Buyer, beware! Some problems with internships abroad.

*Deep breath* Okay, this might get a little lengthy. Since I first signed up for this internship abroad, there have been a few issues. I mean, I was certainly warned that things rarely go as planned when one studies abroad in Latin America because the culture here is pretty laid-back, but still, there have been several small issues that have become bigger ones. Long story short, I don't think for a minute that I'm getting my money's worth of this internship. Allow me to elaborate. The following are some of the issues that my co-intern and I have faced, ranked from biggest problem to least worrisome problem.

1: COMMUNICATION. Straight from the start, there has been a lack of communication. Even when I was still in the States, communication wasn't timely. Our contact for the internship program was stationed in Washington, D.C., and she was trying to coordinate the details of our internship with the contact in El Salvador. I would e-mail her and not hear back for weeks because she was trying to set things up with him and things just weren't very clear. In our packets, it says that we were going to have a phone appointment with our internship coordinator a month before departure to get the details of our internship all set up so that we'd be ready to go. Well, long story short, THREE DAYS before my flight out was when I got my call. Were the details of the internship set up? No. They only thing that they knew for sure was where I was going to be staying and that we'd have a driver, Isaac, to take us where we needed to go when we needed to go. I was told that I would probably be teaching in a k-12 school or a youth center, and that I would be designing my own classing and making my own curriculum to teach English to students who have never spoken English before. While that thought scared me a little bit, it was what I was expecting to happen. It was kind of nerve-wracking for me to stress out for a MONTH about what I might be doing. I had no idea what to prepare, what to expect, where I'd be working or what I'd be doing. I had e-mailed the contact and she either didn't respond or would set up a phone-meeting and then never call.
I assumed that communication problems would not be an issue once I was in-country and would be WITH the program I signed up to work for. Wrong again!
One problem is that our contact here, Alvaro, keeps saying that he'll talk to someone and fix a problem that would come up, and then never talking to that person. Or, he'll say that he'll arrange a ride for us, and then we won't have a ride. Oh, yeah. I still haven't met Isaac. Did they tell us they hired a driver before they actually did? I don't know. Anyway. There were also times when the Casa Maya director, Joaquin, would tell us that he would talk to Alvaro about something, and then when I'd talk to Alvaro about it, I'd find out that the conversation never happened. This was usually related to transport, which brings me to my next point.

2) TRANSPORTATION. In our brochures, our welcome packets, and our phone conversations, we were told that a driver would be hired who could take us where we needed to go when we needed to go. Once we started working, however, transportation became a huge issue! On the first DAY, I was told by the principal of the school I was working at that I needed to be at the school at 7am for my first day. When I told Alvaro this so that he could arrange a ride for me, he said that, no, 7am was too early and that someone would pick me up after 7:30. I was only going by what my "boss" told me, but okay, whatever. He knows the culture here better than I do, so I bit my tongue. The next day, 7:30 came and went and my ride didn't show. I wound up going with my co-intern when HER ride showed up on time. Transportation was an issue because apparently no one had actually been hired to be our driver. We were going to be driven by an ESNA or Casa Maya employee, whoever happened to be closest to Izalco that day. It was very confusing. I let it go at the time, telling myself that I noticed that being "on time" is definitely not as important to people here as it is in the States and that it's no big deal. On Thursday, my cooperating teacher told me that there would be no classes on Friday morning, so I wouldn't start work until 1pm. I told Joaquin this information on the way home, and he said he'd talk to Alvaro about it. So, Friday morning, Guillermo came to pick up Lacey and I didn't go with them. I waited until 1:15, then I called Alvaro to see if someone was coming to get me. Alvaro seemed upset and said that I had to go at whatever time someone showed up at the house in the morning, and even if I don't work, I'm supposed to sit at Casa Maya all day because I have to be there between 8-4 to make my internship count. I said I had talked to Joaquin the day before, and Alvaro said Joaquin never talked to him. He then said he'd talk to Guillermo and call me back, because no one was nearby to drive me. He hung up, and of course, he never called me back. Around 3pm, my co-intern returned to the house and it was she who told me that apparently, no one was available to take me to the school at 1, but it didn't matter because no one would have been able to pick me up at 4:30 after school, anyway. The following Monday, Alvaro told us that he'd hired a new driver, Carlos, because Joaquin was unreliable (no kidding). Carlos, thankfully, has been very reliable so far.

3) WHAT WE WERE TOLD VS. WHAT WE GOT. So, in our internship package, we were charged $800 for weekend excursions. We were also asked to write ESNA a paragraph explaining what kind of work we'd like to do and what kind of excursions we'd like to go on. It's been three weeks, and we haven't been on a single excursion. I wanted to explore the country and see Mayan Ruins, learn about the indigenous culture, go to Santo Domingo, go to beaches, etc., and I also wrote in my letter that I'd like to go to church in San Salvador on Sundays. I also e-mailed Bill, who e-mailed Alvaro, who never followed through. Part of what I'm paying should definitely cover any transportation costs to take me to church, especially since I haven't gone on a single excursion in three weeks, right? Hmm. I talked to Alvaro about that last week, and he SAID that Isaac would pick me up at 8 on Sunday. I don't believe for one minute that that will actually happen, but we'll see. I could be wrong.
I also wrote up my internship for Casa Maya. In fact, the brochure even calls this program a "Casa Maya Internship" through ESNA. Well, when I got here, I found out that ESNA is only very, VERY loosely affiliated with Casa Maya. Am I working at the Casa Maya youth center? No. Do I have my own classes? No. What happened was that Alvaro arranged for me to work with English teachers at the Republica de China school. I have no problem working with another teacher, but what is happening is that I'm working with students who have learned SOME English. I'm working with 5 different grade levels. I am starting work 3/4 through the school year. I don't know what these kids have already learned, or where they need to go from there. What's been happening is that instead of working WITH the school or WITH the teacher, the teacher will just hand me a book, say "the kids need to do this activity," and then just leave me alone with the class. He's getting paid to go sit outside or in the office and talk to other students, and I'm paying to be here and flounder around in front of a classroom. I don't agree with his methodology, and when an assignment was obviously too hard for the students, I talked to him about it, but he said that students just need to hear and talk English. Comprehension and understanding apparently don't mean much. It's just hear and repeat and saying words without understanding. I talked about this to Alvaro, and Alvaro is telling me that I'm supposed to BE the teacher, because my methods are more modern and advanced, and I speak better English than the teacher I work with. Well, I'm sorry. If you want me to BE a teacher, then let me set up my own classes at the youth center, where it said in the brochure that I'd work. I'm not going to do this guy's job FOR him while he gets paid and I pay an organization to do who knows what with my money. I don't mind working in tandem with a teacher. I've done that several times in the U.S. I don't mind training teachers to be more effective. I do mind being stuck "being" the teacher when I don't know any school rules, I don't know enough Spanish to tell kids to stop fighting and kicking each other or to tell kids who aren't in the class to stop coming into the classroom and distracting the students while they work. If I'm going to work in a PUBLIC school, I NEED a teacher to stand by me.

On the positive side, though, at least I HAVE work. I do love working with the kids, even if I don't really like the particular teacher I work with in the mornings.
In the afternoons, I work with kindergartners at another school building with a different teacher, Jaqueline. She is a very organized, thorough, caring teacher with absolutely great classroom management skills. Even though I'm not that thrilled about teaching kindergarten (it's hard and I'm more comfortable with older kids), I do like the kids and I LOVE working with Jacqueline.
Also, even though there have been these issues, it isn't as though I'm getting NOTHING out of this experience. Yes, there are annoyances, but I'm still in a situation to learn a lot of Spanish and a lot about the culture here, which is the main reason I came. Learning was my primary goal; teaching was my secondary goal. I'm definitely learning a lot about what to do and what not to do and how to make the best of a situation that isn't entirely ideal. I'm also learning a lot about the do's and don'ts of teaching a foreign language. I have certainly taken classes about teaching ESL and I've read books about it, but I haven't really practiced it. Even though the school situation isn't what I expected, it's certainly not bad. I'm still learning a lot and I do think I'm making a difference. I really don't feel like I'm getting my money's worth on the "excursions", though, and I still wonder what ESNA has to do with Casa Maya, since I'm apparently NOT working for Casa Maya, even though that's what I wrote up my internship for. I think I have some e-mails and phone calls to make.

My co-intern paid for this expensive internship and flew all the way down here just to find out that there is absolutely no work for her in the field that she signed up for, so she's pretty disappointed and is flying back to the States in a week. I'm not really looking forward to being down here alone for six weeks, especially when my Spanish is still fairly weak. I think this entire experience is an exercise in patience and also learning that, for future reference, I will not pay for expensive programs when I cannot get all the information up front. Always make clarifications to ensure that you will at least get what you pay for.