Catching Up

¡Hola!

Since I have some time to kill until my boat for Isla Isabela departs, I thought I would catch you up.

My last week in Quito went well, but was a little sad, too. But endings, or transitions, are always melancholy for me. Despite all the years of moving and traveling, leaving and saying good-bye always make me a little blue. I even cried when I traded my old car for the new one!

The last week at school went amazingly well. Fortunately, due to student government elections, I didn´t have to teach as many classes. Several hours of class were used to allow the candidates to talk to the students. Fortunately/Unfortunately, I had to listen to the campaign speeches. These student government campaign speeches were no different than those made so many decades ago when I was in high school. Although I did learn something new: kids in Ecuador don´t have health insurance! One of the campaign promises was to find a way to make available low-cost health insurance to kids who wanted it. Actually, very few people have health insurance here. Natural medicine is big here, probably for that reason.

In the classes I did manage to teach, the kids behaved a little better. Who knows why. They certainly didn´t know it was my last week until I told them at the end of each class. One thing I finally realized was that the screwiness of the children and the school had nothing to do with me. The school imposed situations on other teachers as well. One subsitute teacher was asked to fill in for a month for another teacher, but the school wouldn´t give him the teachers´ manuals or lesson plans for the classes he was taking over! (probably because they didn´t have any of these things) So the guy had to come in cold to take over the classes. Imagine having to assert classroom control over 36 kids without having a clue what they kids are doing! That´s what happened to me, however, I had the "foreigness" factor on MY side. Granted it lasted only about 15 minutes in some classes. So, in retrospect, my teach-22-classes-a-week situation was nothing unusual.

As for the kids issues, they don´t listen to anyone. They talk in class. They walk aroung the classroom. They do homework of other classes while the teacher is teaching (until I started collecting notebooks). They just wouldn´t shut up during the student government campaign speeches. The ONLY thing they feared was the Principal, Mrs Valaresa. In one class exercise where we practiced the phrase "One thing I fear is....", her name came up several times. I wonder what her secret is.... (On the flight to the Galapagos, there was a group of kids who would not stay seated during flight landing. The flight attendent was very angry, imploring many, many times "¡¡¡¡¡¡children, shut up and stay in your seats!!!!!!!!") But despite the fact that they don´t listen, they are actually good kids. For the most part, they want to do the right thing, however, their mouths and hormones get the way.

So my last day was a day of gifts: chocolates, jewelry (string bracelets that the kids here wear), farewell cards and notes, and even a seranade from the director of the school. Before leaving the school, the director and I discussed my impressions of the school, the students, Ecuador. Several weeks earlier, the director told me that he had visited Japan many years ago, and practiceds the few Japanese phrases he could recall. So at the end of our farewell discussion, he got his guitar, tuned it, and started playing a Japanese song of farewell that he had learned while there! Then he sang it again in Spanish. Then he concluded with a third song! He was very good. What a wonderful farewell present!

Before I left, I finally made it to the Museo de Guayasamin. Guayasamin is famous Ecuadorian painter (and sculptor) who paints beautifully expressive portraits of people. His subjects tend express either intense agony or feelings of love and caring. There is something about the way he painted the eyes. One look in the eyes of his portraits and you know EXACTLY the emotion he tried to convey. One painting even made my cry, and I wasn´t feeling sad at the time. He is now one of my favorite painters. The grounds of the museum itself are beautiful, and the museum is on a hill that overlooks Quito. I think it may have been his house before he died.

All in all, it was a very good last week in Quito. On February 9, I will spend one night in Quito so that I can catch my flight to Lima, Peru, the next day.

I´ll miss it here.
cheers,
Stacey