Duolingo is similar to the individual French language labs I first experienced at university, where every student got to work at their own speed, and each was fully engaged, rather than watching a teacher interact with one student at a time. The only pain is that we get frequent instances where Deb has created email accounts for the kids to register and they have written their new email addresses and passwords carefully in their notebooks, and yet are unable to log on on subsequent days. We still haven't figured out that little problem. One workaround is to have Duolingo send the recorded password back to their newly created yahoo mail account in order to find out if it was entered correctly.
With all this coverage, Bolivar the teacher got a little break, and was happy about it. He's been here all week while the other teachers have been in town. I asked if he had signed his contract, and he said no, the lines were way too long to bother, and he'd do it on Friday when vacation started. That's commitment.
We've been wondering why the other teachers knew well enough to get their exams completed the week before they walked away on Monday, but Marcelo didn't know enough to get a letter ready for the parents. We've wondered why Rosa, who we'd been told has a permanent contract like Marcelo, has been absent all week as well. We've wondered who takes attendance of the teachers, many of whom have had multiple absences just since we've been here; what accounting office checks to see if they're really ill, or docks pay for unexplained and unauthorized absences? Who reports it? How easy would it be for the one who ought to report it to take a little kickback to ignore it - say, a portion of that day's pay from the teacher who is off double-dipping somewhere else, like Ignacio on market days with his little truck? We've heard several stories about Manuela's and Rosa's absences that barely hold water. Obviously these questions are for someone else to answer, but one can't avoid entertaining them.
Manuela the sister/daughter-in-law, perhaps the most extreme offender, finally dropped over to the computer lab yesterday and asked Deborah for some tips on how to continue the English instruction after we leave. Deb gave her our Meet and Greet chart and explained Duolingo, but I wasn't sure if Manuela was actually there more to get some internet signal, quite frankly. And oddly, her parting request to Deborah was, "Can you teach them lots of English tomorrow? The Ministry is going to be checking up soon on how much the students have learned." Yeesh! We're supposed to fill in her deficiencies? In a day? Even 25 days could barely do more than scratch the surface, especially considering the weekends, our "tour" and the market day, and the days we were following up on other issues for Pamelita.
Deb had it out with Ignacio this morning; she'd been stewing quietly about his "tour" since we had it and she felt so ripped off (me too), and she finally said she couldn't leave here without telling him how she felt. When he looks at me I'm sure I see dollar signs in his eyeballs. He's a real gouging opportunist who has no shame in asking a high price for something and then not delivering on his promise. When she told him, "instead of asking for $20 extra, you should have offered to return at least $20!" He was shamed into at least returning the $20 extra charge he'd imposed on her. She tried to explain to him how volunteers feel if they feel they've been duped or cheated; Dustin also complained about that just before he left. He claims that Colombia is much more straightforward, there's clear and up front pricing even for tourists, meters that are actually employed in taxis, etc. Since he's arrived in Ecuador he's felt that everyone he meets wants to overcharge him because he's a gringo.
Dustin seems unlikely to return, sadly. He knows local food and restaurant prices as well as we do, and has travelled for a decade in Asia and now in South America. He calculates that the three meals Elvia puts in front of us cost her no more than $2 a day, and he's unhappy to pay $12; he was happy at the last hostel where he paid $18 but ate well and enjoyed his surroundings and the creature comforts of that facility. He says, "this place can't really be described as a hostel by Colombian or Ecudadorian standards...maybe a very run down dormitory, at best". He wants three eggs for breakfast and meat for lunch and dinner, and he knows that three eggs at the market only cost 23 cents ($2.80 for a flat of 36), that you can serve a heaping plate of potatoes, plantains and rice for a quarter, that beef is under $2 a pound (often pretty tough, mind you), etc. He feels that serious educational volunteers are only going to be taken advantage of here, and commented that the Ecuadorian Volunteers Association had discontinued recommending this destination. He was excited about the students when he first arrived, but doesn't want to starve in the process; at his age and size and with the energy he expends with the kids (he's extremely fit and enjoys teaching them physical skills), his daily nutrition needs are larger than ours, and even ours haven't been met to our satisfaction over the past 25 days. It's a shame, because he turns on like a light bulb when surrounded by kids, and they really find him fascinating.
I haven't said anything about Alcides yet. He was an enigma to me for a while, with a blue bus that only runs on Fridays, while his three brothers and one sister-in-law are pulling down salaries at the school. Riding his bus last Friday, watching him at the market, and later doing four of his order invoices for him (he said he'd lost his calculator) solved the mystery. Although there's a letter lying around from the Ministry informing him that he's not actually qualified to drive his bus, he leaves very early on Friday morning and goes to the market. He comes back late at night, and if there's a roadblock, as William encountered last week, he leaves even later and takes the backroads, getting home at 1 a.m. last week. He does a six hour return run once a week, picks up passengers along the way who cover the cost of his diesel and more, and family members ride in and out for free, usually in order to help with the purchases and the sorting into bins for schools and other customers. His mark-up is a consistent 100% on every item I've seen on the orders. He does pre-orders, and stocks his store for anticipated walk-in trade through the week, plus an enormous volume of Pilsener and cane liquor happily disguised in Pilsener bottles - sells the Pilsener for $2 and the cane liquor for $1. Bolivar says the cane liquor is made in a real factory, not farmyard stills, but normally comes in a smaller can for $1.50, so Alcides must be able to come home with a bulk supply to pour into his beer bottle empties. He samples quite a bit himself, too.
Aurora has a stall in at least one other small town market on Mondays where she resells fruit and vegetables that they buy in Latacunga. The four order invoices that I added up for Alcides came to almost $600, which must be for businesses like hotels, hostels or perhaps schools in the smaller centres like Sigchos, Isinlivi, El Salado, etc; at 100% mark-up, he'll make as much on just those four orders as a teacher reportedly makes in month, not even counting his other trade and the beer and liquor sales. It seems out of proportion, even considering the cost of owning and maintaining his old second-hand bus and the bald tires he keeps replacing his flats with. He's one of the few people here that I'm pretty sure could afford the airfare if he ever had a mind to travel.
Paulino and Elvia have the school trade plus whatever extra load of orders they can fill, a propane truck that supplies the area, diesel that they sell out of 55 gallon drums with a siphon, a teaching salary, a hostel that could be more successful than it is, and Paulino is a representative of Malingua Pamba at the Sigchos county legislature, plus whatever else they've got their fingers into. Both he and Alcides have land and herds of sheep and cattle.
We've spoken of Ignacio at length already. William is in veterinary college but also uses his contacts to locate livestock for slaughter at a profit, and is eager to find a backer to invest in a taxi for which he would hire a driver and make sheer profit as a middleman (I refrained from asking him why the backer wouldn't simply buy the taxi and hire the driver himself!) In other words, it seems like the whole family has a lock on this school compound and is growing in power and wealth, somewhat at the expense of the surrounding community for whom the major form of assistance and largesse is Pam's foundation, Rotary International and Engineers Without Borders.
As I write this, it is recess, and as crazy as ever despite our efforts to quash the behaviour on previous days, and Marcelo's - and Paulino's, the next day - warning speeches at lunch. The essential problem is that the teachers seem to consider recess their break as much as the kids, and none are on scheduled yard duty supervision as elementary teachers do in most other countries. Not one of them will patrol the yard and help us control the behaviour. There are kids racing up on the roof, which is covered with debris and a low wall around the edges; I am absolutely certain that a child will someday fall and kill him or herself from this roof. None of the teachers seem capable of catching kids who break the rules they've set, or providing consequences when they do, and it's gotten to the point that the students are simply mocking Deborah when she tries to enforce the rules the Director himself has set. The Director actually told the kids that water fights were only permissible if they were mutually agreed on! Can you imagine how kids "agree" on bullying each other with water balloons, mugs full of water, flour, stucco concrete dust and "carnival foam"?
Clearly, I don't lay behaviour at the feet of the kids - kids are kids everywhere, and in a school setting their behaviour has to be guided and managed. Like the saying, "there are no bad dogs, only bad owners", there are (mostly) no bad children in schools, just mismanaged schools - and proper school management is a team effort that begins with the principal and requires the support and effort of all the staff.
Eventually Deb was worn out trying to fight the tide and finished the morning hiding out in the computer lab with me. She went out at one point and visited each of the classes to say good-bye and give each student a small Canada flag pin, fighting back a feeling that they didn't all really deserve a parting gift. It's been a fascinating glimpse into one tiny corner of the world, and we are glad we stuck it out just because it has been interesting, but it has been a tough slog in so many ways. Would we come back...hmm...well, not quite in a heartbeat, but we might consider visiting to see how things have grown and changed after a few years, knowing how the place has grown and how the gov't has become involved since Pam took it on, and as Paulino's political and community influence has grown.
We got up at 3 a.m. but there were no lights on in Alcides' house and his bus didn't move, although he'd verified with us just before bed that we'd be riding with him. Suddenly Elvia and Paulino came in and told us we'd be riding in with Paulino at 5:30, so we could go back to sleep and wake him up at 5:15 to go and get his shower - he saw a doctor yesterday, has to do tests today, and an X-ray tomorrow. Deb knocked at his door and heard voices inside the room, so she thought he was up, but he wasn't. We were downstairs, packed and ready, and he hadn't appeared. Suddenly his brother, mother and sister-in-law raced up in his truck and began cleaning out the back, and they woke him up again.
While we waited for him to take a fast shower, two of Alcides' kids got up in the dark pre-dawn and ran over to say goodbye, and the older one, whose name I forget although he's one of the nicest kids in the school, tied a bracelet of woven coloured threads around our wrists, a nice parting gesture. We hit the road at 6:16 and Paulino drove the truck like a rally driver, trying to make his 7:30 appointment. He was only five minutes late - we made the outskirts of Latacunga in one hour and 13 minutes, which he claimed was a record for him. It's normally a two and a half hour drive. What a white-knuckle ride it was! The views were spectacular (Deb avoided the ones that looked straight down) except for when the rising sun hit the dusty windshield and not one of the three of us in the cab could see anything. Llamingos and dogs ran across the road in front of us, oncoming cars and trucks swerved out of our way, and in one spot a burro with two packs had escaped from his owner, probably taking objection to her switch, and was preceding her down the hill at a trot on his own, staying carefully just beyond her reach. And suddenly, before we knew it, we were back in Latacunga, and here we are, back at Hostal Tiana.
I think I'll end with a groaner I thought of one day last week and forgot to tell: the slopes are so sleep they're like Black Diamond ski slopes. The cows manage to stay on their feet, however. Making them Black Diamond cows. So now you know where Black Diamond Cheese comes from...ba-dum!
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