I had really intended to write this blog update last weekend. If I had, it would have been filled with the excitement and anticipation of taking the small business training course through CIDE. As it is, you are getting the update from after me finishing the course, so I just spoiled that ending—I in fact completed the course.
Two weeks ago was a pretty typical week of programs. The only major thing that stands out was art. One of the comments Holly made in her transition report was that in the future it might be good to try having projects that take more than one day to complete. We attempted that this time with picture collages. The students were supposed to cut out pictures from magazines to glue together to form a new picture. The results varied, from series of animal pictures cut out in boxes glued next to each other in no intelligible sequence to the profes’ art, which looked like what I had originally planned. However, the project did last two days, with some students actually splitting the time between two days to make a more complete project. Bottom line, the project was a mixed success but leaves room for us to try more two-day projects later (issues with regular attendance and latecomers at least currently limit what kinds of projects we can do on a daily basis).
Erik also got a call from CIDE Thursday morning asking if we could come in for a meeting about our upcoming course that afternoon. We can’t ever meet in the afternoons, so we scheduled a meeting for Friday morning instead. With such a last minute meeting before a class that was supposed to start on Monday, I assumed they were calling us in to talk about how we couldn’t have the class next week. Boy was I wrong. We ironed out the last minute details, were given a huge shopping list of supplies, and told the room number where the class was going to be held on Monday. It was a TON of last minute work for us, but the class was going to start on Monday. It was pretty exciting to think that Erik and I were finally going to get trained to teach small business classes in the community. I also cooked alone Friday, because Haley and her novio were off exploring Ecuador! It went well, except for the facts that 1) we had no Tupperware in the house so I had to use pots and pans for all of my prepping needs, and, 2) I had to turn everything off and leave the house a 5:40 for a 20 minute paseo (fieldtrip) because we had no vegetable broth and walk all the way up to the Tia because all the tiendas between here and there didn’t have anything but chicken (we use maggi-brand bullion cubes for all our broth needs. Thanks, maggi broth).
Last Saturday was a blast. Mike and I had a soccer game at 2pm, and we were short on players this time. We both started and I played the whole game. That is so, so much harder than it was in high school for so many reasons: I’m out of shape; I’m no longer at 50 feet above sea level; The field is much bigger; the halves are longer; and, even in high school as a starter you would be subbed in and out so others could get playing time. All those reasons aside, I made it through the whole game and had a lot of fun. I had an assist for a goal, my first in all my years playing soccer (I play outside mid here rather than defense like I did in Texas), knocked a bunch of players down because I am a giant, and even forced a yellow card on someone.
After the game, Mike and I rushed home, showered, and headed over to a birthday party in the community. Emelia, one of the cutest girls ever, turned 5, and we were invited to her birthday party. The main feature of the party was a clown. Yes, clowns are still popular here, and with all age groups. He “entertained” us for probably two hours, with all the Ecuadorians rolling in laughter. The part I enjoyed most was when he had some adults sit on the floor (again, including me and Mike), and had us scoot on our butts to the other side of the room in a race. First prize went to Mike, and first prize was a whole bottle of whiskey. Sadly, because of our no drinking in community policy, we didn’t get to taste the fruits of victory, but it still makes for a story.
I also pulled off the triple crown of chores on Sunday. I went to Aki (the grocery store) after 9:30 mass, to the markets with Erik after lunch, and cooked dinner with Sonia.
My eventful weekend was followed by an eventful week. We had to be at ESPE, EScuela Politecnico del Ejercito, or the military polytechnic college, at 8am for classes. That meant I was up at 6 and out the door 7ish. Even trying my hardest, it was impossible to go to bed before 10:30. We had to bring the coffee maker from our house (along with a lot of other supplies each day), walk a mile up to the highway, and grab a crowded bus. CIDE (centro de innovación y desarrollo emprasario) had promised to bring some students as well, but we had a smaller class than we expected. It was Erik, myself, Marina, Wilson’s (from EPV, the microfinance organization we work with in Rumiloma) daughter, her cousin Tatyiana, and Carlos, the one CIDE recruit. Remember, this was a 25 hour class designed to certify us to train small business class instructors. It was totally in Spanish, and really for people who are fluent. The first project we did after introductions was one that involved following verbal instructions-we had to make paper cups. At one point, Erik, who is basically fluent, raised his hand and said, “Lo siento, pero no tengo este vocabulario,” to which Maribel, who was leading this exercise, just smiled and continued. They class was like that all week. The concepts themselves were not complicated (that’s the point of the class), but the Spanish was brutally hard. We had class five hours a day, and with only five students I was expected to (and did) participate fully, adding commentary, following directions, and presenting segments. This class was GREAT for my Spanish. I understand a large majority of what is said to me, and I can now respond for the first part with making notes beforehand.
I have some other anecdotes from the class. The lesson Monday was all over teaching styles, learning styles, the role of the instructor in this class (Fundador), and the specific teaching style we use: Metaplan. I don’t know if this exists in English, but all information is put up on colored strips of construction paper, everything is written in caps with no more than 3 lines of text and 10 words per card, and using colors that stand out. At the end of class on Monday, we were given a little time to read over the descriptions of four different types of teaching styles in our HUGE binder and then told to each act out a teaching style. The whole class did poorly. But even with my broken comprehension of what I read and said while performing, Giovanna at least had (wrong) guesses for what Erik and I acted out, but didn’t even have a clue for what the Ecuadorians acted out. That was one difficult Spanish-based activity.
The first thing we did Tuesday morning was take an 80 question quiz to determine what learning style we have. Again, this was brutally hard. The questions were up on a projector, and we had about as much time to answer each question as it took for Maribel to read them aloud. This exercise was wickedly fast. It turns out that Spanish Chet is a reflexivo teóratico (reflexive theorist, or possible reflective theorist). The most important questions for my learning are ¿Qué? and ¿Por Qué?
Wednesday was probably the hardest day, because it was the day we started going into college classes and teaching units in Spanish to the students. I’m not sure, but I think it was borderline the kind of stuff you would have to get a waiver signed for in the States. Erik and I taught a unit on business organization. I had to teach an hour and 15 minute unit on basic organization, with a taller. There were some problems, and we were crunched for time even ending half an hour late. Overall, it went better than the other taller on markets we had that morning. It was also an invaluable learning experience. You think public speaking is hard? Try it in a language you don’t speak over a subject you know almost nothing about (Erik loved this, as a business major this stuff was right up his alley). After all of these, we had retroalmientación, or feedback, which was just another example of the kind of language proficiency I had to use on a daily basis; I had to say what went well and what could have gone better about everyone’s group.
Thursday was the start of units of production, with a very involved Taller on production “ensalada de frutas.” We spent half an hour making a fruit salad in front of a class of students, pretending that it was an international cooking show. I had the easy role; as a famous international chef I had to cut up fruit and talk in English with my assistants. Erik had the worst job; as “his show,” he was supposed to translate everything I said (and I was told to talk the whole time) into Spanish for the class. Then, we had a lesson on fixed and marginal costs, and figuring out exactly how much to charge for your product (fruit salad). This was Econ 101 stuff, so I knew all of it, even in Spanish. Supply and Demand can transcend even a language barrier, and I loved it. However, I had Spanish lessons at 2pm in Rumiloma, 45 minutes away using a 3 bus system, and we straight up walked out a 1:40. Needless to say, I was half an hour late to class.
On Friday we had my favorite project, again on production. We were split up into two teams, and each given the same assignment about a small marmalade factory that we were supposed to mathematically analyze, say what the factors limiting production were, and then redesign the current factory layout. I basically did everything between me and Tatyiana, which was fine because it was easy. Then, when we started presenting first, I was met with a new surprise. Maribel, who was playing the role of the company owner, treated it as a business presentation! She asked us for our fake credentials, would interrupt and ask why we did that or how much it would cost, and other things that made it more of a simulation and less of a presentation. Luckily, it was Friday and I was much more comfortable with my Spanish. At one point, I told Maribal “you have to spend money to make money” (well, technically, I said “you have to pay money to create money”). I could barely keep from laughing after that. Tatyiana and I won, and Erik was so pissed. He raised his hand and asked why we won, and then during break he and I had a longer conversation in English about the merits and flaws of his plan. But, at the end of the day, the Econ major beat the Business major at his own game.
In addition to the difficulty of having 25 hours of class in Spanish, the early mornings and busyness added a lot of extra strain to my normal workload. It was hard to both prepare both a one hour unit on business organization and a lecture and worksheet about the past perfect continuous verb tense for the same day. It was hard to get up at 6 everyday. One thing we were in charge of was bringing snacks (and coffee) everyday. I used 5/6 of a pound of coffee for 5 pots, and there were no complaints. I will say, problems or obstacles that seemed much more challenging before this week seem smaller now. I am also much more indifferent to tasks that used to annoy me more (hopefully that will stay). I guess I know what a “real job” would be like now.
Happy Shield day From Ecuador. Remember, Correa prohibited public celebrations on Halloween (yea, the article is in Spanish, but it will be good practice for you, the reader, especially since you can probably guess what it is saying.) It is the start of a four day weekend here, so tonight we are all taking night busses to Canoa, a sleepy beach town about 8 hours away. Mike and I have a soccer game soon; hopefully we will win again.
Until something else exciting happens,
Chao,
Chet Polson
Fundador de Fundadores
Song of the Blog: “Bigger than my Body,” by John Mayer
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
You did WHAT!
I could answer that question so many different ways in the weeks (sorry about the time lapse) that have occurred since my last blog post. The two main answers that come to mind are joining an Ecuadorian soccer league and hiking 13 km through the jungle in sandals. There will be a programmatic update at the end, so if you are only interested in that you can scroll down past all of my anecdotes of living in one of the other ten countries that still use the US dollar.
I left you last the night before we had our retreat at Sierra Azul, in the jungle. Well, technically Sierra Azul is in the transitional period between the highlands and the rainforest, “el bosque.” Its not quite rainforest, but hopefully I will see that too in the months to come. I have never been in a place so luscious. On our hike, I could only see between five and twenty feet off either side of the trail, depending on how close we were to the river we crossed several times. The lodge itself was great; if you are looking for a secluded place to spend a weekend in the bosque in Ecuador I recommend Sierra Azul. They have a huge recreation room, with a fireplace and couches (to read and play catchphrase), large tables (to play card games), a pool table, foosball table, ping pong, and a dart board. The rooms themselves are cabin-esque, and comfortable, if rugged-natural looking. They have hot water, and I mean hot water; the kind that you have to mix with cold water to make it bearable. This was a great treat after showering with electric shower heads (read: widowmakers) since arriving in Ecuador. The whole place is also run on generators, which makes it bright and inviting until they turn the generators off around 22h30.
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I had been informed beforehand that my huge, American feet would be too big for any rain boots they had for us to wear at Sierra Azul. That wasn’t really a surprise, because I’m just too big for this country in general. So, I brought the pair of Merrell “jungle moccasins” (slip on shoes) that I had picked up in the adoption corner earlier this summer, intending to hike in and ruin those if need be. However, after the girls came back from a short hike Friday, they told me that rubber boots were a necessity. Fernando, our guide, thought hiking in these slip-on shoes was also a terrible idea. In a move of desperation, I brought out my chacos and asked if they would be better, and they passed the test. So, while everyone else was in knee-high rubber boots (or tennis shoes and hiking socks in Erik’s case) I walked 13 km through the jungle in sandals. It was muddy. Crazy muddy. At least about every time it went from soothing to uncomfortable, we would cross a river and I would get to rinse off. But overall, the hike was great. The waterfall was gorgeous, my feet held up, and I think it’s a pretty unique experience to walk that far with such exposed feet.
Mike and I joined an Ecuadorian soccer league (most of the girls joined too, but we play on different teams, so I will keep the coverage to me for now). Some of the taxi drivers in Conocoto we have gotten closer to invited us to play. Men’s games are on Saturday; the specific time changes. Our team is part of the liga deportiva “Club Football Brazil,” which has its fields up at punte tres on the autopista (this will all make sense when you come visit). It isn’t the nicest of facilities, but it is already growing on me. I play on equipo Rumiñahui. It’s a family team, with several generations all playing together. The rest of the team isn’t incredible, but they are better than I am. I got to play about 30 minutes in the second half yesterday, and it was rough. I have been running (a little) to get in shape for soccer and the mountains I want to hike, and I apparently have a lot more to do. They ran me ragged. But the team was nice about my performance, and hopefully I will get better as time progresses. It is certainly a unique way to spend some time on the weekends while I am here.
Another big activity I have recently attended was the Ecuador-Uruguay World Cup Qualifier last weekend (Oct 10). Ecuador lost 2-1. They then lost to Chile on Wednesday, so they will not be in the 2010 World Cup. But just because we lost didn’t mean it wasn’t worth going. I bought my ticket for $13.50 off of the old PDs, who had bought a package. On game day, tickets were about $35 for general admission (which were were in). Still, $35 for international sports-play? Sounds like a deal to me, even though I am no longer even willing to pay $1.50 for a DVD.
The game was at 5pm. Our Ecuadorian friend told us to leave the house by 10am, which we did more or less. The Ecovia was closed off one stop before the stadium, so we had to get off early and clear a police checkpoint (only those with tickets were allowed in) where entire blocks were fenced off before the stadium. The security line for our section of general was about two blocks long, and it was pretty slow moving, but we were still in the stadium by 12, where we then got to wait for 5 hours with the same three songs about Ecuador playing. Here is another example of the type of inefficiency that makes me want to pull my hair out (read: making me spend 1.5 hours physically going and paying the water bill in cash), perhaps if all of the seating wasn’t general admission so much time from all the fans would not have been wasted. But the time passed, and we even made friends with the people sitting by us. One man had his face painted like the joker; Mike asked to have his picture taken with him in the security line and he must have taken a shining to us. He came over and told us that we had picked bad seats (too close to the fence) and that the fans might come crushing down and punch us; needless to say, we moved over. One nice thing about sporting events here is you can bring in food; Erik had rugby practice until early afternoon but in return for saving his seat he brought in a 3 liter bottle of Coke and 40 dumplings from our favorite Chinese restaurant, which was the perfect greasy meal/snack. This stadium is set up much like the coliseum, where it is just one tier and quite wide. By game time, I don’t think I have ever seen a more electrified crowd. EVERYONE was in yellow Ecuador jerseys. It was as loud as or louder than a game in the Allen Fieldhouse, and this was an open-air stadium, not a limestone building. Ecuador lost 2-1 on a penalty kick in stoppage time, which is too bad because they really did play well. The fans, which had been so electric for the game, were not happy. They probably threw bottles on the field for half an hour after the game. Our friend, the joker, came to the rescue. We had great seats, probably 5 rows up from the corner of the field. He and his friends told us to just sit down and wait, and eventually as the stadium cleared out put us in a single file line and marched us out of the stadium to a relatively clear spot in the parking lot outside. We took an uneventful public transport ride home.
I spent the past two nights watching Benecio del Torro's "Che," the epic two part film that came out recently. Recuerdas, I don't do history, but I thought they were great movies and a great introduction to the kind of terrain that is in Cuba and Bolivia (I guess, and Bolivia isn't very high on my list of places to be sure to go to while I'm here). Put them at the top of your netflix queue. And that is my free time recently; on to programs.
Everything is running pretty smoothly. Adult (and teen) English continues to have people inscribe. I don’t know if my teaching has improved any, but we are definitely getting better at doing in-class evaluation of the material taught. We gave our first quiz Wednesday (which, at an hour and over pretty much everything we have covered, was much closer to a test) which will hopefully be a useful tool in evaluating our teaching. We still lack a good curriculum though; I have been fabricating lessons as we go along. While empowering to me, I worry the class lacks continuity. At least we have three heads planning the classes, which are a real asset to designing evaluations, vocabulary, worksheets, and a song of the day (all of which we have every class; two hours is a long session). I also have some leads to more permanent curriculum we can use now and in the future, hopefully they will pan out. Stay tuned. Originally we planned to have a one week break between classes (which would occur next week) but because of the week we will get off at Thanksgiving, we are just going to roll straight into the next one.
Art is art. The kids love it. We are about shin-deep into “Fun with Shapes Month” after a successful “Animals Month.” I really do hope this month will be a good way break down some of the barriers to creativity and rampant copying we see; so far we have had mixed success on this front. On the past Thursday we had our first paint project. Sonia and I cut potatoes into basic shapes, which they were supposed to use to draw more complete pictures like rubber stamps. They had a lot of fun stamping, but we didn’t get many complete pictures. They were also done 20 minutes into our hour class. Luckily, we could just send them back to the library, but it was still a definite learning experience. However, we spent about triple the amount of time setting up and cleaning than the kids did painting.
I still see big things in the near future for Microfinance (sadly, I also say this about Vanderbilt football). We had the training for the business class all set up, and it fell through on CIDE’s part (recruiting was “complicated”). However, we have the next class set up for the 26th. I fully expected the first class to fall through, working with another organization. However, I also expect this one to go through. Erik and I also plan to start shadowing/volunteering with EPV one morning a week. We have brought up the idea with them and they were okay with it, so it is about time for us to set that up for real. I also need to start my search for additional funding and grant writing.
First Quarter reports on program progress were due last week. I drew the short straw and got to write the reports for all three programs, which really wasn’t all that bad. It is much easier to write 15 single-spaced pages of what I have done than it is to write five double-spaced pages about the syntax of Donne’s sonnets or study for one math test. And fear not, reader, I made those reports about as sassy as you can get away with for an actual report with an actual organization. Bibi and I also spent some time last week going over the metrics we collect and the metrics we should collect to evaluate our program effectiveness. We certainly clarified and streamlined what we collect, and hopefully these will be useful changes for years to come.
I was fielded a great question recently of "How did Ecuadorian's react to Obama's Nobel Peace Prize," which is a great question; keep them coming. The honest answer is I don't really know. There was a short article in the paper Saturday (it made front page and continued on) with a great picture of Obama running in suit and tie with an American flag in the background. I will continue to keep asking people about it until I feel like I have enough to make a general response for an entire country, but until then I will simply remark that I do not believe it will be as big of an issue here is it will in America. Did you know that Ecuador was on the road to insolvency before it got an injection from the Inter-American Development Bank?
And that is way more than you could possibly bring up in polite conversation. Luckily, I can simply refer people to here. I only have three grad school applications left, of which I think I will submit two this week (hopefully) and the third STILL hasn’t released theirs yet. Hopefully, once I submit these I will have more time to explore Quito, learn to play the Mandolin, and write blog posts.
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: “Bandera de Manos” by Juanes
I left you last the night before we had our retreat at Sierra Azul, in the jungle. Well, technically Sierra Azul is in the transitional period between the highlands and the rainforest, “el bosque.” Its not quite rainforest, but hopefully I will see that too in the months to come. I have never been in a place so luscious. On our hike, I could only see between five and twenty feet off either side of the trail, depending on how close we were to the river we crossed several times. The lodge itself was great; if you are looking for a secluded place to spend a weekend in the bosque in Ecuador I recommend Sierra Azul. They have a huge recreation room, with a fireplace and couches (to read and play catchphrase), large tables (to play card games), a pool table, foosball table, ping pong, and a dart board. The rooms themselves are cabin-esque, and comfortable, if rugged-natural looking. They have hot water, and I mean hot water; the kind that you have to mix with cold water to make it bearable. This was a great treat after showering with electric shower heads (read: widowmakers) since arriving in Ecuador. The whole place is also run on generators, which makes it bright and inviting until they turn the generators off around 22h30.
.JPG)
I had been informed beforehand that my huge, American feet would be too big for any rain boots they had for us to wear at Sierra Azul. That wasn’t really a surprise, because I’m just too big for this country in general. So, I brought the pair of Merrell “jungle moccasins” (slip on shoes) that I had picked up in the adoption corner earlier this summer, intending to hike in and ruin those if need be. However, after the girls came back from a short hike Friday, they told me that rubber boots were a necessity. Fernando, our guide, thought hiking in these slip-on shoes was also a terrible idea. In a move of desperation, I brought out my chacos and asked if they would be better, and they passed the test. So, while everyone else was in knee-high rubber boots (or tennis shoes and hiking socks in Erik’s case) I walked 13 km through the jungle in sandals. It was muddy. Crazy muddy. At least about every time it went from soothing to uncomfortable, we would cross a river and I would get to rinse off. But overall, the hike was great. The waterfall was gorgeous, my feet held up, and I think it’s a pretty unique experience to walk that far with such exposed feet.
Mike and I joined an Ecuadorian soccer league (most of the girls joined too, but we play on different teams, so I will keep the coverage to me for now). Some of the taxi drivers in Conocoto we have gotten closer to invited us to play. Men’s games are on Saturday; the specific time changes. Our team is part of the liga deportiva “Club Football Brazil,” which has its fields up at punte tres on the autopista (this will all make sense when you come visit). It isn’t the nicest of facilities, but it is already growing on me. I play on equipo Rumiñahui. It’s a family team, with several generations all playing together. The rest of the team isn’t incredible, but they are better than I am. I got to play about 30 minutes in the second half yesterday, and it was rough. I have been running (a little) to get in shape for soccer and the mountains I want to hike, and I apparently have a lot more to do. They ran me ragged. But the team was nice about my performance, and hopefully I will get better as time progresses. It is certainly a unique way to spend some time on the weekends while I am here.
Another big activity I have recently attended was the Ecuador-Uruguay World Cup Qualifier last weekend (Oct 10). Ecuador lost 2-1. They then lost to Chile on Wednesday, so they will not be in the 2010 World Cup. But just because we lost didn’t mean it wasn’t worth going. I bought my ticket for $13.50 off of the old PDs, who had bought a package. On game day, tickets were about $35 for general admission (which were were in). Still, $35 for international sports-play? Sounds like a deal to me, even though I am no longer even willing to pay $1.50 for a DVD.
The game was at 5pm. Our Ecuadorian friend told us to leave the house by 10am, which we did more or less. The Ecovia was closed off one stop before the stadium, so we had to get off early and clear a police checkpoint (only those with tickets were allowed in) where entire blocks were fenced off before the stadium. The security line for our section of general was about two blocks long, and it was pretty slow moving, but we were still in the stadium by 12, where we then got to wait for 5 hours with the same three songs about Ecuador playing. Here is another example of the type of inefficiency that makes me want to pull my hair out (read: making me spend 1.5 hours physically going and paying the water bill in cash), perhaps if all of the seating wasn’t general admission so much time from all the fans would not have been wasted. But the time passed, and we even made friends with the people sitting by us. One man had his face painted like the joker; Mike asked to have his picture taken with him in the security line and he must have taken a shining to us. He came over and told us that we had picked bad seats (too close to the fence) and that the fans might come crushing down and punch us; needless to say, we moved over. One nice thing about sporting events here is you can bring in food; Erik had rugby practice until early afternoon but in return for saving his seat he brought in a 3 liter bottle of Coke and 40 dumplings from our favorite Chinese restaurant, which was the perfect greasy meal/snack. This stadium is set up much like the coliseum, where it is just one tier and quite wide. By game time, I don’t think I have ever seen a more electrified crowd. EVERYONE was in yellow Ecuador jerseys. It was as loud as or louder than a game in the Allen Fieldhouse, and this was an open-air stadium, not a limestone building. Ecuador lost 2-1 on a penalty kick in stoppage time, which is too bad because they really did play well. The fans, which had been so electric for the game, were not happy. They probably threw bottles on the field for half an hour after the game. Our friend, the joker, came to the rescue. We had great seats, probably 5 rows up from the corner of the field. He and his friends told us to just sit down and wait, and eventually as the stadium cleared out put us in a single file line and marched us out of the stadium to a relatively clear spot in the parking lot outside. We took an uneventful public transport ride home.
I spent the past two nights watching Benecio del Torro's "Che," the epic two part film that came out recently. Recuerdas, I don't do history, but I thought they were great movies and a great introduction to the kind of terrain that is in Cuba and Bolivia (I guess, and Bolivia isn't very high on my list of places to be sure to go to while I'm here). Put them at the top of your netflix queue. And that is my free time recently; on to programs.
Everything is running pretty smoothly. Adult (and teen) English continues to have people inscribe. I don’t know if my teaching has improved any, but we are definitely getting better at doing in-class evaluation of the material taught. We gave our first quiz Wednesday (which, at an hour and over pretty much everything we have covered, was much closer to a test) which will hopefully be a useful tool in evaluating our teaching. We still lack a good curriculum though; I have been fabricating lessons as we go along. While empowering to me, I worry the class lacks continuity. At least we have three heads planning the classes, which are a real asset to designing evaluations, vocabulary, worksheets, and a song of the day (all of which we have every class; two hours is a long session). I also have some leads to more permanent curriculum we can use now and in the future, hopefully they will pan out. Stay tuned. Originally we planned to have a one week break between classes (which would occur next week) but because of the week we will get off at Thanksgiving, we are just going to roll straight into the next one.
Art is art. The kids love it. We are about shin-deep into “Fun with Shapes Month” after a successful “Animals Month.” I really do hope this month will be a good way break down some of the barriers to creativity and rampant copying we see; so far we have had mixed success on this front. On the past Thursday we had our first paint project. Sonia and I cut potatoes into basic shapes, which they were supposed to use to draw more complete pictures like rubber stamps. They had a lot of fun stamping, but we didn’t get many complete pictures. They were also done 20 minutes into our hour class. Luckily, we could just send them back to the library, but it was still a definite learning experience. However, we spent about triple the amount of time setting up and cleaning than the kids did painting.
I still see big things in the near future for Microfinance (sadly, I also say this about Vanderbilt football). We had the training for the business class all set up, and it fell through on CIDE’s part (recruiting was “complicated”). However, we have the next class set up for the 26th. I fully expected the first class to fall through, working with another organization. However, I also expect this one to go through. Erik and I also plan to start shadowing/volunteering with EPV one morning a week. We have brought up the idea with them and they were okay with it, so it is about time for us to set that up for real. I also need to start my search for additional funding and grant writing.
First Quarter reports on program progress were due last week. I drew the short straw and got to write the reports for all three programs, which really wasn’t all that bad. It is much easier to write 15 single-spaced pages of what I have done than it is to write five double-spaced pages about the syntax of Donne’s sonnets or study for one math test. And fear not, reader, I made those reports about as sassy as you can get away with for an actual report with an actual organization. Bibi and I also spent some time last week going over the metrics we collect and the metrics we should collect to evaluate our program effectiveness. We certainly clarified and streamlined what we collect, and hopefully these will be useful changes for years to come.
I was fielded a great question recently of "How did Ecuadorian's react to Obama's Nobel Peace Prize," which is a great question; keep them coming. The honest answer is I don't really know. There was a short article in the paper Saturday (it made front page and continued on) with a great picture of Obama running in suit and tie with an American flag in the background. I will continue to keep asking people about it until I feel like I have enough to make a general response for an entire country, but until then I will simply remark that I do not believe it will be as big of an issue here is it will in America. Did you know that Ecuador was on the road to insolvency before it got an injection from the Inter-American Development Bank?
And that is way more than you could possibly bring up in polite conversation. Luckily, I can simply refer people to here. I only have three grad school applications left, of which I think I will submit two this week (hopefully) and the third STILL hasn’t released theirs yet. Hopefully, once I submit these I will have more time to explore Quito, learn to play the Mandolin, and write blog posts.
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: “Bandera de Manos” by Juanes
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Its Thursday!
Writer’s note: I apparently felt the need to emphasize things in ALL CAPS tonight.
Buenos noches friends, family, and most importantly donors,
Its been a while since I have posted (two weeks or so). That’s not to say that nothing has been going on, I have just been spending all of my spare moments (and some moments that probably should have been used for other things) to work on my applications to graduate programs in Economics. Technology is great. I can pretty much apply to grad school online in Ecuador. At the same time, this would not be possible without: my professors who agreed to write me recommendations, and, my family and friends on the ground in America carrying forms around, sending off mailings, and giving me comments on what I have written. So, if you are reading this, thank you (I’m pretty sure at least my mom does). I have made some progress, but still have plenty to do before I am done applying everywhere. It is still only late September, which makes me early to on-schedule.
Applications have taken up almost all of my spare time. I’m not going to lie; it is tedious, grating, and I’m probably in a worse mood because of it. The two other things that stand out are the two professional soccer games I have attended. My club team is now LDU Quito, (Liga Deportiva Universidad Quito), or affectionately called “Liga” here (if you speak Spanish, you see how terrible a name Liga is for your team. If you are good at guessing what words that sound like something in one language mean in another language you might be able to tell why this is an uncreative name as well). Two weekends ago on Sunday they had an 11h30 game in la Casa Blanca, their stadium, up a little north of the airport. This stadium is very much in Quito; it is also just about two hours away from our front door. Quito is a very long city. They tied Macara 1-1. It was incredibly sunny and NO ONE was there. It was great. Last weekend, Liga played South Quito at 18h30 in Estadio Atahualpa, another stadium in Quito south of the airport but on the Ecovia, not the Metrobus. The crowd was much more into it. I consider myself a good fan in general: I go early, I stay to the end, I am willing to stand the whole time and cheer, and know what is going on for the most part. In a professional soccer game here, not only do you stand the whole game you sing the WHOLE TIME. It was awesome. By the end of the game we were learning some of the lyrics. Some songs were very encouraging. Others were less so. However, I do believe everything we said was much less racially/ethnically charged than reading “How Soccer Explains the World” would have you believe soccer fans behave. Liga got pounded. They went down 3-0 in the first half and stayed there. The fans…got…rowdy (edited for content). Still, it was a great experience and I cannot wait to go to the Ecuador-Paraguay game in a couple weeks.
Programs also started last week. Mine started slow. Monday, there was plenty of attendance at kids English, but no adults showed up for Adult English. Tuesday, the first day of art, was also the first day of winter, so the weather was terrible and no kids came to art/the library. Wednesday no adults showed up for Adult English. Thursday we had three kids for children’s art (we made egg crate caterpillars). Friday is the day Haley and I go in early and then come home to cook (we have classes that exclude us from doing this every other day of the week). We made chicken jambalaya and it turned out great.
Things are better this week (if you have trouble following my timeline, in-between the last paragraph and this one soccer game two occurred). Monday we had three adults in Adult English (technically two adults and a kid). They were also much more advanced English speakers than we had planned on. Krysta and I scrambled for two hours. We started by walking to the window and learning all the vocabulary we could see but didn’t know. Then we played “I spy” in English. I won. We got the diagnostic, vocab, and game to last an hour. Then we did pronunciation; our students red aloud to us from books. We spent half an hour on pronunciation, and then Krysta and I went over four major problem areas (pronouncing “g,” words that end in “y,” words that end in “ed,” and “th”). I feel like it went pretty well, especially for having to scramble.
Tuesday was a banner (and long) day. It started with a 10am meeting with CIDE about these small business classes. That meeting definitely exceeded expectations. We walked in and said we have the money, lacked the people, but are ready to take the class. We talked about details a little bit and PICKED A DATE. Class will be October 12-16. Classes run from 8-13h00, with a coffee break at 11h00. It is a one-week, twenty five hour class that we will walk out of being certified to train instructors for the course. I personally am paying for the instructor fee (most of the course cost) at a price of $375. When I say personally I mean you, my donors, who have donated all the funds I will use to do so. It is going to make for a long week doing this in the mornings in top of all the program stuff in the afternoon, but we think its 100% worth it. I also plan on writing up a proposal to USAID with some more long-term goals to see if I can finagle some extra bones out of those tax-dollars we all pay (and because Ecuador also uses the dollar there is a small chance that it will be the physical dollar you gave to the government to pay your taxes with. Oh, what’s that? In some places the entire economy isn’t cash only? Interesting.) After our meeting, we ran some errands in San Luis and I turned $120 in twenties into $120 in dollar coins and quarters for the bus jar. We were home by 11h30. Tuesday is children’s art day; Sonia planned this one. We made mobiles of the life cycle of caterpillars! (fun and educational, which in all seriousness is something we strive for). This was a learning experience. The kids loved it, but some parts (cutting spirals, attaching hanging things with yarn) might have been a bit two advanced for some of our younger students. My favorite story from the day was when after explaining the parts of the CATEPILLAR LIFE CYCLE we were going to make, Paula told me she was going to make “a flower, a dog, a house…and…a dog house! She did. We encourage creativity.
Wednesday was Adult English again. Wednesday really started after dinner on Tuesday with lesson planning until about midnight. Erik’s Spanish teacher Diego once said “native speakers speak their language at about the intermediate level.” I figured he was probably right. I also figured my degree in English would make me more or less exempt from this statistic. WRONG. I learned this planning my review of all the verb tenses for regular verbs in English. I did not even know how many tenses there are, and definitely could not name them all. It was a humbling experience, but I do think it turned out pretty well. In class, we had three more teens, which is great, because they were about the same English level, but it did really change the dynamic (everyone was less willing to speak up). We also only got through about half of the verb tenses. This is fine, because we teach for understanding, so if we need to go slower we certainly will. The worksheets we had for class/homework were too hard. I’m still learning.
Thursday (today) was children’s art. I spent the morning prepping by helping Mike and Erik move the broken cinder block pieces off the roof (from the door we put in). To put it lightly, some of our neighbors are a bit too protective of the field they don’t own. So we only got about three-fourths off the roof (there are so many random projects do to around the house). In art, we did hot and colors and drew animals with echo lines. Props to http://oodlesofart.blogspot.com/search/label/2nd%20Grade and the appropriate links to help me plan this one. I had been wanting (did you notice I used the past perfect progressive? I did it intentionally, because I made a calendar of all the art classes this semester, split the months into categories [September is animals month] and then filled in about half the dates with projects) to do tissue paper dragons, but funding issues got in my way. We started the class with a lecture on hot and cold colors (Hot: red, yellow, orange, pink; they open up spaces and are active. Cold: blue, green, purple, gray; they make spaces seem smaller and calm or depress.) Then we had the kids draw an animal on the page, draw concentric contour lines around it, and then color in the rings in an alternating pattern of either warm or cool colors. Everyone except the two youngest really seemed to get this and ended up with good projects. We also had a lot of talking today, which I thought was great/fun. Sonia brought in music, which really enhanced the mood. I will probably have to be stricter about staying seated on Monday.
Afterwards Paula and some others spent about half an hour decorating my hair/face with construction paper scraps. I was in a pretty AWESOME mood today (lucky everyone) so I just took it in stride. The two things that stand out are the fact that 1) at one point they called me “the bull,” which is a nickname I am more than willing to keep, and, 2) they obviously want me to grow a mustache because they taped a paper one on my face. I’ll probably indulge them on that one once this small business class in done. I’ll need to fit in when I go to Argentina over Thanksgiving.
Today was also Haley’s birthday, so we went to Crepes and Waffles for dinner. It was delicious. Absolutely incredible. Tomorrow the library is closed because we are taking our first quarter retreat. We are going to a resort called Sierra Azul, in the Tena area. Its in the jungle. It should be wet and gorgeous. I really wanted to watch Anaconda tonight to get in the mood, but only Mike and Erik thought this was a good idea. I hope my camera is up to the challenge. And with all the lesson planning I have ahead of me and applications to look forward to in my spare time, it should be a good chance to get away.
Things to report in general: I did in fact have a sinus infection. Due so some technical problems in the lab, I spend the first 4 days on antibiotics that the bacteria was drug resistant to. I then spent another 8 days on real antibiotics. I think its cleared up now.
The faster I finish my applications, the faster you can get regular updates again.
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: “You Belong with Me” by Taylor Swift
Buenos noches friends, family, and most importantly donors,
Its been a while since I have posted (two weeks or so). That’s not to say that nothing has been going on, I have just been spending all of my spare moments (and some moments that probably should have been used for other things) to work on my applications to graduate programs in Economics. Technology is great. I can pretty much apply to grad school online in Ecuador. At the same time, this would not be possible without: my professors who agreed to write me recommendations, and, my family and friends on the ground in America carrying forms around, sending off mailings, and giving me comments on what I have written. So, if you are reading this, thank you (I’m pretty sure at least my mom does). I have made some progress, but still have plenty to do before I am done applying everywhere. It is still only late September, which makes me early to on-schedule.
Applications have taken up almost all of my spare time. I’m not going to lie; it is tedious, grating, and I’m probably in a worse mood because of it. The two other things that stand out are the two professional soccer games I have attended. My club team is now LDU Quito, (Liga Deportiva Universidad Quito), or affectionately called “Liga” here (if you speak Spanish, you see how terrible a name Liga is for your team. If you are good at guessing what words that sound like something in one language mean in another language you might be able to tell why this is an uncreative name as well). Two weekends ago on Sunday they had an 11h30 game in la Casa Blanca, their stadium, up a little north of the airport. This stadium is very much in Quito; it is also just about two hours away from our front door. Quito is a very long city. They tied Macara 1-1. It was incredibly sunny and NO ONE was there. It was great. Last weekend, Liga played South Quito at 18h30 in Estadio Atahualpa, another stadium in Quito south of the airport but on the Ecovia, not the Metrobus. The crowd was much more into it. I consider myself a good fan in general: I go early, I stay to the end, I am willing to stand the whole time and cheer, and know what is going on for the most part. In a professional soccer game here, not only do you stand the whole game you sing the WHOLE TIME. It was awesome. By the end of the game we were learning some of the lyrics. Some songs were very encouraging. Others were less so. However, I do believe everything we said was much less racially/ethnically charged than reading “How Soccer Explains the World” would have you believe soccer fans behave. Liga got pounded. They went down 3-0 in the first half and stayed there. The fans…got…rowdy (edited for content). Still, it was a great experience and I cannot wait to go to the Ecuador-Paraguay game in a couple weeks.
Programs also started last week. Mine started slow. Monday, there was plenty of attendance at kids English, but no adults showed up for Adult English. Tuesday, the first day of art, was also the first day of winter, so the weather was terrible and no kids came to art/the library. Wednesday no adults showed up for Adult English. Thursday we had three kids for children’s art (we made egg crate caterpillars). Friday is the day Haley and I go in early and then come home to cook (we have classes that exclude us from doing this every other day of the week). We made chicken jambalaya and it turned out great.
Things are better this week (if you have trouble following my timeline, in-between the last paragraph and this one soccer game two occurred). Monday we had three adults in Adult English (technically two adults and a kid). They were also much more advanced English speakers than we had planned on. Krysta and I scrambled for two hours. We started by walking to the window and learning all the vocabulary we could see but didn’t know. Then we played “I spy” in English. I won. We got the diagnostic, vocab, and game to last an hour. Then we did pronunciation; our students red aloud to us from books. We spent half an hour on pronunciation, and then Krysta and I went over four major problem areas (pronouncing “g,” words that end in “y,” words that end in “ed,” and “th”). I feel like it went pretty well, especially for having to scramble.
Tuesday was a banner (and long) day. It started with a 10am meeting with CIDE about these small business classes. That meeting definitely exceeded expectations. We walked in and said we have the money, lacked the people, but are ready to take the class. We talked about details a little bit and PICKED A DATE. Class will be October 12-16. Classes run from 8-13h00, with a coffee break at 11h00. It is a one-week, twenty five hour class that we will walk out of being certified to train instructors for the course. I personally am paying for the instructor fee (most of the course cost) at a price of $375. When I say personally I mean you, my donors, who have donated all the funds I will use to do so. It is going to make for a long week doing this in the mornings in top of all the program stuff in the afternoon, but we think its 100% worth it. I also plan on writing up a proposal to USAID with some more long-term goals to see if I can finagle some extra bones out of those tax-dollars we all pay (and because Ecuador also uses the dollar there is a small chance that it will be the physical dollar you gave to the government to pay your taxes with. Oh, what’s that? In some places the entire economy isn’t cash only? Interesting.) After our meeting, we ran some errands in San Luis and I turned $120 in twenties into $120 in dollar coins and quarters for the bus jar. We were home by 11h30. Tuesday is children’s art day; Sonia planned this one. We made mobiles of the life cycle of caterpillars! (fun and educational, which in all seriousness is something we strive for). This was a learning experience. The kids loved it, but some parts (cutting spirals, attaching hanging things with yarn) might have been a bit two advanced for some of our younger students. My favorite story from the day was when after explaining the parts of the CATEPILLAR LIFE CYCLE we were going to make, Paula told me she was going to make “a flower, a dog, a house…and…a dog house! She did. We encourage creativity.
Wednesday was Adult English again. Wednesday really started after dinner on Tuesday with lesson planning until about midnight. Erik’s Spanish teacher Diego once said “native speakers speak their language at about the intermediate level.” I figured he was probably right. I also figured my degree in English would make me more or less exempt from this statistic. WRONG. I learned this planning my review of all the verb tenses for regular verbs in English. I did not even know how many tenses there are, and definitely could not name them all. It was a humbling experience, but I do think it turned out pretty well. In class, we had three more teens, which is great, because they were about the same English level, but it did really change the dynamic (everyone was less willing to speak up). We also only got through about half of the verb tenses. This is fine, because we teach for understanding, so if we need to go slower we certainly will. The worksheets we had for class/homework were too hard. I’m still learning.
Thursday (today) was children’s art. I spent the morning prepping by helping Mike and Erik move the broken cinder block pieces off the roof (from the door we put in). To put it lightly, some of our neighbors are a bit too protective of the field they don’t own. So we only got about three-fourths off the roof (there are so many random projects do to around the house). In art, we did hot and colors and drew animals with echo lines. Props to http://oodlesofart.blogspot.com/search/label/2nd%20Grade and the appropriate links to help me plan this one. I had been wanting (did you notice I used the past perfect progressive? I did it intentionally, because I made a calendar of all the art classes this semester, split the months into categories [September is animals month] and then filled in about half the dates with projects) to do tissue paper dragons, but funding issues got in my way. We started the class with a lecture on hot and cold colors (Hot: red, yellow, orange, pink; they open up spaces and are active. Cold: blue, green, purple, gray; they make spaces seem smaller and calm or depress.) Then we had the kids draw an animal on the page, draw concentric contour lines around it, and then color in the rings in an alternating pattern of either warm or cool colors. Everyone except the two youngest really seemed to get this and ended up with good projects. We also had a lot of talking today, which I thought was great/fun. Sonia brought in music, which really enhanced the mood. I will probably have to be stricter about staying seated on Monday.
Afterwards Paula and some others spent about half an hour decorating my hair/face with construction paper scraps. I was in a pretty AWESOME mood today (lucky everyone) so I just took it in stride. The two things that stand out are the fact that 1) at one point they called me “the bull,” which is a nickname I am more than willing to keep, and, 2) they obviously want me to grow a mustache because they taped a paper one on my face. I’ll probably indulge them on that one once this small business class in done. I’ll need to fit in when I go to Argentina over Thanksgiving.
Today was also Haley’s birthday, so we went to Crepes and Waffles for dinner. It was delicious. Absolutely incredible. Tomorrow the library is closed because we are taking our first quarter retreat. We are going to a resort called Sierra Azul, in the Tena area. Its in the jungle. It should be wet and gorgeous. I really wanted to watch Anaconda tonight to get in the mood, but only Mike and Erik thought this was a good idea. I hope my camera is up to the challenge. And with all the lesson planning I have ahead of me and applications to look forward to in my spare time, it should be a good chance to get away.
Things to report in general: I did in fact have a sinus infection. Due so some technical problems in the lab, I spend the first 4 days on antibiotics that the bacteria was drug resistant to. I then spent another 8 days on real antibiotics. I think its cleared up now.
The faster I finish my applications, the faster you can get regular updates again.
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: “You Belong with Me” by Taylor Swift
Friday, September 4, 2009
CIDE update and another bill story.
Buenas noches friends, family, and most importantly donors,
I wrote about paying a bill last time because I thought it was a novel experience. As I write this today, I wonder if perhaps every bill I pay here will be an experience. But in order to stick to my rigorous belief in chronological cataloguing, first I am going to tell you about team Microfinance’s meeting with CIDE Thursday morning.
I mentioned about a month ago, during that official programmatic update, that we had met with CIDE, this organization through ESPE (a local university) to run another set of small business classes. I’m pretty sure I also mentioned that they told us to call back in September, because they were about to go on vacation. Well, we waited a month and then gave them a jingle jangle on Tuesday, September 1
. They set up a meeting for 10am Thursday. The night before, Bibi, Erik, and I met to discuss what we really wanted out of this meeting. We had talked about undergoing training to be certified to teach instructors. However, we had had zero (0) luck recruiting people with college degrees or people actively seeking college degrees who wanted to take 40 hours off to do a small business training course and assumed that CIDE had done zero recruiting as well. We decided to go in asking if it was still a feasible class, but still feeling comfortable ending up simply enrolling in a small business class and taking good notes to replicate in the future.
This meeting was much less about the when/where logistics of the course to be taught and much more on the “which course?” discussion than I had expected. We actually spent most of the time talking about prices. CIDE had told us at the first meeting that they were recently turned into a public institution, which meant that they couldn’t say no to anyone but also had no funding. A professor for this course charges $15 an hour. Other than that there are some modest materials costs. The capacitación de capacitadores class would be 20 hours; 4 hours a morning 5 days a week. The simple capacitación is 40 hours, 2 weeks of four hours a day. While the following may be a readily apparent fact, the capacitación de capacitadores class would cost half as much as attending the basic small business class. While they also encourage about 15 students a class, there didn’t seem to be a lower bound as long as they get paid. I am a little hazy on this point; while I understood almost all of this meeting, I was unable to ask this question in a way they understood (which was a little embarrassing; I really did have the feeling that they would think I was a lot smarter than I was if I could just keep my mouth shut). In fact, they suggested recruiting about 20 people to lower the cost of the basic small business class.
So where are we now on these classes? The honest answer is still more up in the air than I thought we would be after this second meeting. But this meeting wasn’t exactly bad news. It sounds to me like Erik and I can get certified to train instructors for $300 and some nubbins. This sounds pretty good: it is half the time and half the cost of the other option. Sure, recruiting others is almost impossible, but if we don’t really need others for the class to happen than it doesn’t matter. Things like certificates and certification are very, very important here. Our flyers for English classes say something to the effect of “we are certified gringos” (Enseóado por licenciados nativohablantes) which makes very little sense when you think about it. The money to fund these courses is a problem either way we decide, though.
But money isn’t as big a problem as it might first sound. I’m not sure if I have said this yet, but thanks to my donors, I have actually met my fundraising goal and actually raised a little beyond. So a very, very big thank you is appropriate for all of you. We actually get a little lee-way with how any money we raise over our goal is spent (but not too much lee-way, it still has to be spent in a way that makes it a legally tax-deductible donation.) and I can think of few things more appropriate for me to spend my surplus on than paying for the training to bring small business classes to the communities I work in. And when team microfinance talked about where exactly we stood walking out of our meeting, I said just that: I think $300 is a great way for the guy who came down really interested in microfinance and small business classes to be trained in useful small business class techniques (Erik can come too; and actually, anyone else we can find who is interested in this class). This sounds like a pretty reasonable game plan (estrategia). It hinges on two major factors: this being a reasonable (and legal) way to use my surplus, and CIDE saying “sure, all we really care about is your money, two is great!” I think we can win this one, but there is no telling right now. But the bottom line is I think the class that will make us more qualified in half the time for half the money is probably the better deal. Stay tuned for the next exciting segment of small business.
I returned home to the house with mixed feelings about our meeting with CIDE, but still overly optimistic. There were two surprises waiting for me when I got home: Seth was home from the Galapagos and there was a $305 water bill on the table. It was great to see Seth again, and he had only been gone a week. I have several phrases, in both English and Spanish, to describe a $300 water bill, and none of them are blog appropriate. Water is cheap here. How, on Earth, could we owe $300?
Well, as it turns out, we didn’t pay last month (worst bill transition ever, right? I know, I’m thinking the same thing. At least I know phone and electricity were, in fact, taken care of.) when we consumed out record high of 124m3 of water (up 40% from our previous high in the 80s). Tack on a late fee to a $130 bill, add 200m3 of consumption this month (whoops) and a $50 charge for wastewater and some other small taxes and you end up at around $300. You also have a bill that needs to be paid immediamente so you don’t have your water shut off (which trust me, in this house would not be nearly as traumatizing as losing internet access). After stressing out about this even though I have very little to do with it (arguably, less than 1/10 when you factor in all the old PDs and all our August guests) and even fewer tools at my disposal to fix this though ways other than paying, we talked to some of our Ecuadorian friends and came to the conclusion that this was, in fact, too high.
So this morning Bibi and I went to Triangulo (a town over, though you couldn’t really tell) to pay this bill. I left the house with $345 in cash and a knife, met up with a Bibi, and took a taxi to Triangulo. The house binder had pretty clear directions on how to find the place; incidentally it is the store in the mall closest to broken change machine number two from my last hunt for bus change. As a quick aside, the change machine was very much in working order this time and while we waited to talk to a desk worker about our bill (about 45 min), I was able to successfully turn 5 twenties into a substantial weight in my bag. When we finally got up to the desk worker, she also agreed with us that the bill was way too high. They are going to send someone out to our house sometime on Monday to examine the meter. The report should be filed by Thursday morning. I’m going to go back Friday to see what the haps is and probably pay them a substantial chunk of change (I‘ll actually pay them in 20s, change is too useful here). In any case, we have until Sept 14 before they shut our water off, so no big deal right?
As a final observation about this experience, I don’t know just how long you have been able to pay a bill without going to an independent location in
I also bought some plants for my room. I feel like they go a long way towards lightening up the mood. I’ve gone ahead and attached pictures now in case something happens to them. And yes, the big one is planted in a bucket. It was WAY cheaper than buying a pot. I think we are going to hike Pichincha tomorrow.
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: “Not a Drop of Rain,” by Robert Earl Keen.
The rainy season should start any day now.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Life is different here...
Buenas Noches Friends, Family, and most importantly Donors,
Sometimes, other than the fact that everyone speaks Spanish, it is hard to remember that I am living in a place wildly different than where I grew up. Other days, it is painfully obvious. I have two stories about that for you now.
MPI ran a medical clinic in our community this past Friday and Saturday partnered with an organization called Healthechildren (pronounced healthy children) and Aliñambi. The five girls who compose the medical part of this year’s set of Program Directors worked their tails off to get ready for this: meetings to plan how the clinic would be run, making t-shirts, staying up illustrating Ecuadorian food pyramids and preparing charlas (read: talks) on brushing and flossing. We (being the non-medical PDs) had more to do as well, though ours wasn’t as much fun: we had more cooking and cleaning, more library time, time spent advertising the clinic on busses (Erik and I can put a flyer on the interior of a bus on average every three minutes), and fewer hands to go around for the summer camp in the mornings. Overall, with all their hard work the clinic seemed to go really well. I spent some of Friday afternoon and some of Saturday morning being around to help facilitate things and keep children entertained. Friday there were no children, so Mike and I kicked the soccer ball around and solved a 300 piece puzzle (which in Spanish is referred to as a “broken head”). Saturday morning there were a lot more kids, and I got to play 3v4 soccer with them. Two months in, and the air is still pretty thin up here at 9000 feet if you are going to try to run around. My team lost 4 to 5, but I promise you it was only because I let them win. I also got to spend a little time Saturday morning helping in the pharmacy.
This brings me to the first thing you can’t do in the states: administer prescription medication without at least being a pharmacy tech. The clinic was staffed with actual doctors. The pharmacy was stocked with actual medications, some of which were labeled “donated, not for prescription in the
The second thing is paying the bills. I understand that my bill paying experience in life is really quite limited. I pay most of my meager number of bills online, whether I’m at home, at school, in
We play by different rules in
So cash it is. Well, cash is legal tender for all debts public and private in both the
Talk about luck, it is only about a 15 minute walk with $100 in cash on me up to the nearest Banco Pichnicha. The line was the shortest I have ever seen inside there, with the line of people only extending to the end of the velvet ropes that swerve drunkenly around the first half of the lobby. It only took about half an hour to get up to the window. The only eventful thing that happened in my wait was my realization that one of the security guards had a picture of the Virgin Mary over his heart in his little clear picture-holder. It was probably for the best, because that vest looked neither bullet nor stab proof. I left an awful lot of blanks on that deposit slip (efectivo) blank, but the teller said she had everything she needed from me. And that is how you pay a bill in
Don’t get me wrong, I like the leniency in bill pay here in
As a further quick update, the Microfinance team (read: Erik, Chet, and Bibi) will meet with CIDE Thursday to iron out the details on us becoming certified to train small business class instructors. Hopefully it will go well. The first art class will probably make egg crate caterpillars (next Tuesday).
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: “Punk Rock Princess” by Something Corporate
PS: That is a picture of the monument at Mitad del Mundo (read: Equator). Its not technically on the Equator, its actually off by about 200m, but you can't blame them for giving it the old college try.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
It was worth the wait
Buenas Tardes Friends, Family, and most importantly Donors,
Some quick house keeping items. Dana got my splatter painting back. Don't ask me how. Also, we recently had the first round of PD introduction interviews posted on the daily life blog (openhandsdirtyfeet.blogspot.com) and I encourage you to watch it. I'm featured.
I am writing this post from my very own room. I've been moved in almost two days now. It is absolutely incredible; easily the best room in the house. An entire side of my room is closet space. Closet space, much like furniture, is a rare commodity in rooms here. Seth was also nice enough to leave one of those hanging shoe sorters, which works great for holding my t-shirts and long sleeve shirts. Now granted, I only have two suitcases worth of stuff, but everything fits in my closet with a full third totally empty, which is weird for me to think about. I also got a nightstand with three drawers, a wobbly bookshelf (probably my favorite piece of furniture), a plastic chair, and a bed. Sizewise, its the biggest single we have (read: all our rooms are normally singles except for the one double). Locationwise, my room is on the second floor on the back of the house, which means its about as quiet a room as you can get in this house. I am actually right above Krysta's room, which is where I was sleeping originally. How is the view? Funny you should ask. I have a great view into the hammock room, so I can get a fair amount of light in my room if I remember to pull back the curtain. I also have a great view across the hammock room into the office window. I'll probably keep the curtains closed a lot. However, the only way I can see the actual outside world is by pulling back both my curtain and the curtain in the office window and looking across the entire house (which is doable, if far away). I'm really happy with my diggs, it was definately worth the 6 week wait to get to move in. I will say though, it was weird living out of suitcases so long that unpacking I rediscovered stuff I had forgotten I brought with me. All I have left to do is figure out how to hang up the few things I have for my walls (read: Vanderbilt flag, Ecuador flag, aplacastry) and I'm considering buying a plant.
Qué mas? Kids camp has been going well. Tomorrow is the last day, and I think we are about ready for it to end. But we have 17 kids and haven't had any major problems (although one of our 4 year olds really likes to wander off). It seems that they have really enjoyed the different things we did. I'm not sure if I mentioned it last time, But Lori, the international director (read: my boss's boss) was here last week, but she was, and it was actually great having her around. We hiked a waterfall as a group two weekends ago and sat around working on grad school applications last weekend (well, at least I did). We also ate at the Mexican restaurant in downtown Quito. This is an interesting place. The food isn't great, but I understand I'm spoiled coming from Texas, the Tex-Mex capital of the world. However, the atmosphere is great; it is on the second story outside on a patio overlooking the Mariscal and it is owned by a guy who used to star in Mexican telenovelas. He has pictures of himself all over the restaurant.
We had a purse (and the keys within) "go home" with someone else earlier this week, so I spent a lot of this afternoon overseeing getting our locks changed (it would be very easy for anyone to locate the house with the gringos). It was interesting. I have never changed a lock in the states, but I'm pretty sure I have seen it done before. You go to Lowes, buy a kit in a box, and basically drop it in the hole in the door, right? Well here, you hire a blacksmith, who saws the locking mechanisms off the doors. Then, you take the whole locking mechanism to the only locksmith in town, and tell him that you want to change (cambinar) the locks. About an hour and a half later, the blacksmith will bring the newly changed locks back. That is going to set you back $11.75. Then, the blacksmith is going to spend about an hour WELDING the locks back onto the doors. He will have you check to make sure it works 20 or so times, then connect the electric switch so you can buzz people in the front, and then charge you $42.
After all this, I needed to both make 13 copies of each key and ask for the old internal lock. Back at the locksmith, I learned (and I think this is really interesting) since all we wanted was to change the lock, all he did was open it up and change the order of the pins. Crazy. Its like things can be re-used here. 26 keys cost $22.75. And that is how I spent my afternoon.
I guess the other big thing to report today is the progress Erik and I had with Microfinance. We send out meeting summaries of every meeting we have, and I wrote the summary for this one. I'm going to...borrow heavily...from the meeting minutes:
Name: Chester Polson
Date: 27/08/09
Participants: Chester Polson (MPI); Erik Swanson (MPI); Fabian Gualotuna (EPV); Wilson (EPV)
Meeting Summary: Bibi called at 10:08 am to say that EPV wanted to have an emergency meeting about funding for Capacitación. We had agreed at our last meeting that Manna would be willing to fund capacity training up to $1000, as long as we got receipts and EPV split the cost of any training program with us. We had, however, expected to sign a contract.
Wilson and Fabian told us (and Bibi) that the reason this was so last minute was because they just learned about the classes. They wanted to get us to fund half the cost of the classes, like we had verbally agreed to. There are two different classes from two different organizations. Both will focus administrative and management training, like salaries and regulations. One, through Mundo Laboral www.mundolaboral-ec.com, was found through the paper. The other, through Mi Fundación, was sent to them electrinically. Mundo Laboral costs $180, Mi Fundación costs $97 plus IVA. MPI will pay around $150 for both classes.
Erik and I carefully looked over the information they gave us on both programs, and while were much more pleased with the one from Mi Fundación, both looked legitimate. We approved the courses and said Manna would be willing to pay for half of these classes, making it clear that 1) this would count towards the $1000, 2) we would have to sign an actual contract soon, and 3) we would get receipts. While there was a bit of a grimace when we said it would count towards the $1000, all terms were readily acceptable sin problemas. Afterward, we said that we would like to work more closely with them in their office, not to monitor them but to strengthen the relationship between the two organizations and also hopefully aid EPV. They were accepting of this as well, explaining how they strive for transparency with their workers, clients, and other foundations. They seem cautiously willing to let us work with them in their office. They also again stressed how they are a part of the community, supporting the liga deportivos at both Fajardo and Rumiloma.
Next Steps:
- Write up contract between MPI and EPV concerning the $1000 gift for training.
- Plan a check up to see how effective they thought this round of classes was.
- Begin to try working more closely with EPV to strengthen our relationship.
- Research/encourage the classes from Swiss Credit.
Observations: Erik and I are much more optimistic about the training that is going to come from Mi Fundación than we are about the training from Mundo Laboral. Mi Fundación looks very professional and should cover topics relevant to better managing the coop. The Mundo Laboral, on the other hand, was found by an ad in the paper. However, EPV seems sincere in their request, and Mundo looks legitimate enough. Also, since EPV is in charge of finding the classes they want, we saw no reason to veto the specific class. We thought it would be a show of good faith that we trust their judgment. It was also pleasing to see how accepting EPV seemed to be of the idea of us working in their office. However, Erik and I both agree that we need to find some way for them to trust us more on a personal level. No ideas, other than more exposure, currently come to mind.
So there is the latest. I have some pictures at this point. The one at the top of the blog is a picture of a nice sunset in the old city in downtown Quito. The ones at the end of this post are my sweet new diggs. As always, questions and comments are appreciated and will be addressed (unless I have forgotten to address someone's question or comment, in which case I'll TRY to answer whatever you post).
Chao,
Chet
Song of the blog: "Lovesong," by Sara Bareilles
This is a picture of the "dog pallet" I slept on the first few weeks.
And a few pictures of the new room!
...
and the view in from across the hammock room.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
programmatic update
Ahoy readers,
Its been an interesting week. I've been under the weather since Wednesday. One rule we have on the daily life blog openhandsdirtyfeet.blogspot.com is that it needs to be censored enough for Mark's grandmother to read. However, I fully believe my grandmothers are able to hear about my symptoms: I've had SUPER watery stools since Tuesday night, A high fever on Wednesday and Thursday, and now uncomfortable pressure in my GI track. These are classic symptoms of a bacterial infection, and I am now on ciproflaxin. I slept through Wednesday, but was back on my feet Thursday and Friday (if perhaps grumpier than normal) for our kids summer camp. Kids summer camp is going well, we have 16 kids.
I was the guest blog of the week on Thursday on the daily life blog: openhandsdirtyfeet.blogspot.com. I will skip over the introduction but post the rest of that post verbatim below.
I’ll gloss over the “why I’m here” and stick to the “what I’m doing now that I’m here” (though I’ll give you a hint: the why involves wanting to be involved in community development before spending five years pursuing a degree in it). I am (co)in charge of the microfinance and small business classes, (co)in charge of adult English classes, and in charge of children’s art. I also take out the trash around the house and spend my time hunting for change machines in Quito in order to replenish the bus jar. Just Tuesday I spent 3.5 hours heading into Quito and back to get $80 in quarters. This was the first successful attempt in three tries, but I now know where two broken change machines are.
So how are my programs going? Pretty well, so far as I can tell. I’ll start with Microfinance. MPI is partnered with a local cooperative, Esperanza y Progreso del Valle, or EPV. One of Manna’s overall goals here is to strengthen local institutions and that is really the heart of what our microfinance program strives to do. EPV has two offices, one on the first floor of the building our library is in, and one in North Quito, which was recently opened. Sadly, the new office has been a real drain on the coop. It currently has a very high default rate on its loans which has put heavy financial strain on the whole operation. We come in with two major spheres to work in: capacitación and fundraising. We spend some of our time trying to find international organizations that are looking to either loan or gift funds to microfinance programs like EPV. As you can imagine, the current worldwide economic climate makes it difficult to secure this kind of funding, which just means there is always more for Erik and I to look into. However, if any of you readers have suggestions or contacts, please let us know.
Capacitación, or capacity, is the second and probably more important part of how we work with EPV. We work hand in hand with EPV to try and get them better trained (to strengthen their local institution). The old PDs in charge of microfinance spent a lot of last year trying to get them connected to a larger network of microfinance coops in Ecuador as a way to gain access to more working capital and training. Sadly, after much effort, it turned out that this was not a very feasible option. EPV is currently interested in undergoing courses through Swiss credit, which we fully support. Manna has actually agreed to match the cost of the classes up to $1000 dollars to encourage them to actually get the training. We will check back soon to see if they were serious enough about these classes to register. While it is exciting to be partnered with a legitimate local microfinance coop in the community and I look forward to getting to observe EPV’s work, it is a delicate balance to find what could work and what they are willing to try. There should be a lot of research involved this year.
In addition to the microfinance, Erik and I are also going to try and run a small business class. This is a much more pressing matter, and much more exciting. There is a University, ESPE, Escuela Politecnica Ejercito, or the Military Polytechnic School, close by that has a business centered local outreach called CIDE. CIDE runs small business classes taught by professors free of charge. Dunc was able to organize a class through them with some success, and we are looking to build upon that. We are currently recruiting people who either have university degrees or are actively pursuing university degrees to undergo an intensive two week training (40 hour weeks) at the end of September. At the end of the course, we will be certified to train instructors for the small business classes, which will have huge benefits to us. Last year Dunc coordinated the class, and due the rigorous schedule they demand I hear it was tough to get students. Once Erik and I are trained as instructors, we will be able to offer the classes in the community at a time and pace which is more accessible to anyone who wants to take a small business class. We still need to find some more people who are willing to undergo the initial training, but this is still a really exciting opportunity to bring small business training to the communities we work in.
Haley and I will be running Adult English classes on Monday and Wednesday evenings starting in mid-September. We will start planning for these classes soon. This should be a new experience for me as well, but as teaching Adult English is one of many avenues for human capital development, which I came down here to do, I look forward to it.
My final program is children’s art. I didn’t originally plan on teaching this class, but now that I am I’m really excited about it. The art program was one of MPI’s more popular and well attended programs last year, but initially none of us current PDs showed much interest in continuing it. Holly explained how art is not offered in schools, and the kids have a lot of problems expressing themselves creatively. During class, there is a lot of copying from neighbors and making projects look exactly like the example (one thing I have been told is to be sure not to leave the example out so they can copy it). But, the kids still love it and Holly said she saw a lot of improvement in expressing themselves creatively during “free art days” in just a few months. I think creativity is another important ingredient in human capital development, and am more than willing to spend some time each week making caterpillars out of egg crates and gluing dried coffee beans to cereal boxes. I also think that making art projects with kids each week will be a nice balance to what might be slower and more tedious work with EPV and Adult English, keeping my spirits high.
So there’s the latest. A lot of this hasn’t really begun in earnest yet, because everyone in Ecuador is currently on vacation, but I have a lot of exciting opportunities in front of me to pursue in the next year. I’m learning more and more that grassroots community development is a day-by-day, fly by the seat of your pants (and with a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in processed foods, mine get looser every day) kind of work, but hopefully my American “plan it and get it done” mentality will be an asset rather than a roadblock to the kind of problems I’m bound to encounter in all of these programs this year.
Until next time, keep reading, and, supporting me in all the ways you do.
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: “Waterfalls,” by TLC
PS: That technically wasn't verbatim, but I like the word and I also wrote it before I did some minor omissions. Such is life.
Its been an interesting week. I've been under the weather since Wednesday. One rule we have on the daily life blog openhandsdirtyfeet.blogspot.com is that it needs to be censored enough for Mark's grandmother to read. However, I fully believe my grandmothers are able to hear about my symptoms: I've had SUPER watery stools since Tuesday night, A high fever on Wednesday and Thursday, and now uncomfortable pressure in my GI track. These are classic symptoms of a bacterial infection, and I am now on ciproflaxin. I slept through Wednesday, but was back on my feet Thursday and Friday (if perhaps grumpier than normal) for our kids summer camp. Kids summer camp is going well, we have 16 kids.
I was the guest blog of the week on Thursday on the daily life blog: openhandsdirtyfeet.blogspot.com. I will skip over the introduction but post the rest of that post verbatim below.
I’ll gloss over the “why I’m here” and stick to the “what I’m doing now that I’m here” (though I’ll give you a hint: the why involves wanting to be involved in community development before spending five years pursuing a degree in it). I am (co)in charge of the microfinance and small business classes, (co)in charge of adult English classes, and in charge of children’s art. I also take out the trash around the house and spend my time hunting for change machines in Quito in order to replenish the bus jar. Just Tuesday I spent 3.5 hours heading into Quito and back to get $80 in quarters. This was the first successful attempt in three tries, but I now know where two broken change machines are.
So how are my programs going? Pretty well, so far as I can tell. I’ll start with Microfinance. MPI is partnered with a local cooperative, Esperanza y Progreso del Valle, or EPV. One of Manna’s overall goals here is to strengthen local institutions and that is really the heart of what our microfinance program strives to do. EPV has two offices, one on the first floor of the building our library is in, and one in North Quito, which was recently opened. Sadly, the new office has been a real drain on the coop. It currently has a very high default rate on its loans which has put heavy financial strain on the whole operation. We come in with two major spheres to work in: capacitación and fundraising. We spend some of our time trying to find international organizations that are looking to either loan or gift funds to microfinance programs like EPV. As you can imagine, the current worldwide economic climate makes it difficult to secure this kind of funding, which just means there is always more for Erik and I to look into. However, if any of you readers have suggestions or contacts, please let us know.
Capacitación, or capacity, is the second and probably more important part of how we work with EPV. We work hand in hand with EPV to try and get them better trained (to strengthen their local institution). The old PDs in charge of microfinance spent a lot of last year trying to get them connected to a larger network of microfinance coops in Ecuador as a way to gain access to more working capital and training. Sadly, after much effort, it turned out that this was not a very feasible option. EPV is currently interested in undergoing courses through Swiss credit, which we fully support. Manna has actually agreed to match the cost of the classes up to $1000 dollars to encourage them to actually get the training. We will check back soon to see if they were serious enough about these classes to register. While it is exciting to be partnered with a legitimate local microfinance coop in the community and I look forward to getting to observe EPV’s work, it is a delicate balance to find what could work and what they are willing to try. There should be a lot of research involved this year.
In addition to the microfinance, Erik and I are also going to try and run a small business class. This is a much more pressing matter, and much more exciting. There is a University, ESPE, Escuela Politecnica Ejercito, or the Military Polytechnic School, close by that has a business centered local outreach called CIDE. CIDE runs small business classes taught by professors free of charge. Dunc was able to organize a class through them with some success, and we are looking to build upon that. We are currently recruiting people who either have university degrees or are actively pursuing university degrees to undergo an intensive two week training (40 hour weeks) at the end of September. At the end of the course, we will be certified to train instructors for the small business classes, which will have huge benefits to us. Last year Dunc coordinated the class, and due the rigorous schedule they demand I hear it was tough to get students. Once Erik and I are trained as instructors, we will be able to offer the classes in the community at a time and pace which is more accessible to anyone who wants to take a small business class. We still need to find some more people who are willing to undergo the initial training, but this is still a really exciting opportunity to bring small business training to the communities we work in.
Haley and I will be running Adult English classes on Monday and Wednesday evenings starting in mid-September. We will start planning for these classes soon. This should be a new experience for me as well, but as teaching Adult English is one of many avenues for human capital development, which I came down here to do, I look forward to it.
My final program is children’s art. I didn’t originally plan on teaching this class, but now that I am I’m really excited about it. The art program was one of MPI’s more popular and well attended programs last year, but initially none of us current PDs showed much interest in continuing it. Holly explained how art is not offered in schools, and the kids have a lot of problems expressing themselves creatively. During class, there is a lot of copying from neighbors and making projects look exactly like the example (one thing I have been told is to be sure not to leave the example out so they can copy it). But, the kids still love it and Holly said she saw a lot of improvement in expressing themselves creatively during “free art days” in just a few months. I think creativity is another important ingredient in human capital development, and am more than willing to spend some time each week making caterpillars out of egg crates and gluing dried coffee beans to cereal boxes. I also think that making art projects with kids each week will be a nice balance to what might be slower and more tedious work with EPV and Adult English, keeping my spirits high.
So there’s the latest. A lot of this hasn’t really begun in earnest yet, because everyone in Ecuador is currently on vacation, but I have a lot of exciting opportunities in front of me to pursue in the next year. I’m learning more and more that grassroots community development is a day-by-day, fly by the seat of your pants (and with a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in processed foods, mine get looser every day) kind of work, but hopefully my American “plan it and get it done” mentality will be an asset rather than a roadblock to the kind of problems I’m bound to encounter in all of these programs this year.
Until next time, keep reading, and, supporting me in all the ways you do.
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: “Waterfalls,” by TLC
PS: That technically wasn't verbatim, but I like the word and I also wrote it before I did some minor omissions. Such is life.
Monday, August 17, 2009
"Licensed Economist," Alpacastry enthusiast...Art teacher?
Buenas Tardes Amigos, Familia, y Donors,
Today was day one of the kids (ages 5-12) summer camp. This is really the first thing that MPIE PD 0'10 is completely in charge of. This camp will run for two weeks, three hours a day (9-12)with three-one hour slots. Art, which you may remember I'm in charge of, is hour two on Monday and Friday. Today Profe Chester (or Profe Ché, depending on who you ask) taught our five campers about Jackson Pollock.
This was TERRIFYING to plan. Sure, I have done plenty of art in my life. I had art in school as a child and plenty of crafts to do around the house growing up. But it has been a while since I have made what you might refer to as "kids crafts" and my Spanish still isn't quite at "teaching a class" levels. I spent most of yesterday preparing. The local papelaria was closed, but luckily Krysta and Jackie were off to the MegaMaxi (read: Ecuadorian Walmart, also the large nice mall about 30 minutes away by bus) so I didn't have to go. They called and said they had found a 75 by 100 cm roll for only $0.36! I had them buy three, planning to cut them up into canvasses.
Did you know centimeters are a lot smaller than inches? Well, they are. I ended up with about half the paper I had expected, but only learned this about 10pm as I went to cut my rolls of paper into canvasses. In high school we had a phrase whenever we were building houses in Tijuana for Spring break that went something like "Mexico, Flexico." I have yet to find another Latin American county that rhymes as well, but the sentiment is basically the same. My "Ecuador Flexico" mentality simply meant that there would be less than five canvasses. Holly had taught an art lesson on Jackson Pollock earlier this semester, but also mentioned that I could probably repeat lessons without the kids remembering. She was right. In fact, two of our campers had been in Holly's art class but no one remembered Mr. Pollock. I spent some time reading the Jackson Pollock article on Wikipedia in Spanish (read: copy and pasting) to have something to read aloud as background information for the kids. I also spent time after dinner translating all the directions I would need into Spanish. Things like: "Put on a smock, its to protect your clothes," or "don't fight over brushes, each one will do a different thing." I then had Erik proof read everything to make sure it wasn't nonsensical or offensive (we actually had this problem with our Spanish translations for the cooking class last week).
I slept poorly last night, mostly due to nerves. I can also feel a slat in my hip. Some of my concerns included "How many kids will we have?" and "How is my lack of Spanish going to effect today's lesson" or "do we have the paint we need?" and "what if they don't like it?" I had to leave the house a little early to try and find plastic spoons for paint splattering.
We had five kids register this morning. They are young and adorable. I started prepping at 9:30, quite alone (most of the profes and all the kids were outside playing duck duck goose). Prepping involved putting on my incredible rainbow-collared shirt smock that I found in the donation corner of the Manna House (a gift from Mark), mixing purple paint (for those of you following along at home, I would suggest mixing blue and red paint together) and then watering down all the paint (green, red, blue, yellow, purple) to splatter consistency. After the paint was prepped, I had to throw together an example. I'm not sure if I have ever done splatter paint before, but it felt great. I was done prepping exactly at 10, which was perfect because the kids were marching up the stairs.
We had them sit in a circle and I read to them my instructions and about the first paragraph of Jackson Pollock's history before I got self conscious and handed the paper to Krysta. Sarah had been kind enough to read over my lecture and (majorly) pare it down, it was the right length at 4 paragraphs. It would have been way too long at 1.5 pages. Attention spans were lacking. But afterward, we passed out brushes (with no fighting), put on smocks, and marched to the roof to splatter paint. I think they loved it. They certainly looked like they were having fun. We did two canvasses as a group, with each kid doing one color, and then had each kid do one canvas on their own with all the colors. The most memorable thing was Yori, the youngest boy, using a lot of red and purple and then saying "I'm done!" totally neglecting the other colors. Some of the profes did paintings as well, and they had as much if not more fun then the kids.
Sadly, my painting blew away as it was drying on the roof. I know where it is; it blew into the crack in the roof and is sitting at the bottom of an atrium three stories down. Sadly, it is in a vacant apartment that Dana said she has only seen open twice the whole time she has been here. This is mildly traumatizing: when I was in Kindergarten I once colored a stegosaurus for my mom; but, walking to the bus it was storming and I remember it being blown out of my hand. Coming home distraught, my mom took me back to school to look for it and we found it! Some guy had found it in his yard and tacked it to a tree because it was quite obviously labeled "CHETTOMOM." Talk about luck.
I'd like this one back too.
The next art lesson is Friday, we will be making kaleidoscopes out of toilet paper rolls (you'd be surprised how quickly we are able to produce those) crayon shavings, wax paper, paint, and an iron. Is it as exciting as a real kaleidoscope? Probably not. Will the kids love it anyway? Well, if not, they only have to make it once.
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: "Red Oyster Cult," by Guster
Today was day one of the kids (ages 5-12) summer camp. This is really the first thing that MPIE PD 0'10 is completely in charge of. This camp will run for two weeks, three hours a day (9-12)with three-one hour slots. Art, which you may remember I'm in charge of, is hour two on Monday and Friday. Today Profe Chester (or Profe Ché, depending on who you ask) taught our five campers about Jackson Pollock.
This was TERRIFYING to plan. Sure, I have done plenty of art in my life. I had art in school as a child and plenty of crafts to do around the house growing up. But it has been a while since I have made what you might refer to as "kids crafts" and my Spanish still isn't quite at "teaching a class" levels. I spent most of yesterday preparing. The local papelaria was closed, but luckily Krysta and Jackie were off to the MegaMaxi (read: Ecuadorian Walmart, also the large nice mall about 30 minutes away by bus) so I didn't have to go. They called and said they had found a 75 by 100 cm roll for only $0.36! I had them buy three, planning to cut them up into canvasses.
Did you know centimeters are a lot smaller than inches? Well, they are. I ended up with about half the paper I had expected, but only learned this about 10pm as I went to cut my rolls of paper into canvasses. In high school we had a phrase whenever we were building houses in Tijuana for Spring break that went something like "Mexico, Flexico." I have yet to find another Latin American county that rhymes as well, but the sentiment is basically the same. My "Ecuador Flexico" mentality simply meant that there would be less than five canvasses. Holly had taught an art lesson on Jackson Pollock earlier this semester, but also mentioned that I could probably repeat lessons without the kids remembering. She was right. In fact, two of our campers had been in Holly's art class but no one remembered Mr. Pollock. I spent some time reading the Jackson Pollock article on Wikipedia in Spanish (read: copy and pasting) to have something to read aloud as background information for the kids. I also spent time after dinner translating all the directions I would need into Spanish. Things like: "Put on a smock, its to protect your clothes," or "don't fight over brushes, each one will do a different thing." I then had Erik proof read everything to make sure it wasn't nonsensical or offensive (we actually had this problem with our Spanish translations for the cooking class last week).
I slept poorly last night, mostly due to nerves. I can also feel a slat in my hip. Some of my concerns included "How many kids will we have?" and "How is my lack of Spanish going to effect today's lesson" or "do we have the paint we need?" and "what if they don't like it?" I had to leave the house a little early to try and find plastic spoons for paint splattering.
We had five kids register this morning. They are young and adorable. I started prepping at 9:30, quite alone (most of the profes and all the kids were outside playing duck duck goose). Prepping involved putting on my incredible rainbow-collared shirt smock that I found in the donation corner of the Manna House (a gift from Mark), mixing purple paint (for those of you following along at home, I would suggest mixing blue and red paint together) and then watering down all the paint (green, red, blue, yellow, purple) to splatter consistency. After the paint was prepped, I had to throw together an example. I'm not sure if I have ever done splatter paint before, but it felt great. I was done prepping exactly at 10, which was perfect because the kids were marching up the stairs.
We had them sit in a circle and I read to them my instructions and about the first paragraph of Jackson Pollock's history before I got self conscious and handed the paper to Krysta. Sarah had been kind enough to read over my lecture and (majorly) pare it down, it was the right length at 4 paragraphs. It would have been way too long at 1.5 pages. Attention spans were lacking. But afterward, we passed out brushes (with no fighting), put on smocks, and marched to the roof to splatter paint. I think they loved it. They certainly looked like they were having fun. We did two canvasses as a group, with each kid doing one color, and then had each kid do one canvas on their own with all the colors. The most memorable thing was Yori, the youngest boy, using a lot of red and purple and then saying "I'm done!" totally neglecting the other colors. Some of the profes did paintings as well, and they had as much if not more fun then the kids.
Sadly, my painting blew away as it was drying on the roof. I know where it is; it blew into the crack in the roof and is sitting at the bottom of an atrium three stories down. Sadly, it is in a vacant apartment that Dana said she has only seen open twice the whole time she has been here. This is mildly traumatizing: when I was in Kindergarten I once colored a stegosaurus for my mom; but, walking to the bus it was storming and I remember it being blown out of my hand. Coming home distraught, my mom took me back to school to look for it and we found it! Some guy had found it in his yard and tacked it to a tree because it was quite obviously labeled "CHETTOMOM." Talk about luck.
I'd like this one back too.
The next art lesson is Friday, we will be making kaleidoscopes out of toilet paper rolls (you'd be surprised how quickly we are able to produce those) crayon shavings, wax paper, paint, and an iron. Is it as exciting as a real kaleidoscope? Probably not. Will the kids love it anyway? Well, if not, they only have to make it once.
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: "Red Oyster Cult," by Guster
A quick plug for the daily life blog
I encourage everyone reading this to also check out Manna Project International Ecuador's daily life blog. It is updated much more frequently than I update this and Sarah and Jackie (the blog gurus) are very good about adding pictures.
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5523350686076280897
Song of the blog: "Ohio (Come Back to Texas)" by Bowling for Soup
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5523350686076280897
Song of the blog: "Ohio (Come Back to Texas)" by Bowling for Soup
Monday, August 10, 2009
Hungry? I can fix that, at least for 45 minutes or so...
It was a pretty exciting day of cooking here in Quito. I can’t decide if I’m posting these recipes because I’m so proud of how everything turned out and want records to be able to reproduce it or to give you digital travelers something to try at home, but read on if you are willing.
Lunch:
Quinoa.
I don’t know if you are lucky enough to have been introduced to this magical grain yet, but I love it. I mostly love it from a theoretical standpoint; like soybeans, it is a complete protein and is also indigenous to the Andes. I know you can buy it in the States, because I learned about in my Contemporary Latin American Society class back at Vanderbilt and used it earlier this summer.
1 cup quinoa
1 potato
1 carrot
1 clove garlic
Cajun seasoning
Garlic salt
Drinkable yogurt
Prep: rinse 1 cup of quinoa. Soak it in water for 15-30 minutes. Rinse and strain again. If you really care, you want to remove as much of the casing as possible, because it can lead to bitter quinoa. I wasn’t patient enough to do so. Add 1.5 cups of water and ½ a teaspoon of salt to the quinoa in a pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to low and let simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally so it doesn’t burn to the bottom.
While your quinoa simmers, peel and cut up (or mince, if appropriate) one potato, one carrot, one clove of garlic, and however much cabbage looks right. Sauté all vegetables until tender; add the cabbage last. When the quinoa is ready, stir sautéed vegetables and quinoa together. Add your favorite brand of Cajun seasoning and some garlic salt, and serve with a glass of yogurt (it is very, very drinkable here. I’m pretty proud of making this up on my own when it was time for lunch). If your quinoa is presoaked you can eat in 30 min.
Dinner:
Sprite Chicken, blanched broccoli, garlic rice, lentils (time from start to eating, 1.75 hrs)
Sprite chicken:
1 Chicken
1 can sprite
Paprika
Salt
Ginger powder
Brown sugar
Buy a chicken. Either buy one with all organs removed or remember to remove them yourself before you are almost done seasoning the salmonella magnet. If you forget, have Erik remove them, but make sure Dana isn’t watching; she won’t like it. Mix 1 part paprika, 1 part salt, 2 parts brown sugar, and ¼ part ginger powder (using 1 tablespoon per part works well for 1 chicken). Rub liberally inside and out. Take a can and fill it (or empty it, depending if you can buy sprite in cans or not) with sprite. Insert sprite can in chicken, then put on tin-foil wrapped pan. The chicken should be sitting on top of this can so it doesn’t spill everywhere. Put into heated oven. Ovens in Ecuador only have one setting, hot, but I would guess 350ºF in a standard American oven. Cook until cooked, about 1.5 hours. Again, this would be easier with things like thermometers. Remove can and serve however the mood serves you—whether that mood be whole with the wings tucked behind its back or cut up into edible pieces.
Blanched Broccoli:
I don’t think I have ever had broccoli this good. We made an incredible amount (broccoli is cheap here) and it was all consumed.
1 pound broccoli florets
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Ice
Fill a pot with water and bring to a boil. When the water comes to a boil, add the broccoli florets using a strainer with a handle if possible. Allow the broccoli to cook for 1 to 2 minutes until just tender. Immediately remove from the boiling water, using the strainer or draining, and transfer to bowl of ice to stop the cooking process. Immerse the broccoli completely in the ice water for a minute or two (indeed, as the title says, you should blanch it). Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Throw in the broccoli and season with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Stir to coat the broccoli, then cook and stir for 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and eat! (All seasoning can be done by hand and measurements are not really necessary, something I learn more and more here).
Lentils:
A recipe from my Emelia at my home stay.
1 cup lentils
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons(ish) Achiote oil (good luck buying this in the states? Its reddish)
Mucho cilantro
Rinse lentils. Add 1.5 cups water and bring to a boil. Emelia says to salt the lentils immediately, the interwebs say salting lentils before they are cooked will make them tougher. Believe who you will. Bring to a boil. Add Achiote oil. Reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes or until lentils are tender (about an hour here). Add more water if they are really stubborn. At minute 40, add a ton of cilantro, probably half a cup or so. When the lentils are finally done, drain off most of the excess water.
Garlic Rice:
Melt a vegetable bullion cube in 2 or so tablespoons of oil. Add 1 clove minced garlic and some garlic powder. Add rice and water (2 cups water for one cup rice), bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer WITHOUT UNCOVERING OR STIRRING for 45 minutes.
2 chickens, 3 uncooked cups of lentils, 4 uncooked cups of rice, and 4ish pounds of broccoli can feed 13 hungry PDs. Don’t expect leftovers.
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: "My Happy Ending," by Avril Levigne
Lunch:
Quinoa.
I don’t know if you are lucky enough to have been introduced to this magical grain yet, but I love it. I mostly love it from a theoretical standpoint; like soybeans, it is a complete protein and is also indigenous to the Andes. I know you can buy it in the States, because I learned about in my Contemporary Latin American Society class back at Vanderbilt and used it earlier this summer.
1 cup quinoa
1 potato
1 carrot
1 clove garlic
Cajun seasoning
Garlic salt
Drinkable yogurt
Prep: rinse 1 cup of quinoa. Soak it in water for 15-30 minutes. Rinse and strain again. If you really care, you want to remove as much of the casing as possible, because it can lead to bitter quinoa. I wasn’t patient enough to do so. Add 1.5 cups of water and ½ a teaspoon of salt to the quinoa in a pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to low and let simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally so it doesn’t burn to the bottom.
While your quinoa simmers, peel and cut up (or mince, if appropriate) one potato, one carrot, one clove of garlic, and however much cabbage looks right. Sauté all vegetables until tender; add the cabbage last. When the quinoa is ready, stir sautéed vegetables and quinoa together. Add your favorite brand of Cajun seasoning and some garlic salt, and serve with a glass of yogurt (it is very, very drinkable here. I’m pretty proud of making this up on my own when it was time for lunch). If your quinoa is presoaked you can eat in 30 min.
Dinner:
Sprite Chicken, blanched broccoli, garlic rice, lentils (time from start to eating, 1.75 hrs)
Sprite chicken:
1 Chicken
1 can sprite
Paprika
Salt
Ginger powder
Brown sugar
Buy a chicken. Either buy one with all organs removed or remember to remove them yourself before you are almost done seasoning the salmonella magnet. If you forget, have Erik remove them, but make sure Dana isn’t watching; she won’t like it. Mix 1 part paprika, 1 part salt, 2 parts brown sugar, and ¼ part ginger powder (using 1 tablespoon per part works well for 1 chicken). Rub liberally inside and out. Take a can and fill it (or empty it, depending if you can buy sprite in cans or not) with sprite. Insert sprite can in chicken, then put on tin-foil wrapped pan. The chicken should be sitting on top of this can so it doesn’t spill everywhere. Put into heated oven. Ovens in Ecuador only have one setting, hot, but I would guess 350ºF in a standard American oven. Cook until cooked, about 1.5 hours. Again, this would be easier with things like thermometers. Remove can and serve however the mood serves you—whether that mood be whole with the wings tucked behind its back or cut up into edible pieces.
Blanched Broccoli:
I don’t think I have ever had broccoli this good. We made an incredible amount (broccoli is cheap here) and it was all consumed.
1 pound broccoli florets
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Ice
Fill a pot with water and bring to a boil. When the water comes to a boil, add the broccoli florets using a strainer with a handle if possible. Allow the broccoli to cook for 1 to 2 minutes until just tender. Immediately remove from the boiling water, using the strainer or draining, and transfer to bowl of ice to stop the cooking process. Immerse the broccoli completely in the ice water for a minute or two (indeed, as the title says, you should blanch it). Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Throw in the broccoli and season with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Stir to coat the broccoli, then cook and stir for 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and eat! (All seasoning can be done by hand and measurements are not really necessary, something I learn more and more here).
Lentils:
A recipe from my Emelia at my home stay.
1 cup lentils
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons(ish) Achiote oil (good luck buying this in the states? Its reddish)
Mucho cilantro
Rinse lentils. Add 1.5 cups water and bring to a boil. Emelia says to salt the lentils immediately, the interwebs say salting lentils before they are cooked will make them tougher. Believe who you will. Bring to a boil. Add Achiote oil. Reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes or until lentils are tender (about an hour here). Add more water if they are really stubborn. At minute 40, add a ton of cilantro, probably half a cup or so. When the lentils are finally done, drain off most of the excess water.
Garlic Rice:
Melt a vegetable bullion cube in 2 or so tablespoons of oil. Add 1 clove minced garlic and some garlic powder. Add rice and water (2 cups water for one cup rice), bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer WITHOUT UNCOVERING OR STIRRING for 45 minutes.
2 chickens, 3 uncooked cups of lentils, 4 uncooked cups of rice, and 4ish pounds of broccoli can feed 13 hungry PDs. Don’t expect leftovers.
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: "My Happy Ending," by Avril Levigne
Ecuador is Free!
Today is the 200th anniversary of Ecuador declaring independence. Most of the celebrations were last night, and the nine of us gringos were there to celebrate with them (until bedtime, at least). It was certainly an experience. We made it to Plaza Grande about 6:45. Plaza Grande was the original seat of the empire in Ecuador; on two sides it has the Cathedral and the President’s house. The national symphony started playing about 7. Then, about half an hour later, the music stopped and the crowd turned towards the presidential house. Rafeal Carrea came out and waved to cheers around 7:30 or so. Due to dumb luck, we were about 50 feet from where he was on the balcony. We were all pretty impressed with the lack of (visible) security for a head of state. It was the closest I have been to any head of state thus far. Carrea disappeared about as quickly as he showed up, and we decided it was time to go get some food. After working our way to one corner of the plaza, we realized that the police had barricaded a walkway off, blocking the crowd on either side. I am easily a foot (or more) taller then the typical Ecuadorian and probably have 50 pounds on most of them. So, for the whole night, as the crowds pushed some of the smaller girls in the group around like sea weed, these people bounced off me. It was kind of funny, and really nice to be able to maintain eye contact with our group all the time.
But regardless of how impervious I am to an Ecuadorian crowd, we had a police barricade in front of us and a seething mass of people pushing in from behind. About here in the night was my first real experience with a ladron (thief) in Ecuador. Sure, on the Ecovia (major north-south bus route in Quito) I have felt hands for my pockets, but that’s life on the Ecovia. A full 20% of riders on the Ecovia are pick-pocketed (so I heard from my host family). That’s one reason why I always have my hand in my front pocket over my wallet. Well, I guess that’s the only reason I do that. Luckily, by law it is not a robbery unless they take more than $500. I’m not sure if that means that I should be carrying a lot more money so I can report it if something happens, or just watch my pockets closely. But last night, an old man and his wife were acting weird and really pushing into us, and I looked down and my bag had been cut. There is a 4 inch incision on the side. My initial reaction was to pull my bag up over my head and tell Erik, who has actually had a bag cut on the Ecovia, exactly that. The old man and his wife disappeared. I did notice he had a broken finger, which is interesting, because I’m pretty sure if I ever catch a thief with their hand in my bag/pocket I’m also going to try to break their hand. This is a country where rural justice for thieves still includes burning. Luckily, all I had in the bag was an alpaca hat, a water bottle, and my rain jacket, none of which were stolen. I’ll take it to our favorite seamstress today to get it repaired; it will probably cost about $.50. Mike, on the other hand, was carrying Sarah’s purse under his jacket and came away from the same crowd with a big cut in his rain jacket. Again, nothing was stolen. The rain jacket isn’t in great shape though, and I hear they are a real necessity during rainy season.
But the crowd wasn’t a total waste. After standing there for a little while, Carrea came right down the steps and through the tunnel in the crowd and up onto the stage for the bicentennial. Haley, towards the front of the group, was in hand-shaking distance from el presidente. Pretty good proximity to Ecuador’s head of state two times on the same night for dumb luck, huh?
So what else has been going on, other than too much for me to blog as regularly as expected?
Well, the second to last night of my home stay we had an incredible, and deep, talk at dinner. I got to learn a lot about the family’s history. I mentioned in an earlier post that the house I was in for my language stay is huge and beautiful. The family has been in that house for almost 46 years. That means they moved in when this (La Floresta) was “North Quito,” the rich and exclusive neighborhood. This is back when the Mariscol (Gringolandia, one of the bigger tourist districts in Quito and where our language school is located) was a mostly residential area. But by far the thing I can’t wrap my head around is the simple fact that Eulalia’s grandfather on her dad’s side was the military dictator of Ecuador for about 3 months back whenever. His name was Emelio (something) Ramirez. Simply mind-blowing.
While we are on the subject of our rich and powerful friends in Ecuador, I should probably mention Wendy. Wendy is from the US, but married an Ecuadorian husband after college. They live down the block from where our library is in Rumiloma. Their house is about 200 years old, and only one of 3 haciendas left in the area. They have 2 polo fields and 30+ horses for polo that they keep in their stables. Wendy and her three sons (well two, the middle son was still at summer camp in the Bahamas) had us over for lunch and were super welcoming. It is incredible that this hacienda is in between our bus stop and the library.
Language school is over and we have all moved into the house. There are currently 15 of us, which makes space tight and meals big, but it has been great so far. All the old PDs are starting to trickle out this week though, which I’m sure will be weird and sad. They are about the only other people we have had to talk English to for a month. We cook a big family dinner every night but Saturday. Vegetables are cheap here and we eat a lot of them. I’ve already lost 10 pounds. I’m sure once those parasites kick in I’ll be wearing my old suit from high school in no time. The walls are indeed paper-thin in this house. It’s a good thing I’m a heavy sleeper.
The whole month of August is mostly scheduled with summer camp. Last week and this week is the Jovenes camp (teens). Turnout has been low, but I think the girls who are coming are having a lot of fun. The next two weeks will be for kids age 5-12. Seth and Dana planned the Jovenes camp, we just show up in the mornings. However, MPIE PD ’10 is in charge of the kid’s camp; we are planning this week. We also have the library open in the afternoons. I have played Monopoly every time I have been in the library. Some of the other PD’s have also put a lot of work into sorting and entering all the donated books we recently got, which is great. Ecuadorians don’t read much currently (a confession from our Ecuadorian friend Jorge) but some have started, at least. I tried helping with this project, but found myself on a bean bag reading Clifford the Big Red Dog en Espanol (more or less my reading level).
Most of the jobs have been divvied up at this point. I am officially in charge on Microfinance and small business classes (with Erik), the community survey database, program metrics (to measure effectiveness of our programs and measure other parts of life), I’m the finance chair for the house, and I take out the trash. I’m also in charge of children’s art. Surprised? Well, all the other stuff is up my alley as far as personal aspirations go. I like art and can remember plenty of kid’s projects. Also, art was one of our most popular programs last year, and no one else was really interested in continuing it. In addition, (and the reason I was most interested in doing it) the kids have very few other creative outlets. Copying the work of a neighbor is something I will have to look out for, and Holly suggests I do not actually leave the example out otherwise it will get copied too. But, in six months Holly said she saw a lot of improvement in the kids’ willingness to express themselves creatively and a lot of enthusiasm for the class in general, which may very well be much needed break from working with all the adults in EPV, the micro financing coop we work with.
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: “16 Military Wives,” by The Decemberists
But regardless of how impervious I am to an Ecuadorian crowd, we had a police barricade in front of us and a seething mass of people pushing in from behind. About here in the night was my first real experience with a ladron (thief) in Ecuador. Sure, on the Ecovia (major north-south bus route in Quito) I have felt hands for my pockets, but that’s life on the Ecovia. A full 20% of riders on the Ecovia are pick-pocketed (so I heard from my host family). That’s one reason why I always have my hand in my front pocket over my wallet. Well, I guess that’s the only reason I do that. Luckily, by law it is not a robbery unless they take more than $500. I’m not sure if that means that I should be carrying a lot more money so I can report it if something happens, or just watch my pockets closely. But last night, an old man and his wife were acting weird and really pushing into us, and I looked down and my bag had been cut. There is a 4 inch incision on the side. My initial reaction was to pull my bag up over my head and tell Erik, who has actually had a bag cut on the Ecovia, exactly that. The old man and his wife disappeared. I did notice he had a broken finger, which is interesting, because I’m pretty sure if I ever catch a thief with their hand in my bag/pocket I’m also going to try to break their hand. This is a country where rural justice for thieves still includes burning. Luckily, all I had in the bag was an alpaca hat, a water bottle, and my rain jacket, none of which were stolen. I’ll take it to our favorite seamstress today to get it repaired; it will probably cost about $.50. Mike, on the other hand, was carrying Sarah’s purse under his jacket and came away from the same crowd with a big cut in his rain jacket. Again, nothing was stolen. The rain jacket isn’t in great shape though, and I hear they are a real necessity during rainy season.
But the crowd wasn’t a total waste. After standing there for a little while, Carrea came right down the steps and through the tunnel in the crowd and up onto the stage for the bicentennial. Haley, towards the front of the group, was in hand-shaking distance from el presidente. Pretty good proximity to Ecuador’s head of state two times on the same night for dumb luck, huh?
So what else has been going on, other than too much for me to blog as regularly as expected?
Well, the second to last night of my home stay we had an incredible, and deep, talk at dinner. I got to learn a lot about the family’s history. I mentioned in an earlier post that the house I was in for my language stay is huge and beautiful. The family has been in that house for almost 46 years. That means they moved in when this (La Floresta) was “North Quito,” the rich and exclusive neighborhood. This is back when the Mariscol (Gringolandia, one of the bigger tourist districts in Quito and where our language school is located) was a mostly residential area. But by far the thing I can’t wrap my head around is the simple fact that Eulalia’s grandfather on her dad’s side was the military dictator of Ecuador for about 3 months back whenever. His name was Emelio (something) Ramirez. Simply mind-blowing.
While we are on the subject of our rich and powerful friends in Ecuador, I should probably mention Wendy. Wendy is from the US, but married an Ecuadorian husband after college. They live down the block from where our library is in Rumiloma. Their house is about 200 years old, and only one of 3 haciendas left in the area. They have 2 polo fields and 30+ horses for polo that they keep in their stables. Wendy and her three sons (well two, the middle son was still at summer camp in the Bahamas) had us over for lunch and were super welcoming. It is incredible that this hacienda is in between our bus stop and the library.
Language school is over and we have all moved into the house. There are currently 15 of us, which makes space tight and meals big, but it has been great so far. All the old PDs are starting to trickle out this week though, which I’m sure will be weird and sad. They are about the only other people we have had to talk English to for a month. We cook a big family dinner every night but Saturday. Vegetables are cheap here and we eat a lot of them. I’ve already lost 10 pounds. I’m sure once those parasites kick in I’ll be wearing my old suit from high school in no time. The walls are indeed paper-thin in this house. It’s a good thing I’m a heavy sleeper.
The whole month of August is mostly scheduled with summer camp. Last week and this week is the Jovenes camp (teens). Turnout has been low, but I think the girls who are coming are having a lot of fun. The next two weeks will be for kids age 5-12. Seth and Dana planned the Jovenes camp, we just show up in the mornings. However, MPIE PD ’10 is in charge of the kid’s camp; we are planning this week. We also have the library open in the afternoons. I have played Monopoly every time I have been in the library. Some of the other PD’s have also put a lot of work into sorting and entering all the donated books we recently got, which is great. Ecuadorians don’t read much currently (a confession from our Ecuadorian friend Jorge) but some have started, at least. I tried helping with this project, but found myself on a bean bag reading Clifford the Big Red Dog en Espanol (more or less my reading level).
Most of the jobs have been divvied up at this point. I am officially in charge on Microfinance and small business classes (with Erik), the community survey database, program metrics (to measure effectiveness of our programs and measure other parts of life), I’m the finance chair for the house, and I take out the trash. I’m also in charge of children’s art. Surprised? Well, all the other stuff is up my alley as far as personal aspirations go. I like art and can remember plenty of kid’s projects. Also, art was one of our most popular programs last year, and no one else was really interested in continuing it. In addition, (and the reason I was most interested in doing it) the kids have very few other creative outlets. Copying the work of a neighbor is something I will have to look out for, and Holly suggests I do not actually leave the example out otherwise it will get copied too. But, in six months Holly said she saw a lot of improvement in the kids’ willingness to express themselves creatively and a lot of enthusiasm for the class in general, which may very well be much needed break from working with all the adults in EPV, the micro financing coop we work with.
Chao,
Chet
Song of the Blog: “16 Military Wives,” by The Decemberists
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