*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.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Thursday, April 3
In order to get to Sonsonate, we took public buses. What an experience! The buses are basically recycled school buses from the U.S., and they cost $0.25 to ride. On the way to Sonsonate, we took two buses. The first bus wasn't very crowded, and we only rode it for about 3 miles or so, but the second bus was a VERY crowded ride! The seats filled up quickly, but the bus kept stopping and picking up people. There were bars installed in the ceiling of the bus for people to stand in the aisles and hold on. That bus became a 50 mph sardine can! People were PACKED in the aisle, to the point where there were even people standing in the open doorway of the bus, as it's moving, because there was just no room to squeeze forward. Finally, in Sonsonate, the bus emptied and we got off. We walked to the Palacio Cultural where the play was. I think that our group arrived early and the play started late, because we waited almost an hour for the play to start. The play itself lasted only an hour. It was about the civil war in the 1980s. I didn't understand all of the Spanish, but I understood enough to get the gist of the play.
While there, I sat with some of the 11th graders whom I'd met the day before. A small group of kids took a particular liking to me, and they asked me to sit with them and they even bought me an apple nectar drink.
After the play, we had to run all the way across Sonsonate to the bus terminal. By the time I got on the bus, all the seats were taken and so I got to experience riding a bus standing in the middle and holding onto a metal bar for dear life! I felt really bad for all of the locals squashed against me, because everyone around me was just tall enough so that their noses were level with my stinky, sweaty armpits. You see, the theater had no air conditioning, and then after practically jogging a mile in the sun to the bus, well, I was a mess. After a long, bumpy ride, we finally made it back to Caluco. I could not believe how crowded the bus got! It got to the point where I thought I might fall over because I had only enough space to stand on my tippy toes so that other people could squeeze in around me! One could say I was getting intimate with the locals. What an experience!
School days
My first day of working at the Republica of China school was a week ago. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, although I met with the principal and the teacher that Monday. The principal is a really nice, friendly man. He loves to talk....and talk....and talk! We visited a bit about what I'd like to get out of my internship here, who I'll be working with, what my schedule will be, and then he was asking me how to spell and pronounce my names. "Brittanie" is a very difficult name to pronounce here, I learned! Since my first day here, I learned that I'm better off introducing myself as "Brídni," because that's easier to understand and to pronounce for most people here. The other weird thing about my name is that almost everyone says, "Oh, like Britney Spears!" Apparently, that's the only Britney that most folks here have heard of. Anyway, the principal was also excited to learn that I was from Ellensburg,Washington. He is the only person I've met here who actually 1) knows that Washington state is NOT the same as Washington, D.C., and 2) knows where my TOWN is! He has driven by Ellensburg several times when he's gone to Renton or Moses Lake to visit his kids and grandkids. He said that next time, he'll have to actually stop and take a look around the town.
The school day is divided into two shifts: morning from 7:15-12:15 (roughly), and afternoon from 1-5:15pm. Students only attend school for half of a day, which makes sense because there are probably more than 1,000 students at this K-12 school (it's a small community, and 1,000 students is a lot of kids for a K-12 school). The school itself is divided into two locations: The older building is next to the central park of Caluco, and the newer buildings are on the way into Caluco, right on the edge of town. I will be working with older students, grades 7 through II bachillerato (the equivalent of 11th grade) in the morning at the old building, and 6-year-olds in the afternoon at the new building with teacher Jacqueline.
Every morning shift, I work with Don Jesús. The first class of the day was with seventh grade students, and they were a pretty animated group! Normal class sizes here range from 30-40 students (20 is a small group here), and the seventh grade class was, I think, somewhere around 32 students.
Don Jesús introduced me to the students and they came up one by one to say "Hi, my name is... what's your name? ...Nice to meet you." This was so that they could practice making introductions in English. 7th Grade is the first year that students start taking an entire class of English for the whole school year. Each grade has an English class for a couple of hours once a week. Classes are in blocks, and not every class meets every day.
Anyway, there was then time for the students to ask me questions using words and phrases in English. One of the students asked if I was related to Britney Spears, and another asked if I was Britney Spears, and I said no. I jokingly said that she's crazy and does drugs, and I don't. Don Jesús explained to me that people here don't know anything about the lifestyle of celebrities, they just know the name and the music, so the students wouldn't understand that Britney Spears might not be a great person to compare me to.
Many of the kids asked me if I liked Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, and One Direction. While I know that many youngsters in the U.S. are fans of such artists, I am not, so I just told the kids I haven't listened to the songs of those singers. We spent maybe 20-30 minutes of introductions and Q&A before the teacher announced that it was time for the students to have recess. Okay, I thought. "Wow, it's already 8:45? That sure didn't feel like an hour and a half." You see, the "official school schedule" that I was given says that each day, classes last from 7:15-8:45, then a 15 minute recess, then from 9:00-10:30, then another recess then from 10:15-12:15. What actually happened on my first day was that there were three 20-25 minute breaks between 7:30, when class actually started, and 10 am. I was pretty confused. The teacher also left during all of these breaks, and I didn't know what to do, so I just sat in the classroom and waited for him to come back and start class again each time. During the first break, students were talking with me and asking me about music and such, and that was pretty fun. During the second break, a girl brought me a bean pupusa, and that was really thoughtful of her (it was also a delicious pupusa). Some girls were sitting in the corner of the room giggling and making fun of how I was eating the pupusa, but I didn't care. I was glad I could be an entertaining foreigner, at least. During every break, students were running around outside, kicking soccer balls and each other, screaming at the tops of their lungs, fighting, wrestling, etc. It wasn't until the third break, though, that as I was talking with a student, I saw a girl fall down out of the corner of my eye. I looked over and she was sitting on the floor beside a desk, clutching her elbows across her stomach. At first, I thought she just fell and hit her elbow on the desk, but then she wasn't getting up and some students were gathering around her. I got up and knelt by her side, and I asked her in Spanish if she was okay. She nodded weakly, and I asked a girl next to her what happened. "She fell," said the girl. My mind was racing. I had no idea what to do. No one had told me any school rules or policies, and I didn't even know if there was like a nurse's office or any kind of first aid available. Am I responsible for this child's safety? I certainly feel responsible as a teacher. I didn't know where Don Jesús had gone, since he would just disappear without warning. I just sat there by the girl, worried, unsure of what to do. After a minute that felt like an eternity, Don Jesús walked into the classroom and saw me kneeling by an injured kid. "Well, this sure looks great," I thought. He asked what happened, and this time the injured girl said that one of the boys had kicked her in the stomach as he was roughhousing with his friends. Why the heck did the other girl tell me she just fell? Don Jesús just asked her to stand up. Then, he asked me if accidents like that happen in U.S. schools. "Sometimes," I said. What I was really thinking was that in U.S. schools, teachers are responsible for the students and it's illegal for them to leave students unattended, but I somehow didn't think that was an appropriate response.
At 10, the classes changed. Seventh grade went to another class, and 10th graders came in to learn English. The 10th graders, or primer bachillerato, were learning about the seasons of the United States. Here in El Salvador, there are only two seasons: Summer (hot and humid) and Winter (rainy and slightly cooler), so the teacher wanted the students to learn about the four seasons in the U.S. He asked me to write some sentences on the whiteboard about each season, for instance, what do people do or wear in each season? How is the weather? etc. Students would copy this into their notebooks. As I started writing, Don Jesús disappeared again, but instead of leaving for a few minutes or during a break, he left me in charge of a class of 10th graders for almost an hour. Needless to say, it did NOT take me an hour to write three sentences about each season and have students copy it down. I even took my time, reading each sentence aloud and having the students repeat after me to get some practice hearing and speaking English words. After we finished the activity, I paused and looked outside the class to see if I could spot Don Jesús. No sign of him. So, I awkwardly walked back to his desk and looked in the English as a foreign language text book he was using with the kids. I had no idea what he wanted them to do next, but one of the activities in the book consisted of two columns: one of the four seasons, and the other with activities and adjectives relating to each season. It was a matching excercise. I borrowed this idea and just kind of made up something on the spot so that I wouldn't lose the students' interest. I went to the board, and on the left, I wrote a list of "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter," and on the right, I wrote two columns of words related to each season. I only used words that I had already written in the descriptive sentences, like "hot," "cool," "windy," "sunny," "rainy," "tank-tops," "ski," etc. I had no idea how to say "I want you guys to match these words with these words," in Spanish, but I gave it a shot. What basically came out was me pointing and gesturing elaborately while saying something to the effect of "write this in your journals, and put these words with these words, like this," and I demonstrated what I wanted. The kids were pretty confused, but they started writing it down, anyway. Although these kids are learning English, my accent is very different from the thick Spanish accent of the English teacher, so even when I spoke very slowly, they had a hard time understanding me. I just tried to explain directions and words in Spanish. After the students struggled with the activity for a few minutes, Guillermo, my ride, and Lacey, the other intern, showed up outside the classroom door. They were here to pick me up, but Guillermo accidentally had arrived an hour early, and the profe was still absent. I quickly asked Guillermo how to say "matching" in Spanish, and he told me, so then I re-explained the exercise to the students, to a chorus of "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" I noticed that there were a few students who were still struggling, so I asked them if it would be better to do this together, and they said yes. So I asked students in Spanish which words go with Winter, and then some would hesitantly pronounce the words "cold" or "ski" and I would draw a line between those words on the board and the word "Winter." Eventually, with the help of the students, the only words left to match to the seasons were "sunny," "rainy" and "windy." I realized that I had committed a big TESL mistake, because I had taken nouns and made them adjectives. I asked the class if they knew what those words meant, and no one did, so I explained the meanings in Spanish. After that, the students quickly and correctly matched "sunny" with summer, "rainy" with spring and "windy" with fall. Finally, Guillermo, Lacey, and, surprise, Don Jesús came back to the class. The teacher asked if we finished the activity and I said yes, so he asked Lacey and me to demonstrate a mock-conversation in front of the class so that they could hear English being spoken. Lacey and I spoke very slowly about how hot it is in El Salvador. The teacher asked the class if they understood us, and they said no. He said he didn't understand us either, and the students laughed!
After that, I went back home to Conny's house. It was a very interesting day. I wouldn't mind being left alone with students if I KNEW I was going to be in charge of the class so that I could plan activities. I have no idea how much English the students already know, so I'm not sure what activities might be appropriate. It would also be helpful to know the school rules. I don't like seeing kids fight and hit and kick and throw things at each other, but none of the teachers seem to do or say anything, so I didn't want to overstep my bounds by saying something. I also don't know how to say "stop that," or "quit it" or "don't fight" in Spanish. Those may be phrases I'll have to learn if I'm going to have any sort of classroom management.
The school day is divided into two shifts: morning from 7:15-12:15 (roughly), and afternoon from 1-5:15pm. Students only attend school for half of a day, which makes sense because there are probably more than 1,000 students at this K-12 school (it's a small community, and 1,000 students is a lot of kids for a K-12 school). The school itself is divided into two locations: The older building is next to the central park of Caluco, and the newer buildings are on the way into Caluco, right on the edge of town. I will be working with older students, grades 7 through II bachillerato (the equivalent of 11th grade) in the morning at the old building, and 6-year-olds in the afternoon at the new building with teacher Jacqueline.
Every morning shift, I work with Don Jesús. The first class of the day was with seventh grade students, and they were a pretty animated group! Normal class sizes here range from 30-40 students (20 is a small group here), and the seventh grade class was, I think, somewhere around 32 students.
Don Jesús introduced me to the students and they came up one by one to say "Hi, my name is... what's your name? ...Nice to meet you." This was so that they could practice making introductions in English. 7th Grade is the first year that students start taking an entire class of English for the whole school year. Each grade has an English class for a couple of hours once a week. Classes are in blocks, and not every class meets every day.
Anyway, there was then time for the students to ask me questions using words and phrases in English. One of the students asked if I was related to Britney Spears, and another asked if I was Britney Spears, and I said no. I jokingly said that she's crazy and does drugs, and I don't. Don Jesús explained to me that people here don't know anything about the lifestyle of celebrities, they just know the name and the music, so the students wouldn't understand that Britney Spears might not be a great person to compare me to.
Many of the kids asked me if I liked Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, and One Direction. While I know that many youngsters in the U.S. are fans of such artists, I am not, so I just told the kids I haven't listened to the songs of those singers. We spent maybe 20-30 minutes of introductions and Q&A before the teacher announced that it was time for the students to have recess. Okay, I thought. "Wow, it's already 8:45? That sure didn't feel like an hour and a half." You see, the "official school schedule" that I was given says that each day, classes last from 7:15-8:45, then a 15 minute recess, then from 9:00-10:30, then another recess then from 10:15-12:15. What actually happened on my first day was that there were three 20-25 minute breaks between 7:30, when class actually started, and 10 am. I was pretty confused. The teacher also left during all of these breaks, and I didn't know what to do, so I just sat in the classroom and waited for him to come back and start class again each time. During the first break, students were talking with me and asking me about music and such, and that was pretty fun. During the second break, a girl brought me a bean pupusa, and that was really thoughtful of her (it was also a delicious pupusa). Some girls were sitting in the corner of the room giggling and making fun of how I was eating the pupusa, but I didn't care. I was glad I could be an entertaining foreigner, at least. During every break, students were running around outside, kicking soccer balls and each other, screaming at the tops of their lungs, fighting, wrestling, etc. It wasn't until the third break, though, that as I was talking with a student, I saw a girl fall down out of the corner of my eye. I looked over and she was sitting on the floor beside a desk, clutching her elbows across her stomach. At first, I thought she just fell and hit her elbow on the desk, but then she wasn't getting up and some students were gathering around her. I got up and knelt by her side, and I asked her in Spanish if she was okay. She nodded weakly, and I asked a girl next to her what happened. "She fell," said the girl. My mind was racing. I had no idea what to do. No one had told me any school rules or policies, and I didn't even know if there was like a nurse's office or any kind of first aid available. Am I responsible for this child's safety? I certainly feel responsible as a teacher. I didn't know where Don Jesús had gone, since he would just disappear without warning. I just sat there by the girl, worried, unsure of what to do. After a minute that felt like an eternity, Don Jesús walked into the classroom and saw me kneeling by an injured kid. "Well, this sure looks great," I thought. He asked what happened, and this time the injured girl said that one of the boys had kicked her in the stomach as he was roughhousing with his friends. Why the heck did the other girl tell me she just fell? Don Jesús just asked her to stand up. Then, he asked me if accidents like that happen in U.S. schools. "Sometimes," I said. What I was really thinking was that in U.S. schools, teachers are responsible for the students and it's illegal for them to leave students unattended, but I somehow didn't think that was an appropriate response.
At 10, the classes changed. Seventh grade went to another class, and 10th graders came in to learn English. The 10th graders, or primer bachillerato, were learning about the seasons of the United States. Here in El Salvador, there are only two seasons: Summer (hot and humid) and Winter (rainy and slightly cooler), so the teacher wanted the students to learn about the four seasons in the U.S. He asked me to write some sentences on the whiteboard about each season, for instance, what do people do or wear in each season? How is the weather? etc. Students would copy this into their notebooks. As I started writing, Don Jesús disappeared again, but instead of leaving for a few minutes or during a break, he left me in charge of a class of 10th graders for almost an hour. Needless to say, it did NOT take me an hour to write three sentences about each season and have students copy it down. I even took my time, reading each sentence aloud and having the students repeat after me to get some practice hearing and speaking English words. After we finished the activity, I paused and looked outside the class to see if I could spot Don Jesús. No sign of him. So, I awkwardly walked back to his desk and looked in the English as a foreign language text book he was using with the kids. I had no idea what he wanted them to do next, but one of the activities in the book consisted of two columns: one of the four seasons, and the other with activities and adjectives relating to each season. It was a matching excercise. I borrowed this idea and just kind of made up something on the spot so that I wouldn't lose the students' interest. I went to the board, and on the left, I wrote a list of "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter," and on the right, I wrote two columns of words related to each season. I only used words that I had already written in the descriptive sentences, like "hot," "cool," "windy," "sunny," "rainy," "tank-tops," "ski," etc. I had no idea how to say "I want you guys to match these words with these words," in Spanish, but I gave it a shot. What basically came out was me pointing and gesturing elaborately while saying something to the effect of "write this in your journals, and put these words with these words, like this," and I demonstrated what I wanted. The kids were pretty confused, but they started writing it down, anyway. Although these kids are learning English, my accent is very different from the thick Spanish accent of the English teacher, so even when I spoke very slowly, they had a hard time understanding me. I just tried to explain directions and words in Spanish. After the students struggled with the activity for a few minutes, Guillermo, my ride, and Lacey, the other intern, showed up outside the classroom door. They were here to pick me up, but Guillermo accidentally had arrived an hour early, and the profe was still absent. I quickly asked Guillermo how to say "matching" in Spanish, and he told me, so then I re-explained the exercise to the students, to a chorus of "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" I noticed that there were a few students who were still struggling, so I asked them if it would be better to do this together, and they said yes. So I asked students in Spanish which words go with Winter, and then some would hesitantly pronounce the words "cold" or "ski" and I would draw a line between those words on the board and the word "Winter." Eventually, with the help of the students, the only words left to match to the seasons were "sunny," "rainy" and "windy." I realized that I had committed a big TESL mistake, because I had taken nouns and made them adjectives. I asked the class if they knew what those words meant, and no one did, so I explained the meanings in Spanish. After that, the students quickly and correctly matched "sunny" with summer, "rainy" with spring and "windy" with fall. Finally, Guillermo, Lacey, and, surprise, Don Jesús came back to the class. The teacher asked if we finished the activity and I said yes, so he asked Lacey and me to demonstrate a mock-conversation in front of the class so that they could hear English being spoken. Lacey and I spoke very slowly about how hot it is in El Salvador. The teacher asked the class if they understood us, and they said no. He said he didn't understand us either, and the students laughed!
After that, I went back home to Conny's house. It was a very interesting day. I wouldn't mind being left alone with students if I KNEW I was going to be in charge of the class so that I could plan activities. I have no idea how much English the students already know, so I'm not sure what activities might be appropriate. It would also be helpful to know the school rules. I don't like seeing kids fight and hit and kick and throw things at each other, but none of the teachers seem to do or say anything, so I didn't want to overstep my bounds by saying something. I also don't know how to say "stop that," or "quit it" or "don't fight" in Spanish. Those may be phrases I'll have to learn if I'm going to have any sort of classroom management.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Los Chuchos de El Salvador
Let me just start off with this: If anyone is or knows a veterinarian, please come to El Salvador and fix and/or rescue the poor, mangy mutts here. My heart aches for these suffering animals. Here are some pictures of a FEW of the stray dogs, called chuchos, that I have seen in the past few weeks. Some have mange. Some are blind. Some are so malnourished that you can count every bone in their body. All are swarming with fleas. None are spayed or neutered, meaning that I have also seen a couple of litters of puppies. These pups are so scrawny and sick that I doubt they'll reach adulthood; in fact, some, I think, may well become food for other dogs. The chuchos are well-behaved. They never bother people, according to some of the locals I talked to. They just limp around towns looking for a puddle of water, a scrap of tortilla, anything to stave off death by starvation. Well, most of the dogs can get around. I have seen a few whose hind legs are too crippled to walk, and so they hobble or drag themselves through the streets. I have only seen one dogfight so far, when some males started brawling over a spilled bowl of rice and beans in a yard. I have heard that sometimes the government will round up a bunch of stray dogs and just shoot them. I have seen little kids, maybe 5 years old, run after a chucho in a school yard, kicking its bony hindquarters and legs. The poor dog was so wasted away and sick that it couldn't even run away from the boys. For the most part, though, people more or less ignore the dogs, except in some cruel cases, as I've mentioned.
I've seen people here, too, like those in Las Trincheras, who live their lives much like these chuchos: they're sick, crippled, and have to beg for food. Dogs are not the only sufferers here, but then again, neither are the people. While it's great that there are aid groups that come here and offer free healthcare to the poor, it'd be beneficial for everyone if the animals could also get help. If the animals were fixed, there wouldn't be so many starving, fleabitten animals spreading their diseases and insects everywhere (they also might be quieter if they're not going in heat all the time). I don't know what course of action is appropriate or necessary; I don't claim to ever have been any great animal care advocate or anything, but it just breaks my heart to see these poor li'l guys suffering in the heat here.
Friday, April 4, 2014
Michelle reads to us!
Today was a weird day. I was supposed to go work at the school at 1pm because there were no classes this morning. Yesterday, I told Joaquín, the director of ESNA and the man who's been driving Lacey and me to work every morning, that I didn't have classes until 1 today. He said he would talk to Alvaro, our other contact, about it since Joaquín was going to be gone today. I was letting him know that I didn't need a ride in the morning but I needed one in the afternoon. So this morning, I stayed at the house while Lacey left with Guillermo. I assumed that the ESNA employees would actually follow through with what they said they would do and communicate, but, as has been the case since I first signed up for this program, there was again a blatant lack of communication. At 1:15, I called Alvaro and asked if anyone was coming to get me, and he said that I was supposed to go with whoever came to pick us up in the mornings because at 7 and at 4:30 were the times that someone could drive us. I was supposed to be at a school, either Casa Maya or Republica de China from 8 to 4 every day (even if there's no work, as was the case this morning). I said okay, that I didn't know because yesterday I had talked to Joaquín who said he'd talk to Alvaro. Alvaro sighed and said that he was with Guillermo, and they weren't near Izalco to get me. He said he'd talk to Guillermo and call me back. He never called me back (big surprise...). So, I basically just worked on my Spanish blog in the morning, took a nap, read Harry Potter in Spanish, called Alvaro, and then went back to reading Harry Potter. That was my "work" day. Around 2, Lacey returned to the house and told me that they had said that no one was going to take me to the school because no one would be available to pick me up afterward. I then wondered what the big deal was if no one could have taken me home at 5:15 when my day was originally supposed to end. There's just a huge lack of communication and it has caused problems since I first signed up for this internship. At least I get to do what I came here to do. I came here expecting to teach English, and I get to work as a teacher's aide. Lacey, the other intern, however, has definitely gotten the short end of the stick this whole time. She applied for an internship in agriculture, yet when she gets here she finds out that there's no agricultural work but they want her to teach. It's been a little bit of a bumpy road for each of us. I think this whole experience has been a lesson in patience and going with the flow. Even though sometimes things don't go as planned, that's okay because I'm still in El Salvador and I still get to have a great time enjoying the food, the culture, the people, and I have gotten loads of practice speaking and listening to Spanish.
At any rate, since I wasn't working today, when Lacey got home, Michell read some stories to us. Here is a video of Michell reading to us. Video of Michell reading to Lacey and me
At any rate, since I wasn't working today, when Lacey got home, Michell read some stories to us. Here is a video of Michell reading to us. Video of Michell reading to Lacey and me
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Video Tour of Conny's House!
Guillermo lent me his Flip video camera, so now I can take occasional videos and post them!
Part 1
Part 2
The video quality isn't great. There are at least two reasons for that. First of all, I was practicing using the camera for the first time, and secondly, I was talking quietly because I was shy and didn't want to seem too weird to Erica. :P Still, I thought it would be kind of fun for the folks back home to see where I'm living. :)
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Houses and Huge Bugs
Some of you have already read the gist of this story via Facebook, but bear with me. So, the other night, as I was at the dining table on my laptop, I was suddenly scared out of my wits but what I thought was a giant bee flying around the light above me. This huge flying "thing" flew right in front of my face, and I could have sworn I saw a big stinger hanging off of the low-hanging abdomen! I squealed, jumped up, and ran away from this huge creature! Lacey came out of her room at that point, and I excitedly squealed, "Look at the BEEEEEE!"
It flew through the window slats into my bedroom!!!!!! Great. Now, I couldn't go into my room because there was a GIANT BEE in it!!!! Lacey and I carefully opened the door to my room. "I don't see anything in here," she said. "I KNOW I saw it fly in here, and I didn't see it fly out!" I replied.
Suddenly, the creature dropped from the doorway, right over Lacey's head! We both squealed and ran out as the insect flew up around the light right outside my bedroom door. Then, when it landed on the windowsill, Lacey and I dared to get a slightly closer look. I saw orangish hair. Lacey thought it was a beetle. I went to my laptop and began Googling insects and beetles of El Salvador. After nearly an hour of searching and, occasionally, running from the bug, I came across what looked like the correct specimen: a dynastine scarab beetle.
http://www.americaninsects.net/b/cyclocephala-cf-discolor.html
This is a species of beetle native to Central America. It's nocturnal and attracted to light. I have spent the last two nights having to RUN to my room after I turn out the last light in the house so that this critter doesn't fly after me to my room! It's about the size of my thumb, but when it's in flight, it looks absolutely terrifying because its furry abdomen hangs down, vertically, while it's wings stick out next to it and its beetle armor hangs behind it. It is a horrible sight. It just flies around, making lots of ruckus as it crashes into the lightbulbs and light coverings. Last night, I closed my window slats tight after dark. I'm glad I did, because that sucker came back again! After I ran into my room and shut and locked the door, that nasty beetle kept flying against the glass of the window! I was scared to go into the adjoining bathroom even to brush my teeth, because the walls and ceiling are very high in the bathroom, and since I can't reach high enough to close the window, I was scared that the bug would fly in through that window and I'd be trapped with it. So I stayed put, turned off all the lights in my room, and lay in bed, hoping it would go away yet still fearing that it would find a way into my room and fly on my face or something.
When I posted about this incident on Facebook, someone made a comment about jumping out a window to escape from the bug. That prompted me to want to write a little bit about the style of houses here. Sadly, one can not simply escape from bugs.
Here, because it is very hot, many houses are very open. While it depends on the city, pueblo, house, etc., it seems to me that most houses do not have air conditioning, and some, such as the homes in poorer communities such as Las Trincheras, do not even have electricity or running water. Because of danger of theft and because of lots of gang activity, all the houses and buildings have slatted or barred windows. In the cities, like in San Salvador, buildings have big locked gates in front of the proper doors in addition to barred windows. Around places like schools, public parks, buildings of importance and some homes, there are high walls topped with barbed wire or broken glass. Safety and security are pretty big deals here.
Connie's house is unlike any house I've ever seen before. It's very cool. All the houses on each block in Izalco look like they're part of one big building, because they all share a wall that faces the street. Each house's front might be painted a different color or have a different kind of gate, though. So, from the outside, it is just another door in the wall, but once you walk inside, it's a huge room with some Catholic dolls and memorabilia on the right and some items in storage on the left. Straight across the room from the front door is another door, and this leads into the main "house." The house is very large, especially compared to some of the other houses I've seen here. When you walk into the main room, there is a kitchen on the left and a large dining area straight ahead. To the left, past the kitchen, are two more doors in the wall. It basically looks like two tiny houses within a house. These doors are the doors to mine and Lacey's rooms. Overhead is a tin roof. Part of the roof is flat, but then part of the roof is cut out in a rectangle and raised above the rest, so that one can see the sky through the ceiling but so that not too much rain falls in during storms. Past the two bedrooms is a garden. Yes, there is a garden "inside" the house. There is not a roof over the garden area, except for a gazebo-type structure in the middle. Past the gazebo, there is a huge tree whose branches stretch over the rooftops. There are also some clothes lines stretched from the roof on the opposite side of the garden to the window of yet another room whose wall partially outlines the garden. On the other side of the garden is a kind of ceilinged porch, and I haven't explored past that, though there are other rooms.
This is my bathroom ceiling. The light and window are very high up, as you can see! The bugger could have easily flown in through the window and trapped me in my room. I avoid the bathroom at night, now. :P
So, even though I'm inside the house, and under a roof, there is a distinct lack of walls except for inside the bedrooms. A lot of houses are open like this, with open doors and walls and ceilings. In such a hot climate, it's a great way to try to beat the heat!
Houses here have no electricity or running water. Last week, part of our group went along to watch the installation of light fixtures, like the one shown above. All it is is a 2-liter soda bottle filled with water and bleach, caulked inside of a piece of tin roofing and attached to the ceiling. Sunlight is refracted through the water and provides light to once-dark homes. Before this light was added to this room, you could barely see your hand in front of your face when it was broad daylight outside.
This is inside Hugo's house (Hugo is to the left). As you can see, his house also has open walls. I didn't take many other pictures of his house, but the entry way is very open and the roof is more like an awning.
Typical bars on windows. Can you spot the parrot?
It flew through the window slats into my bedroom!!!!!! Great. Now, I couldn't go into my room because there was a GIANT BEE in it!!!! Lacey and I carefully opened the door to my room. "I don't see anything in here," she said. "I KNOW I saw it fly in here, and I didn't see it fly out!" I replied.
Suddenly, the creature dropped from the doorway, right over Lacey's head! We both squealed and ran out as the insect flew up around the light right outside my bedroom door. Then, when it landed on the windowsill, Lacey and I dared to get a slightly closer look. I saw orangish hair. Lacey thought it was a beetle. I went to my laptop and began Googling insects and beetles of El Salvador. After nearly an hour of searching and, occasionally, running from the bug, I came across what looked like the correct specimen: a dynastine scarab beetle.
This is a species of beetle native to Central America. It's nocturnal and attracted to light. I have spent the last two nights having to RUN to my room after I turn out the last light in the house so that this critter doesn't fly after me to my room! It's about the size of my thumb, but when it's in flight, it looks absolutely terrifying because its furry abdomen hangs down, vertically, while it's wings stick out next to it and its beetle armor hangs behind it. It is a horrible sight. It just flies around, making lots of ruckus as it crashes into the lightbulbs and light coverings. Last night, I closed my window slats tight after dark. I'm glad I did, because that sucker came back again! After I ran into my room and shut and locked the door, that nasty beetle kept flying against the glass of the window! I was scared to go into the adjoining bathroom even to brush my teeth, because the walls and ceiling are very high in the bathroom, and since I can't reach high enough to close the window, I was scared that the bug would fly in through that window and I'd be trapped with it. So I stayed put, turned off all the lights in my room, and lay in bed, hoping it would go away yet still fearing that it would find a way into my room and fly on my face or something.
When I posted about this incident on Facebook, someone made a comment about jumping out a window to escape from the bug. That prompted me to want to write a little bit about the style of houses here. Sadly, one can not simply escape from bugs.
Here, because it is very hot, many houses are very open. While it depends on the city, pueblo, house, etc., it seems to me that most houses do not have air conditioning, and some, such as the homes in poorer communities such as Las Trincheras, do not even have electricity or running water. Because of danger of theft and because of lots of gang activity, all the houses and buildings have slatted or barred windows. In the cities, like in San Salvador, buildings have big locked gates in front of the proper doors in addition to barred windows. Around places like schools, public parks, buildings of importance and some homes, there are high walls topped with barbed wire or broken glass. Safety and security are pretty big deals here.
Connie's house is unlike any house I've ever seen before. It's very cool. All the houses on each block in Izalco look like they're part of one big building, because they all share a wall that faces the street. Each house's front might be painted a different color or have a different kind of gate, though. So, from the outside, it is just another door in the wall, but once you walk inside, it's a huge room with some Catholic dolls and memorabilia on the right and some items in storage on the left. Straight across the room from the front door is another door, and this leads into the main "house." The house is very large, especially compared to some of the other houses I've seen here. When you walk into the main room, there is a kitchen on the left and a large dining area straight ahead. To the left, past the kitchen, are two more doors in the wall. It basically looks like two tiny houses within a house. These doors are the doors to mine and Lacey's rooms. Overhead is a tin roof. Part of the roof is flat, but then part of the roof is cut out in a rectangle and raised above the rest, so that one can see the sky through the ceiling but so that not too much rain falls in during storms. Past the two bedrooms is a garden. Yes, there is a garden "inside" the house. There is not a roof over the garden area, except for a gazebo-type structure in the middle. Past the gazebo, there is a huge tree whose branches stretch over the rooftops. There are also some clothes lines stretched from the roof on the opposite side of the garden to the window of yet another room whose wall partially outlines the garden. On the other side of the garden is a kind of ceilinged porch, and I haven't explored past that, though there are other rooms.
The garden looking away from the gazebo and living room
looking away from the living room
From the garden looking at the living room/Lacey's bedroom window
Above the living room, you can kind of see how the sunlight is shining through the open rectangle in the ceiling.
Here's my laundry, drying in the garden. Those doors go into other rooms of the house.
This is what most of the windows are like in all the buildings I've been in here. They're glass slats that can be opened or closed with a metal handle. I'm not sure why they use slats rather than panes here. My guess is security, but maybe they're just easier to use or something.
I'm closing the slats so that that dang bug doesn't fly in tonight. I'm a prisoner in my own room! It's too bad, too, because it's MUCH cooler at night, but with my window closed, my room is still warm. :( Good thing I have a fan.
This is the door to my room. The bug liked the light by the door but for some reason flew through the slats into my room. Now, I keep the slats closed after dark in case there are more nocturnal things that want to join me.
So, even though I'm inside the house, and under a roof, there is a distinct lack of walls except for inside the bedrooms. A lot of houses are open like this, with open doors and walls and ceilings. In such a hot climate, it's a great way to try to beat the heat!
This is an example of some of the houses we saw in Las Trincheras. They're a lot like shanties.
Installing the bottle-light. Also, that tire and those logs are holding the roof onto the house.
The view outside Hugo's window. There's also a ladder to a porch on the roof of his house.
walking through a neighborhood in a town I have forgotten the name of
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