¡Bahía de Caraquez!

WOW. Again. It’s been an apt way to start posts so far it seems. I haven’t even been here two days yet and it feels like it’s been a week. Where to begin... my arrival I suppose. It was a long busride, about 5 hours but the trip was smooth and I had a lot of legroom and got some sleep along the way. Between dozes I saw a lot of the Ecuadorean countryside and a few more cities in detail as we drove through them. Jipijapi, Portoviejo, and some others with apparently less memorable names. There was one village that was really tiny, just a cluster of shacks and fields, not much going on, but there was a HUGE sculpture, maybe 20 feet tall or more, of an ear of corn. I don’t know what it was made of but it was covered entirely with tiny pieces of mosaic tiles in different colors of orange, yellow, green, etc. It was totally mind-blowing and within seconds it was gone, WHOOSH. That describes a lot of things so far this trip, including the city of Guayaquil. However I’ll be fine taking some time away from that city... especially since now I’m in Bahía de Caraquez, which hopefully won’t whoosh by too quickly in the next 30-some days.

The City: Bahía is a peninsula at the convergence of an estuary and the Pacific Ocean, very much like San Francisco in that way. It is pretty poor but very clean compared to the other Ecuadorean cities I’ve seen, urban-looking but quiet and tiny. I think it is probably about the size of Santa Venetia. Or as a more general point of reference, the perimeter is very easily walkable within an hour. The city was declared an Eco-Ciudad/Eco-City some time in the nineties as part of a joint effort between the mayor at the time and an American organization called Planet Drum to begin a movement toward environmental sustainability. City-wide eco-education programs, eco-taxi systems (big tricycles with extra seats) and separated compost and garbage collection were all instated as part of the plan. But over the last five years a lot of these programs have lost their drive with the new mayor who seems much less interested in the whole project. He apparently also set up a 10 o clock curfew for New Year’s Eve due to complaints from tourists that they were tired and the traditional city-wide street party was too loud. I find it hard to imagine tourists saying that or any mayor doing that, but so said my Spanish teacher and she’s lived here most of her life. The mayor just got reelected three weeks ago for the next 5 years.

The House: I’m staying in a house that’s much more modest than the B&B I was at in Guayaquil. There is a squeaky choir of bats in permanent residence inside the roof and a cold shower that will give you electric shocks if you aren’t careful, but my bedroom has windows in three of it’s walls, one of which looks out on the beach a block away... so I’m not complaining. I live with an Irishman named Paul. He’s has been volunteering here a month already. He’s pretty easygoing. We get along quite well. We live next door to Sandra the director of Genesis School, and her husband Vladir the director of the volunteer program. They have two daughters who will be some of my students at the school. Across the street is Marta’s house. She is an amazing gregarious lady who feeds us delicious lunch and dinner everyday. She has two granddaughters who I believe attend Genesis on scholarships based on her agreement to feed the volunteers. I’ll be teaching both of them too.

The School: Unidad Educativa Genesis is a private school on the outskirts of Bahía. It’s a short walk and an 18 cent busride away. It’s beautiful. I’ll have to get some pictures of it soon. The walls are very colorfully painted and there are murals around the playground, and each child in the school has a potted plant that he or she is personally responsible for maintaining. The school is among the first in Ecuador to teach ecological awareness, recycling, conservation, etc. as part of the city’s Eco-city movement. The classes are Pre-K through Seventh and they’re planning to add on an eighth grade next year. I’m going to be the primary English teacher for the second and third graders, teacher of Math in English to the fifth graders, assistant English teacher to the 4th graders and once a week I’m teaching a tap class to the fifth through seventh graders as part of the PE program. I’m also helping to organize the English section of the kids’ presentation to their parents on Día de la Familia, June 6th. I work with Diego, the resident English teacher. He is very enthusiastic and receptive of ideas and suggestions. His English isn’t perfect but he is eager to perfect it and his class management skills and relationship with the kids are excellent. So we work well together.

The Kids: Are Amazing. Just so amazing. They are energetic as elementary schoolers are apt to be, but for the most part they are focused and interested and excited to learn. They call all of their teachers Tía and Tío (or aunt and uncle) I’m Tía Kelsey. They seem very interested in my foreign-ness and they already seem to trust me and respect me as an authority figure. They like to play Simon Says with Diego and they totally love the Hokey Pokey. I taught that to the second and fourth grades today and we had a lot of fun.

Life: School goes from about 7AM to 1:30PM every day. Afterwards I go to Marta’s for lunch and then meet Tía Yajaira (5th grade general teacher and my Spanish teacher) for my Spanish lesson. Friday we walked around the city for two hours and she asked me about America and my life and my family and told me about hers as well as some Ecuadorean and Bahían history. She’s a sweet and interesting lady and working with her two hours a day for the next month is looking like it will improve my Spanish quite a bit. After my lesson I went home for a little while, got dinner at Marta’s and then went with Sandra to her dance class. It’s a combination of different styles of latin dance, salsa, merengue, regueton... taught more like a cardio workout than a dance class by this very charismatic gay Ecuadorean guy who can move his hips better than any of the women in the class and seems to have a two-year-old’s lack of inhibitions and endless supply of energy. The class is very very fun but very exhausting. There are a few places around town to go dancing at night and several more in some nearby cities. I’ll probably do a little bit more exploring on weekends to come but right now I’ve got plenty to explore here in Bahía and plenty of work to do before Monday’s classes. Hasta luego.

Tía Kelsey