Summer school

The first 2 times I came here, I taught the littlest kids' class and had a ton of fun with them, playing and teaching them English.  I loved it and it only helped to reinforce my love of teaching little kids.  So, then I move here and everything gets turned upside down! :)  I started out the year, like any other year, teaching the little kids, although older than I'd had in the States and really enjoyed it.  They were a ton of fun and apart from making me want to pull my hair out from their seeming lack of ability to sit still and listen :) they amazed  me with their ability to learn English from just 40 minutes 4 times a week.  Then, in the third trimester, the schedule changed and I added a class a week for the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th grades!!  It scared me, the idea of teaching junior high and high school, but it was surprisingly enjoyable.  I really appreciated being able to get to know the high schoolers better, they turned out to be really neat to hang out with. :)  Last spring when we were talking about this year's summer school plans, we realized that there weren't any groups coming down and that we wouldn't be able to do the normal Vacational Bible School/English classes like normal.  We were trying to figure out what we would do, if anything and decided to leveling classes to help the lower kids catch up.  Well, that wasn't really so necessary with the younger kids, so it turned out to only be the older kids, junior high and high school age.  Whenever I've been put with a class or group of kids, I've ALWAYS been assigned the youngest group.  Well, this year, I'm with the OLDEST kids, the teenagers who are sophomore/junior age. :)  Slight difference from years' past!!  I was looking forward to the class, only because I already knew who the students would be, having taught the majority during the last trimester of the school year.  I wasn't too sure, though, how well they'd do at learning English, since they're the ones during the school year to not try too hard in class, or do homework or really seem to care, for the most part.  They're sweet kids and fun to talk to, but never really seemed to take school all that seriously, so I had my doubts as to how they'd do with an accelerated English course.  In the 3 days that I've taught them, they've surpassed my expectations by far!!  The first day, at first, they didn't seem to know anything, or remember much from during the school year or the past, but after the first hour or 2, the light bulbs started clicking on and they were getting it! :)  It was an awesome feeling, to watch them figure out what I was teaching them.  One student even told the administrator that she finally understood English for the first time and today several of the girls were asking me why I couldn't teach them during the school year.  I told them that I was going to teach the little ones and so one girl asked me to treat her like I do the little kids, so I started goofing around with her, teasing her. :)  We all started laughing and thus ended recess.  I think what I enjoy the most about teaching them is that, we can joke around and have fun and they allow it, but are mature enough (for the most part!) to settle down when necessary and pay attention.  The younger kids aren't able to do that.  If I joke around with them, they take that as meaning that they don't have to take me seriously.  My goofing around with them comes in the form of coming up with educational games for them or doing things that throw them off, such as messing with the calendar and moving the dates around, that sort of thing.  I love doing it and it's a ton of fun, but I also really enjoy the way I'm able to relate to the teenagers.  It's been a lot of fun finding out about this other side of me! :)  Now, I just need to get pictures.
Here's some pictures I took while in Oregon. :)  Oregon visit and some that I took when I went to the jungle with the administrators of Emanuel trip to the selva

Reentry

It was hard to come back to Ecuador, for the first time ever, I find myself missing family and friends in the States!  Not that I didn't actually miss people before, but it wasn't much different than when I lived in a different area of the country from them, now I'm much more aware of them not being close by.  It's an odd feeling, and I suppose I should figure out what it means! :)  Coming back wasn't all that hard, other than missing people (and NOT wanting to leave my nephew!!!), I slipped back into life here, as if I hadn't been gone.  In some ways it felt as if I had been gone a really long time and in other ways, as if I hadn't been gone at all.  Other than the fact that there's more humidity here, I wasn't noticing that much difference, I know a lot of people everywhere I go, both here, in Macas, and in Oregon (case in point, I went to the mall in Salem with my grandma and saw at least 10 people that I knew and/or was related to, without planning, I can do the same thing walking down the street here!).  I can cook at both places, talk with people, etc.  Then I got online this morning and was reading some friends and cousins' blogs and heard something out the window.  Reason number one why living in Ecuador is different than living in Oregon:  it's the annual festivities celebrating the anniversary of the virgin's appearance here (at least I'm pretty certain that's what's going on) and so they have a parade.  There's a parade for practically everything here, which is fun, since I love parades, although most are really little or the not so interesting civic parades when all the students and teachers dress up in their formal uniform and then the police and military parade behind the students.  The folkloric parades are MUCH more interesting!! :)  The parade going on right outside my window, right now, is made up of people from every single parish in the country!!!  At least that's what it appears to be. :)  I could be wrong, it's possible a few parrishes are missing, but the ones that ARE here, are certainly from all over, there's some from Quito (7-8 hrs by bus), Guayaquil (10-12 hrs by bus), Loja (10-12 hrs by bus, I think) and everywhere else, too.  Each group has a banner with a saying, either from a Catholic father, or a verse from the Bible, a picture of the virgin, and where they come from.  Each group also has it's own uniform, usually the same t-shirt and baseball cap (think youth group mission trips at the airport ready to leave) and singing a different song from the other groups.  It's amazing the devotion that people show towards the virgin here; it makes me wonder what they would be like if they turned that devotion towards Jesus!  People are incredibly devoted, but it makes me sad that they're putting their devotion into a person, granted a person who (if it really was a manifestation of the virgin Mary, they never actually say that it's Mary, just a virgin) helped change the world by giving birth to Jesus, but she's still human, not God.  Why worship the created, when we can worship the Creator?  He's more powerful!  The parade definitely reminds me why I'm here, to show people about Mary's Son, Jesus, she was His mom, but He's God! :)  Definitely different than in Oregon (of course, that might have something to do with the fact that it's one of the least churched states in the country, at least that's what I've heard), oh and it's really green here, too.  Maybe I should send some pictures of the green to my mom, she's been missing it. :)

Summer

It's been my plan these past couple months to write on here more often, however, as soon as I make that plan, I end up writing even less!!  It probably has nothing to do with the fact that the end of the year is super busy, I was testing kids for next year and teaching high school, along with elementary.  I'm sure it has to do with the fact that I decided to write more often. ;)  Oh, and while I was doing all of that, I was attempting to process the fact that I would fly back to Oregon for a couple weeks!!! :)  When I did think about it, I was excited to see my nephew and to get to warmer weather.  (You'd think, living on the equator, in the jungle that I'd have warm weather, but lately it's been in the 70s and rainy during the day and 60s or lower at night)  So, of course, as I was planning what to pack and where on the plane, I decided on a sleeveless shirt and jeans, along with a sweatshirt, thinking that would cover me for about any weather.  Well, imagine my surprise, as we get ready to land, the pilot comes on and says it's 55 and rainy in Portland!!!  What's up with that?!  I had just taken off my sweatshirt, since it'd gotten cold on the plane, so it goes back on and I get off, to be met by a hug from my grandma and my sister handing over my 5 month old nephew!!!!  He's absolutely adorable and there's only been 1 day so far that I haven't seen him and hung out with my sister.  We're taking him all sorts of places, today we headed out to Canyonview Camp, where we all went to day camp, through our church, and I also worked out at the horse camp.  Soooo many memories and places to take pictures and introduce him to. :)   All in all, I'd say he's pretty cute and we should probably keep him around!!! :)

Parades

I don't think I've ever been to as many parades in one year as this year!  Most of the parades here, in Macas, are civic parades, which means that all the students dress up in their nicest uniform and march down the streets, with the police marching behind them, similar to the old military parades that I remember seeing pictures of in my history book (yes mom, I'm making fun of how old you are ;) ).  However, these past couple weeks, there's been a number of parades to celebrate Macas Days (las fiestas de Macas) and they were much more interesting!!  Everyone kept asking me how I liked it and if there was something similar in the States and I said that there wasn't.  The first 2 parades were folkloric parades, and about the only place you can find people dressed up celebrating their culture or someone else's culture is at a Native American pow wow or at a festival specifically for people of that descent, it's rare to find it in any other place, so it fascinated me! :)

To open up the festivities we had the Pregón, which I think basically is the little kids' parade, since it was mostly little kids that don't participate in the others.  Emanuel decided to represent all cultures taking care of God's creation.  To do that all the kids were assigned a different culture to dress up as, both from Ecuador and around the world.  The teachers walked with the kids, keeping them in order, reminding them of the steps and making sure no one took off. :)  To have more fun, they also decided to dress up too!  A week or so before, one of the teachers asked me if I'd do her a favor.  I wanted to know what it was and she said that she wanted me to dress up as a Shuar, the local indigenous group, who used to be known for shrinking the heads of their enemies (nope, didn't tell you that before I came down here, mom :) hehe).  As you can see from the picture, I did.  It was hilarious!!!!!!  The kids and parents were all shocked when I walked out of my office, after changing.  You don't see too many pale, blond Shuars around Macas, so it was a bit of a shock to them. :)  Then the cameras started appearing out of nowhere!  Everyone wanted their kid's picture taken with the crazy English teacher dressed as a Shuar.  During the parade we all danced to different songs, with the same song between each culture's turn.  Every couple steps another camera was out and someone was taking a picture of me!  It was crazy!!!!  One of the teachers told me, the next day, that no matter what I did, they took pictures!  Definitely one of the more fun parades I've been in. :)  Not because of all of the pictures though!!  Although, the reactions were fun, I enjoyed it mostly because I wasn't just walking down the streets, those parades take forever!  I was in charge of a group of 5 yr olds and dancing with them, it went much faster! :)

The next parade was the folkloric parade where the older kids, from each school, and adults in various town governments dressed up as from different cultures and performed typical dances of the culture they were representing.  That one was really fun because I got to watch the whole thing instead of participate! :)

The last parade was a typical civic parade where all the teachers put on their new uniform, including heels (2nd or 3rd time in my life for me!!!!!!!!) and marched down the streets.  At least I had 1 entertaining parade! ;)  Here's a link for more pics on Facebook :) Pregón pics

Keys

I was talking with a friend of mine, who lives in the States, the other day and I realized how funny my key chain would have looked to me, when I got here the first time, several years ago.  I was trying to describe how many keys I had and it's a lot and I actually need to add at least one more!!  I open the door to my apartment and have to open a gate, kinda like a screen door, but without the screen.  So that's one door I need to lock and we need to get a padlock for the gate (the at least one more key that I need to add).  Then, because I live on the second floor, I go down the stairs and unlock the door at the bottom.  After that door is the gate in the wall around the house, which has a padlock.  Then I either walk or take a taxi to the preschool (depends on how tired I am and how early I leave the house!)  At the preschool, I have to unlock the padlock at the gate, then unlock the front door.  I also have the key to the back door, which leads out to the patio for recess time.  When I'm done at the preschool, I walk the few blocks over to the main building.  At the main building I have to unlock the gate and then the rest of the doors are unlocked by the time I get there, but I have the keys for them.  The front door to the school, the gate leading to the stairs, the door to the office floor (off the stairs) and the door to my office/teacher's room.  I also have the key to my bedroom door and the filing cabinet at school, on my key chain.  All in all, I have 13 keys (I think) on my key chain!!!  Actually, I also have another key, but nobody can figure out what it goes to, we've tried it in all the doors and cabinets that we can, both at the apartment and at school, but it doesn't fit anything.  Of course, that doesn't mean that it doesn't go to a door that we have somewhere, but it could be that it's just a really bad copy. :)  Oh, I also have the key to the library, but that's kept separate from the rest, although I'm not really sure why. :)  I really don't have all that many, compared to many people that I know, but it sure seems a lot compared to what I had in the States!!  There I had my apartment door key, my car key, the key to my classroom, the key to my parents' house and the key to my grandparents' house, nothing else!
Before I ever came down here, to Ecuador, I never really thought about something as simple as keys being a cultural difference, but it truly is, or at least appears that way to me.  Every single door has a separate key, and different kinds of doors use different kinds of keys.  Metal doors have a long key, with a rounded head, while wooden doors have a long key too, but the head is more like part of an octagon or some other multi-sided shape and the padlock keys have a rounded head, but are really short.  Apparently random little details fascinate me. :)  I'd be silly and take a picture to put up, but my memory card for my camera is being a stinker and not downloading to my computer so I can't transfer any pictures over, till I figure out what the problem is. :(

High School

Well, I've taught the high schoolers for about 3 weeks now and so far I really enjoy it!! :)  It was a shock to me how fun it actually is, because I always said that I like to teach the little ones because of how much love they give, all the hugs and being excited to see me.  The high schoolers don't usually come up to give me hugs, but they look for me when they're not in class to talk to and appear to enjoy having me in their class once a week.  I also discovered how much fun I have joking around with them.  It's made going to youth group a little more interesting/different, because much of the youth group is composed of Emanuel teens, so that puts me in sort of the same level as my students.  Youth group here includes anyone from 14 or so until you get married, but the church here has started to divide the group into 2 when we have the teaching time.  The singing and games are still all together, but during the teaching, the teens are in one group and the young adults in another.  That's been really nice, especially now that they're my actual students and not just older kids in the school I teach at!

I'm really enjoying getting to know some of the high schoolers better, several girls have been bugging me to teach them cookies, so I need to figure out a way to fairly do it, so the others don't get jealous of me spending time outside of school with some of the girls, maybe rotate or let anyone who wants to come.  I'm not sure yet, once I figure it out, I may be making more cookies than ever!  Either that or having willing "slaves" to help me mix the cookies for selling at the teachers' booth during the soccer games. :)

One thing I was worried about before I started, and it hasn't been that big of a deal yet, is the respect issue.  Never having taught older kids before, aside from camp counseling, I wasn't sure how it would be gaining their respect.  I get the younger kids' respect because I'm older than them (it's truly entertaining to ask little kids to guess my age, apparently I look anywhere from 10-65!), but the teens aren't THAT much younger than me, although I do forget sometimes that it really has been 10 years since I graduated from high school!  So far, though, I haven't had any trouble with it, aside from the kids in octavo (equivalent to young US 7th graders) and that grade is notorious for having issues, we think it has something to do with hormones or something. ;)  That class has about as many discipline issues as my younger kids, but without the excuse of still learning the school rules!  They've gotten better the past couple of weeks, though, so I do have hope! :)  All in all, I'm actually enjoying it, when I can take a moment to breath!!! :)

Trimester

Nope, this blog has absolutely nothing to do with being pregnant. :)  The school, here, is on a trimester schedule and we just started the 3rd.  This year is flying by!!!!  I can't believe it's almost over already!  I've really enjoyed my kids and classes this year, some being more difficult than others, but all enjoyable.  Funny thing, though, the most difficult class keeps changing, it never stays the same. :)  Now that it's a new trimester, though, I get to add a few new classes.  Actually, to be more accurate, I should say that I'm adding a few new grades, to the classes I'm teaching.  I'm going to be teaching 1 day a week high school, in addition to preschool and early elementary!! It'll be a "bit" different than what I've been used to, but I enjoy talking with the high schoolers and have been in and out of their class doing observations during English time, so we'll see what happens. :)  I never wanted to get bored! :)

The finca

Sunday the "youth" went to go pick guavas (at least that's how I think it's spelled!) at Tannya's parents' finca.  A finca is what they call any land you own outside of town that stuff is grown on. :)  Basically a farm, I guess, although most people don't live on theirs.  I'd gone with Tannya and her husband, Iván, the weekend before and we had fun walking all around, eating a bunch of different fruits; guavas, caimitas, lemons, and I think a few others, but I don't remember their names!  They were all yummy and pretty ripe, so they invited a bunch of friends from church to go Sunday and hang out, eating fruit.  Sounds pretty boring, but it was hilarious!!!! :)  We all crammed into the back of Tannya's dad's truck to for the 10 minute ride to the finca where the entertainment started.  Her dad has it fixed up amazingly, my reaction the first time I saw it, was that it looked like Paradise, or the Garden of Eden!

The truck couldn't make it all the way to the guava trees, so we walked for a bit and got to them.  A couple of the guys had found hooks attached to looooooooong poles and brought them with us.  They started trying to pull the guavas down, from the ground.  A couple others had a different technique.  They started climbing up into the tree.  The guava trees didn't have very large limbs and the guavas were all really high up in the air, but nobody fell out, so that's good, I suppose! :)  Meanwhile, most of us were just hanging out, on the ground, watching them and picking up the guavas that fell, to eat.  One of the guys, Petete, starting a running commentary similar to the commentaries on nature channels.  It was hilarious!!  Unfortunately we didn't start taking video until after he'd mostly stopped, and I don't know how to put video on here. :)  Oh well, I'll just have to show people when I visit. :)

We also went swimming and hung out some more, then went home and changed, because we were all full of bug bites (I stopped counting after 20 on 1 leg!!!!)

Carnaval

Nope, it doesn't mean one of those school carnivals that we used to have when we were little (or was my school the only one that did that?).  Carnaval is Ecuador's take on Mardi Gras, the party before Lent starts.  I'd never celebrated it before, since Oregon's not one of the major Catholic states!  All I knew was that it was the beginning of Lent, but I didn't know anything more.  I'd heard bits and pieces here and there, people saying, oh just wait until Carnaval or that's something we do at Carnaval, but I didn't know what it was really about.  Little by little I started to figure it out and by the time it came around, I knew that it involved tossing water on people and getting everyone wet.  It sounded like the perfect kids' holiday, especially in a tropical country, where it's warm-hot year round! :)

So Carnaval weekend was coming up and I still didn't know what it was about, other than lots of water.  It was one of our 4 day weekends so I was looking forward to being lazy at home and catching up on sleep. :)  Saturday I managed to do that, then Sunday came and about a block away from my apartment, the owners of the building saw me walking to church and offered me a ride.  I accepted, I didn't really feel like walking 14 blocks, since I knew that I'd end up walking home, too. :)  They invited me to eat iampacos with them after church, so afterwards I hung out at their apartment most of the afternoon, then headed downstairs to clean.  I didn't get a picture, but this is me eating an iampaco a couple years ago, along with a close up of one. :)

During church Mayra, a friend of mine and close neighbor, had asked what I was doing Monday and Tuesday.  I told her that I had no plans and she invited me to hang out with her family for Carnaval.  So Tuesday I hung out with her family most of the day.  The original plan was to go hang out at the river, I think, but since it was raining most of the day (I joked that God was playing Carnaval, too), we stayed at their house.  I really enjoyed getting to know my neighbors some more. :)  They only live a block away from me and both Mayra and her older brother Byron go to the same church that I do.

Impressions
So, going into Carnaval I thought it was a day or two where people played with water.  After Carnaval I realized that I was partially correct. :)  It's a weekend, but starts about a week or so before and lasts for a couple weeks.  In houses it meant that kids were constantly filling up squirt guns and water, but they weren't confined to use within the house or yard. :)  Since most of the houses here have a flat roof that's used like a patio, kids (and adults) would stand on the roof, or on the balcony of the house and launch balloons at pedestrians, cars, whatever happened to be under them!  But that wasn't the extent of it!  I was sitting in my living room when I heard a truck pass by along with a lot of laughter.  I looked out the window and saw a large truck filled with people in the back.  That's not that odd of a sight here, an empty truck will often stop and pick people up on the side of the road.  What struck me was that every single person in the back was soaking wet and had buckets of water and glasses that they were using to throw water on people as they drove the streets!  Definitely a fun holiday and I almost wish I were a kid here to have huge water fights!  It reminded me of a family get together about 10 years ago and nearly everyone from my generation running around.

Emanuel Anniversary

So, this week is Emanuel's 10th anniversary as a school and we're celebrating it!  Down here, it appears, that all the schools celebrate their anniversary of when they were founded or approved or something like that, I'm not quite sure.  But this year it's more of a big deal, since it's the 10th anniversary.  Yesterday started the festivities with a whole school chapel.  They even bussed the preschoolers and kindergarteners over from their building.  Chapel was awesome!!  It was hilarious to watch the little kids, who don't get chapel on a weekly basis, jumping up and down and singing the songs.  They even somehow managed to convince some older kids to come out and jump with them! :)  I got pictures and video (although I can't figure out how to put video on here, if anyone knows, let me know!), but unfortunately my asthma was acting up, so I wasn't able to participate and enjoy it as much as I wanted to.

Today was the open house at the preschool/kindergarten building and we had a lot of fun. :)  The preschoolers were in groups, rotating with their parents through different activities to show their parents the types of things they do at school, while the kindergarteners were all in their rooms, doing presentations.  English was out in the back patio and I had a cd player and some books.  I played songs and had them dance for their parents.  It was hilarious to watch how the different groups reacted to the songs! :)  Some groups were practically glued to their mom's legs and wouldn't move or do anything, while other groups were singing and dancing with no inhibitions!  When they got tired of that, I had them look for colors in the books, something that we've sort of done in class.  They were really cute, but unfortunately  my camera was in the other building so I didn't get any pictures!  With the kindergarteners, I had them sing a song and name animals, which they did quite well.  I was so proud of all of my kids today!!! :)

Now I have to focus on the older kids, who have their open house on Friday.  I'll be extremely surprised if I end up having a voice after Friday!  I just have 2 classes at the main building, 2nd and 3rd grade, but I'm also helping the chemistry/biology teacher with his presentation, since he wants to do it bilingually, but doesn't speak English. :)  He chose one of the high schoolers who's good at English and she's going to do all the English speaking, but I've had to help her translate and practice pronunciation.  It's been fun to work with her and get to know some of the high schoolers better.  It should be an interesting week, this week!! :)