My Volunteer Work

Since February, I have been going twice a week to a rural community south of Quito to teach young children basic English and math. I had been looking for some kind of volunteer work for a long time and when this opportunity presented itself, I was in 100%. I originally got involved through two friends of Alex, who were actually looking for two more volunteers, so I guess you could say that we "got the job".

To give a little bit of background of the community and the children we help; as I said, it is south of the city and more rural. When I say rural I don't mean fields and farms, they live on a ridge-line which divides Quito from a neighboring valley (where Alex lives). It is on a very steep slope, only accessed by a dirt road which switchbacks down the muddy hill. The houses are basic, very basic, made of cement blocks and metal roofs. Although I have never been inside one of our students' houses, they all appear to be about two or three rooms, few or no windows and no plumbing or electricity. Some of the houses do have running water and few of the buildings have lights, but the problem is that the community is actually illegal. The government never approved any kind of building therefore they people cannot use publics utilities such as water and electricity.

The community have demonstrated in the city, in the hope of gaining some rights, I believe that they have been recognized as an independent sector, however they still have a legal battle ahead of them for utilities.

Now to the actual teaching. Our students range in age from about 5 to 11. Their attendance is actually really good, on any given day 20-30 students show up. Due to the numbers, we split the group in two according to age. The goal of our program is to have the oldest students, who are about to go into their first year of secondary school, enter classes with a basic knowledge of English and arithmetic so that they do not fall behind peers who might have had a more fortunate upbringing and education.

The younger group, who obviously have a much shorter attention span, do some english and number work, usually end up doing more art such as drawing and coloring, materials permitting of course.

Alex and I teach the older group a lot more often, as the girls have more patience for the little ones. You give them an inch and they take a mile, it is testing to say the least.

We are there for two hours, 3 until 5. Our classes are usually about an hour and fifteen minutes, then we have a break, then snack time. Finally Netalie, the man who organized all of this, gives the children a brief lesson on general ethics. This includes lying, stealing and fighting, which all happens A LOT amongst these kids.

One of the best parts of each class is the time we have for recess. Depending on the weather we play football (inside or outside), play on the donated swings or try and balance on the concrete pipes which somehow found their way onto the playground. These kids play rough, but they are tough as nails. I have seen them fall, get kicked, or hit with swings so many times. I always wince, and run over anticipating tears and cuts, but 99% of the time, they get up laughing their heads off and continue playing. It is quite something. One of their favorite things is to have Alex or I grab them by the wrists and swing them around in circles until we are all very dizzy.

Classes are productive and worth the effort, however, there are a lot of frustrations. One of our biggest problems is the fact the some of the kids are simply uninterested in learning. They come to class wither because they are forced by their parents, or they just want to hang out with their friends, or both. This seems mostly to be the boys, but not exclusively. These kids distract others from learning and will do anything to get someone else to laugh. This proves to be a real problem with few effective solutions.

Another major challenge is our make-shift classroom. It is a sort of "community building" made of concrete blocks, tile floor and a very low, concrete ceiling. There are a few windows to let light in (neither of the two bare light-bulbs seem to have a working connection). When two or three people are in the room talking, there are no problems. However, add 20 shouting children to the original three people and the echoes are literally unbearable. One can hardly hear them self think above the din. Alex came up with a good way of silencing the students. when he claps a 5 beat rhythm, all the students have to stop talking and copy the pattern. It works well most of the time, but if the noise gets too loud, no one hears and the clapping just adds to the problem.

Lastly, our materials, or lack there of. We have a large whiteboard, a few coloring books for the small children and some educational wall decorations. Seeing the bare concrete walls of our "classroom" makes me sad, I remember how full of colors and pictures my primary school classrooms were. I remember how abundant the crayons and pencils were, and I remember having more books and paper than my 6 year old mind knew what to do with.

This is where you can help. I put a note in the bottom of my last post, asking for any suitable, basic teaching materials, to be sent or dropped off to my parents house. I will be going back to the US for an interview on thursday and plan to return here to Quito with lots of teaching materials. To see a photo of an Ecuadorian child, smiling, learning, and using something that you donated would be more than amazing. I urge anyone who can to donate and help children who really need and will appreciate new or used learning materials. For those of you in the UK, your packages will not arrive in time for me to take them myself. However, Mum, Dad, and Hamish will be coming out to visit me in June and I am sure they could bring any and all donations.

I thank you all in advance for your generosity and I will be sure to keep you all informed as to how are classes are going thought he following months!

These are their houses.

Alex and Emily play Simon Says with the children.

Me playing with one of my favorite students (troublemakers).

Students on some of the donated playground equipment.

Return of the Blog!

For anyone who saw the first part of the Peru post I wrote and posted last week you are probably wondering why I took it down instead of, well, finishing it. The whole Peru experience was a lot of fun and I did greatly enjoy it, however it was much different than what I, and the people who asked me about it afterwards, expected. People had such crazy expectations of my trip, I felt that I was under huge pressure to blow minds with the post about it.

I sat down to write so many times, but it all just came out as a bunch of words on my screen rather than actual writing. Frustration set it and of course the whole ordeal became harder and harder. Call it writer's block, call it what you will, but thats what happened.

I do intend to finish the post, as I do want you all to hear about my trip, but that will come later. I have other things on my mind that I feel are more important and that I want to share.

Just to get me back into writing after my month+ of silence I want to share a short story from last night.

So last night was the joint birthday party for two other exchange students from Rotary. My friend Teo from France set about inviting tons of people the week before in the hopes that we could storm some club and have a massive foreigners birthday bash.

We were all going to meet outside a big mall not to far from our intended final destination, a club called "Masia". So I got ready and left my house at about 8:45 and started walking to catch a taxi. I couldn't see any on the entire length of my street, in fact it was pretty much devoid of anyone or anything, except for a man slowly making his way down the hill about 30 meters below me. I started walking in his direction so I could get to another street, where more taxis usually are.

As I was about 5 meters behind the guy , when he started stumbling, obviously drunk. Now, my street is a hill, a very steep hill. Therefore much of the sidewalk was made into stairs, sets of 2 or 3 no more. As he approached one of these sets, I already knew what was going to happen. I am not sure if he just didn't see the steps or if he lost all his balance, but the outcome was pretty certain. He fell, hard, onto his back and then started rolling. Luckily a wall stopped the diagonal trajectory of his roll and prevented him from continuing, where only more stairs and cobble stones awaited him.

Me "Uhh Sir are you alright?!"

Drunk "(mumbles)"

Me "Hold on, I'll help you up"

Drunk "AAAHHHHH! THANK YOU MY SON!" (breath wreaks of alcohol)

So I helped the man up, with some difficulty, as he was pretty incapable of movement and he weighed a lot. Whereupon he instantly fell again, but somehow miraculously catching himself on telephone pole.

I started off again, letting the intoxicated ramblings of this man slowly fade away behind me. I was pretty uncertain of how he was going to get wherever it was that he was going so I looked back to see how much progress he had made, if any. I saw him with both arms fully wrapped around the telephone pole, like a bear climbing a tree, the next set of stairs directly below him. He had gingerly extended one leg below him and was sort of probing the stairs trying to figure out where they ended. He had learned from his previously folly. Well done drunk man!

I soon caught a taxi and was on my way into the sort of "center" of north Quito. The driver was really nice, he gave me a fair price, as the taxis here don't use their meters at night. We talked a little but mostly the same things I always talk about with taxi drivers. He asked me about Scotland and how easy it would be to get a job there. This question kind of came as a surprise, for most taxi drivers just want to talk about whiskey and how Scottish women are. I didn't really know what kind of a job he was talking about, so I asked him if he drove the taxi during the day or just as a second job at night. He sort of sighed and with what seemed almost like humiliation he told me that he was now driving full time.

Just after that we passed by about 6 or 7 prostitutes standing on the sidewalk whistling at cars. He saw them and it was like gears deep inside him started turing. He pointed them out to me and made a remark about the delinquency in the city. We chatted for a while and we moved onto the topic of muggers. I told him that every single exchange student I know who has been in Quito more than about 2 months, has been robbed at least once. The gears sped up, something was on this guys mind. Then he finally let it out. He told me how he had been robbed 10 times.

He used to be a business owner, he had two company cars, he had stability and a life. Then it was all taken away, by one piece of street scum after another. He lost both cars, and so much money he could no longer run his business. I wasn't going to ask the specifics about how he lost so much money to robbers, but I suspect he was drugged and forced to withdraw money from ATMs, once or multiple times. In his words, "[they] have brought me down from owning my own business to driving a taxi."

The whole time he remained calm, he didn't get angry or sad. He just told it how it was, never speeding up the taxi or anything. He could have been telling me about a trip to the supermarket for all the emotion he expressed. He warned me, as have countless other people, of all the dangers in the city. Then things took another twist.

He said how he wished the police would take muggers and, "shoot them in the street like rats." I felt this man's pain and frustration and despite the extremism of the his view I had to sympathize a little with the opinion. He went on to say that, "[what I] feel for muggers and petty criminals is more than pure hate." he continued looking straight ahead at the road, calm as ever.

He finished his thoughts on the subject by telling me that if I am ever in a group of 3 or more (men) and we get mugged that we should, "beat the mugger as much as possible, the closer to death the better." he added, "any mugger who does not carry a gun is a [spanish slang for homosexual] and deserves to be beaten."

Shortly thereafter we arrived and I paid the taxi, two dollars. I felt bad that I guy who had been dealt such bad cards in life was having to climb back up the ladder two dollars at a time.

Hearing this guys experience and thoughts was sobering, a different angle on a common topic of discussion. Obviously I don't plan on trying to beat robbers in the street, let alone wait until I find out if they are carrying a gun, but my view have changed, ever so slightly.

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A few things:

First, as this is the first thing I have written in a while, please leave comments at the bottom pointing out any errors. I have proofread this, but I am doubting some of the english phrases I wrote. I guess forgetting English is a good sign though...?

Secondly, My next post is going to be about the volunteer work I have been doing recently, Specifically I am teaching young kids in a very poor rural community English. As some of you may know, I am going to be coming back to the US in april for 3 days to do an interview for a school I really want to go to next year. I will be bringing back an overly large suitcase so that I can collect some things to bring these kids. Namely basic english / math teaching materials, pens, crayons and anything else I can find when I am back. So, if anyone would like me to bring these kids something, they would be eternally grateful. However, I am not sure we will be able to make use of 17 packets of crayons, so please try and diversify! I will be back from April 2nd until the 6th, so please drop off or mail items to my parents before then!