Christie and I have been here in Xela (a shortened name for Quetzaltenango), Guatemala for nearly 5 days now and it feels like it´s been a lot longer (in a good way). My host family consists of Jenny, Quique, and three more roomies Kelly, Carlo, and Julio. They are all wonderful and I thoroughly enjoy mealtimes. Quique is quite the jokester and really pushes my Spanish, always teaching me new words or phrases. In fact, just yesterday morning I learned a new word for one of my favorite breakfast dishes. I thought we were having panqueques, but they were actually panquiques! Get it?! He also made a great salsa that made broccoli enjoyable!
Good thing I walk an hour and a half every day or I´d certainly come home fatter. The walk to my school is 20 minutes one way and I walk home for lunch every day. One day I made the round trip three times because we went to a bake shop near my house for our volunteers´meeting. Speaking of, volunteering is going great! I know, I know, I tend to write more about my travels than about why I´m actually down here. So here goes.
The small, private school where I work is called La Academia de Miguél Ángel Asturias. It follows the principles of popular education, working to make education accessible especially to poor and indigenous students while eliminating racism and sexism. No small goal here, but they´ve been working at it for 14 years with the elementary school. The middle and high school have only been around for about 3 years and they haven´t quite mastered the incorporation of their monthly themes yet, but they´re learning. The main problem is that, because they charge a very low monthly fee and offer scholarships, they can´t afford to hire highly qualified teachers for the older grades. All the elementary teachers I´ve observed and worked with are wonderful, but the science/math/accounting teacher I observed is teaching a fair amount of wrong information and mathematically incorrect processes. It´s sad, really, because the students seem to want to do well and I can only imagine the misconceptions they will leave with.
This whole week has entailed observations and giving classes on the scientific method. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I work with the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders first on the science fair. This week we learned about the scientific method and what a science fair entails. Next week they will choose and develop their projects. The next 3 weeks they will execute their experiments and create their presentations. I won´t actually be here for the fair, but they should be well-prepared before I leave.
As far as the older and younger kids go, I don´t know yet what I´ll be doing. We have a teachers´meeting tomorrow after which I hope I´ll know how to integrate the fair into the current classes. The teachers are extremely accomodating for the most part (a shoutout to Ingrid, who has given me a set schedule right from the get-go!), but I always feel badly interrupting classes.
Many things about these students have amazed me. Even though most of them are from poor/troubled backgrounds, they are very advanced, at least compared to my high schoolers. I don´t know the performance levels of U.S. grade-schoolers, but as sad as it is, the 4th graders can use rulers better than my seniors. Their cursive handwriting is impressively neat, and they are really respectful. I know that some of the respect and interest in learning/impressing the teacher is due to their age. Some of the high schoolers here are punks, some pass notes, and they all talk at some point during class, but the level of respect is still noticably higher than in my students.
Other things of note: the small basketball/fútbol court is chaotic and seemingly dangerous during all break periods. I don´t know how more kids don´t get injured while 4-6 games of different sports go on at the same time in different directions with different aged and sized kids!
The resources are significantly less than at my school, making me highly appreciative of what we do have--easy access to a photocopier, graduated cylinders, balances, microscopes, mirrors and lots of other fun physics stuff, a few chemicals, a few textbooks, and more money in our science budget than an average teacher makes here each year! Granted, it´s much easier and cheaper to get fresh dissection specimens here, so maybe things even out after all. :-)
I have met 3 students named Karla.
All the students want to practice their English with us.
Each class gives a greeting in Spanish, English, and Quiché.
The young kids have class from 8-12:45 and the older kids from 1-6, making my day either very long or incomplete (if I go home for lunch).
They are hoping to build a 3rd story, but the currently unfinished roof (future floor) provides wonderful views of the city and the nearby volcano, as well as a sunny retreat for lesson planning!
Aside from my time at the school, I have managed to explore the downtown, do my laundry (finally!), attend a surprisingly hard yoga class, rent a bike for a month, and cook a pasta dinner in the dark. Every Wednesday some of the volunteers at the school have a pasta night but right as we started the water boiling, the power went out. It has happened 3 days so far, sometimes for half an hour, sometimes for 2 hours or more. So we made pesto without the help of a blender, chopping mounds of garlic and basil by hand by the light of 3 candles, and crushing toasted almonds with a rock we found outside (cleaned, of course). The only incident was when we realized we had put the garlic bread in the oven on a plastic pan (who could tell in the dark?), melting completely into pretty strands of plastic. If it didn´t smell so bad and if it didn´t ruin the oven so badly, I´d suggest it as a lovely form of modern art. The meal tasted wonderful, nonetheless, and as soon as we were done eating, the power came back on--just in time for cleanup!
It is much colder here than I thought, although we have been blessed with 3 straight days of no rain, meaning I feel warmer overall. Luckily, I bought an umbrella the first day here, minutes before it started pouring. For 2 dollars, I´m not sure it will last all month (XT´s broke already), but I´m hopeful.
The drivers here are surprisingly slow. Another interesting note is that I have been waved across the street numerous times, either because the drivers are exceptionally courteous or because they want to check me out as I walk past. Either way, it´s interesting.
I hope to add more pictures as I take them, as well as an extensive look into the culture of the chicken bus, but now I´m off to dinner! Chao.
The 2nd graders crushing corn flakes to later pull out the iron with a magnet. Note the effective use of the elbow. I also saw a few boys using their foreheads to crush the cereal!
Lastly, these are the enthusiastic 4th graders hoping everyone votes for their class candidate Laura. Each grade has selected and promoted one candidate to be the presidente o presidenta of the school. The current 5th grade class won the past two years, so there's quite the reputation to upkeep. This photo was at the recent rally where each candidate presented their party, slogan, and platform. It was so great to see young students politically active!
The 2nd graders crushing corn flakes to later pull out the iron with a magnet. Note the effective use of the elbow. I also saw a few boys using their foreheads to crush the cereal!
Lastly, these are the enthusiastic 4th graders hoping everyone votes for their class candidate Laura. Each grade has selected and promoted one candidate to be the presidente o presidenta of the school. The current 5th grade class won the past two years, so there's quite the reputation to upkeep. This photo was at the recent rally where each candidate presented their party, slogan, and platform. It was so great to see young students politically active!
