¡Dos meses han pasado en Ecuador!

Hi Friends and Family!!

I hope this blog post finds you well.  It’s been a while since I last posted and I have a lot to cover, so I guess I’ll get right into it and start off by talking a bit about my primary placement at San Felipe. 

I have really been learning a lot at San Felipe about how to be the best teacher I can be.  I’m finally feeling like I am getting an idea of where each grade level is at with their English background and how they learn best in general, and I’m adjusting the way I teach and evaluate them every day.  It’s been a long process, but I’m starting to settle into a system that really works for me and helps them learn.  The toughest part for me in the beginning was 2nd graders: they are only about six years old and have a very short attention span, so it was really tricky for me to manage the classroom and teach them in a way that the material would stick.  The way that I knew how to teach just didn’t work for them.  But I’m definitely getting more comfortable teaching them and actually really enjoying the ways that I’ve come up with.  They are at a really cute age.

Last Wednesday, all the kids at San Felipe went on a field trip to the Circus, which is definitely worth mentioning.  It began with me and my community mate Greg, who also works at San Felipe as the computer teacher, shepherding groups of first graders about six blocks from the school to the Circus tent which I had no idea was there until we went.  The circus featured events such as dancing, an acrobat who was pretty impressive, especially considering she was held up by a pulley and two men holding the rope on the other end, a magician, a clown, and the “Hombre Flecha” (Arrow Man), who jumped through a hoop with knives sticking out of it and then a hoop that had been set on fire.  The first event that is definitely worth going into more detail about would be “The Pequeña Valeska,” which involved one of my students, a third grader at San Felipe, who is apparently in the Circus (I’m pretty sure her parents are the magician and the clown).  She did acrobatics on a rope attached to her chin which was held up by the same pulley but only held by one man.  I was sitting right underneath her as she was doing her routine and I was freaking out the whole time because it did not seem safe at all and she basically had a rope around her neck, but she’s just fine and was in my class the next day so I guess I should have been more trusting.  There was also a portion of the show where the clown made four of the teachers, including my community mate Greg, come up and dance, and it was incredibly entertaining for all. 

One part of our ministry here in RdC involves “neighborhood time” where we go and visit the people in our community and form relationships.  It´s been really fun to spend time getting to know people from Mount Sinaí.  A few notable neighbors include Monica, one of the oldest friends of Rostro de Cristo who has three kids at home and has always been like a mother to the volunteers every year that they´ve been here.  She´s really sweet and always welcomes us into our house.  Another neighbor who I´ve gotten to know pretty well is Johana, who is the fifth grade teacher at San Felipe.  I´ve been helping her get on her facebook and check her email, and I also helped her class learn a zumba dance to perform for the Olimpiadas, which was sort of like a really epic all day track and field day with parents and an intense soccer tournament.  And one of the neighbors who I´ve spent a lot of time with is Cristina, a young mom with four sons: three of whom go to San Felipe and two of whom are my students.  I taught her to make chocolate chip cookies, which turned out much better than I expected, and next on the docket is brownies and also spaghetti.  We always have lots of stuff to talk about; she studied piano at a conservatory when she was younger, so she´s teaching me music vocabulary in Spanish for when I give music classes during vacations.  I really just have a lot of fun hanging out with her.   

Another part of our lifestyle in RdC is living in community.  I live in a house with five other volunteers (Ana, Coli, Miguel, Jimmy, and Gregorio).  As part of living in Christian community, we have weekly community nights and spirituality nights.  The first cycle of community nights, we told our life stories, which was a pretty cool way to really get to know each other, and for the second cycle we´ve mostly been playing games (so far Sequence and Balderdash).  Spirituality night is a way for us to pray and reflect each week aside from our nightly prayer together, and a different person plans it each week.  It´s been really cool to experience each person´s own form of prayer and reflection.

One cool community activity that we did along with the other Rostro community this past weekend was do a house build together through the nonprofit Hogar de Cristo where some of my community mates work.  With a group of 17 in total, we helped put up two cane houses out in the country for two different families in the span of about five hours or so.  The one we built was for a man named Nativo, a rice farmer, and his wife and five kids.  It was one of the kids´ birthdays that day and they were setting up a party for him about the same time we were finishing the house.  I hope he enjoyed his birthday present!!

Here are a few pictures from the house build:

This is Nativo´s family and all of us who helped build the house.

In closing, I guess I´d just like to talk a little about how I´ve changed in the two months that I´ve been here.  I don´t feel like I´m changing a lot or that my Spanish is improving that drastically, but I know that I am changing a lot poco a poco because of all the things I´m experiencing and the people that I´ve met and the whole different world that I´ve become aware of.  The main thing that I can definitely put my finger on is the way I value my time.  I teach class at 7:30 sharp four days a week, and that means I have to go to bed pretty early, which has never been something that I have been a fan of.  But I´ve definitely settled in a schedule of waking up early, working, visiting neighbors and tutoring, and being involved in the parish in my Rostro community, which is really great.  In the US, I could spend days doing basically nothing, but here I really feel like I have a sense of mission and so much to do and so many people to see.  I definitely don´t waste my time as much as I have in the past.  I´m still working to find a balance because obviously I need to be taking time for myself to relax and take care of myself, but I have really surprised myself in the new way that I see my time.  I hope it carries through once I come home.

That´s all for today!  ¡Tenga un buen día!  Have a good day!