¿Should I Be Teaching Spanish?

Things have been semi-busy in the last couple of weeks. Since school started we have been visiting 3-4 schools a week setting up times to start planting our gardens. There has been a lot of interest, and it looks like we´ll surpass our goal of 12 gardens. A big opportunity came this week in Latacunga. There was a meeting of all the school Directors in the area. John and I were able to give a 7 minute presentation on our gardens and afterwards we talked to a bunch of Directors we hadn´t met yet about planting at their sites.

In La Libertad things are OK. I´ve been busy with the English classes and on the 1st day of each class at each grade, I´ve been giving tests…on the Spanish alphabet and writing numbers in Spanish. Most of the kids were able to do it without any major problems, but it´s sad to see older kids who after 5-6 years are still unable to write out the alphabet. My goal is to get these kids some extra help while I´m teaching English. Let´s face it, if they don´t know their own language, they´re not going to succeed in another.

A good/bad thing is that the grade school is expanding. Next year, they plan on having an 8th grade (right now, the school only goes to 7th grade). Each year after that, they plan on adding another grade until 10th. The thing is, the High School will probably close since all the students they would have will still be in the grade school. Because of this, there is a small feud starting between the two. Mostly it is the High School teachers bad mouthing the school. I told them about the results of the ABC tests, and they said, “Well, what do you expect with the teachers there. We don´t know what they do all day!”. It was funny since they told me this while we were sitting in the office during the middle of the day watching TV.

Last weekend I went to Quito to watch the Notre Dame vs. Michigan game. It was a great game, and I finally got to see the Irish win. It was especially nice since I watched the game at a bar owned by a Michigan graduate and was surrounded by Wolverine fans.

You may not have heard, but it is a crazy time in Latin America. First, some Russian bombers flew to Venezuela last week http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article4753363.ece The US Government said that there was no nuclear weapons onboard, but with the US-Russian relations as they are and Hugo Chavez being no friend of America (or democracy), you could see how he wouldn´t be against another Cuban Missile Crisis. It would definitely drive up oil prices (which would give his and Russia´s governments a lot more cash to spend on keeping their huddled masses under control).

In Bolivia there have been protests for and against the US and the Bolivian President, Evo Morales. Here are some links that explain better what is going on http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2008/09/17/bolivian_governor_arrested_peace_corps_volunteers_evacuated/ . and http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/16/bolivia.peace.corps/ The Peace Corps just evacuated all the Volunteers out of the country, and with the way things are down there, I don´t see them coming back anytime soon.

Here in Ecuador, the debate over the new Constitution is heating up. The referendum is on the 28th of September. I don´t see us having any problems, but you never know. During the weekend of the Election, the Peace Corps is making us stay in our sites to keep us out of trouble. Also, I´m going to stock up on rice and canned goods…just in case.