School’s Back in Session

Summer vacation has been tough but I made it through. As my amount of blogging can attest, I have been on the road. I have traveled far and wide over the past month enjoying this magnificent country that I call home. I sprinkled in some work in Quito at a TEFL seminar and worked a summer camp for the US embassy.

Fire Starting Competition

Singing campfire songs

The English intensive embassy camps are the best. I really enjoy working in these types of non-formal educational settings. This year we camped in the jungle and we appropriately themed our camp “Extreme Jungle Survival”. We took inner-city kids camping in a remote area of Ecuador. The high school students, as well as the university volunteers, had never been camping. It was a real treat to see them experience the real outdoors for the first time. Campfire building, s’mores, knot tying, campfire songs, and ghost stories ranked high on the students lists while the spiders, ants, mosquitoes, jungle bees and sleeping on the ground were all at the bottom. All in all it was a great trip and I hope I get the chance to participate in one more before I am out of here.

Goal 2 of PC: Share American Culture

BIG NEWS!!

Fundraising for the English Area Audio/Visual Laboratory is finished! I want to thank each and every one you that donated to this project. My teachers were elated to hear that funding came so quickly. You are a part of something that has the potential to change the future of my high school, my students, and especially my teachers. Thank you so much! In the coming months we will buy the materials, set up a schedule of usage and finally implement the lab.

English Area cleaning up the room for the lab!

I want to preface the implementation of the lab with a disclaimer. This lab will be considered very low-tech by first world standards. We are starting from scratch and our budget is small. The lab will consist of a desktop computer, a speaker system, a projector, a printer/scanner, and a whiteboard. While this doesn't sound like much, it is more than these students have ever had in an English class. My teachers have not had the opportunity to teach with the type of technology that this lab will provide.

This year my largest goal is to work on the English lab with my English teachers. I feel that if this lab is implemented correctly it can remain sustainable after I am gone. The goal of Peace Corps is that our job will be temporary and our impact everlasting. Sustainability is a lofty goal but one that I desire to achieve. I do realize that the lab won’t be there forever. Computers break, things are stolen, and school goals change. However, maybe through the technology that the lab will bring to our English classes our students can envision, and in turn achieve, a brighter future. I will try my hardest to get my teachers to see the benefit of using alternative teaching methods rather than relying solely on the book that the Ministry of Education supplies. These are my hopes.

Panoramic of the room

Well the last school semester of my service starts tomorrow. Just writing that sounds crazy. I cannot believe I am more than three quarters through this experience. I am going to work hard this year to push my English teachers out of their comfort zones and prepare them for when I am no longer here. I am optimistic about my remaining time and the possible outcomes. If I weren't, I wouldn't have made it this far.

For my birthday a friend made a dream of mine come true. I shot at at map blindfolded to determine our next trip. 

Camping on vacation

Mojandas (wildfire damage on the the left)

Livin' the Life