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
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