Category Archives: Ecuador

So. A student of mine, Natalia, has been wanting me to go to her sons’ high school and observe classes and help them improve their methodology. From the get go, she has been thoroughly impressed by my teaching style, which is more a comment on the failings of Ecuadorian methodology than it is a comment on my teaching expertise. Multiple people have told me that the methodology here is severely lacking. Class sizes are usually between 30 and 40 students. Each class is 40 minutes long. School starts at 7:00 and ends at 1:00 or 1:30. And the teachers pretty much just lecture.

In any case, I’ve been wanting to observe an Ecuadorian high school also, so Natalia and I kind of mutually asked each other if it would be okay if she set up an observation for me. Back in January, she wrote a letter or two to the powers-that-be at her sons’ school and then last week she informed me that we had clearance. Today, Tuesday the 22nd, we would go to the school and observe a class.

So we went. We got there a little late, as per usual, and it turned out that we were sitting in on an English department meeting to present our case. What case? you might ask. Good question. I had no idea, really. I turns out that the school had lost one of the letters Natalia sent. In fact, they had lost it twice (she sent a second copy after they lost the first one). So the English department only knew that a parent of one of their students was coming to talk to them about some North American teacher.

I was hoping Natalia would do all the speaking for me. But no. Before a very formal-looking crowd of 12 teachers, Natalia turned to me and said (in Spanish), “do you want to present them with what you’d like to do here?” The thing is, Natalia pretty much wants me to revolutionize the teaching methodology of these teachers. I really just want to observe Ecuadorian adolescents and, secondarily, the teaching methodology that I’ve heard so much about. I told them I simply wanted to observe some classes and that maybe we could try to share some ideas about instruction, etc.

(A brief aside. My students back home sometimes laugh at the fact that on, say, an in-class essay, they’ve “totally BS-ed” and they still got a good grade. Or they’ll express frustration with having to BS. I always tell them, “yeah, but the ability to BS is a good skill to have; you’ll use it on a regular basis in life.”)

I then launched into a big pile of BS about how it has always benefited me to share ideas with my colleagues, etc. blah, blah, blah. I wanted to say that I was flexible with however we decided to arrange things, but even though I can think of how to express that sentiment in Spanish right now, for some reason, at the time, I wasn’t confident that “flexible” in Spanish is “flexible,” albeit pronounced a little differently. I then told them that if they wanted to come to my classes at SECAP to observe, they could. Whoa. That got a reaction. They seemed pretty offended, actually (which is exactly how teachers back home would have acted, I think). But then we got to the business of scheduling some specific classes and they pretty much literally fell over each other trying to get me to come see their classes. I couldn’t figure it out.

So that was that. I didn’t see anything, but I committed myself to going to the school for two hours next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. A little more than I bargained for. And I’m not sure, but I may have given them the impression that I was going to be a regular teaching consultant and that I might even teach some classes there. Geez. I don’t really know what even happened. I’m gonna have to slowly backstep out of this one next week.

Well, it’s been a while. Sorry. This last week was pretty uneventful. Eileen has parasites. It hasn’t been too bad. In fact, of the possible gastrointestinal disturbances you can get, parasites can be pretty tolerable. She gets some stomach discomfort after eating (after feeding the little guys), but she hasn’t had major pain, and no vomiting, praise the lord.

I chipped a tooth yesterday. Was eating a little toasted corn thingy and my tongue discovered a little irregularity back by one of my molars. I thought it was a piece of the corn shell stuck back there somehow, but, it was actually a broken tooth. So, I’ll soon discover what Ecuadorian dentristry is like. Yay!

We’ve been missing our dog.

I could make this story as long and drawn out as our hike up to Guagua Pichincha, but I’ll try to keep it short. Last week, Eileen and I met this woman named Judy, who started up a foundation called Kallari. She has been in Ecuador for 8 years. Kallari sells arts and crafts to American shops, nature centers, zoos, etc. directly from indigenous communities in the Amazon. They also have a café in Quito, where they sell crafts and food. Anyhow, there will probably be more to tell about Judy and Kallari at a later time; after telling us about her experiences in starting up Kallari and in dealing with US AID and other such internationally-minded organizations, Judy invited us to hike up Guagua (pronounced wa-wa) Pichincha. The plan: we’d leave town around 8:30 on Saturday morning. We’d catch a bus and then hitch a ride on a pick-up truck to a town called Lloa (yoa), and then we’d begin a 4-5 hour hike up to the “refugio,” a concrete building close to the summit of Pichincha manned by a park ranger. There, they have beds, a bathroom, a stove, and a fireplace. We’d spend the night, and then hike back down on Sunday. We’d be home by 12:00 or 1:00 on Sunday.

For me, the trip was appealing for a few reasons. One, it would be nice to get in a good hike. Two, Judy knows what she’s doing more so than any of us WorldTeachers, and it would be a good opportunity to tag along with someone more knowledgeable. Three, Judy and I had talked about attempting to write an article about her experiences and trying to get it published in a US magazine, and the hike would give us an opportunity to talk some more about it.

I departed on Sat. morning, having somewhat stressfully come to the conclusion with Eileen that she probably shouldn’t do a five-hour uphill hike. We had some minor snafus with the busses, but we got to Lloa just fine, and started the hike around noon. It was a pretty gray day, kinda foggy, and therefore lacking the view we might otherwise have. The first couple of hours were pretty uneventful. The landscape was still very pretty; it reminded me of Ireland – hilly, foggy, wet, and full of plush grass and livestock. I think around two or so, it started raining again. I got out my umbrella and draped my raincoat over my backpack. We continued on. There was a British woman named Maria hiking with us; she was not in great hiking shape, but her sense of humor and her attitude were impressive. Judy ended up carrying Maria’s backpack for most of the hike (in addition to her own), and she also slowed down and walked with Maria. The rest of us – Andy, another WorldTeacher; Jan, a middle-aged doctor from the states; Gabi, and mid-twenties Ecuadorian who directs a volunteer organization; and I – walked ahead. At about 5:00 and then again at 5:30, we started wondering where the refugio was. We had one false alarm; there was a small building that from a distance we kept hoping would be the refugio. And then shortly after being disappointed by our discovery that we hadn’t yet reached the refugio, we saw it up the hill a ways. We had been walking for 6 hours uphill; Andy, Gabi, and I arrived around 6:00. And here’s where things get bad. There was no park ranger in the building, and the kitchen and bathroom were locked. There was a little bit of standing water near the fireplace.

I dropped off my bag and went back down the trail to check on Maria, whose heart rate 2 hours into the hike had been 160 (our gym workout equipment starts to beep at you if you get above 160). I got to Judy and Maria, told Judy about the absent ranger, and walked with Maria as Judy sped ahead. I was hoping she’d be angry enough to break the locks by the time we got there.

Maria and I arrived at about 6:45, just as it was getting dark. Judy and I found a wood palette which we broke up for firewood. Andy worked on getting a fire started, but since the fireplace was wet, he had to restart it several times. It was frustrating. We lit candles and dispersed them throughout the refugio. The fireplace proved to have more problems than water; most of the smoke was coming straight out into the room.

We ate some tuna sandwiches for dinner and then filled a pot (Judy had brought one) with water and got it boiling on the fire. It was a precarious set up. We had to occasionally rotate the wooden platform upon which the pot was resting since it started burning multiple times. We ate some ramen noodles and squeezed in close to the fire. The rain had made most things slightly damp. Luckily, everything in my backpack was dry, but other people had to sleep in damp sleeping bags even.

The worst part of the night was the increasing quantity of smoke entering the room. I went to bed around 9:30, but I woke up several times feeling like I couldn’t breathe. Maria threw up about four times, blaming the smoke. I probably got a total of three or four hours of sleep. I woke up at 6:30 and got out of bed, thankful that the night was over. The ranger showed up at 7:30.

We hiked up close to the summit and looked down into the volcanic crater of Guagua Pichincha. Most of the photos I got were from the 30 minutes or so I was up there. It was a pretty impressive view. Guagua Pichincha is at about 15,000 feet, higher than any of the Colorado peaks, I think.

We left the refugio at about 10 or 10:30. The hike down was quick. In the first half hour, we covered what had taken us an hour and 20 minutes the previous day. We stopped briefly, snacked on some peanuts and raisins, and then saw a pick-up truck coming down the road.we caught a ride with it to Lloa. We probably shaved off at least an hour and a half in hiking time. I got home around 1:30.

(see pictures in the coppermine on pages 3 and 4 of “Excursions”)
(and here’s a webpage about
Guagua Pichincha)

So I know it’s been awhile since I’ve written here, but honestly I think I prefer helping Tim write his blogs (someone has to remind him that he freaked out when I didn’t add a full stick of butter to his brownies). So even though I haven’t authored anything for a few weeks I have been contributing. Anyway, this weekend Tim is climbing Pinchincha with some other people we met through our director. Pinchincha is one of the volcanoes that borders Quito. They left this morning around 8am and they’ll hike for about 5 hours. There apparently are some structures you can camp out in, which is their plan for tonight. I’m jealous cuz I wanted to go to, of course, but we were afraid my knees wouldn’t hold up for that long of a hike. So I stayed back here in Quito but I’m sure Tim will have stories to blog about the experience.

Right now I’m burning a cd of music so I can treat myself to listening to something other than the music at our gym (a person can only take so much bad 80s and techno music).

Mom and Dad, we just got your valentine in the mail yesterday, it was nice to still get mail from you.

Yesterday, we made chocolate chip cookies. It was one of the more labor-intensive chocolate chip cookie experiences I’ve ever taken part in because they don’t sell chocolate chips here. We had to buy a bar of good-tasting baking chocolate and chop it into pieces. Eileen took the first shift of 20 minutes, and I took the second shift of equal time. After our chocolate chopping, we ended up with approximately one 12 oz. bag of chocolate chips. We borrowed a wooden spoon from our landlords, who also brought us lunch, and after our brief lunch break, we labored on.

Though Eileen’s rare pies always turn out great, our baking experiences in the past have been largely unsuccessful. Last spring, I went through a brownie stage. We found this wonderful “Organic Valley” brownie mix, or some such thing, and I probably averaged a batch per week. They were phenomenal. Then one day, Eileen was making them. Luckily, I came into the kitchen for a brief assessment of the procedure: Eileen had only used half a stick of butter! I patiently explained that the recipe calls for a full stick of butter. (Eileen claims I “freaked out,” but I don’t recall that part). However, when we looked at the back of the brownie mix box, it turned out Eileen was right. Go figure. No wonder the brownies I had been making for the past five weeks were so good. I had used twice the amount of butter. Despite Eileen’s baking right-of-way, I took over and added another half a stick to brownie mix. They were wonderful as usual.

Such has not been the case with our attempts at chocolate chip cookies. We attributed our first several failures to the gas oven in our house. The thing threw off a lot of heat, and we jumped onboard when someone suggested that it was an old oven and it probably didn’t have the proper insulation anymore. But then we attempted a baking session at Eileen’s parents’ house. The oven there is accurate with its temperature reading; or at the very least, it has housed several successful cookie creations. With our crappy-oven excuse gone, we forged on, but the cookies were only slightly better than those we had made at home.

We sought advice. Eileen’s mom always succeeds; unfortunately, her “just do it” attitude isn’t always helpful for the less competent. Her advice was something along the lines of “just follow the directions.” Ted’s girlfriend Amber usually succeeded. We witnessed her process, but could find no significant differences. Heck, she had even accomplished the feat with our gas oven at home. We tried new baking soda. No luck.

So we went to my sister Jamie. I don’t actually know, but I’m guessing Jamie must have failed before because she was full of promising new ideas. Past failure is present failure’s best friend. She told us to be careful about the butter. It shouldn’t be microwaved liquid (of course, Eileen already knew this, she claims), nor should it be cold from the fridge; and at the very least, you should substitute margarine for half of the butter if not all. And don’t use a mixer. Use a wooden spoon and do it all by hand.

We took Jamie’s suggestions and attempted the baking at Eileen’s parents’ house again, just to minimize the potential failure-inducing factors. We used half margarine and half butter. We even had Eileen’s mom oversee. Actually, she may have done most of the work. Still, the darn things failed. They were crisp little flat discs. They looked like anorexic versions of real cookies. We mentally reviewed all of our past failures and Eileen came up with the difference: organic butter. We had always used organic butter, but neither Amber nor Eileen’s mom had. Sure enough, the last time we tried cookies this past summer, they turned out great.

When we were attempting the cookie project here yesterday, we were worried because our oven doesn’t give actual temperature readings. It only says “alto,” “medio,” and “bajo.” We estimated a little above “medio” and went about making our mixture while the oven preheated. We used room temp. margarine and a wooden spoon, put the cookies on an ungreased sheet, and nine to eleven minutes later, took one of our most successful batch of cookies out of the oven. I ate six of them immediately.