Everything here is back to normal. No road blocks or police strikes since the Thursday almost a month ago. Everybody was off school and work the following day. Peace Corps was on the security level of “Standfast” for a week, which just means that we had to stay in our sites and potentially wait for the next step of the security levels. That would be the “Consolidation” phase, where we join our cluster groups in a safe place, which of course, never came. We could leave our town to get groceries and do normal work, but had to be back at night. On my first trip to Guaranda (Saturday, I believe), it was eerily quiet, and I saw two places where they burnt tires to block the road from Chimbo to Guaranda. But that was as much action as I saw.
I have started working at an Agriculture High School near my site, which has a decent English program. So instead of teaching students I am helping the teachers, I like this much better. It is also is a great resource for me to learn some more about Agriculture. They also have a brand new (huge) green house and they want me to design a drip-irrigation system, I went today for a “field check” with another engineer. We took measurements, looked at the existing materials they have, and asked questions. It actually felt like work! Oh, how I miss you productivity! Anyway… I spend every Tuesday there, helping the English teachers, checking out their library, talking to teachers about spending a day in their classes talking about this or that.
The farmers group I work with has meetings every month. The first Sunday of the month, to be exact. For the first time, I prepared a presentation to give to the farmers. I was the last one to speak on the agenda. But because the meeting went long, when I started to speak, people acted really impatient and starting walking out halfway through. I later asked why they did this and they said the last camioneta out of town left at five. Of course, those people who walked out first were the ones who didn’t have a camioneta to catch, including my counterpart. Grrrr…
My point of the presentation was to talk about the goals of the Peace Corp’s agriculture program and why I am here (ie. Not to teach English). And the only person I know had to catch the camioneta, stayed behind to ask me to start an English program outside of the schools because her children went to a different school.
Since then, I have started an out-of-school English course, for students who are serious about trying to learn Spanish. I am gradually weening out of teaching at the schools, it is time consuming and not productive. I think once some kids realize how much work it is to learn a language it will dwindle to 10 or so. Perfect.
On an up note with the farmer’s group, we had a minga at the irrigation tank. Somebody brought a 50m tape measure, and we had the time to walk the whole canal and I was able to station the canal and write the locations of the major and minor problems. I also understand a lot more about the source of water (a natural spring, not rainwater) and what the farmers understand the problems to be. I have finally started a sedimentation tank design and a cost anaylsis….
Last weekend I had a sort of dinner/housewarming/costume-making party. A group of friends came over and I made dinner, and everyone tried the local moonshine. Later that night we went to Gauranda to watch some live music and dance. A couple girls stayed the night and we spent Sunday working on Halloween costumes. Next weekend we are going to Cuenca for Halloween Ecuastyle! The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of November are national holidays. Five day weekend! We never get anything quite like that in the states without vacation days…
0 comments:
Post a Comment