Saturday, July 12, 2008

11 days...

Well, when it comes down to it I am freaking out. I haven't updated since April 26th and it is now July 12 (okay.. it's 12:38 am, which means that it's just July 11 plus 38 minutes.. but that's more of a technicality). A LOT has happened! My dad came in May which was amazing. We went to the jungle and saw all kinds of amazing plants and animals. We went to the Napo Wildlife Center in the Yasuni National Park. It was beautiful, and best of all, the profits of the organization go into the local indigenous community. We saw monkeys and caymans (Caymen?) and birds-- not too many insects.. and one giant tarantula! It was amazing- you travel 2 hours in a motorized canoe and then another 2 hours in a paddle canoe (the guides do all the canoeing!) down a BEAUTIFUL river until we got to this lake- it was so pristine, so clear that it perfectly reflected the indigenous-styled, although fairly luxurious cabins, the surrounding trees and flora-- it was impossible to take my eyes away from the water. And best of all, at night we looked up and saw the Southern Cross! It's amazing! AND- (the only place you can do this, btw, is on the equator or very close to it) then you turn around, and see the North Star. It literally brought tears to my eyes-- and it was a nice change to cry over something that wasn't bad students.

Then my birthday came, and my boyfriend (professional soccer player by day, club bouncer by night) Darwin (remember, the Galapagos Islands are in Ecuador, and Darwin is a popular name) decorated my entire room in flowers. There were rose petals that said "Happy B-DAY" on my bed (Angie helped him because his English is not very good. He doesn't know the difference between "I like" and "I like you"- so he goes around saying "I like you, movie!" and "I like you, rice!" It's so cute I don't want to correct him!), long stemmed red roses flanking my door and closet and woven, with sunflowers, into my headboard. There were daisies and other flowers in my closet, tucked behind my wall-hangings, daisies and carnations in my curtains, and two vases of two dozen roses adorning my bedside table and my toilet! He also had a huge flower arrangement of roses for me. It was SO amazing.. it also literally brought tears to my eyes. I was beside myself. Having counted, I had 120 roses, 40 long-stemmed, and more other flowers than I could count. In the States it would have cost HUNDREDS of dollars. Here, he paid $30 (there's no taboo in Ecuador about asking how much things cost- which was good, because I was REALLY curious!) including the cab ride to the florist! Wild, right?

School wound down with incredible and unbelievable drama that is literally only possible here: Here, as I have explained, the students all travel to all the same classes with their "curso"- which has some benefits, but what happens if a student fails a class, you might wonder. Answer: they have to repeat all 14 classes the following year. SO in order to prevent that from happening, students who don't receive a total sum (remember, each trimester is graded out of 20) of 40 or higher have to take a mandatory "Supletorio" exam. It's kind of like a 4 week summer school. If they pass that exam, they pass the class. If they don't pass the exam they don't. Well- in theory. There were two kids in "6to Curso" - which is basically senior year- who had failed TWO supletorio exams. They needed a 12 to pass and they both received 6. (6!) One of the classes was English. When a kid fails the exam the parents can appeal it. First step is to have the exam re-graded by 3 different teachers from the school. Being a native speaker, I was naturally called to be part of this committee. I'll spare all the nasty details, but through some very liberal and, occasionally, only semi-ethical finessing, we raised the girl's grade to a 9 and the boy's to a 7. We wrote up a report and handed it in to the principal who then freaked out about how any good teacher can't make that big a mistake- and then I explain that although there were 2 questions that were graded incorrectly (one was marked correct that was wrong, and the other wrong that was right), the points were given because we gave the kid the benefit of the doubt. Then they called (another!) junta- or meeting of all the teachers to review the re-graded exams, to vote on whether or not the kids should pass the year (and why the science, math, history, social studies, spanish grammar, art, dance, and P.E. teachers should get a vote on whether or not the kid passes English is something I still don't understand-- but anyway), and then, discuss whether or not the teacher should be sanctioned for the grading "errors." The result of which was that everyone in the school was fighting, and except for me, the other two teachers who re-graded, and the original teacher, no one was actually involved in the situation. The junta decided that the teacher should not be sanctioned, and that the students did not pass.

The parents, then, went on to the Ministry and the students' tests were again re-graded. This time they passed. Meanwhile, nearly everyone in the school, somehow, was mad at me for re-grading the exam. In a staff meeting I asked a question and said "I don't understand" and was yelled at instantly from the back of the room "No mamita- you DON'T understand!" Then some students broke into my classroom and stole my camera and $15 dollars from my purse. Thankfully they didn't take my computer!

SO- although there were ups and downs, I wasn't too sad to leave when the time came. It was tough to say goodbye to my students, because as much as they gave me hell, they were all very sweet as individuals. One student, at the end, apologized to me for making me cry once, and then gave me a hug so strong that my back cracked. I also had some great friends there who really took good care of me and gave me good advice. My friend Jesus took me out to lunch one day and told me that he was really proud of me for how I had handled myself over the year. He congratulated me on staying away from people who had (in his words) "bad intentions" and on making good friends with good people. He said I'd earned the respect of a lot of people- which was really nice to hear after feeling occasionally very alone. In the end, I'm SO glad I worked there. I learned so much more than I would have anywhere else and I will carry what I learned with me forever.. hopefully I'll let go of some of the yelling and crying- but I'll remember encouragment, flexibility, consistency, toughness, and that no matter WHAT I accidentally scream at kids one day before leaving the room in tears, the next day is always a chance to make a new start. (For the record- the worst thing I ever yelled was "YOU ARE NOT MONKEYS! YOU ARE HUMAN BEINGS!"- which was not great- but at least there was no profanity!) And I can remember how my 5th graders collapsed with laughter every time I said "ooh baby!" or "okay-dokey artichokey"---- which may not be the best English ever, but just remembering their laughter fills me up.

(I've been trying- as I said- to get a job teaching in the states- and because of that I have been practicing interview questions and answers. I went through many ideas about how to answer the inevitable "classroom management" question. I thought of anecdotes- where my student pulled out a very weapon-y looking bebe gun during class, pointed it at another student, and shot it (there were no bebes thankfully!). When my 9B students formed a gauntlet every day for the 9A students to walk through as they left class, effectively causing a brawl in my classroom twice a week (hence the monkeys comment and subsequent tears). I thought about explaining the cheating and the disrespect. I thought about explaining when I gave them a seating chart- how they sat in their assigned seats, and then got up and sat where they wanted. Then I told them: "No, this is your desk. You have to sit in this desk," how some of them then tried to move the desk to sit next to their friends. I thought about the pantsing epidemic, the unscrewing of various parts of the desks so that when someone sat down, stood up, or leaned back (depending on what had been loosened) they would fall down. I thought about when the kids decided to cut off the white stripes on the pants of their track suits to be cool, and then denied it in front of their tutor (class advisor) until I said "Jose Daniel- you took the stripes, tied them together, put them on your head and pretended you were a NINJA!" and he couldn't help from laughing. I've decided that if and when I am asked my answer will be "My classroom management experience in Ecuador was this: With the exception of violence, I have never heard a story, read a book, or seen a movie in which the students consistently behaved as badly as my 8th and 9th graders that year." Of course- now that it's all over, I'm laughing hysterically as I'm remembering this-- especially the ninja thing. I'm not saying that kid wasn't so frustrating that I didn't want to shove him out the window a little bit.... I'm just saying that he was a little bit funny.)

AFTER that- Darwin and I went to Manta for our 6 month anniversary and stayed with his mom. Manta is a coastal town so, for the second time in nearly 10 months, I was warm! The beach was lovely, and his family was very nice. I felt a little awkward sometimes, but I think they were very intimidated by having a "gringa" in the house. There's this conception that we all have money, and I know Darwin was very worried that I would judge the place for being poor.. and that idea carried over to his family. Hopefully they didn't take any of that away from me. Their house was lovely. Small, definitely, but cozy and comfortable and clean. The food was fantastic. They didn't want for anything- and there were always children, neighbors, brothers and sisters in law, nieces, nephews, second cousins, -- babies crying, children laughing, men talking, women calling across the way, motorcycles revving, bachata, vallenato, and reggaeton competing with each other as every open-windowed house blasted their stereo system. At one point Darwin yelled at me for criticizing his house and I had to stop and tell him that if he felt that I was judging them, then those feelings were not based on any of my actions, because I had nothing to judge or criticize. I really enjoyed it. Also, Darwin's niece and nephew spend most of their time with their grandmother, and it was really fun getting a taste of what it's like to have kids around. Darwin and I bought his 7 year old niece, Nicole, a backpack to congratulate her on getting 20s on her exams, and some racecars for his 1 year old nephew. We took Nicole to the beach and for ice cream. Naturally she loves him, and with all the presents she got, she would have been crazy not to love me too!! Of course- it was a little awkward at times being with a family- an outsider and foreigner- and someone who didn't always understand their CosteƱo accents-- but in the end I was sad to go.

So that's it! I'm back in Quito. It's freezing. Everyone I know is either in the states or working, so while I keep busy, I'm definitely going to be ready to go back to the states. I'm still looking for a job- was told by the Los Angeles Unified School District that they don't do phone interviews, so I'm out of luck there. It is going to be really really hard to leave- so I don't know if I'll come back or not. There are plusses and minuses to everything right now. Mom keeps telling me to take care of myself- don't get sick and don't get mugged. (I had strep throat again btw.) Well, I have another parasite (But thank GOD I'm not nearly as sick as last time-- just a little rumbly in the tummy) and got followed by some guy last night, so I started running until I got to a hotel and hid behind the reception counter.

Actually, right as I was writing this I had an experience. I was at Bungalow 6, this cool club where my boyfriend works, but I was bored and took a cab home. The cab driver started whispering into his radio and making noises. He was telling his friend where he was, saying he'd meet him somewhere else, and then some things really fast and whispered that I didn't understand. Then he locked all the doors. I immediately unlocked mine and rolled down the window. (In my head, I would jump out of the running car, tuck and roll, and hightail it to another hotel-- hotels are my safe-spots). Then I thought, maybe he's going to drug me- because that's common here- there's a drug that knocks someone out if they touch or breathe it, so I start breathing only the air that's coming in from the open window, and I decide to give him my 5 dollar bill after getting out of the cab in case the change he gave me was drugged. Also, I called Darwin (who was working, bless his soul) and pretended like I was going to meet him in a second "Okay honey- I'll be there in one minute! Wait for me." Thankfully the cab driver was creepy, but either realizing that all my Alias watching had given me above-and-beyond skills to evade his trickster efforts, or just not being creepy enough to drug and kidnap me, he dropped me off at home. I then called Darwin again who, again, picked up the phone while working, and I explained that the cab driver had freaked me out. Then I put my phone in my pocket and it accidentally went on SILENT... so I'm writing this very long, very random of blogs and he rushes into my room and hugs me and then yells at me "WHERE WERE YOU! I CALLED YOU 9 TIMES!!!!" I checked my phone and there they were- 9 missed calls. He then contritely asked me for cab money to go back to work. I'm very curious as to whether he got permission to leave or not. There's no such thing as a break in Ecuador. We'll see tomorrow. Well, more accurately, later this morning. It's now 1:28. I'm still not sure how I feel about leaving. It is more offically June 12, which means 11 more days. I'm praying and crying.. sometimes I'm not sure for what.. but whatever happens- I've survived so far- God willing I'll make it another 2 weeks.