Tech Trip

I have just returned from a weeklong trip around the Northern portion of Ecuador. I went to tour different high schools, observe how professors currently teach, co-plan and teach with them, as well as give a lecture at the end of our visit. It was a whirlwind trip and it was packed with activities and experiences. I certainly learned a lot during this short excursion.

I departed our city on Monday morning at 6:30 with 5 other volunteers that had the same itinerary. From there we navigated our way to Quito and the Northern bus terminal of Carcelen. I will say that traveling on  packed busses in a group with large bags is very difficult and frustrating. The buses that travel within a province are the most difficult to ride with all your bags. On these buses you must keep all your belongings on the bus with you. These buses become extremely full as they progress on their route. A bus we traveled on yesterday must have had at least 75 people. In these situations it becomes nearly impossible to keep physical and visual contact with your belongings. I have not had any problems so far though. 

From Carcelen we bought tickets and boarded our bus to the city of Ibarra. This is a large city in the province of Imbabura near the border of Columbia. This bus ride was about 115 km or 50 miles but it lasted about 2 hours. This is something new that I am growing accustomed to. Despite being relatively close to everything, we are very far in respect to travel time. Long travel time is due to two things, bus travel and mountain roads. The buses are a safe form of travel if a slow one. They have a slower speed limit and many times the roads are clogged with other buses. Buses are also all privately owned. This explains why buses stop frequently to pick up more passengers even when the bus seemingly could not hold one more passenger even on top of the bus. The bus prices are very cheap just like many things in the country. The prices equate to about 1 dollar per hour of travel.

"By ignorance we descend to slavery/servitude but by education we ascend to Freedom"

Ibarra is the provincial capital of Imbabura. It is a large city that seemed rather similar to Quito on first sight. They had similar amenities and the people seemed to be of the same demeanor. When we arrived at the bus terminal we took a quick taxi ride to our hotel. I asked the cab driver how much it would cost for a ride to our hotel. He told me a dollar fifty. We quickly piled four people in the cab and off we went. When we arrived at the hotel he gave me fifty cents back informing me that it was closer than he had thought. This is another example of the kind of people that are here. Granted, there is a lot of crime and petty theft, but on the whole people here seem to not want to take advantage of every situation.

Center of Ibarra

We arrived at the Montecarlo and checked in. The hotel was nice by Ecuadorian standards. I shared my small room with a fellow volunteer. We had hot water and a good view of the very large volcano for which the province is named, Imbabura. The hotel also had a dilapidated exercise room that I used a few times.

The following day we went to the fourth best school in the country. Colegio Nacional “Ibarra” is an all girls school in the heart of the city. Here the high school girls dress in uniforms that resemble a doctor’s attire. The school had very few discipline problems and I was impressed with the construction of the school. This is probably a result of the testing that students have to endure in order to be admitted to this public entity.

Colegio Nacional "Ibarra" with Imbabura in the background

Our objective while at the school was to determine the needs of the school, observe the English professors, give feedback, co-plan and co-teach with the professors, and give a lecture at the end of the visit over new methodology. From my perspective, a teacher in the States would not want a young person to come to their school and tell them how they can improve their teaching. I found the opposite however. I worked with two professors that had many years of teaching experience and they were more than open to having me in their class and were receptive to my help. This only boosted my optimism for my service here. The professors at this particular school and many others around the country realize the importance of having new methods implemented in their classes and want the information. They also want to improve their English. This is another goal of the Teacher Trainer program that I am a part of.

Courtyard at Colegio Nacional Ibarra

I and two other volunteers gave a brief introduction to the administration and professors over our objectives and goals of our visit. At this point we got to work. I spoke with the professors about their current form of teaching and what we could work on during my very short visit. We looked at the lessons for the week and made lesson plans that incorporated some newer English education methodology. As I said before they were receptive to my ideas. I was not expecting this but didn’t let on. I spent the next two days co-teaching in the very large classes. I worked with 14 and 15 year olds. We had between 35 and 50 students in a class. This requires a very different style of classroom management that I am quickly learning out of necessity.

In one class the students were learning about the use of can and cannot. As an incentive to speak English I told the students that if they spoke in English and used the verb can or cannot I would answer any question that they could come up with. This was a greater incentive than I had expected. I was bombarded with questions that simply had “can” interjected in the middle of the sentence such as “You can marry an Ecuadorian woman because you are single?” Or, “Can you sing in Spanish?” I had to reply to this one… I began singing Selena’s “Como La Flor” to much fanfare. The rest of the week I was asked by random students in the courtyard to sing. Lesson learned.

Eric and I, educating everywhere we go

At the end of our visit a volunteer and I gave a lecture, or charla, to the English department over teaching listening. We discussed simple exercises that can be used in the class to enforce listening skills. From my observation listening is not an emphasized part of English education. This can be attributed to fact that the English teachers themselves to do speak English with a high proficiency level and thus do not want to speak in front of their students for fear of being incorrect. This is a two part problem that I plan to tackle once I have been assigned my site where I will serve for two years. The charla went very well and the teachers were happy to participate and take information from the session. We were told by the Peace Corps that one of us would be assigned to this site. After working in the school and seeing the desire of the professors, I would be more than happy to be assigned there. The professors echoed that sentiment. I was happy to hear that they wouldn’t mind having a resident Selena singing Gringo in their school.

After this visit we went to the small Valle de Chota very near the Columbian border. This was a mountainous, desert region. Hot, dry and high. This region claims about 3,000 residents. The Valle is famous for producing world famous soccer players. I would give names, but I have forgoten them already. I am not a huge soccer fan… yet. I had been told that all the students in the region aspired to play as well and academics does receive a high focus. This became evident very quickly. We arrived at Colegio Technico Valle de Chota near mid-morning after another jolting bus ride. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to be hot and sweaty. The Valle did a good job of making me appreciate the climate that I had left. We entered the school and were ushered to a small room where two other volunteers would give a charla. I was very thankful I gave my charla at the Colegio in Ibarra where we were warmly greeted. This school was different. We had no chance to form a working relationship with the professors before the lecture was given. They did not participate in discussions and really were not keen on taking any information from the charla. After the hour lecture we discussed with the professors the time of the next presentation in the afternoon. We all agreed on a time and then left to go to a cultural center in a nearby city. We returned to find the school had dismissed all the students early and the professors had left. Needless to say this was a bit disheartening and frustrating. Throughout training we have been told to expect this sort of behavior from schools. It was just difficult to see this come to fruition. Lesson learned.

Colegio Technico Valle de Chota

We decided to take a walk around the small pueblo that the Colegio was in. We ran into a woman on the main road that offered to take us to a small art studio. As it turns out, it was her art studio. She spoke about the struggles of the Afro-Ecuadorian people in the province. The Valle de Chota is almost entirely comprised of Afro-Ecuadorians. Her artwork reflected the struggles and suffering that her people had endured. She showed us her studio where her husband made us pure sugar cane juice. This was so sweet but delicious. It seemed that she might have waited a long time for visitors. She showed us her work and then asked if we would like to see her create some art. We crowded around her work table and watched her roll clay that was taken from a mountain behind her studio. She took about ten minutes and created a mask of an Afro-Ecuadorian man. I was thoroughly impressed with her work and it showed me that even in such a small and seemingly desolate town, there are rays of hope and talent.

Local artist that creates Afro-Ecuadorian artwork

On our final day we went to the town of Otavalo. This city is famous because it is home to the largest market in Latin America. I was excited to go because I needed a hammock. However this was not the reason for our visit. We were taken to the School of the Millennium. This is one of two schools that the government has built in poor indigenous communities. The school is supposed to be a modern first world school with every amenity available. The class sizes were much smaller than we had observed in other places in the country. Also, technology was readily available. The teachers had laptops and Smartboards at their disposal. I felt like this visit was more for the Ministry of Education to show us what they had and were capable of. We did get to visit the Plaza de Ponchos. This was the enormous indigenous market that I excited to shop at. It was a large sprawling market that everything Ecuadorian you would want to buy. The downside was it was very tourism heavy. Everywhere you look you seen Gringos, Europeans and other Latin American tourists. It is difficult to explain to the venders that you are not a typical Gringo and you are actually a resident of Ecuador. This was important to get much better prices. A woman tried to sell me a hammock for 32 dollars. I could not hold my laughter. As soon as you begin to speak to them in their language they relax a bit on prices. After a considerable amount of haggling, I eventually got a hammock for 9 bucks. To anyone who thought I was cheap in the States, you would believe how thrifty I am on a volunteer’s salary. 

After our adventure in Otavalo we met up with a group of Natural Resource volunteers that were also about to head back to Tumbaco. We all hopped on the same bus and swapped stories of our travels for the remaining 3 hour bus ride. We spoke in English which we had been advised not to do on long bus rides but sometimes it just necessary to speak in your native tongue and plus we took up at least a third of the bus.

The Tech Trip was very useful in my opinion. For one, we got to get out of our city and see a bit more of the country and possible sites for service. Also, I know my Spanish is constantly improving and this trip only helped me progress in my language acquisition. We will be back in our city of Tumbaco for another week and then we go on a “Site Visit” for seven days. This week is packed with assignments, presentations, and a visit from the Ambassador. On Thursday we will find out our site assignments. This is where we will serve for the following two years following training. I have not given much thought to this significant date but now I am getting excited for the big reveal!

Our sense of humor is never dampened

Also, on Thursday I received a call from my sister in the States concerning my father and stepmother that are missionaries in Belize. My stepmother, Tricia, broke her hip and both she and my father were medically evacuated back to Amarillo for treatment. As I write this she is in surgery to have a hip replacement. This has been very difficult to deal with from such a far distance and very few means of communication. I was able to speak with my father this morning about the occurrences over the last few days and it seems that everything will turn out alright supposing a successful surgery. It was good to speak to him for an extended period of time since I have not been able to before this point in my service. It seems that they will be able to return to their mission in Belize that they now call home. This was their greatest fear that they would have to leave the boys that they work with and love so much. Please keep my stepmother, Tricia, and my father, Neil, in your prayers as they navigate through this rough time. It is difficult for me to hear about troubles that my family is going through and not be able to be there for them. My host mother has been an excellent ear for me to talk to about it. She knows that it has been difficult not being able to talk to my family or share in the experience all of this and for this I am truly grateful. 

If you are still reading this you have probably taken two naps and slobbered all over your laptop or keyboard so I will draw this post to a close. Thanks for following my disjointed thoughts to this point. My overall thought about the week is that I am excited to see that there is a desire for us in the schools. I feel that if I am lucky or blessed enough to be placed in a site that wants me, I will be fulfilled in my duties as a Teacher Trainer.