Yet another goal:

Go HERE.

Librería de español

¡Mi primer blog en español! (sorry to the english speakers. But there is a translator to your right) Y entonces disculpame por los errores. Siempre estoy mejorando mi español, pero siempre hay mas para mejorar.

Bueno.

Estaba en el Convención Nacional de los Bahais de Ecuador este fin de semana pasado. Este experiencia era fantástica: llena de alegría y aprendizaje. Trabajaba mas con los niños y prejóvenes, y esto tambien era una experiencia muy rica.

Muchos personas que vinieron al Convencion hablan inglés. Esto era una diferencia de lo que estoy acostumbrado en Otavalo...realmente estoy sumergido en español en la casa, pero era muy fresca hablar mi idioma más cómodo, con ambos adultos y prejovenes. Pienso que puedo expresar de mi mismo mucho mejor en inglés (duh) pero quiero tener el mismo comodidad con otros idiomas (por eso el Blog en español.) Quiero hablar con la facilidad que tiene Nabil con inglés, el entendimiento de Ruhi (¡es bilingüe con 6 años!) y tener el capacidad a decir lo que está en mi mente sin pensando tanto en como voy a decirlo.

Esto es algo que siempre venía muy facilmente. Para escribir o hablar no había dificultades: solo pensé y hablé. ¿Pero para tratar a decir en otra idioma? Las palabras no me fluyen al mente. Este año me ha enseñado a actualmente planificar lo que digo. Y me ha enseñado a ser paciente con mi mismo, usando el ejemplo de los amigos sumamente pacientes que siempre me escuchaban a pesar de mis errores, confusión, y "¿que cosa? ¿Como como? No entendí..." que vino de mi boca cada dia.

Pero ya está. Ahora me siento que tengo un nivel de comprensión (más o menos) firma: puedo entender lo que me dicen y puedo explicarme para funcionar. Y ahora me toca a actualmente comprender: quiero hablar con buen gramatica, sin tartamudeos.

Entonces compré libros. Estaba pensando: realmente, mi abilidad a escribir en inglés vino de un amor de leer. También Alejandro me dijo que leer es una manera para mejorar mi español. Cuando estoy escuchando en la vida diario, la gente hace faltas de gramatica, y no hablan en frases completas. Es el mismo en inglés. Pero cuando leo, estoy escuchando (pues, leyendo) de gramatica correcta, frases completas. Es literatura.

Por eso, compré algunos libros para empezar mi librería de español (mamí, no te preocupes, si estoy pensando sobre cuánto pesa mi maleta!). Compré el manual para los pioneros. Es de Rúhiyyih Khanum y he leído partes en antes: es muy bueno, no solo por los pioneros sino por los jóvenes de servicio y actualmente todos que están pensando sobre servicio. Tambien compré "Derechos Humanos: Fundamentos Espirituales". Tiene muchos citas de todos los religiones, tan pronto como vi pensé sobre los devocionales de jóvenes, porque tambien tiene explicaciones sobre las citas y sus implicaciones en la vida. Estoy muy emocionada para leerlo.

Y finalmente (adecuadamente) tengo un libro de oraciones. Porque aunque la palabra de Dios es bien dificil para comprender, aunque sea superficilmente, es tan bonita para leer. Creo que no importa la idioma: cuando leo o escucho a un oración, no es tanto el entendimiento intelectual sino espiritual. Y, como todos los cosas, cuando se agrega entendimiento intelectual al entendimiento espiritual, se crece su conocimiento entero miles de veces.

Estoy contenta. Ahora, me voy a leer. Chao!

Homecoming...and going

I love traveling. I just spent one of the best weeks I had here, traveling through Ecuador (and that trip will get the long, picture-filled post it deserves very soon). One of the things I love most about traveling, though, is coming home. Its the familiarity, the relief of wearing clothes that do not smell like a mixture of salt water and sweat, the clean sheets. Even the slug trails covering our kitchen windows and sink were welcome (at least more than they are usually) because it meant that I was at home.

Home.

I truly think of this place as my home. When I'm upset and that "I wanna go home" whine starts in my head, its describing my comfortable spot on the bed (which now has 3 cochones, so I can't even feel the slats anymore!). I am so happy here.

And so, of course, time speeds up and I realized I only have 6 more weeks before going back to Alaska.

Which makes me incredibly sad. I want to stay. I want to keep up with my clases de niños and finish the curriculum with them. I want to see Claudia's baby. I want to see Kendy continue his English-Language Explosion. I want to be able to visit all of the welcoming, amazing, beautiful people I have met here, and have them visit me.

I've done so much this past year. But there is so much more I want to do, and contemplating those 6 weeks is scary and all sorts of sad. But I pray for detachment, and try to focus on the time I do have.

And if anyone has any ideas on 1)Teleportation, 2)Maintaining Alaskan Residency while living abroad or 3) Deferring another year, please don't be afraid to speak up.

Good things and bad things (the Good DEF outweigh the bad)

I am on vacations!!!! Hurrah!

Here are some good things and bad things (bad first, because there's very few of them) about my life currently:

BAD:

1. I went to Esmeraldas and Selva Alegre in the past 3 days. Which means I have mosquito bites, that don't itch, but they are all scabby and gross. Which means that tomorrow, when I arrive in Manta (coast! Good!) and I wear shorts, my legs will be all scabby and gross.

2. For some reason, I have ringworm on my leg. Which grosses me out too.

3. I cried for the first time whilst considering my departure from Ecuador, this place I love so much. And I'm very very sad about this. Its started to become a countdown: will this be the last time I see someone? I have to plan out my vacations because I don't have many left. And this is the weirdest feeling of all: a mixture of dread and excitement.

GOOD:

1. I spent the last few days with Kendy, Dagmar, Geoconda, and Jose Luis traveling to Esmeraldas and Selva Alegre (which literally means "happy jungle") and I got to spend a lot of time with two of my favorite children in the world.

2. A lot of this time was spent on the beach.

3. I ate verdes, which are green bananas that are fried, and I liked them. This is because they don't taste like bananas.

4. The last day, I swam in a river with 3 of my favoritest people in the world. And also helped Kendy learn to "swim" in the river.

5. We cooked over an open fire and had lunch out of banana leaves: the closest I've come to camping since I've been here, and I missed it.

6. One of my favorite prebasica students' newborn sister is named VALERIE! And when I asked his older brother (all of 7 years old) he says his parents named the baby after me. Which I doubt, because I don't actually know their parents. But its still nice to be thought of.

7. The same brother (named Rafael) wasn't studying, so I said "If you don't work at school, I'll just have to come to your house over vacation and make you work then!" as a joke. But the next day, he told me "My mom says you should come over and teach me English over break!" Which I unfortunately can't do, because

8. I AM LEAVING IN LESS THAN 10 MINUTES TO GO TO THE COAST WHERE I WILL VISIT VERY AMAZING PEOPLE AND THEN GO TO NATIONAL CONVENTION! WITH MARYAM!

9. Last night I ate a delicious vegetarian sandwich.

10. I listened to Harry Potter while I packed. Man, I love Harry Potter.

11. My room is finally clean (this morning I couldn't see my bed, and hadn't done laundry for the better part of a month) and so I will come back to clean sheets, visible bed, and clothes I can actually find!

12. My sister Cori decided she's going to Western!!! YAY YAY YAY FOR MY SISTER!!!

13. MY SISTER IS COMING IN ONE MONTH AND 5 DAYS!!!!!!!! HURRAH HURRAH FOR MY SISTER!!!!



Life is good.

Something I Hate

I HATE GRADES.

I hate the concept: let's give each student a numerical value associated with success! And then, lets organize them into who has high values and who has low values. And what is this based on? How much they know? I wish.

There's a stronger correlation between AGE and grades than between how much they know. And then some people don't work, but because they do good on the test (because this is the 3rd time they're taking this class) they get a better grade than someone who is honestly trying. And the worst part is they KNOW they're cheating the system and they think it's all great! AHGHFH

Additionally, me and Excel are not on good terms. Because sometimes, the numbers copy and paste, and sometimes they don't. And I never got a tutorial on this. I was mostly told "hey you need to turn in your grades tomorrow" and then I learned. More or less.

Also, I'm REALLY REALLY HUNGRY.

I HATE GRADES.

Thank you, rant over. My next post will be cheerful, I promise.

My not-so-secret aspiration.

So you know how everyone has these secret aspirations? If I was more daring, I would become a lounge singer. I secretly think I could be a great film director. I wanna be an astronaut. Or, in the words of Alex from "Everything is Illuminated" (its a good movie, you should watch it) "I write too, but I think I was born to be an accountant."

Well, my secret aspiration involves me being a restaurant co-owner. And not just any restaurant co-owner.

I want to make pies.


I love pies. I love making them,  I love eating them (although I love making them more, which is probably a good thing.) I like the creativity of arranging a restaurant and themeifying it. I like the idea of having an industrial sized oven and going home with flour in my hair. I like the idea of working with Elika, even if its 14 hour days.

And until this year, this dream has been kind of a random ambiguous type aspiration. But now I'm kind of thinking, why not? I like baking, I make tolerably delicious desserts, I'm a fair head with numbers, and UAF* has both culinary arts and business classes. (I mean, I'm still wanting to take foreign languages...but I can do both, right?)

Another sign that made me think Hey, this could actually work! is that in a secondhand store today, I found waitress outfits.

So this is me in my head, thinking about my future:

And this is the dress I got for Elika, just in case (and if the whole restaurant thing doesn't work out, we could always be the waitress sidekick from the delicious movie "The Waitress"):

So my secret aspiration: unveiled to the world (although everyone who reads this proabably knows it anyway). See you in 10 years: possibly as a translator, possibly as a bum on the other side of the world, and possibly as a foreign traveling piemakeress (think Vianne in Chocolat, only with pie), possibly in Anytown, USA, with a cheery smile and a menu.


*Oh yeah, that's where I'll be next year, if I didn't tell you. Go Nanooks!

The Blame

I was reading an article (a good one! Read it!) here about Greece's economical reality and its underlying emotional and psychological causes, and I saw a lot of similarities between that culture and Ecuadorian culture. This sentence particularly stood out:


"So as people who feel powerless frequently do, the population blames everyone but themselves for their current situation..."


Something I've noticed about the culture here is blame. When I admonish a student for any reason, the reply that comes is "es que..." (it's just that...) He hit me first. (and someone has a pencil scratch on their cheek) She was bothering me. (and I have two blubbering 3 year olds) I have to go to the bathroom. (getting up and leaving in the middle of a class) I wasn't in class. (after missing class for a week without notice or asking for any work, and wondering why they had a bad grade). Even within the administration, I see blame instead of taking responsibility. It's all blame blame blame!

And reading the above quote made me think about the causes of this inevitable "it wasn't my fault" attitude. Is it because they feel powerless? I can understand that feeling. Don't I feel powerless when my students get consistently low grades on my test despite my best efforts to teach? Of course, and that leads me to blaming the book, my lack of training, my student's lack of engagement. And despite those all being contributing factors, I can't just shove the blame onto those reasons.

Another thing that brought Ecuador to mind in the article was this attitude of "too cool for school". To some extent, I think this is present in every school. But I see it so much here, and it makes me so sad. To idolize someone who skids through high school, getting horrible grades with a careless attitude is so counterproductive. Especially compared to the opposite ideal: Work hard, and use school as an opportunity to better yourself (and possibly accept that the things teachers ask you to do are for your own learning and they don't need to ARGUE everything!).

This attitude isn't omnipotent here. Julian and Cristina come to mind: they study when they need to study. They do their homework, learn from it (gasp!) and as a result are looked upon as geniuses (genii?) by their fellow students. And they both are intelligent. But their good grades comes from honest work and commitment.

The worst part for me is that a lot of my students don't see the connection between working hard and success (weather it manifests itself by good grades, going to university, or speaking English). My students will haphazardly copy their homework throughout the entire unit, not pay attention, and then be ostentatiously upset with their test score. Sometimes I just want to scream at them "DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT YOU CAN TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR OWN FUTURE?"

But of course that would just be even more counterproductive.

The second-worse part for me (or maybe the worst. Actually, they're tied for the worst) is that I don't see the school community stepping up to the challenge of high-achieving students. I see them giving punishments to those who are "malcriado" (which is a word I absolutely hate and refuse to use. It literally means "created badly") and threatening to call their parents. I see them giving sanctions and unhappy ultimatums. What I don't see, and what I want to see so much, is a set of clear expectations. I want to see consistent consequences. I want to see an actual process for dealing with misbehaving students! Because in the 7 months I've been here, I have seen how the culture of punishment contributes to the culture of uncaring, and how it just leads to a downward spiral.

This was a gripey blog post. Truly, I love the school. I love the students and their random sayings. I love how my routine bus ride home has become a story-telling time for two of my students, wide eyed as I retell in broken Spanish Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I love that students call me by my first name, and sometimes use the "Ud." (formal) tense and sometimes the "tú" (informal) tense with me. I love how the class I have once a week asks me, throughout the week, what we will do for those 40 minutes I'm with them. I love that sometimes, they have school wide days like today, where each class cooks a food and researches the nutritional facts behind it, and its like Costco samples but with fresh corn on the cob, pumpkin puree, cheese empanadas, and morocho.

I love Ecuador. But I would love it even more if blame was exchanged with responsibility.