope to learn a thing or two later today.

The internet at the school has hit a snag, to no one´s surprise. The orginal estimate as to what the monthly cost was going to be was about $50. Looks like the internet company saw ä live one¨. The stated cost is now $200 a month. And now the negotiations is on!

We had two very nice days in which we could see the distant snow capped mountains. Still a strange feeling to be living in the tropics and yet see snow. The monsoons hit last night, but things cleared off by this morning, however not enough to see snow. Temperaturs in our apartment range from a high of about 82 (seldom) to a low of 68 (again seldom). We have an average temperature of about 75 to 76. You will recall that we have neither heat or airconditioning.

We had a WD-40 lesson this week. Because of the frequent rain, any metal against metal develops rust or a squeak. After looking around a few shops, we found WD-40. I took it to school. I thought I hit the jackpot. First, everyone thought I brought it from the US. Secondly, anything that hinges or moves is now lubricated. This includes the swings, teeter todders, bus doors, and sliding windows, etc. Now I hope I have enough to do a few things around the apartment. Possibly it won´t take two of us to open a slider window.

OSHA Standards & PlaygrounD Safety

The old liability question in every area of our life in the States is so ingrained that we are in absolute shock when we see the opposite end of the scale. I have not had a day at school yet when I didn't nearly have a heart attack because of the lack of safety standards. The first five pictures show a farvorite play activity for boys at school. It's called "load up the wheel barrow and dump the passenger out"The passenger may wish to be a real dare devil and stand up as you see above.

Now which one of us ought to take the chance this time? We are still alive and have no broken bones from the last trip. Why not go for another ride?

Possibly we have a moment of prayer in the middle of this trip. "Oh no, I can't look!"

A good bracing position will insure that the ride lasts a little longer. That driver is all hot and worn out from trying to dump me. His coat is sagging. No harm, no foul!"

If you survive school yard wheel barrow, you grow up to really test fate. When the bus was used as a ladder to paint the side of the school, paint was splattered on the side of the bus. The solution to cleaning was simple. Take a wheel barrow, place a small student chair in it, and climb on top of everything to do the necessary scraping. The entire project was a success. Moreover, nobody got hurt and the bus was clean. Now somebody tell me why we need a silly thing like OSHA in the USA!

I didn't get a picture of two boys "sword fighting" with narrow sharp sections of metal today. I saw them on the bus after school. They both could still see with both eyes and there was no sign of blood. And we waste money on playground supervision in the US!!!

Saturday Night On The Town

(This section was written Sunday morning, but our hectic schedule was not published until Monday)
Saturday night on the town in Puyo is like most any other town. It depends on what you make of it. Last night we were invited to a social gathering of the teachers of English of the Pastaza province. In addition to the social opportunities, this was a fundraiser for a member who is battling cancer. We were to play bingo.

The meeting was held in a nice building owned and operated by the teachers union of the Pastaza province. Previous visitor to Puyo will know the location which is near the very nice Catholic Church across from central park. This organization has been functioning since the early 1980’s.

The starting time for this gathering was announced for 7:00 PM. Even we knew that this time was not really the starting time. At 7:45, the organizing person said he hoped we could start at 8:00. We did start promptly at 9:00 PM. In the meanwhile, the sound system guy had the music turned up so loud I could feel vibration in my feet from the floor. The volume drove all “early” arrivals into the street below.

The bingo game was played using bingo software, a computer and a projector. The person in charge of equipment had an emergency in Quito. At 12:30 yesterday afternoon another organizer made arrangements for us to go to the school at 3:30 to get the projector we brought to Ecuador with us. At 8:00, it was discovered that a lap top brought by someone else did not have the proper connecting ports. We jumped in a taxi and came back to our house to get my lap top. As it turned out all this near catastrophic equipment problem had nothing to do with the starting time. The fact that we ended up providing all the equipment escaped the notice of the crowd of 30 some people who all seemed to have a good time until midnight.

This morning we noticed our eardrums had recovered. The financial damages totaled $6 for both of us for the evening. This included buying bingo cards at .25 each and a liter of wine to share at our table for $1.

Food

Grocery shopping and buying food is different in many ways than in the US. The first decision one needs to make is how much you want to change your diet and ways of eating. If one “goes local”, food is plentiful and relatively cheap. Most items commonly purchased in the US are available here. The definition of “here” may not mean Puyo in spite of the fact that it is around 25,000 people. A very large supermarket that is similar to a supermarket in the US is located in Ambato, about an hour and a half away. That means a very mean section of mountainous highway. Oh well, I guess everything has its price.

Measuring quantities is done in kilos and grams. Until one gets use to these units of measurement, there is a little sizing guessing by looking at the container. For example, a 490 gram jar of peanut butter cost $5.36 in Ambato. This is basically one pound of peanut butter. Aunt Jemima (spelling on the bottle) syrup in a 12 oz bottle cost $2.75 in a local very small grocery store. A Scott 128 piece roll of paper towels cost $3.72.

We drink bottled water. A five gallon container cost $1.25 delivered to our door. A plastic pint bottle of water costs .25. A fresh large pineapple costs $1.00. A gallon of flavored yogurt is $3.50

The most common local dishes at a café always seem to include a soup and some rice. The soup servings are very generous and include a wide variety of ingredients. Meat is often in the soup but microscopic in size. A chicken can feed dozens of people. Rice is either boiled or steamed and has a never ending series of toppings. The food is generally not spicy, but the aiji (ahee) is always available so one can spice up the rice as much as you want.

We have a bakery near our home. It has a wide variety of breads and rolls. We have experimented with most and find them very good but a little more coarse than our fresh baked items in the US.

We both came to Ecuador hoping to lose a little weight. This project is not going too well. You simply can not experiement and reduce at the same time.

That Amazing Shower Head

We have just finished the second week of school. This week went much faster now that we are in a rountine. Some of the rountine is welcome and there are a few things we are still trying to adjust to. Everyday another Spanish word or two become a part of the vocabulary. I figure at the current rate I will be fluent when I am about 100. MJ says she will be 120. How is that for progress?

Speaking of adjustments; the flash heater shower head is at the top of the list. There are few hot water heaters here as we know them. Here in town the shower head that is about 6 inches in diameter and contains a heating element is the standard shower device. The concept is to not waste electrcity or water and to have minimal cost of installation. The concept has trouble being converted to reality. First, water pressure kicks on the heating element. We live in a complex with two apartments and a main house. Somebody is always using water. So one minute the pressure "turn on" works and the next minute it doesn't. Even when there is enough pressure to activate the unit, a constant flow of water is required to maintain the desired temperature. One of these days I hope to take a shower when the theory works rather than when reality works. In the meanwhile, dancing to too cold or too hot of water is the norm. We call it the "flash shower head dance". Sorry, there will be no pictures of this stange event!!

We discovered this evening that as we walk down the streets of Puyo, kids call out our names from public bus windows and from front yards. Nice thing is that it is really our name as compared to the names some Florida drivers call us. One little girl even starting singing the "Good Morning" song MJ taught.

Communication & School Liability

I can´t believe that at least one of my¨friends¨hasn´t noted my typos and spelling mistakes. Yes, I know there is a difference between ¨maron¨and ¨maroon¨ especially when it comes to flower color. Reading back through the blog entries, there are a few other dandy ones as well.

We tried Skype yesterday with Phil and Joan Long in Florida. Skype is the free computer to computer system anywhere in the world for free. The could hear us well, but we lost a little when they spoke to us. Hopefully, next week when internet is installed at the school, we can try this again with others.

The law suit thing in the states as compared to school liability here is a mind boggling situation. Kids have a mid day ¨break¨with no supervision on the playground. They have their own rules of order. Once in a while somebody gets ¨disciplined¨by the group, but it goes un-noticed by the staff. Hazardous elements are all about such as a wheel barrel that kids haul each other in and then dump one another out on the hard surface. The concept that the school is responsible for any little accident is not a part of the picture at all. There is no passing time between classes. Teachers move, not students. Because of a class running over a few minutes and another teacher leaving a bit early, classes are frequently unsupervised for 5 minutes. No one but us even notices.

For all that is NOT on a strict schedule here, the one thing that IS exact is the school bus which we ride along with the kids. If a passenger is not waiting by the curb, two toots of the horn and the driver pulls away.

One of these first days I MUST write about the ¨flash heater shower head¨. I have developed a special dance over this one.

Wi-Fi Room & Our Home

Once in a while we get requests for a few more pictures as it is hard to imagine some of the things we write about. We will comply with that request.

First the publication of this blog usually takes place at a small internet shop near our home. However, when we go wi-fi internet, as is the case today, we publish from a large and beautiful room located in the central market of down town Puyo. The lower center and lower left pictures show this room. The atrim rises three stories above the floor.

The upper center picture with the huge fern shows those windows only one of which has glass. Since this is an interior court yard, this presents no problems. The upper left pictures shows a vine type flower growing in our courtyard. The flower starts as white and changes to a maron color. And finally, there is that huge kitchen. Three steps and you have covered the entire area.

Unfortunately, we did not have the camera to cover any interesting event yesterday. The church-school corperation has begun to develop land beside the school. A road extension is being added. The backhoe operator discovered a large boa snake and killed it. We saw him skinning it to perpare it for food. No idea how this thing is cooked.

Lord, Does It Rain!

And the Lord said to Noah, “I will cause it to rain”. The Lord spoke again this morning and the approximately 3 inches in an hour had us starting to look for the animals. Of course this happened just as we were going to school. We were wet from the knees down while carrying a large umbrella. Thirty minutes after school started and the sun was shining.

Most all buildings are open here in some form or another. There is neither a source of heat nor a source of air conditioning. Our apartment has a place for windows, but one is missing. School hallways are all exterior and are just covered by a roof. Many roofs are corrugated tin. You never mistake the sound of rain. In our time here so far, it has rained at some time during the 24 hours, five days out of seven. Nobody talks about the rain. It just is.

One might think that with so much rain, construction would be designed to deal with it. Think again. The new second story of the high school houses two large rooms now used as libraries and two teacher workrooms. The tin roof requires a cap at the peak of the roof. The cap is about half large enough so that heavy rains like this morning blow back up to the peak, under the cap, and down into the rooms.

The exterior hallway on the second floor of the main school building, although covered by a roof, takes on blown water on a day like today. There are outlets so the water can run off the floor and on to the ground below. All of this sounds good until you find out the hall tips back toward the class room doorway, not toward the exterior drain outlets. The floor in the computer room collected about an inch of water throughout. We also discovered the ceramic floor tile is not all pasted down and we had floating tile because the tile has some wood on the back side. Wet-vacs are an unknown piece of equipment.

There is a reason they call it the rainforest. And that is why we enjoy the wild flowers of every description during the sunny part of every day.

Sunday & Monday This & That

Sunday was a rather ordinary Sunday at church. We are still impressed with the seriousness of the people in their singing and speaking. Once again, church is not just a formality. Sitting on hard benches for two hours only seems to phase us.

Last evening we were invited by one of the assistant pastors and his family to go to Vera Cruz about 5 miles outside of Puyo for a traditional meal consisting of a huge pile of beans, roasted corn kernels, fried bananas, tuna, onions, tomatos and the every strong aiji with a little lime to squeeze on this entire thing. Stangely enough, it was excellent! This proves once again that you don´t ask, but just eat. The plate was a common one shared by five other people. We did each have our own spoon.

We ran the vacum sweeper at our house yesterday. Never used a water catch basin before. Sure had a muddy mess where the disposable bag should be.

Went to a workshop this afternoon put on by the publisher of our new English textbooks. They use Disney stuff throughout. Looks like a good series.

We are getting a few comments on our blog from some of you. For those of you who have not tried it, simply click on ¨comment¨at the bottom of our entry. Be sure to click ¨send¨or ¨publish¨at the bottom of your typed comments.

Our Saturday in Puyo

Saturday in the big forest city. There are a few things that require a differnet approach to life. Washing clothes is one of them. We are very fortunate to have a washer and drier in our courtyard complex. This complex has a roof and is very clean. The water comes into the machine at a dribble. This means that under normal circumstances, a load of wash takes about 2 hours. While this is an irritation, we are thankful for the facilities at all. Now being a bit on the impatient side, I look for ways of speeding this process along. We found that by carrying about 5 buckets of water from our kitchen sink, we can cut the washing time in half.

We spent about five hours at school today working with the elementary school English teacher. While we got a lot done, we really only discovered how much more there is to do. Something like one step forward and two backward.

While at school, the assit. pastor in charge of the school arrived with an internet company guy. After some discussion, it looks like internet should be installed in about eight more days. My concern was accessibility. A lot of new stuff gets put under lock and key. We had a discussion about "hard wire" and wifi (wireless) connections. Looks like the students will get hard wire and the two teacher work rooms will get wifi. WHAT A MAJOR JUMP FOR THE SCHOOL! Now comes the "how to use it" part. This will be my third trip through this issue in three different settings. I ought to be able to anticipate the difficulties by now!

Had our first experience on public transportation this afternoon. the three miles from the school to down town was covered by the public bus. Cost; a total of .40 for the both of us.

End of the First Week of School

Staff meetings are the same the world over. Want to fire up the staff? Bring up the topic of dress at school, especially the dress of the staff. A second topic that will bring the staff to their toes is the use of the copy machine. We saw shining examples of both this afternoon as plenty of discussion ensued. I do not know what was said in details, but having heard both of these discussions a number of times, I could tell you what was said. The staff began very calm again when matters of curriculum were discussed.

This week we began administering diagnostic test. The result of the lower level English classes made it clear we are NOT ¨unemployed¨. This is the first time I have seen cramming for a diagnostic test. Sort of defeats the purpose of the test. Actually, cramming didn´t help.

The issue is becoming crystal clear. You can NOT allow anyone who has the money to enter a private school, especially in the upper grades. We have several grade levels where the performance of students is clearly in two wide ranging groups. Allowing open enrollment based on a check book is a sure formula to mediocre academic achievement and a substandard academic reputation. The powers that be have some major decisions to make.

The end of the first week has everyone exhausted. Two little girls (sisters) sat across from me on the bus this morning. The first grade laid her head in the lap of her sister and promptly fell asleeep. I would have joined her except for appearances sake.

View From The School & From Kids

I have a feeling the constant string of surprises will not end soon. The view above was taken this morning from the second floor balcony of our school. This was the clearest morning since we have been here. This means you can enjoy all the flowers and forests of a tropical rainforest while viewing snow capped mountains in the distance. Because layers of ever rising mountains appear before the snow capped one (Mt Sangay), you get an idea of the vastness of the area. We just can't imagine the navigating ability of the local tribes in finding their way throught these mountains. Also can't imagine how good of shape they are in to walk these mountains.

We ride the same bus to and from school that students ride. Sometimes it is very packed and a bit stuffy. However, now the kids want to practice their English with us. One girl read several short stories to me on the way to school this morning and asked me to correct her. It made for a quick trip. Mary Jane had the prize winner on the way home, however. A student wishing to practice her English finally got up enough courage to ask "Mary Jane, what is your name?"

There is a possibility that on Saturday we will have the "powers that be" meet at the school to discuss the installation of the internet. This means we may or may not proceed to the next step. Stay tuned.

Inside Observations of Education

So how is it going after two full days of school? Depends on who you ask. Last evening I was reading a history book for pleasure. Mary Jane was still involved with lesson preparation for the day. The irony of the moment was not wasted as she complained about working while I was the one who pushed the idea of volunteering here. I work with an experienced and well qualified teacher. She works with a teacher new to teaching and especially teaching English.

Problems of new student deficiencies are becoming more obvious. At the eighth grade level. There are nine total students, one of the smaller classes. Seven of the nine are new students to the school. The difference in English between the new students and the former students of the school is like night and day. Somehow the students need to be separated and worked with separately. It will, more than likely, take more than a year to get the larger group caught up.

We discovered that the public elementary teaches English one hour (actually 40 minutes) per week from grades one through six. This amounts to a bit over 140 hours of total English instruction during the first six years of school. No wonder the knowledge of English by students coming in our seventh grade is so weak!

We have also learned that our school (Esperanza Eterna) has had several different English teachers the last several years in the lower elementary grades. Most of them had very limited English. This has not added the necessary solid base to the English program at our school. Students have responded well in the upper grades where there is quality instruction.

A list of the school staff along with their birthdays, including the year, just came out. Looks like we are the senior members of staff with the next oldest staff members 25 years our junior. I expect everyone will learn “grandpa” and “grandma” in English and we should soon hear it.

First Day of Classes

Classes started off with a bang (actually a sreech). A siren from a police car was used as a bell to start classes. This recording is used throughout the day to signal the change of classes. This noise is all outside but can be clearly heard throughout the two buildings. a class schedule appeared this morning. Now we know what each day and the week looks like.
Classes start at 7:30 and end at 12:50. We have a 40 minute break in the middle of all this for a light lunch. The lunch today was a rice dish with veggies, sliced hotdogs, chicken and covered with ketchup.
Several problems emerged in the upper level English classes. We spent the time engaging in conversation about what happened last summer, what they liked and disliked and and introduction of me which included additional questions from them. There is a huge difference between student who attended the school in the past and those who are new. This is a problem that has not been addressed. The higher the grade, the greater the problem.
Mary Jane reports that students pre-kinder through fourth are poorly equiped with English. Their instruction in the past was done by people not eqipped in English. It would be like either of us teaching lower level Spanish. The teacher assigned this year is a first year teacher with fairly good English. However, there is no orientation of new teachers and nor written curriculum. This is a fight in total darkness. We have some major work to do with the lower grades.
Students are very polite and respectful. There is much more of a human touch and concern than is typical of US students. A fifth grade girl got up out of her seat and attempted to kill a bug that was bothering a boy ahead of her. Beat that for concern about the little things.
In general, the same old story about learning a second language exists; much more is understood than can be spoken. We will have extensive work to do with spoken English in the upper grades.
We were both dragging a part of our bodies as we got home today. (Guess!)

First Day of School (No Labor Day here)

The attached pictures were taken today, the first day of school. They show a rather formal assembly which included both parents and student which lasted a bit more than an hour. That was it for the day for students. The picture above shows the new English only library. It is a room where MJ, the two local English teachers and I work. We hope to have students and parents identify this room as the ¨English area¨.

In addition to proper introductions all the way around, the staff put on a mime style play. The story was about a student whose mother died. The teacher and students had no idea about his reason for being uncommitted to school. They learned about his situation and became supportive. Later in life when he married as a college graduate, he invited the teacher to stand in as his mother. The play was well done and well received. A strong message of “we care for each other”.

Children were served ice cream and a roll. Everyone visited and students and parents went home. Staff members had meetings and some of us wrote curriculum. Some staff was working on the class schedule as we still don’t know the class meeting schedule. Staff went home at 1:30

We ate lunch at the café establishment ran by the husband of the school director. A large soup and a main course of rice, meat gravy, a fired banana and a slice of tomato and a juice drink. We were absolutely stuffed for $1.25 per person. MJ said she is done cooking at noon!

Sunday Adventures

The way to church is a 20 minute walk from our apartment across the down town area. Church “begins” at 8:30. That means people come in and wait for something to happen. Singing begins at 8:45 and continues for about 30 minutes. The sermon and communion took until 10:30 when church was dismissed.

Seven – eleven music (singing the same 11 songs over 7 times each) has never been my favorite. I discovered today that it is an ideal time to learn Spanish. I took notes on frequently used words. We will look up the meaning and attempt to memorize them. Next Sunday we will have a chance to reinforce these words at least seven times.

We reflected on our communion experience over the last three churches we attended counting our experience here. It seems as though we have gone from wine to grape juice to kool aid. To each his own flavor.

On a more serious note, we continue to be impressed with the sincerity of the people during church service. This is not just a formality for most. The simplicity and bare necessities of the surroundings add to the favorable atmosphere. And now if we can condition the posterior to accept these bare (and hard) necessities, we will be OK.

After church we encountered, by chance, a wonderful cultural parade lasting about an hour. The tourism bureau sponsored a parade consisting of many of the Pastaza (our province) ethnic groups as well as some barrios (neighborhoods) of Puyo. Each group was dressed in full costume. Each of them did extravagant dances to a loud boom box type speaker in the back of a pickup. One of the Indian groups included some old men and women with feet which had never seen shoes. The feet at the toes are twice again as wide as normal. The men have a big toe which is almost like a thumb. This is developed over the years by extensive tree climbing. We normally don’t take a camera to church and so missed many wonderful pictures.

Our Sunday noon meal was eaten at the church owned restaurant located just behind the church. This is a new beautifully decorated restaurant which is quite formal. A four course meal including an appetizer, soup, main course, and desert was $3. We know of some congregations in Iowa who should consider this idea as a church fundraiser since half the congregation heads for a restaurant after church anyway.

It is time to make those final preps for classes tomorrow.

Last prep day for school

The books sent from Iowa all arrived. The photo shows MJ checking them

This evening we will have been in Puyo for a full week. Because of the wide variety of experiences, it seems as though it has been much more than a week. It is this constant exposure to new experiences that makes living in another culture the rich experience that it is.

The weather has been very nice once you get use to the frequency of rain. Temperatures have ranged from a low of about 68 at night to a high of around 80. It rained five days out of seven at some time or another including two full nights of rain. Life goes on during a rain as though it were not raining. The 240 inches per year of rainfall is taken as part of life. The clouds hanging just above the mountains or at other times obscuring the mountains is a beautiful site.

Friday, our last preparation day before school starts was like no other last day of preparation in my 38 years of experience. We spent about one quarter of the day in academic preparation and the remaining three quarters of the day cleaning and scrubbing the school. There is one custodian for the campus. He seems to be occupied with maintenance matters and not with cleaning. Tile floors in classrooms and hallways (which are outside) can be washed and swept. A garden hose is not to be found and so we carried buckets of water to throw across the floors while others mopped and swept. Leading the charge to all of this was the school director. Somehow in my 30 years of school administration, I missed this activity. Mary Jane wished she had remembered her camera.

About 10 in the morning we had a snack of a small meat pie. At about 3 in the afternoon a quart container of chicken with rice, potato, and salad was eaten by all. A strong spice mixture of onion, tomato, hot peppers, and lemon is available to spoon over the rice. New comers to this food called aiji (pronounced ah hee) often want to summon the fire department. We find it delicious.

This morning, we walked to the market. A quart container of radishes, 6 mandarin oranges, 4 large lemons, 7 apples and a head of cabbage cost $2.50. A large fresh pineapple costs $1. So far during the first week Montezuma has had limit success in seeking revenge.